Fade Rift Mods (
faderifting) wrote in
faderift2020-10-24 08:10 pm
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Entry tags:
- alexandrie d'asgard,
- bastien,
- benedict quintus artemaeus,
- byerly rutyer,
- darras rivain,
- derrica,
- edgard,
- ellis,
- fifi mariette,
- isaac,
- kostos averesch,
- nell voss,
- obeisance barrow,
- val de foncé,
- wysteria de foncé,
- { amos burton },
- { athessa },
- { colin },
- { fitcher },
- { james holden },
- { jenny lou davies },
- { jone },
- { leander },
- { mado },
- { maud van klerk },
- { mhavos dalat },
- { miles vorkosigan },
- { nikos averesch },
- { richard dickerson },
- { sidony veranas },
- { sister sara sawbones },
- { sol noon },
- { vanadi de vadarta },
- { vance digiorno },
- { yevdokiya an waslyna o bearhold }
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.
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.
no subject
[And even without her attention--or perhaps in spite of her lack of attention--Val's words pick up in both speed and eagerness.]
Imagine what might be unearthed if a scholarly expedition was made. And the wildlife of that region--nearly unseen! A hoard to catalog and identify--and without the diversification and co-mingling of breeding and cross-breeding, the development of these creatures would be narrowed and contained, and give a light to what our own creatures might have once resembled. Think of it.
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How fine an image you paint, de Foncé. [She says, missing no beat whatsoever.] You will have to tell me every detail when you return. When do you suppose you will make this second attempt? Indeed, it is a shame Mademoiselle Fazon is not still with us for I imagine she would have been a useful asset to the planning of your expedition. Yet perhaps while you are there you might still make some diplomatic overtures on behalf of Riftwatch; it could hardly do us harm to have connections among Tevinter's great enemy. You ought to discuss it with the Ambassador before you go.
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[Only half a joke. The bane part is very real. He looks up at the sky again, tracing out the shapes of familiar constellations.
Quite airily,] Of course I would tell you each detail, but why will I need to? You have eyes of your own, yes?
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['—face,' is how that sentence is meant to end.
Wysteria turns very slightly where she is sitting, forgetting the Kirkwall side of the harbor altogether.]
Well. The question of timing yet stands in any case.
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Timing is everything! On that we are agreed. Your star-gazing, there is that--and the project--and the five or six things that I am working on, to say nothing of the finding of a suitable husband for my dear Veronique--but in the early part of the year, I think. After the worst of the storms, so as to make any sea voyage a sure thing.
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[She is attempting to follow his eyeline, and then stops.]
I'm sorry, who?
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[He looks around at last, as he casts backward to find what it is she might mean.]
Cut short, yes. Well, it was not entirely sanctioned. One is not easily granted access to its borders, and so we found it best to improvise and beg pardons later. And we were forced to do so rather swiftly, and with much hasty retreat--I left a very good shirt there that day. Of course I had others. I hope Par Vollen's native peoples are quite enjoying it still. I cannot imagine this Ambassador or any other would have contacts within. An angle worth pursuing, certainly, if only to be sure, but not with much hope in the heart.
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[With visible effort, Wysteria firmly forces the leap back to the other rail of conversation.]
I was not aware you were in the matchmaking business, de Foncé. Who is Veronique? A cousin? The daughter of some business associate to who you owe a favor?
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[Interesting point about the dual goal, and he would say as much--what a compliment!--except that he then jumps to the other rail with her, and bursts out laughing.]
I hate my cousins! We do not speak. They would not trust for me to arrange marriages for them anyways. No, no-- Ah, 'husband' would not be correct. I forget that the word has that, hm, nuance, which makes it so human, and makes the word sound so silly. 'Mate'. Veronique should have a mate. Did I not tell you of her? I thought that I had.
no subject
She decides to discard cousins, as they seem most irrevelent.]
I see. So Veronique is one of your animals.
no subject
As if I keep a personal menagerie! I would not. And you would not speak of her so if you had met her, so you have, without meaning to, answered my question. Veronique is a very large ant that returned with me from our wandering in the jungles this year. You recall that expedition, I can assume. She now lives in my workroom, at least for the present. I think that she likes it very well. She has certainly grown, which is an excellent sign when one is raising a creature. It is when they are underdeveloped that you must question the quarters that you keep for them.
