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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.
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:
- 1. Masks must be worn at all times.
2. When the musicians play the famous Merry Widow of Wycome, every guest must kiss the person to whom they're speaking, or who is closest. They must continue until the music stops.
3. If they aren't interested in stopping, slipping away somewhere more private is an option (but given the competition for space, finding somewhere completely private may be a challenge.)
4. Any person found to be breaking these rules, or the spirit of them, will be unmasked, removed from the premises, and forbidden from attending in the future.
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.
closed to ilias;
At once insinuating himself closer than he needs to be without the Merry Widow to guide them, he murmurs, "Enjoying yourself?" Sweet champagne breath, a rosy glow of indulgence, lips that certain telltale pink.
Companionably, he straightens the fabric at Ilias's shoulder, adjusts his collar without asking. He's always careful with alcohol in public, taking only small tastes at a time, but this has been a long party, and anyone looking might easily blame the glass in his hand.
no subject
"I have been to worse parties." Most, he tries to escape; this one, for at least a few fleeting moments, has been an escape in itself. The tug of fingers at his collar (Leander's, others before it) is reminder enough of that.
But the Merry Widow isn't playing now (yet). The time between that moment and this seems to be shrinking as fast as the space between them. He draws an unsteady breath, pasted over with a hasty smile -- but doesn't back away.
"And you?"
no subject
Finished fussing with the collar, his hand slips down the plane of Ilias's chest and falls away with the end of his sternum (and the fine scar beneath). Lazy, edging careless. His pleasantly hooded eyes are lined with a bit of something dark, applied on a whim by a woman in a lizard mask—for the drama, she'd said, transparently passing the time between their musical cues.
Just like Leander is now. Whether or not Ilias chooses to fill the silent countdown with any more words is up to him. Leander's only response will be a steady gaze and the sense of an impending smile, enjoying the effective weight of his own presence, the way their gravity affects even how Ilias breathes, interrupted only by a taste of champagne,
just as the first notes begin to play.
He hands over the glass, hold this for me while I—whatever is about to come. One may assume the obvious.
no subject
Lips press flat. A finely cut chin tilts to that particular angle that's never quite meant Stop so much as Careful. This is a game they've played enough times now it's beginning to have rules — how long fingers may linger against his pulse, how little breath might be shared between them, how close lips to his skin before one of them need pull back from the cliff they keep edging nearer to.
Only Ilias doesn't balk soon enough — and Leander doesn't balk at all. Drink thoughtlessly accepted, strings plucking to life, and all Ilias can think to say to delay the inevitable is,
"You promised."
(Did he?)
no subject
Someone else.
The tune picks up, and where most lean in to press lips and hands and bodies closer, groping, pressing, dipping or laughing, Leander steps back. Cooler air rushes in between them. A theatrical flourish finishes with his mask held high above his head, peeled off to leave a grin behind, white as a glimpse of bone through skinned meat.
A single guest's attention draws a cascade of merry heckling. The hands of strangers excited to enforce the rules come grasping, the crowd devours him, the room's peristalsis pushes him toward exile. He tosses the mask; someone catches it with a whoop.