faderift | OPEN | the grand tourney!

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OPEN | the grand tourney!

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!!!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's only when she thinks to step away that he catches her, one heavy hand cinched across her wrist, preventing her retreat with a wordless insistence. Or perhaps protest is the far more appropriate word for it, given the clear disinclination scrawled across fine-angled features. The faintest glint of hunger in his stare, restrained.

"Then do not leave me."

He knows she'll stay; he means proximity instead. His side.

She huffs, but it's less laughter and more gentle awe. How silly. How much does she want to keep herself looking more amused than chuffed.

"'Course I will." She plops herself down next to him. "What d'you need? Not much use carrying things about, just now."

“That is— ” his exhale is clipped, his hand left hovering now that she’s slumped down into the earth beside him.

He is poor at this. At making his own intentions known. The opportunity had seemed apt before, with him knelt before her and her arm outstretched, floral scent woven through the air between them.

“...I need nothing carried.”

Ineloquent. Banausic. Entirely useless.

Yet there's only admiration in his eyes. She looks over at him, a bracket by the bulk of his armor. "I'll still stay."

She reaches up, trading the line of his jaw. There's something thrilling about this, almost elicit. His face, for anyone to see. Her, touching it. "Anything you need. Had a hard day."

She doubts this day was a strain on him at all.

Words fail. Words always fail him. He is either a slave to his own rampant fury, or a witless fool in the shadow of better men. He does not always understand what it is Jone sees within him, but—

In the fullness of it, snared wholly by the heaviness of her heart and all its vivid emotions, he finds himself more tempted than ever to cast off the face of his twin. To have her look at him, and see him, and speak his name alone, rather than share even the sparsest sliver of this with a man lost to the gods and their cruel whims.

Her palm, warm and rough from a hard day's work, scrubs its way along his jaw, and it is the opportunity he needs to forego speech entirely: pressing forward to take her bruised face within his hands, kissing her lips without shame. Without fear.

With everything he lacked the capacity to speak aloud.

There is resistance, at first. A moment's hesitation. They're in public. His helm is off. Anyone could see. The thought sends a spike of ice through her-- the mockery he'd suffer, and her only able to fight it with one arm.

But his mouth is warm, and none are around to see. Well. They could from a distance. If they brought spyglasses, which isn't unlikely-

She breaks it off. "Not here," she says, knowing how stupid it is, after all the soft touches and light kisses. Somehow, that's different.

He’s more insistent than she, still pressing slow against her lone, uninjured hand when she breaks away— exhale brittle against colder air. His brow is knitted, the whole of him a rough, shadowed contrast to the pale flowers slung round his throat. Peace, she’d said.

And he is restless.

Does she fear this? That they might be witnessed? Or is it that she fears this for him?

“As you will it.” Gabranth cedes— Gabranth— falling back into the space at her side with simpler resolution, willing away the fire kindled at her mercy.

She wants to do something, to make it up to him, but the disappointment she sees is probably imaginary. She overs him the beer, warm from the sun, in conciliation.

"It's the good stuff. And I've more, if you like- food, I mean-"

She babbles to kill what would be an embarrassed silence.

Difficult, dealing with a man so withdrawn from himself— so withdrawn from the world— that his moods run either hot as molten flame, or dead as rotted wood. When he lifts his hand to decline her offer it is as nothing. No departure from the normal.

And why would it be? It was only her effort that twisted the foundation of his world free of its unmoving moorings.

If she draws the line here, here is where it rests— helmet raised and fitted into place.

“I’ve stolen enough from you.”

She sees the helmet gone down, and knows precisely how he feels. She frowns, unsure how to proceed. It's clear she's at fault, even if this borders on a tantrum.

"I am not ashamed of you," she murmurs, harsh. That, she wants cleared.

He hangs in the space between loyalty and irritation, telegraphing none of it behind a faceless mask— and all of it— all at once. His gloved hands twitch across the span of his own lap, helm shifting to look at her more fully, displacing a number of ghostly white petals.

Gabranth should keep his mouth shut. Show her the respect and care his brother would no doubt manifest with ease.

"Then what is it?" He demands, something brittle giving way enough to show the sharpness underneath.

I don't want you mocked, but is she being irrational? She can't imagine anyone in Riftwatch caring-- they're all better folk than she would have imagined-- but all the Marches' people are here.

"You are lovely," she says, quiet and sharp, "you deserve someone matches that..."

What he expects is something other than what she grants him. He is used to being the spurned, the lesser, the wretched— to her, daughter of pitted earth and starving eyes, perhaps she cannot fathom it. Cannot imagine a world where he was repelled as poison to all he’d strained to grasp.

Her words strike something beneath his ribs, not fragile, but unguarded. Enough that in a move that must seem absurd, he grasps his helm by one of its own curved horns, and tugs it free of his head once more. Silvered gaze gone peregrine with agitated disbelief.

