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

[tender]

There's something shared: that unknown, the question of what fragments of their life had survived. Derrica had tried so hard not to dwell on it. She'd been too terrified to go back and ask the right kinds of questions, the ones that you use to start a search. She doesn't know how to look back.

Leander had put himself in her way. The soft kisses he puts on her cheek warm her through. The sense of them lingers like a talisman as she draws just slightly back to look at him properly but not enough to break the circle of his embrace.

"I almost didn't."

But hadn't it been the same for him? All the blood she'd spilled clawing her way to the sea, how could it have been any different? There had been so many templars. It had felt impossible to break free of them without cleaving their skulls in.

"Have you been hurt?"

Predictably the first question she settles on.

[sarcophage]

Impossible for some—irresistible for Leander. He was positioned to flee with the first of them, could have made it nearly unseen, and he turned back to kill because he wanted to, because how dare they, because he'd never had so simple an excuse until then.
Because the opportunity was there.
Because he could.

No sign of that black-eyed nightmare stands before Derrica now, none of it darkens the fondness in his voice,

"Comes with the job, darling. It's still early in my recovery, that's all—I'll be well again soon enough. You look marvellous, meanwhile. How long've you been with us?"

[tender]

"Only a day or so."

Long enough to be warned she'd have to learn manners, at least.

Her hand lifts to his cheek. If she'd been here when this happened, maybe she could have done something about it. She's healed men through worse. (Maybe? Whatever happened here might have been...) He's in one piece, if pale, so whoever tended to him likely did their best.

"How long have you...?"

Long enough to be injured in pursuit of this organization's goal, at least. But there's something bigger in the question. There's so much time to be accounted for since they'd last seen each other. She exhales hard, shakes her head.

"We have so much to catch up on."

[sarcophage]

They certainly did their best to keep him alive once the passion had burnt itself down to something more fragile. Guilt: his lucky escape hatch.

"We do."

A hand on her shoulder, thumb moving the fabric of her shirt. She still smells like her—feels different, now. If there's any suspense in their familiarity it's for the stories they have yet to trade, the safest of their secrets changing hands like cards. Will it be that way still?

"When can you get away?"

[tender]

Get away? She looks around the room, hand drifting from Leander's cheek to his neck. (Absently checking his pulse, as if he's still newly injured, still in need of immediate tending.) There are still people dancing. She had a partner, but she never got their name and she can't pick them out of the crowd. Her answer to Leander is a shrug.

"I don't think anyone's going to notice if I'm gone."

A beat of time passes before she smiles a little.

"I'm newly arrived. I hardly think anyone knows my name to complain if I am missed."

And she's done her part. She's had her feet stepped on, she's shared a bit of wine, and she has might have no stronger grasp of etiquette now than she did when she arrived, but she's done what's asked of her.

"Can you go?"

He's been here longer. If anyone's going to have prevailing obligations, it's Leander.

[sarcophage]

Fingers slide to throat, and another hand comes to meet them—casually, but promptly—and guides them instead to the more neutral territory of his shoulder. (His pulse is fine.) Her smile, too, is answered—though he hasn't really stopped since he announced himself. Not completely.

"I'm in the other group. Today, I'm only here to watch. So," separating enough to offer his arm, most gentlemanly, "why don't we take a walk? I'll show you my workspace, if you like."

[tender]

"Yes," simply, without hesitation. Maybe she should stay. But can dancing with a group of strangers hold a candle to Leander being delivered back to her? She'd thought he would have been killed. What he'd done to that templar, if anyone else had seen, they wouldn't have hesitated to put him to the sword. Derrica had assumed he'd been taken apart along with the Circle, razed to the ground as if he'd never been.

Her grip is tight on his arm as they walk. Where have you been pounds in her chest.

"Have you heard from anyone else?" is what she settles on, asking a question she knows is likely hopeless.

[sarcophage]

If anyone else had seen—like Derrica saw. She's been away, too, in places he knows not where, and who knows how her thinking might have changed in three tumultuous years? It's not only fondness that compels Leander to welcome her so warmly, but caution, and a penetrative interest—the shark's black eye in a fixed stare as it breathes the water around her.
Around, and around.

When his hand covers hers, she might find it feels smaller than before, in the way thin and cool-fingered hands often do. The hungry look he's always had, that certain inscrutable lack, he still carries it now.

But his smile is the same.

"No," softly spoken. "You're the only one."

[tender]

She's quiet for a few moments. No, this is not new. It's selfish to hope for more, maybe. Leander is already an unexpected miracle. Why should she tempt fate to ask for more?

"Tell me about your work?" She asks after a moment. "What do you do here?"

The question butts up against the unknown stretch of time between them. What has he been doing? What has he learned? He's injured and pale, but he has a workspace here. Derrica has barely been able to begin wrapping her head around how she could be useful here. Maybe knowing what it is Leander does can point her towards something.

She covers his free hand with her own. Happy. She is happy to have found him here, drawn forth from the great, terrible wreck of Dairsmuid. His presence is like a sign that coming here was not foolish, that all will work out as she'd hoped.

