Under the Second Moon

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Everyone Ever. It's your party!
WHAT: S a t i n a l i a !
WHEN: 1st of Umbralis
WHERE: Kirkwall and the Gallows
NOTES: I volunteered as tribute but have no authority save what having like three free hours has granted me. :D

Once dedicated to the Old Goddess of Freedom, Zazikel—but now attributed more to the second moon, Satina—this holiday is accompanied by wild celebration, the wearing of masks, and naming the town fool as ruler for a day.

---

The Gallows

Even tamped down by both the imminence of Corypheus's assault on Ghislain and the doleful pleading eyes of the Seneschal the Inquisition means to do its due diligence to Satinalia, its members beginning to appear fairly early on in the afternoon in anything from simple mask to full and elaborate costume, largely eager to let off some of the pressure that has been building ever since the news of the unanticipated battlefield broke.

Along with handcrafted decorations made from cunningly re-purposed bits of scrap... everything... that liven the main areas of the fortress it seems like someone has gone absolutely ham on decorations of the webbed variety. The hours can nearly be told by the yells of disgust and shrieks of surprise—and the laughter of companions—that rise above other chatter to mark yet another victim of this particularly sticky prank of an adornment.

The courtyard is the site of much preparation during the daylight hours, and then well-lit and filled with a feast that is simple but plentiful at dusk. Also plentiful: wine. Some clever person acquired an immensity of cheap horrible wine, floated some bundles of equally cheap spices in it to make the poor quality slightly less obvious, and set it to heat in a large cauldron over one of the temporary fire pits that has been constructed. It's good there's a late start tomorrow. Music is largely provided by the members of the Inquisition that make practice of it, and as a result, dancing is less an organized affair and more something that just breaks out every so often.

It is also true to its name tonight, some intrepid souls having decided that the opposite sides of it were the best places to set up the rival “throne rooms” that are mostly benches dragged into configuration in front of stacked and blanketed bales of hay. It's not much, but not much is necessary: the true decorations of the impromptu Fools' Courts are the personalities of their respective rulers, each of whom seems to have already collected a small zealous following eager to accomplish whatever ridiculousness they are set to in an effort to depart the normalcy that contains a fight for the Inquisition that is no longer skirmish mission after skirmish mission but full battle, pitched and outright.

(Are half of them wearing... beribboned and otherwise decorated toilet seats of cloth, wood, or folded paper around their necks? Better choose your allegiance wisely, I guess!)

The island fortress has enough nooks and secluded spaces that some privacy can be found even in the midst of full-scale celebration. In seeking unoccupied places, however, every once in a while—around a corner, down a hall—shadows raise and move oddly at the corner of your vision, although a second harder look always seems to reveal only flickering torchlight.

It's a strange night.

The City of Kirkwall

While the threat of war looms here also, rather than dampen itself, the city outside the Inquisition's stronghold has turned that nervous energy outward in frenetic release.

The festival atmosphere persists all day: the markets are bright, packed with both shops and shoppers, filled with those intrepid celebrants who have already donned mask, costume, or both, and loud with the laughter of children running in wild packs to prank and pickpocket the unwary. Trickery is tolerated, if not openly encouraged and rewarded, especially if clever. Even so, the city guard is out in force, just in case someone gets a bit too excited.

Once the sun goes down, the city is lit in a way that almost recalls the events that earned Marian Hawke her title. Fires, large and small, blaze along the streets well past midnight, although it is torch and brazier rather than barricade and home, and while the streets are further lit by the bright light of both moons, one can imagine it is the second moon's light that better illuminates the revelries below.

And revelries there are, with abandon. Near every street has its ardent lovers, its merrymakers, its gleeful dancing and laughter. And, to go with them, its footpads, its drunkards, its whores and gamblers taking their games to the cobblestones. Satinalia's freedom is a little freer when what lurks on the horizon has come close enough that one can nearly catch the threatening glint of its red crystal in the darkness.

Moreso, when you live in a city that knows what it is to burn.

Comments

[rowancrowned]

Charming.

[ as long as she's getting something out of it, he's happy. he bends to kiss her cheek, through the lace, and his hair snags on the thorns and is combed through them as he pulls away, and offers her his arm.

there is a love story here, even for the canary. ]

Shall we sit, or have you made arrangements with another? Have you seen Byerly?

[elegiaque]

He's hard to miss, isn't he, ( which doesn't mean she's spoken to byerly, just that he does rather draw the eye, presently. she laces her fingers together, hands around his elbow, and there's something comfortable and comforting about the fact that she can, without worrying about who's looking or who might read what into it. that it is in fact, in this place and in this moment, entirely unremarkable to most.

except maybe elves who think he could have done better, but you can't win them all. )

We should sit. Provide for me, husband, find us a chair. ( so cute she might punch them in the face herself. )

[rowancrowned]

[ he is not so far gone as to pick her up and carry her there, but they meander, as two besotted people with no concerns for the future might, arm in arm and eyes only for each other.

byerly, bless his heart, has thoroughly prepared for the orgy portion of the evening with his assortment of 'soft things, but everywhere' and it's hardly difficult to steal a pillow from the periphery and bring it to a corner far away from the painting project and the noise of the light court and away from the bachinallia of the dark.

a little space just their own. on the ground, granted, but who's going to say anything to them? ]

[elegiaque]

( besides the novelty of attending something like this together, properly, openly - it eases her to see his mood lighter after the rough reunion they'd weathered after her return from the fade. the moment might be little more than an oasis in this war's desert, the calm eye of the storm, but she's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

not tonight, at least.

tonight it's satinalia, and her husband is smiling at her in this cosy space they've eked out for themselves. she sweeps her veil back again - it refuses, of course, to stay long where she puts it - and drapes herself across cushion and thranduil, the very slight dampness in her hair slowly pressing a shadow into his shoulder. )

All right, ( out of seemingly no where, ) this wasn't your worst idea.