closed. though everything eventually passes,

[ipseite]

WHO: Marcus, Julius & Petrana.
WHAT: Petrana is not missing Satinalia again.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: Their room, the Gallows.
NOTES: It's wholesome Halloweenmas content, but it'll probably segue into some CONTENT WARNING family traumas.

Petrana has forgotten her anniversary with Julius two years running; last year, she realized it was Satinalia only because suddenly she had a pile of gifts before her and, awkwardly, nothing for anyone in return. Adrasteia's reminders have been extremely helpful, and this year—

She is determined. They are going to wear costumes. They are going to give out gifts. She is going to do Satinalia properly, which is why she, Marcus and Julius are all sat on the floor of their shared quarters, passing twine and paper to wrap gifts, making out cards—she has several times already now insisted that they must sign this one, too, Matthias will be specifically receiving a gift from Mme de Cedoux, Mssr Rowntree & Enchanter Julius—and now:

“I have already the sun,” very reasonably, “and it hardly counts as repeating a costume if, and I believe this is correct, none in the Gallows have ever seen me wear it. But one of you must be the moon and one of you the stars.”

Comments

[luaithre]

Marcus has slightly lost track of who is getting what, and what objects are concealed in the painterly paper and twine so far. He is trusting that the two sitting with him are keeping tally, and so only thinks about whatever task is put into his hands, which is at the moment: dividing handfuls of nuts and seeds, some of them candied, some of them coated in a bitter chocolate, into small paper parcels.

Oh, and drinking this glass of red wine by his knee, his second helping, and so he is already feeling warm from it. Regardless, he signs his name neatly whenever a piece of card is set in front of him. He's lost track of who these are for too.

"Your gown?" he queries. He is crossed legged, comfortably slouched, hair down around his shoulders, behind his ears. He glances to Julius, as if to gauge if the other man has any obvious interest in being either moon or stars.

[overharrowed]

"I confess, costuming is not my strongest skill set," Julius observes from where he's leaned against one of the bedposts. He's currently measuring out lengths of twine against his forearm, so they're ready for the parcels Marcus is filling by the time he finishes. "I'm not averse to the theme, but I do observe that the sun is rather easier to convey by color and brilliance alone."

[ipseite]

“And enchantments, which I think I might be able to slightly vary for the sake of sun and stars,” she says, pleased—it isn't terribly often that Petrana's magic serves much purpose, and frankly even she is disinclined to think this counts, but if she is grimly determined to go all out for Satinalia and even turn up to whatever feast occurs in her finest costuming—well. It is not unpleasant to think of it as an opportunity to play, a little, and to show them something of her magic that is only...pleasant. Lighthearted.

“Silver,” she decides, “for the stars. And white for the moon. With embellishments it is not at all difficult. You could, I suppose, back the silver or the white with black, for a night sky, but I've no blue for the day.” She gestures toward her wardrobe of finer things, where it's stored, with Marcus's pipe; she could walk the few feet to her desk and her own tobacco pouch, but the floor is a mess of gifts and debris and Marcus was right here, with his pipe. Look, she's sharing.

[luaithre]

"Black for the stars, with silver embellishment," Marcus suggests, quite seriously, if at a mumble as he concentrates on folding the paper like so, eyes on his task. "And then white alone for the moon. It would make for contrast between the two."

He hands the little parcel to Julius to tie together, and then takes up the last half-handful of leftover seeds and nuts and tips them into his mouth.

[overharrowed]

"I will be happy to wear whatever the two of you select, and especially happy to discuss any persistent enchantments to make them glow. Do we even have a particular event, for what it's worth? Or are we just assuming Riftwatch will have a party?"

Not a poor assumption, mind, but how impressive he cared to be was usually calibrated at least somewhat to the guest list.

[ipseite]

“Oh, I assume Riftwatch will have something, it always does. Mine is more a conjuring than a persistent enchantment,” Petrana admits, holding the pipe between her teeth in order to readjust the awkwardly-shaped parcel that, according to the tag she has just written, they are gifting to Adrasteia herself. In thanks for all you have done for morale. “A halo, which—”

She looks thoughtfully, for a moment, at Vysvolod in his bed. (His, for once.)

“Well, I might show you.”

[luaithre]

Marcus, temporarily free of any immediate duty, leans across to carefully take back his pipe with a slightly wry stamp of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Lest something terrible happen and ash and cinder goes everywhere.

And it's with this prop that he gestures, by all means, before replacing it between his teeth.

[overharrowed]

Julius finishes tying off a packet, and reaches up to give Vysvolod a scratch on the jaw for solidarity. "And here I assumed you would be enchanting the clothes, not us," he says, light, but moves his hand away to give her a clear path.

[ipseite]

“Veda loved this,” she says, smiling towards Vysvolod and not either of them even as she shares it, purposefully. “It is a simple enough trick. These—”

She holds out her hand, and whispers to it; lights her eyes in the familiar glow of active witchcraft, and then the reflected one of lovely, pale gold jewels spilled upon her palm, conjured out of ... nothing? Air? Her desire for pretty things? Probably, it is a bit of showmanship that she blows them as she might a kiss to send them spinning into orbit around Vysvolod's head,

which he lifts, bemused but not afraid.

They spin and twirl, lazily, settling into a perfect rhythm—not too quick to be seen and appreciated—and Petrana curls her hand into a fist, setting them into explosions of shimmering gold that rain down on Vysvolod, and his fur, and his bed.

“The remnants will have faded to nothing,” she says, quickly, “by morning. I would weave them into my hair, and so when they lifted, it would—” She gives it an illustrative shake tumbled down her back where she'd already undressed it, the clearest sign she was done with the rest of the day.

