faderift | MOD EVENT ↠ SATINALIA

MOD EVENT ↠ SATINALIA

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: It's Satinalia and no one dies.*
WHEN: Forward-dated to Firstfall 1
WHERE: The Gallows and Kirkwall
NOTES: *If you kill your character or an NPC please let us know so we can adjust the log description. Fire cw, use other cws for your tags as needed please! And participate in the gift meme if you want to be cool.

Named for Satina, the smaller of Thedas' two moons, Satinalia is a celebration of freedom, marked by wild celebration, pranks, the donning of costumes and masks—not the fine, delicate masks of Orlais, but animals and caricatures and playful horrors—and the exchange of gifts both sincere and satirical.

I. THE GALLOWS

In Riftwatch's fortress home, the dining hall—not the one recently wrecked by an abomination, the other one—and an adjoining garden courtyard have been decorated (by Benedict, thanks Benedict) in green, gold, and black, with enough torchlight to keep the room glowing once the sun goes down and a fire pit in the garden.

Dinner starts early, to leave ample time for festivities afterwards. Also to make sure everyone has time to eat, because there's a lot of food. Under Colin's direction, the banquet table hosts a spread representing many of the home countries of Riftwatch's members: coq au vin and tiny Orlesian cakes; Fereldan fish-and-egg pie with saffron and some potent cheeses on toasted bread; seafood with white wine sauce on noodles and fresh oranges from Antiva; spicy (very spicy) Rivaini curry and spiced rum cakes; a sampling of Nevarran soft cheeses, fruit, and dry-cured, thinly-sliced ham; and slightly spicy shrimp soup and chocolate-filled pastries from Tevinter. The centerpiece is an enormous and completely edible depiction of the Celebrant (aka the constellation Satinalis). It’s made of various breads—the man himself made of a lightly sweet bread rolled with cinnamon and chopped dates, his lyre golden with an egg wash, his clothes of rye, the stone he sits on of buckwheat. The constellation over him is drawn into the dough, the stars represented by clear rock sugar.

Every table is decorated with a ‘bouquet’ of delicate, edible marzipan roses, and in addition to the table wine and mead from Riftwatch's stores, there's a whole case of semi-decent Nevarran wine provided by Derrica and Athessa.

There's also a table set up to the side with plain, basic masks and a collection of paints and feathers to decorate them with, courtesy of Isaac, for anyone who doesn't have a costume or just enjoys arts and crafts. Some of the masks' interiors are subtly coated with invisible ink, slow-acting glue, fine glitter, or itching powder. Hahahahahaha.

Not long after most people have filtered in and found seats, the mostly-annual tradition of choosing the organization's own Satinalia Fool—usually arranged in advance, sorry, but there is a war on—is upheld, with little warning, by an apologetic Bastien. Volunteers (or those volunteered by their tablemates who don't do a good enough job demurring) are subjected to a few rounds of voting by applause. Some people applaud for their favorites, some for their least favorites, some for their crushes and some for comedy, and in the end Byerly Rutyer and Wysteria Poppell emerge as co-victors. That makes them co-rulers for the remainder of the evening. Or possibly the remainder of the week, by Antiva Rules.

Once the wining and dining are in their dying stages, the music starts. It's informal, at first, with Riftwatch's amenable musicians filtering over to their instruments as they finish their food (or bring it along with them), but once there's a critical mass, they coalesce into a tune that can be danced to. The next hour or so passes with a mixture of peasant reels and formal court dances—the latter mostly by request.

Eventually, after a break for a white druffalo gift exchange, the party disassembles into unstructured mingling. For anyone who wants to stick around, there's more alcohol, smoking in the garden, card and conversation games at the cleared tables, and a game of musical chairs with the rules altered so anyone left seatless has to take a drink and keep playing.

II. KIRKWALL

But across the harbor, the city is rowdy and reveling and will be all night, so making a break for the ferry instead won't be considered rude. The excitement in Lowtown spills out of the taverns and into the streets, with masked celebrants on their worst (but mostly harmless) behavior while street performers of all stripes provide entertainment for tips. The alienage has its own party—not because the gates are locked, but because the elves who aren't working generally don't consider throngs of drunk humans to be a good time—with a bonfire and shadowplays, and friendly outsiders might be allowed, especially if accompanied by an elf.

Hightown is quieter, but mainly because there's enough room in the mansions there for various parties—ranging from dignified, religion-tinged feasts that absolutely require an invitation to a word-of-mouth orgy at a particular mansion that only requires looking sexy and disease-free at the door—to be tucked away inside.

III. AFTER PARTY

Late in the evening, there's an outcry at the docks after an over-excited amateur fire-juggler lights fire to a partially-wooden warehouse full of wooden crates. By the time there's an organized effort to put out the blaze, it's roaring, threatening to leap to neighboring structures—including the warehouse and stables Riftwatch maintains on the docks—and visible from the Gallows. Any assistance from Riftwatch members in containing the fire will be noticed and appreciated by the locals, and just in case, it might also be wise for people to move the various horses, harts, nuggalopes, dogs, and any particularly stupid cats further away from the fire until it's under control. Which it will be, eventually, leaving a blackened ruin of the warehouse where it started but only singing one of the walls of Riftwatch's property.

However, for better or worse, someone took pity on the ferryman and sent him home at midnight rather than making him wait around all night, so everyone who'd intended to go back to the Gallows can either draw straws for who has to play ferryman to get people back to the island and then get the boat back to the docks, or else just pile into the stables and warehouse for an impromptu slumber party.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A dull stare. "I do not know."

Well... "I suppose you wouldn't." She considers for a moment and then adds, "To tell the truth, I don't know the finer workings of it myself, that's for the Sisters who do service. For clerics like me, it's one of the days where we play proper Chantry Sisters in our finery and convince the nobility to cough up more coin for donation."

She's not going to say it's a grift outloud, because that's frowned upon, but...

Oh, it's a grift. "Makes sense." Amos slouches against the wall, either not noticing or not caring about the elven eyes, shining in darkness, that watch him warily.

When he's sitting on the ground, and roughly at Sawbones' eyelevel, he gives out something like a sigh. "You want me to get you back to 'em?"

Sawbones does notice, dwarven eyes perfectly comfortable with the dark. She waves a little in greeting to the ones she recognizes, for all the good it will do. Even if they recognize her, no elf is going to be comfortable with a big human hanging around the gate.

"Nah. I'm done with them for the night." She smiles a little at Amos, "I was headed down here anyway, just wasn't expecting to get here the way I did."

Amos scratches at his face, absent-minded fiddling with his beard.

"I'll make sure you don't crowd surf again," he says, not really moving. "Or trampled. Where you going?"

"You worried about me, Burton." It's almost a question. In Dust Town there's never really much luxury to worry over someone else. On the surface, Sawbones generally didn't allow for it.

Amos gestures to the crowd stomping behind them, and the wild-eyed (in his mind) elves to the other side. "I got reasons."

She raises an eyebrow, prim as you please. "If anyone's got reason to be nervous, it's the elves who suddenly got a big, mean lookin' human sitting at their gate."

Amos looks over at the elves, as though noticing them for the first time. "Shit. This their turf?"

"We're right at the Alienage wall," she says nodding, "Reckon some of them are here to make sure no human decides to cause trouble tonight. They got their own celebration inside."

"Shit. That's fucked up." Amos figures standing up probably won't help his case, seeing as he's more than a head taller than some of these people. He puts up his hands. "Don't want any trouble. Just trying to get outta the crowd."

He turns to Sawbones. "You wanna stay here? Or I'll take you someplace else?"

Because apparently he's sticking with her. It makes her feel a little unexpectedly warm.

"I need to drop something off with the Alienage's Sister, but then..." She shrugs a little, "Could go for a drink, if you don't have plans."

"Yeah, okay." Amos settles in to guard the door. He waves at the elves, looking over at them directly. "Don't worry, I won't let anybody in."

He knows they're not going to consider him an ally. That doesn't really matter.

