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

At times, Ellis feels nearly blind-sided by how easy it is to please Wysteria. His expression softens in turn, a small smile catching at his face as he observes her.

It's another two beats of the song before he speaks, inclining his head.

"I had something I wanted to share with you," he says, by way of explanation. "A dance that Bastien has agreed to provide me the music for."

And then, added almost as if to temper her expectation—

"It's not the sort of thing that will draw the eye."

At this stage it must make little difference, for his word of caution knocks no shine whatsoever from her enthusiasm. Instead, she laughs - smile flashing wide below the edge of the mask - and briefly tightens her grip on him.

"Poor Monsieur Bastien! Under siege from both sides!"

It takes nearly a full bar of music for Wysteria to rein in her good humor so she might playfully concede, "I suppose I won't protest if you choose to beat off the two dozen eager suitors who I trust are lying in wait for this song to end."

Bastien, out here making Wysteria and Ellis' Satinalia plans possible. Is there anyone working harder than him?

"We'll dance before you go," Ellis promises. "I can't keep you all night."

In spite of momentary consideration of backtracking, Ellis has apparently committed to the last gift he has for her. And if he hopes to deliver it as privately as possible, it seems wise to let the initial spectacle fade before he begs the appropriate music from Bastien.

There is clearly a moment in which she wars with pressing the point, the concept of patience being something of a challenge on an evening such a this one. But she manages to restrain herself, agreeing with, "I suppose, after all consideration you've given me this evening, that I can hardly resent being held in suspense. If you must."

Besides, there are only a few more rotations of this dance left to them. It would hardly do to disregard giving what's left of it the full measure of her attention.

"A humble chevalier can't keep a queen to himself all evening," Ellis answers her, a little teasing.

But he'd have waited regardless. He might have avoided the party entirely, and danced with her in her garden if he could have divined a way to arrange the music. (There are limits to what he was willing to ask of Bastien.) When the dance is finished, he twirls her one last time with his eyes politely averted from the effect.

"Now, go greet your subjects and scandalize the Ambassador."

And truly, he could have left it all at that. But he does linger through the party, present to the point where the dancing is beginning to wind down and he senses the point Wysteria had complained of approaching— foolishness and chatter. The point where he must reclaim Wysteria from whatever she has gotten up to.

What she has gotten into is dancing with a dozen different partners, men and women both, taking only intermittent breaks at the sidelines to issue various little decrees or playing at evading the Ambassador's by ordering other people act as shields between them while she escapes to the other side of the room. But at the moment Ellis comes to collect her, she is perched amidst one of those knots of idle chatter and looking for all the world to be a perfectly willing participant in the aforementioned foolishness.

They are four young ladies in masks all together, laughing about something one of the girls has said about the condition of the stockings she ordered from a particular Kirkwall merchant, and were it not for the interruption they seem for all the world as if they might be content to giggle about silks for the next hour.

But at his approach, Wysteria's attention rises and something in her face must be visible despite the mask for her little cadre of would-be maids in waiting take notice, draw up accordingly, catch sight of Ellis, and immediately proceed to make unsubtle eyes at one another.

'Have you come to collect me, Ser Chevalier?' is what a witty, refined lady might ask.

"Now, Mr. Ellis?"

For a moment, the familiarity is painful. (Another girl, a different party, but smiling nearly the same as she was drawn from her friends.) Ellis feels it catch like a knife between plates of armor, shakes it off as he extends a hand to Wysteria.

"Now," he answers her. "Follow me?"

Not to the center of the room. It's a silly notion, but Ellis would give this to Wysteria alone, with as small an audience as possible.

The music is heard in the courtyard, if they slip out no farther than the small patio. It's enough.

"I'm going to teach you," Ellis explains. "Like the first time we danced."

Her trajectory, bound for the room's center, is checked easily enough though for that brief moment before he explains himself the confusion must be written clearly on her face for it's obvious even through the mask—

"Ah, keeping my intevitable mishaps hidden from the audience I've just thoroughly charmed. How considerate of you," is a bright, good humored joke. She glances back over her shoulder just once to wave a goodbye to her self elected ladies in waiting, and then they have passed out beyond the bounds of the room.

