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

athessa

[sulahnan]

[ hmu for whatever ]

leander

[sulahnan]

Enchanter, [ She tries not to sound sarcastic when she says it, and it ends up sounding like the tone of voice you use when your friend gets their PhD and you call them Doctor for the first time. ] Happy Satinalia.

[ It's nothing special. Just a pomegranate. She holds it out to him. ]

[sarcophage]

[Is this the same piece of rampart whereupon their last Very Dramatic encounter took place? Probably not, but they all look the same. And he's got a slim pipe this time instead of one of his little brown cigarettes.

His eyes drop to the thick-skinned fruit, lift to Athessa's face, and then turn away (along with the rest of his face).]

I appreciate the sentiment, but no, thank you.

[sulahnan]

So take it for later, then.

[ take the fruit, boy ]

[sarcophage]

[Without looking,]

I'm not receiving gifts.

[sulahnan]

Why not?

[sarcophage]

I'm not giving any, either.

[sulahnan]

That's not an answer.

[ She doesn't step in front of him, but leans a bit to try and catch sight of his expression. ]

I don't expect anything in return anyway, so just take it.

[sarcophage]

You say that, but it isn't true. Everyone keeps a tally.

[The salty evening air moving his hair.]

Give it to someone else.

[sulahnan]

I don't.

[ Why would she expect anything from him? ]

Don't make me throw it. You know I have the arm for it.

[sarcophage]

I don't care what you do with it. It isn't mine.

[sulahnan]

[ >:T ]

I don't understand you at all.

[sarcophage]

[That mollifies him slightly—not that anyone can tell.]

Fortunately, that's not prerequisite for your job.

colin

[sulahnan]

It's too warm and too cold at the same time. That's the first sign that Athessa needs to get out of here. Maybe something happened, not necessarily to her but in her line of sight, or maybe it's just the wrong place at the right time, but no matter what the reason is, it propels her like a piece of pretty ribbon past the gardens and toward the stairs.

Colin is an unexpected sight, however, appearing out of a narrow passage looking like a paper doll that's been buffeted by a strong breeze.

"Colin," she greets distractedly as her fingers fumble with her cloak collar. It's too tight, not warm enough, too heavy, uncomfortable. Athessa frowns, noting the traces of tears, a slight tremor perhaps, a familiar pallor in her friend's face.

"You alright?"

[keenly]

"Sort of." He offers a brief smile just to reassure her that his smile muscles work. "I asked Wysteria to dance."

[sulahnan]

Her eyebrows make a valiant attempt at joining her hairline.

"Wow. How'd that go?" Athessa hadn't even asked her to dance, appropriately cowed by Celene's divine cleavage.

[keenly]

"I threw up."

[sulahnan]

"That bad, huh?" Athessa gets the cloak off and folds it up enough to drape over her arm so it won't drag on the ground, then hooks her other arm through Colin's elbow.

"Well, I'm proud of you for trying," she says, steering them both toward the stairs. "You didn't throw up on her, did you?"

[keenly]

"It was a concern, but I made it to the garden first. Left her all alone on the dancing floor. I'll send her an apology tomorrow."

He sighs. "Though I had help from the last place I'd expect. Well. Not the last place, but I certainly wouldn't have looked toward them."

[sulahnan]

"Who?"

Her first thought is Leander, but last she heard was that Colin was teaching Leander how to cook, so he doesn't seem too close to the bottom of the barrel anymore.

[keenly]

"Edgard."

[sulahnan]

Athessa frowns.

"Is he even here tonight? I haven't seen him at all."

[keenly]

"He bathed."

[sulahnan]

"Okay, looking past how fucked it is that a bath renders him unrecognizable...what did he say? Or, ya know, do."

[keenly]

Anyone who knows Colin well could see the signs on him if he were hiding something about this encounter with Edgard. Usually it would involve grabbing his elbows and hunching his shoulders while looking at something over yonder like it's more interesting than the conversation. It's almost become a silent code; Athessa knows his body language, and he knows she knows it, so it becomes a way for them to communicate. So he knows that when he looks her in the eye, shoulders relaxed, she'll know he's being for real.

"He just...swooped in. Gave me water, asked if I was all right. I said I needed someplace private and he found a place. Helped me calm down, talked to me after. Said some really kind things, didn't judge me."