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['Returned with me,' he says, as if Veronique had expressed to him personally a desire to travel.]
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[To that city, looming ever-closer as the ferry closes the distance, Val makes a rude gesture.]
I have not decided on the offspring, should there be anything. I would see them freed. But to release a creature that was born in a workroom into the wild--the chance of its maladaption saddens me. Truly the correct thing to do would be to release Veronique and Garçon before there were any young. And yet the chance to study the whole of the process! It is torment, this decision. So then I thought: perhaps I take Veronique to her home and allow her to choose her own mate. But how, then, do I observe? For she is not like other creatures that one might observe with relative ease in the field. She is a burrower. I cannot follow.
no subject
Wysteria closes her mouth. She squints at the multitude of Kirkwall's lights for a moment.]
Is there nothing between the two? Surely you might raise the young in a very large box with dirt and plants and so on where they might be none the wiser and you could... observe them. Similar to how a chicken is kept in a coop and rather than roving about the kitchen.
[How irritating to know anything whatsoever about the keeping of poultry, she thinks distantly.]
Who is this acquaintance? The one who will you be seeing so shortly. I failed to ask.
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[The answer comes so briskly it is, no doubt, easy to overlook. Except by now surely Wysteria is familiar with the pattern of Val's conversation.]
Madame Dupont--a widower, a Free Marcher, [ugh, he makes a little gesture, the way one might flick away a fly,] she married an Orlesian gentleman of a certain age and then inherited quite nearly everything when he did her the kindness to die of that certain age. She is a great patron of scholarly work, and considers herself something of a scholar. Her parties are, at least, entertaining.
no subject
[The semantics which she might argue over with respect to giant ants and the keeping of them, neither or which are topics she cares for whatsoever beyond this immediate instance, are swept away in favor of this later revelation.]
A widower. So she is also rather old as well. [And very drab and aged looking, she decides. That is all perfectly well.] How fine to have hobbies in one's twilight years.
no subject
[Hm. He looks over at Wysteria, gives her an appraising up-and-down.]
How old are you? I do not know.
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Eligible.
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[Hm. Amused, he considers that.]
Comme ça. The Madame is similar. Or else, was, and then married, and then was widowed--alas--and now again. Almost as if she grew younger. It is very funny, no? That a marriage might make someone old. And then, one becomes free of it, through whatever circumstance, and one is again the age of 'eligible'.
no subject
Yes, that is quite funny. What a shame that you find her so disagreeable.
no subject
Truly, mademoiselle, you have hit upon the very thing. She is disagreeable. She thinks herself a scholar, but she has not the mind or the temperament--certainly not the schooling--and she argues every point with the blunt force of a child who understands nothing of the world or the points that she is so clumsily trying to make. I would rather be going elsewhere. So sadly I shall be very unhappy and lonely for nearly an hour and pretending to be even the slightest bit interested in what passes for conversation.
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[She shifts the ends of the heavy cloak absently about her and after a moment - but not so full of one that he will have time to interject, so it is really a pause of half a second or so at best - says offhand into that pocket of conspiracy between them,]
I suppose there is always the very obvious solution, of course.
no subject
Then again, there may be another suggestion.]
'Obvious'? [We'll see about that. But, expectantly, he leans in a little closer to hear, and prompts her,] Continue, please.
no subject
You might bring along a companion with whom you might converse with more easily, of course. For it is a holiday, and if the lady is so eager for company then she would hardly refuse an addition brought along by someone whose opinion she values so highly.
Then you would have both Gerard and someone to speak to, and if you were particularly close in conversation with a companion then perhaps the hostess might be inclined to overlook you for future invitations unless you expressed some other desire directly.
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[He slumps away from her with a sigh. His breath clouds on the air, silver.]
Where would one find such a companion at this late hour, on this day? The baroness is too far away to be called upon. All otherwise passing company is spoken for.
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