Player Plot | From Tevinter, With Love

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Alexandrie, Benedict, Byerly, Fifi, Hanzo, Isaac, Loki, Merrill, Romain, Thor
WHAT: A diplomatic dinner and mysterious murder most foul
WHEN: Mid-Harvestmere
WHERE: the Asgard estate in Hightown
NOTES: OOC Poast, CW: rich people being garbage, elf related racism, other updates to come as they apply!

In the wake of the events in Minrathous, there has been a great deal of reshuffling of power and alliances both within the Imperium and between those within it and the surrounding powers. A particularly well-off Laetan merchant by the name of Flavius Aurelius is one such alliance shuffler. He has holdings in the south along the border and a number of cross-country trading caravans and has made overtures of aid in getting Inquisition personnel into (and around) the country in exchange for protection against having his lands occupied and used to do the precise opposite of what he's offering.

This is a rather good deal for the Inquisition, especially since it involves more risk on his part than theirs, and so all attempts are to be made to convince him that he'll be a valued member of the cause. By his countrymen in particular, who may enjoy particular success in doing so for a variety of reasons. Thus, the Tevene contingent of the Inquisition—as well as diplomatic representatives from Ferelden, Orlais, and a wayward Dalish elf—find themselves in the position of doing this due diligence, in the hopes that this will make things go smoothly—better than smoothly if possible—at the meeting established for the next day to discuss terms.

What better way than a small dinner party?


[ ooc: toplevels will be added beneath as they happen! ]

Comments

Earlier in the Day

[coquettish_trees]

Everything is in order for Aurelius's arrival. With the brothers having taken up positions in the Inquisition that necessitate more work and Alexandrie now far more often in residence at her paramour's home than her own, she has taken up the work belonging to the lady of the house. If there is a bit of Orlesian influence along with the Tevene in the way the flowers have been chosen and arranged and the manner in which the table is laid, well, she's never been one to avoid indulging herself. It is however, on the whole, a picture perfect and precise setup for a small intimate dinner for a guest of Aurelius's social standing that one wishes to honor.

Once Benedict arrives looking properly dashing she leaves everything in his care, and excuses herself along with Fifi, once she'd finished with her friend—they were cute, and Alexandrie was feeling kindly—to get ready before anyone arrives.

[ooc: for your arrival and preparation threads and anything you'd like to do/discuss before our guest of honor shows up]

hanzo | ota

[eruit]

It takes Hanzo a little while to get ready. It's been a long time since he went to anything resembling a proper Tevinter dinner party - almost more than a decade, now, adding in his time with the Inquisition. He has to take care to adjust his grooming, to reshape his face, to clean himself up and to hide the dangerous circles that rest under his eyes. He has to dress better - in proper, formal attire - and he has to make sure his spirits are quiet.

He shows up a little earlier than he was told to do, looking better. His bow is with him, but he is more than willing to allow it to be placed somewhere safe - and close - for the duration of the dinner. What is most obvious, to those that know him, is that he actually looks like a proper Tevinter Magister; he is standing taller, his hair is tied properly, his golden tie firmly in place.

He looks dangerous and he's well aware, even with his tattoo covered.

Until the dinner starts, Hanzo settles himself on the edge of the gathering, jaw tight and expression set. He is here because it is in his best interests to know what is happening with Tevinter and because it is best for him to keep an eye on Benedict, too, despite the circumstances.

[wythersake]

Cheerfully, under his breath:

"You look like a prat." Isaac adjusts one of his own sleeves (shabby beside a duke, but aren't they all?) to briefly sweep in. "Pretend you want to be here."

He's hardly alone in disdaining circumstance, but glowering like a gaudy statue in the corner is only so charming.

[altusimperius]

It takes Benedict a little while to finally shake Flavius (so revoltingly surnamed with his own father's given name), and it's with a sneer of distaste that he steps over to Hanzo, as much for cover as for anything else. "You look the part," he says, in a tone that suggests he is either playfully joking or.. very much not.

[thorndergod]

Thor joins Hanzo on the side, giving the man a smile and approving nod. Subtle he is not. But at least it looks like a warm greeting rather than anything else.

"You look the part," he says simply before gesturing at the bow. "Would you like that to be in our weapons room? I've a case for my favorite staves. It is enchanted and secure."

