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

gwenaëlle | ota | let us know if you want The Couple

[elegiaque]

Weddings are not Gwenaëlle's strong suit, her own least of all. The veil lasts long enough for everyone to get a good look at how pretty, and then is carefully removed from the points of her bridal crown and replaced by a more manageable soft, fur-lined shawl around her shoulders in an acknowledgment of the chill that her dress is not. Without the slight haze of sheer fabric to hide behind, a great deal of work is going into looking as pleasant and polite as she can manage—

she at least doesn't look entirely miserable, if occasionally somewhat hunted surrounded by all of these people, a mercy that has much to do with the wine intermittently appearing at her elbow. With her hands hidden in her shawl, she can fidget to her heart's content unseen, or curl them around cups of hot mulled wine, or decide in that winsomely newly-wed way she has about her that it's actually urgent she be holding onto Thranduil's arm for the sake of peace and not punching anyone.

It's going so smoothly she's almost suspicious of it. Ask her to dance; this once, she might not decline.

thranduil | equally ota

[rowancrowned]

i. receiving line.

Thranduil greets the various guests with a smile and a murmured welcome, Gwenaëlle close enough to his side that her skirts are crushed against his hip. Thranduil remains in the same thing he wore for the ceremony, resplendent in a white silk robe ending at the thigh and a collar opened to reveal the hollow of his throat. The firelight catches on the silk, sets it aglow in the same way that it dances off snow, off ice, off the white embroidery at the cuffs and the real silver on his fingers, and the brooch at his neck. His hair falls down his back, unbraided, a counterpoint to Gwenaëlle’s veil, the two of them complementing one another in their choice in color.

He smiles, demurs, laughs politely, charming enough to offset (he hopes) any lingering misgivings about either rifters or elven rifters. Eventually, the line is whittled down from various Hightown nobles or other important guests to those in the Inquisition—or with close enough ties to the Inquisition that he does not need to lean so hard upon the eyelash batting.

“Thank you for coming,” he says, formalities partially dismissed with, but his gaze a bit warmer for it.

ii. dancing.

The bride’s Orlesian heritage cannot be avoided, and the party certainly cannot exclude dancing. The newlyweds dance first, after which Gwenaëlle temporarily retreats, but Thranduil stays on, politely taking several partners around the floor, making polite conversation—a pattern that will see itself repeating several times over the evening as Gwenaëlle excuses herself immediately after or before that sort of entanglement, and Thranduil inserts himself in her place with enthusiasm enough to make up for it.

iii. drinking.

All the machinations, all the careful maneuvers, had, in some way or another, led to this. Granted, he still had irons in the fire, and this was but the first step of a long march, but small victories could be savored along the way, and towards the end of the night—or, rather, in the early hours of the new year—Thranduil savors his triumph, and a glass of the Duc’s wine, sitting one of the scattered chairs with a posture that hints at kingly.

It’s well and good. It isn’t as if everyone else has been abstaining from Romain’s hospitality, and he is a newly-wed with a beautiful new wife, a comfortable position in the Inquisition, and, as far as anyone needs to concern themselves with his plans, a desire for nothing more, having secured his future.

The fires in the braziers are dying down, and the chill is starting to bite at fingers and noses, but Thranduil, caught alone for the first time this evening, relaxes, eyes settled on the other side of the courtyard, glass at his lips, seeing and not seeing.

iv. open.

_{create your own.}

The groom is welcome to threadjack

[toujoursdroit]

Romain has kept merely a light hand on the tiller of the day. His grandsons out of Orlais is... best, even if it's perforce temporary, and they seem to have the bulk of his attention at the party. Thomas is beginning to look a young man but Raoul is still clearly a boy, and inclined to see what he can get away with if left to his own devices. As for Aurèle, his wedding present to Gwenaëlle is, evidently, attending while not making her decide how she feels about him by intruding upon her directly. A statement, but not one for his niece in practice (if not in fact), and almost certainly not one that Aurèle composed himself.

But for all the duke's attention may seem to be on his grandsons, his granddaughter has had the bulk of it all day, though she may be the only person in a position to notice. He's always just looking away when she looks at him, or angled in a way that he can watch out of the corner of his eyes (even if the mask means he might not be looking).

Eventually, he is slightly more direct. Romain makes his way over to them. "Well. You do look very snug; I almost hate to ask you for a dance." Almost.

up 2 ur discretion kate

[limier]

Her arrival's punctual — and not enough so to afford free conversation. That must be deliberate.

The ceremony is what it is: Words and promises that she'd prefer to care less about. This is a contract, and Maker knows whether it will hold; however steady a heart, the Chantry's not stilled for half a decade.

