faderift | closed.

The Merchant Prince, Lord Amancio Vivas, cuts a familiar profile. Very similar to both of Marisol's cousins in the line of his nose and jaw, but his mouth is far more inclined to bright smiles than surly frowns, and his facial hair is less scruff and stubble, and more a carefully grown and waxed handlebar moustache and goatee. (It's very possible that Marisol learned her respect and appreciation for hair care from her father.) The resemblance to his nephews is markable, although he is certainly the taller and more physically imposing of the three of them.

He is dressed in black, with slashes of deep green and gold, and a heavy gold chain about his neck. That is the only jewellery he wears, aside from a signet ring. A little less over the top than he daughter perhaps, though he is certainly as warm and friendly as he is watchful. The observant might notice that, for all his warmth, he certainly listens more than he speaks.

Marisol makes introductions, and though Amancio has many he must speak with, he makes a point to return. "Please," he says, holding three plates of cake, "I keep being handed slices, and Constanze will not let me hear the end of it if she sees me eat any of it."

Help him.

Lady Constanze descends from a line famed for their seafaring, invoking awe and fear across many seas. She is a quieter woman, with a sharpened focus and intensity. Her green eyes are watchful and analytical, her countenance impressive. More than one noble is silenced by a look and a slightly raised brow— but when she see her daughter and her nephews she seemed to brighten. Three kisses to Kostos and Nikos cheeks (right-left-right) and a warm embrace, as she looked them up and down.

She may even go so far as to secure a dance. Multipledances. Come along, Inquisition. Step to it.

Or wildcard some Marisol nonsense.

Edited 2018-10-19 12:08 (UTC)

Nikos avoids Uncle Amancio, the way he has always avoided Uncle Amancio, because when he was little, Uncle Amancio scared him and he has never quite gotten over being mad about that.

His size. His beard. His voice, loud when he wanted it to be loud; Nikos liked being inappropriately loud when he was younger, and always felt outdone. And he already has someone else with the same face as him, he doesn't need another one--

Which is how he ends up face to face with Aunt Stanze instead. Like a counterweight, he has been keeping on the other side of the room from Uncle Amancio, and now plucks a fresh glass of wine from a tray, for strength. He spares only a passing thought for the servant holding the tray, and his place within the great machine of wealth and power and title--which is certainly out of character, he's been burning with a faint irritation all night. But he's distracted.

And then he turns around, and there's Aunt Stanze. Constanze. On the edge of the dance floor. Shit.

Gentlemanly, he offers her the wine glass without saying anything. It's a big gesture, for Nikos.

Nikos is not her relation by blood, and for some, that would be reason enough to snub someone who had caused pain to those he is related to by blood. Stubborn and passionate in equal measure, both potentially dangerous qualities, and doubly so when combined. His failed attempt at assassination was testament to that.

Constanze does not snub Nikos. In fact, she rather likes him, and that he is so dear to Marisol only cements that. Family was rarely a matter of blood, but of loyalty. Perhaps Nikos had a strange sense of loyalty, of viewing the world, but she wasn't sure that meant his view was wrong or less valuable. They could not thrive if they clung to but one perspective, and there were times when that which challenged was to be embraced. Was that not why Ruy so loved piracy, why that wildness ran in their veins? It was defiance, it was pushing back against laws and nations that constrained and punished.

She accepts the wine with a smile that on most other people might seem less than warm. On Constanze it's positively glowing. "Nikos. It's a rare treat to see you in such a setting."

"I'm Kostos."

A joke. Not a clear joke, maybe. He says it steadily, without hesitation. And to someone who doesn't know to look for the differences, perhaps they'd be convinced. There's something like a smile in his eyes, despite everything: Nikos isn't happy, but he's happier than he was a few moments ago by a few degrees. He has always liked Aunt Constanze.

"Still rare to see at a wedding. The sentiment stands. You look rich."

Also kind of a joke. Kind of.

"Is that so? Then I suppose I will not ask you to dance. You're much clumsier on your feet than your brother."

The uninitiated might suppose she believes him. The familiar would know better, by the way her eyes crinkle with amusement.

"The secret to looking rich is to not feeling the need to be excessive." Across the room, Marisol dances with Archimede Santaniello, a man in his late sixties, whose hair was streaked with silver and fingers adorned with gold. Marisol was certainly a fan of the lavish, but Constanze had taught her that personality and gaudiness were different. For the most part, she thought Marisol did rather well at distinguishing, even if she could do with her daughter being a little flamboyant, at times.

The smile she gives Nikos is conspiratorial. "So really, you look rich as well."

The slim chance that he has fooled his aunt is eviscerated on the sharp points of Nikos' immediate scowl. Any good feeling curried by her insult to Kostos is likewise murdered.

Rich.

"Not," he tells her, in that flash of anger, "by choice. By order. And I am not at this event, by choice, when it displays and rewards and embraces the power structures and institutions that I hate." And there is Marisol, at the corner of his eye, too, looking beautiful and rich and happy on the arm of fucking Archimede Santaniello, who would probably die mid-fuck of a heart attack, so what good is he even to Marisol's stupid adherence to her duty both self-professed and imposed and reinforced by gaudy displays of wealth and waste just like this one.

Nikos grabs another cup of wine for himself from the next servant's tray. "And I don't want to dance."

Which is downright petulant, as well as partially untrue, but whatever.

She sips her wine, and shakes her head, although there is no expression of judgment or distaste. "I know," Constanze replies, "but you'd do better with your plans if you could control that temper of yours. Such things can be used against you."

Constanze takes a step forward, and corrects his collar. "If you are to fool anyone and undermine them, then you must move amongst them seamlessly. Give them no reason to believe you are not one of them, befriend them, learn about them, and then you can destroy them."

