faderift | Under the Second Moon

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This shouldn't bother him.

It's not as if no one has ever disliked him before, and that's particularly true of the assortment of near strangers he has pushed (or been pushed by) into certain dark corners. Kostos was one in a long line of desperate attempts to put someone else's fingerprints on everything Leander had ever fucking touched; Ilias hadn't always cared much about whose. And if he believed that was the real problem, maybe that would be easier to accept. Just another page in the book of Lives I've Made Worse, like the good parts of him died with the snap of a neck and all he's got left are the parts that make other people need to wash him off their skin. If he could have slotted Kostos in a few pages down from Sidony, a chapter from Casimir. If he hadn't run into Kostos on the heels of both those glaring reminders of the consequences his own bad decisions, and thought for a second there might be at least one person here who wasn't justifiably unhappy to see him, maybe this wouldn't be getting under his skin.

But he doesn't have hypotheticals right now; he has a shelf at his back, and a wisp in his face, and Kostos giving him bullshit instead of answers he's really not sure why he expected -- and when he reaches to put a palm toward the wisp, his other hand catches Kostos's lowering forearm.

"Can you grow up," says Ilias, as if he were not just as wine-warmed and sharp-teethed and the one who started this conversation in the first place, "for five minutes."

Intentionally or not, that’s a blow that lands well, because Kostos has been grown up, if you ask him, since he was nine years old. Or since he was eleven, at least, and stopped hiding under beds or behind bookshelves to avoid lessons. Either way: he’s been grown up for a very long time, thank you. His eyes narrow further behind the mask, and he tries to jerk his arm free—free and back into the door behind him, elbow colliding and rattling the latch.

“Shit,” he hisses, because it hurt, but while he gives his arm a shake to dislodge the twinge, he’s already moving on: “Fuck off.” As if Ilias could at the moment. “I know you might not be used to having to earn anyone’s good opinion,” which is the clearest Kostos is likely to be, accidentally, about the root cause of his seething, “but you aren’t going to make me like you by complaining about how irritated you are that I don’t.”

Ilias's hand feigns after like an apology, and pulls back just as fast. Not his finest moment, this one, but at this point he at least has the sense to keep his hands to himself, as much as that's possible for either of them right now.

Of course, being told what he may or may not be "used to" brings another rolling clench to his jaw, and that would far do more to rile him if it didn't also sound like a problem that can be solved. Not one he wants to solve, right at this moment, not when he's got his heart beating in his ears to be anywhere or anyone else, even if it's the idiot picking a fight in a locked closet. But there's a foothold here he can't ignore, that Kostos's good opinion is something he could earn, if he tried.

"I don't plan to grovel for it, either." But those aren't the only options; it's a boundary, not a grievance, even if it is said through half clenched teeth. "I would like us to be able to work civilly, where necessary." A beat. "Outside this damn closet."

Groveling would probably make it worse, pile contempt on top of resentment, so that’s for the best. Kostos inclines his head, looking at him, eyes stony behind the mask, but then he shifts his attention back to the wisp, which has wandered sideways to examine the solid, unmoving wall with puzzled delight.

“I am being civil,” he says. Civil for him, anyway—a point he’ll possibly underscore a few days later when he bites Étienne on the floor of the dining hall in front of the Maker and everybody. That’s uncivil.

How long have they been in here. The people outside likely do not have wrist watches, since, you know, no one does. There is no telling when they’ll actually be let out. And wisps aren’t any good for telling time: this one has been here for an age, as far as it’s concerned, or two seconds maybe, what’s the difference.

They could be trapped here for several more minutes.

Torture.

So it’s maybe two-fifths intentionally outrageous provocation and one-fifth look how fucking civil I am you bastard, but also two-fifths genuine suggestion in the face of impending desperate boredom, when Kostos adds, “Do you want to make out?”

That's— not entirely unfair; Kostos is being himself, Ilias has met him. He just happens to be handling that less gracefully than usual, with the number of old ghosts and impending battles swimming around in his head these days that have nothing to do with Kostos at all. None of which he wants to think about right now. All of which are, naturally, in the absence of immediate distractions, now impossible not to think about. So thanks, whoever had the bright idea to lock the two of them in here. A hand scrubs at his face.

And then drops all at once, exasperated, to unveil a finely tuned Fuck off look at Kostos in answer.

(Never mind that split second where his eyes catch the wisp light, a tell-tale flick from Kostos to the conveniently sturdy door behind him that Ilias might not exactly mind shoving him against in lieu of having to deal with anything else, and back again like he did no such thing, so shut up.)

"You're not funny."

The fuck off look is what he was aiming for. The glance beyond him is a bonus.

The shift between Kostos’ default flat hostility and a nearly-as-flat smirk is subtle even without a mask in the way, but it’s a transition that occurs mainly around his eyes, so it isn’t invisible. Even if it were, though, he rolls his shoulders back in a distinctly cocky way.

“Yes I am.”

Ilias rolls his eyes, half just for the excuse to look somewhere besides that smug little shoulder roll, Maker. A second ago, when he'd been hoping for something else to think about, how much better shaped Kostos’s shoulders are nowadays wasn't it. Especially not when Kostos has got this new look in his eyes that makes Ilias's jaw tighten, like he's winning whatever this is.

"Nor," he continues as if Kostos hadn’t said a thing to the contrary, punctuating the pause with two fingers tapped to a stop at end of his mask’s beak, as if drawing a line in the sand between them, "Are you half so cute as you think you are."

Which isn't not cute, but also: quit it.

“You are,” he says, and for a moment it sounds like that might be all he has to say, a compliment accompanied by his gaze drifting contemplatively to Ilias’ neck. But after a beat he finishes it off instead with, “welcome to your bullshit opinions.”

That, and then a thud, when he tips back on his heels to shove his shoulders against the door on his own. He follows it up with an elbow, gentler than last time, to rattle the hinges. It’s largely petulant, meant to get his mask away from Ilias’ fingers and vent some displeasure on the door, but there’s at least a small chance that implying something interesting is occurring will get them out faster.

He cares about his dignity too much to start fake moaning, at least, even slightly drunk.

The wisp, meanwhile, doesn’t lose interest in the wall, but it does get distracted by the thudding and drift closer to Kostos again until it’s butting up against the side of his mask and humming happily, almost as if heard him worrying about his dignity—which it might have.

“Bother him,” Kostos says, tilting his head away from the affection, and the wisp moves a few inches toward Ilias before it stops and hovers like it’s unsure, or possibly formulating a plan of attack.

Under the Second Moon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject