MOD EVENT ↠ SATINALIA

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[cozen]

Bastien's nod is solemn and mostly straight-faced—straight-mouthed, at least, with the upper half of his face mostly hidden beneath his mask, save his eyes, which have obvious little sparks of good humor even at a distance.

He does mean it, though. Somehow, some way. Revenge.

[thereneverwas]

Barrow's expression is one of exaggerated shock; what could he, an innocent, have done wrong?

[cozen]

You know, Bastien mouths.

Of course, he can't know all of it; he can't know that when Bastien stole the beard oil from Byerly he had been trying to flirt, in that particular private-despite-being-in-public way that leaves no evidence for unaware onlookers. He can't know that his interloping means the only two possibly responses are now a threesome or revenge.

So Bastien has chosen revenge on his behalf. He's welcome. And the revenge will be tiny and harmless. He's welcome for that, too.

Abandoning silence, he says audibly, but not too loudly, while he continues thoughtlessly playing: "What are you even going to do with it? Oil your chest hair?"

[thereneverwas]

"I have a beard sometimes, you know," Barrow points out, "though that's not a bad idea."

He leans forward on one elbow, sipping from his drink and smiling at Bastien.

"If you really wanted it, mate, you can have it back."

[cozen]

“Non. That is not how the game works. You keep what you have at the end, and you accept the consequences.”

He looks and sounds about as threatening as someone planning to short-sheet a bed, at most.

[thereneverwas]

An exaggerated gasp. "Consequences!"

[cozen]

"Dire."

[thereneverwas]

"What sort of trouble have I gotten myself into!" He feigns actual worry.

"I never would have thought you so diabolical."

[cozen]

"Monsieur, I am Orlesian!" Bastien says, with an air of how could you be so foolish. "If we do not oppress someone three times a day, we cannot sleep at night. And now you have made choosing a target very simple, for me."

[thereneverwas]

"Always picking on Fereldans, you lot," Barrow says in a feigned whine, "well, when the time comes, please make it quick and painless. I'd hate for everyone to know what a coward I was."

[cozen]

The idle lute-plucking gets a bit more dramatic, in a loose-fingered casual way. More minor notes.

"You think you will be a coward, really? When it comes time?"

[thereneverwas]

"Oh, yes." He removes a cigarette from the box in his pouch and strikes a match to light it.
"I always dish out more than I can take," he says easily, with the cigarette clenched between his teeth, "it's a little known fact about me."

[cozen]

"Ah, vraiment?"

He doesn't want to dampen the mood by bringing up Churneau, but it does square well with what he knows of the man from that little misadventure.

"That is good to know. But you do not really need to worry. It might not be quick, but it will be painless."

[thereneverwas]

Barrow nods-- vraiment-- and begins to look playfully suspicious as Bastien continues.

"A slow and thought-provoking revenge?"

[cozen]

Bastien hums thoughtfully, then specifies: "Physically painless."

[thereneverwas]

"But emotionally ruinous."

[cozen]

"Exactly so. Be on your guard."

[thereneverwas]

"Consider me guarded."