[Open] I don't think you're ready for this jelly

[justice_is_blond]

WHO: Alistair and Anders and YOU
WHAT: Alistair tightropes. In a dress. While singing.
WHEN: Kingsway 21st
WHERE: Camp Shady Fucker
NOTES: There will probably be some awful sap because this is Nate's birthday, you've been warned. Otherwise, no warnings anticipated.

It's not publicized, but word has a habit of getting out.

Zevran has publicized matters, and now it's time for some morale boosting. There's a low tightrope stretched between two trees with a great many chairs, stumps, and logs set up as seating options. Today is the day for someone to earn himself new boots, shirts, and a shield, and it promises to be a show.

Come on up, pull up a seat, and enjoy the entertainment.

Comments

[byblow]

Alistair's laugh is not so much audible as it is visible, in his shoulders and brief burst of a grin. It's sweet of her to offer. It's also the worst thing he can imagine happening to him today, or possibly ever--backing down, and having Beleth go talk to anyone on his behalf like he can't do it himself, and all these people (who have now paid a blighted admission fee) deciding he's a coward or a bad sport.

"Don't you dare," he says. "No one makes fun of me better than me. No one."

[arlathvhen]

For a moment, she looks more confused by his response than anything, cocking her head to the side and regarding him quizzically. But the look of dissatisfaction returns before long. "I don't understand," She begins slowly, as though trying to expound upon a great mystery, "Why anyone needs to be making fun of you at all. You don't haven't done anything to warrant that." There are probably a few (or many) people who would disagree on what Alistair warranted, but they are not Beleth, and she therefore knows better than them.

[byblow]

"That's true," Alistair says, tone musing and philosophical. He puts his hand on his chin to match. "I've never done anything wrong in my entire life. Speaking of--" He drops his hand and leans sideways to lower his voice. "--if you see Howe's dog, do me a favor and call her Widdle Puppy."

[arlathvhen]

"Alistair." She sighs it more than she says it, giving him a long-suffering look, because she is suffering, Alistair, you are making her suffer having to watch this. There's a brief internal debate on what she should say, because she has plenty of ideas, but some of them are very. Intense. Serious things that might be awkward to spill out while surrounded by a large crowd of people.

"Whatever you've done, you're worth more than a cheap gag."

Okay that is still kind of. Excessive. Especially when she stares at him with a look that is fair too solemn to give any man wearing a dress and rather fetching makeup.

[byblow]

Alistair's attention is still on the crowd (he's never even met some of these people before, his name wasn't mentioned, why do they care), but he glances sideways at her when she talks, then does a double-take and gives her serious expression a more thorough examination.

"Beleth," he says, at length, standing there in his dress and rather fetching make-up, "you're being weird."

[arlathvhen]

She isn't sure whether to be insulted, embarrassed, or hurt, and for a moment she just stands there, hands on her hips, staring at Alistair with a scandalized expression. Then after thinking on it, she concludes that she was being weird, and sighs, dropping her hands to her side.

"Sorry, I just--" She pauses, as she tries to decide how to phrase her emotions, in a way that isn't yet more weird. "--don't want you to feel obligated." She concludes, and after a moment, reaches up to start fussing with his hair. "Or to give people the impression that Wardens are forbidden brushes or combs. I know you have them, Alistair." Diversions were Alistair's specialty, but Beleth was getting better at them.

[byblow]

"You take that back," Alistair says. He endures the fussing without trying to move away. It's hardly the worst he's endured today, what with the eyeliner. "I'm Fereldan." A beat. "And I volunteered. Not for all of it, but--the basic concept. Don't worry about me."