With money you squeezed from the peasants (open)

[toujoursdroit]

WHO: Open to all Riftwatch agents who care to attend. Plus-ones allowed within reason.
WHAT: The duke de Coucy is throwing a celebration to mark his eldest grandson’s 18th birthday, which he would do anyway and which is definitely not a blatant attempt to keep said grandson from running off toward the nearest opportunity for combat.
WHEN: Mid-Kingsway
WHERE: The de Coucy property in Hightown. (The servants are spying in case you break anything.)
NOTES: If you’d like your character to come but think some maneuvering would be required to make it happen, hit me oocly and we’ll figure it out. Similarly, if you need or want a starter with Romain or an NPC, just let me know.

The engraved invitations only go to a select few: the division heads and project leaders, Alexandrie d'Asgard, Petrana de Cedoux and (after some deliberation) Hugo and Jehan Mercier d'Annecy. Others, without a specific addressee, are posted in common areas in the Gallows including both dining halls, the herb garden and the game room:



Those at ease enough or bold enough to take him up on the invitation arrive to find the duke’s Hightown residence lit with a mixture of opulent scones, torches and enchantments. Once admitted through the outer gates—the servants at the door have a list on which one’s name must appear, seemingly including every member of Riftwatch—guests will be ushered a short walk back from the street to the house proper. The foyer boasts more servants, ready to take any outwear (the weather does not dictate it, but fashion may), as well as any gifts for the marquis.

Guests are then shown through to the ballroom. While it is generally used these days as a training area, it has been converted back to its intended use for the evening. The space is brightly lit and features a small but talented collection of musicians. The center of the room is clearly intended for dancing, but chairs and railings along the edge of the room provide a place for those who need a breath or who simply prefer conversation to dancing. Staff circulates with wine and hors d'oeuvres (mainly local shellfish and assorted pastries from Romain’s imported Orlesian patissier). In addition to their fellow Riftwatch agents, guests may run into carefully selected individuals from Hightown society, gratified to varying degrees at having been included.



Those who find even the edges of the ballroom too much may discover that the lower level of the two-level library is open, though servants pass through with enough regularity that it is not truly private. (Assuming one thinks servants count, of course.) The upper level is roped off. Anyone attempting to make their way up will be gently but firmly redirected by the staff. The lower level, however, does offer a few tables and various comfortable chairs and chaises, good for quiet conversation or simply a break from the crush of society.

About two hours after sunset, dinner is announced. All present guests are shown into the dining room. Those few in attendance who have seen the duke’s estate in Orlais, or even his home in Val Royeaux, would know this room is smaller than either. Everyone is seated comfortably, but in addition to the long, rectangular table at the room’s center, a few smaller circular tables hold the overflow. The seating has been chosen carefully for status, affiliation and balance of conversation. The duke heads the long table, and his grandson Thomas sits opposite. Thomas, like his grandfather and younger brother, is masked, but those who chat with him will easily be able to determine his buoyant mood from his voice and manner. The food is excellent, if less varied and exotic than it would have been had supply lines not been so constrained. (Romain thought to bring a few things back from his most recent trip to Orlais and finds himself glad of it now.)



After dinner, guests may resume dancing and gossiping in the ballroom, or engaging in quieter conversation in the library. Or they can make their way out to the courtyard in the rear of the property. While Hightown’s constraints mean the outdoor space is not extensive, it is walled to offer privacy from the nearest neighbors and boasts a water feature, impressively lit in honor of the occasion.

The duke circulates throughout the party for the evening, seemingly doing absolutely nothing other than chatting with his guests. Yet somehow after he passes through, any guests with empty glasses find someone offering to fill them, any low-burning torches are promptly replaced, and any guests causing a scene are discreetly spoken to or, if necessary, shown into a carriage that will take them home. In addition to Romain, guests may have a chance to speak to the guest of honor, Thomas, or to his younger brother, 15-year-old Raoul, who has been given a special dispensation to stay at the party as long as he likes and is seemingly determined to make the most of it. The festivities will drag on until dawn, for those most committed to a bit of merriment in the face of invasion, or at least most committed to eating the duke’s refreshments and drinking his wine until they’re cut off.

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

Just so.

[ She tilts her head slightly in acknowledgement of his thanks, and when she smiles again it is warm and curious; a welcome to, rather than an amusement at. ]

What would you choose, if you might take a fearful thing from nature and make it small enough to safely touch?

