open.

[cozen]

WHO: Bastien & Others
WHAT: New job, music stuff, etc.
WHEN: Harvestmere
WHERE: The Gallows & Kirkwall
NOTES: Feel free to hit me up @ circuitry if you want me to start something for you!

i. project jeshavis office

The office for Project Jeshavis hasn’t been entirely empty since Madame d’Asgard’s noble resignation, probably. The work didn’t stop for want of an organizer, and it’s still home to files and books and resources people might need.

But it’s now more occupied than before. During the first few days of the month Bastien can be found arranging piles of documents into slightly different piles, and then perhaps putting them back the way they were. Or struggling to pin twin maps of Orlais and Ferelden to the wall without leaving them crooked. Or—once the maps are up—standing in front of Ferelden and plucking out muscle-memorized snatches of melody on his lute while he stares at a bit of the map for a moment, then at the ceiling, then back at the map.

He’s learning the place names. It’s fine.

After those first few days, he starts asking Fereldans and Orlesians, or anyone with known connections there, or anyone with some other obvious potential contribution to the project’s goal to come by whenever they have a moment.

If anyone takes him up on it—or if anyone stops in just for the sake of it, that’s fine too—they’ll find the door open and him sitting against the edge of the desk rather than in the nearby chair. But he’ll stand up right away for anyone of rank or who he doesn’t know very well.

ii. musician hunt

Elsewhere in the Gallows, Bastien is on the lookout. Or the listenout, more accurately. Is someone strumming a mandolin in the courtyard? Playing an upright bass in the privacy of their own room? Mentioning, in the course of idle conversation with someone who is not him, their experience with the pianoforte?

Great. He’ll stop, he’ll wait politely for them to be finished, and he’ll knock on their door and wait outside if necessary, and then he’ll say, “Allô,” with the distinct air of a man who wants something.

Comments

elf huddle (closed to elves)

[cozen]

ooc | no strict tag order, just don’t run off boomeranging and leave everyone behind.

The invitations issued to Riftwatch’s handful of elves—verbally, mostly—promised lunch, so the project office currently smells like the barley soup that’s keeping warm near the fireplace. And there’s bread! And there’s cheese! And there’s Bastien, arranging chairs around the desk like it’s table. He waits until everyone who’s likely to arrive has done so and everyone who doesn’t refuse food has theirs before he sits down himself.

“So,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you about… elves. I assume you are all familiar.”

Off to a promising start. But it’s self-aware, at least. Self-deprecating.

[sulahnan]

"Oh yeah, I know all about those," Athessa says, sitting with one knee bent to her chest while she eats a bowl of soup and a crust of bread. "They stick outta the wall and you put books on 'em."

Shelves.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos' expression is very serious as he corrects Athessa, "no, no, he meant the number after eleven."

Twelves.

[cozen]

Bastien smiles for Athessa, then smiles wider when Mhavos turns it into a bit, and turns his gaze to the next elf in line with a silent air of expectation. Are they all funny?

huddelves

[untiltheyarent]

Running a little bit behind on account of finishing up her morning work, Fifi steps in to see that there are already people here. Clearly Bastien is having a meeting, perhaps she misunderstood--

"Ah, pardon," she says in an undertone, and dips back out.

[cozen]

RIP, broken combo.

Bastien hops up as soon as Fifi disappears from the door to go after her, with a little gesture that’s meant to convey sorry and talk amongst yourselves but might be too abbreviated to be that eloquent.

“Fifi,” he calls after her from the doorway. Not too loudly. No need to be loud in a stone corridor. “Come back. Tu me brises le coeur.”

[murderbaby]

Mhavos frowns at this exchange, turning to Athessa and opening the small notebook sitting on his lap. A large ? is drawn on the page he's turned to.

