persephone sits in a courtroom dress as green as summer trees her lipstick red as blood

[elegiaque]

WHO: Gwenaëlle Baudin, Thranduil, assorted guests.
WHAT: It's a nice day for a white wedding.
WHEN: Haring 30th / Wintermarch 1st
WHERE: The de Coucy residence, Hightown.
NOTES: The OOC post. Your character wasn't in the chapel unless you play Romain, Coupe or Legolas. Post co-authored with rowancrowned. Questions section of the OOC post still open! This is a mingle log; top level, tag amongst yourselves, hit us up if you have particular needs or desires.

Despite the events of the previous month, the winter's afternoon wedding of Gwenaëlle Baudin and Provost Thranduil proceeds as planned—or at least, close enough that any last minute discrepancies are invisible to the eye of oblivious guests (and indeed the bride, having taken approximately zero interest in the planning). In the ongoing absence of a suitable Chantry, the ceremony itself takes place in the modest chapel within the home to a select few witnesses hand-selected—chosen mainly to avoid any untoward rumours that it might not have been done properly, including the acting Viscount, the Gallows Forces commander, and a handful of others whose stature within Kirkwall lends them the sort of credibility this wedding is in dire need of being lent.

With the ballroom ripped out and redesigned for another purpose, the estate doesn’t possess the space to host the number of guests invited to the post-ceremony fete, instead making use of the courtyard in its center. Guests are shepherded there, and are not entirely left out of the wedding itself when they are joined by the happy couple to publicly sign the legal documents some who've not previously attended weddings between people with money may never have seen before. To ward off the midwinter cold—to varying degrees of success, based on one’s proximity to them—braziers have been set up at intervals throughout the garden everywhere but the space cleared for those moved to dance, and servants in de Coucy colors bring round trays of small, hot food and enough drinks to stave off the worst of the chill.

The decorations betray the groom’s tastes over the bride's. Holly and juniper and other such evergreens make up the majority of the arrangements, bright red berries a better ornament than the inexcusable expense of hothouse flowers. There is the underlying reminder that both halves of the couple are Inquisition members, in the smart dress uniforms that half the guests wear as they mingle with the better part of Kirkwall society.

This is a pageant, the diplomatic arm of the Inquisition flexing the agreement made with the Rifters and also the normalcy it seeks to restore. But it is a pretty pageant, and an easy excuse to wear something stunning and dance and eat food purchased with Orlesian coin—and, perhaps, to enquire about making a donation to the Inquisition in support.

Comments

Loki | OTA

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki attends with a truly surprising level of decorum, given how he is usually wont to attend such events.

Today, rather than the enchanted garbs he favors (a quirk that is only barely tolerated by the locals of Kirkwall as it stands), he wears quintessentially Orlesian attire. His doublet is a fine satin weave, a popular pattern of brocade in gold and green, and sports carefully wrapped buttons and muted gold accents. His cufflinks are amber dyed serault glass. His trousers are Orlesian cut and dark and tuck into highly polished boots. He wears a half cape, a piece of clothing he does not really favor, but one that favors him greatly and does a fair deal to stave off the chill. It is green as well, fine leather, and lined in brilliant gold silk. The fur along the collar is black and sleek and blends against his hair almost perfectly.

It is a subtle outfit, at least by his standards, and absolutely doesn't outshine the wedding party, small though it may be.

At a party as this one, Loki would usually indulge in wine, would tell tales, and strike up with the nearest pretty thing. He is a man who lives for parties and yet, here, today, he drinks his wine and speaks of banal subjects to other Hightown residents, and refrains from anything too terribly untoward. At one point, he catches himself having an extended and exceedingly general conversation with someone or another about the value of northern artifacts to the study of the enemy and has to excuse himself to do something more entertaining. Like drink and stare at a wall.

All in all he is being a very good guest. Given that the married couple hosting the event are, by turns, his ex and his boss, this behavior is not entirely shocking.

fashion sense tingling

[coquettish_trees]

Across the courtyard, encouraging a small group of other noblewomen to take up medicinal herb growing in their indoor gardens—some of the herbs are quite lovely, after all, and how agreeable it is to look upon them and see in what a fine way we have certainly saved the lives of dashing soldiers—Alexandrie's head turns of its own accord at a certain pattern catching light. Because she knows that brocade.

Because she had helped pick that brocade.

She turns back more quickly than she ought to have, perhaps. Certainly too quickly for the sip of mulled wine she had fortuitously taken to remain un-aspirated. She coughs as delicately as she can, ripostes the coy look one of the sharper women casts on her with the cultured blankness that is the equivalent of a threatening shush, and asks a vague open-ended question specifically designed to start energetic conversation between even the silliest of people to give herself a moment of space.