Why the man brought a bow while trying to actually look like what he is escapes Thor... but he will not push. Hanzo is not a man who seems entirely secure in who he is. Questions may only shake the face he's putting on.

for Merrill

[untiltheyarent]

There isn't much Fifi has in the way of fine clothes-- most of her nicer dresses were lost in the various perils on the way from Val Royeaux to here-- but she asked Merrill to bring the finest thing she has, and failing that, there's always something borrowed from the ever-magnanimous Alexandrie.

When Merrill arrives, Fifi greets her with a grin and beckons her away from the door, toward the stairs to the servants' quarters so they can prepare.

[chainlightning]

There aren't many pieces that Merrill has that most people would consider fine - or 'civilized', for that matter. She has a green dress from the ball in Orlais, though, the one that Martel had insisted she have - and she has a few accessories, both from that ball and from her travels, that she thinks might work. Her staff is not one of those accessories, but she brings it anyway. It's a Tevinter estate and she is not going to be the only mage without a staff.

Any worries about that are forgot, however, when she shows up and meets Fifi. She grins back and follows her, free hand fiddling with the silver locket around her neck.

"It's funny how similar the houses in Hightown look," Merrill muses. "The Hawke estate is fairly similar."

for Loki

[thorndergod]

Things have been tense. Civil, but tense. They've fought before, certainly, but it's never been over something so huge as loss.

Some days Thor feels it's fine to have a distance. Loki has always been... well. Thor has lost track of the times his brother has attacked him or had him attacked. If they're cool toward each other than Loki's mood is less likely to burst into flames and spur him into yet another attack.

On the other hand, Thor misses their former closeness. They don't see eye-to-eye on so many things, but Loki his his brother and he loves him. This hand, these feelings, wind up winning out so on the afternoon of the party he seeks out his brother, searching for the right words to say.

"Is this an acceptable time to speak?" Those probably aren't the best words, but he feels them a decent start.

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki has watched as they prepare for the party, has drank lightly in boredom and considered reading only to abandon it. He has not had much call to be merry since their return and, thus far, doesn't really see the appeal beyond the necessity of this man's appeasement.

When Thor approaches him, he is holding a glass of white wine in one hand and staring out the windows over the bay. He turns to his brother and, rather than grant him a snarky response, considers how to answer.


"I suppose so."

I. Here's a Health to the Company

[coquettish_trees]

In the evening, Flavius Aurelius arrives. He's a well-dressed and slightly rotund fellow with a really quite glorious mustache and the both the exacting air of a man who knows the precise value of everything he sees—and of the proposition that has brought him to Kirkwall—and the self-important air of a man who expects to be catered to because of that proposition, with a little smugness added by having that catering done by a house quite above his station. Being a wealthy merchant, he's brought a number of gifts for the house with him that will go quite well with dinner; a crate of fruits that are no-longer easily importable, a few bottles of particularly good wine from Vyrantium, and one of brandy that's absolutely impossible to get outside Marnas Pell (he knows his audience).

Once all are seated save Alexandrie, who has decided to make one of her favourite entrances between the first and second courses as it requires everyone to stand up in the middle of dinner and watch her fall over herself in beautiful apology, and service of the first course—a rather beautifully plated savory soup—is complete, Aurelius proposes a rather long and windy toast to the liberation of Tevinter from this new threat through the joint efforts of its still proud and defiant people and the Inquisition.

It's really a very good soup.

The quality of the conversation, on the other hand, depends on its participants.

[ ooc: one thread for this! ]

[bouchonne]

Somehow, in the spirit of their new alliance (and in the spirit of not getting hurled out of this hideous house before the meat course), Byerly swallows his questions about whether it counts as a liberation when it seems mostly like removing Corypheus from Tevinter would be like tearing a favored doll out of the arms of a spoiled child. No, he's behaving himself today. And so, after that toast, he rises to his feet and proposes one of his own.

"Another drink. Nothing so lofty as yours, esteemed Flavius Aurelius - but I'd like to propose a toast to our dear hostess and her impeccable eye." He lifts his glass ceilingward, to where Lexie is no doubt waiting to make her appearance at just the right moment. Perhaps she's even listening in. "In all my days, in all my life, I have never seen a Tevinter home look as lovely and appealing as it does now."

