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

[overharrowed]

Julius happens to be nearby when she makes her pronouncement; not only is he nearby, he's at a loose end, briefly between partners and observing the scene. (He is also, likely, on her list of "people who might be taking advantage.")

Not, however, of Gwenaëlle herself. Instead, he replies to her comment. "The music is certainly getting more encouraging as the night wears on. I can't entirely blame you." He isn't expecting her to want to dance with him, but she seems in a mood where acknowledging that they know one another, at least, won't be taken amiss.

[elegiaque]

She spins to face him, or at least that seems to be the idea; she overshoots very slightly, sways where she's standing, and corrects herself to better look at him. None of which promises the most reliable dance-partner for a relative newcomer to the form, so it's probably for the best that Julius is spared any immediate enthusiasm for him, specifically.

Though she's not displeased to see him. She wouldn't describe them as friends, precisely, but there is a sort of fondness that she associates with him, as if her uncle Marius had loaned her a bit of his—

Well, after a fashion.

“Did they dance in Circles?” Wow, okay. It's an honest question, it's just also one that even Gwenaëlle probably would have ordinarily thought before asking. (And still asked, but deliberately, and probably not of Julius.)

[overharrowed]

He almost, but doesn't quite, reach out to steady her when she wobbles.

"I'm certain they did in some of them. I can't imagine Madame de Fer made it to court without knowing how. But not in Kinloch Hold. Not much music, generally, though there was one enchanter I knew who sang now and then."

It is one of the things he hadn't missed as much, before he'd known to miss it. He's grown fond of music, the longer he's been out, but it hasn't seemed a politic thing to observe to much of anyone, so he's kept it to himself.

From another person, or even delivered in another way, the question might have made him a bit defensive. From her, in this context, it's just a question.

[elegiaque]

“I'm sure Vivienne learned a lot of things from the Duke de Ghislain,” Gwenaëlle says, which is precisely the sort of bad example that no one should be following where making conversation at dinner parties is concerned and which she might not have done if she thought there was any likelihood of Madame de Fer hearing about it quickly. Or visiting Riftwatch.

Riftwatch is probably a bit too declassé for her refined palate; this is hardly the sort of soiree that Skyhold might host to impress visiting dignitaries.

A beat later, “While they were fucking.”

Yes, he probably understood the reference.

Then, “The old one, I mean. The dead one.”

Andraste.

[overharrowed]

"...is this a test?" He definitely wouldn't be asking if he actually thought so. "Spend the evening conversationally weaving only to be struck in the face with the gossip equivalent of a cast-iron pan?"

[elegiaque]

Incongruously, she looks very proud of herself— “A cast-iron pan, really?” And then, “Tell Alexandrie it was a test if she asks.”

[overharrowed]

Julius laughs, quietly. "Alright, I will. Am I allowed to tell her I inched by with a passing grade, as well? Recovered with a well-timed joke?"