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open | the drunk horn's so violent, all spinning out sound

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: SATINALIA
WHEN: Firstfall 1
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Party hard, use content warnings, move explicit content to inboxes.

Named for Satina, the smaller of Thedas' two moons, Satinalia is a celebration of freedom, marked by wild celebration, pranks, the donning of costumes and masks -- not the fine, delicate masks of Orlais, but animals and caricatures and playful horrors -- and the exchange of gifts both sincere and satirical. There's also the crowning of a Fool to rule for the day, or two Fools, in this case: Iskandar and Valentine are given crowns and the right to issue orders. Non-military orders. Unless they manage to start some kind of battle between their imaginary kingdoms.

Elsewhere in Thedas, the festivities may last a week. At Skyhold, no one can pause the war for that long. But all those who can be spared are released by late afternoon, given the night and the next morning -- handle those hangovers before reporting back to work please -- to enjoy the celebration in the fortress or the even less restrained revelries in the valley.

This day was originally a celebration of Zazikel, the Old God of Chaos, but let's not dwell on that.

SKYHOLD

Tables in the Great Hall are piled high with several whole roasted tuskets, meats thinly sliced in the Orlesian style, a tower of cheeses and candied fruits, and great bowls of Antivan pasta with brightly colored sauces. Casks of ale and wine are tapped, emptied, and replaced to keep a near constant stream of alcohol flowing, only improving the efforts of a trio of bards in the corner playing music that's spirited but still easy to speak over. An area near them has been cleared for entertainers: a small troupe of exceptionally limber acrobats tossing and climbing each other in increasingly impressive shapes, and then a team of dancers, romantic and expressive, performing a piece made famous in the theaters of Val Royeaux.

Even once the entertainers finish and leave space for the guests to dance, the party remains more on the sedate side. The celebration indoors is meant to impress and entertain visiting dignitaries and nobles: others are welcome to assist with the schmoozing, but anyone too rowdy or otherwise controversial will be asked politely to relocate, and no one who looks even slightly mischievous or inebriated is permitted into the gardens or library or other easily-damaged areas of the fortress.

The courtyard is noisier. The sparring rings and archery targets are claimed for contests of strength and skill made intentionally ridiculous: soldiers fighting in costume with raw fish as weapons or their hands tied behind their backs, training dummies dressed in discarded finery, an archer capable of standing on her hands and shooting with her feet who's happy to give demonstrations. As the light fades the play-fighting does as well, replaced by music and dancing, with the way lit by braziers and candles and glowlights from Orlais strung in the trees and along the walls.

After midnight, the celebrations within the walls taper off. Some people need to sleep. But those who don't may make the journey down the path and into the valley.

THE VALLEY

In the valley, there's no one to say shush. The party starts early and runs late enough to be early all over again. The food is less fine -- stew and bread, cider and ale, some barrels of young wine and rough liquor gifted by the quartermaster from a mistaken shipment. For anything nicer than that you'll have to bring your own or charm someone who has, but plenty have brought out their carefully hoarded stocks tonight. Flasks of rum from Rivain or treacle-sweet wine from Antiva, tiny boxes of candies and chocolates, small pouches of smokeable herbs: there isn't much of anything but there's a little of everything, all available for the price of a well-played trick or well-placed kiss.

Tonight instead of the usual spattering of camp- and cook-fires, the camp is lit by torches and roaring bonfires, the entire valley caught in the shifting, flickering firelight. Shadows flare and twist, flames limn masked faces in gold and orange and red, and the constant crackle and spark provides its own accompaniment to the music. Fiddles and drums pound and wail, spinning dancers faster and faster, whether big circles of linked hands tugging each other round and round the fire, or a crush of couples, each clasping and spinning and catching and pressing close again. Some duck into shadows, clutched together out of sight until the wind changes and shadows shift, revealing some and concealing others.

There are games down here, too: knives and axes and arrows aimed at hay bale targets, circles marked out with rope for grappling or boxing rings, a bizarre struggled over a greased pumpkin, even pairs growling across tables as they arm-wrestle. The prizes are mostly just the cheers of a wildly enthusiastic crowd and maybe a half bottle of stolen brandy, but there are plenty of challengers all the same and plenty willing to bet on the outcome. The Inquisition is a truly motley assortment, and scattered around are plenty showing off their skills, from juggling to firebreathing to telling fortunes. Instruments from a half-dozen countries can be heard, and small groups clustered around dry patches of ground or upturned crates roll dice and deal cards two dozen different ways.

