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

[sulahnan]

She turns so she's looking at him sort of over her shoulder, practically sitting on the table. Aiming for silly and, paradoxically, landing on coy.

"On my dress? Nah--" She waves a dismissive hand at the notion, but then gestures down at herself. "On this, the dress that Gwen let me borrow? Yes. I'll have to."

The shrug that lifts her shoulders is so exaggerated that it's as if she were being puppeted by invisible strings. Its momentum carries her a step away from the table and she turns, reaching for Matthias' hands to pull him bodily out of his seat.

"So mind your feet, ser."

[inkindled]

Gwen. Gigi. Matthias just starts to look around for Gwenaëlle, maybe so he can call out to her--oi, d'you condone me getting punched over your dress--but then Athessa hauls him out of his chair, displacing Matthias' stomach for a moment. Partly because he's pulled so forcibly, and partially because she's grabbed hold of his hand, and she's pulling him toward where there are other people dancing.

Maker's balls, Matthias thinks. But he lets it happen. What else is he going to do?

"Right, but I'm shit at dancing," he tells her, over the sound of the music, "like, actual shit--and you can't punch me too hard, I didn't have all the proper nutrients in the Circle and all--grew up eating sawdust when times were hard, before that--"

Exaggerated. At least the dancing looks more his style now, cheerful chaos.

[sulahnan]

"Sounds tasty. All I had was actual garbage," she says blithely. "And I'm good enough at dancing for the both of us, so I'll lead."

The stupid thing about these dances--at least one of the stupid things, anyway, is just how fuddy-duddy they are. Two steps forward, one step back, get in line, face each other, step forward, curtsey, step back, bow, blah blah blah.

Just about the only fun bits of these dances are the little hops and hooking arms and twirling around, which is all that this new dance Athessa makes up on the spot consists of, really. A lot of twirls, some hops, hooking arms a few times, hands on hands, hands on waist, hop hop twirl.

And stumbling, and laughing, of course. The concept is much neater than the drunken reality.

[inkindled]

There's no way that she ate actual garbage, Matthias thinks first. There would be other things to eat, right? Could even chuck a rock into a pot of boiling water if the rock were salty enough.

The consideration is abruptly disrupted when they're out among the dancers. Athessa is certainly leading, with her arm hooked through his--hop hop twirl, and Matthias is dragged along, risks falling on his face if he doesn't follow--and what's the point of not following, anyways. The wine is already going to his head, softening him, and her manic energy is doing the rest, sweeping him up and carrying him along with her.

One hop is actually one step--though there's no discernible order to the dance, too frenetic, too kinetic to be followed--and Matthias stumbles right into Athessa. She's shorter than he is, so it's an awkward jarring stumble, limbs jangled wrongways together--mildly painful, but more something to laugh at--

"Ow," he says, on cue, and laughs as he tries to disentangle from her. "What d'you call this dance, anyways--s' mental--"

[sulahnan]

She laughs with him and gets their limbs back in order, looking up at him through her eyelashes in between adjustments.

"Don't call it anything," she says, stepping forward almost as if to close the distance on purpose this time, but it skews diagonal and she hooks her right arm in his. "But I guess if it wasn't something I was just making up right now it'd be called Drunk Party Dance That's Actually Fun. Hmm, sounds worse out loud. I'll work on it."

[inkindled]

"Nah," Matthias says, grinning hugely, "I like it. Suits it perfectly."

He is managing to be both concerned with and fine with the closeness--but barely managing, like if you scraped him with a thumbnail all the top layer of perfectly fine would flake off and reveal how very not fine he might actually be. Except it's not like it's a bad very-not-fine. More the sort that is full of disbelief, the sort that would grab you by the arm and say, oi, can you believe this?, half hysterical.

He's managing to keep it together. Cool. He's cool. Athessa's arm is hooked through his and his side is pressed to her side and he, Matthias, is cool. They're doing a hop skip dance, and he's laughing, and he's cool.

What if he kisses her? Is that cool? No. But maybe. But no.

[sulahnan]

He doesn’t get a chance to, cool or not, as on the next complicated dance step Athessa trips on the hem of her dress and stumbles, laughing. She manages not to go tumbling in a tangle of cloth but her attempt to mask her ill-footing as another dance move just results in her steadying herself with a grip on the front of Matthias’ shirt.

“Okay, okay,” she says. “I gotta get out of this stupid dress.”