faderift | A SEA OF DEATH

A SEA OF DEATH

WHO: Anyone/Everyone
WHAT: A trip to sunny Nevarra
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall
WHERE: Nevarra City
NOTES: Undead cw. OOC post. We highly encourage using the OOC post for plotting and especially for coordinating strategy among characters participating in Part III.

Following the successful defense of Perendale, the Nevarran crown has extended an invitation to the Inquisition to send representatives to Nevarra City to enjoy its hospitality and gratitude. Most signs point toward an uneventful, perhaps even pleasant, stay, one that could foster a closer relationship between the Inquisition and the Northeast's premier military power. Other signs, however, point toward trouble. The Inquisition has previously addressed early Venatori attempts to influence the king, but reports from agents embedded in Nevarra City indicate that these attempts have resumed. While no immediate danger is expected, everyone will be advised to be on their guard during the visit and keep an eye out for potential enemy activity.

I. TRAVEL & TAVERN

The swiftest route to Nevarra City is to first travel by sea to Cumberland, an uneventful voyage followed by half a day to rest and eat before heading up the Imperial Highway toward the capital. It isn't a large group, consisting only of staff from Kirkwall's outpost who volunteered or were ordered to make the journey, so once on land they're able to move swiftly with horses and carts and spend only one night sleeping aside the road in tents. If there are bandits along the highway, the sight of a uniformed, armed, and relatively organized force on the horizon makes them disappear long before they're reached, and the Inquisition is troubled by nothing but bad weather along the way. The paved highway makes for quick travel despite the rain, except for those who are tasked with detouring off the main road to collect a new party of rifters.

Still, the Inquisition reaches the Nevarra City well after nightfall on the second day, with no time to explore before heading straight to the tavern and inn where they'll be residing during the visit. The Crooked Bone is a large establishment near the center of the city and built for crowds, though it is clearly unprepared for quite this large a number of overnight guests, and the staff may be heard debating the wisdom of taking such a contract, having to cancel and refuse other guests to fit the whole Inquisition contingent, but apparently making a pretty penny and earning favor with some unnamed royal courtier in exchange. Even though the Inquisition has been granted exclusive use of the inn for its stay, it fills up the available rooms without anyone, no matter how high-ranking, permitted a room of their own.

But it isn't an altogether uncomfortable arrangement, and definitely preferable to sleeping in tents. There's hot food downstairs at nearly any hour, not to mention ale and wine, served at long tables in a large room with space at the center for dancing—when there's music, which there won't be now unless someone among the Inquisition wishes to provide it—and a cheery sort of atmosphere lingers despite the decor, which tends toward dark wood and skeleton motifs. It's warmed by the proliferation of lanterns of all shapes and sizes, and the fire burning merrily in every grate, which combined with the full house lends the place a surprisingly cozy feel. Plus, the Inquisition's takeover of the inn means it can maintain its own security and thus genuinely relax indoors, something that won't be so true upon venturing out into the city.

II. NEVARRA CITY

Nevarra's capital city sits on the banks of the Minanter, where the river winds down through the hills that mark the border between Nevarra and its rival Orlais. The city is tucked into a high valley, surrounded by sharp cliffs and studded with rocky spires. The few tributaries of the Minanter that once flowed through have been rerouted into a central channel that tumbles down a fake falls into a large reflecting pool in the city's main park, feeding a fountain in the shape of a trio of water-spewing dragons. The City is renowned for its art and culture, grand buildings and meticulously manicured landscaping, unusually clean cobbled streets and soaring halls carved with intricate adornment. Though no longer as large or as busy as Cumberland, it is a wealthy city, and the immaculately dressed majority will not hesitate to stare at the Inquisition interlopers in their midst. They are frank about their curiosity and also about their suspicions: Nevarra has no love for Orlais, and the Inquisition has far more close ties to the southern Empire than anyone here is comfortable with.