All right, he's sort of behaving himself.

[altusimperius]

Ever gracious, Benedict rolls his eyes when Byerly proposes a toast, but raises his glass as well. It would be untoward not to, even if he despises nearly everyone here.

II. Once Upon a Drugged Up Dream

[untiltheyarent]

The conversation has lulled, but in an unnatural way: people are simply trailing off out of their sentences to stare, trancelike, into the aether. At least one person got up and left quite abruptly-- was it Benedict?-- and-- when was that? The light has changed, the shadows creep and jolt, and each guest knows the others are near, but something is terribly wrong.
Perhaps it's difficult to move from one's position prone on the floor. Perhaps they stagger through an endless hallway with no memory of where they're going or how they got there. Perhaps they're still at the dining table, now-empty aside from themselves, as the candlesticks wobble and dance before their eyes. Whatever the case, there's no accounting for the screams and panicked rambling in incoherent voices, the thuds and scratching and sounds of struggle, the feeling of total dissociation.

And then there are the sights.

Hanzo

[untiltheyarent]

A muscled youth disappearing around a corner, his gait proud and strong: the cut of his clothing is similar to Benedict’s, but the wrong coloring, the wrong house. His footsteps echo down the adjacent hallway, and as he turns the next corner-- is this one big square?-- Hanzo can glimpse a flash of verdant green atop the man’s head right before he disappears again.

[eruit]

The only thing that Hanzo can feel is horror, seeing the familiar shape, the turn of the body, something that makes nausea curl in his stomach and panic flood him. He tries, slowly, to push himself to his feet - he knows the clothing of an Altus, an heir, second in command, and he knows that green hair as well as he knows his own dour features. He rushes, chasing the echo, eyes narrowed.

It cannot be him. This must be a trick.

Merrill

[untiltheyarent]

A man enters the room who wasn’t here before: another elf, one perhaps easily mistaken for a servant if not for the vallaslin clearly writ across his face and the decidedly Dalish cut of his clothing. He looks around a moment, turns to Merrill, and smiles, approaching her with arms wide.
Tamlen has been here the whole time, waiting for Merrill to find him. He hasn’t aged a day, nor has he apparently suffered or endured anything that would pull the light from his eyes.

[chainlightning]

Tamlen. Merrill is up and out of her seat as soon as she sees him, gasping loudly. It's been years but here he is - not dead, just missing, maybe he went through to the Crossroads-

There is no hesitation, no thought that he ought to look different. There is only joy, sheer joy; she embraces him readily, sniffing into his neck. I am not the last.

"Tamlen- you're here, you're alive!"

...Creators, I'll have to tell him.

Isaac

[untiltheyarent]

The room is turning, and there are no longer any guests in it save for Isaac-- it’s possible he was unconscious for a time, but either way, as he looks at the table he’ll find that it is lengthening before his eyes. The room stretches impossibly, the ceiling swimming above him, disrupted only by the appearance of an elven servant who runs in and claps her hands to her mouth in alarm. She remains at a steady distance despite the fluctuating of the table’s length, her wide eyes turning to meet Isaac’s as though hoping for an explanation.

[wythersake]

Isaac grips the edge of the table with sweaty palms, lifts his head from its steady bob toward the soup. The others are gone by now — pupils blown, couldn’t say where they went — and his neck itches like a fire. It’s just him and,

Calliope?

No, that’s stupid. Too young (wrong country). Too poisoned (the others).

"I need your help," If she’s in on this, getting himself quietly strangled is a quick way to find out, but that doesn't strip the alarm from his voice. If she isn’t there, "Please."

It’s always in the fucking wine, so what was it? Perhaps he’ll remember later, the unwelcome clasp of skin-to-skin. Presently he’s a bit preoccupied. Isaac shifts up, and reels. Okay. Standing now. You can do that, you know how to stand. You're good at standing.

Whatever this is, it’s not as fun as wyvern venom.

Thor

[coquettish_trees]

...This isn't your house. Is it? Everything looks wrong. Where are the slaves, silent and omnipresent? Who are these figures at the table? Their faces stretch darkly, the world bending in a way that all at once seems both entirely unbelievable and entirely true, and a distant part of you can remember this. Can remember the bitter taste. This is some sort of poison, or a drug. The thought slips away. The taste again, and the return of the memory. This is some sort of poison, or a drug. Gone again as soon.

