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faderift2018-06-02 04:52 pm
faderifting) wrote in faderift2018-06-02 04:52 pm
MOD PLOT: NOT ALONE DO WE STAND, Part 2
WHO: Grand Tourney attendants
WHAT: Celebrations, slightly marred
WHEN: The last day of the Tourney, and after
WHERE: Wycome
NOTES: Reminder that brackets for all events are here!
WHAT: Celebrations, slightly marred
WHEN: The last day of the Tourney, and after
WHERE: Wycome
NOTES: Reminder that brackets for all events are here!
I. LAST CHANCE TO PARTY
After the Grand Melee draws to a close, and the Grand Tourney with it, the grounds and adjacent taverns and inns remain crowded with visitors. There's at least one more night of celebration before everyone has to return to their lives. The most raucous of it, as well as the most bragging, originates from the Free Marches, who have taken James Norrington's presence on the winning Inquisition team as an opportunity to claim victory for themselves—the fact that the rest of the winning team was made up of Rifters and a Tevinter is something nearly everyone would prefer to overlook. For many competitors, it's the first night they've been able to indulge in honored Tourney pastimes without jeopardizing their performance in events. For many spectators, it's their last opportunity for the foreseeable future to spend time with new friends from other nations and to prove who can sing their homeland's favored drinking songs the loudest.
When it comes to the Inquisition, something has noticeably shifted. The congratulations for their victories are often sincerely delivered, accompanied by questions about the war effort and what they do. Identifiable rifters and mages may find strangers sitting down next to them, rather than giving them wide and whispering berth, and asking their names. Elves are slightly less likely to be asked to go get a broom or fetch a drink. Arguments about political philosophy don't uniformly fall to one side or the other, but they are more common than they were at the beginning of the week, with heated arguments about the future of this or that nation periodically breaking out over drinks.
Even those arguments are fairly friendly and high-spirited, though, and far outnumbered by the number of less serious conflicts that break out: drinking contests, pie-eating dares, and good old-fashioned dance-offs.
II. CONGRATION YOU DONE IT
To allow time for competitors to set their broken bones and stop bleeding, the award for the Grand Melee is given the following morning, with the Celebrant presented amid fanfare to the winning Melee team. Winners and high-ranking runners-up from other events, though less loudly vaunted, are directed to a tent to pick up their prizes.
The grounds don't immediately vacate, after that, but the mood is distinctly wound-down, while merchants pack up their stalls and revelers nurse hangovers or aching stomachs overloaded with pie. By midday, people have begun remarking on a peculiarity: the prizes meant for competitors from the Anderfels remain unclaimed, and the entire delegation seems to have left in the middle of the night, likely sour grapes over their Grand Melee loss, fiercest warriors in Thedas my ass—though some speculate instead that they've all been kidnapped, or that they fled to avoid being forced to return to their own country.
III. SHIT
The rumors don't have long to percolate before the question of what happened is answered—first by Ina Hachette, a member of the Anderfels court persuaded to defect to the Inquisition, who turns up out of breath and searching for the Inquisition's leaders, and next by a curt message delivered to Inquisition sending crystals that there's a disturbance at the Orlais-Anderfels border. A big one. Invasion-sized.
It's inevitable that the news spreads—living cheek by jowl in tents is not conducive to much secrecy—and soon rumors have run wild throughout the encampment, putting an abrupt end to the festivities as everyone scrambles to gather their forces to leave. Tevinter, on the whole, is the quickest to pack its bags. Whether they know something or are only worried people will turn on them as the finger-pointing begins is anyone's guess. But if it's the latter, they're right to worry, and nearly prevented from leaving by an Orlesian-led mob convinced that they know something. The task of keeping the peace and preventing bloodshed falls to the Inquisition as much as Wycome's local guard, as the tourney dissolves into posturing and wild accusations.
When the danger of an actual fight breaking out passes—mainly once Tevinter is gone—and the crowds thin, the Inquisition's delegation is ordered to pack up and make haste on the journey back to Kirkwall.
After the Grand Melee draws to a close, and the Grand Tourney with it, the grounds and adjacent taverns and inns remain crowded with visitors. There's at least one more night of celebration before everyone has to return to their lives. The most raucous of it, as well as the most bragging, originates from the Free Marches, who have taken James Norrington's presence on the winning Inquisition team as an opportunity to claim victory for themselves—the fact that the rest of the winning team was made up of Rifters and a Tevinter is something nearly everyone would prefer to overlook. For many competitors, it's the first night they've been able to indulge in honored Tourney pastimes without jeopardizing their performance in events. For many spectators, it's their last opportunity for the foreseeable future to spend time with new friends from other nations and to prove who can sing their homeland's favored drinking songs the loudest.
When it comes to the Inquisition, something has noticeably shifted. The congratulations for their victories are often sincerely delivered, accompanied by questions about the war effort and what they do. Identifiable rifters and mages may find strangers sitting down next to them, rather than giving them wide and whispering berth, and asking their names. Elves are slightly less likely to be asked to go get a broom or fetch a drink. Arguments about political philosophy don't uniformly fall to one side or the other, but they are more common than they were at the beginning of the week, with heated arguments about the future of this or that nation periodically breaking out over drinks.
