faderift | [ota] nobody's gonna have an orgy in their mansion all over their nice furniture

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[ota] nobody's gonna have an orgy in their mansion all over their nice furniture

WHO: OTA, more or less
WHAT: An all-hands infiltration mission ends up being rather more hands than anticipated.
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: At an estate outside Ostwick
NOTES: Sending crystals are allowed but must be used with the utmost discretion to avoid discovery. A general warning for Eyes Wide Shut-type party nonsense, but more fancy swinger makeouts than sex dungeon. Please make sure to communicate OOCly to ensure everyone's having fun. NSFW content is likely, but if a thread is going to turn into prolonged porn please shift it to an inbox.

Word has come through reliable sources that Baron Hounsford, secretly a significant financial supporter first of the Inquisition and now of Riftwatch as well, is to be the target of an assassnation attempt. Precisely why or by whom is unknown, just that the threat is imminent. Worse, the Baron has left behind his personal guard to attend a somewhat mysterious event at the home of Lord Esterhauzy, outside Ostwick. All Riftwatch has been able to learn on such short notice is that the estate is secluded and the event extravagant. The massive scale is a blessing and a curse: it's certainly big enough to sneak in quite a lot of people, so long as they look as if they have money, but by the same token it will be easy for assassins to sneak in as well, and difficult to quickly locate anyone.

On arrival, everyone willing to dress the part is ushered in to Lord Esterhauzy's glittering mansion, where the difficulties of the mission suddenly become much greater: each person, whether disguised as guest or staff, will be handed a random mask, and informed of the rules:

Merry Widow of Wycome

The dimly candle-lit ballroom is already loud with masked guests, so many that they spill out onto the torch-studded terraces and garden beyond. The room is overwarm, but not sweltering thanks to the efforts of oiled footmen posted near the windows with large fans, and the servants circulating with trays of icy-cold champagne. Somewhere in this crowd are Baron Hounsford and those who wish to kill him, and the only way to find them is to spread out, speak to as many people as possible, and regularly pool information among themselves to try to zero in on their targets. They must mingle as if lives depend upon it.

Those reluctant to participate if it might be avoided will discover that locations where private conversation can be had without complying with the house rules are almost non-existent. Lord Esterhauzy learned his lesson the last time he tried this--it is a common subject of gossip among the crowd that the last party he had advertised as the most debauched of the season fizzled out into merely a slightly racy cocktail hour with underdressed staff. This time he has taken precautions, blocking off most of the house, monitoring access to the rest to ensure it's for sexy purposes only, and empowering staff to have anyone not complying with the spirit of the event thrown out--lest they think that an idle threat, shortly after they arrive several people are unmasked and thrown out for not obeying the musical cue, much to the laughter of the crowd. Even the grounds are patrolled.

There are several spots they've overlooked: a linen closet, a stairwell alcove, a corner of the library, but Riftwatch aren't the only ones to have discovered this, and there is no guarantee any particular hiding spot will be available when the music stops.

As the night goes on and the crowd gets drunker, the tone gradually shifts from slightly giggly titillation to more serious debauchery (much to Lord Esterhauzy's delight. If at first you don't succeed!) but there remains a veneer of decorum that keeps it from sliding into obscenity: people may saunter off to the garden or a private room with someone else's spouse(s), but nobody is just openly fucking on the piano.

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open: hiding.

Look.

The kissing doesn't bother him.

The talking, though, in the early parts of the night, when people are still sober and giggling nervously before or after contact—the talking is annoying and difficult, and Kostos isn't doing anyone any favors by attempting it. He didn't come along to talk to people. He came along to tuck himself away somewhere out of sight and deploy wisps. And that's still the plan, which is why he's now either looking up with irritation only partially hidden by his mask when someone else stumbles into a closet or alcove in search of privacy, because he was here first, or else refusing to look apologetic when he stumbles in on someone else, because he needs it more.

open: mingling, maybe kissing.

Eventually, inevitably chased out of that closet or alcove by the staff or other occupants, Kostos winds up standing on the edge of the main room, glaring at nothing in particular and inattentively swirling his drink in its glass. He doesn't look approachable. But some people approach anyway, intentionally or accidentally. When someone familiar settles with murmuring distance, he says, with his usual quiet tone and rolled Nevarran Rs, "Trust Marchers to need a stupid hours-long game just to fuck," or, more helpfully, "The woman in yellow."

closed: nell.

The song hasn't played in a while. Maybe the musicians have gotten distracted. Maybe it's intentional suspense. But Kostos been thinking any moment now for many moments now, at one point turning and walking directly away from a skinny man with onion breath who seemed to be lingering near him, unwilling to risk it, and now—

Now he's caught in a narrow channel behind a cluster of masked gossipers, a table, a wall, an unoccupied fainting chair, and Nell. Behind her, a couple is not waiting for the music to attach at the mouth and block the escape route. He'd have preferred the onion breath.

"Fuck off," he hisses, even though there's nowhere for her to fuck off to.

Her look of I'm a Marcher, you know doesn't translate well through the mask, so she gives up on it in favor of looking for the woman in yellow.

