faderift | 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

And miss out on Gerard? Monsieur, I myself am scandalized! You said it was a rare collection, did you not? To say nothing of the fact that I've changed my plans once already. No, I'm afraid you're somewhat obligated to the thing now, which I know is a word you hate. Obligated. But in cases such as these, when we have gone to such lengths as snipping ribbons and so on and there is so much on offer at stake—I believe you also mentioned that Your Widow keeps a respectable cook, yes?—, there is little choice but to take the blow.

[She 'tsks' once more for good measure, all high good humor, and fixes him with a long sidelong look before striking out after the next set of stairs.]

I will not teach you, by the way. Cross-stitch. Not even if you asked me to.

[Conjured first by the utterance of the offensive o-word--obligated--Val's sneer lingers. He allows the walls to bear the momentary brunt of it before he turns to catch up to Wysteria, and join her in taking on the next stairs.]

Why is it that I would be asking your tutelage? I have learned a great many things without you. I expect to continue to learn a great many things without you. For there are, I assume, books upon the subject? This will make an excellent starting point. Once I have learned all that they have to teach, I shall move beyond them, to the practical application and practice of the skill. All entirely alone. What is it that you presume that you would be showing me, if I were to ask you to do so?

You know, I don't believe that I've ever read such a book. But it is possible. Thedas has such an admirably robust culture of publication! I learned from little leaflets other ladies had made, and from having seen their stitching and practicing and so on. To that end, I imagine the thing to be very particular to the place it comes from, even a thing as routine as cross-stitch. Which is, [she admits, with a look to him.] Rather basic at its heart.

But if you are learning out of a book made here, you will be learning Thedosian cross-stitch. Meanwhile, it's possible that I'm the only person in the entire world who knows certain Kalvadan variations.

[How many ways are there to draw an x with thread? Hardly so many that Thedas can have failed to sort the entirety of them, even if the names are all different.]

However, I won't be swayed. For I've already decided that I would make a very poor instructor to you as I've no patience for it at all.

[How does one resist the lure? How can one do anything but show interest in the obscure variations on some topic, so obscure they are known only to one instructor, whose reluctance to teach the method would only serve to increase the obscurity?

Well.]

Yes, you would make a poor instructor. [--With a kind of absent thoughtfulness.] You are good to think of me, mademoiselle, in coming to that conclusion. In fact I am grateful that you will not be swayed, and that your patience is so very thin. It is good of you to know yourself so well. Perhaps I might be lucky and someday find that the Rift has blessed us with another of Kalvad whose virtues include an aptitude for instruction. And with a little pamphlet of instructions for cross-stitch--but I suppose I should not be greedy. I will take the merer, patience. It will be welcome.

[Ordinarily, it is the sort of thing which would vex her. But she has had such an evening of getting her way - being queen for the night, weaseling her way into the attendance of some party to which she would have never been invited, and playing all the sort of games she supposed one ought to on such a holiday (to say nothing of the conversation of Seheron pyramids) -, that to her great surprise Wysteria finds herself rather unaffected by what can only be described as his dismissal. That's fine, she thinks with an extraordinary amount of confidence and a strange sort of pleasure. He will come around on the subject in due time.]

I'm so pleased to find us in agreement, Monsieur! I wish for nothing less than just that as I believe it would do us both considerable good. You would have your teacher, and I would have for myself a companion familiar with the sort of place I know best. What a wholly charming picture you paint.

Oh, yes, exceedingly charming. This was my intent.

[Too charming. Val does not frown precisely. Instead a certain tension comes to his mouth that, if one were to commit willfully to misreading, might look like a frown, but it is not.

A man who seeks a chink in armor, a fault in the curtain wall--when none are found, he must retreat and build anew. Or attend a party. Whichever is more available.]

Then again, perhaps no one will ever come and I will never learn this style--but, [flippantly,] I can hardly imagine that I would care. I expect I will learn well enough, so well that I will have no use for some other style. It would be better if you were alone.

Privately, I will confess to having thought the very same thing once or twice, [says the resolute curtain wall.] For it is so much easier to do or say whatever I please about any subject whatsoever without the overbearing attention of a corroborating source. Why, for all you or anyone else knows there are no Kalvadan cross-stitch variations whatsoever. I might say that the moon there shone orange.

—It does not, of course. But imagine what conveniences I might make up if I wished to. Though I've hardly made use of the thing, all of that ppssibility goes away the moment someone else from that place steps through the Fade.

An interesting point.

[And a welcome distraction from failure and retreat.]

Though now I of course must ask you the very natural question that follows such a point. What lies have you told to us?

Come now, de Foncé. Natural though it may be, it's neither sporting or in the spirit of the holiday. In deference to the season however, I will honestly answer any of your guesswork for the evening. If you like, it can be a clever game we play under the nose of Your Widow until we excuse ourselves from her company and then part ways.

[Maybe that will induce him to stay through whatever is planned for dessert.]

[Upon hearing this suggestion, Val's face goes: !! The whole of him gets rather brighter. After all, who does not love a game of guessing? And to learn something by the guessing? Phenomenal.]

I accept this. Your hand, mademoiselle. We will seal it with a handshake.

[A little awkward while climbing stairs, perhaps, but absolutely necessary.]

[Awkward, yes. Impossible? Hardly. Her grip is firm and the short pump of her handshake enthusiastic. How pleasant it is, to have lain such a successful trap.]

I wish you the best of luck, Monsieur.

MOD EVENT ↠ SATINALIA

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