closed.

[cozen]

WHO: Bastien, Athessa, Alexandrie, Darras, John, Marcoulf, Petrana, Yseult
WHAT: A small apology tour slash charm offensive.
WHEN: Vaguely Drakonis
WHERE: Val Royeaux
NOTES: OOC post.

Background: Riftwatch is in Val Royeaux to make it very clear that they support the Orlesian military and Exalted March and definitely do not condone desertion or harbor deserters. This is necessary because someone in Riftwatch (Bastien) helped someone in Orlais (Vincent Suchet) who was harboring deserters, including, nearly, the son of the Baron and Baronness Auvray. They take a lot of pride in their family's history of valiant military feats and were on the verge of being horribly embarrassed by the whole ordeal before they managed to turn it around and paint it as an insurrectionist conspiracy that tried and failed to lure their son away from his duty. Enough circumstantial connections to Riftwatch came up during Suchet's quick and dramatic trial that the rumor mill went a little wild, so now everyone is here to tame it!

Except Bastien, who's here to put his fake printer name back on and tell some solid lies to the Chancellor's office when they ask him what the deal is, to ensure there's no real non-gossip trouble, and then to have a little bit of a meltdown. 👉👉

Comments

[cozen]

"Me?" he says—not to feign innocence, but to buy a moment, because no one has ever asked him that before, and to separate himself from the sea of con men and spies who undoubtedly would answer differently. "I don't know. An over-developed imagination? When I was a boy, I could pretend to be an elephant for days at a time." He contorts an arm, briefly, to lazily mime a trunk extending from the side of his head. "I suppose I never grew out of it."

There are other answers, most of them less pleasant. They don't even make it far enough into his head for him to have to stop himself from saying them.

"But I do not think it is a wife-pleasing occupation, generally," he adds. How many bards has he known to have married at all? Excluding the nobility trained in the art, of course, and the handful of commoner practitioners who practiced their way into wealthy widowhood. He only tries to tally for a moment before he hops ahead down the trail of that thought. "Is it very uncommon for your sort to be married?"

[staysail]

The elephant mime--small, but unexpected--gets a laugh out of him.

"We only had pirates, in Afsaana. S'ppose that's why I stopped there and never made it to elephant. If only. But, now. My sort, and marriage? I think you'd be surprised at how many of us are married. This is all somewhat of a secret, mind," a tip Darras gives with a tap on the side of his nose, light enough not to smudge the paint. "So see that you keep it to yourself. Pirates make for wonderful husbands."