Originally a Tevinter stronghold, the oldest parts of the city are distinctly Imperial in style, all polished, seamless black marble, like the columns that line the boulevard leading from the heart of the city up to the Castrum Draconis, where King Markus holds court. The way to the royal fortress is lined with statues, the finest examples of the hundreds of figures that exist throughout the city, likenesses of every hero and dragon-slayer, kings and generals. At this time of year, each noble family honors its famous ancestors with processions, marching through the city to drape their family's statues in the house colors.

These parades take many forms, from the loud and gaudy to the solemn and torchlit, attended by thousands or just a handful. The richest houses hire troupes of actors to man the streets beside the statues of their predecessors, costumed and acting out the most famous triumphs of their subject's life. This year, as the king's health declines, the competing efforts of the Pentaghasts and Van Markhams and their respective supporters take on a new urgency. Every theater in Nevarra has been emptied and some further afield too, to fill the long, black marble boulevard before the castle with players staging elaborate recreations of dragon hunts and historic battles. Accusations of sabotage, petty turf wars, or players making impromptu cameos in their rivals' shows raise tempers ever higher and the unlucky or unwary may be caught in the midst of a street brawl as tensions threaten to spill over.

The situation in the court itself is no less fraught, though the simmering anxiety is more successfully kept behind closed doors. The King is old, and that he is failing is no longer a secret. His mind has not gone, but his strength has, and he is only capable of brief spates of sharp attention before the effort exhausts his resources and he begins to drift or doze. He is constantly attended by a rotating trio of Mortalitasi, his most trusted companions. He holds court for roughly an hour a day, perhaps two if he is feeling especially hale, and courtiers are in constant competition to be among the few blessed with the king's personal attention. All other business is handled by a handful of advisors, most of long standing. While the Inquisition's representatives are welcomed, and official gratitude expressed for the assistance at Perendale, they may find the reception rather cool overall. The nobility is particularly wary, of Orlesian influence, foreign or Chantry factions meddling in the succession, of the potential threat to Nevarra if the sleeping dragon of the Imperium is poked too hard. It will take careful and strategic mingling indeed to begin to truly win anyone here over.

III. THE NECROPOLIS

Toward the end of the Inquisition's stay, a rare invitation will be extended to its members: an opportunity to tour the Grand Necropolis outside of Nevarra City, proffered out of awareness that its customs are seen as barbaric to outsiders and in hopes that a better understanding of Nevarra's customs will facilitate a better working relationship. The Inquisition will not require any particular person to attend the tour. It is a delicate subject, and one that may rightly make many people squeamish or afraid. But it would be rude not to send representatives, so those who are willing and curious enough to agree will be sent to meet Tivadar Nancollas, one of the Mortalitasi, at the entrance.

Within the walls, the Necropolis is nearly large enough to be a city of its own, were any of its population alive. It is divided into a warren of countless crypts, wound through with passageways. Those maintained by Nevarra's ancient families are enormous and ornate, paths as wide as real streets leading through a maze of oversized statuary and gilded rooms fit for living nobility. Others are smaller and simpler. Some belong to families that have since died out entirely and have fallen into disrepair, though the Mortalitasi see still to the remains within. There are vast public crypts as well, where the inexpertly mummified bodies of Nevarra's poor and nameless are housed en masse if delivered to the Necropolis from outlying communities. The one constant is the smell: the pervasive spicy-sweet aroma of the incense burned in censers throughout the Necropolis, heavy enough to cling to clothes and hair for hours afterwards, and give headaches to those unused to the scent.

As the group passes each crypt, Tivadar names its owner and perhaps some of the better-known figures residing within. The Pentaghast crypt is particularly enormous, and he guides the group inside, past the crowd of still and staring dead, for a brief glimpse at King Caspar still and silent on his throne, crown atop the wispy remains of his hair, finery conspicuously new yet crafted in the style of ages past, the blade of the sword laid across his lap still razor-sharp.