“Fool woman. Is that what you see when you look at me.”

Is that the measure of herself beside him.

"Noah," she says, a soft secret between them. "I'll not have you mocked. I'll not bring you down. I've been the butt of enough jokes, but you..."

She knows it would hurt him, and that hurt would turn violent.

He knows too little of this world. Nothing of dog lords or disdain, only the ditch from whence she came— and that is behind her now, long lost and set aside, by his own belief.

She is a Hume, she stands at his shoulder, and fights with a fervor that would put others to shame. What reason has she to hide her own face beside him? What reason has he to turn her from him?

The gears visibly turn, his expression twisted with it.

“In Archades, though I was lifted to the rank of Judge Magister, those without pedigree or lineage were as good as mongrel curs.”

His wealth was artificial, his standing made of paper in a world he was not meant for. Easily given, easily taken away. “If you would have me hide my face, I shall do so. If you fear yourself unworthy, know that I shall defy you; I’ve no intention of leaving your side.”

He does not reach for her openly. He won’t intrude on the barrier she clings to, his expression saturated with an ancient, unmoving determination as he watches her from mere inches away. Voice low, humming in his throat even without his helm between them.

"So, you understand," another whisper. She stares at his hand. His face, she feels, she doesn't quite deserve. She should have explained this, but such a patent part of the world... how do you explain the sky?

"You look noble. You walk with it. Your armor, your face..." A sigh. "Maybe Riftwatch folk know better, but the rest? At best, I'm some camp follower of yours."

Camp follower being an incredibly kind term for it.

For a long while he considers that. He cannot disagree with her: she walks like a fighter of the rawest cut, her nose, having perhaps been broken, juts sharply from a face befitting a scowl or a crooked grin. She is as untamed as the scaled beast they’d felled in Orlais, and made vulnerable for it here, surrounded by fairer finery and piercing glances.

Something he would not expect to give her pause, and yet...

“What must be done, to alter such an impression?”

"It's just as it is," she murmurs. "D'you remember when you first took off your helm? I was besides myself. I thought I hadn't a chance of- of friendship, much less..."

A sigh. She squeezes his hand. "Nobles here are very cruel."

His blood boils. His expression stormy, thundering even as her hand closes tight around his own.

It's just as it is.

“I’ll not settle for that.”

Not him.

It is an easy decision, lifting the hand she isn’t clutching, closing a fist around one of those ivory flowers— pulling it loose from the rest of the wreath with a faint snap.

When he leans in to press his mouth across her own, he sets that lone flower in the tangled mat of auburn hair above her ear, fitting it as though it belongs.

As though it has always belonged.

She watches anger cloud his face, and has no fear of it. When he kisses her with such fervor, she of course humbled, as always. And, a little white flower-- she can count on one hand the times she's been given flowers, even less without mockery.

She wants to melt into him, to lap him up, to kiss back and not disappoint him. Instead, she fails, moving away after the quick meeting of their lips.

"When all of these people are away," she says, "I won't see you laughed at. I can't."

Defeated is not the word for it. He is too stubborn for that, and too certain of his own estimations in a world he holds no claim to. No doubt his brother would be more graceful, more understanding— would find some way to soothe the unrest before protest settled into her chest beneath a network of old scars.

But he is only ever himself despite the facade he wears.

And he has never been able to let go of anything, once it worms his way into his heart.

His head sinks when she pulls away, temple scuffing briefly against some glancing point of contact: her jaw or her shoulder— too quick to be of notice, and too quickly forgotten as he eases back into his own space, expression as low as his voice.

“I would guard you from them.”

As though this is about her alone, and not what she might bring about for him, nestled at his side.

"If it were me-" she gasps out, "I could stand it. I have already. A thousand petty sneers and little jibes. I never cared. But to see that of you..."

She moves her head, trying to catch his line of sight. See me "I couldn't bear to see you so treated."

His brow is lowered when she catches his eyeline, dark shadows across silvered hazel, the very picture of the hound he'd been purported to be. Conflict etched deep into the unmarred edges of his features, lost nominally to the blanket of twilight settling overhead. She, knowing him, might recognize it regardless.

They're all foreign, her ways. Her speech. Herself. The burden of affection that she bears, beating bright as a spark and hot enough to burn. At times it still does not seem possible, the way she’d glimpsed something worth salvaging within an armored, embittered shell.

“...why.”

He has suffered worse; it is no secret.

She reaches up, callouses sweeping down the side of his jaw. A gentle touch, no intent to pull or push; though it does encourage him to look at her.

"'Cos I know how it feels," she says, and it's the only answer worth giving.

He leans against that touch, however fleeting. It does, as always, still the worst of his own nature.

Though perhaps that, too, is only a passing calm. Gone the second she is.

"Then we leave."

Now. The two of them.

OPEN | the grand tourney!

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