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

[elegiaque]

“If you call me Gwen again you'll leave through a window,” is placidly delivered, and utterly sincere. She says it like she expects to only have to say it once, and thusly move on; obviously, they can still be friends as long as this thing is minded.

Abby didn't know, now she knows. If she does it again, then it's a problem.

“Anyway, obviously. That's why we're fighting it. What, you want me to jerk everyone off with a smile while I do it? Sure, there's probably some blood left from one of my dead family members to lube you up with.”

[armd]

"Got it." Abby doesn't have to hear that twice, the conversation may proceed.

Ish.

She's not contributing to it, too busy making a wide-eyed, about-to-laugh face at Hardie in response to his mistress' language, and gently cupping her hands over his soft ears. Please, he's only a baby, "Yeah, you know, I think that's exactly what Corypheus is really after. D'you think he wants to watch?"

[elegiaque]

“We can't talk about Corypheus and sex, Astarion will threaten to rip my entrails out through my throat again,” and the joke is the prim way she's saying it, like it's funny, and not the again part.

Hardie gazes soulfully up at Abby. Does she understand now why he should be in charge.

“Riftwatch,” after another pause, in the tone of someone perhaps about to deliver a sermon, “is an embarrassing clusterfuck that can't agree with itself about what exactly it is, made up of people who can't take orders led by people who wouldn't be giving them in any other organization. It's the graveyard of my failed marriage and half the people I love who are actually dead because of this fucking unavoidable war. Where do you hide from the sky? It's so stupid that we don't have the funding. The people. The pull. Our problems are everyone's fucking problems, so none of what I just said actually matters. We're probably going to die. But it'd be embarrassing to die because we didn't bother trying to live. Riftwatch is the only thing that actually matters.”

She doesn't, actually, dislike it. These are her shitheads.

“I don't have to be nice about it, it's just true. And you can call me Gigi.”

[armd]

"... What Astarion doesn't know won't hurt him," Abby mutters, directing it to Hardie and his big, round puppy-dog eyes; to Gwen, "You don't have to be nice about it. I get it."

It's the same as belonging to a faction that you don't care for, killing in their name every single day, and finding family buried in it anyway. Plucking what you want out, and keeping it for yourself; Abby knows the routine. Everybody needs people.

"I like it so far." Despite her intentions, that is. "I thought it would be worse than it is." More militant, perhaps. More organised, more eager to get out there and start murdering people in the name of a cause. Abby hates knowing that if it had been like that, she might have put her head down and done the work anyway. Even though it feels strange to consider it now. That was some old version of her, and for far too long.

[elegiaque]

The Inquisition, off marching exaltedly, is probably more akin to what Abby had expected to find in Riftwatch — which is a great deal of the reason why it isn't part of the Inquisition any more, this unruly off-shoot of the holy mother, as likely to shoot her as serve her. She remembers it chaotic, not dissimilar, but those were the early years and there was no Divine yet to bring the beast to heel.

If she'd ever had misgivings about the separation, those are long since laid to rest.

“There's less than a hundred people here, and less than that trained for battle, and less than that again trained to fight in a group or to fight under an oath,” is a sort of verbal shrug. “We don't have the numbers to be worse than we are.”

[armd]

Abby grins sarcastically, her gaze boring momentarily into Hardie before she finally relents in rubbing him down, and wipes her dog-haired palms absentmindedly off on her thighs.

Oops, these pants are new. Whatever. The jacket is the main draw of the outfit, she's fine.

"... Maybe we will eventually," she posits, straightening up. Surely the research division has been keeping track of the rate at which people coming crashing into Thedas through the rifts. She's interested in knowing that kind of information, now that she's considering it.

After a beat, "I thought about saying no. To joining." Because Gwen seems like she won't spread that around.

[elegiaque]

“Rifters have the luxury of being a burden without offering anything in return if they want to. It's less of a problem now that so many less of you arrive regularly.”

—is not a kind assessment, but there's nothing about Gwenaëlle that's naturally kind, really, and this is not a new attitude. Or, to her, new information about the slowing trickle of these strangers; it doesn't occur to her that Abby might mean that they'd ever have their numbers bolstered by rifters, she thinks only of her own past optimism that they'd be able to reach the people whose world this already is.

She isn't optimistic about that, any more, but neither is she terribly inclined to get into a conversation about it. It's just depressing.

“It's good you didn't. Say no. It's a shitty thing to do.”

[armd]

"Yeah," Abby mutters, "Well. I'm good at not saying no." Such a bitter thing. Her mouth works around the words, expression shuttering, "Used to do whatever I was asked to. Guess that hasn't changed all that much."

Change only ever comes about with work anyway, and Abby hasn't been putting in any of that, so. The only thing that's different is the location and that happened by force; she'll still fire in whichever direction she's aimed. Something she doesn't like about herself, around about the middle of the list.

She doesn't want to stand here and talk about that, though. She'd rather leave and seek a distraction.

"Are you retiring for the evening?" Seeking an out for herself, unsubtly.