OPEN | the grand tourney!

[poleaxed]

WHO: All Y'all.
WHAT: It's the Grand Tourney! Like a normal Tourney, but grand.
WHEN: August Now.
WHERE: Kirkwall.
NOTES: Sports... injuries?

Every thousand days, the Grand Tourney is organized in the Free Marches, and all the City States-- and even challengers from farther abroad-- come together to celebrate the freedom of the Marches. This year, the event was intended to take place in Tantervale.

When that, uh, fell apart, the tourney was hastily moved to the relative safety of Kirkwall.

Festivities begin early, with musicians and entertainers coming from all around to entertain lords and ladies as they set up tents. Food vendors complete the picnic atmosphere-- you may not be able to get a seat in the stands, but the hills around where the field where it all takes place makes the event easily viewed by all. Jesters, bards, troubadours, food vendors, all are happy to serve and make the event lively and lovely-- for a price.

The first event is the Joust. The announcer goes through everyone's names, their origins, the part they play, so the crowd knows who to root for and who to boo. Before the individual bouts begin, the jousters are expected to ride around the field collecting favors.

The second event is the Quintain. A similar setup to the Joust takes place, with announcements and cheering, gaining favors, etc. The major difference-- besides the content of the event itself-- is the hastily erected judge's stand, where they can view the skills of each comptetitor. Some scores are met with cheers, some with boos. Some competitors schmooze with the judges before their bout. It's all very classy.

In the intermission guests are invited to play a game of tug-of-war over two large piles of flowers and flower petals. As the loosers will discover, there's a pit of mud underneath the flowers. Hopefully you brought a second pair of clothes, or maybe you just don't care Edgard.

If tug-of-war isn't your game, there's drunken archery. Darktown's very best (worst) booze has been generously donated (appropriated) for the event. One shot to begin, and more shots for every subsequent shot of your bow. Landing closer to bullseye garners more points, and prizes can be collected for high point scores. Nothing particularly valuable, it's more like carnival fare-- stuffed toys, shiny gems (they are colored glass), wood carved in various shapes (some lewd). The most expensive prize is a hangover cure potion (it does not work).

The final event is the ever-popular Melee, where several one-on-one matches take place simultaneously, until someone is either undefeated or the least defeated. As with previous events, each combatant is announced to the crowd and expected to walk around the stands, receiving favors. However, they're expected to do this between every match in the melee, as their popularity rises... or falls.

During all of this, the ever-noble Pas d'Armes event is taking place. If you wander away from the event at any time, Gabranth will be there, at a nearby bridge, judging and / or fighting anyone who wishes to pass. Of course, if you wish to pass without issue, he will accept a favor from you. At the end, he'll be crowned with a white wreath of flowers, in a 'peace offering', and that is the sign that the tourney is done.

Not counting the partying into the night. No medieval camping trip is complete without waking up half clothed in a field, right?

JUST TELL ME WHO WON ALREADY.fine, fine, jesus.

THE JOUST

1st Place: Tony Stark, The Iron Man (Erroneously called 'The Man of Iron' at least once by an announcer. Several people in the stands asked if he was made of iron, why he was called that, what is he doing, why.)
2nd Place: Weary Winona of Wycome (Never took off her helm, which was shaped like a woman's face and painted like she was crying.)
3rd Place: 'Sir Sullivan of Bonneville'(Who might just be Edgard in disguise, however legend has it he's actually an undead noble trying to reclaim his family's honor in the joust. This legend was started by Jone.)
Crowd Favorite: Ellis, The Bachelor (He was, at one point, mostly just a mass of favors, which may have been why he didn't rank. The crowd screamed his name repeatedly and at one point threw flowers at him while he was riding past.)

THE QUINTAIN

1st Place: Derrica, the Rivaini Raider (The chant 'carry me home' began during her bout, and continued whenever she walked near the field.)
2nd Place: Derek, Son of Derek, of the Ostwick Dereks (The 'carry me home' chant continued during his bout, as some confusion arose over whether Derrica was a distant relation of the Ostwick Dereks.)
3rd Place: Madame Noir of Hasmal (A ghostly pale woman wearing only a black gown during her match, there were rumors she'd bribed the judges with money or a low neckline.)
Crowd Favorite: Beth Greene, The Lady of the Green (Rumor has it that she was a wild woman who came from the forests just to compete. This rumor was also started by Jone.)

