open | your baddest behavior

[cozen]

WHO: Alexandrie, Bastien, Byerly, and their captive audience
WHAT: Mandatory etiquette and dance lessons
WHEN: Justinian 15, 9:45
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: See the OOC post and IC announcement for more information! If you didn't sign up, you can still participate in Parts A and D, and just handwave the other two, without needing to sign up or get an assignment. If you want to do B and C, you can find your own dance partner/seating group OOC, or you can sign up now and we'll dole out new assignments if we get enough latecomers to do so. If you signed up and are missing from the lists when you shouldn't be, I'm sorry and please tell me!

disclaimer: event less fancy than pictured

Seating Assignments
— Table One: Gwenaëlle, Iorveth, Matthias, Athessa
— Table Two: Flint, Ilias, Darras, Med Seller, Yngvi
— Table Three: Julius, Thranduil, Anders, Brienne
— Table Four: Benedict, Colin, Valentine, Six, Derrica
— Table Five: Teren, Salvio, Bartimaeus, Osana
— Table Six: Freddie, Petrana, Kain, Merrill, Silver
— Table Seven: Yseult, Cosima, Steve, Inessa
— Table Eight: Sidony, Fifi, Nell, Fingon
— Table Nine: Thor, Nathaniel H., Solas, Skadi

Dance Partners
— Cosima & Nathaniel H.
— Athessa & Anders
— Teren & Flint
— Freddie & Bartimaeus
— Yseult & Darras
— Nell & Julius
— Merrill & Colin
— Skadi & Benedict
— Gwenaëlle & Solas
— Petrana & Salvio
— Osana & the Medicine Seller
— Sidony & Matthias
— Six & Thranduil
— Brienne & Valentine
— Fifi & Steve
— Thor & Fingon
— Ilias & Iorveth

Comments

(C) Dance Lessons

[cozen]

ooc | pair up and dance. lexie, bastien, and/or byerly might interrupt.

While the tables are being cleared, Bastien draws names from two bowls (with only a little bit of sleight-of-hand cheating) for dance partners, because he's been around this block a few times, and he isn't about to waste time watching people mill around awkwardly because they can't stand to ask someone to dance with them themselves.

To begin, there's no music, only someone keeping time with a staff on the stone floor—which does at least make conversation more feasible—and the very basic task of moving in squares without running into anyone else or stepping on anyone's feet, but after everyone has been given a fair chance at getting that down, things get slightly more complicated. But only slightly. Advanced lessons will cost extra.

colin + merrill

[keenly]

It may be terrible, but Colin is immediately relieved to see he is dancing with a Dalish elf and not one of the fine ladies in fine gowns who care whether or not he looks like an Orlesian servant in his embroidered green silk tunic. He smiles nervously at the tiny elven woman and holds out a faintly trembling hand.

"Colin."

sorry about the wait!!

[chainlightning]

Merrill is also wearing green, and likewise in Orlesian style. Lady Alexandrie is kind, and knows that her Dalish friend has a preferred color; it matches Merrill's eyes, besides. She meets Colin's smile with one of her own, slightly less nervous, and takes the offered hand.

"Merrill! I'm going to try very hard to not step on you."

At least she's wearing shoes, in case Colin accidentally steps on her.

Cosima and Nathaniel

[youwonscience]

Cosima likes dancing, in theory, but this is definitely not the sort of dancing she's got any practice with. Usually dancing with a stranger has involved a lot less counting to four and significantly more alcohol.

"Sorry in advance if I step on your feet," she says with good grace, quietly enough not to be disruptive to the lesson part. "I feel like this would be better with actual music, though."

Osana + The Medicine Seller

[meds4sale]

The Medicine Seller had never done this particular dance before. But he was athletic, graceful, and most of all, coordinated. On top of being rather good at aping humans (he'd been doing it for the last millennium), he was not the worst inexperienced dance partner one could wind up with.

...For the most part.