Unlike up at the keep, this party takes a little while to ramp up, as more and more people finish their shifts and make their way down to join, and it only gets louder as the hour grows late. There haven't been many chances to let loose since all this began, and Maker knows they've all been under plenty of stress. Loud laughter and singing and music continue well into the wee hours, and the crowd only finally thins out several hours past midnight, with a hardy (or foolhardy) core still just stumbling home at dawn.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So yeah all the food in Yngvi's pockets is stolen. Not all of it is for him when he's got four nugs to depend on him, a dog he has to bribe (why is there a dog in Gwenaelle's life, he hasn't exactly gotten to that story when he's been teaching it how to dog properly because that's what he does in his duties as her captain of the guard) and a Gwenaelle Vauquelin to look after. Because he has to take things back to her and make a racket in the process.

It's not that he thinks he's the only dwarf in Skyhold but y'know, usually he thinks that he and Gunnar are the only dwarves anywhere that matter if their elders aren't around to swiftly and mercilessly disabuse him of that notion.

When did he last see a female dwarf though? Probably Kirkwall and the last time he was there he was at funerals and such so it's been a long bloody time. That accounts for some of the staring, maybe not all as he chugs from a bottle of something that doesn't have a label anymore.

"Won't be long before someone decides they'll throw you I reckon." Hello hi he's Yngvi how do you speak to people.

Wow, sorry, did she think 'more than preferable'? She has a soft spot, in a way, for other dwarves. And there really aren't a whole lot in the Inquisition. Not many that aren't merchants, because of course surface dwarves are all about the Merchants Guild or some nugshit. Still, one can commiserate with people that have to look up at almost everyone else.

Watch her eyebrows shoot way the hell up, Yngvi. "Not unless there's some darkspawn or something else that needs killing but quick."

Merchants Guild could go set itself on fire and Yngvi would choke on his own spit and piss himself before offering either of those to put them out. Carta gets that going with less standing on ceremony or whatever it is they do for the ancestors. Because it always comes back to the ancestors and who cares, what did they ever do for them? (Probably wrote the laws that saw them topside so well done, what's wrong with all of you?)

A quick glance over - right, brand, might explain a few things - and he hesitates before offering the bottle. "You a Warden?" No drinks for Wardens.

She even has the wherewithall to look offended. "Do I look like a Warden to you? No, I've just killed darkspawn before, and those definitely have to die. These Venatori or whoever? Well, when you see a person, you don't just know if they have to die by looking at them. Darkspawn you do."

But whatever, point is, not a Warden, she'll be taking a drink from that bottle now, thanks. Just one before giving it back. "Either way, if I'm getting tossed, it had better be because they need me to stab something quick."

"Wardens take in all sorts but s'pose they usually want to look a bit more preachy about it. 'Look at me, I'm a twat'." Does he sound Fereldan? He's trying really hard to sound Fereldan since the most recent famous ones are from there so it makes sense to just sound like a rude Fereldan arsehole. "Some folk you know have to die by looking at them. Merchant's guild? Absolutely. They'll rip you off faster than they'd sell their mother. Plenty of doglords. Orlesians unless they can pay you to do something. Everyone that thinks the Stone and their Ancestors are worth summat."

It's a long list. Changes by the hour. Changes by his mood. Most importantly she has just--

"What if I'd pissed in that?" Well, for starters some Orlesians would be crying and Yngvi would maybe be escaping the dungeons so it's a moot point as he understands such things but he wants to see how she reacts to it, been a while since he ran into a casteless. "Can they actually manage it though? I mean most of them are a lot of talk but even me? Sturdier than they reckon."

Wow, that is a long list. That is a long list of mostly nonsense, and she's stopped listening by 'doglords'. This one talks too much. His initial question barely gets any reaction. "Then you'd be a shit to offer it up to people." Simple as that.

"Wouldn't trust any of the elves to toss me. I always feel like I'm gonna break them by breathing on them. Some of the more fit humans, though, could be. There any qunari Wardens?" Because she's yet to see one, but if anyone could sufficiently toss a dwarf...

Some people make part of their living by running their mouths, and Yngvi is one of those people, talking himself in and out of trouble with plenty of shaking it all about in the middle. "Bet I could get people to drink it if I called it a rare vintage though. You know Orlesians will drink anything if they think someone will envy them for doing it. And it's better than dwarven anything."

