OPEN ↠ THE WINTER PALACE, PART I

[faderifting]

WHO: Open to all
WHAT: The War of the Lions comes to a head with tense peace negotiations scheduled for a grand Winter Palace ball
WHEN: This is forward dated to Firstfall 30 Wintermarch 15. This post covers only the first few hours of the event, Part II will be posted in the coming days with the next stage.
WHERE: the Winter Palace, Halamshiral, Orlais
NOTES: Please make sure to read the OOC Post for more info!

The Inquisition's encampment at Halamshiral has grown to be a second home for some, having remained on the estate grounds outside the city for several months now. The field full of tents and campfires is quiet tonight, a large contingent having made their way to the famed Winter Palace to attend the evening's ball. It's not just a party, of course: it's also a venue for much-needed negotiations between Empress Celene and her challenger cousin, Grand Duke Gaspard. All of Orlais' highest and mightiest have gathered to see if tonight the War of the Lions will finally come to an end.

The Inquisition's role is not entirely clear. Some consider them mediators and peacekeepers, and it's true they've done their best thus far to safeguard the citizens of Orlais without overtly choosing a side in the conflict. But others see them as a foreign force marched into the heart of the nation en masse and fear some sort of coup may be in the offing. The Empress and the Grand Duke remain politely wary, but have agreed to allow Inquisition agents to assist with event security. Patrols rove the grounds (and, more discreetly, inside the palace), made up of small teams of Imperial guardsmen, chevaliers, and Inquisition members. It's a risky decision, pairing up people who have been on opposite sides of a war for the last year, with only the agents of a controversial religious(??) order as a buffer. The atmosphere is tense, everyone on edge waiting to see where the first blow will be struck--and by whom.

The Ballroom

The ballroom glitters, lit with hundreds of candles in sconces on the walls, bundled on stands, dangling from elaborate chandeliers. There are even servants assigned to circulate about the dancefloor carrying trees of slowly-dripping candles, the better to allow guests to appreciate their partners' finery or critique their neighbors' steps.

There's plenty of critiquing going around, whether from the couples daintily spinning and mincing about the sunken dance floor or the crowds milling about the mezzanine above them. Fashion and flirtation are the hot topics of the day, as ever, but there is an undercurrent of tension not usually present at such events. Many of the hushed conversations are about troop movements or Tevinter plots, destroyed lands and dead chevaliers. Nothing can quite make an Orlesian extravaganza somber, but no amount of wine and music can completely erase awareness of the war that has brought them here tonight, or the uncertainty about what will come of it. As a precaution the guards have confiscated all weapons at the door, but there is less rowdy behavior than one might expect, a combination of many young men having gone off to battle, and most of the people who remain preferring to remain on their best behavior in this trying time. Guests who do not do the same will be quickly and fiercely shunned.

But not all choose to spend their time worrying, and if it is not as carefree an affair as usual it is still most definitely a party atmosphere. Much of the laughter and chatter and fan-fluttering is as genuine as ever, flowery compliments and veiled insults abound, the food is plentiful and delicious, carried about in great piles by servants dressed entirely in gold. The wine is even better, flowing freely from the mouths of a multitude of sculpted lions (which grace the arms of both Celene and Gaspard). The music is brisk and upbeat, provided by a large contingent near the dance floor and several smaller clusters tucked about the venue.

The vestibule is quieter, aside from the constant cries of the heralds announcing each arrival. Conversation continues out here at a steady hum, but the music is more distant, the air less thick with perfume and intrigue. Beyond that are the Inner Gardens, where pairs and small parties circulate between elaborate hedges and topiaries on paths paved with delicate pieces of seashell that glow faintly in the moonlight. Many come and go as the night continues, taking the air as a respite from the crowd and candles inside or using that as an excuse to sneak off for torch-lit liaisons.