When their names were called, the Medicine Seller greeted Osana with a polite bow and his usual flat affect.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Osana."

[radiosa]

It could be much worse. It could be that dreadful man from her dinner table, instead of—she isn’t sure. He looks Dalish, except for the way he’s dressed, and she isn’t sure if she should feel plain or competent in comparison, in her simple cut and colors, so she settles for feeling not much of anything except curiosity and mild apprehension, which is as much for the dancing as for her partner.

“Yes,” she says, which isn’t what she means to say, while she dips into half of a curtsy that hasn’t been practiced in years. She’d bow instead, if she weren’t in a dress, but that seems like where the line is probably drawn, right? Maybe? She doesn’t know. And, again, yes isn’t what she meant to say. Yes what? Yes, it’s a pleasure to make her acquaintance?

The problem is—

“Do people really call you the Medicine Seller?”

She probably shouldn’t say that, either, but she does mean to say it. Surely he has a name.

Petrana & Salvio

[assistente]

Salvio's hand is very dry. Is it too dry? It must be too dry. He had hardly dared a look at Madame de Cedoux when their names had been called together, when they'd first come together in the cleared-out hall. Mumbled a greeting, tried to keep the train of her dress in his periphery so that he does not tread on it. Now they are set to begin. The soft sounds of footsteps around them, the rustle of clothing, as others find their partners and their places.

"Um," he says, and holds out his hand to her. Is dry better than sweaty? Is it more remarkable, to be a man with a dry hand?

But the moment the staff begins to tap out that rhythm, more regular and regimented than a heartbeat: something comes over Salvio, a man called to attention, a puppet with its strings pulled. He stands straighter as he begins the count in his head, meting out the meter and the time. A kind of bassadanza, slow and elegant to start with. He can tell by the count.

"You, ah. You are familiar with this style?" He dares not assume too much. de Cedoux is intimidating, for someone so diminutive in stature, and she possessed a grace and a presence that Salvio has seen before. It speaks of someone that would know how to dance. But she is also a rifter, as easy as that might be to forget, so perhaps he ought not to assume-- "It is somewhat--simple, I think. Well-chosen, for the, uh. For the lesson."

[ipseite]

How aptly diplomatic of him, she thinks—because she is, naturally, observing all of her fellow attendees nearly so much as their esteemed tutors. Well, there is a little awkwardness about it, but it has a certain grace: he has not made it impossible for her to take offense and place him squarely in the wrong besides, but she would have to decide to do so, and maneuver accordingly.

(Yes, for those playing at home, it is sometimes exhausting being Petrana de Cedoux.)

So: she does not. She says, “I thought the very same,” graciously, indicating with an agreeable tilt of her chin that she is indeed familiar, and doesn't anticipate being greatly challenged. He is quite right that she is someone who would know how to dance, and there were any number of such skills that she had felt it needful and wise to polish while she still sat within the ambassador's office. It's likely she'd have pursued this one regardless, but she has already been obliged by her work to attend balls and dinners and be turned about the dancefloor; it had not been given the leisure of being a leisure activity.

“If you will lead, mssr, I assure you I shall ably follow.”

Kain and Inessa

[in_death_sacrifice]

At least this time, Kain has his own dance partner along... so he needn't be haunted by flashbacks to long, dreary sessions where he'd been forced to dance back in the day with random partners. That will get rid of any awkwardness over this portion of the lesson. He sighs heavily all the same, as he moves into position alongside Inessa. "Follow my lead, and we should get this over with as painlessly as we can... Thank you for suffering alongside me today, by the way."

At least Inessa is dealing with the whole situation better than he is. But he does indeed know what he's doing, and it shows in how fluid his motions are.

[circleprodigy]

Inessa manages a smile just for him as she raises her arms, following his lead as well as taking note of the women who seem to know what they're doing. Most of her success in anything of this nature has been from mimicking others.

