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]

“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?"