A Very Official Party

[arlathvhen]

WHO: Division leaders and everyone who signed up
WHAT: The leaders + the viscount are throwing a very fancy party to introduce Inquisition people to Hightown nobles and prove that they aren't demons
WHEN: 29th of Harvestmere (day before Satinalia)
WHERE: Some mansion in hightown
NOTES: OOC post!

The mansion of the hightown noble tasked with hosting the party is tastefully decorated for the event.
There's a few references to the approaching Satinalia here and there, but it is clearly not a costume
party, and none of the nobles are wearing masks. Tomorrow they may done their costumes, but for now,
it's important for the Inquisition for faces to be be seen.

There's plenty of food to be had, either on a table off to a side, or via one of the servants carrying
around trays, filled will little snacks and glasses of wine. Inquisition guests will be forewarned
that while they are not prohibited from drinking--It would, after all, look super sketchy if the
entire Inquisition abstained from drinks--they are under no circumstances to become intoxicated.

The other guests are the nobles, who look like an indecisive mixture of excited, gleeful, and
terrified. There's an air about them as they chatter amongst themselves that they are currently
engaged in something quite thrilling, if dangerous. Talking to the rifters! Possible demons, right
before their eyes! They clump into their own groups for the most part, but as the party starts in
earnest, braver souls will begin to peel off from the others to go inspect the guests and speak to
them. As the party winds on, the groups will slowly begin to disperse and mix with the Inquisition
freely.

Inquisition guests are, naturally, encouraged to approach these groups or individuals directly.

Closer to the end of the night, the division leaders will break off from the rest of the party, and
along with the Viscount, make their way off to a private room to converse on how the affair has gone.

Try to behave while they're gone (and in general) or you might find yourself facing a list of the
worst jobs Petra could concoct the next morning.

Comments

shows up three hours late with starbucks

[faithlikeaseed]

A.
A mage is a curiosity--an elven mage doubly so, if he's not being dismissed as part of the help--and a blind elven mage is such downright novelty that he's bound to attract attention once the Hightown nobility loosen up enough to mingle.

He js dressed elegantly enough not to embarrass the Inquisition and without his staff. Perforce, he's pinned to the spot where he'd been left (don't think abandoned, don't think malice--think oversight) by a helpful servant, with no easy escape route to quieter parts of a crowded ballroom. But, so: he's been in worse situations, ones where he had to rely on muscle and magic and cunning rather than his own natural charm. And he is charming, flirting exactly the right amount with all comers and drawing even the most reluctant interlocutor into easy conversation.

Not the sort of conversation he'd come expecting, fortified with Ser Coupe's pep talk on making a proper showing on behalf of the Inquisition. He'd prepared for difficult questions--about rifters, or the Inquisition's heretical reputation, or some insight on the mage-templar conflict that still veined the world with strife. Instead: Requests for alienage gossip, and what's it like being blind, and do elves really--?

One blowzy matron--flushed, talking too loudly, clutching her fifth flute of champagne--demands to know if he's got eyes under the blindfold and if not, would he show her? She hadn't come expecting a freak.

This last makes him turn an appealing look in the direction of a friendly voice, a silent plea for temporary rescue. He didn't sign on to be exhibited.

B.
Slowly, carefully, Myr's managed to work his way from the ballroom floor to the nearest wall to take momentary refuge by a potted plant. A nest of shem vipers, he'd judged Hightown once--and now he's left in the midst of the vipers as punishment for that bit of uncharity. The Maker created them too-- is a pretty, facile platitude when they're biting at your heels, demanding things of you you wouldn't even tell your friends--

Breathe in, breathe out. He laces his hands together before his face, thumbs against his lips as he mouths the Trials--though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide--in a brief prayer for fortitude.

A

[ragweed]

"Hey there, salroka," Kit interjects before Myr is forced to answer the intrusive questions posed to him, "you're the resident expert on Hasmali cuisine, aren't you?"

(No--he knows that's Vandelin, but roll with him on this--)

"Come here a minute--" and here he reaches out to gently touch his hand to his friend's elbow, guiding him away from the noblewoman and her staggeringly inappropriate questions, "--you've got to try some of these, uh, canapés. Someone just said they taste like despair."

