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

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[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.

[cozen]

"I am sure I would be delighted," Bastien says.

That's not the same as knowing it, or being able to learn it in time if it's especially intricate or requires especially intricate accompaniment from anyone else. But still: delighted.

And he's also kicking Ellis lightly in the foot, when the opportunity presents itself, just to be the one doing it for once.

[heorte]

The kick gets a huffed laugh from Ellis. It's not like Ellis' miscalculations, but it takes a little of the self-conscious edge off as they lightly hop through the motions of the dance. There's a point where Ellis has tended to lose count of rotations rapidly approaching, though for the moment he seems settled as possible.

"Do you know much of Fereldan tunes? Things we'd have for a dance?"

It's asked with the expectation of a no.

[cozen]

For a moment he can't answer, because the dance is a bit too demanding to keep time and breathe and talk all at once, but once it's passed and they're back to synced-up walking, he smiles sideways.

"Not much," he says. "A little. Do you mean the dances in your taverns or in your ballrooms?"

[heorte]

Isn't Ferelden ballrooms an oxymoron?

There's a pause while Ellis counts steps, quietly relieved at having managed the series of turns and hops without incident. Neither of them have said, but Ellis is sure it's a relief to be past the point where that point in the dance inevitably led to a pile up.

"It might have been done in a ballroom," Ellis says, adjusting his grip on Bastien's hand (attempting for something less akin to "hanging on for dear life") as he speaks.. "I learned it at harvest festivals. It's a country dance, only formal if someone cares to make it so."

And after a brief break for some light hops—

"I can show you a few steps, see if your memory is jogged enough to recall the kind of tune that goes along."

[cozen]

"That would be—"

A pause for a final turn. Assuming Ellis doesn't stumble here, they're home free to dance-walk back to their starting point. And whether he stumbles or not, they're going to keep going like he didn't, so Bastien finishes the thought:

"—helpful."

Delightful, really. Ferelden's folk dances likely aren't exactly like the ones they have in Orlais. The real Orlais, to borrow from Sabine, made up of people who might dust the ballrooms but never dance in them. But they probably have a bit in common—such being, just in general, a way better time.

A finishing bow. Voilà.

[heorte]

There is a stumble, but small enough to be overlooked. Or at the very least, disguised as intentional. Either way, it's minor when set against Ellis' first attempt at this dance. If some minor missteps happen, and only Wysteria notices, Ellis isn't going to complain.

Upon straightening, Ellis' postures loosens a little as he recalls the steps in his head before holding a hand back out to Bastien.

"It is a little similar. There is some hopping."

But somehow less intimidating. Is it because Ellis has seen it done in his village by men twice his size?

"And the women would swish their skirts at some points, so you'll have to imagine that."

Or mime it, but Ellis isn't asking Bastien to do that outright.