[sulahnan]

Rather than writing anything in return, Athessa just pulls an I dunno face and shrugs.

dance lessons (closed to ellis)

[cozen]

Riftwatch doesn’t have the numbers to fill the Gallows’ rooms, so claiming one for secret dance lessons hasn’t required any real subterfuge. They picked a room, they pushed the furniture aside—or Ellis pushed the furniture aside, mostly, while Bastien put his hands on the other end to try to feel useful about it—and no one seems to have noticed or disturbed anything since then.

Bastien still locks the door, though. Just in case.

“I think today is the day,” he says while he does it, before turning to smile at Ellis. “You will have it. You think?”

https://i.gifer.com/SQU.gif

[heorte]

Bastien's optimism has made this entire process easier and more difficult by turns. Ellis never has the sense that he's disappointing Bastien, but he is vaguely aware when he's falling short of Bastien's instructional goals.

Rolling up his shirt sleeves as if this is sparring rather than dancing, Ellis flashes a small smile Bastien's way.

"I think you're confident enough for both of us," is Ellis' assessment. "But I practiced the turns some on my own. So maybe I won't throw us off again."

Bastien had been very patient about it last time, though Ellis still can't work out how it comes so naturally to him. There seems to be seven things to keep track of with Orlesian dances, and it's too precise to flub through.

Or so Ellis feels.

[cozen]

Rigorous training, is how Bastien makes it look natural. It's also how he quashes every instinct to make even a tiny little aww face at the idea of this brawny, serious Warden practicing dance turns in private.

"If you do," Bastien says, "the trick is to not care. As long as you look like you are having fun, people will think mistakes are charming. If they are even paying attention in the first place."

He crouches to secure his bootlaces.

"Unless you are planning to go to Orlais or Antiva and impress the nobility. Then we might need to work a bit harder," he adds, pausing the lace-securing to hold up two fingers to illustrate a bit.

[heorte]

"If I'm the one going to impress the nobility we've really run out of options."

Following that example, Ellis glances down to his own laces before rolling his shoulders back, stretching one arm out. He's gotten better at avoiding the obvious pitfalls of dance instruction.

"Which do you want to try first?"

If Bastien enjoys one dance better than the other, he might as well enjoy himself as they embark on this exercise.

[cozen]

"Mm, let's do the saltarello."

He does like it better. But he likes it better because it's the more lively and complex of the two, so also the one Ellis might need more energy and patience for.

On his way to the center of the floor, Bastien does a little hop that's clipped out of the dance, then pivots to face ahead and smile.

"I thought about wearing skirts," he says, which isn't true, "to give you a more realistic experience, but I could not find any that fit in time."

[heorte]

"How lucky for me," Ellis says, stepping up across from Bastien to give a small bow before extending his hand. "You'd be unbearably distracting."

This part is always easiest managed. A bow, the clasp of hands, that's all familiar. The dances Ellis knows begin much the same way. It comes apart afterwards, trying to hop at the right moment or hem his movement in so no one is kicked.

"More so than usual," Ellis tacks on, to make the compliment clear. Maybe to shore up good will against the potential for kicking Bastien in the ankle again, despite all their shared optimism.

[cozen]

"Ooh, monsieur," Bastien says, pausing mid-bow to give his own collar a one-two tug, a tiny pantomime of overwarm flattered flustering. "You may be more ready to impress Orlais than you think."

It would be nice if they had music. Actually, it's occurring to him just now that he could expand the storing songs on sending crystals idea beyond making his friends let him save their private performances. Maybe next time they meet he'll have a song ready. But for now, without that and without anyone else to keep time for them, he approximates the music with ba-ba's and so on as they start their spritely—ideally spritely—skipping.

[heorte]

How well do Fereldans typically fare in Orlais—

Is not a question Ellis cares to ask. Focusing on trying not to feel ridiculous is the bigger struggle. Objectively he understands it will be easier doing this in a crowd, but it still feels far more precise than any of the dances he know.

"I know we're in the midst of a favor you're already doing me," Ellis says, somewhere around the third turn and second round of hopping. (Not quite as spritely as Bastien, but still, passably spritely.) "But if you're going to be playing, I need to ask you for a song."