He glances once over his shoulder to ensure that the woman isn't following them, then breathes out and shakes his head. "Sodding Paragons," he mutters in an exceedingly quiet voice. "Are you all right?"

[faithlikeaseed]

"If you'd excuse me, messere--" Myr can be gracious--for the Inquisition's sake--even if he'd like nothing better to latch on to Kit and demand an immediate escort back to the Gallows. (Or an opportunity, somehow, to defend his own honor, even if that's nothing his friend can provide.)

Accordingly he keeps silent as they walk away, biting his tongue until Kit speaks up again and gives him a sign it's safe to speak his mind. Quietly, then, and his tone light despite the words: "I'd think--if we're expected to be on our best behavior so as not to give offense--it'd be the same for them. Clearly I'm a hopeless optimist."

He takes a deep breath in and unclenches his hands--mindful from the throbbing of where his nails have bitten into his palms--then heaves a heartfelt sigh. "Not really," he says in answer to Kit's question, "but it will mend. Just give me five minutes away from them and I'll be ready to go back."

At least they're always finding new and surprising ways to be awful around here; it would be really terrible if this had all gotten predictable. (Ha.)

[ragweed]

"Five minutes," Kit repeats, skimming the fancy ball room for some place that might serve as a suitable refuge for his friend. Really, how many times can he feasibly duck out onto a balcony without earning himself some suspicious glances? (A brand, topside, having private conversations with mages and rifters alike--nothing to see here.)

Sod it. "How about a smoke break," he decides, and leads Myr out onto the nearby balcony anyway.

[faithlikeaseed]

"Holding you to that," Myr says lightly. "Can't leave all my admirers lonely for too long." There's a bitterness to the words that he manages to keep largely from his voice, there in one breath and gone the next. They're the Maker's children, too; he agreed to this; he'll survive it and the rest of the world.

It's cold out on the balcony and he shivers accordingly, hunching his shoulders up around his pointed ears a moment like an unhappy songbird. "Brr. Don't know that I'm up to four more months of this," he mumbles, because the weather's safe and gives him something to fix on.

Likewise, worrying about someone else: "How've you been holding up, then?"

[ragweed]

"How've you been holding up, then?"

Kit's already got his cigarette lit and is taking the first drag off of it to get the cherry burning. That question gives him momentary pause, his eyes gone distant beyond the balcony, but then he puts on a smile, chuckles a little, and leans against the railing. "Oh, you know," he says through an exhalation, blowing smoke out past his mouth, "hanging in there. Figure it could be a lot worse, all things considered."

(He could be a child, alone and abandoned in a warehouse, or one of the casteless in the red lyrium mines, the red eating them up inside--)

"I know I've been--" a pause--he's been what, exactly? A ghost? "--hard to track down lately. I'm sorry," he adds, sincerely, and rests his hand on Myr's shoulder in lieu of meeting his eyes.

[faithlikeaseed]

That gets a laugh out of Myr, and not a happy one--likely because his thoughts are along much the same lines. "It could always be worse," he acknowledges, "and thank the Maker it's not."

He's chary of the edge of the balcony himself; it shows in how carefully he sets his hands on the railing, how his shoulder is just a little stiff beneath Kit's hand. "It's forgiven. You've been there when I needed you--and I'm sorry it hasn't been for anything good."

He favors Kit's direction with a wan smile. "Something chasing you you want to talk about?" It's not likely, he knows; his tone makes as much clear. But he's got to ask.

a-ish but pretend it's not the EXACT same prompt if u want or whatever

[limier]

She catches the last word.

It rings out like a guilty bell; her pace doesn’t hasten for what she's overheard, but an arm extends to his, and the smile she gives is more a show of teeth.

"Forgive me, my lady," Calmly. If there’s any advantage in Meredith’s memory (all the hackles it lifts as barriers tonight), it’s that shepherding a mage remains firmly in the realm of the expected. "I need borrow Serah Shivana."

More accurately, his sash, but that can wait —

"Let us to the foyer." Pitched so as not to be caught by those around them: "Fewer ghasts about."

[ yonder! ]