SATINALIA

[incaenstrix]

WHO: Everybody!!
WHAT: SATINALIA!!
WHEN: Backdated to the first day of Firstfall
WHERE: Gallows courtyard
NOTES: Drunkenness and shenanigans. HALLOWEENMAS!!

This Satinalia is, perhaps, less grand than in years past. Blockades are still limiting access to luxury goods, after all, so the fine liquors and dainty foods that have been featured before are nowhere to be found. And Tertia, the temporary Morale Officer, doesn't have the connections or deft touch of organizers past, so things are rougher than they've been before - the musicians are less polished, the ale a little more watered-down, the decorations somewhat haphazard.

But you know what? It's still Satinalia. Nothing can really screw up Satinalia. Especially because there are some rather lovely touches, the best of which might well be the ice skating rink. A section of the Gallows Courtyard has been roped off and frozen over with magic, leaving a (largely) smooth sheet of ice covering it. Skates are available to borrow if you don't have a pair. Of course, some injuries are definitely going to result (if you skate off the edge, you're smacking into stone instead of a soft snowbank, which can be disastrous), but hey, it's fun.

Other perks are the bonfires, with mulled wine and cider being served out of cauldrons around them, where people might sit and reflect while watching the flame. There's also dancing, of course, with the musicians basically being any band that's been recommended by members of Riftwatch - so there are lots of half-competent cousins-of-friends playing here. What they lack in skill they make up for in enthusiasm; this is the first gig for a lot of them, and they're thrilled to be here.

One thing that's missing is the Satinalia fool being named ruler. Tertia wasn't familiar with this tradition and didn't arrange it - so there's a last-minute campaign being held, in which people can either nominate others or self-nominate to be named Riftwatch's greatest fool to be celebrated.

Enjoy yourself. Exchange presents. Get drunk. Have a blast. Don't lose any teeth.

Comments

i.

[heirring]

[She isn't meant to be dancing. She'd sworn it off months and months ago, and had said as much when the subject had been raised.

Yet here Wysteria is, lingering at the edge of the dance floor and looking like a particularly hopeful and strikingly effective Nevarran mummy thanks to her darkest dress, a prodigious supply of cotton wrapping temporarily pilfered from the clinic, and the elaborate prosthetic worn on her left side. The whole effect is charmingly macabre, even as she has spent the last however long laughing at the dance floor hijinks that are all but required at any Riftwatch Only function.

She laughs harder now at the invitation.]

I don't know the steps for this one, Monsieur Cat.

[cozen]

[ He grins wide, charmed by her laugh and by the costume, which is only improved by the fact that she's one of the most alive people in the fortress. ]

You can pick it up, Madame Momie.

[ He's shifting from foot to foot, just short of hops. ]

Or—no. Teach me one of yours. From before. Do you know anything for this tempo? I can ask them to change it.

[heirring]

Does this qualify as any particular tempo?

[Ha ha ha she's so funny.]

No, no, all right. There's something that may suit and doesn't require anything but our feet. It's meant for more people, but we can make do.

[Optimism! She delivers her hand into his.]

[cozen]

[ She is funny, though Bastien's grin and single snort of laughter come accompanied by a sympathetic half-glance in the musicians' direction. They're trying. ]

If we have enough fun, they'll join us.

[ Optimism!

He pulls her out into the middle of the floor with an arrhythmic shuffle and skip, then looks expectant. ]

[heirring]

[The reason she isn't meant to be dancing is because no matter how clever the prosthetic arm strapped to her left side may be—and this iteration in particular is very clever indeed—there seems almost no way at all to make it function like she believes it ought to in exactly this sort of circumstance. But there is a dance she knows that might be easily modified to really only require the working of a single hand. To say nothing of the fact that it's proper execution primarily relies on the gentleman's footwork rather than the lady's ability to turn prettily in a circle.]

Just this once, I'll play as if I'm you. You must watch my feet carefully, and at any point where we separate then you may simply follow round to watch what I do. Once you have a hang of it, we'll swap places and I can do the lady's part. Yes?

[Surely his agreement is implied, and so Wysteria rearranges their hands directly so she is holding Bastien's rather than the other way around (an important distinction)—] And one, and two, and— [Happily the fall of her skirts only goes as far as her ankles to begin with, so it isn't entirely impossible to parse what she's doing with her feet when she begins trotting him round.]

[cozen]

[ If Bastien had imagined a dance from a world that produced Wysteria de Foncé née Poppell—well, he wouldn't really have imagined this one. That would require a lot more prescience than he possesses. But watching her perform the charming little kicks and turns engenders a sense of backwards-reaching familiarity, until he's sure he would have imagined exactly this.

While he follows alongside her to circle around the floor, he echoes her footwork off and on, with restrained half-imitations that might help him remember when the time comes. ]

Was your music played with these sorts of instruments?

[ He is multitasking, turning a slow circle on the spot to watch her more bouncy circle him. ]

Monsieur Stark and some of the others rave [ incessantly! ] about electric guitars. Did you have those?

[heirring]

[Electric guitar is such an absurd combination of words that is makes her laugh. And Mister Stark has the audacity to think magic sounds ridiculous!]

No electric guitars, no. Not that I've seen or heard in any case. No, our instruments are very similar. —Although! [Wysteria brightens suddenly as she hops more or less in rythm with the music, very pleased with herself for thinking of some novelty she might potentially be able to offer him despite being generally so stubbornly ignorant on the entire subject.]

I've never seen a pipe organ in Thedas. Do you have those?

[cozen]

Pipe organ, [ is echoed with particularity and a scrunched-up expression that make the answer clear, so there is not much suspense when he has to delay it.

First to squinch one eye shut as their hired violinist hits a particularly flat note and sends the whole band tumbling briefly off the mark. Bastien had been keeping time (such as it was) with little nods of his head; he wobbles it to match their fumbling.

And second to catch up in his follow-along turning and not be left behind by Wysteria's hops. It's a sweet picture, her feet kicking about in her skirts. He hopes the woman's part is at least half as charming, or it'll be a shame to replace her. ]

No. No pipe organs.

[ The statement is a question. ]

[heirring]

Oh, well.

[Presumably, this is meant to precede an explanation. But here Wysteria pauses, and then laughs before admitting—]

I don't remember the men's steps that come after this. Forgive me—when we trade places, it might come to me.

[In the moment, she makes do with a series repeated from earlier, impulsively trotting Bastien around in a lovely circle for lack of anything better. Only on they e resumed their momentum around the pretend circle of pretend dancers, does she pluck back at the topic of pipe organs:]

It's rather like a pianoforte, only all the notes are played through a great assemblage of pipes. Striking the proper key blows a prodigious volume of wind through the corresponding tube. I imagine they must be connected to some series of bellows. They're rather large instruments, and not at all portable. There's a great one installed directly into the holy cathedral in the capitol. The volume really is remarkable.