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

[elegiaque]

At a glance, it seems unlikely that she's made such a grave misstep this evening, if only because she is indeed still here, Thranduil doesn't appear to be actively putting out any fires, and she isn't in any state of panic.

That she is quite so bubbly raises any number of other questions, considering what he knows to be her enthusiasm for anything this is even within glancing distance of, general opinion of most of her colleagues, and actual personality. The slight smoky scent that her perfume doesn't entirely disguise will speak for itself, once she gets near enough to insinuate herself beneath her grandfather's arm—which she does, without any remote regard for his person or dignity or whether or not he wanted to be used to lean on.

It does seem at least a little as if she may need holding up, but at least if she has to be carried out of the Gallows a second time it'll be for less immediately concerning reasons than previous. He will be well within his rights to merely frown at her, disapprovingly, and spare the healers being bothered with the consequences of her own decisions. However, that is a tomorrow problem—

Her cheek bonks hard enough into the side of his arm when she arrives that she may have a bruise from her mask on her cheekbone, later, so it's immediately difficult to miss that she'd decided to wear one. “It definitely wasn't money well spent,” she informs him, brightly.

[toujoursdroit]

"I'd have thought you'd have been in support of literally teaching some of these people some manners," he says, quiet and mild as he looks down to study her. It isn't that it's hard to put the pieces together, but he's not immediately sure how he should react. Chastising her now is likely to do little, and he can't frown her back into sobriety. Much as he might like to try.

Instead, after a moment, he says, "I wasn't sure you still had any masks."

[elegiaque]

I didn't say it wasn't a good idea, I only said it isn't working is what she means to say, and quite possibly what she will yet, but she finds herself momentarily derailed by his observation of her accessory. Her fingertips come up to the edge of it as if she'd forgotten it were there, an old familiar weight upon her face; you can take the girl out of the court, she thinks, but you'll never take out what they beat into her while she was there. She might dislike how easy it is to slip into, if she let herself think on it too long.

(Not irrelevantly, her eyes swivel, seek out Alexandrie at the pianoforte.)

“A few,” she says, eventually, tilting up to smile at him, hard to read for reasons that have everything to do with the mask while not, specifically, being because of it. She has never been so subtle that a half-mask could hide her tells. “I had to dust it off a bit.”

[toujoursdroit]

"It looks well. One would never know." It's not as if he can scare her off from something she's almost certainly not going to do after tonight regardless. He lightly touches her cheek below the mask, fond, for all it would be impossible to read from a distance (or probably up close if she knew him less).

"So. Is the problem mainly stubbornness of the students or inept teaching?" He has a suspicion, but he's interested to see what she'll say.

[elegiaque]

“Some people,” she pronounces, deliberately, “are not built for this.”

If it sounds as if perhaps Gwenaëlle is speaking for herself, it's probably because she is. The more detailed answer is probably all of the above, but she's rather attached to two thirds of their tutoring team (even if she'd only admit to one) and suspects the shape of stubbornness to only be mulishly obnoxious in about half of participants. Some people really aren't built for this. Some people just can't help but be appalled by being expected to do things they don't like, and it's enlightening to know that that particular character flaw isn't a privilege strictly limited to the upper classes as she'd once imagined.

“Besides, if you ask me,” which he has, so he deserves whatever he gets, “I think this is a much more effective test than lesson. Someone is learning something from all this.”

[toujoursdroit]

"More than one someone, if observation bears me out." He'd been watching to see who was watching, among other things. "Making this compulsory for everyone, regardless of role, suggests the testing was the more important goal than the teaching. Some people might have been unknown quantities, but I could easily pick out half a dozen people here you would never send on this sort of mission, no matter how many lessons they take."

He's a snob. But he's also a realist.

"The comte and comtesse will be glad to know that the pianoforte lessons were worthwhile, I expect," he adds, light.

[elegiaque]

“We're even more shorthanded now that we aren't actually part of the Inquisition,” she observes, playing with his hand like a cat half-aware of a toy, “you never know who's going to end up having to do what, unexpectedly. Probably both goals. I just think one of them is going to be more effective than the other.”

If this evening is meant to be the difference between life or death, at some point, she wouldn't bet her fortune on the former.

[toujoursdroit]

"The solution to small forces should, in theory, involve deploying them more strategically. If you haven't any cavalry, you make a plan that doesn't require cavalry, you don't just thrust infantrymen upon horses and pray."

Not that anyone asked him.

[elegiaque]

“The first casualty of battle is whatever plan you had for the battle,” is her immediate rejoinder, because someone has been paying attention.

It would be slightly more impressive if she wasn't very obviously tilting to watch him, sidelong, to see if he's proud of her.

[toujoursdroit]

A small smile is visible below the edge of his mask."Pert thing, quoting me at myself." He loves her the most. "Well, little general, what do you make of the state of the forces? Anyone here who could pass for an hour or two?"