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

[alankazam]

"Do you think that's how they carve the hedges?" It's a joke, though it's asked with enough sincerity to make a passing chevalier pause... and start walking again, much faster, when he abruptly notices Morrigan. "Perhaps he's on his way to that now. With some help, he might make a lion."

Alan's been paying some attention to the night's proceedings, however foggy his understanding of the details. He pauses, shuffles a hand from a pocket out to shake. It was a common greeting, back in Denerim — they seem to do a lot more kissing and bowing here, but frankly, he doesn't trust his balance.

"Alan," He offers. "You know Orlais well?"

She's certainly dressed to, but the accent doesn't fit.

[arcaneadvisor]

"I believe there would be rather more holes, were that the case." Almost without thinking, her hand lifts to see if the hedges are as sturdy as they appear to be but the Inquisition has many more mages so alas, that question will go unanswered for the time being. "Better that than anything else he might get up to."

There's a moment of hesitation that comes each and every time with this because ten years since she left the Wilds and some habits are so hard to break when it was all that time of her and Flemeth and doing their very best to avoid all that sort of touching unless it could be helped. But far better than the overly familiar, overly perfumed embraces where she fancies she can feel the panicked heartbeats fluttering.

"Morrigan," and it does feel good to leave off the title she's wearing tonight, even for a moment. "Well enough. I prefer the places away from the capital that most Orlesians see only on maps or on the way to their summer homes. Is this your first time in such…surroundings?" The pause is perhaps a little too damning but one of the first things people learn about the arcane advisor is how little she cares for Orlais and the Game.

sorry for the delay on this!! i got sick and i've had no brain for logs

[alankazam]

"They're migratory?" Summer homes. Alan shrugs, "I don't think I've ever been out of Ferelden."

Borders are tricky, particularly when you seldom bother to ask whether you can go somewhere. Her pause is — emboldening.

"But I don't know that this counts as Orlais, either. It's just a circle on a map, where everyone throws their coins."

There was a map pressed onto him, before the journey out. Beka Hivers pointed and dragged her finger all around before she said See, that's where no one fucking goes. That had been before she leaned out the tower window to spit.

"But they want to decide wars without ever knowing what they're fighting over, outside that circle." Are the nobility really so idle, so bored? For at least a few of them, it has to be about the money. Like that alone was so useful. "Well-met, Morrigan."

And this time, it sounds like he means it. Most in Denerim had talked of Jonas Cousland, and not his companions. The memory of an alarm raised, of bloody strangers in the square, it's not the kind of thing you use to identify someone a decade later.

Especially when that person was probably a giant spider at the time.

no problem, i know how that is!

[arcaneadvisor]

"Borne out of a desire to cause as great a fuss as possible, one would imagine. Lately they would be trying to escape the war, not whatever other excuse they would have." When you have servants, the usual complaints about summer don't hold much water. Still, she has to raise both brows and smile, the edge of a laugh creeping out too. "Truly? You certainly picked quite the night for it. Where in Ferelden, if I might ask?"

Funny too, that this is the first place that she came herself after leaving Ferelden. Resurfaced amidst all the rumors that swirled of who she was, what she was, carving herself a space at Celene's side so easily with Kieran tucked away so no one would ever know that the arcane advisor even had a son.

"Should you find coins you wish to throw, the fountain is located in the inner garden. You shall have to run the gauntlet of polite conversation with those very folk. Leashing the Templars, leashing the mages, why are there so many elves with the Inquisition, what is this Inquisition." She rolls her eyes, only a small sample of the questions that have been thrown her way so far as if she would have those answers or give them anything resembling one even if she did. "Wishing a return to their own lives. As if they have truly suffered some grievous disruption. Who will rise, who will fall, which one shall they fall into. That is why they circle as crows do around a battlefield."

Only crows are brave and intelligent but the comparison wouldn't work if she used pigeons instead. Which is really what they are tonight, even if they've painted themselves up.

[alankazam]

"All over," A generic answer, the one he's used to using, but — "I'm from the Frostbacks."

More specific than that, he knows not to get. Even with a few drinks in him, and a surprisingly trustworthy stranger.

"We didn't really have dukes, or empresses, or. Any of that. I suppose — it must be difficult, to see everything you know changing." If only that were all of it. Then he could sympathize. "But it doesn't seem like they're frightened of losing, so much as someone else winning."

Alan swipes his bangs, a small gesture of agitation. He's had to do way too much thinking tonight.

"How do you get better at all of this? Seeing what they mean, behind what they're saying? You seem so easy with it."

sorry i've been super sick and i couldn't get tags to happen

[arcaneadvisor]

"Yet not one of the holds I think. Not tall enough for that." Even the part-Avvar usually require a lot of craning the neck in a way that has her recalling Sten (though none quite so much but then there will never be anyone quite like him again, will there?)

"A Chantry mother perhaps? Even a village such as Lothering had one, and that was small enough I doubt many will bother to put it on new maps." Maybe a little cross to mark 'here lies another terribly dull heap of a place much like any other' or it might merit more for the rather infamous folk that have come and gone through it in the past ten years. "They stake their entire lives in the Game. Their fortunes, their marriages, contracts - all you can possibly imagine and more. If they lose then they lose. If the wrong person wins, then what, precisely does that mean? Losing everything or losing their head, or a great gulf that comes between?"

Knowing Gaspard she thinks heads. If Celene then some heads if she must. Other things more cruel and cutting, fitting of a bard.

When you have a mother like mine, Morrigan thinks sharply enough that the acid comes scorching up her throat, stinging the back of her nose before she forces it down. "I always watched, even as a girl. I lived very much apart from the rest of the world but they give themselves away same as any animal. You would be surprised how many smiles are simply them baring their teeth as if ready to fight."

dude no worries at all, i hope you're doing okay! let's make a pact to not apologize for tag speed

[alankazam]

“My grandmother was hold-born,” He admits. “None of us got her size. Though —“

A rueful grin.

“— Most got more.” Then again, they hadn’t spent their formative years wintering on roots and rats. “You’re right, though. We had the Faith. I suppose that was our sort of power.”

If not the sort Morrigan likely imagines.

“But we’d no trouble with it for… a long time. Too small for that. Everyone was involved, everyone knew everyone. Harder to hide anything.” There the tiniest slip of doubt in his voice, as though that’s not entirely a benefit. “I doubt they’d have approved of tonight.”

Still, he nods as he listens, attentive. Observing, imitating, sure — but that’s never the same as being, is it? He’s met enough lowland mages to have formed some slight derision for their methods. You can’t just pretend to be an animal, not if you want to be any good at it. And that means:

“Do you ever…” Tentative. He’s been thinking about this from the moment he picked up the sending crystal, and made his decision. I lived very much apart from the rest of the world. “…Do you worry you might become one of them? If you’re at it too long?"

[arcaneadvisor]

"Magic is respected more in the holds, I am told. As it is with the Chasind." If that's what he's hinting at. The Inquisition has become, after all, something of a haven for mages, even those who have never set foot within a Circle in their lives. Perhaps that is what allows their dread reputation to continue the way it does though in truth, Morrigan has always found it to be something of an asset.

"No." Succinct but tonight, out here where they are, where she is, where there are so many questions that can be asked about her, a longer answer follows. "I know who I am. What I am. I have never had cause to doubt that. I would never allow myself to become one of them and that is part of it, nor would they allow it but...I have known the world as so many things not myself. But each time I have been myself. I have worn their skin and not my own but always? I have been myself. To be your own thing is rare. So many of them in there will never know it. You cannot allow another to swallow you whole."