Even those arguments are fairly friendly and high-spirited, though, and far outnumbered by the number of less serious conflicts that break out: drinking contests, pie-eating dares, and good old-fashioned dance-offs.
II. CONGRATION YOU DONE IT
To allow time for competitors to set their broken bones and stop bleeding, the award for the Grand Melee is given the following morning, with the Celebrant presented amid fanfare to the winning Melee team. Winners and high-ranking runners-up from other events, though less loudly vaunted, are directed to a tent to pick up their prizes.
The grounds don't immediately vacate, after that, but the mood is distinctly wound-down, while merchants pack up their stalls and revelers nurse hangovers or aching stomachs overloaded with pie. By midday, people have begun remarking on a peculiarity: the prizes meant for competitors from the Anderfels remain unclaimed, and the entire delegation seems to have left in the middle of the night, likely sour grapes over their Grand Melee loss, fiercest warriors in Thedas my ass—though some speculate instead that they've all been kidnapped, or that they fled to avoid being forced to return to their own country.
III. SHIT
The rumors don't have long to percolate before the question of what happened is answered—first by Ina Hachette, a member of the Anderfels court persuaded to defect to the Inquisition, who turns up out of breath and searching for the Inquisition's leaders, and next by a curt message delivered to Inquisition sending crystals that there's a disturbance at the Orlais-Anderfels border. A big one. Invasion-sized.
It's inevitable that the news spreads—living cheek by jowl in tents is not conducive to much secrecy—and soon rumors have run wild throughout the encampment, putting an abrupt end to the festivities as everyone scrambles to gather their forces to leave. Tevinter, on the whole, is the quickest to pack its bags. Whether they know something or are only worried people will turn on them as the finger-pointing begins is anyone's guess. But if it's the latter, they're right to worry, and nearly prevented from leaving by an Orlesian-led mob convinced that they know something. The task of keeping the peace and preventing bloodshed falls to the Inquisition as much as Wycome's local guard, as the tourney dissolves into posturing and wild accusations.
When the danger of an actual fight breaking out passes—mainly once Tevinter is gone—and the crowds thin, the Inquisition's delegation is ordered to pack up and make haste on the journey back to Kirkwall.
iii. diplomatic mission success.
this morning, she is not complaining any more. when she returns to the tent to pack, she catches sight of his face first, )
You've heard?
( he's heard. )
no subject
[It would be hard to miss those. His few things are already packed, and he'd considered starting on hers -- might have, if she'd been much longer.]
Hopefully no one's started a brawl in the few minutes I've ducked in here?
[It's not a joke, though he wishes otherwise.]
no subject
The Inquisition will no doubt be expected to keep peace. Implicitly, if not explicitly,
( though under the circumstances, if wycome decides to make it explicit, who could blame them? they've cleaned up one orlesian mess already. )
no subject
[It's not as if he joined research because he hadn't any other skills, after all. And while he means here, at the tourney, the principle applies further.]
no subject
I'd unsay all I said of Hachette, ( she adds, glancing up. ) Orlais will move all the faster for this warning. Even so little.
no subject
[He'd been sympathetic to her complaints, but also proud of her results. This re-contextualizes them, but certainly doesn't diminish the accomplishment's hard-won nature.]
no subject
keep the peace. julius's martial prowess may come in as useful as his charm. she's enough of the latter, but precious little of the former to offer if fights truly break out. )
You've no family, there?
( northern orlais, she means. )
no subject
[The question doesn't exactly startle him, but he wasn't expecting it. He thinks of Bellerose with a small pang; he was in Val Royeaux last Julius heard, and unlikely to run off and join up. Probably. He puts the thought from his mind.]
No, I know one or two people there, but we're not in touch. This isn't a personal fight, for me.
no subject
( god knows they've no shortage of personal fights. and corypheus determined to make personal every single one of them—let's not hold our breath, she might say. there's still time for it to become.
she rests her cheek against his chest, allowing this moment of slowness. says, )
I don't even remember who won.
no subject
What, the tourney? Little wonder, considering the confused mess of people claiming the winning team. It seems like it was weeks ago, though.
[Julius can sympathize with her fatigue, and also her desire to be doing something, but he knows they'll both be of more use if they stop to take a breath.]
no subject
I pray it's not goodwill quickly squandered.
( they've struggled through so much quicksand. to build on something, ah. )
no subject
[It did sometimes seem as if the Maker was ready to intervene any time it seemed like they were making too much progress; the timing if the invasion was almost blackly comic.]
We've done good work here. This news doesn't undo that.
no subject
( her fingers twist restlessly in his robe, absent, )
We're so fractured, ( quietly. ) I'm as glad to see our outpost representing itself so well as I am to see it reflected in these faces. Perhaps some of that will hold, when we return.
( she's not as optimistic as she'd like to be, but. )
no subject
[Whether or not he believes it, he can hope so.]
Maker, as if we needed one more emergency to stretch us thin. Orlais already touchy about our interference, but our leaders can't ignore this either.