"I'm not sure you should thank me, when it's mandatory for everyone. If it wasn't, I would absolutely not be here. But...I suppose this part isn't too bad, since it's with you." She lowers her voice, an amused gleam in her eyes. "And if it scandalizes them, all the better." Misery loves company, and Inessa won't mind at all if her elven self dancing with a human noble makes anyone uncomfortable.

Teren & Flint

[doneisdone]

In her gown, gloves, and fancy leather eyepatch, her hair all done up in a somewhat nicer bun than usual, Teren has managed to make herself even more formidable than usual. Her head turns to the captain, unsmiling, as he approaches, and she extends her hand for him to take with only the faintest hint of wry challenge in her visible eye.

"Have you done this before," she asks, her voice missing some of its usual gruffness.

[katabasis]

"Once or twice."

His fingers are rough, calloused to the point of scuffing as he takes her offered hand - raises it a by some small degree and inclines his head with a sly sidelong look that speaks definitively toward the concept of this being familiar territory. Indeed, in the evening's flurry of lavish gowns and well-tailored vests, the captain has somehow managed to seem strangely suited to the whole affair. Never mind that he's clearly made no effort whatsoever to tailor his wardrobe for the occasion. There is something both striking and chameleon like about the dark coat, the clean press of his shirt, the brass and copper rings on his fingers.

Maybe it's simply a matter of confidence - a certain ease in whichever room he's forced to occupy. Or maybe this is simply just as much a stretch as anything else is, and he's well practiced with pretending.

He certainly doesn't hesitate to lead her into the dance once the clack-clack-clack of the staff on stone finds its rhythm.

Benedict & Skadi

[altusimperius]

By the time the dancing is about to begin, Benedict has grown rather impatient with the whole ordeal, and it shows in how his eyes wander the room while he stands waiting for his partner-- what kind of a name is 'Skadi'-- with his hands clasped behind his back in a display of uncharacteristic gentility.
This quickly dwindles when he catches sight of the person approaching, but he at least makes the effort to school his expression into something other than the horror her appearance merits. He has to dance with that?

[iceblade]

In contrast to Benedict's horror, Skadi's impish grin widened when she saw her partner up ahead. The tall Avvar woman approached, by now having shed her fur jacket, leaving her in fur pants, boots, warrior paint...and not much else. Someone is definitely looking to push the envelope as to what was acceptable, and the reactions she had gotten so far were worth it. It's their fault for making this mandatory, in her view.

"Ah, there you are. Ready for a dance, lowlander?"

six + thranduil

[swordproof]

It's more than obvious that Six is entirely out of her depth here. She had never been taught to dance in her own world; she had been too gangly when she had been a child, too quiet and hidden, the village too aware of the damage being done to her, and as an adult, she had never been in the position to learn. Now she feels too big and too heavy to do something as dainty as dancing, especially with a partner that makes her think of the elves of her home.

She looks almost nauseated as she steps up to stand in front of Thranduil, her eyes wide and almost panicked.

Breathing out, she nods her head and looks at him, trying to appear as bold and determined in this as she does in battle, in fighting, in all other things.

"Good evening."

Re: six + thranduil

[rowancrowned]

“Lady,” he says, and sketches a bow, because lessons taught as a child can never quite be washed away—even when that childhood was a few thousand years ago. He pays no mind to her nervousness. He will lead, and he is skilled in nothing so much as guiding others. What are a few trodden-on toes to giving someone else confidence?

He offers her his hand, the other raised to clasp the second. Dancing with Gwenaëlle is a pleasure, always—but it will be nice to have a partner whom he does not tower over. And she is an elf—but it is a shame they are not doing elven dances.

Val + Brienne

[degenere]

"I," Val announces to the tall, tall woman, "abhor this sort of dance."

Still: he offers his hand to her with a smile somewhere between mischievous and charming. To the untrained eye, he would appear to be dressed in a highly Orlesian fashion: from his brocade tailcoat, close-cut and well tailored in the chest, with daggered lapels and tails and fine golden buttons, and its bolero trimming of iridescent fabrics and leathers that has been styled to look like green dragonscale--to his fine boots of green leather, over the knee and supple enough to permit movement--right up to the velvet hat, soft like a cream, with a bejeweled brooch and four blue-and-green feathers to top it all off.