She keeps posture, exchanges courtesies, fulfills the necessary role of prop dummy. How different all this must be from what they wished it (how many the absent faces). Even so. If Thranduil squawks a word of complaint for his own harebrained idea,

"Eat something,"

There exists a tipping point for wine. The hand at her elbow is stiff, the face above it thinner for absence. Hello, niece.

ii

[dirth]

Solas is not here from personal desire but from a promise he had made to someone he had once called friend.

It's obvious that he is not as entirely comfortable with being here, with being dressed so fine. It's the outfit that Thranduil had purchased for him, because not even Solas is damnable enough to come to something as fanciful as a wedding without at least attempting to fit in, a glass of wine in his hand and his fingers curling around the stem of it with a small frown on his face.

He is here and made an attempt to prove that he was not as frustrated with his old friend as he had once been, the curl of hair around his jawbone necklace enough to soothe some of the aches. His hand does not quite reach to stroke over it, some kind of fanciful motion to soothe in the midst of all the people, nobility that he would never normally find himself mixed with, but it is a close thing.

Lifting his head, he deliberately catches Thranduil's eye as he pauses between dances. Look, it says. I am here, as promised, and now I shall go. There are better things for him to do, he thinks, than attend a wedding that it pains him to be at, his heart on his sleeve for Thranduil as it has ever been.

iii

[limier]

"Congratulations are due," It's tempting to tip a glass over him. "No one threw a punch."

Emeric's absence. Even so. She eyes him a moment before easing into the seat beside. The creak of joints, a breath.

"To your health."

Some irony in that.

[rowancrowned]

"To yours," he says. To Casimir, who he ought to bring some cake, because that seems to be shaping up to be the next great 'who, me?' of Thranduil's life.

But he is wedded and well and taps his glass gently against hers, the chime of glass merry in the sparkling courtyard, and he says, "I am happy."

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil will have the full measure of what he paid for.

He cannot be escaped so easily as that. There is, doubtless, some measure of subterfuge employed that takes him from across the floor to silently beside Solas a beat or two later, some twisting of the air to allow him to escape notice from those in the crowd who might want to wish him well. His hand settles at Solas' hip, steers him back to the floor with the gentlest of pressures, most of the movement Thranduil's. He offers the other- the shard-bearing hand- palm up.

He is the taller of the two of them. It is best he leads, if they are to dance.

[dirth]

He would escape if it was possible for him to, there is no denying that. Having agreed to show his face, Solas would have been content to making sure that he was seen and not heard in any particularly way. Clearly, he was mistaken in thinking that was possible when Thranduil is as determined as he is.

Given the formality of the moment and the fact that he has been trying, quite hard, to act as though there was no discord between them in public, Solas allows it to happen. He allows the hand on his waist, allows his own to be held, allows himself to be lead. He is shorter; he would likely allow Galadriel the same prerogative had she asked.

There is warmth when his finger touches the anchor shard. It's soothing as much as it is unsettling.

"One," he comments, voice low. "That will do."

[elegiaque]

The headdress she wears is almost as elaborate as one of the masks she left behind in Orlais; it's all the more striking, now, that after so long without them she lacks that slight paleness above the mouth that she once had that tends to mark the upper-classes. The sparkle of it somewhat distracts from the lack thereof in her somewhat flat affect, but the smile that he prompts is small and warm—

“If you hated to do something then you wouldn't do it,” she says, offering him her hand. “You aren't just distracting me because you've misplaced Aurelé's boy, are you?”

If she sounds unconcerned, it's because first of all she doesn't think that's so, and second of all, she'd probably still be unconcerned if she did. A rambunctious boy is the least of their worries.

[elegiaque]

It's incredible that Gwenaëlle's mouth barely moves at all when she says, “And where the fuck have you been?” having apparently been freed from the obligation of greetings or smalltalk by the selected opening gambit. It's rather more sincerely meant than any of those things would have been; this absence has bothered her the way an absent tooth might and with less explanation.

She had written, Guilfoyle said, but he would not say of what. Her uncle, haunting the tower; relaxed, now, drinking his wine and periodically redirecting Raoul Charnier back towards Romain in a way that she's certain probably irritates her grandfather, just on principle. She might have known Coupe were back from the way the tightness between his shoulders had released, if she had had a moment to see it before the chapel, where she could hardly react.

A tray of food goes by. She takes something from it only to be spared the indignity of having it pressed into her hands.

[toujoursdroit]

He takes her hand with a faint smile, visible below the line of his mask. "Raoul is not misplaced, he's taking a brief rest from the festivities." In other words, Aurèle had taken him for a time out, of sorts. "I'm glad you agreed for them to come, it will be useful on a variety of fronts." For her, if she wished, but he was resigned to the fact she might not; for him, for the Charniers as a whole, it would do.