This entire venture feels like he's putting a lot of confidences in one basket, but Bastien hasn't let on to anyone what they're doing, so Ellis assumes he can be trusted with one more request.

[bouchonne]

If you'd like [ comes Byerly's obnoxiously cheerful voice from the entrance ] I can put pins in the good parts of Ferelden and different pins in the bad parts of Ferelden. Help you figure out which one's which. Eh?

[ He's grinning, leaning against the doorframe, as Bastien is hanging up those maps. ]

[cozen]

[ Without turning around quite yet, Bastien gives his dutiful Orlesian response: ]

You mean the bad parts and the worse parts.

[ He looks back over his shoulder, then, to see if Byerly looks as obnoxious as he sounds. He does. But handsome, too, of course, and there's some good humor and gladness-to-see-him under the false flat annoyance of Bastien's expression. Meanwhile, the long stretch of canvas he's trying to pin the map to—because I've just realized you can't pin things to stone walls—takes the opportunity to pop one of his pins out to skitter across the floor, and the map flops down over the hand he's using to brace it to tap him on the forehead with its corner.

Revenge, perhaps. ]

[bouchonne]

No.

[ Byerly half-collapses against the wall beside him, clutching his heart like he's been dealt a mortal blow. ]

Is this when it comes out? We thought he was kind and gentle and decent. But he was biding his time. All this while, he was, in fact...one of those Orlesians. Now that he's in power, he'll - Maker save us! - stop at nothing to...

[ Hm. ]

Why is it that those Orlesians act like that? Do you have any insight?

[cozen]

[ A smile cracks at the collapse, and it's interrupted only briefly by a nose-wrinkling wince at in power. ]

I think— [ inclining his head away from the map's assault and pushing it back up flat ] —no one likes to believe they are an oppressor. So as a people, you know, if we are to have an Empire, we need to believe we are doing Thedas a favor by taking its rabble into our arms.

And then some people are just assholes.

[ And as a footnote: ] Do see the pin?

[bouchonne]

[ Cheerfully: ]

Nope!

[ Because some people are just assholes.

But, wwwwell... By comes over and goes for the map, taking over the duty of holding it up. ]

You take a look. You have better eyes than I do.

[cozen]

I do not.

[ But he leaves Byerly with the map to look for it anyway. On his brisk turn around the room, he shuts the door, muttering half to himself in the meantime, ] Maybe I did when I was your age, but now I am so old, and you are so cruel—oh. Here. [ And a few seconds later he’s back with the pin and reaching up to stick it where it belongs, careful around Byerly’s fingers. ]

D’accord. Give me a tour. Denerim. [ He taps the city. ] I have been, but only for a couple of days. What I saw was very brown. Lively, though.

[bouchonne]

Mmhm. Aaaand...

[ He studies the map a moment, then gives a huh sound, like he's just realized something. With the map pinned in place, he steps back, saying - ]

That's it. That's the only place worth a damn.

[cozen]

[ Bastien huffs, incredulous and amused but still a little too put out about being assigned a desk and an office to laugh without putting some effort into it. He isn't inclined to do that, with Byerly—which is a compliment. ]

Monsieur le Patriote. Which reminds me, I have to ask you something. But first you have to tell me about one other place in Ferelden. You are in my office, so I am the boss.

[ Not how that works, but shh. ]

shows up late, with curtains

[coquettish_trees]

[ It is mid-morning the day after Bastien sent her a message to entreat her company in the Jeshavis offices that Alexandrie appears with two servants in tow, each carrying what appears to be an extremely heavy roll of cloth.

Alexandrie is, of course, doing her part. She’s carrying the matching cords for securing them open. ]

Bonjour, mon beau observateur des ombres!

Only tell me where I am to be situated, and soon there shall be a merry procession of books.

[ And a bookshelf. And her own desk. And chair. And side table. And a vase of fresh autumn-blooming flowers. And a pretty little dish for those promised spiced nuts. And— ]