THE MELEE

1st Place: Pierre the Virtuous of Hambleton (On a particularly sunny day, some suspect he only won because the reflection from his bald head.)
2nd Place: 'The Dark Jaguar' (Who may be Erik Stevens in disguise. A nighttime assassin, he appears from nowhere during a fight usually with the aid of a conveniently placed piece of hanging black fabric but shhhh.)
3rd Place: Laura, Lady Nightshade (Rumor has it she threw her fight to get third place, but everybody who knows Laura knows she'd never do that... right?)
Crowd Favorite: 'The Acolyte' (A young man of roughly the same height and build as Benedict Artemaeus, the crowd really responded to how nervous, yet trying to be brave, he looked.)

THE OVERALL WINNER OF EVERYTHING:
Ser John 'the Anointed John' Pembroke of Tantervale
...who trained for this every day and is a professional Tourneyman, and whose win for Tantervale really lifted the spirit of the game to a high note, so how can we be bitter, really.
(Note to 1st placers in other events: this means he beat you in your event.)

[ooc Also final reminder that you don't have to have signed up for an event to have your character participate!!!]

Comments

aftermath.

[charmoffensive]

Loxley, for his part, made only a reasonable showing at the Melee before someone with a very large sword got sick of his shit and put an end to his whole career before he could place. A bit of bruising to the ego was at least soothed by getting to watch the rest and get a headstart on the revelry.

Which means he is in decent spirits, existentially and literally, when he spies Derrica in the midst of the celebrations. He's still dressed in the vaguely piratical armors he'd worn for his bout, that he'd been rifted in with, umber-toned leathers over brighter colours, patterns of purple and cream. And she doesn't have to come drag him to dance—he is already on his way over, winding his way through the crowd and on an unbreaking trajectory to loop his arm around her waist and pull them both into the current of people.

"How's eternal glory suiting you?" he asks.

[tender]

The piratical armor is a top tier look in Derrica's opinion, unsurprisingly.

She's easily bidden regardless, laughing into the movement as her hands come briefly up to catch at his tunic before finding her bearings, relocating accordingly as she settles into the shared movement.

"I think it's gone to my head," she tells him, all mock solemnity. "I've never been sung to before like that."

An unexpected and heady turn of events. For all her practice, Derrica hadn't actually expected anything other than a modest showing. Her hand tightens slightly at his bicep as she looks up at him, smiling a little as she says, "I thought you were very dashing in the Melee."

Which is sincere. Dashing is one of the descriptors that always comes immediately to mind when she thinks of Loxley, even if she hadn't necessarily seen him in action before.

[charmoffensive]

"Oh, thank you," Loxley says, with an easy laugh, not insincerely in return. "Until I was very dashingly thrown over the barricade."

He doesn't seem very sore about it—putting on a show had been, perhaps, too much the objective. "One of these days," he says, as they turn through the motions of the dance, "I'm going to have to do something unambiguously impressive while you're watching."

As opposed to just being handsome while failing, as much as there's a lot of mileage to be gained there too.

[tender]

"I'd like that," might be a little disheartening, if it wasn't a ready truth that they tend to be sent off on separate missions. For all Derrica knows, Loxley is regularly impressive, only in different parts of Thedas at different times than she is present for.

Turning back in towards him with a little skip-hop, she presses, "But I would think you had some stories of being impressive. Ones from home."

Potentially a loaded topic. Is home a fraught thing for Loxley? He always seems in such good spirits that it's hard to imagine, but it occurs to her the instant after she says it, and thinks she might have misstepped.

[charmoffensive]

"Well."

His expression doesn't shift or suggest that anything too fraught is being prodded, but there's a beat of it's complicated in his tone. "Strangely, Richard dreamed up more adventure that I've yet to experience," he says. "A few months back. So I imagine I do loads of impressive things I'm not even aware of." Skirting the edge of something painful, yes, but he's also had a fair amount to drink, and so.

"But I think you're trying to detract from the adoration you've received all day," he says, a pivot that matches a little their movement. "A sure sign it's not gone to your head at all. Tell me, how does it feel for the best of the Free Marches to know how wonderful you are?"

[tender]

Briefly, Derrica winds herself in closer to him, hanging on tightly before the steps of the dance direct them apart. Complicated doesn't always mean painful, and Loxley doesn't flinch, but Derrica hadn't meant to tread towards something difficult in the middle of celebration.

"Overdue, I think," she says, nose wrinkling thoughtfully in spite of the humor warming her tone. "I've been here for years, so it's about time they've realized, don't you think?"

There's a few beats where the music rises and they turn away, then back, where she says, more honestly, "Is it strange if I say I feel a little embarrassed by it all?"

[charmoffensive]

There'd been an easy laugh at her answer from Loxley as they separate; they come back together, his hands finding her waist, a smile waiting for her, with a glimmer of sharp canine.

"I don't think it strange," he says. "Most sensible people are only used to being admired by one person at a time. Maybe two, if you're energetic."