Not that he's been to sample it from the source but people bring it up, and Yngvi has tried it, and Yngvi has thrown it at them because it's only fit to be weaponised. Seriously, just flood the Diamond Quarter with it, rise up, rise up.

"City elves are surprisingly sturdy, my boss is one and she's from Halamshiral, never met a tougher lady in all me years and that's counting the ones what raised me. Qunari wardens would be fucking dull though. They're so serious. You ever in Kirkwall to meet a proper qunari? The most sour bunch you'll ever meet with few exceptions once they leave it or unless they never had it." Because he does know that intricacy thanks to Kirkwall and a long friendship with Korrin via Asher. "An Avvar though. They're the best for hurling folk about, they hurl themselves about all the time."

Eh, she wouldn't know about any dwarven drinks from the nobility, just the piss swill circulating Dust Town. So she has no idea if he's right or not. "Wardens I know aren't all dull and boring. Some of them I wonder if they're Wardens cuz otherwise they'd be dead or worse. I've liked all the qunari I've met here so far. Not sour at all. And I've heard of Avvar. Don't think I've met any though. Maybe I should get out more."

This is the surface. You can't get any more out than that.

"I think we both know the answer to that, look at what they let in." No really, take a good proper look at it. "Mercenary companies are a damn sight more discerning about who signs the dotted line but Wardens just scrape up the leavings. Korrin's fine, don't think I've met others. But I had a lot to do with m'ladyship and m'lord and going to the shittest bog of a village in Ferelden. You'd know if you met them and you should go. Won't lie about it being a trek up the mountains but I mean...you do know about the mountains, yeah?"

Yngvi no, no she doesn't and you know it and you're going to be a shit.

"I know about mountains," she says indignantly. "We're living on a snowy fuckscape of one right now, aren't we? And I've been in the Anderfels before, all the way to Hossberg. I've seen mountains. Even managed to not fly off into the sky off them." Is she serious or is that a joke at her own expense? Who knows. (It's the latter.)

"I didn't just say mountains, I said the mountains. I was born up here, I know flying off into the sky is a load of shite they make up because the ones ruling down there are wankers. Don't want folk knowing that hey, it's pretty good up there, maybe we should get away from all the lava and the darkspawn." Do you hear the bunch of tits? He hopes Bhelen does. King tit. That's what he is. Go fuck yourself and the bronto you rode in on and jam that sideways up your arse for good measure.

"Anyway. The mountains. The Frostbacks. They've got bear-men up in places there. Not like the stories the doglords like to tell about werewolves but I mean they've got proper bear-men. Got the skins from them to prove it and all."

"I almost miss the lava some days. For the warmth, less so for the throwing people in when they get on the bad side of the wrong person." Not that she disagrees with him, exactly. She's just sure there's more to it than that. Which gets all political, and fuck politics, to be quite honest.

"All right, gigantic bear-men with skins, but are there werewolves? Or...werebears? I might even be willing to part with coin to see something like that. And not like magical mage shapeshifters, either."

"Kirkwall caught fire. So. Many. Times." The emphasis he puts on those three words is perhaps too much but it can't quite be understated how often you'd hear someone going on about a fire and you'd just shrug and think 'oh, must be Tuesday then' before going about your day. "It was plenty warm in the summer, let you really breathe in that aroma of brine and corpses if the tide was just right. Especially if you went out by the Wounded Coast."

Ah, memories. Maybe the Inquisition will need to go there and he can volunteer since Yngvi knows all the secret passages and he can grease the wheels since the Carta has a finger everywhere.

"I know a man named Torbjorn. Means thunder bear. And it is exactly what it sounds like which is about a hundred times more impressive than a piddly arse werewolf. That'd shit itself in front of a werebear."

"Maybe Kirkwall shouldn't be built out of such flammable material." Seems like a no-brainer to her. "Sounds like a nasty place. People up here should learn that you won't get a smell if you bury your dead, but no, they insist on burning them. Sometimes they don't even bother taking off all the useful shit first! Humans are so weird." Because who wants to smell burning body? Not, uh...not her, ever again, really, after the whole only half-burnt pile of dead Warden bodies.

"Okay, thunder bear. So. A man who can turn into a bear that can still use lightning magic? But where does it come from if he doesn't have any hands anymore?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

open | the drunk horn's so violent, all spinning out sound

valley;

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