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

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.

[toujoursdroit]

His first reaction is more puzzlement than horror. He's an observant man, never one prone to excess drinking or any other indulgences that would lead to lapses of memory. Age has not yet dulled Romain, either, and his first thought is not Maker, that's a lot of blood but Where did that blood come from?

(Perhaps, in itself, a mildly distressing fact about the duke.)

Then he notices his hands, the weight of the mask. He wrests his gaze upward, wary and on guard. Romain strongly dislikes not knowing what's going on, partly from temperament, but mostly because he lives a life where ignorance gets one killed. He is prone to demand answers if all else fails, but first one must find someone to demand them from.

[coquettish_trees]

Unfortunately, the 'someones' available seem to be experiencing similar disorientation. Heads turn to register sounds unheard, sights unseen. Someone leaves abruptly: the young man who'd been so unable to keep himself regulated at the table. Another, quickly on his tail, although the mask is so weighty that all that can be caught in their wake is the movement of green and black cloth departing the room.

Robes. Mages. All mages, going... somewhere.

The man at the head of the table stands slowly, as if his bones are cold and wet from sleeping in tents for weeks in a mudsoaked land, and the instinct of an old soldier seems to demand you stand also, for your commander. Perhaps he will know what is happening. He always does.

[toujoursdroit]

Instincts are important; blind instinct gets you killed. So he gets to his feet, but his guard is up all the same. Something about this is wrong, and he has not yet been able to pinpoint what. That, as much as anything, unsettles him.

Mages going somewhere, all at once, is not generally a comforting development, in Romain's experience.

He moves, subtly, to check his weapons, though he's momentarily unsure whether he's looking for the discreet stiletto one takes to a polite dinner party or the sword he wore at his hip on campaign. Uncertainty is bad. Uncertainty means you've made a mistake, at some point before now, and need to start working quickly to limit damage.

[coquettish_trees]

The sword should be there. The old familiar weight of it was, the places where it touched your leg, the slight pull at your waist, but the discreet reach for it yields nothing. Even with the stiletto found immediately thereafter where it had been secreted away, the feeling of exposure that comes with being unarmed in an uncertain situation remains. While taking stock of yourself, there is sudden bitterness at the back of your mouth, nearly bile-like. All combined, you've known enough time in the courts of Orlais to guess at what's happened, but the thought of poison is slippery and refuses to stay.

Movement: the commander is there, then at the door suddenly, then gone as quickly, out and headed towards the sweep of the grand stair more like a triptych portrait than any natural passage of time. He sticks in your mind as furtive and quick, nothing like he should be. The candles burn as strangely; hardly any movement at all in the flame, and then in fits and starts, ten minutes of wax consumed in an instant.

Somewhere beyond the door there is a shattering, heart-wrenchingly familiar feminine scream.

[toujoursdroit]

The part of him that can register poison is, contrarily, more irritated than afraid. If he's going to die, he's probably already effectively dead, at this point; it's a sloppy way to go, embarrassing as much as anything else. (He thinks, fleetingly, of his late wife, wonders if she had time to be either irritated or afraid, at the end.)

Romain is trying, without success, to will himself into something like lucidity when the scream shatters his attempt. He's moving toward it before his brain can catch up -- moving faster is never helpful when you've been poisoned, slow down -- reacting in a way he hasn't in decades.

Part of him knows it can't be what it sounds like, but the rest of him is already striding through the door.

[coquettish_trees]

It's not too long before there's a second scream, slightly off from where there are figures by the stairs, but it is close enough that it could belong to them. One of them slender and bent over a body laid out on the ground, headless and staining the marble with a dark and spreading pool. For a brief cold moment it is her and the letter crinkles in your hand, the writing too beautiful a script for the short missive, as rote as written for the death of a common soldier. It is with regret that we write to inform you that Apprentice Cecile de Coucy has failed her Harrowing...

But no. There is a third. Her hair is briefly the wrong color, but it is so quickly replaced, and there she is. Alive. Safe. Looking as you imagined she might as the years stretched on after she'd gone to the Circle, her hands clasped over her mouth. She looks up and you can almost, almost see her face.

She says 'my lord' as she approaches quickly, but the mind so wants to hear 'father' that the real words are lost in it.

[toujoursdroit]

Loss is a strange thing. With Calanthe, with Annegret, he'd had the chance to see the body, traced the thread of their lives as far as its end. Cecile had gone from them, a bright and confident girl, not yet ten; there had been, of course, concessions made for the duke, so they'd been allowed the occasional letter, little luxuries to send to make her comfortable. But she'd stayed that ambitious, bright flash of a thing in his mind's eye, golden hair and deep blue eyes.

When he'd had the letter, he couldn't help picturing her a young woman, that same gold hair matted with blood. (Had she been wearing the ring her mother sent her, for luck? He'd never let himself picture that level of detail.)

But this he had never permitted himself. Cecile, a woman in her prime, perhaps a little older than even her older sister had lived to be. He'd locked his middle child away in a small corner of his heart and lost the key to that particular room. He had never let himself imagine.

Even as he hears "father," he's saying, "How are you here?" This house. Kirkwall. Alive.

[coquettish_trees]

She looks worried. Confused. The hair is wrong again, too red by far (perhaps the light?) but the eyes—the eyes are right. Blue, and wide, and darkened with concern.

"Whatever do you mean?" she asks, looks back at the other woman—an elf. Another mage? Are you at the Circle tower? The world flickers around you, banners where there had been other wall hangings (or had they always been there?). She has reached for your hands, is searching your face. "Are you well? What has happened?"

[toujoursdroit]

He lets her take his hands, though his mask (heavy or otherwise) reveals little of his expression.

"Something's amiss. I think there's been..." He stops, takes a breath, trying to steady himself. He's never actually been inside a Circle tower, himself, it makes no sense that he'd been in one now; he fights to backtrack. What was the last thing he was sure of?

"I heard a scream. I think there's been foul play. Beyond the obvious," he says, looking the other woman. "I'm not well; I've been losing time." It's difficult to focus on anything other than the woman before him at length, but there's too much that's not right about the scene.