His smile slants rakish, but gentles in the next moment as he adds, "You made a very good showing today, so you ought to work on feeling pride, I think, more than embarrassment. Besides, one night of self-indulgent egoism won't harm anyone. Although that song was fairly catchy."

[tender]

The passing joke draws out a bright laugh, Derrica leaning back briefly against the cinch of his arm. She's still smiling when they spin in time, Derrica ducking under the circle of his arms to come back up ask, "Do you think I could persuade Serrah Bachs to learn it so we could hear it in the Gallows?"

Which is a little like side-stepping the kinder thing he's said, the truer thing. Maybe she could leave it at that, but it is kind, and so—

"That's good advice, you know. I'll try to remember it."

[charmoffensive]

Very few people could make that answer believable, as opposed to a means of deflection, even if it's that too, at least in part. Loxley smiles, and normally there'd be a line here, like, yes, I'm very wise, everyone says, but the urge leaves him before it can manifest properly.

"Do," he says, instead, which is just enough time before the dance demands they break apart again.

In the few seconds in which Loxley steps out of a turn with one of the pair dancing beside them, and back to Derrica, maybe some decision has been blearily landed on, as he says, "And perhaps once you've tired yourself of all this congratulatory merriment," he suggests, as they move in a circle, "you might come find me."

[tender]

How pleasant it is to be beaten out to her own suggestion.

"So you can admire me personally?" she questions. The yes is a foregone conclusion, really. It's suffused into the easy teasing of her voice as their hands meet in some approximation of the clapping pattern most Marchers around them seem to know by heart. "That's very tempting."

[charmoffensive]

His eyebrows bounce up once at her initial query, but the smile that blooms at the same time is not so jokey. He can intuit the 'yes' in this answer, hidden in plain sight, and what a nice feeling it is, to have not wildly misjudged something.

"I do try to be," he says. "But perhaps we can do better. Picture a moonlit walk down the mud-slick streets of Lowtown—or at least, you hope it's mud. With any luck, it'll start raining, and you won't be able to tell the difference."

As they pivot through the next step, he adds, "And you've already seen my place, so I shan't embellish the details save to assure you that with enough merriment, you can just about drown out any of the ungodly sounds that come up through the tavern.

"But I can't promise a good night's sleep."

[tender]

"I'm not very interested in a good night's sleep," Derrica tells him, teasing before her voice dips towards genuine, warm as she continues, "And I like your place."

Loxley is the first person she's ever known with a place belonging solely to him. There's such a novelty to it, even with the noise from the tavern and the narrow stairs and the table that wobbles a little. To Derrica, who has gone from one communal living space to another to the Gallows, Loxley's choice to live in such a wholly separate space makes a little more impression than it maybe should.

The music brings them back together, winding down. She reaches a hand up to his collar, smiling. Not drawing him down to her, not yet, but enjoying that she could, that the possibility is open to them.

Instead, she says, "I'm glad you asked," because that admission is easy to impart too.

[charmoffensive]

His hands come to rest on her waist, the sharpness of his own smile gentling, warming, along with hers. Part of him misses that sense of community, of sleeping with someone at your back—not for company's sake, necessarily, that's easy enough to obtain for an evening or two, but to protect you, and to be protected. But there's that sense of satisfaction for having his own little lodging, as permanent as he's ever had, that likely doesn't fall far from her own fondness.

Bonus: Derrica likes it. So.

Around them, those leading the dance with their partners step back and issue a variety of bows and curtseys as the dance closes, which Loxley fails to follow. "Me too," he says brightly, instead. "But I'd hate to tear you away from all this too soon, of course. Will you find me?"

[tender]

There will be a real answer, because Derrica believes in providing them. She doesn't care to be ambiguous in her attractions. Maybe it's easy to guess at her answer. But she wants to say yes to him, to be clear beyond a doubt.

But first, she does draw him down by the collar to meet her mouth as she stretches up onto her toes. As far as kisses go, this one is brief, and but full of intent, and ends with a smile breaking across her face before they've parted.

"After I've gotten tired of pretty Marchers singing my song," she says first, broad smile softening as she simplifies her answer into, "Yes. I'll find you."

[charmoffensive]

Loxley bends easily to meet her, and they do so to the song dwindling to silence, the scattered applause of dancers and onlookers both to the musicians. It dips swiftly into another tune by the time he straightens, smiling back, too pleased with himself to be cooler about it.

"Wondrous," he says. "I'll simply have to come up with a better one."

He brushes his hand against her face, and finally breaks away. The pivot he takes on a boot heel is done in marked high spirits, swinging by the nearest server to collect up the nth number of ales he's had.