In contrast to the enraged corpses that may have climbed out of bogs or emerged from caves to attack Inquisition agents in their past travels, these possessed corpses are remarkably sedate. They do move: they may blink or turn their heads to watch someone pass, eyes (or eye sockets, depending on the age and wealth of the deceased) glowing with the presence of something otherworldly. But they seem content with watching, until—

(There's always an until.)

—deep in center of the Necropolis, where some of the oldest crypts are falling into ruin and even the Mortalitasi's careful work can't keep all the skin on the corpses' bones, Tivadar disappears—magic, perhaps, or a trick door, or some combination of the two—and the sealed door to a nearby crypt creaks open.

The corpses that lurch out of it are not sedate. They're rabid and grasping, red-eyed, and ready to claw and bite and pursue the Inquisition through the Necropolis' streets. These first enraged mummies count among the poor and poorly kept—they're numerous, but unarmed, brittle. As they push the Inquisition back through the streets, however, their presence seems to awaken the mummies that had previously sat or stood calmly elsewhere. Some of them retreat deeper into their crypts as if frightened. Others do not retreat, but join the swarm in attack. And the further the fighting progresses toward the doors, with the red-eyed corpses stirring each crypt they pass too close to to action, the better preserved and better armed the dead become, until they are wielding swords with names and clad in the dragon-scale armor of the royal houses themselves.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is a Seeker ever not,

"I was under the impression I'd the chance to choose a task,"

She lifts a hand from her eyes to squint about the lot of them, gaze lingering suspicious upon Thranduil. She isn't drunk enough for this. She's enough so not to see the purpose in lying:

"My brother was seventeen when he died." She can't have said Logen's name aloud in -- well, she's not about to start again now. That's one sure way to kill the mood. Whether his particular age will mean anything to the others here? Peasants die for so many reasons. "Someone needed to do something."

Propped on her elbows, she leans over enough to raise her glass, and down it in a shot. She points to Myr, realizes after a moment he won't have caught the gesture.

"If we are all to speak truths, then Shivana." She reaches next for the pipe. That's quite enough of her own honesty, thank you. "Who among the Inquistion would you least like to have been roomed with?"

She could prod for information, but better something light first, to set everyone at ease again. It has nothing to do with the faint fuzz about her head. Totally.

Edited 2017-11-20 17:06 (UTC)

He's been imbibing as little as he can--getting embarrassingly drunk once is enough for this month, or his entire life, thanks--but there's only so much that one can avoid without looking like it's the company he's shunning. (And there's precious little to be done about the smoke; on the other hand he's comfortably warm inside and out for the first time in months and things matter so much less. That's nice. That's very nice.)

Only Ser Coupe's got any frame of reference for how foreign all this is, how little an opportunity a Circle mage had to experience a drug-fueled slumber party-- And when she calls his name he jerks his head in her direction with shoulders rounded over a guilty conscience; all of this simply isn't done, reason for discipline or transfer or worse. Liking templars enough to befriend them doesn't mean there aren't instincts about why they'd speak to him-- But it's for an easy question and he's quick to relax back into his puddle of cushions. "Anders," once he's had time to process through the layer of wool wrapped around his thoughts, "since I'd get no sleep for his constant haranguing."

Among many other things; Maker be praised he's not so far along to feel like airing any of those is a necessity. He leans forward to pick up a glass without fumbling--thank you, Thranduil--expression flickering briefly puzzled as he reviews the rules of the game in his head. ...Oh, he doesn't drink this yet. That's for when he runs into something he'd not answer.

"Beleth--one unvarnished opinion on," he gestures grandly around them, "necromancy. Just what do the Creators think about all of this?"

Beleth is no stranger to drunkenness, nor smoking various substances, and she takes to both of these cheerfully. Everything going on has just been So Much as of late, and it's nice to unwind with a room of people that she trusts. And Wren. She's much more limber like this, stretched out across a mattress, occasionally rolling around to view everyone upside down. She feels like a still towel that had been poorly air dried, slowly being warmed up from her core, wrinkles smoothing out.