Of course, it is really a very daring and fashion-forward outfit, in Orlais. One sported only by the young and the rebellious, uninterested in the traditional upholding of traditions. But Val does not expect anyone here to realize as much, except perhaps his fellow Orlesians--though, then again, they are all rather a shocking set, with perhaps just one of them donning a mask constantly--and besides, this woman is no Orlesian.

She is striking. That is for certain. And probably controversial, in some way. He must figure out how.

"If we vary from the prescribed steps, we might cause a scene."

Imagine.

[servility]

The dinner went well enough. It's as good a start as she could ask for, really, to this mandatory exercise in dignified self-flagellation. It emboldens her to approach the dance segment of the evening with something closer to acceptance than resignation, so when her name is drawn, she moves to greet the man with whom she's to dance.

And then he speaks, and it's utterly familiar - enough so that she's certain she's spoken to him somehow, during her scant few weeks here in Kirkwall - but she can't quite place it. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like he recognizes her from wherever it was that they met, so she's off the hook for now.

All of which leaves her nothing to do but take the offered hand and allow herself to be led onto the dance floor. They've not even begun to dance but already Brienne wishes she were allowed to wear a tunic and styled pants to the occasion. They would've been far more comfortable to dance in than the dress she's currently donning, a simple garment not unlike the one she wore to the late Joffrey Baratheon's wedding.

In the meantime, the supposed lesson is beginning, and it's immediately apparent that 'dancing' here is absolute nonsense. A fact that her partner seems to at least partially agree with. 'If we vary from the prescribed steps,' he's saying, 'we might cause a scene.' And despite herself, she lets out a poorly concealed snort of dry humor.

"Is that a warning, or a request?"

Sidony and Matthias

[inkindled]

Matthias had sidled up to his assigned partner like a mongoose approaching a snake. His sidle might have looked a little like a swagger, because he was trying, manfully, to look as if he knew what he was doing.

He doesn't. At all. And Sidony Venaras is very pretty--as in, very pretty, unfairly pretty, with a gown that looks made of money--and probably knows how to dance already, probably doesn't need these lessons at all--whereas Matthias has only ever done tavern dancing, campfire dancing, the sort of dancing that comes of mania and ale and everyone being high off their own freedom. No coordination and no finesse and no choreography.

Which means that Matthias' hand is sweaty in hers and he's spent most of their time together glaring at his own feet as the staff taps out the count.

"S' better if there's music," he mutters at one point, resentfully. But truthfully he probably wouldn't be much better even with music--and, truthfully, that's probably obvious.

[indissection]

Sidony is, of course, a wonderful dancer; she had been taught the proper steps and the right moves from a very young age and she had been forced to ensure that she would never misstep. One of the best ways to attract a husband is to prove your grace, your femininity, everything that might be portrayed most handsomely at one ball or another. All of this practice does make her feel a little silly, given her skill clearly outmatching most of the others.

At least the young man she has been paired with seems sweet and earnest enough, so much so that she is not entirely put out by being the one who has her toes stepped upon. Her own dress is just daring enough that it shows her leg and a little more, enough that she can entice and be demure all at once. Her expression is just on the edge of being deliberately gentle, almost pitying but not quite making it there as she takes his hand and places them properly, leading the dance while attempting to make it seem as though he is somehow the one in charge.

She wonders if anyone thinks she is at all successful in that. The poor boy seems hopelessly distracted.

"I am sure there will be music next time," she admits gently, leaning closer. "But then you will be able to show everyone how remarkable you are."

Yseult and Darras

[staysail]

Darras could be insufferable.

