closed.

[exequy]

WHO: Caspar, Kostos, Lakshmi, Lexie, Marisol, Nell, Nikos, Petrana
WHAT: Coming into a Merchant Prince's house, on the day his daughter is to be married, and asking him and all his friends to quit with their stupid neutrality. Plus Truth or Dare.
WHEN: Mid-Harvestmere
WHERE: Antiva City
NOTES: Will update with CWs if needed.

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

"Dare, naturally," is Alexandrie's drawled response from her half-repose on the sand, one of the bottles of pilfered wine dangling from her hand. Her smallest finger is raised daintily as if such a thing could entirely counteract her skirts being tucked up to her knees to avoid them being soaked as she wandered in the shallows on their way here, the long curl of her copper hair that has entirely escaped the upsweep of her coiffure.

"The truth makes me come down with spots."

[exequy]

Kostos’ contemplative look is unnecessarily prolonged, because she’s pretty and because he’s rifling through his imagination for something relatively unlikely to cause anyone to slap him. Slapping can come later.

“Contact the Provost and the Scoutmaster,” he says, eventually, extracting his own sending crystal from his shirtfront to wave it lazily in illustration—not in offering, use your own—“and ask them the length of their hair and their feet, in inches, and how to spell their names. And never tell them why you need to know.”

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie retrieves her own crystal from where it's tucked comfortably, clears her throat slightly, and goes about having the requested conversations with first the Provost, which could not possibly have gone any better, and then—after taking a moment—with the Scoutmaster, who apparently needs her beauty sleep. Ah well.

"As I have been instructed by our esteemed Scoutmaster to direct my inquires to you," she says, lightly indicating Kostos with her bottle, "it appears I shall need to know the precise length of your foot. In inches." The corners of her smile twitch slightly with amusement, she pauses to take a drink, and then: "Well and so. Have I satisfied you?"

[ipseite]

It is probably the wine—

“I daresay someone is satisfied this evening,” very quietly.

[galvanising]

What is even the point of being that tall if there's no [ she gestures vaguely from where she lies, flat on her back and one hand grasping at the air, searching for the word ] proportionality? Kostos is better value for height. Inches for inches. Whatever.

But good show, Lexie. [ golf clap ] You choose who's next.

[exsecutus]

"Yes, this is what I wanted to hear," Nikos says, from a patch of sand adjacent, "jokes about my brother's dick. Fantastic."

His voice is a little distorted given that he is also laying on his back, and has drank a small lake's worth of wine tonight. These are also the reasons for why he does not get up and walk away.

But seriously, gross. He makes a sick cat kind of noise up at the night sky: blearckg.

"Hurry up and fucking choose, Lexie."

[coquettish_trees]

Lexie, who is looking disastrously intrigued by the suggestion of such a set of value rankings, waves her little book at Nell who honestly probably cannot see what she's doing.

"What if we were to simply begin to write down a list of ratios in... mon Créateur, it could be a cypher! Ah, but then we should have to beware the incursion of toothsome Venatori agents and—ah, yes." She stops, finally, to nod and gesture widely with the utmost respect that she can gather at the moment towards Lakshmi.

"Bai Saheba! Shall we have candor or caper from you?"

[exequy]

Kostos—catlike in a different way—stretches his hands above his head and settles a little deeper into the sand, very satisfied yes thank you, and verges on a smile, which only the more directly overhead of the two moons is privy to, because he’s drunk.

But drunk or not, he has principles and/or the appearance of them to maintain, so after a moment he rolls himself up to sitting, grasps around in the sand until he finds something damp and seaweedy, and extends an arm with dignified inattention to drop it onto Nell’s abdomen.

For talking about his dick in front of his brother and his cousin.

That’s all the revenge he needs, though, because anything that bothers Nikos is a little bit worth it, and because there are more important things to focus on, like what happens when an Orlesian noble plays this ridiculous game with a rifter queen.

[shri]

Young people play such ridiculous games, though it's mostly a fond thought with her toes in the sand. Given up on shoes here, and there's a relief for it, enjoying digging them into the ground. So she only has half an eye on it to briefly understand the rules. Pick one or the other. Do whatever nonsense they ask. She pauses with the wine on her lips, eyes sliding over the distance, half mad with the sea air, watching them move about with a certain interest and -

Oh, they were talking to her. Right, yes, that. She clears her throat and picks like throwing blind.