[icasm]

He can't read all of her body language with the masks between them but he's perceptive enough to sort out that she has... an opinion, of Asterion, and that it perhaps is not an entirely pleasant one. For his part, Loki has not really minded Asterion's behavior on the crystals off and on and has no idea of his clashes with Gwenaëlle.

So. He shrugs, a little, lifting a hand in a weighing gesture.

"He's dangerous I'm sure, and likely the sort of dangerous that is difficult to predict because it is based in his own sense of amusement." Which. Pot, kettle. He's aware of the similarities there. "I haven't paid as much attention to him, honestly, but I know he made a fool of Allumin on the crystals for little more than a lark and I know we are both creatures that have lived long lives."

for cole

[armd]

The library, just like everything else, is beautiful and ostentatious, and full from floor to ceiling with books. Some of them (mainly the long stretches of identical hardcovers) don't look like they've ever been read before. They're only there to match.

"Holy shit..." Abby runs her finger across their unmarked spines as she explores, her voice an awed hush. There are a surprising amount of people in here, all chatting quietly away, or perusing the shelves at their leisure. She doesn't actually think she'll be able to get away with finding a corner to curl into.

Especially once she realises that the second level is roped off. What a disappointment. Abby would, predictably, rather be up there: or at least she wants to know why it's closed. Is that where all the best books are? Has to be.

The next turn around a shelf reveals a familiar face.

"Cole." They're wearing more or less the same colour scheme: black, and vibrant red. Abby notices it with a breath of amusement. "Nice shirt."

[coquettish_trees]

She looks like she wants to say something, then decides not to. Thinks again, wants again, decides not to again. Finally, with a light humour likely aimed at herself—

"How much shall I worry, if I wish you to believe I trust in your skill and judgment and I wish to please you by fussing over your well-being?"

[illithidnapped]

"Well it certainly wasn't my fault."

Given how rapidly he snaps that back, he's clothed himself in blamelessness as much as silk. Balking at the very (unsuggested) idea that he might somehow be responsible for what transpired, quick a flicker as it was.

"Going out of my way to be kind, and this is the thanks I get."

The unspoken follow up to that comment being, of course, never again.

[voidtransport]

Oh, a pet mimic would be amazing - [forgetting for a moment that such a creature is not a thing here] - it'd be excellent for guarding your things while you are away or if you were in a sticky situation and needed to fool someone.

[in a silly bad guy voice:] "Hand over the such-and-such!" So you turn and give your mimic a wink and a nod and it turns into a perfect copy of whatever it is and you had it over, and as whoever it is inspects the "item" - [he does little air quotes with his fingers] then the mimic reveals itself and attacks! And then you have the advantage to attack or make an escape, whatever you choose!

[He's very animated as he recounts the hypothetical, like he's definitely considered this before.]

[helpinghidinghaunting]

Cole has been calming down here in the library for a little while, and by the time he runs (almost literally) into Abby, he only jumps a little as she addresses him. Drawing in a shaky little breath and letting it out, he looks her over, lips twitching in his attempt at a smile.

He's trying, and that much is clear in his voice when he speaks.

"Hello Abby. Thank you. You...look very nice." Sounds like someone has been giving him some conversation lessons. He sounds...a little awkward. "It's...hard to stay seen. It's loud out there."

[elegiaque]

Ellie is not the first person to realize this only deep into the evening, and Gwenaëlle laughs,

“Thomas is my cousin,” she elaborates, “and l'Duc is my grandfather. Sort of. I was passed off as his daughter's legitimate child for years, and he decided not to let a little thing like that being an illegal lie force him to give me up—when we first came to Kirkwall from Skyhold, he arranged the house for me. I haven't always lived here, but I do.”

Currently, she means. She points out Enchanter Julius, a tall, light-haired mage dressed not dissimilarly to Ellie, “He lived here for a bit in the first year, the old Forces Commander, Coupe, she made me bring someone with me for security and picking a mage was a bit of a fuck you. Ex-Templar,” as an explanatory aside. “I had never held a weapon, at that point, so it wasn't not a good idea.”

[icasm]

"As much as you like, min hvite sommerfugl." Loki smiles, a warm thing that turns sharp at the edges. "You were jealous, I think, when you felt hurt. No one has been jealous over me before. Well. That I know of."

He might invite any number of feelings in others, but he rarely knows which for certain until they're being hurled at him. "I know you trust my skill and judgment.

What will you do with your days, with both of your gentlemen gone to Wycome?"

[illithidnapped]

“My my. Right again. How far you've come.”