The elves absolutely do not look convinced, but they still let Sawbones in. Not that she goes in too far either. Sister Miriam meets her near the gate for an entierly traditional exchange of well wishes between two sisters of the same order and nothing to do with how Sawbones had submitted to being paraded around in the fabulously wealthy homes (and well stocked kitchens) of Hightown.

There's some discussion of patients and the risks of the most recent Darktown disease spilling over into the alienage as the weather turns, but eventually Sawbones is politely escorted out the gates again.

She holds out a bottle of beer to Amos, "The gate guard says thanks and shove off."

Amos is not a tall man, but when he finally sits to his full height, he dwarfs (ha ha) everyone in the place. Christ, is this how Belters feel?

Probably not. He has the muscle to back everything up, and somebody's paying him. These guys are, he strongly suspects, trying to bribe him into to leaving. That's not the kind of desperate tough he'd first read on these people's faces when he stumbled in here. This isn't a gang enclave. These are people trying to survive the night.

Amos takes the beer, and studies it. "This for you?"

"For you," she says with a shrug, "From me, since you got stuck waiting at the gate and I might need to stick around here after all. One of the ladies' started her contractions."

Amos hosts a brow. "No shit? Give this to the dad, if he's around." They probably don't have full genetic mixing, so it's probably a dad, right? Not that these poor coyos could afford it, by the looks of things. "Can I help?"

She shakes her head, "Appreciate it, but I'm only there to assist their midwife." Then she thinks about it and adds, tentative, "Actually... If you don't mind, you think you could swing by an apothecary and see if they got elfroot? It helps with pain."

In the course of a moment, Amos is automatically and obviously paying attention to every word she says. A quick nod, serious and astute. "Where's the nearest?"

It's an almost startling different, the closest thing she's seen to a full expression. She doesn't slow to analyze it though. All business, she digs a little field journal out of her pocket with the coin he'll need and flipping it open to a page with carefully rendered flora illustrations.

"Down the street and around the corner, next to the Two-Stepping Pony. They oughta be open still." She shows him the image of the specific plant, "This is what you're looking for. Dried whole leaf, don't let 'em sell you the stuff that's already ground up. Tell 'em Sawbones sent you and they'll play straight."

Amos nods, absorbing all of this, but he reaches out with a huge fist to close her small one around her coin. "I can cover it."

And then, no longer crouching to her height, he's off, another goon in the crowd. He still has the booze with him; he has a plan for that, too.

She's too surprised to protest and then he's off and Sawbones has work to do. A birthing is a long, messy business where a great number of things can go terribly wrong very suddenly, but the Alienage's midwife is a calm, practical elven woman. She tends to the mother while Sawbones kicks out the crowd that would very much like to gather.

The rest of her tasks are preparing the birthing room. She won't have time to watch for Amos, but one of the other elves fetch her when he arrives. She emerges from the gates again at a brisk stride, forgetting any pleasantries, "Did you get it?"

"Yeah," he says, and hands her the elf root. He learned the name of that, committed it to memory, and it's no longer strange. Het elfroot for the elves. They're having a baby. Having a purpose clears up the cobwebs between his ribs, and he doesn't know why, but he's grateful.

"You need me for anything else?" If not, he'll stand at the gate to the Alienage-- a new word that makes new sense to him-- and guard it until the birth is over. They can't afford any fuckups right then.

She double checks out of habit, shaking her head at his question. "No, we've already set up the birthing room and kicked out all the gawkers. Now we manage the contractions and watch for the baby."

Still, Sawbones does pause long enough to look back up at him and say, entierly serious in a way that fetching elfroot might not call for, "Thank you."

And then she's back through the gates, picking up speed when she hears the midwife call for her. She won't give him any more thought. She expects him to be long gone by the time she staggers back out, tired and messy, but satisfied.

Amos silently accepts her thanks, not sure why it's necessary but understanding it is, and stays put. By the time she's back, the elves guarding the gate are fewer in number. Amos is standing at the gate, smile on his face, nose slightly bloodied. His eyes are alive with an energy wholly disconnected to his expression, though that clicks immediately off once he sees Sawbones.

He crouches again, and his tone is guileless. "Did it go okay?"

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