The night air is impressively chill in comparison. The greater courtyard is largely dark, lit at infrequent intervals, but here just beyond the door there is a brazier illuminated circle of light left to them.

"No," Ellis contradicts quietly. "It's simple enough to learn, and not so far off from some of the steps in the dances you'd picked out for earlier."

He's taken both her hands in his own for the moment, brow knit a little more seriously than a dance might require. Like the conversation he'd had with Tony, Ellis is aware that he need only say so much. Wysteria has never pried, though Ellis knows very well that "extremely curious" is her natural state.

"This is for you," he explains. "A gift."

And it feels more than a little ridiculous, now that he's said it aloud.

Her hands are easy in his, and for a whole moonlit moment Wysteria is a perfectly solemn mirror of him.

Then she snorts, a bitten back laugh which requires real force to be reined in.

"—I apologize. It's not funny." She squeezes his hands. "Only you just looked so dreadfully severe."

A small, abashed smile breaks through the seriousness of his expression.

"It's a little funny," he agrees, because there's an inherently silly element to imparting this as if it carries so much weight. Maybe it does. But he can't expect that to be clear to her, and he doesn't wish it to be.

"I haven't done this in a long time," is the given explanation, as he releases one of her hands and takes a half-step back. "Here, we start this way. I'll bow, and you curtsey."

At which point, as he says this, he is once again aware of her costume.

"I have every faith in you," she assures him and moves to gather her skirts with her free hand.

The high slashes up their sides may have something to do with how perfunctory Wysteria's curtsy is, or perhaps she she is yet playing at her role as would be Empress. Regardless, she gives him little more than a deferential tip of the head and a very slight bend and neither does much to disturb the fall of skirts.

(The scar below her collarbones is a dark line in the firelight—)

"And really, Mr. Ellis," she insists, straightening. "You must consider that you have the benefit of an unwitting partner. It's hardly as if I'll recognize any mistakes you might make."

As it turns out, Ellis' instruction is more modeled than spoken. (Predictable, maybe.) He draws her in to him, encouraging as they fall into step.

"Maybe so."

There's a beat, Ellis leading her along in time to the sweet lilt of music from the main room. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the variation of dances that may or may not be waltzes. It's a particular charm of Riftwatch, he thinks, that mishmash of style.

"But I want you to have it properly. The way I knew to dance it when I was younger."

This admission on the heels of a pause, Ellis considering the steps before drawing his arm up, the instruction tacked on to the explanation almost as an afterthought, "I'll spin you here, twice."

It is a simple thing to follow his guidance, with or without additional explanation. Ellis raises his arm in time with the music; Wysteria is spun to it, clumsy only for her unfamiliarity in combination with—

"Hold just a moment, then," she breaks, withdrawing over of her hands from his. "If we're to be taking this so seriously, I need to be able to study it properly."

The grey mottled mask is pushed up off her face into her complicated coiffure. With a wrinkling of her nose - acclimating to being unmasked after a number of hours spent sneaking under its edges every time she might need to scratch her cheek -, she falls back into step.

"There. You may lead on, Mr. Ellis."

Caught in the back of his throat: There you are.

Instead, he smiles at her, beckons with his other hand until she puts her free hand in his.

"Here we do a series of little hops, like the dance you choose."

And these come easier to Ellis. There's less precision involved with the hops, and the entire dance overall. It might be bias, the way anyone cannot help but think what they've known all their life is simplest. But there's a looseness in his body, tension having lifted from his shoulders as he leads her.

But still, it occurs to him in the course of the hops: "Do you want me to help you off with that mask, so your hairstyle stays intact?"

Maybe it is his ease in how he leads, or because she has been dancing for some time and has by now shed some of the unnecessary pageantry, but this series of hops seem to come far readily to her than the ones they'd labored through earlier in the evening. It doesn't hurt that she can see more of where she's going now either.

Though the look she turns back on him (rather than studying their feet) is pure alarm.

"Why, have I ruined it?"

"No," Ellis answers, pausing with her hands in his own. "It looks lovely."

And it will look lovely whenever she is deposed, in whatever form that piece of nonsense took once she returns to the festivities. He studies her for a moment, then lifts their hands.