[sarcophage]

"Archiving, mostly—sorting through artefacts to find the worthy stuff, giving it a polish," he's never been explicit about anything he learnt in Nevarra, and that applies to restoration too—

Fetching up on his own train of thought, Leander opens his mouth as though to start again, holds it open for two strides, presses it closed.

More quietly, "Do you remember the one I told you about? The boy in Nevarra?" It would've been a handful of sentences among many, a passing conversation about their romantic histories—the sort of talk that's inevitable in close quarters, and more so the closer those quarters get—and only grazing his memories in the vaguest terms. There was a boy, once, and then he was sent away. The barest glimpse of vulnerability, just as quickly sealed back up, any attempt to excavate it redirected.

Nothing in Leander's bearing is vulnerable now—and perhaps there should be, given this reunion's significance—but, as Derrica may notice, even in this sickly state there is a certain lightness about him that was rarely seen at Dairsmuid.

[tender]

Her fingers tighten on his arm. Twin surges of hope and envy spark in her chest. She remembers the way Leander had spoken of this boy, quietly in the dark. He had meant something to Leander. Forcibly, she stops herself from thinking of anything more than this conversation and what Leander is invoking.

"Is he here?" She asks. "Does he work with you?"

The envy is crushed, pressed down hard. This is good news. She can be pleased for him. It's that simple.

[sarcophage]

"Not with me, no, but he is here." It's that simple. Not with me pries at his ribs, and he smiles through it. Of Ilias it's all he has to hold, so he declines to crush it—though that is a ferocious urge at times. "You'd have seen him. About my height, short dark hair, and a beard," which is new, which he likes very much, "very expressive eyebrows. An elegant way about him. Looks like he'd blush if he heard a naughty word."

Leander himself looks like he's waiting for Derrica to comment on something he's made; he keeps flicking sidelong glances at her as they walk.

[tender]

"He sounds handsome," is Derrica's verdict. She sways her weight in against Leander, expression bright. "Do you want me to teach you some of the naughty words I've learned for the next time you see him?"

There's something delicate here. Derrica can feel the cracks spidering out, the same as she had when they were in Dairsmuid. It's not surprising. She had never been uprooted and sent away, but she imagines it does some damage to be parted so thoroughly from the person you care for.

At least they're alive. Derrica takes a deep breath, nipping the curl of jealousy before it can bloom.

"I should have made more effort to dance with him," she continues, before he voice dips. "Are you happy to see him?"

[sarcophage]

Comments received, processed, and favourably assessed. He hadn't noticed the tension in his own posture until it slipped loose, and now he does, with secret gratitude—and hums a laugh, low in his throat, rich and genuine.

"I am." Though their situation is infinitely more complicated, it's an accurate summation—and anyway, she needn't know the details. "You must meet him, of course. I think you'll be fond of each other." Leaning in for a momentary murmur, "And don't you worry, he knows plenty of those words himself."

[tender]

The answering smile is watery, but genuine.

"I'd like to meet him," she answers, even if it feels a little like twisting a knife in her gut to contemplate the idea of it. She hates that sensation; this jealousy is an ugly, useless, twisting thing. She tells herself she's been given back a friend, someone she'd thought was dead and gone. It's been years of having given up on seeing any of them again, and now she's back to desperately hoping for miracle upon miracle?

Foolish. She'd taught herself to put all of this aside, but Leander's presence breathes life into so many things she's been ignoring.

"What's he like?"

A question that has less to do with Ilias, and more because she wants to hear Leander describe him, likes the way Leander's voice sounds when he's speaking about this particular topic.

[sarcophage]

It's something he can sense—the jealousy, or at least the ache. The longing in the way she leans against him. Is that for him? It mustn't be—but then, they haven't heard each other's voices in a long time.

It's a novelty, to be missed this way. Guilelessly. Without fear. An intoxicating thing to be wanted, in whatever way, even if the person she thinks she wants of him doesn't really exist. (Doesn't he, though?) It's something to cultivate.

So Leander replies, "He's beautiful," and for the moment turns his head to speak near Derrica's hairline. "You'll see." While they walk, close as a pair of sweethearts, he murmurs, "Never mind the workspace for now. We could... take some time, if you want. Just to be. Would you like that?"

clunkily slaps a bow on this and calls it wrapped

[tender]

The offer comes like an echo, bouncing back all the way to Dairsmuid. They are not the same people, but her answer resolves into certainty the same way it had then, before the world had split apart into blood and screams and burned down around them.

"Yes."

Her home is not in Leander. But he is a comfort, familiar and warm in this city. His arms fit around her the way she remembers, though what does she have to whisper to him? Not of Dionisia, not anymore.

Settling into his arms is like having pulled a piece of her from ashes. He is still good at holding her, and he kisses the way he used to. There is a comfort in how tangibly present he is. She'll have to thank him for that when she's acclimated to his existence, finding him alive when she'd long since given him up for dead along with everyone else. But that's something for later, set against all other possibilities that wait for the morning.