faderift | SATINALIA

Entry tags:

SATINALIA

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

skating;

[ Having failed to arrange for himself a dedicated costume, Loxley has instead simply worn every garish piece of clothing he owns. An orange shirt beneath a trim blue jacket, a flowing golden sash and trousers of mustard-yellow stripes. On their own, or paired with the correct items, each individual piece is an acceptable level of colourful, but altogether make for more of a riot.

He makes for a colourful sight on the ice rink, anyway, having very confidently strapped on some skates and set out as if he had ever done this before. ]

Fuck—

[ —might pass you by as one lanky qunari goes sliding past, half-crouched in a bid to lower his centre of gravity, arms out to balance.

The desire to go fast paired with a desire not to go arse over teakettle distinctly at war, but he gets the hang of it quickly enough, until he can be found hurtling in reckless loops around the rink, or perhaps you find your arm linked with his where he stealths up from behind, with anyone he is at least half familiar with. ]

dancing;

[ Dancing, later, once the immediate novelty of the ice has passed. It's been years enough for him to have picked up some local steps. There is now silver decorating his horns, pointed caps that make the curled ends come up in sharp points, and a couple of rings nearer the thicker base. ]

I can show you, [ is his invitation to whomever he might have drawn into a dance with. ] Or we can make it up.

wildcard;

[ ooc ; feel free to switch to nonbrackettes. ]

[ If Bastien barely scrapes into the half familiar category, perhaps he's given a leg up by the fact that just before Loxley's arrival, one of his skates hits a rough patch and looks liable to topple him over.

Maybe he wouldn't have fallen. But Bastien's certainty on his feet is a hard-won victory over a pinch of innate clumsiness, and that victory did not negotiate terms for ice skates, so maybe he would have. Either way, there's some extra leaning weight pulling at Loxley's linking arm and a grateful glance that barely has time to bring Loxley's face into focus before Bastien is looking ahead to make sure he does not run into anyone or anything. ]

You were all making this look so easy.

[ Accusatory, in a cheerful way. How dare they tempt him into trying it. ]

[ Admittedly, half familiar is a little disingenuous when you've worked in the same military organisation for some years—everyone, by now, is.

Friendly, anyway, in catching Bastien from tripping, maintaining the balance as they steer past that rough patch. ]

Don't speak too soon, [ along with a clatter of skates on ice as Loxley builds back up their momentum. ] I haven't worked out how to stop.

What?

[ It's a friendly, laughing kind of terror, while Bastien keeps his skates straight and flat, pulled along by Loxley's momentum with no contribution of his own. ]

The annual Satinalia threat to our lives—

[ The joke is clumsy. He is too busy trying not to fall down to make it any better. ]

—returns after all.

[ Loxley laughs low beneath Bastien's more horrified mirth, determined to get them around the corner at the very least, pulling the other man along the tighter corner with tentative adjustments of his own gait on the ice so they don't just find themselves staggering onto naked flagstone. ]

And another inside job, at that. Oops—

[ Nope, it's fine. Maybe. The slight tug at Bastien's arm feels compulsive rather than deliberate, spelling of a disaster that was averted just in time as they clear the corner.

It's fine. ]

This would be easier with a tail.

[Tiffany is a master of composing her features, keeping carefully blankly pleasant and largely neutral. She'd learned this from a young age, schooled in it first as a lord's daughter and then as a Seeker of Truth. She has had years to perfect the skill.

Despite all of this, Tiffany blushes.

Just a little. And it's dark in the courtyard, mostly lit by the bonfires, and there is a great deal of ambient chaos to, hopefully, distract from this fact, but even so, Tiffany is blushing and feels it in her cheeks and feels very, very silly.

She keeps her voice very light to offset the feeling.]

I'm afraid I never got to the part of learning dance where I could be trusted to make it up. You'll have to show me.

[ If Loxley notices this change to her complexion, maybe it's in his insistence, taking both of her hands and drawing her out to the section of courtyard that's been taken over for dancing, his smile gleaming and symmetrical in the nearby firelight. But it's just as likely there'd have been no adjustment at all if he didn't.

