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

[indissection]

Sidony has been milling, now, making her way here and there; she looks stunning in her dress and she's well aware of it, well aware of what attention it is going to get her - isn't that why she chose it in the first place? Once she has done her fair share of training those that clearly have no idea how to dance whatsoever she takes her own glass of wine and wanders here and there, smiling and flirting and being as coy as she can muster.

She would settle in a corner with Byerly, if she thought that she might steal him for long enough, but he seems far too busy for her.

What does catch her attention is a woman staring at her hand - and, ah, another Rifter, perhaps? Sidony has not known many of them (and has tried not to, since Jester had left) but she cannot help herself. Walking over, skirts dancing around her heels and a smile on her face, she leans down to peer deliberately.

"Does it hurt?"

[radiosa]

Osana sees her coming—the dress is very bold, never mind the woman wearing it—and stops gawking at her hand, at least, though it’s still conveniently held up when the woman leans in to look.

The impulse to hide it, because it’s weird and she hates it, surges up, but it’s met by the suddenly-allied need to be considerate and desire to be interesting, and their joint effort is enough to defeat it. So her hand stays at convenient observation level, and she manages to smile under the scrutiny.

“Not anymore,” she says, and her accent is Antivan—not that a rifter couldn’t have an Antivan accent. “Not like it did at first. Mostly it is strange.”

[indissection]

It's enough for Sidony, who drinks in the atmosphere and takes the chance to examine the woman while she can. She's handsome enough, even if she might be foreign, and her eyes flick up and down quickly; examining, registering, memorising. She knows. She knows lords and ladies and nobles, and this girl is surely none of them.

Perhaps that is for the better.

Leaning forward, Sidony examines it just a little. It's her first time looking at one up close and she drinks it in, curious and interested, obviously a touch enraptured by it before she tilts her head up and looks. A shardholder with an accent? Interesting. She recognises it, even if she thinks it doesn't quite make sense.

"I have heard that it hurts less the closer to the Inquisition you are - though I suppose we're not called that any longer." A sigh as she stands up straight, then offers her hand - dignified, regal, as if she expects it to be kissed but doesn't particularly want it all the same. "Sidony Venaras."

[radiosa]

For a beat she just looks at the hand. She's aware of the expectation in the gesture; she's aware, too, that she fought alongside nobles' children in the Inquisition army and curtsied to none of them, and that they're equals of a sort here. Between those two awarenesses she's left completely unaware of what she should actually do, and compromises by taking Sidony's hand and dipping her head down only a few inches, rather than all of the way, like the suggestion of a bow.

"Osana," she says, and then, "Are you from Nevarra?"

Clearly so, with that accent, but asking is better than assuming

—and she's still holding Sidony's hand, for several seconds longer than manners demand. It's just that she's very pretty, and it's a little distracting. But Osana realizes, after those several seconds, and slides her fingers away from Sidony's at a speed that's a little lingering, maybe, but mostly because jerking her hand away would be awkward.

[indissection]

Sidony comes close to raising her eyebrow - not in judgement, but in curiosity - before her hand is taken and the woman is leaning down to greet her. It's perfectly charming and there's a moment where her eyes widen, something making her feel as though the wind has been taken out of her completely. Being looked at by another woman, especially one as handsome as this...

No. She forces herself to lean back, taking her hand away and settling, breathing out. Her hand presses against her stomach and her eyes dance away for a moment before she finally, finally gives Osana a small, soft smile.

"I am. Is it so obvious?" Her accent gives it away, surely, but it's always fun to poke, tease and prod at others, breathing out gently.