"Dare."

[coquettish_trees]

"Then," Lexie dimples at her, her eyes dancing with happy mischief, "I exhort you to deliver to us a profound and heartfelt instructive sermon about the immutable masculine virtues of being clean-shaven," Has anyone not heard the Rani of Jhansi on the network?

"You are a marvelous orator, I expect it to be passionate enough that all the hair on our fine companions faces falls off immediately to obey your desires."

[shri]

What?

She blinks, confused for a second. For certain she'd have something else in mind that wasn't completely ridiculous. Her mouth opens, shuts, waits.

Takes another sip of wine.

"Just... to this company?"

[coquettish_trees]

"Mais oui, I should never ask you to betray your most dearly held feelings in the greater public sphere." Lexie sits up abruptly and points about the company with her bottle, her face a study in gravitas, "Not a word of this to any other soul, mes amis, we are bound together now in a sacred trust. Take what you hear in the following moments to your pyres and, I pray you, remain silent upon it even after as you gaze adoringly upon the Maker at his side."

She drinks with the same focused intensity as the previous was delivered in, and then flops back down to the sand with a bright cheerful smile and gestures a 'well, go on!' to Lakshmi.

[shri]

Oh if Lexie doesn't get a look for that. One that promises, later on, when the opportunity presents itself, you are going to get it. But as for now -

She picks herself up off the ground, smoothing her hands over her dupatta, fixing it against her hair and flicks the hair she's given up on keeping away over her shoulder. She's sure it makes a dramatic sight, all billowing in the sea breeze. Pfft.

Still, she felt perfectly ridiculous, as she stands there, trying to remember her lessons. Because whilst Lexie might insist she well crafted at speaking, she was sure she most certainly wasn't. Especially now they were expecting it. So she closes her eyes, takes a long, deep breath as she presses her hand's palm to palm, bowing over them respectfully, and it has less to do with them so much as giving her the time to think of what she's going to say.

( It is so dreadfully tempting to cheat. It wasn't her fault if they didn't understand Marathi, was it? But. No. Best not. )

When she opens her eyes - they are her soldiers and this their battlefield, her gaze direct and sharp like she meant to cut. "It is when a boy grows his beard, that he has declared himself a man. It is a man that faces, for himself, for his love, his family, his faith and King, every ill that might come in life. The becoming of something which is truly mighty, a man willing to be brave no matter how fear might strike them. He has accepted his responsibility to his people, his community. So what then is a man without one?"

She pauses, a little break for the all-important drink of her wine, that she tilts her head back to down it in one, and then throws the cup - so very dramatically - into the sad in front of her with the burn of the drink on her throat. Lets it fill her voice. "He is a man who is beyond the reminder. Like a priest's cuts his hair to put away the earthly vanity, like Rani Padmavati put herself into the flames, they are as Arjuna when Krishna revealed the truth of the universe. He is a man who has realised beyond his duties, he is a man who has realised himself. No longer has that man the need to hide behind his trappings. He meets his death with the surety that whatever might come, he has commended his soul higher and no longer walks with fear. The soul needs no dressings, and when that is itself known, what need that man need no longer seek a coat against the cold - "

A deep breath, a parting of her hands, her face tilted up. "And that man, that man is one who will live eternal."

She finishes her - ridiculous, completely idiotic, and not drunken enough for this - speech with a flourish of her hands.

An effect that is utterly ruined when she drops the visage away and blurts out far more irritated than anything she'd just said a minute ago: "Don't you dare shave your faces, you will look like a pair of boys that don't have a day between you."

[exsecutus]

There is first a lot of talking, easy to lose and ignore under the sounds of the surf, and then: the speech begins. As the orator's voice rises, Nikos lifts his head off of the sand in that awkward way where you refuse to sit up properly but still want to know what is going on. She is something to look at. Inspirational. Perhaps it is the moonlight.

The speech goes on. There are so many words, and names. And it goes on. Nikos--who has listened to thousands of speeches, and sleeps, regularly, with a speech-maker--begins to go cross-eyed.