"Which one?" Does gold count as yellow? Probably not. What about mustard? If limited to sunshine yellow, or buttercup yellow, there's still a handful to choose from.

It's not the time. It's not the place. But—

"What, can you not see yellow either?"

Too bad.

She punches his arm.

"See if I ever tell you anything I'm sensitive about ever again," she grumbles.

She's not here to stop an assassin; she's here to add some passing sense of legitimacy to the Watch's scummier reprobates who can't be cleaned up with a simple scrub and the application of brocade trum. With the use of her arm rendered nonessential thanks to the masks and the color of the evening having revealed itself, Wysteria has sensibly retired into a closet.

So when Kostos opens the door, it's to reveal a series of voluminous skirts and a young lady where she sits on a cedar chest with her heels propped comfortably on the far wall. There is a platter of sweetmeats on her lap and a glass of wine in her hand.

She's also just choked on the most recent sip from the glass thanks to the surprise of her discovery, which makes saying something denigrating like 'You!' rather difficult and coughing very easy.

Kostos shuts the door behind him first. Light sneaks in from beneath the door and around its edges, but for the time it takes his eyes to adjust he can't see her at all. But he saw enough. Miss Poppell. Wine. Snacks.

"What are you doing in here?" he asks.

More authoritative than jealous? Maybe? He tries.

In the dark, a number of possibilities occur to her. 'None of your business,' is a good one. So is 'Waiting for the suitor I've picked up to return so you had better leave immediately or risk blowing my cover.' But what she settles on - or rather, what her mouth says after she stops choking and while her brain is still working through the other options - is:

"Staying out the way." Then, when she hears how unsatisfactory that sounds, Wysteria adds, "Why. What are you doing here?"

Mhavos is downing a glass of bitter wine in a hurry, trying to get the taste of a bad kiss out of his mouth. He catches a familiar voice, and looks up with attentive eyes, even through the holes of his mask. A lady in yellow.

He looks over, angling his face carefully so it's not obvious he's looking. The mask can be used as an advantage, as much as it blocks one's peripheral vision.

Quietly, quietly, "the woman in yellow," he says, before realizing why the voice is familiar. One of the twins. Which one? Well, who knows. "A favorite? Or something more."

Careful words, should they be overheard. Entirely ambiguous.

"Attractive," Kostos says—quiet, too, but without effort or intention. He just is. "She could do better than Hounsford."

Could, but isn't trying to. She's kissed him once already, that he's seen, and is still close enough to be angling for a second go. Hardly enough to start throwing around accusations—or knives—but he's watching.

He glances down at Mhavos while he takes a drink.

"But maybe it's the mask. Or the money."

"You fuck off!" Nell whisper-yells right back, "I was here first." Which is at least true, if not precisely compelling or a good reflection on her powers of argument.

She's wearing one of the dresses Marisol bought her, pale gold and a great deal of black embroidery that suggests the lace she adamantly refuses to actually wear. In the dim candlelight of the hallway it glimmers. So do her teeth, bared at him beneath her mask--some sort of bird of prey--as she opens her mouth to say something else mean (plainly telegraphed by the curl of her lip), when the first note of the Merry Widow is played. Her glare doesn't falter, exactly, but she does hesitate for a second.

Kostos' hesitation lasts a fraction of a second less, and he's still thinking half-formed thoughts about ducking under the table while he's putting his hand to the back of her head and catching hair between his fingers to tilt it back, and fuck that mask for being better than his and fuck that dress for fitting so well—or maybe over the table, while he's shoving his mouth against hers.

He'd rather shove her away. But he's not going to be the one to swerve and get them thrown out.

He's never kissed her gently, not once, not even that time they were just bored and a little drunk, but his fingertips press into the back of her neck with force he'd usually ramp up to.

"It's foreplay," Derrica says, shrugging. She's having a fine but not a very productive evening. Speculating on elaborate hook up scenarios is somewhat better than admitting she hasn't seen a thing worth investigating.

She has some foolish, terrible urge to ask are you okay? and thinks better of it.

"Lord Esterhauzy seems really enthused about the whole thing," she continues, a little awkwardly. The perils of being stuck on a subject when you suspect the person adjacent to you isn't into it. "And the guests are...enthusiastic."

Derrica almost wishes more of them weren't. That feels like a red flag, like Laura was trying to instruct her on.

"Do you need some help finding a place to hide?" is the note Derrica finally, anxiously ends on.

In response to none of the above, Leander says, "I think this is our best errand yet." And he says it on the tail end of a taste of wine, barely enough to cover his tongue.

He's taken enough of these little tastes to have achieved that boyish glow of his—or is it all the compulsory necking? Hmm. A mystery. Regardless, where not covered by the mask—a moth, formed of pale green feathers and silk—he's looking pleasant and flushed, like he often does at a party, and his lip is still wet from the cup, which is definitely on purpose.

And, out of courtesy, he's appeared just after the wrap of the latest song cue. Maybe they'll have a few minutes just to exist before they're forced to make out. (How terrible that would be.)

"Have you made many friends?"

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[ota] nobody's gonna have an orgy in their mansion all over their nice furniture

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mingling

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hiding

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minglin'.

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minglin'

mingling;