It had been a certainty, hadn't it? Given the guest list, given the hosts. His presence had, at the very least, but not wearing... that had been meant for Halamshiral. For their trip to Halamshiral. For her Empress. For her family. For her.

It's not just the cold air that makes her throat ache. Or the inside corners of her eyes—

Absolutely not.

And that fucking woman is still watching her with a little superior curve to her lips. Alexandrie will just have to obliquely say something about her brother's rumored less-than-savory pursuits, and then pretend, for the rest of the evening, that she has no idea what that cloth feels like under her fingertips... and that the man wearing it is simply as suddenly absent here as he had become from her waking hours.

[faithlikeaseed]

Myr's on duty this evening as head of Chantry Relations--and on a mission as well, to meet every unfamiliar face at the wedding and acquaint himself. (To tuck names and faces and whatever seemed most important for future influence--don't think leverage--away in his memory tower, safe against the election of the Divine.)

Loki is among those unfamiliar faces; familiar as Myr might be with the man's voice, this is his first time seeing the other mage in person and so long as he's over there, silent and staring at the wall, there's no sound to judge on...

Perhaps it's better not to approach, but he's got a second glass of wine in hand and all his other potential targets are tied up, so Messere Architecture Appreciator it is. He isn't quiet as he walks over and so forebears from anything truly obnoxious like clearing his throat, instead holding out a new glass of wine to replace the one Loki's studiously draining.

It doesn't occur to him this makes him look precisely like the servants otherwise circulating through the crowd, except he's in Inquisition dress uniform and they're not.

"Good afternoon," the greeting's cordial enough. "The clematis is particularly lively for this time of year."

That's sarcasm: Everything on the trellis is dead and dormant for the winter.

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki regards the elf at his elbow with just slightly more than polite recognition. He lingers and that becomes open curiosity tinged with a bit of confusion. He takes the glass the elf offers, as one does, and then after a long moment registers his comment.

Lively?

It is a strange remark and earns an arched brow, but Loki doesn't snap at him. He is tired and more than a touch on edge here, subdued and anxious in equal measure, and yelling at the help is never a grand way to ingratiate oneself to the hosts.

Perhaps it is a joke.

"Indeed," he remarks dryly and takes a sip of his new glass of wine. "Truly, the landscaping prowess of the South never ceases to amaze."

[faithlikeaseed]

The look on Myr's face undergoes the most wondrous transformation when Loki opens his mouth: surprise into recognition into a hint of wariness around the corners of his eyes, and all of it smoothing away again in a matter of seconds.

"I'm surprised Kirkwall's reputation as a city of gardens hasn't reached Northern ears by now," he replies smoothly enough, continuing the absurdity he started. From his stance, he's here to stay a little while; from the way he holds his wine glass like he's looking for an excuse to get rid of it, he's not much interested in drinking while he does it.

"Though the Provost's really gone out of his way to enhance it. Messere Asgard, as I remember?"

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki snorts at the comment, it's as close to a laugh as he is likely to get, and takes another sip of his wine. The elf recognizes him and Loki's sip becomes a good deal deeper. When he lowers his glass it is about half finished.

"You are correct," he replies and there is something in there, in his tone, but it is ill defined and a little stiff. He falls back into familiar speech patterns a moment later.

"I assume you work for the Provost?"

[faithlikeaseed]

The laugh's--good to hear, though Myr's own inclinations toward making other people at ease are a little at war with memories of how he'd been treated last time. (The fellow is a Vint, after all.)

But they are both Inquisition, and Myr had resolved after the abbey to do better at laying his own preconceptions aside (when warranted) and reach out, so--

"Nominally," and the answer's cheerful enough. "I'm still in the Research division, though much of my time's taken up with Chantry Relations of late. Myrobalan Shivana, formerly of Hasmal Circle." Since he's a sneaking suspicion the recognition doesn't quite flow both ways, though he's polite enough about it.

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki stares at him a moment before he realizes what is expected of him. He is in the South and he has played his part well, but in his distraction he is falling into old habits. He extends a hand to shake, as courteous a gesture as he is wont to make, given the circumstances, and arches a brow.

"A mage as well," Loki comments noncommittally and finishes his wine. He holds the glass to the side a moment and then lowers his arm.

"Curious that you are assigned to appease the Chantry."

[faithlikeaseed]

"Some would call it a provocation." The words are equitable enough, a match for Myr's easy smile, but one might be forgiven for imagining there's teeth behind them. Somewhere. "Rather than appeasement. But the Inquisition asked and I assented; I can only hope to live up to their assessment of me."

Though whether he'd do whatever it is they'd thought he do and achieve whatever hidden ends they had in mind appointing someone so politically fraught to the position without an inkling of why-- Well. Leave that for another day. "And if it shifts Chantry opinion of elves, or mages, or even elven mages, so much the better."