"What the fuck." Someone else might say it in an undertone. He says it in a normal tone. If it helps, he is smiling a little, having already buried Nell's joke and moved on to be amused by an impassioned speech on beards. Or the lack thereof. Maybe it is about beards? "What are you fucking talking about. Someone tell me what the dare was, I forgot. Talk us to death?"

[ipseite]

"Inspired and inspirational," Petrana says, over her drink, trying with some difficulty not to laugh.

Then, "But perhaps if only one were to bare his face-"

[exsecutus]

"Kostos."

Immediate nomination. Pleased that he got the first word, Nikos lets himself relax back in the sand, wiggling a little to work himself into his former comfortable position.

"That's the next dare."

[galvanising]

"I'd no idea beards were such serious business," says Nell, once she's done grappling with the heap of slimy, sandy seaweed Kostos dumped on her, which promptly got caught in the embellishment on her dress. When it's free she lobs it up into the air behind her, knowing it has a good chance of landing on someone, no telling who. "They would look strange without them. I can hardly picture it."

"Lakshmi, who do you choose to go next?"

[shri]

Lakshmi goes to liberate that seaweed from Nell, almost the second she's free of it. Gathering it up in both hands to stomp over to Kostos -

- And dump it straight onto his head. There. They were now even.

That done, she dusts off her hands and marches back to her seat, flopping down and reaches for whatever bottle of wine was closest. Putting it to her lips. Tempting as it was to pick Nikos in repayment. Hrmm.

"Madam Petrana. If you will."

[ipseite]

Although she's still laughing, a little, at the sudden application of seaweed to gentleman (by a loose definition of the word), that doesn't mean she doesn't (smilingly, mildly) correct Lakshmi, “de Cedoux,” while she mulls over this prompt. It would probably not be unreasonable to consider oneself on first name terms with people one is playing a drunken game of truth or dare with on the beach, and yet.

She's unbent far enough to participate, that's plenty: “...truth?”

No one's taken that one yet, though there's always time for punking out and asking for a dare instead.

[exequy]

Kostos—who is not shaving, even though Lakshmi's speech, even with the words he didn't know mixed in, was enough to make him touch his own jaw with absentminded consideration before he realized he was falling for it and refused—accepts the deposit of seaweed with dignity. Scowling dignity, but still. He lets it droop and drop off of his head on its own, without starting or shaking it free, and only then raises a hand to straighten his slightly slimy hair.

"Daring," he adds, to Madam de Cedoux's selection. She might be the first.

[coquettish_trees]

There is a brief sound of mourning from Alexandrie when the seaweed finally drops off of Kostos's head.

"Do replace it, it was terribly fetching," she remarks sidelong before turning the fullness of her attention to Petrana, who has chosen the unthinkable.

[shri]

"De Cedoux." She corrects herself with a nod and pressing on - wiping her hands off from the mess of seaweed, fishing for her cup of wine most for out of the sand where she had tossed it.

"Do tell us the most wretched, terribly unforgiving, absolutely scandalous thought you have had this evening about the party."

[exequy]

That's a good one, for Petrana. Based on what he knows about everyone else in attendance it would be a terrible question for everyone else, because they wouldn't need the compulsion of the game to say something wretched, but for her he'll incline his head with interest and wait with nearly undivided attention.

The small sliver that is divided is dedicated to scooping the seaweed up out of the sand and slinging it toward the rest of the group, mostly at random. Maybe a little bit aimed at Nikos, but not with much dedication or talent.

[ipseite]

The tone she takes is almost apologetic, as if suspecting that this may not be as satisfyingly salacious as they might hope for, but her answer comes promptly, needing little thought beforehand:

"I am often in the habit of recalling in great detail those who believe themselves above petty matters such as desiring not to see the world reshaped in a monster's image."

(She keeps lists. All sorts of lists, exclusively written in a language from her own land of origin.)

"One never knows when one might have the opportunity to show such a person the same consideration they offer."

Your cry for help was seen at 8:45PM.

[galvanising]

"That cannot possibly be the worst thing you've thought all night," Nell objects, with conviction. "That's not even bad! That's just fair."

She rolls up onto an elbow and cranes her neck around, trying to find the source of Petrana's voice so she can fix her with a look. "You know I have the utmost respect for you, Madame, but there's no way that answer can count. At least offer some gory detail of how you'd see them dead, or something!"