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

"I could never blame you. That's just where I'd be, without a few months' time under my belt."

But as it is, he's relaxed just enough to ... enjoy a party for the first time in years. It's a strange feeling, and he's in a very good mood. He accepts the bottle, but adds before he drinks, "My room, that is. Probably."

Another look. The fire’s glow paints this rooftop and all those around it in muted shades of orange and red, shadows darker for the contrast. His hat is lined with fur, and looks expensive. Vanadi isn’t the only one who’s been helping himself to wealthy wardrobes tonight.

It’s a skeptical look, a little reserved.

He doesn’t say anything.

Vanadi patiently meets that look with no particular expression of his own, just the pleased little smile, around healthy sips from the borrowed bottle. If this is a staring contest, which he has drunkenly decided it probably is, he isn't going to lose it.

"You know," he says, "I've heard one is meant to relax a bit on this day. Loosen up, as it were."

“What makes you think I’m not relaxed?” Richard asks, with no change in tone, or affect.

At the very least he looks comfortable, sloped forward with his elbows on his knees while he watches Vanadi drink his wine. Maybe he’s always harboured this undercurrent of circumspect suspicion. He mugs -- just a touch -- as he reaches for the bottle, bleak humor barely there.

Certainly his overall attitude is nothing new.

"One can always be more relaxed," he says, and hands the bottle back peaceably. That was quality wine, he's nearly reluctant to part with it. "How have you spent your first proper Satinalia? Regale me, impress me."

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

He wrings a hand around the bottle’s neck.

“I’ve been here with you since I left the Gallows.”

Wine reclaimed, he swigs it without fanfare once, and then twice, drinking deep before pulling in a breath to match. The better to sigh down into his cloak with. Quietly.

"Oh, have you? I must have had more to drink that I knew," he says, as if that's a story he wouldn't be perfectly to stick with should owners of certain missing items materialize before them.

He flops back just enough to get a look at the unfamiliar stars above them, the ones that grow more familiar by the day. He's regarding them fondly as he asks, "Would you give me an honest answer if I asked why you keep a pseudonym in a new world?"

Vanadi has a significant head start on drink. Richard can see it, hear it, probably smell it.

His own look to the stars is less enamored of their arrangement, forehead wrinkled and chin tipped back to alien constellations choked thin by the smoke. He doesn’t lie down, yet.

It’s easier to drain a bottle upright.

“Unless you can think of a reason why I shouldn’t.”

All of his looks to Vanadi are sideways.

"Can't think of a single one, no," he says mildly. His gaze cuts to Richard with a slow, lazy blink. "So. Why do you keep a pseudonym in a new world?"

“When I initially arrived here, it was impossible to be certain that I was on a different plane, and not simply on a different continent. Further,” and perhaps even more importantly, “Loxley arrived with me, and knew me as Richard.”

This is quite the lore dump for a Dickerson, even summarized -- there’s been a lot of it going around, lately. But it has been a year.

After another long, sustained swig, he scuffs a hand across his chin and offers the bottle back out.

“For a long time I believed it didn’t matter.”

Yes please to that bottle, and Vanadi even allows him an unscrutinized pause while he drinks. But it can't last forever, and after a moment to enjoy both the taste and the burn, Vanadi muses, "Richard even to friends? That's quite the deeply set identity. And what changed, then?"

“That seems like a personal question.” For a rooftop wine down.

Technically it’s two personal questions.

His agreement to answer the initial one (1) question fulfilled, Richard glances aside again, this time with the sly hook of half a smile.

“Does asking outright work for you often?”

Ah, well, you don't know where the line is if you don't reach for it. Vanadi grins without an ounce of remorse and offers a one-shouldered shrug. He does not offer back the bottle.

"Surprisingly so, yes. No one expects cordial bluntness." He eyes the level of remaining liquid in the bottle, and finds himself disappointed. There really should be more of it. "In fact, I don't mean to alarm you, but some people would even call that conversation."

“Everything’s a little easier when you’re handsome and charming.”

For better or worse, Dick has to coax people into trusting him first.

Resigned to Vanadi polishing off the wine, he occupies himself with flipping his mask over and frisbee-ing it away into the alley below. Eventually, there is a clatter, and the scuffling of rodent claws in retreat.