Intolerable, petty, spiteful, selfish, demanding, demeaning— all the wickedness he nurses along like wine, and yet as they near the high arches and warmer halls of that Hightown estate, Astarion’s flaws are made (marginally) less. It isn’t a facade melting away. They’re still there, and potent besides, but—

Some part of him does want to see the man succeed at this. To do well enough that he doesn’t need to up and vanish in a flash of half-forgotten smoke.

Only time will tell of course, whether or not that’s the case, but for now he’ll play optimist, fiddling with the cuff of one sleeve as his back straightens just a little more, attention forward.

“Come track me down if there’s trouble. Or— on second thought, don’t.”

That’s a joke, Cole.

...Probably.

[acreage]

Astarion, famed for being the very picture of delicacy, especially where other peoples' feelings are involved. The flash of defensiveness also helps his case for sure.

But Jim only raises his hands briefly and lets them drop, all, I come in peace. He isn't here to accuse anyone, Astarion or Gwenaëlle.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

He's assuming the answer is yes, here.

[voidtransport]

Alright. He has to be clever about this so as to not falter or give it away before the punchline. Pacing and partial truths are important.

He draws in a breath, making a point to steady himself as he is about to bare all for Astarion.

"Well, at first it started tame enough... a concerned friend, reaching out to see if I was alright. The conversation got rather intimate - I shared things about myself that I haven't shared with anyone before," he says, speech starting out normal enough until the word 'intimate.' Allumin knows himself well enough to know how flushed and breathless he gets, and imagines something far more explicit than what was actually discussed to sell how riled up just the thought of it makes him.

"I'm not sure if I've ever felt so excited by words before, but it's different when it's something deeply dark and personal." He sighs as his cheeks redden. He hopes the way his eyes linger a moment too long on Astarion's lips and the way they drift downward before returning back upward to make eye contact with a not-all-there gaze will be enough to sell this.

"We made plans to head from the Gallows to Kirkwall proper to drink and spend the night together. Arms interlocked as we walked to the ferry, feeling their body heat against me only made me hunger for more..." Biting his lip, it's less a fantasy and more a bit of shame he feels at how needy he can be for physical gratification. Shame, however, is still enough to continue the rise of flushing in his cheeks, a hitch and a shuddering little exhale as he weaves his little tale.

"I couldn't wait until Kirkwall, I needed some kind of satisfaction, so..." He leans in close, voice barely above a whisper. "I pulled them close and kissed them, right there on the street, where anyone could see."

Oh, he hopes that this gets the reaction he's expecting based on Astarion's earlier disappointment.

[coquettish_trees]

"Read very silly books all day," is her prompt and decisive reply, "without removing my dressing gown for a single moment. Paint, play the pianoforte very loudly, drink a bottle of wine without sharing, and practice trusting the both of you by not being a single bit jealous.

"Which I was," she continues matter-of-factly without a jot of shame for it. "Terribly. Were anyone to have been jealous over you before, I eclipsed a thousand years of it in a single afternoon.

"There are places in me that only you have touched, and if there are like places in you that are mine I will bite off any fingers that reach for them." With that, Alexandrie raises her fork with a prim delicacy that might seem comically incongruous to those unused to her savage dualities. She moves it towards her plate, then pauses and looks back at him without a shred of affect, with eyes that are solemn and sincere. "You are not all mine, and I know you shall not be. But what is I will not share."

[notathreat]

Ellie's eyebrows lift, and she's about to ask whether it's something she can help with, before Astarion, predictably, reveals that he's pissed somebody off. Bless him.

"A tiff?" she asks, giving him a doubtful, knowing look.

She knows Gwenaëlle and Astarion, and she doesn't imagine it's anything less than at least a minor sort of explosion.

"The hell'd you do?"

[illithidnapped]

“What did I— nothing!”

He emphasizes the gap so sharply between the t and h that the word nothing might actually have become two.

And then, in a move that might well be interpreted as something romantically playful by anyone keeping tabs on them from afar, he briefly sets his chin atop her head, quelling the accusation and his own response to it all in one very absurd go.

“I simply offered to help her. Fat lot of good that did.”

Humans have shit hearing, all things considered. The music, slowed to something less enchanting, affords them enough space that he’s confident enough no one can hear them, between loudness and distance.

[notathreat]

Said move also completely and utterly hides Ellie's face, and the way she sputters into his shoulder, her shoulders trembling with laughter that she does her best to keep quiet. She can just imagine how that went over with Gwenaëlle.