The Outer Gardens

The Outer Gardens are still ornamental but less intricately landscaped than the Inner: hedges are lower, topiary larger but less detailed. The torches are more numerous here, the better to highlight arrivals. Carriages of all sorts draw up one by one to the gilded iron gate, footmen in powdered wigs rolling out steps and assisting the passengers as they disembark. Other servants clad in simple lion masks scurry about, taking charge of coats and capes, delivering drinks for those who cannot wait even for the time it takes to walk inside, delivering news to the heralds and consoling those who arrive just behind a larger party and are forced to wait their turn in line to be announced.

The Imperial Guard are present inside, too, but subtly; here they are present in obvious numbers, breastplates shining, resplendent in purple and yellow surcoats, with matching plumes jutting from their helms. They watch each entering personage carefully, collecting weapons from all, no matter how exalted their position. Inquisition agents pass through the area as well, pairs accompanying guardsmen on their rounds through the gardens or up on the palace walls.

Some noble guests even linger here, the shy or the unpopular (or the too-popular), or those for whom even the Inner Garden has grown too crowded, spilling out to catch the cool evening breeze on a wine-flushed face or to continue a conversation too serious to have interrupted by tittering. It is still noble territory, that is clear, but it isn't entirely unusual to see a lady engage a guard in banter as he passes, or a lord stop a servant to inquire after inside information on her mistress.

The Servant's Quarters

Earlier the servants' quarters was a roil of activity, stoves loaded with pots boiling and pans sizzling, trays laden with food, casks rolled out full and back in empty with alarming frequency. But now the fountains are filled and the food all cooked and plated, delivered to tables and staging areas, leaving the vast majority of the staff at their leisure. And while the nobles are occupied across the gardens with their ball, that means it's time for a party here, too.

The rooms are packed, from kitchens and sculleries to dining halls and normal halls, store rooms, boot rooms, everywhere. The servants at Halamshiral have nearly all gathered except for the unfortunate number tasked with serving at the ball itself, and their numbers are nearly doubled by the presence of numerous Inquisition agents and outside retainers whose noble bosses are busy spending their visit dancing and gossiping. That's most of what's happening here, too, with a band playing loud and fast in the servants' hall, tables and chairs pushed back against the walls and piled up to make room for a dance floor. In other rooms, wine flows and food is piled high, leftovers from the ball and anything not quite perfect enough to serve to the upper crust.

The place is full to bursting, hot and noisy and raucous, the floors sticky with spilled ale. A dice game spills out from the cheese room, couples neck and giggle among the tall shelves of bottles in the wine cellar, a group of laughing young men dart among the crowd stealing masks off faces and replacing them with different ones, a cluster steps out in the courtyard to share a pipe beside ladies maids having a whispered argument about whose employer wore it better.

Please note: This post covers only the first few hours of the party, not the entire night. There will be a second post going up in the next week that will cover the conclusion of the event, so please make sure not to assume too far into the future in your threads here. Please make sure to also read the OOC Post for more info on who can attend which party and how we're using comment counts here to determine the outcome of the civil war.

Comments

[foxsays]

Cover her hand and stand out, plus gloves have never been her style; it's a good way to catch a person off-guard too. To see that little flicker around the eyes (or the mouth, if the mask isn't a full face affair) even if tonight it would probably be easier to go with a story of being some Antivan girl struck by a shard. But that's too risky with so many others involved. She can't trust everyone to keep a story or a secret straight, can she?

(If that's uncharitable then it's at least wise, and that sort of thinking has kept her alive.)

"And you as well Beleth," she replies, settling a hand atop hers for a moment; an intake of breath that doesn't come from either of them, but then they're two young women in beautiful gowns, perhaps too great a prospect to approach.

A sigh slips out of her, almost half a smile too. "She is reminded very much of home," Araceli admits, more candid than usual but she is. More masks, a different language, different dances but the steps and the acts are still the same, the polished politeness, the carefully edged flatteries. "So far no one is drunk enough to be rude but then there's always a certain way they know how to be crass and to try to get under your skin, no? No one has been...I cannot think of the right word we'd share but for you?" A rifter might be a rifter, but even so not all rifters are equal and Araceli has the fortune to be human into the bargain. If she chose to? Her hand hidden carefully and no one would know but Beleth will always be proudly elven and Dalish.

