[ open: all arise! ]

[vorbratta]

WHO: you. yes, you there. you're invited
WHAT: Sonia is throwing a big party, because everyone needs an excuse to get good and drunk together right now. And dancing. There is always dancing.
WHEN: Justinian, shortly after the return of the jungle crew
WHERE: The suite at the top of the mage tower
NOTES: ♫ have some party jams ♫

The month in the jungle was a long one, made longer by the total lack of any alcohol to mitigate the experience. Utterly unthinkable. Sonia is addressing a public need by throwing a grand party -- a public service, even. Besides, it's what she does. When was the last time she got to plan a party, anyway? Granted, this is not a Denerim soiree for the young nobility, but the venue doesn't matter. Only the people and the drinks, and Sonia is assuredly rich in both. It is also a fantastic excuse not to think about any of the bad things that have happened since she was last in Kirkwall.

The decoration in the residential suite at the top of the mage tower would be best classified as improvisational -- one of those drapes tacked along the wall for ambience may be a bedsheet -- but it's the spirit of the thing that counts. One makes do with what one has. In one corner are a few tables laden with spirits, some provided by Sonia, others by generous partygoers. There are a few Barra vineyard vintages in the mix, highlights of her personal collection, a testament to the celebration she considers tonight to be. There's a small selection of food nearby, mostly for snacking to go with the drinks, though guests are free to bring whatever they like to share.

And there is, of course, music. Someone here has brought a fiddle or a flute or a bunch of pots masquerading as a drum set. Maybe you've brought your very own a capella choir. Whatever the accompaniment, there's something to dance to. Sonia makes sure there is dancing.

Tonight is not for licking wounds or swapping grisly stories of terror and survival. Tonight is for feeling alive, getting properly and delightfully drunk, and having a good god damn time.

Comments

iii

[degenere]

"Will you take another drink, madame?"

Val has been here to enjoy himself--at least as much as one might enjoy one's self at a party, when one's standards for parties are quite high. He had not found the jungle to be so great a trial. Greater would be to suffer an event boring or tasteless, so how lucky it was to have found this party to be, truly, neither of those.

His second purpose had been to surreptitiously look for something. This is why he is still here, as the guests are wandering off, or draping themselves in each other's arms, or laying themselves down upon sofas, or carpets, or simply the floor.

He has been drinking from a bottle of wine as he has looked. Now he wipes it, delicately, with his shirtsleeve, and holds it out to the miserable madame.

"It is good, I think. Not excellent. I mean no offense by this, only to say that it is difficult to compete with Orlais for wine. I commend your effort here."

[vorbratta]

Sonia peers blearily at the label as she takes the bottle from Val. She is perhaps less embarrassed to be in this state around Val, someone similarly intimate with the party scene and how they tend to end, and so her expression is somewhat less guarded as she sniffs at him.

"You're lucky my family name is not on this bottle, or I'd be gravely offended." Ah, Orlesians. She takes a drink from the bottle, knowing that this will probably not help, especially after a month dry in the jungle, but water seems so plain and so ineffectual. "Difficult to compete, yes. Impossible, never."

[degenere]

"My dearest friend, the Baroness Haut-Brion, has spoiled me for wine. Her family owns vineyards that produce such superior vintages, and in such amounts, that even our smallest gatherings were well-supplied. But," he holds up a finger, as if to forestall a protest from Sonia, "the Baroness loves competition. So she would agree with you. Which would please me. I like for my friends to be friends."

He holds out his hand to take the bottle back, once she has had her sip.

"Is this the ennui of a party well-thrown? I know it well, when there is so little to look forward to next."

[vorbratta]

Sonia manages a wobbly smile at that, though a genuine one. "I think I should like to meet your Baroness, Val. Perhaps at her vineyard's next wine tasting."

Bring her as your plus one, Val. But she can only keep up friendly banter for so long in this state. She lets out a thin sigh, lips twisting into a frown, and shakes her head slowly.

"No, I know that one, and I have tricks for banishing the feeling. This is...I don't know." She shakes her head. "After the last month, I just wanted things to be normal again. I thought a party would do it -- I love throwing parties, I love seeing everyone have a good time -- and it did, for a little while. It just...didn't last. The party is over, and everything still feels wrong."

[degenere]

"What is it, this normal? If it would be another party, you could throw a second, as early as tomorrow--and another after that, and still another, if need be. Then no one need tidy after this one."

The room isn't in terrible disarray, besides. Val casts a look around it, thoughtful. Stand the chairs up, replenish the wine... Ah, but this is a distraction.

"Better, and more sustainable, to embrace it, this non-normal. I fear it will be here for some time, madame. We are living now in these times and will be. Unless it is these Gallows, that feel so wrong?"

[vorbratta]

"If the Gallows were the problem, I'd just go home."

That is a lie; she would not. She isn't ready to go back home just yet. That thought is...also somewhat depressing, in this moment, that she is not brave enough even to face her uncle. Surely he would ridicule her if he saw her now.

"I feel wrong," she says after a moment. "I feel like...like I was born at the wrong time, or something. At first I did think it was the Gallows. That this place had changed somehow while we were away. But I think it was me who changed, just -- " She gestures uselessly with her hands, then lets them drop limpy. "Not enough."

[degenere]

He gives her a little smile, smaller and subtler than what is usually expected of his smiles. Well.

"We frequently played this game, at the University, when we were at the cafes and the clubs and dinner parties. If there were some magic that would allow a safe travel to some other Age, which would you choose? The Divine Age and the Glory Age, these were always popular. But I," with a gesture toward his chest, in case she were to be confused on who he is speaking of as he says this, "I would always say that I would go forward, to some Age that is yet unseen. For what is better than the future? Change is no bad thing, madame. Change is what makes the future."