SATINALIA 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.

[deuselfmachina]

WHO: All
WHAT: A second crack at celebrating Satinalia, because we deserve nice things.
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall
WHERE: The Gallows, in the gardens.
NOTES: n/a

It's twilight when Second Satinalia is in its fullest swing. The weather is unseasonably warm, and so they've made use of the gardens as the site for partying. Carefully placed lanterns shine through the odd tree or hover over bushes that have since lost their flowers.

However, decoration makes up for the lack of springtime flora. The space is decorated in shining garlands of gold and silver ribbons, paper flowers, and hanging ornamentations that flip between moons and suns. (If they look a little used, it's because these are second-hand decorations from slightly more affluent Satinalia parties been and gone, borrowed or donated.) There is also a firepit, providing a source of warmth and light.

In the invitations that went out, everyone was encouraged to come in costume as they'd intended to, but noted that for those whom their costumes were ruined or they would simply like to wear something different, there will be masks available, along with some costume pieces—fake jewelry, big hats, faux-velvet and harlequin coats, and so on, though they must be given back, s'il vous plaît. Florent will also offer his abilities in face painting and makeup prior to the party beginning, and will talk you into going spooky in case more skeletons come and they need to blend in to throw them off. (He can be found with his own stylish paintwork, a skeletal design in silver and white and grey.)

Everyone has also been invited to bring along some food and drink if they have it, as their budget is run a bit thin, but there will definitely be enough wine to go around, and some fruits and sweet pastries purchased from the market that day all offered on a table.

There is some music, a few local musicians (who have been promised, variously, tickets to shows, or work opportunities with certain prominent Orlesian playhouses, which may or may not be legitimate) set up with a fiddle, some percussion instruments, something that resembles a very elaborate xylophone, all playing a diverse array of up tempo tunes that allow for a bit of dancing in the more open area of the garden, but otherwise suffuses the shadows and fractured conversations with pleasant noise.

Drink, be merry, don't kill anyone.

Comments

[elegiaque]

Styled part fire hazard and part indecent exposure, Gwenaëlle is hard to miss despite being more than a foot shorter than Dante and slight enough that the corset and chandelier combination has made her waist small enough to get hands around, if only someone could actually reach it. The mask throws her off, briefly, a fucking forest of tall pricks with white hair, but when she gets closer she's more sure that she doesn't recognize him.

Hm.

Interesting.

“You're new.”

[rebellionyell]

Dante is a fan of theatrics so he can appreciate being dressed like a walking fire hazard, he just never anticipated something quite like this would come sashaying his way. He looked like a rube by comparison, but Dante wasn't comparing...he just though it was too bad Dr. Faust didn't make it through with him, glittery scarf and a stylish Stetson would have boosted his fashion points for sure.

Well, he hasn't had the opportunity to dance yet, but he couldn't be certain anyone was ready for those moves.

"And you came here to dominate," Dante pointed out, "or at least that's what my mother would say, more poof, more dominance...but she was referring to petticoats and panniers, not chandeliers."

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle obligingly performs what would probably have been a pirouette in skirts with less wrought metal involved, so he can better appreciate the full effect—the illusory flames flickering and pulling against the air as real ones might, casting light and shadow gleaming against her skin and the soft leather of high, stocking-styled boots.

“I've got those, too,” she says, coming to a stop and perceptibly wincing at the way her chandelier carries momentum with it a moment after before stilling, too. “Satinalia is meant to be a little bit more creative.” Thus the ear-cuffs that filigree elven points where points are not, presumably.

She studies him. “'Being a rifter' alone probably would have served, about five years ago.”

[rebellionyell]

Dante did his best, polite, bravo clap as she twirled in what looked to him to be the singular most dangerous piece of costuming he's ever laid eyes on. He wouldn't describe himself as a gentleman per-se, but the least he can do is reach out and steady the chandelier concoction before it threatens to do any more than just a moment of mild agitation.