"Oh, is that how you think of me? I'm touched, Dick." There's a very slight emphasis there, because really, the words are funny together. He drops an accompanying hand to his chest, flutters his eyelashes, and holds out the bottle. "Not much left. Would you answer another question if I fetched you another bottle?"

“I’d prefer it if you stayed.”

He is as serious as the fire chewing its way through a warehouse across the harbor, eye contact turned steady out if its sidelong slant, just out of arm’s reach. It’s clear from the slow press of tension after his next breath that he understands he’s taking a risk in saying so.

Those are, typically, his favorite words to hear, and thoughts of where he might happen upon a replacement bottle leave his mind nearly instantly. His grin is back as he sits himself up, which is a convenient excuse to resettle just a little closer to Richard.

"Really, are you that desperate to dodge questions? I didn't think my interviews were so offensive."

An earnest thread of relief whisked along the brush of his scoff is soft, beneath the flapped confines of his furry hat. The contrast with the gothic sweep of his cloak and the jacket beneath it is really something.

He looks to the fire while Vanadi resituates himself, and back to him again up and down once he’s settled.

"Normally I ask the questions."

There's something skittish in Vanadi these last few years, a hard-learned caution against trusting too easily, throwing in with just anyone. Anyone reticent, anyone tricky to read, anyone with more secrets than things to say: they would all typically have him shying away, ignoring his interest in the name of self defense.

Tonight that something skittish is nearly drowned in alcohol and very easy to brush aside, which Vanadi does.

"Then you've been slacking," he says, and reaches in a boundary-testing hand to brush Richard's temple just below the ridiculous hat. "Here's another one: you're not going to keep this hat, are you?"

Dick is touched.

He drops his gaze but doesn’t shift to draw up or away, softer in his reserve now that temptation and wine have had time to percolate. Rather than rise to the defense of his hat (it’s luxurious, and warm -- of course he is keeping it) he catches in the barbed hook of a more intent kind of curiosity:

“What is it about these stars that moves you?”

He does indeed notice that lack of defense for the hat — and the way Richard doesn't pull away. This makes it fair game to push the brim of it back and run his fingers playfully through the hair he uncovers. He answers with his eyes on Richard, not a single glance spared for the view above.

"I'm more interested in what's below them," he says, honestly enough, and quirks a grin with it.

“The hat notwithstanding.”

Beneath the fur, his hair is still tidily combed over until Vanadi runs his fingers through.

He tolerates it as a cat tolerates having its ears turned inside out -- resignation dry in a furrow at his brow, promising to fix it as soon as it seems likely it won’t be mussed again. It’s easier to ignore when he’s being looked at the way he is, a warmer breath stirred out foggy and slow between them.

The habitual edge of his suspicion has gone hazy with desire.

It occurs to Vanadi that he would very much like to send Richard into disarray. He's so neat, so ordered, and he can't help but think how fine it would be to see all that undone.

"The hat," he admits, slow and a little distracted, "Notwithstanding."

His brushing fingers brush the hat right off, traveling over Richard's head and down to the back of his neck. There they make the perfect anchor as Vanadi leans in to kiss him.

The hat topples away and a prickle of tension takes hold in the scruff of his neck, where lean muscle bites into the knob of his skull. But he tips into a tilt to meet Vanadi’s lean in, and the last dregs of his guard ebb out through contact. Cautious in the first beat, and the second, he gradually unfolds himself to smooth a hand flat across Vanadi’s chest, following contours of muscle through the cloth.

Tryna get at that elf tidy.

This has always been, and will always be, his favorite part. Nothing compares to the tentative dance of two people figuring one another out, working to some kind of joint agreement. His hand has traveled from neck to jaw, and he curls his fingers and very much enjoys the sound of them brushing through short beard.

When he breaks the kiss and leans back it’s with a contented breath out, and he finds that at some point he’d drawn much closer. Any more and he’ll be climbing right into Richard’s lap. Which isn’t unappealing.

First, though, with a little grin and all the subtlety he can manage right now: “I don’t know you very well. Nor you I. How sure are you that this isn’t some long con of mine, hmm? Set you at ease and then pull off something dastardly.”

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