It's upside down that she calmly watches her roommates ask their questions, and give their answers. It's only when Myr addresses her that she rolls again to face up, and gives a quiet little huff of a laugh. It takes some serious thought, to work through that pleasant fog, but eventually she gives a casual shrug.

"It's never mentioned expressly, least not as I've heard. If I had to guess...We bury our dead, you know." She leans against Thranduil's shoulder now, suddenly feeling a great deal of affection for everyone in the room. Except Wren. "We plant a sapling over the body. That's why the Emerald Graves is a forest. They're all burial trees." That's a sobering thought, and Beleth quickly moves past it.

"The body gives nutrients to the tree, and it's...a cycle, you know?" She moves her hand in a circle, oblivious to the fact that Myr wouldn't see it. "We are given life, and in death, give life in return. But if you, ah. Do the whole Nevarran thing...there's no new life that you're replenishing. The body just. Lays there. So, I think the safest assumption would be...Sounds like some shem bullshit."

At that, she presses her face into Thranduil's shoulder, to muffle the sudden fit of giggles she's overcome with. Ha ha, shems. What crazy shit will they think of, next.

Once she's done being entirely too pleased by her own little joke, she finally pulls away long enough to glance around the room. Then, her eyes rest on the Medicine Seller, and she leans forward. "Glaewron. Why do you only have a job title, and not a name? Surely, even if you weren't given one, or didn't like the one you had, you could just choose a new name. So why go by your title?"

Edited 2017-11-20 22:23 (UTC)

The mixture was something he'd concocted from elfroot, tobacco, cloves and dried apple peels and a few other ingredients he didn't know the English names for. It was sweet and pleasant - the perfect thing for a party on a chilly late autumn evening while the drinks flowed and the party-goers amused themselves with parlour games of the variety intended to tease and intoxicate.

He was - more-so than usual as he'd sprawled out among the cushions like some particularly spoiled tomcat that thought he was king of the neighborhood.

Beleth's question was received with a monotone chuckle.

"Because," said the Medicine Seller, taking a long hit of the pipe as it was passed to him, "I do not particularly want or need one."

He passed the pipe on to Thranduil, not commenting on the way the Nevarran's interred their dead. His sword and scales had been mighty twitchy since setting foot in the city, unable to make up their minds on whether or not his services were required, and it had, in turn, left him irritable all the way to the tavern.

"For our esteemed leader... A task, perhaps. Or a question?" He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder. I wonder."

He was, of course, stalling as he thought of something suitably personal without bringing down the mood of the party.

"Perhaps an embarrassing anecdote from your younger days?"

As Beleth makes use of him as a particularly long pillow, he turns, no longer laying on his side, but on his back, a throne of pillows keeping his back at an angle enough to see the rest of the room. He pets her hair as she laughs, and is careful not to dislodge her as he takes the pipe.

He lets it rest between his fingers, watching the smoke drift thick and then dissolve the higher it goes, the mouthpiece balanced against his lip for a moment. Thranduil searches for a suitable story, takes a drag of the pipe, then offers it to Coupe so his hands will be free.

“When I was young, my cousin Celeborn and I were close companions. We were of an age, and both of us with younger siblings we wished to escape. It came to pass one day that relatives from the West were visiting, and among them was a beautiful lady, with golden hair like star- and moonlight entwined. We were both young, barely of majority, but when we saw her being presented to our king, even at the back of his halls, Celeborn told me he would wed her, or else he would surely fade from existence.”

He pauses for a drink of wine from a cup somewhere by his pillows.

“I agreed to help him. He was ever the dramatic sort.”

He continues, “She was a fine lady, much our elder, a guest, and an introduction by our king may have been arranged, but Celeborn was terribly shy. He wished to meet her as himself—no introduction. ‘Celeborn’, I said to him, ‘you are an idiot’.” Thranduil smiles fondly. “He devised a scheme by which he would meet her. He would pretend to lose one of the jewels from his hair, and come upon her whilst ‘looking’ for it, and beg her help, and so get to know her while they looked. Meanwhile, the jewel would be hidden in his sleeve, and he could drop it whenever he had felt secure that she would call upon him for a second meeting.