[arlathvhen]

Beleth's eyes drop modestly at Araceli's compliment, a smile on her lips. At Araceli's comment about home, Beleth's eyes turn up to dart around the room, now studying it with this new knowledge. Not so different from Araceli's home? It's something that she files away with the rest of what little she knows about that odd world that her fellow bard-in-trailing hails from.

"I do not think we could get more different from my home if I tried, but--there is something familiar about it, if you can believe it." It's hard to name what it is, exactly. Glittering masks worn by Orlesian nobility seems a far distance from a bunch of Dalish in the woods. But there's a way that people treat their words, stepping around and on them with purposeful care. And a way that old grudges are passed down for generations.

Beleth gives a quiet, breathless laugh at Araceli asking about how she's bee treated, and she quickly shakes her head. "Nothing terrible, I assure you. No hurled slurs or telling me to get back in the kitchen. For the most part, they are in two groups. One has simply decided that I should not exist, and thus they do not acknowledge me. The other coos over me, as though I were a dancing bear. 'A credit to my people', is one of the more popular phrases." Her nose wrinkles, but she gives her head one more firm shake.

"Still, it's nothing that I didn't expect, and certainly nothing I can't deal with. I'm so amazed to even be here, to be..." She hesitates, debating her word choice. "...To be allowed to do this, I suppose. I hope it lasts."

[foxsays]

Even as a thief, Araceli went to parties. But she misses how it was. Misses being part of a whole that moved so easily, that could live and breathe and think as one. Misses it being her fight where her opinion had far more weight than it does now if truth be told no matter how selfish that is.

"Once a very wise woman told me that if you can picture your parents in such a place, scolding you as easily as she would anywhere else then that's one of the most familiar things in this world." Either of her parents would fit easily here; her mother on the arm of some noble or another, her father conducting business with his laughter ringing out. Maybe if she hadn't chosen the path of a bard she could've been more her father instead of watching herself and reading between the lines constantly all night already.

Turning so she can brush out an imaginary crease at Beleth's elbow, she squeezes her arm. The touch is there and gone in a flash that no one watching might spy it. "I had that. Not to my people exactly because they were all my people at home but I was a common girl and they were-" Well she doesn't need to finish when she can incline her head to the dancers as they spin fast enough that their suits and skirts blur in the light before her eyes when she allows herself to look through and past them. Something that's not quite sadness but close slips out, still elsewhere as she speaks. "Don't let it under your skin if you can help it. It'll try to make a home for itself if it can."

Then she comes back to herself, adjusts her skirts and smiles that charming Araceli smile that almost everyone around Skyhold knows by now. "You're part of the Inquisition, you've earned this. Remember what we both had to learn before we met our teacher? That doors would open to us now?" Yes, the doors could so easily be closed abruptly, sharply, but tonight? Well tonight is the debut, is it not?

[arlathvhen]

Beleth muses on that idea for a moment, eyes darting around the room, as if trying to imagine her family numbered among them. Deheune is the easiest--she would be one of the older nobility, manuevering Game pieces like an expert chess master, walking among the other nobles like she owned the palace herself. Her father--that was harder to place. He'd probably be in the back, lurking, watching everything but giving away nothing. Her twin would be, naturally, by her side, whispering scandalous gossip and cracking jokes while Beleth tried to keep a straight face.

She can feel a pang of homesickness in her heart, and she turns back to Araceli.

As Araceli speaks, Beleth leans in closer, eyes intent as she listens, before turning down in thought. Araceli is right, of course--and it's a reminder that humans are just as happy to discriminate against each other for any petty reason as they are to discriminate against other races. All she can offer is a short nod, and a quiet murmur of, "You're right. I try not to give them the satisfaction of seeing what their words do."

Now is the time to remember that, to steel herself and show a face that is unafraid. She gives another nod, lips pressing together briefly. "I agree, we spent a long time preparing for this. I just...wasn't sure if it would actually happen. But it has. Those doors are open--and we can open more of them, in time. If we're lucky." And if Beleth isn't lucky--well. Hopefully another elf would be able to slip through those doors she'd opened, and get even further. Slow progress, but stubbornly persistent.