But your body is trained, and remembers enough to recognize that the particular tension in it means there’s a threat in your house—in your house—the unmistakable sound of violent struggle raging even now in the hall.

[thorndergod]

They attacked his city, and now they've followed him even here? There's an anger he's been feeling since the events in Minrathous, pushing down, mostly swallowing, but it rises to the forefront now. There is no peace. There will not be any peace until they are eliminated and no longer able to threaten his family ever again.

Thor charges into the hall, lightning glimmering around his fists. A staff is nice, but he doesn't need it to send a burst of electricity into the nearest masked assailant - Orlesian, of course - and watch them crumble into dust. That doesn't make sense, that... There's a threat. He has to fight the threat. But as a mage he knows to question things and there's something wrong here. There may be demons afoot.

Loki

[coquettish_trees]

Ah. This. The light feeling of disorientation—light, at least, for those who have over the years inured themselves to this particular substance as a consequence of their work—the shifting of shadow, the distinctive bitter taste far at the back of the mouth that lags behind the consumption of the poison itself. A favourite at parties, assuming what one enjoys at parties is brief and deadly chaos caused by those who'd imbibed it to violently hallucinate friends to foes and fears. Sometimes staircases to foes and fears.

And, suddenly, perhaps, it tastes a bit less bitter and a bit more like opportunity... albeit no more than an hour or so of it. That's both the deficit and charm of Discordia; it quickly leaves the dregs of wine, the cooling meal, the body of the afflicted with no trace left behind it. Although, in a room full of powerful mages, an hour is usually enough.

For now they’re still in the beginnings of it, the few precious minutes where everything slows while the poison takes hold. Those few precious minutes where lucid memory will gap and fuzz later. Benedict looks worst off, his eyes already entirely glazed. Isaac looks very nearly unaffected, and everyone else is somewhere in between.

And then there goes Benedict, up and out suddenly in some unknown distress—who’s to say what little horrible world it’s helped him dream for himself. The others are likely to follow soon...


[ happy satinalia, time’s a-wasting! ♥ ]

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki knows the taste of this particular poison, the lilt of it that coats the mouth in a light sheen of brief insanity. It is a delightful little concoction and one he has employed on more than one occasion though--he realizes as he watches Bene rise and bolt from the room--not when in the presence of quite so many mages.

He debates, for a moment, what he should do. There is opportunity here--the chance to exact some revenge or some murder. He could stab Byerly, or Thor, or Bene if the mood strikes him...and claim insanity with the rest of them. Unfortunately he actually owns a considerable amount of Discordia and has it here at this estate. An investigation would be...inconvenient.

So, in an odd turn of events, he is charged with preventing too much mayhem. Or at least preventing Bene from setting his estate aflame.

He rises, his own affect played up in the dramatics of his stance, and chases after Bene at a sudden run. It would not do to appear entirely immune, particularly if he is.

Byerly

[coquettish_trees]

They’re whispering behind you again. Quiet laughter accompanies it this time. It’s not real. No-one is there. You know this because it’s only a few steps from this chair to the wall, and you know this because this is not unfamiliar happenstance (although usually self-induced rather than unceremoniously gifted), but it’s still every bit as viscerally real as it is deniable.

Someone gets up, but it’s too fast to tell who. Another, but it’s too slow to focus on properly.

There’s a quiet feminine sob somewhere over the same shoulder as those damnable voices. They must be in the same place (nowhere. They aren’t anywhere, because they aren’t real, are they?) because at the sounding of it the laughter shifts and darkens in tone. Becomes cruel.

Romain

[coquettish_trees]

There's something wrong with your hands. They aren't yours. Or, rather, they are, but not as they have been in many years. They are the lineless hands of a younger man in the prime of his life. Sturdy, sure, and covered with blood in the smeared and messy way that rises from attempting to wipe them clean on a surcoat.

Looking down will reveal the corresponding tracks of hands wiped so, the individual marks blending together as if the gesture has been repeated ten, twenty, a hundred times. Looking up again will be more difficult, the mask suddenly heavier on your face than one of simple court-wear.