“Now, remember: Celeborn is an idiot when in love. The Lady saw through his plan immediately as he came upon her and her attendants, hair askew, robe tied sloppily. She feigned pity, asking him where he had been that day, but oh—a glimmer in the fold of his robes, and she plucked out the jewel as neatly as picking a ripe berry. ‘Oh,” the Lady said, ‘here is your lost ornament, found in no time. How fortunate!’ And Celeborn watched her go, and despaired, and decided he was in need of a new plan.

“Celeborn thought it would be best to ramp up the stakes. That a lost bead was one thing, but perhaps she needed a display of heroism to win her over. I suggested perhaps we ought to save her from an orc attack. He agreed, but said that perhaps it would be too difficult to find orcs for the purpose. I said that perhaps he needed to think smaller. He paused, and thought for a time, and an idea dawned on his face.

“‘Thranduil,’ he said. ‘We have younger siblings, and what do little elfings do if not wander off and get lost?’ I agreed that this was much less stupid than the plan involving orcs, and I bribed my sister and he his brother with sweets, and they agreed to hide behind a small waterfall in the King’s halls, and not to come out until Celeborn could play hero and fetch them.

“What we had overlooked was twofold: first, that this lady was a noble one, and seasoned in combat. She heard his plea for help to find missing elflings, and wished to raise the alarm. In those days, a lost elf was one that had been taken by orcs, and would not be seen again, unless you met them twisted and broken in combat. And so the Lady assumed, and was summoning the soldiers sworn to her father’s House. Celeborn fell on his knees before her and confessed the truth, and offered to lead her to the waterfall where we had instructed our siblings to hide.

“And the second thing—that an elfling bribed with sweets is an excitable elfling. They were not there. All the color dropped from all three of our faces, for we feared them lost, but we dared not summon guards for concern that the whole sorry story would come to light and embarrass us all. So we ran about the Halls, trying to look without appearing to look, unable to call their names. At the end of the day, we returned to our homes, dejected, fearing that we would need to confess, and the Lady worst of all of us in mood. But when we walked home, to tell our mothers, there were our siblings by the front stoop, playing.

“’Brother,’ my sister told me. ‘Where were you? We got bored of waiting, and left.’ I began laughing, falling to my knees, a mixture of relief and hysteria. Celeborn and his Lady soon followed. His brother and my sister thought all three of us idiots and wanted nothing to do with us for months.

He reaches for the pipe back from Wren, takes a long draw, face wry. “As it turned out, each had seen the other that first day, and the Lady was toying with him, trying to get the measure of this foreigner before she proclaimed her love—all up until his genuine distress at the actual missing elflings. They wed later that month.”

Disgustingly saccharine. His lip curls, and he finishes the glass of wine, tucking it back behind his pillow.

“Myrobalan,” he starts, and tosses professionalism away. “What is that game—bed, marry, kill? Mm—Andraste, our dear Ser Coupe, and—Cassandra Pentaghast.”

Edited 2017-11-21 02:47 (UTC)

Someone in the room, at least, has a taste for disgustingly saccharine love stories, from the ridiculous unguarded grin on Myr's face as Thranduil finishes his tale.

Needless to say he's blindsided by the challenge.

"I--what?" he sputters, expression near to wide-eyed shock as a man without eyes can get. "Maker's fragrant breath, you don't go easy, do you." He gives the glass in his hand serious consideration before knocking it back--coughs at the strength of it--then sets it aside. "For courage," a little breathlessly, "because like hell I'm not doing this--with apologies to Ser Coupe for anything she hears implying I've ever acted in contravention of Chantry law."

His tone is wry; the Circles did prefer their mages sexless. You got used to not implying otherwise around templars.