As he led her out to the floor, he added, quieter: "Courage. You're mostly through it." The day, at least.

fancy ladies~

[coquettish_trees]

It was not at all how she had anticipated coming to Gwenaelle's wedding.

They do make a rather striking pair however, she and Merrill, cleaned and pressed and primped and dressed extravagantly to match with the Lord Provost's choice in decoration; Alexandrie laced tightly into a dress of heavy red velvet, the back of the skirt split by a carpet of holly leaves that widens from her waist into a short train, her hair woven into a thick braid twined with white berried mistletoe in place of her pearls, and Merrill shining in ivy-beaded green the same red berries that grace the courtyard peeking out brightly from where they're strung through the dark of her hair. Similar strands of them are woven into a delicate lace-like net that spans her waist and spreads to hang along half the side, half the back of the skirt of it, delicate beaded slippers peeking out from under the folds of it when she moves. Rather than wear a mask as her companion does, the lines of her vallaslin have been carefully traced with silvery dust so that they shimmer in the light from both sun and fire.

Merrill, being both lovely and genuinely buoyant company, has made it easier for Alexandrie to affect her light careless laughter, the bright sparkling smile she wears below the evergreen themed half-mask—the bride is Orlesian, they are at the Duke de Coucy's estate, and the purpose is political after all. The Game came in at the door with the guests.

Which means mouths will shortly be moving. After all, a peer on the arm of a Dalish mage—Champion's companion or not—is several statements made at once.

“You look gorgeous,” she says, tilting her head towards Merrill in a way that both displays the curve of her neck attractively and allows for confidence, “and anyone who so much as raises an eyebrow at you in any way save appreciatively is entirely unworthy of the time it takes to notice them doing it. Shall we go and greet the happy couple?”

[ feel free to interrupt them both, one, or the other. :D ]

[chainlightning]

It wasn't how Merrill had anticipated coming to the wedding, either - yet there they both were. Merrill had enjoyed being asked, had enjoyed the preparations, too - even standing still to be measured, if only because Alexandrie had listened. She and Merrill and Alexandrie's seamstress had sat together and come up with their attire, from the hair to the shoes. They had wanted to hear her opinions.

Sure, this was a wedding between an elf and an elf-blooded woman, but still. They had listened. That, in Merrill's opinion, was something most Orlesians (and humans in general, really) sorely needed to learn to do more. The fact that her presence on Alexandrie's arm was like a dare and a knife all at once, for some? All the better, for both of their purposes.

Her pleased flush in response to Alexandrie's compliment is easily written away as the chill in the air and the shimmer of the dust along her inked cheeks. She smiles in response, ducking her head demurely for a moment. "Thank you. You look gorgeous as well, of course." And anyone whispering about them will- well, be giving them exactly what they want.

"We should," she smiles, lifting her head up, glancing around the courtyard. "Though I'm sure everyone is, so it shouldn't be a problem if we get a bit sidetracked on our way."

both/either/gay panic

[indissection]

Sidony has spent the last half an hour sitting quite calmly, sipping on some wine (one glass for an evening was more than enough; the illusion of drinking more by always keeping one in hand was a game - her mother had taught her that). Her dress is one of the few she had thought to bring herself from Nevarra, packed away and left hanging in the shameful excuse for a wardrobe that she had been given in the Gallows, but at least it is wearable.

She does not know what to do with herself when she spots Alexandrie and Merrill walking in.

The wine in her hand slips a little and she has to force herself to grasp it, to tilt her head down to make sure she hadn't made a fool of herself by staining her dress, acting as if she was a drunkard when she has had barely enough to make her blink. Alexandrie is stunning in red and Merrill practically glows, leaving Sidony unsure where to leave her eyes - on the woman she had left quite sourly or the elf who makes her want to trace -

Pushing herself up, she shakes her head, pushing hair from her face. If there is going to be a time to attempt repairs between herself and Alexandrie - who she had counted as something of a friend, despite their rather shaky nature with one another - then in the company of nobility and wine is as good a time as any. Dress curling around her legs, she approaches with a smile, offering a one-handed curtsey.

"You both look wonderful."

oh it's *gonna* be both

[coquettish_trees]

In the company of nobility and wine is perhaps the best possible time. It is useful that the Inquisition's noble contingent be seen as a united bulwark, and so what little tiff she had had—is still, perhaps, having—with Sidony is summarily discarded for the greater appearance of such unity. To that end, the curtsey that ought to be given visiting foreign nobility is returned, and Alexandrie goes so far as to step in to lightly brush a kiss across the Nevarran woman's cheek in greeting.

In such a way that does not muss either of their lips or faces, of course.

