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

[justice_is_blond]

"They're a headache at the best of times," Anders says with a smile, using the conversation as a little bit of cover for him glancing over to copy which fork Julius is using. He's supremely out of his element with the fancy food, but he's making an effort. The fish is suffering due to that effort, how does one carefully remove bones and look graceful doing it, for crying out loud? but he's making as good a try as he can.

That being said, he's gone for fancy robes, the same green, blue, and gold peacock ones he'd worn to his wedding. Anders is, well, Anders. He's not a noble. He's never going to be sent or invited to anything fancy like this, so he's at least going to wear something fancy enough but also something he's comfortable in.

"But you've been holding your own from what I've seen and heard," he continues, "and there's plenty that are willing to give a hand here. Both Julius and Thranduil had to learn through doing, and they've been doing well."

Both have held positions despite one being a mage and one being a Rifter. It's definitely something, though this organization was at least on the surface more liberal than the rest.

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil, donning a stripped-down capeless and crownless version of what he stepped foot into Thedas in, takes the chance to drink from the glass set before them before he answers Anders.

“Indeed,” he agrees, and briefly raises his glass to Brienne. “My mother and father made sure of it. They are—” and here he sets the glass down. The fish flakes easily enough away from the bones, and as he easily lifts the fillets from the spine and ribs, he continues. “—the sort of lessons that reinforce themselves, like swordplay.”

He slides half the topping off the bruschetta with a fork and onto the flesh, which he spears. “A slip means your opponent lands a painful hit. But we were not so adept as to have built something like the Game.”

[overharrowed]

"The Game is rather as if someone had decided to actually conduct war as a literal game of chess," Julius says, lightly. "Impressive, in its way, but also melding the metaphor and the thing itself in a sense." He's given it some thought, but also... this is meant to be light dinner conversation, so getting into national rivalries is likely a higher difficultly setting than necessary. It seems more prudent to steer them another way.

To Brienne, with a smile, he adds, "I was lucky enough that my adjustment period happened far from here, so no one in Kirkwall was witness to my missteps. It was not quite the same as falling into literally another world, but it certain took effort all the same. I assure you, you have my full sympathy as you settle in."

[servility]

Holding her own, indeed. She's been doing well enough at her duties with Forces, as routine as they seem to be, though she'd hardly claim to have gleaned much of an understanding of what it is that they're actually doing. What precise enemy they're facing. Hardly a conversation for a painfully formal meal such as this one, of course. If plenty are willing to lend a hand, as Anders says, she'll seek that hand on a more fitting occasion.

As each of them chimes in in turn, Brienne makes somewhat short work of her fish - of all the meals they could've served, they chose the precise sort of meat she was taught her own manners over many a meal of. The simplicity of that portion of things almost manages to balance out the fact that so soon in the conversation, they've already begun to speak of things she doesn't understand. 'The Game', they say... She makes a note to ask someone later what 'The Game' refers to.

The sympathy earns a slight smile from Brienne, gratitude for as much good as sympathy really even does her. She actually turns her eyes back to Thranduil, because his words are the ones she's answering most directly. "I'd think that my father tried as much," on the topic of making sure that one learned through doing, "But I took to the swordplay itself far more readily."

Her father in Tarth, a world away. Is she the only Rifter at the table? She hasn't quite caught the glow of green from anyone else's palm, but she hasn't looked too closely. Are they aware that she is one? If she's to understand, that's a bit of a loaded title here in Kirkwall. Her little bit of experience so far suggests that the populace aren't entirely positive that Rifters are human.

[rowancrowned]

Thranduil smiles. “At least that keeps between worlds.”

Status, money, languages—the Rifters had Trade upon arrival, which was a small mercy, even as it indicated something preternatural about their origins. Still, better to have a tongue to insist they were harmless than to babble at one another.

He glances at Julius before returning to his meal. “Do you play chess, madame?”

[justice_is_blond]

"Is chess another thing that keeps between worlds?"

That's been something he's been mildly curious about - what similarities there were. Some worlds didn't have magic, for instance, and he doesn't know what to think about those. Others didn't seem to have the constant war and struggle Thedas did, though still others had just as much.

Anders abandons the fish and goes on to the small, dainty ridiculousness. At least he can manage that with some grace.

"Everyone knows of swords even if they don't use them anymore, from what I've gathered. Everyone seems to know tea. But there are a lot of things that aren't common in every world." Or in the Fade, with the spirit-Rifters, but that doesn't strike him as polite conversation.

[overharrowed]

"Of course -- forgive me, I should have asked to see whether chess was a useful metaphor. Madame de Cedoux is fond of beating me soundly at it, so I didn't think." He imagines, as busy as Petrana is, that her status as a rifter is well enough known he doesn't need to spell it out; if he's wrong, he supposes context will fill in the reason he mentioned her.

"I suppose humanity being what it is, if you lack it, you likely have some other form of game based on martial strategy?"

[servility]

Ah, the benefits of a multi-legged conversation - she hasn't even the time to admit that no, she does not play chess, before the other two have contributed enough context for Brienne to offer a somewhat more educated response.

"The closest game like it would likely be Cyvasse," she says after finishing a bite of her fish. "I've not played it myself, but I know a man who speaks quite highly of it." It's far more popular in Essos, but that's hardly a useful statement to three men who don't even know of Westeros, let alone the surrounding continents.

[rowancrowned]

"What do you like to do with your free time?" Thranduil offers, to keep the conversation along. Brienne has ended up the focus of their conversation, and he finds that perfectly acceptable. Given the way his wife eyes her when she's not focusing on Iorveth or, rather, unfocused, he supposes he'll need something to add to the conversation later in regards to his table partner.

"When you are not training," he amends, because it's obvious she does.

i think it makes sense for her to answer here real quick??

[servility]

In contrast, Brienne herself would very much rather not have been the focus of their conversation... But she'll manage, as she always has in such instances. At least this time the attention seems friendly enough.

"Nothing terribly interesting, I'm afraid." Assuming that discussing training and caring for her blade and armor count as training for the sake of the question. "In Westeros, I'd accompany My Lady on whatever errands she needs attend, which took quite a bit of my time. I've never felt much need for a hobby."

Yeah.

[justice_is_blond]

"I'd little time for a hobby before this either." Little time for eating and sleep for that matter, but thankfully there's no way possession qualifies as polite conversation.

"Now I read a great deal and bang my head against the wall trying to find cures for things." He shrugs, smiling faintly. While he's made progress, he's also fairly certain bragging doesn't count as polite either. "I'm certain there are any number of hobbies someone can pick up here. Um. Like drawing, or getting good at Wicked Grace."

[overharrowed]

"I'm fairly certain no one takes up a hobby out of boredom here," Julius says with a faint smile. "So they tend to be a way to relieve stress, more than anything. I can't say I have any hobbies, as such. Occasionally I work on research that isn't strictly project-related, but I've been told that doing more work does not count as leisure." More or less exclusively by people who have the exact same problem.

"You might learn Wicked Grace, if you're not averse to games. It's a good way to get to know people, since most Thedosians know it and a fair number of rifters have picked it up as well."