"All right. So--of course, the Prophet's both dead and wed already¹, which leaves me with an obvious option here--that I'd be an idiot to take, given Her divine Husband could rot my d--mmh!--some important parts of my anatomy off for daring. And naturally I'd like not to be a Prophetslayer, though Hessarian was forgiven in the end--but then he wasn't precisely killing Her on a lark--" He trails off into a noncommittal noise, makes a weighing gesture with both hands. "--Though there's also the option of taking vows for a highly metaphorical marriage, which hardly narrows things down at all.

"The august Seeker is a Pentaghast and therefore royalty or nobility or something, I don't know from your shem traditions of succession, but clearly I'm ineligible as a husband or prince-consort and it might even be illegal for her to marry an elf, who knows. I can't kill her without seriously hindering the Inquisition's purpose, though if she's as chronically overworked as the rest of us she might welcome the permanent vacation.

"Which leaves Ser Coupe, whom Circle rules² strictly forbid me from ever considering as spouse or paramour, but as this is a purely theoretical exercise and I'm technically apostate now besides, we'll leave that aside. I do have it on good authority³ that she is, and I quote, 'smoking hot for a woman who could put me through a wall,' which certainly weighs in favor of bedding her. At the same time, she has the truest appreciation for my own devotion to Andraste, and would surely understand my having to choose the Prophet over her--

"So I'd bed Seeker Pentaghast, very regretfully behead Ser Coupe, and then take vows as a Chantry brother for a lifetime of penance wed to the Prophet." He flashes Wren's direction a rueful grin. "Sorry, ser--but it is for Andraste.

"And since it'll be your funeral, and a funeral requires a wake, why don't you favor us with a verse of the rowdiest Orlesian drinking song you know."

Works Cited:
1. The Chant of Light, New Cumberland Edition, Ed. Divine Justinia V, 9:38 Dragon.
2. Hasmal Circle Code of Conduct, Section 3: Interpersonal Relations, First Enchanter Delfina & Knight-Commander Haring, 6:27 Steel.
3. Personal communications, members of the Inquisition, 9:43 Dragon.

Thranduil’s question — and Shivana's answer — catch her as she’s dragging the pipe back from her mouth. She chokes, sputters, distracted abruptly from the business of cataloguing answers and accounts. (Names and the lack of them.)

Even the Spire, with its own casks and vintage, preferred mages un-shitfaced. Perhaps that's to reason beyond the practical. Waving her free hand in dismissal,

"Some shem bullshit," She murmurs in Orlesian, and there’s a song for you. "I cannot translate and sing at once."

Wren warns, and it’s really more that she won’t. Intoned hoarsely, in Trade:

"There was an initiate from Val Henar,
Who’d ambition to rise high and far,
So she lifted the frock, and swallowed the cock,
of the Brother as he was confessing her.

Said she as the Brother withdrew,
'Not bad for a man, ’tis true.
But the Sister's is thicker,
And finer, and quicker,
And three inches longer than you.’

‘How divine!', the Brother acclaimed:
‘I cannot at all be ashamed,
For ’tis Andraste’s face,
That brings us closer to grace —
A fine woman sees all passions enflamed.'

When I die, pour a round on my pyre,
So the fires go hotter and higher.
If ever I’ve sinned,
It was six bottles in,
Else the Maker Made me a liar."

A slightly desperate glance for a glass to swipe. She coughs again, and gives up, glancing to the Medicine Seller. Glaweron. Whatever.

"What were you, before you were a Medicine Seller?"

Edited 2017-11-25 19:34 (UTC)

It was quite an amusing song and the Medicine Seller even had enough context of the world by now to find the humour in it (or perhaps it was just the mystery blend of herbs they were smoking). Whatever the case, it got a soft little chuckle out of him. Wren's question even moreso.

"An apprentice herbalist, of course," he said. It was an honest answer to the question, and yet the kind that didn't solve any mystery anyone actually cared to know.

He took a long hit from the pipe, surveying Beleth as he contemplated an interesting question. Or perhaps...

"A task, perhaps, for a skilled scout. To snatch a token from one of us within the next three rounds without being noticed. However, should you be discovered, you must down..."

He tapped his chin.

"...Five shots. Should you succeed, however, all of us must drink five apiece."