"Now, we both—follow me, like this."

A rotation almost, with some potential to be tricky if Ellis were not so prepared to accommodate the difference in their height. (There had been another shorter than he, once.) But still, nothing goes completely smooth the first time, does it?

True enough. She is thinking of her feet, and the state of hair and whether she fully trusts Ellis' assessment of it, and which direction she should be turning and the arrangement of her hands all at once, and so the resultant tangle is perhaps inevitable.

"Wait, wait. Just a moment—Reset. Once more."

The second attempt is much improved. She flashes him a grin. It's only once they've moved on to the next combination and while pleased with her relative success that she asks, "Did you go to many dances as a boy?"

"Yes," Ellis answers her, guiding the position of their arms to cross along their bodies. The relative closeness makes certain observations unavoidable. (The dark slash of scar arcing beneath her collarbone catches at the periphery of his vision.) "I don't think you'd have recognized me then."

Thinking about it drums up a specific kind of ache. It's similar to the dull pain in his hand after overuse or in the cold, something that cannot be flexed away and sets itself agonizingly in the background of every passing sensation.

"This is one of the first dances I learned. It was a favorite."

Of whose? His? The town's? Ellis doesn't specify, likely because there's no real difference.

"Hm, yes. I imagine you wore less beard then. In which case I would indeed hardly recognize you."

She flashes him a sidelong look, all cheek and easily deciphered without the mask's barricade.

"Aye, I was clean-shaven most of the time," Ellis deadpans back, though the serious gives way to a smile. "And less serious."

Something that likely needed to be seen to be believed, he supposes. But there's a small invitation couched in the admission. Among all the other things he's given her this Satinalia, these bits and pieces are the most difficult to part with.

"Here, I'll spin you again," he continues. "Then we turn in a circle again, like before."

She follows as she is led, pleased with the small victory of his smile. It is so very difficult to convince the man to take himself lightly that any instance of the thing seems like an especially good (and very secret) joke.

"And I suppose this dreadful seriousness which you contracted must be why you are now so particular about your dance partners. The young, fresh cheeked and high spirited Mr. Ellis no doubt had many dozens of young ladies at his beck and call. Or were you still very shy then as well and the wrinkles on that brow of yours are due to all the worrying you have done because it?"

"I was quiet, not shy."

Which may as well come to the same thing, but there's enough minor difference that he takes the time to be clear about it as he taps her wrist, encouraging it up as they turn in place.

"And there was just one young lady, who was generous with my time."

He does not think of her face.

"I was at a disadvantage. No interesting scars to catch a dance partner's attention with," he continues, tone light in spite of everything. "You'd have thought me very boring."

A semi-hilarious pronouncement, all things considered.

"Scars," she pronounces, with that overtaxed tone of a young lady who would like nothing more than to throw herself dramatically onto a couch somewhere but who is steadfastly remaining upright by sheer force of will (and because she is in the middle of being guided led through the turn). "Do not make a person interesting. —It's terrible, isn't it? I put powder on it, but it all came away almost immediately. Don't answer that. If its hideous, I would rather not know. And if it seems mysterious and interesting, I can't know that either because then I will want a whole new collection of shirts and chemise and bodices. I can hardly believe how difficult it is to dress a single person on Riftwatch's stipend."

Being poor is the worst, you heard it here from Wysteria Poppell first.

"But you're right. I would have found you very dull. The young lady in question must be very clever to have seen through to you despite it all."

It's not the first time he's heard her profess the sentiment, but it is the first time he's heard the whole mess of it at a clip, the force of which draws enough of his attention to slow the pace of the dance so he can keep track. At the end of it, Ellis has more or less lifted Wysteria's hand in his own above his head as they take the customary three turns, smile still lingering on his face.

"Aye, she was clever."

She was so many things, and she's been gone now for a very long time, but that's not what he wants Wysteria to take away from this.

"Can I tell you one thing about your scar, and then you can go back to assessing how dull I was as a boy?"

MOD EVENT ↠ SATINALIA

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

clunkily timeskips

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

ties a little bow on this perfect thread

ties a smaller bow on this bow