[Open] A Proper Party

[thorndergod]

WHO: The brothers Asgard and everyone else.
WHAT: Loki and Thor throw a party for everyone.
WHEN: Right after the quarantine is lifted.
WHERE: The Asgard Estate in Hightown.
NOTES: Loki gonna Loki, probably other things. Directly corresponds to this rookery post.

The new manor has come a far sight from where it had been, cleaned and updated significantly, but the aesthetics are still in keeping with Kirkwall standard...mostly. The exterior features a large iron scrollwork fence with matching gates, currently flung wide open, and a cheerful array of fresh floral decorations. Beyond the gates there are a number of hedges, bare but thick enough that once spring has properly taken over, they will likely be shaped into large living sculptures. There are a few torches scattered among the flora, but they lead toward the front of the manor.

The building's superstructure has not been overtly altered, but there are several exceedingly Tevene touches. The front doors, once made of hardwood, have been wholly replaced by a pair extremely detailed, solid, white marble doors. The fittings are all custom made, snake themed, and plated in gold.

The interior of the building is far more obviously Tevinter styled. The floors are the original wooden, polished to a mirror shine by the staff and bedecked in places by rugs with complex woven designs and thick piles. The foyer is well lit by a series of gold, wall-mounted sconces, and a large chandelier made of serault glass with a distinctly magical light-source in the center.

The staff, all elven in matching black uniforms, are waiting just inside the threshold and are ready to assist anyone who requires it. First and foremost they will offer to take any coats and curtsy with proper depth to anyone who passes by.

There is still some construction going on, deeper in the house, but it is up the grand staircase and beyond the realm of the party. Occasional hammer-falls resound from upstairs but they can only be heard if one is being very quiet.

Comments

[hwaaaitsme]

"Really? I did tell you I was from Tevinter, did I not?" Loki asks, only mostly joking, as he rises and steps alongside her. She has drawn her hands together and he is not so rude that he would snatch one and force them apart, but her new pose allows for a more...comfortable familiarity. His hand settles at the small of her back, lights there, as he urges her forward and to walk with him, toward the center of the Hall.

"In any case, welcome to my new estate, my dear. It is a work in progress but it is becoming more and more acceptable every day. Have you sampled the work of my new cooks? They are quite good."

[elegiaque]

The only mostly part of that merits a veiled glance, quite possibly reconsidering some of the choices she's made in her life in the past hour. Like 'arriving', although it isn't as if she should be surprised, is it.

“I was busy sampling your wine,” she says, tolerating his hand—and arm, and looming more than a foot over her. She isn't, she thinks, even blowing hot and cold; lukewarm and frigid, more like, the awkward and haphazard effort to redefine what she'll generously call a friendship without what had, well, previously defined it.

It's hard to say how much it's worth it to do, admittedly. They never did settle on exactly what it is they talk about, instead.

[rowancrowned]

For him not to be aware of her presence when they are in the same room would be unnatural. But he sets it all to the side, immerses himself in admiring the catering and plucking something small and leaf-wrapped from a tray. In his defense, it is the two of them who come to him-- in his languid pursuit of the elf with more of whatever he was eating. A half step and he is in Loki’s path rather than out of his way, and he catches himself and recognizes his host all in one motion, polite interest replacing dry focus.

“What an elegant party. I suppose you are due the praise,” Thranduil says. “How impressive to have everything in order so quickly.”

“Lady Vauquelin,” he adds a moment later, for ignoring her would be too rude.

[hwaaaitsme]

His efforts to charm his ex-paramour are derailed, somewhat, by the appearance of Thranduil in his path. Strangely, however, he doesn't dismiss the man out of hand--no, he rather enjoyed their conversation and looks forward to another. Gwenaelle understands, if nothing else, that he is prone to conversation...especially those that begin with praising him.

"Thank you, I try," Loki graciously replies. "I would have preferred a bit more time to get the new staff settled but my brother was very insistent about throwing a housewarming party."

Loki doesn't remove his hand from the small of the lady's back, not as they stand idly chatting with Thranduil, but instead rests it there more firmly, his thumb stroking a quiet arc against her waist. For a moment, he debates using magic to toy with Gwenaelle a bit...but decides against it. She has never, in his experience, been overly fond of spell craft.

"Tell me, have you two met?" Loki asks and regards the woman at his side. He would introduce her again, but Thranduil already knows her family name.

[elegiaque]

“I should hope so, as you've quarters in my house,” Gwenaëlle remarks, dryly, to Thranduil—not entirely conscious of how much tension had eased out of her when they'd stopped with him, a subtle thing but harder to miss from the close proximity Loki had decided to be at.

For Loki's benefit, turning very slightly where she stands in a deliberate attempt to dislodge his hand politely, “Thranduil and I arrived in Skyhold at roughly the same time, two years ago now. He was part of my escort, when I traveled home to the Dales on the Inquisition's behalf.”

Well-acquainted, then.

“Hardie was his gift. My hound.”

[rowancrowned]

“They appear to be remarkably settled,” Thranduil says. “Your House’s livery, or a new design?”

Loki’s hand in it somewhere, he assumes—they compliment Loki’s own clothes, echo Tevinter back like the new scones on the wall, the doors. Gwenaëlle has already settled the matter of their relationship for them, but he nods anyway.