Beleth is quite aware that she is well and truly fucked.

She's no master pickpocket at the best of times, it's not a skill she's really ever needed. And mind foggy with alcohol and smoke, she's definitely not at the top of her game. It would be wise to pass, and take one shot as punishment, rather than attempt a doomed task and drink five.

But just like she's past pocket picking, she's also past wisdom.

"I'm a scout, not a thief," She protests with an annoyed look. "I don't steal." That's a lie, Beleth has stolen plenty, but none of it involved what the person currently had on them. "But I accept, anyway, since this isn't stealing. And I'll give back whatever I take." Terrible decision firmly made, Beleth gives a nod, then begins to mull over who she'll pick.

"Ser Coupe." She gestures to the woman. In case Wren couldn't figure out she was talking to her. "Why are you always so angry all the time? I've never seen you smile--wait, I take it back. I'm giving you the task to smile." She nods, looking quite pleased to have stumbled across this absolutely fantastic idea. And speaking of yet more fantastic ideas...

While she waits for Wren's response, Beleth slowly, sneakily (or not) begins edging closer to Myr, her face a look of perfect innocence. Once she reaches the other elf, she leans over to whisper to him. "Shhh. Myr. Myr, I'm going to steal you. No one will know." Because he's blind, get it? Perfect sense.

And then, warning giving, Beleth hops up, and attempts to scoop Myr up into her arms, to whisk him away...somewhere else? She's not sure, and she never has to find out, because while she manages to pull him up, she's promptly thrown off balance trying to carry the extra weight of another elf, and promptly falls back into the mattresses.

She doesn't seem to mind suddenly dissolving into a pile of elf, though, judging from her delighted laughter. "Ha! I was so close. Super close."

Medseller: 02, Nosy Natives: 00. Wren groans —

— And promptly recalls her attention to the room, to Beleth's question and her... whatever the girl's trying to do now. Concern briefly wrinkles her brow, sending her bracing to stand, to intervene. But by then they've already fallen, and thank the Maker (thank Thranduil) for the cushion beneath.

"You've not seen me angry," She replies, at last, like a perfectly pleasant person who doesn't say gratuitously edgy things at truth or dare sleepovers. "But if you like,"

Her lips curl. It's really only a smile in the technical sense. Certainly, it shows teeth.

"Thranduil," She's still doing it. That thing with her mouth. Nine out of ten dentists agree, it's pretty weird. "What do you dream of?"

Thranduil, amused, watches Beleth and Myr tumble about, and, for once, act their ages.

(Though that statement may well be up for debate by the other members of the room.)

He pours Beleth’s shots with a gentle hand, though not a generous one—if Glaweron challenges him, he can make sure to top them off, but Beleth is just this side of pleasantly adorable, and the smell of vomit so hard to clean from cloth. They are representing the Inquisition, after all.

“My wife,” he says, and that is more or less true. He needn’t name which one. It is Wren’s fault for asking. “My home in my wood—the Fade can only mimic, but it mimics well the underground halls we all lived in, the carven wood and stone. The paths spill out and around as I dream, and the spirits seem eager enough to mimic what I know well, so I never wander far. There is also a, ah—I think it a Pride Demon. It oft takes the form of a stag, but it is ever out of reach.”

He dreams of the Outsider, too, but he will keep that to himself. He is not sure what wears his old friend’s skin, but it has not yet come close enough to him to ask after it.

To Myr, then. He cannot torture him again, sadly. "I understand mages are not normally allowed outside. How, then, did you get bees inside your Circle?"

How lucky Myr hasn't got eyes to see what Wren's doing, else he could be thoroughly scandalized in two senses. (Not that he hasn't already committed the ditty to memory.) Instead he lies precisely where Beleth's dropped him, lolled on his back and laughing helplessly with her. "You almost did it," he manages through the giggling. "Almost. Next time."