He isn't going to be. But he could be. He could tell Yseult all the times that he remembers dancing with her. More times than could be counted on four hands, four feet. He could describe for her the sawdust-strewn floor of the tavern in the village. The well-worn floor of the cottage. The beach's apron frill around the cliffs, where running could turn easily to a game, to a kind of dance, between spars of shipwrecks and great puffs of brown-white sea foam. Night dancing at the local feast, all lit with lanterns and sweet with summer wine. Day dancing, teasing her as she went to go fetch water, or grabbing her hand and pulling her close, a quick sway that she sometimes resisted and sometimes collapsed into.

Moments and sentiments that would assassinate her image, probably. Lay waste to what truce or mending they've managed, between them. So he doesn't say anything at all when they meet on the dance floor, with the other couples grouped about them. Of course those moments are all around them, like another person whispering in their ears. That's what happens when you've been married for years.

And it's all in Darras' smile--though he doesn't mean it at all cruelly, and she'd best not read it that way or it could all be undone.

The rhythm starts. Darras doesn't reach for her hand yet, delaying the moment, resisting the urge to start.

"Fancy meeting you here."

Wysteria & Kostos

[exequy]

Kostos knows his dance partner only from observation—unwilling, mostly, the crystals are incessant that way—but most of the set-jawed resentment on his face isn’t personal. Or isn’t deserved, at least. Assigning her any of the blame for this, when they’ve all been compelled to be here and her name came out of a bowl and she has nothing to do with any particular other people in the room who he’s been refusing to look at all evening the way you don’t look at a wound when your bones are showing through, would be completely illogical.

But, you know. Whatever.

He extends a hand to her with sullen utilitarianism, and he says, “Don’t scuff my boots.”

They’re good boots. He didn’t dress up for this, particularly, but his boots are always good boots.

steve + fifi

[murrika]

Called out to the dance floor, Steve's honestly more worried about this part than he was any of the fancy utensil guessing games he just played during meal time. That one he could bullshit well enough, or cheat off the person next to him. This? Less so.

"I oughta warn you before we start - this is something I'm infamously bad at."

Dancing. There is the part where he doesn't know how to do it all to begin with, but there's also the part where he's been to every other dance club in Brooklyn, dragged along by Bucky and whatever girl(s) he had on his arm, and kept aggressively to the sidelines, whatever attempts his best friend might've put into teaching him being worth exactly zip. The future's given him time to remedy that, yeah, but has he? That's a big nerp.

He's sorry, Fifi, he really is.

ilias + iorveth

[aenseidhe]

"I don't know any human dances and I don't want to."

That is the first thing Ilias's unfortunate dance partner tells him, while munching away at something he's stolen from the banquet tables, wrapped up in a napkin, because he's high as balls (you can probably smell burnt elfroot on him) and he has a serious case of the munchies.

It appears at least Someone put an initial effort into making Iorveth fit the assignment, having dressed him in some fine, loose white robes, but said robes have since been bunched up underneath layers and layers of weaponry strapped to his person - leather sword belts with holsters, a sheathed dagger at his chest, another thick leather strap holding up the holster for the long bow at his back, and the ornate quiver connected to it.

Let's not forget the fact he showed up to this farce with legitimate war paint on his face, because he's a twat and wanted to make sure everyone knew he isn't happy to be here parading around like a fucking tamed peacock. But hey, at least he brought snacks to the dance floor? "Crab cake?"

solas + gwen

[dirth]

Seeing who he had been paired with for the dance had been, at first, somewhat disconcerting. Whoever had been the manager of these pairings must hate him - or like him, depending on what they know about Solas and his friendship with Thranduil and his wife. Absent fingers stroke over the hair around his neck, something he ought to remove someday soon before he breathes out and moves to seek her out.

It cannot be so difficult. One dance and he knows how to do these, knowledge as old as this world itself.

When he finds her he's a little startled by her, but he goes to her all the same, offering her his hand and an awkward, almost staged bow. He feels the eyes of the world on him, but at least he is not dancing with someone from Tevinter or someone that might cuss the shape of his ears and the lithe nature of his body.

He knows her. It will do.