"Ohmygod-" she manages, gulping air, turning her face into his neck- the gossips may have some golden moments to talk about, if they're watching.

"Okay, but how did you offer to help her?"

[illithidnapped]

"Of course not. I’m not some incurable gossip."

His ears are already pinned, given the way he's hidden them behind silver strands of hair, but if he were a bat or a wolf (apropos of nothing at all whatsoever) they'd no doubt be flattened against his head as he grits his teeth in withering irritation.

Falling silent, until—

"—but here’s the thing. It’s just that it’s absolutely infuriating that she has the nerve to expect the entire bloody world to give her space when all she clearly needs is the opposite. She’s not going to dig herself out of some misery pit playing cards in a corner with Thing One and Thing Two over there. What favor does she think she’s doing anyone?"

He leans a little further forward against the ledge, fingertips splaying.

"And what’s more, how dare she equate my need for self-protection with an inability to form some sort of connection. We have a connection. Just because it’s not the one she wants, doesn’t make me the damned villain."

[acreage]

"Okay,"

is as far as he gets at first. He opens his mouth to say something like fair enough, nodding, but then Astarion keeps going and he closes his mouth, still nodding. Okay then, we're doing this.

"It doesn't," he agrees first, because that's an easier thing to answer. He mentally revises his opinion of Astarion slightly as he does; he hadn't entirely figured the vampire for self-aware enough to be able to comment on his need for self-protection. "It doesn't. That doesn't make you a bad guy.

But." He turns to more easily face Astarion, an elbow on the ledge. "If someone says they want space, then that matters more than what you think they need. You might be right in this case. I don't know her well enough to know. But no one gets to decide that for anyone else."

[illithidnapped]

Astarion’s eyes narrow. His lips drawn into a tight, thin line. He stares, and it’s more than obvious how much he disapproves.

“Why did I even think talking to you was a good idea.”

Terrible. Awful.

[acreage]

"Because," he says, smiling despite the weight of that disapproval, "you know I care about you. And that I'd tell anyone else the same about you, if you needed it."

To respect his wishes, boundaries. Which is maybe going out on a limb here about Astarion's perception of him, but here we are.

[illithidnapped]

“With something I’m not at liberty to discuss, given the....nature of this event, shall we say.”

It’s low, his voice. Lower than it’s been before between them, and that alone might say more in regards to what sort of assistance he’d been trying to lend.

“If you want to know more I’ll be happy to tell you later. In private.”

Where they won’t be overheard.

[illithidnapped]

Unbelievable. Inexcusable. Utterly disgusting.

He pulls away from the balcony, divorcing himself from it entirely. His lip curls higher, exposing the inhuman span of jagged sets of fangs, stare glinting in the light as his brow line tightens.

“This conversation is over.”

[cozen]

Bastien twists his mouth to one side, at that—a little puzzled, a little amused—and then nods. "My fault," he reiterates.

He's not remotely fooled, but he didn't endear himself to dozens on dozens of noble marks by refusing to go along with people's pretenses. Especially not in public. He drops his hand from Allumin's back and eats the bite he'd delayed to ask, watching the young man's face while he chews and swallows.

Then he smiles.

"What was it for, then? The kidnapping."

[cozen]

"Non. Just old," is his explanation for his feet. He starts to stretch his legs out ahead of him, then yanks them back just in time to avoid tripping a dancer who skips by too close.

The movement looks cheerfully haphazard—but he saw them coming before he ever started the stretch. He knows this one, and he keeps tabs on the room without thinking about it. He learned to dance in a house full of thieves and assassins, with an instructor ready to pounce with cruel commentary or with claws if he winced on a sprained ankle or showed any hint of lagging energy.

"I tried to teach everyone to dance a few years ago," he says, "and some of them—you would have thought I was asking them to learn to murder their grandmothers. Plus jamais. Unless you want to learn, you are safe from me."

[voidtransport]

Allumin resists the urge to grab and completely down a glass of wine as he watches a tray go by. That would likely not make a good impression, so instead he takes in a breath, hands clasped neatly together near his waist to stop himself from fidgeting.

"The short version: to collect people, much like how a child collects toys. The longer version is a bit more complicated than that but still follows the same principle," he says, trying to shove back the more unsavory memories he has with instead the recollection of things that are actually important to the story.

"Before it was a carnival it had been something else, and a sick young girl had been left there alone to die. Her fears and desires changed the form and reason of it so that she wouldn't have to be alone anymore, and it became a trap that would lure people in and she would choose the ones she wished to keep."