He throws an arm over her fondly, in no hurry to sit back up even when he's asked a question. ...Even when he realizes he's been asked a question, as the only Circle mage and beekeeper in the room. He rolls his head toward Thranduil in an echo of an upside-down regard, one corner of his mouth turned up in a lopsided smile.

"Enchanter Belén would be let out to catch swarms, sometimes. Take 'em out of the city, even, if somebody was having trouble with one." A pause; he chews at his lower lip, considering. Then continues (not for him the short and simple answer): "We'd get foragers from wild hives now and again--if we'd had to, I bet we could've lured 'em in with their new queens in the spring. S'fun stuff, creation magic." A wiggle of his fingers goes with the words for emphasis.

And now it's his turn to ask a question--his turn to be tempted by the façade presented by their painted companion. Just because no one else has had any luck-- "Serah Medicine Seller--hardest truth you've ever told someone." It's like a twofer, he thinks fuzzily. A truth and a context.

There was a long silence from the Medicine Seller. For a moment, he considered telling the tale.

"I have never known truth to be easy. But the hardest to have told is not a story for such a gathering."

He poured a glass and downed the contents easily, seeming none the worse for wear.

"I do not mind telling it another time - but not here or now."

Ochou deserves better than that, he thought wryly and turned his gaze to Beleth.

"Miss Beleth, you failed your prior task. But perhaps a chance to redeem your honour and a chance for us to embark on an adventure - can you guide us safely to something good to eat?"

Beleth has been untangling herself from Myr just enough to start on her shots, and was shotgunning the second one when the Medicine Seller calls on her. Slowly, she turns to look at him, blinks, and the gears turn...oh! Food. Yes. That's a great idea.

"Yes! Yes, I'm gonna be so damn honorable, you don't even know." She finishes off the third, and decides the other two can be saved for later. He didn't say that she had to drink all of them at once. That matter settled, she hops up decisively--And with the sudden rush of alcohol to her head, promptly falls back down, just managing to avoid crashing onto Myr with all her weight. This is, apparently, hilarious, from her fit of giggling.

But she is determined, if nothing else, and rises again, this time managing to stay solidly upright. "I know this food stall. I went there with Anders. I can take you guys there." And with that, she whirls--nearly falls again--and starts off for the door, throwing it open with a grand gesture.

"An adventure. For food! Foodventure." Having made this declaration, and not bothering to see if anyone else was following her, she takes off down the hall.

Edited 2017-12-10 06:39 (UTC)

Thranduil decides that this is the point where he ought to step in before Beleth does something—he forgets, perhaps, that elven drinking (Mirkwood drinking, the Lothlorians do not carry on in this nature) might be—

Harmful.

He unwinds himself from his nest, and stands, a meaningful glance to Coupe and the Medicine Seller both as he daintily steps through the mess on the floor and makes it to the door.

“I shall be back shortly.” Beleth in tow, unshamed and unrecognized, the two going hand-in-hand, and maybe even with food. “Glaewron—I would beg your indulgence for any tea you had worth sharing.”

And hopefully be able to pour it into both the little elves and Coupe as well. They all have varying degrees of work, come the morning.

Beleth is happy enough to take Thranduil's offer of support, though her focus on it is more of an act of fondness, rather than an attempt to keep her from hurtling down the stairs headfirst. Full of quiet laughter, she rests her head against his shoulder with a squeeze of his hand.

"This is fun," It's a quiet murmur, as she leads him off to the (probably) right stall of honor and food. She knows the general area. She'll figure out which one when they get there. "Going out to bring back food, together. Like a dinner with family. That's so cute."

It's the quiet ramblings of an intoxicated person, but the emotions are genuine, at least, as she gives a quiet laugh. "Like a papa--no." A sudden frown, and she shakes her head. "That's not right. You're different. You're here, and you like me." A few moments are taken to rummage through her memories.

"Ada." That sounds better. More appropriate for Thranduil. Then she looks up, with a worried expression. "You do like me, right?"

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A SEA OF DEATH

Re: THRANDUIL

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im too lazy to find something that would rhyme in french, so pretend

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