A little quirk of her brow. "And if you cannot destroy, it serves to have a hand where you can influence, while you build something better, and freer." #pirateforlife #yolohoho #freedom

Caught up in his anger, Nikos is too late to twitch away from his aunt's cool capable hands. She adjusts his collar; he barely suppresses the urge to mess it up again. At least he's grown up a little since childhood. As a child, he squirmed away from kisses, ran around corners to avoid embraces, mussed his hair with his fingers, growled like an animal, declarative in his independence. The stage is different, the cast has changed, but she is still his aunt and he is still her nephew, their roles cemented by time.

"I prefer to move straight to destruction."

He's heard lines just like hers, before. Aunt Constanze's approach is more Caspar's, and at the thought of him, Nikos' attention jumps to the room around them, scanning the crowd for Caspar.

"If you burn a building down, you can build on the ashes. The earth is often improved by it: a controlled burn, to eradicate the withered and the dead and the dying, and build anew. Instead of inhabiting the corpse, and building inside it."

"Maybe that is why you failed in your Nevarran efforts," she replies, rather bluntly. For all the bluntness, her gaze is affectionate, sympathetic.

"Then take a place within to lay down more fuel for the fire, and then depart." Constanze's head tilts, a gesture very similar to Marisol. "Are you too proud to see the merits in what I say?"

Familial love is often obligatory, habit, a grudging alliance. Marisol is the exception. Nikos would do anything for Marisol. And Aunt Constanze is too much of Marisol for him to get as angry as he would like, though her strike hits true and deep. His hands curl into fists--one at his side, one around the stem of his wineglass.

This is where Caspar would differ with her, a divergence toward the destruction that Nikos craves quicker. Convince them. Talk to them. Reason with them. And then, if it fails, destroy them. A boulder can be ground down by a steady drip of water, over the course of a hundred years. But if you wanted the boulder out of your fucking way, and you had access to a torrent of water that could eradicate the boulder, wouldn't you do it?

"We failed," he says, stiffly, "in Nevarra because we were fucking betrayed. Because our honest hope for true change was corrupted by human greed. Because Nevarra was not interested in revolution. And making nice speeches, and smiling, and simpering, would not have gotten our cause any farther."

So fuck you, he implies, but does not say outright--because she is his aunt, because she so resembles Marisol. Especially when she tips her head, just so, and gives him that look.

Edited 2018-11-02 16:38 (UTC)

Kostos is looking aside, when the offer comes, at a candelabra several yards away that has a spot of extra brightness in its halo, unnoticeable to anyone who doesn’t know to look for it. Wisps can dim nearly to nothing if they’re asked nicely. And then they can wait, and they can listen. Kostos is not expecting to learn anything more useful than what a nearby pair of Antivan men think of the food (well cooked, but perhaps too daring, with exotic dishes that would have been better highlighted and complemented by a background of familiar staples, and far too much banana for this season—) but it gives him something to do and think about besides stand in a corner and feel out of place.

He’s been to Antiva in recent years, but only to kill people, or to stop people being killed. Nothing social. Before that, when he last visited he was eight or nine, and they stayed for a while, his mother was determined that her children would know her language and her home and not belong solely to Nevarra. It might have stuck, for him, if she’d had more time before everything went to shit. But as it is he feels like a foreigner who shouldn’t be a foreigner, an extra dollop of resentful misery on top of the usual mountain of it he would bring along to any extravagant party.

Being confronted with an uncle he last looked up at from approximately waist height doesn’t help, cake or no cake—but as soon as his head has snapped around to the source of the voice and he’s had a moment to recover, he takes a plate, reflexively.

“If you stand further from the food,” he says, sounding blessedly less awkward than he feels, falling back on his default quiet impassivity, “it will probably be waylaid before it reaches you.”

A rumble of laughter, and sets a hand on Kostos' shoulder. "True enough. It's very good to see you."

He glances about to see if Constanze is lurking anywhere to swoop down to condemn his cake holding, and satisfied that his wife is not around, relaxes a little. "But you are hiding away from us. Do you prefer to observe, or are you trying to avoid awkward chitchat?"

Amancio isn't foolish, or oblivious. His daughter was in the Circle, and he has heard of the terrible things that have befallen mages. It could change any person. What happened to Keto would change a person as well; Amancio could think of little that would be more painful, than to have had an unintentional part in the death of a dear family member. His nephew seems— different than how he remembers him, in more than age.

However quiet and emotionally standoffish he might be, which is very, Kostos doesn't play to type by being shy about physical contact. Amancio's hand lands on his shoulder, and he doesn't tense or shift away from it. If anything it leaves him feeling more solid, more aware, and Amancio seeming more like his uncle, whose legs he once ducked behind to avoid talking to strange adults—a softer shyness than he exhibits now, though there were early signs of his sharp edges in the way he warred with Nikos and tried to rule over the girls once the strangers had left—instead of an enormous cake-dispensing ghost. But the only outward sign of any of it is a slightly more confident angle to Kostos' chin when he says, "Both," and begins making further arrangements for the plates of cake.

With the tiny fork accompanying the piece he's already taken, he scrapes another of the slices in Amancio's hands onto his plate, then takes the other plate to stack beneath it, leaving his uncle with a more reasonably single slice and himself with something that passes for one particularly enormous chunk of cake—overall, a slightly more dignified scene. He'll make Nell eat some, if he ever finds her again.

"We are here to represent the Inquisition," he goes on, still quiet in a way that forces people to pay attention to hear him at all, "and the last time I spoke to a nobleman without supervision, he wanted to have a duel."

closed.

SOME VIVAS FAMILY NPCS if you so desire

i desire

good

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

me too

no subject

no subject