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

[rowancrowned]

[ he catches it, lets the weight and direction of the toss take the sword into an underhand sweep while he gets the sense of the blade, the weight and how it cuts the air.

he has not done this in— centuries? hasn’t needed to, has known doing so would be— not below him, but inappropriate. better left to the young. but he feels young, which is to say he wants gwenaëlle’s eyes on him, and iorveth, and he has them, so let what may, be.

behind the head, turning the wrist so as to sweep figure-eights, switching his weight from front to back foot to compensate for the blade. he tries a few passes between hands and dubs himself unlikely to kill himself or a pedestrian. it’s then that he can look at iorveth. iorveth is better at this, faster, has little tricks, but he feels he can match.

gwenaëlle calls out and he turns to smile at her. with one hand free, he minds that the air-slicing turns of the blade don’t come close to his arm, and idly begins undoing the top closures of his robe. ]

[aenseidhe]

[ gwenaelle calls out her new demands as thranduil is getting used to the weight and feel of the sword, picking up speed and finesse, and he tosses his head back in a laugh. it wouldn't be the first time a simple physical activity was amended by gwenaelle baudin yelling "now strip" from somewhere on the sidelines. her forwardness is refreshing.

thranduil, after giving a look, is already reaching for buttons on his clothes, working the fixtures open between swings of the blade. with only the one now, rather than the two, iorveth can use the free hand to pull at his shirt, loosening laces and expanding the neck of it.

he gets the garment off his head and =left shoulder, before tossing the blade up, out of the way just long enough to take trapped arm out of the shirt and toss ir aside, the cloth falling into gwen's lap.

just don't ask him to put oil on. ]
]

[rowancrowned]

[ well, that’s impressive, and thranduil can’t refuse a challenge.

(rip provost baudin, killed in the middle of a sick stunt.)

he brings one sleeve to his mouth to undo the buttons with his teeth, and then very elegantly and not at all clumsily rolls his shoulder to loose one shoulder off and then tosses the sword high to switch hands before doing the same with the other side. the fabric slides off his back and crumples at his feet, and he steps free, left only in linen shift, which is tucked at the waist into pants.

it’s close enough. he catches the sword as it falls, and now he’s a bit more at ease, toying and letting the sword change from hand to hand, once or twice behind his back. ]

[aenseidhe]

[ iorveth's bright green eye never leaves thranduil as he's pulling free from the garment, only pausing to tilt his head towards gwenaelle with a chuckle once his chest is bare, a mischievous but satisfied smirk there. ]

A year here and I've not yet seen you in real combat, you know that?

[ thranduil's been on missions, and iorveth has, and they've sat around in his bedroom and talked war stories and strategy and battlefield tactics, but iorveth's not actually witnesses the man's skill itself. only dreamed of what he might look like, all deadly elegance and icy violence, beautiful and terrifying, in the way natural disasters are.

by the sharp grin that pulls at his lips, it's clear iorveth is requesting to see that now.

fight him. fight him fight him fight him. pretty pretty please. ]

[elegiaque]

( few things are nearly so handsome to gwenaëlle as thranduil (and iorveth) doing as she bids, so she is more than pleased with this development; catches iorveth's discarded shirt and drapes it around her shoulders. he may or may not get it back, but she suspects he wouldn't mind—partly his affection for her and partly his disinterest in fine things, both. another day, she might allow also the thought iorveth might like her in his things nearly so much as thranduil does, but


they are still learning the precise lines over which they don't dance, now. that is probably one of them. )

No blood, ( she says, swiftly, translating iorveth's request as quick as he makes it. ) And not the face. I need that. For things.

[rowancrowned]

[ the rotation of the sword slows, rather than stops, and then it is laying, blade flat across his outstretched palms, bladed edge towards thranduil. the look on his face has shifted from hunger edged with lust to—solemnity. calculation. he adds on to gwenaëlle’s demands with a few of his own. ]

Practice swords, in the training yard. We fight to the yield, one round.

[ it won’t last long. iorveth might be able to drag it out, even as they’re playing and iorveth is high, and this is less courtship and more—thranduil isn’t sure what to call it. ]