[luaithre]

Marcus' gaze lifts along with the conjured gems, his interest always renewed and relit when Petrana demonstrates something new—not only for her repertoire, but new in that she has a magic he's never really seen before. There's a faint smile for Vysvolod's tolerance, and then a broader one when glitter sparkles, falls, remains.

"It's a good trick," Marcus says. "And it's fitting that the sun be of more ostentation than its companions."

Less exploding sparkles for them, probably.

But he does add, "You would look nice in black and silver," to Julius.

[overharrowed]

He reaches to see if he can get a bit of the remaining gold dust on his fingers for a closer look. "Do you think? I made Petrana despair of me when she first took a hand in my wardrobe by telling her I'd never given any particular thought to what colors suited me." He hadn't meant it to physically pain her.

To her, he adds, "Regardless of which is which, I do think we'll frame you nicely." And he's resisting, palpably, the urge to immediately follow up on the practicalities of the magical effect. There will be time for that later, surely. She knows they'll both be curious about it; she won't leave them in suspense indefinitely.

[ipseite]

“I don't know what colours suit you and if I had not been told I would not know them for myself, my love,” she says, frank and fond as he examines the dust — it shimmers, translucent and clinging, “but one must think of what is appropriate to the occasion, which is simply not always 'a robe'.”

The physically painful part had just been the idea of Julius perpetually dressed to teach the principles of magic to twelve year olds.

[luaithre]

Marcus also watches how the dust interacts with Julius' touch, and says, "You would both suit the same colours," astutely and a little wry, both of them being fair in skin and hair, with the same blue eyes. "Black would be striking, if styled away from being dour. A black robe," for reference, tipping his wine glass in gesture, "would be dour."

It's a good thing they have him, et cetera.

[overharrowed]

"Noted," Julius says, truly amused. He traces an absent pattern with the dust on the back of his hand. "So the white for you, then. Maybe some silver accents?" He liked the idea of the three of them as a set, picking up details from one another, even if he was the one moments before questioning whether they'd be overdressed.

Also, absently, before he can answer: "I wonder if one could modify a spell wisp to be decorative. If it's possible, surely someone in Orlais has done it for a party."

[ipseite]

They are quite the pair, aesthetically; it'd probably be worrisome if either of them seemed more the sort to have done that on purpose, rather than prone to incredibly specific forms of obliviousness.

“The previous pair to the costume—well, it wasn't precisely the same gown as this, but nearly—was mostly black, which I thought somewhat failing to enter into the spirit of things, I am quite inclined to add the silver for you both. Marcus, sign this one,”

addressed to Ser Jone & Mssr Gabranth, and there was indeed some agonizing over the appropriate way to address them. Petrana is not certain she's satisfied with what she settled on, but she has become accustomed to being dissatisfied with the Thedosian application of civilities and there's nothing else for it.

[luaithre]

Marcus takes the card, wine glass set aside, picking up whatever writing tool is nearby and he—reads the names. Perhaps he would know who Jone is, or Gabranth is, but seeing them paired together with their names festooned in civility somehow deletes them entirely from his consciousness, and so he says,

"I don't know who these are,"

with some expectation that he will still be signing the card even so.

He isn't ignoring the remarks on how much silver he'll be wearing, a quiet compliance after having made his own decrees, a nod after Julius' comment and a flash of amusement at the idea of training wisps to perform themselves as accessories—or maybe it's amusement as a Fereldan speculating after Orlesian fashions.

[overharrowed]

Julius shifts, after one final scratch for Vysvolod, so he can glance at the card's addressees over Marcus's shoulder. When he sees who it is, he sighs. "I should probably sign that one as well," he says, almost resigned. "Jone jumped off the ramparts in Starkhaven fully trusting I could improvise altering a spell on the fly to slow gravity, which was. Well. I did it. I'm not entirely certain I could do it again." She'd been much surer than Julius was at the time. "Happy Santinalia, I'm glad I didn't accidentally kill you isn't strictly traditional, but even so."

[ipseite]

Petrana is partway through saying, “You have met them,” an exasperation without any heat, when Well. I did it. serves to effectively catch her off-guard, a vivid image painted unexpectedly.

“—is this as when you broke that little man,” which Julius might take to be in regards to his force magic and which sounds approximately a third again as crazy as what he has said.

On the other hand, she is also handing him her own quill pen, so yes, he's expected to sign it, too.

[luaithre]

There's a non-committal vocalisation at Petrana's correction, Marcus head down and pen scribbling as he signs his name, Marcus Rowntree, beneath hers. (He still has yet to settle on how he signs anything off. The instinct to simply name himself 'Marcus' is a Circle instinct that every now and then makes him sound hopelessly informal in correspondence. He follows Petrana's lead.)

The card is handed over, a flick of a gesture with Julius having shifted closer. At some point, they're going to abandon this task in favour of taking advantage of being grouped thusly, cosily on the floor like this, and it is more where his mind has hedged to rather than magical phenomena.

But he equally he would also like to know if this is as when he broke that little man, eyebrow raising slightly.

[overharrowed]

Julius grimaces a bit, embarrassed, as he takes the card. "From a technical perspective ... somewhat. I was modifying Force magic, so something in the same family, though a different spell. From the perspective that the other person involved was much more enthusiastic about the outcome than I was, startlingly identical experiences, though at least she didn't end up in the infirmary as a result."

For Julius's part, there's no temptation to include a surname; it's not even paused over. The title is more of an open question. He's varied the signature thus far depending on who is receiving the card. This time, it's simply Julius. Both options look elegant, a result that he almost certainly practiced as a younger man to get it just how he wanted, made reflexive only by years of repetition.