"Yeah, I'm beginning to see that. It reminds me a little bit of Carnival where I come from," he indicated by addressing the celebration at large, "extravagant costumes...masks."

He's never been to a Carnival, but he's seen the pictures and the crowds the events attract. His presence in that sort of crowd would do more harm than good so he usually avoided that sort of thing.

"What are you saying, the shiny newness of being excreted by a rift has worn off and now we're just a bunch of ordinary dingbats sucking up the oxygen? I can't live as a small fish in a big pond! Where will I find the meaning of my life now?"

Fucking drama queen.

[elegiaque]

In order to make eye contact all the way up there, given the masque she's wearing, Gwenaëlle is obliged to tilt her head up; so he can see the brief narrowing of her eyes as she decides whether or not she's going to object to his putting his hands near her candles. (There's no true heat, when he's close enough to feel it.) “Excretion is such a fecal word. It's really more like a—well, a carnival show where some two-bit who couldn't make it on the stage fires balls out of her cunt.”

Long after the last person has forgotten Asher Hardie's name, Gwenaëlle is determined, they will still remember that someone called the rifts torn open sky vaginas. This, because it might be difficult to tell, is indicative of having decided not to be mad; it is also what passes for friendliness.

The dress is a good metaphor, is what we're saying.

“Does the side-show have a name?”

[rebellionyell]

Not wanting anyone to get a crick in their neck by their inability to have an eye-to-eye conversation with him Dante leaned back against a nearby table, testing the sturdiness first. While collapsing a table along with everything on it would be amusing, it wouldn't be smooth and Dante was nothing if not aware of his surroundings and the people in his surroundings. He dropped nearly a full foot.

"Now there's an image," an image that Dante didn't want to dwell too hard on, he had a mother and didn't want to imagine some sky vagina birthing him at his grown-ass age, "it's probably a good thing that I wasn't conscious for any of it."

Though the colorful description does get a laugh out of him that's somewhere between a snort and an exhalation of air.

"Well Side-Show is my proper name, but I guess I can allow you to call me Dante."

[elegiaque]

“Oh, if you prefer your proper name, by all means. Did you at least wake up for the fight, or did some poor fuck have to lug you all the way back here?”

The anchor-shard in Gwenaëlle's own hand — at some point maybe she'll give her name, maybe — came from a rift by the other angle, the carriage she'd been traveling across Orlais in knocked off its axels by the violent eruption of the sky. A native of this slow-moving clusterfuck rather than a transplant into it, but the end result is not dissimilar: stuck with first the Inquisition and then Riftwatch, until such time as at least the war is over.

Whichever way that goes.

[rebellionyell]

"I arrived in the middle of a coma, to the misfortune of the poor fuck," Dante raised his hand as though he were holding an invisible glass in toast to the soul who had to lift him, "it was probably a team effort though so I can't feel too terrible."

Dante doesn't elaborate further on his situation; masquerades were a cesspool of ears and anonymity. Aside from sarcasm Dante didn't quite have the measure of her and how she'd react to anything specific about his situation or his being.

[elegiaque]

“The list of people who can close a rift by themselves, even our most illiterate can count with one hand,” she acknowledges, giving him a sort of visual once-over he can probably interpret to be absently doing the math on how much of a nuisance he would be to both keep alive in a demon fight and then transport, unconscious. It's not to any particular purpose, really, just—

Turning on the candlelights and turning off from work are two very different things.

[rebellionyell]

"Well, whoever did the heavy lifting deserves some credit. The probably don't get enough," at Dante's height and mass along it would take 2 experienced lifters could carry him the distance they had but 4 average people to do it comfortably. Granted he was fairly certain that he was only carried far enough before being heaved onto a mount or a wagon.

Still, he's aware of being sized up and gives himself enough room to do an impressive triangular glide. Yes, he can dance, but he' suspected it wasn't a move native to this world.