“Which I had to relinquish, much to my disappointment. Hardie is, if anything, an apology. I served as a guard of sorts. That I can be replaced by a hound…” he casts his gaze to his wine, takes a drink, an elegant moment of self-evisceration. “—well, I am a division head, now, and unlikely to find myself ousted by a dog.”

[hwaaaitsme]

"Ah, there is time yet," Loki jokes but only just. It is a bit of humor with the flavor of all upper class humor, bemused but not amusing and dry with a vague sort of overhanging threat. Loki has no designs on his office, of course, he hardly wants to be on this part of the continent, but he would be remiss if he failed to make so easy a joke.

"They are learning well, a feat I ascribe largely to the sharpness of their trainer, but they are not quite up to the whole of the task. Their clothing is...not the traditional livery of House Asgard."

They don't actually have any of that, their slaves are garbed as all slaves are and have been marked accordingly to display their owners. Loki has...refrained from marking the servants thus. He assumes the people of the south would react poorly to that.

"It shares elements, however, much like this house does with our villa in Marnus Pell."

[elegiaque]

Having failed to slip out of his grasp, Gwenaëlle tolerates this conversation with about as much grace as either of them should expect from her, which is to say: with visible, increasing boredom at the exchange of idle pleasantries.

She's never been very good at this sort of thing. There's a reason that many of the invitations that came to her when she first arrived in Kirkwall have largely dropped off—though a few optimists persist, hopefully, willing to leave the door open to opportunity—and it's mostly because she's ignored all of them, relieved to be spared the obligation. Dinner parties, garden parties, balls, galas; smalltalk and smiling behind fans and gossip and the intricacies of the Game. It is not her natural habitat, and she poorly hides her disinterest.

“And what dragged you away from that villa, Loki? I know it wasn't the goodness of your heart.”

That's not a criticism, that's an observation.

[rowancrowned]

“A trainer?” he asks. “I was not aware such a position existed. In the grand households I have known, the lord’s assistant or perhaps the housekeeper—or the cook—managed each of their spheres. Can it be so different in the Free Marches?”

Not in Gwenaëlle’s household, that which he witnessed the building of. His eyes flick over to Gwenaëlle; he smiles, a lazy, indulgent thing.

“Ah, but my lady, it was just so! I assume you wish to charm her with the story?” However he wishes to spin it. “I will certainly make use of him. How splendid it will be to have one so well-trained in my stable of academics.”

[hwaaaitsme]

"My valet, he is the head of the household staff here. He has served me for some time and I'd trust no other to whip a household into shape," Loki explains casually, but then Thranduil answers Gwenaëlle before he may. His hand on her back twitches with irritation, he has never been fond of people answering for him, but he lets it go quickly enough.

"It was at my brother's insistence, he is a kind fellow and required my aid. So...in fact, it is out of the goodness of my heart...among other things."

His hand at her waist drifts a bit, automatically. He has had enough liquor that he has forgotten their arrangement, to be friends and simply converse, and he knows how fond she is of attention to her rather glorious backside.

"I will admit," he shifts the topic easily and with a charming smile, "The weather here has made me a bit homesick, but I shall grow used to it in time."

[elegiaque]

It is a glorious backside; lovely little dimples just above it, still pert with youth and entirely no longer for Loki to put his hands all over. The gown she wears is thick enough in the skirts that it isn't really the weight of his hand that she notices so much as its absence at her back—she'd be pleased, except that he's still plainly got his arm around her.

He and Thranduil both will see it when she straightens, not entirely surprised, but mildly indignant.

“You're not going to find any of those things where you just put your hand,” she says, witheringly. “Please kindly remember that I am a lady.”

The various unladylike things she's done (sexually or otherwise—) notwithstanding.

[rowancrowned]

About to launch into pleasantries regarding the weather before excusing himself to see what the rest of the floor held, Gwenaëlle’s reaction gives him pause. She had employed him as a guard, and her distress would have been difficult to ignore even if it had not been part of his 'job' to prevent it.

“Lady Vauquelin?” he asks, nearly startled, edged with concern and turning from Loki to her. His view, as it is, has been blocked by her skirts, voluminous as they are.

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki, duly chastised, makes a show of shifting his hand back to press at her waist before retrieving it, his smile unaffected by her rebuke. He shifts his hands, trading his drink to the one he just reclaimed, and settles the other behind his back.

"I could hardly forget," Loki assures her, "but you have my apologies. Old habits."

He regards Thranduil, then, who has become a bit alarmed at Gwenaëlle's outburst and offers the elf a placating look.

"If either of you are interested, I would love to offer you a tour of the house?"

[elegiaque]

Her lips thin, and she takes a small step away from them both, dipping toward Loki an elegant curtsy that's shallow enough to be, in itself, more insulting than if she hadn't done it at all.

“The more apparent it becomes that you can only imagine one use for my company,” she says, dryly, “the less inclined I become to share it with you. Show Thranduil about your little house. Thranduil.”

Somehow, she is always at her best when piqued; it would perhaps not pay to tell her so.

[rowancrowned]

Assured that Gwenaëlle's exclamation isn’t an indicator of something truly heinous, he only inclines his head at her, lets her defend her own armor, and only watches her go briefly before he focuses on Loki, the host. He has dealt with Gwenaëlle before, but there is no masculine smirk, no raised brow, no seeking companionship in mutual exasperation, only—

“It is a large house. I would enjoy a tour, if you could be absent for as long as that took.”