"Ah! Lady Venaras! How pleased I am to see you well recovered from your ordeals at Ghislain, and making such a fine show of yourself besides." The last is delivered with an approving smile and look that considers the entirety of both her form and dress. She looks at Merrill and tilts her head curiously, "Have the two of you made acquaintance yet? If not, I shall be most delighted to have been the vehicle of such."

threadjacking grooms also accepted here

[coquettish_trees]

One such intermittent goblet of wine is delivered by Alexandrie, her other hand curled around a similarly filled—if not as ornate—cup of her own.

"To have wed to you twice!" It is light, gay, and spoken softly for only the two of them by a woman seemingly as remote from the crumpled creature last seen forlornly occupying her rooms as she has become from the feckless thing blithely waving a corkscrew in Wycome. "It is enough to make one almost believe he is actually aware of the worth of the treasure he has."

She leans to gently tap her head against Gwenaëlle's as she offers her ferried prize.

"It looks well on you, cross as you may be made by the fuss."

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.

[elegiaque]

“He's a peacock, he likes the attention,” she grumbles, tilting her head very slightly (and indeed most expertly) to avoid the dangling jewels of her headdress tangling in Alexandrie's hair or mask. The goblet functions as a barrier over which she might regard this glittering assemblage.

Crossly.

And then, “Do you think it's an ill-omen to have worn my mother's headpiece?”

The Vauquelin marriage was many things, aspirational not among them. (Mother is a protean word; there are so many things she might mean by it. In this case, it seems unlikely that she speaks of Guenievre Baudin.)

[elegiaque]

For a moment, she feels the nearest she thinks she's ever felt to Annegret (so many years after her death, and how like the two of them), who must have gone out to dance on Romain's hand at her own wedding, wearing these same jewels (and, still in its velvet box, the pale and pretty mask that matches them)—she wonders if Emeric would have seen a memory in her, if he'd been here. If he would have been wistful, in that godawful irritating way he had, or if it'd have stung.

She puts it out of her mind.

“I'll say hello before we retire,” she says, which feels like a concession although she can't be sure quite to what. “Which won't be nearly soon enough,” a little tartly, and only enough under her breath that she's unlikely to be overheard by anyone else.

(Her skirts are far too heavy to allow her to stand on his boots, the way she did when she was half so high as she is now, but she does have the fleeting impulse.)

[coquettish_trees]

"Hardly," is the reply. Alexandrie turns to look out over it all—well, most of it, she skips her gaze over an entire section—and sips her wine companionably. "If it is, you have already started your marriage and I imagine any ill omens for it should have had to occur then to be effective, although I am no witch and hardly know of how such things work. I think it perhaps more a statement of how you came here. At such moments it is difficult to not see how one has been formed and thus brought to this moment, no? Can you see it occurring in any other way?" A tilt of her head, the rest of her elbow in her free hand. "And are you not happy with it?"

She observes Gwen's slightly narrowed eyes and the set of her mouth behind her drink and her lips curl in a little smile. "Generally speaking."

either/both, as you prefer! hello, ladies!

[faithlikeaseed]

Life in a Circle doesn't acquaint one with spectacle.

Myr'd only been saved from staring at the Inquisition's previous formal engagements for lack of eyes, and now that he's got them and the opportunity--

Well. He's his manners to keep him in line, at least, as he moves among the wedding guests--not drab himself, in Inquisition dress uniform, but here as a different sort of presence than the more gaily dressed among them. This is business for him, after all: Relating to the Chantry, and doing a credible job at it with every ounce of warmth and good humor he has at his disposal.

So focused is he on his conversation with some minor Chantry functionary he doesn't notice the latest scintillating pair to arrive; but he cannot help but notice when a flash of color passes behind his conversation partner. He glances toward them--catches his breath--then promptly and politely excuses himself to go greet Alexandrie and Merrill. (The sister, an older woman with a kind face and abundance of flesh, looks after him and smiles indulgently to see what's caught his attention. Of course; it's in the nature of young men.)

There are others, of course, come out to see them and Myr takes the first chance he can to insert himself in the line and approach. "You two," he says, with an absolutely guileless smile on his face, "are lovely. Absolutely lovely. Merrill, is that--"

He reaches up to touch his own face in mirror, in curiosity, to finish the question. Someone's a little dazzled.

[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.

[elegiaque]

“Am I not happy with it.”

But there is no witch, and—

She presses her lips together against the impulse to let them fall into some childish pout, to look in some direction and imagine that Morrigan might be that way. She's a woman grown and twice-married to the same man; she doesn't need her hand held. She isn't going to fall apart just because Morrigan isn't here to watch it happen, even if she'd wished otherwise.

It had been time for them to go. She can't grudge that. She misses them both, and terribly, but she writes her letters dutifully and it will do.

It will do.

“It had better serve its fucking purpose,” is what she settles on, taking a drink.