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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.
gwenaëlle baudin
Shortly after the scene above:
Once he's near enough not to have to shout but not so near he'll startle her:]
Mlle. Baudin. Do you need any assistance?
[She looks as if someone deserves a thrashing, but under the circumstances, it's unclear who the look is aimed at.]
no subject
Thank you, ( frowning, though not at him. ) No. I—
My lord is my lord, as ever, there's nothing remarkable about any of it.
no subject
Many things can be both unremarkable and unfortunate at the same time. I don't mean to pry, you just...
[...looked as if you could give him somewhere to channel his irritation? Maybe not quite, but still.]
no subject
Well, we've this invasion now, since we apparently didn't have enough to fucking consider.
( and that is much less a change of subject than she wishes it was. )
no subject
But it is only her father, hardly worth the long-striding walk to get to her, and he slows. This is normal, somehow.
And she hardly needs him, with Hardie there, under her hand. The support he would offer her is not suited to public display, not yet.
“Comte,” he says, when he is close enough, because it isn’t as if he could walk away—he is too incongruous for that, tall and elven and familiar to the man—for her sake or Iorveth’s. To Gwenaëlle: “Iorveth is in the healers’ tents. I thought to bring him some of his things.”
A chance to bring the conversation inside.
no subject
What more is there to say. He had known months ago—years ago, murmured into Guenievre's hair in the dark—that she would not bend. He is not surprised when she does not, now.
(He wishes—but he is surrounded by the ash and dust of all his other wishes. It is done.)
The smile Emeric turns on Thranduil is flawless; his eyes uncomfortable to look at. He says, “Do you know,” conversationally, “I rather think that in another life, even Anne might have taken to you in time. Guin wrote me the irony of it all. The veriest lesson in being careful for what we wished.” In all respects but the most pressing, Thranduil is nothing if not exactly what they had tried and failed to groom her for, but ah: those most pressing flaws.
He grips Thranduil's elbow briefly, in what might have been companionable if they were any other men. He says, “You won,” and claps his hand there, once, lets go. “Best of luck.”
And he means it, the bastard. If Thranduil is all his daughter will have, then may the Maker watch over them both.
Quietly, her arms folded: “Will you fuck off.”
no subject
Emeric is graceful in defeat, and Thranduil only inclines his head, a brief gesture of grace and quiet acceptance, humble in his downcast gaze.
Gwenaëlle speaks, and he looks at her, quick as anything. No, there will be no meaningful conversation here, no reconciliation, and he caught enough of the argument not to want to pick for more details. Men do not age with dignity. There is no dignity to senility and a weakened body. If Emeric wishes to choose his own end, and hasten it because he has lost his daughter, better this than drink.
“You have my thanks,” he says, and he considers his promise satisfied.
no subject
It's still difficult not to snap at him again, simply because he's in front of her. She could explain, but it seems as if he's heard enough, and doesn't need her to—
If she can't fight with him then she'd go to him, and she can't do that either, and for a lack of any alternatives her expression twists, ugly and unhappy, and she turns on her heel to go inside the tent. He will be behind her, no doubt; will find the anxious energy in her fingers set to gathering up some of Iorveth's belongings, like he'd said.
She clenches her fist around the fabric of a shirt and makes herself smooth it out again.
no subject
“Do you wish to speak of it?” he says, and he wonders if he ought to test his glamour to the point of seeing if he cannot soundproof their tent. He thinks he might be able.
Speak of it, or yell, or perhaps she wants Morrigan, or Romain, or Yngvi, even—he will fetch them for her if she asks. He risks a step closer, reaches out his hand, settles it on her waist, expects her to whirl around and begin saying all the things to him she could not say to her father.
no subject
She whirls; collides with him, stops. The hand that had been clenched in fabric curls around his elbow, her forehead pressed to his chest, brows drawn together and eyes tightly closed. A hundred things she might say, but no one she would prefer to say them to—and she can't manage any of them, taking a breath that makes her shoulders shudder. That has her fingers curling tighter, convulsively; possessive and dependent both.
She thinks to make him promise he'd never—but it dies unsaid. He can't promise her that, not as Corypheus's shadow stretches further and darker. He, at least, would have more hope of returning; any.
He doesn't seek death.
“I don't care,” terribly quiet and muffled by his shirt besides, “what he does.”
no subject
No; he does not seek death. The idea is still foreign to him. Even coming close will not bring him into contact with the hardness of it, as much as he has accepted the abstract of falling, and not getting back up.
Emeric will be smart about the arrangements to provide for her, and he is glad of that. He has no way to keep her as she is accustomed even with Solas’ intentions making anything past the next decade or so irrelevant. But she deserves what she knows. He says, “Do you wish to see Iorveth, or stay until the camp is broken down?”
no subject
He still lives, for now. What right has he to do this to her. And what right has Orlais, to keep taking and taking and taking—
Some things they still have. This, and tomorrow, and what she wants to do is stay precisely where she is and not make any decisions or think very hard about anything or be let go of, but what she does when he prompts her is pull back, push her hair from her face, shake herself a little as if shrugging this off will be that easy.
“No, I'm fine,” she says, and it's not avoiding his gaze when she says it if she's turning away to look for her own clothes, a comb, to dress and go with him. “Of course we should—take Iorveth his things. You were in the middle of something, we should do that.”
no subject
The comb, though, that he reserves for himself, when the bag is full, and she is dressed. Then, he sits on the bed, and gestures for her to join him, her back to his front. He cannot braid as well as Iorveth, but he can flatter her well enough.
“I was frightened for Iorveth near the end,” he admits to the quiet of the tent.
no subject
"Now he's a champion twice over," she says, a hand coming up beneath her hair and curling around the back of her neck. She'd tilt and stretch, if not for the need to let him work. "I missed the grand melee, I didn't see."
It seems a safe assumption it was bad if Iorveth is actually with the healers. He seems like a man inclined to walk off a head wound.
"It's all a bit obscene now."