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

[notathreat]

"Left her. Left our home. Left..."

Ellie trails off into dead silence, staring off into the middle distance of something only she can see. She closes her eyes, turns her head to rub her face against Astarion's shoulder, letting out a sigh.

"I thought it was vengeance. Or justice. Or, y'know. Whatever else I told myself." However prettily she tried to dress it up, she knew that it mostly tasted of bitter guilt.

Stay, Dina had begged, with tears in her eyes. Stay.

[illithidnapped]

He hears it in her voice. Pain. Sharp and insatiable, deep as a yawning pit. An old friend. A familiar friend— for the both of them, in fact, making its home here in memory and drink alike. Her profile sinks into his shoulder. Her breath so unspeakably warm.

He's not given to softness, but the question that chases it isn't one he'd meant to ask. And in the moment it snakes between his teeth, his own voice feels foreign.

"Was it worth it?"

[notathreat]

"No."

Ellie says it softly, the word sighing out of her, like it had been behind her teeth for years. Clenched tight, kept back. No. It wasn't worth it.

None of it was worth it.

Ellie doesn't cry -- doesn't let her voice break or tremble. It just has the heaviness of things lost, a lesson learned in the worst of ways. A consequence earned, and accepted.

Astarion's shoulder is warm, and feels steady, and that's all the comfort she'll let herself take.

[illithidnapped]

There's no judgment as she mires. Astarion, typical bastion of it, doesn't have any to give when it comes to this particular topic: Fenris never seemed warmed by the memory of vengeance, Ellie— sinking in against his silhouette— withers in its wake. Astarion tries, the same way he always tries, to picture what it might be like to roughly cut and shape his own imagined victory. In his waking dreams, it's glorious. Sanguine and gleaming and warm as the flowing rush of adrenaline. The perfect ending to a story centuries in the making.

But that's the thing about stories and their ends, real life never stops there. And at the pinnacle of everything, where else is there to go but down?

His head tips back, one of his own cool hands finding its way to resting along the crown of her skull, sinking faintly into those unruly flyaway strands. A slight weight. It lingers for a beat— two— and then he shifts forward, pulling her with him whether she aims to move or not.

"Come on, darling." Soft-spoken. Coaxing. "Much as I adore you, if I spend the rest of tonight against that wall I'm going to wake up as crooked as my own sense of humor."

Easy to tip the covers towards her. To offer her a chance to lie down.

[notathreat]

Simple acceptance. In the end, it's all Ellie's hungry for. Still, the hand tousling her hair makes her miss Joel with a deep, cracking ache. Astarion is so different from him in feel, but the memories bubble up regardless.

As much as Ellie is still angry with him, as much as she hated him sometimes, there was no doubt that he loved her, and what is grief but love with nowhere to go?

Adore you, Astarion says, like that very thing hasn't killed hundreds, maybe thousands.

Ellie rubs a hand across her face as she moves to settle down on the sheets, and opens her eyes to look at him. They're a little less than lucid due to the alcohol, but they focus on him readily enough.

She parts her lips like she's about to ask a question, but instead she reaches out, pulls him down with her.

[illithidnapped]

She doesn’t need to pull hard, he sinks to the mattress gracelessly in the wake of that silent insistence. Under the weight of weariness, and loneliness, and the simple indulgence of basic attention. Hers.

And if there’s no such thing as trust to be relied upon, why is he so certain she's not going to leave? That she's not going to twist the figurative or literal knife after everything he’s said, everything he’s done. Vicious to the marrow of his avaricious bones. He’s a creature prone to causing hurt, designed for it in fact, but—

But he drapes one heavy arm across her as he settles, and shuts his eyes with a lone, drawn out exhale through his nose. There’ll be time tomorrow to preen. To lie. To cheat and bicker and draw blood, same as ever.

For now, sleep is where he fits himself. Calmer for a change. Unbothered by all the faded shadows that surround, or the looming shape of a future he can’t quite see.

Whatever comes, they’ll figure it out.

[notathreat]

Being comfortably drunk and warm, Ellie welcomes the weight of Astarion's arm, the curl of his body close to hers, even the wine-scented brush of his breath against her skin.

His hair looks bright even in this darkness, and it reminds her of that night spend on the floor of the cavern, when he was touch-and-go with death, and Ellie wanted nothing more than to keep him talking. Enough to know he was still drawing breath.

He's everything he says he is, but there's fierce loyalty in his hardened heart, obvious in her eyes. Something that mirrors her own thirsty soul. Ellie reaches out and threads her fingers through his hair, gently stroking it back from his face.

It's nice not to second-guess the touch, to give it freely without the worry that he'll find it lacking.

Eventually, they'll both sleep well.