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

[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.