(A change, since last they spoke: his left eye is now covered with an eyepatch, one embroidered with a wilting rose. It could easily be a part of his costuming, piratical in flare, if she hadn't witnessed him in the aftermath of the temple.)

But enough about that— ]

Just follow my lead, [ he assures, ] here, like this.

[ He moves to step beside her, one hand keeping hers perched on his. ]

Do as I do, but like a mirror.

[ —and doing as he does are light skips forward, fey kicks aside that make the delicate chains that hang off his horns jangle merrily, and then reversing. ]

There's a spin coming up, if you're feeling festive.

[Following means looking at their feet, at least to begin with. Tiffany's mouth pinches in concentration. Her first steps are cautious--when Loxley begins the skips, she's one behind--but catches up quickly. The jingling makes her look up, with a smile.]

It's Satinalia. Is anyone feeling anything but festive?

[It helps to not be looking at her feet, as it turns out. Maybe it's overthinking. She can't help it--she does glance down once more, quickly, nervous--but catches herself and looks back up again, meeting his eyes. Or, rather, eye. The patch looks very dashing.]

I can try a spin. One.

Very brave. Let's.

[ It's intuitive, at least, when someone is taking the lead—as they complete the next series of skips, Loxley pivots to gently slide his arm around Tiffany's, pulling her into a shared turn, one that ends,

and he directs her hand up to encourage her to spin beneath it, a bright smile lit across his features, all encouragement. ]

They could dance. They have danced, and Loxley had been very good at it.

But Derrica doesn't choose to intercept him in the midst of the dancing, just as she hadn't insinuated herself into his radius out on the ice. (In spite of aforementioned reckless loops, potential for falling, and so on.) She does find him as the festivities begin winding their way to a close. Not ending, only settling. Less frenetic racing on the ice. More bodies around the fire, sipping wine, talking amongst themselves.

Derrica comes, bundled and rosy with cold, to set herself down beside him.

"Here," is for the cup of wine, offered to him in lieu of greeting. "I thought you'd like one."

A refill. Something they might share, if he likes.

They could still dance, someone quietly playing a fiddle to bring the darker evening on. They could even still skate, although by now that integrity of the ice slick will be questionable, when it isn't even winter properly yet and Kirkwall weather runs wet.

Neither impulse comes to Loxley as Derrica sits down, smiling on automatic in a way that is no less genuine. "Thank you," he says, reaching for the cup.

He has thrown a coat over his shoulders against the chill, now that he's settled, a more sedate item of earthy brown that cancels out the riot of bits and pieces he'd donned for the occasion. He unfolds an arm to slide it around her waist as he sips from the cup. He has been drinking a little, noteable from the sheen of his silver-grey skin, the warmth of his body.

"Having fun?"

Now there's a good question.

Rather than offering an immediate answer, Derrica takes a moment to sort through her feelings as she leans into Loxley. He is warm, and the weight of his arm is simply, straightforwardly good. She hasn't been drinking, and all this time spent in the Marches hasn't acclimated her to the cold.

Eventually, she settles on:

"It's a better party than last year."

Considering that Derrica spent the back end of the celebration in the kitchen, keeping Richard alive and making sure a sabotaging Chantry brother was dead.

"Where did you learn to skate?"

"Where?"

Loxley takes another sip from the cup, before using it to gesture towards the melting ice rink across the courtyard. "About fifty feet in that direction," he says, offering the cup back. "About two and a bit hours ago. I don't know that this particular pastime even exists in Tassia."

Maybe Richard might know. He doesn't offer this alternative, pivoting to, "Why, are you saying I was very good at it? Because I'll believe you, if you are."

"You were far better than some."

How many collisions had Derrica mopped up?

"We don't have it in Rivain," she admits. "So I'm easy to impress. And you are naturally very impressive."

In all his many colors, among the rest of their number. She is predisposed to offering this kind of compliment to him, ice or no ice. Derrica folds her hands into her lap loosely, observing the puddling slick of the ice before turning her eyes back to fire before him.

"Thank you," Loxley says, just as accustomed to accepting these compliments as Derrica may be in giving them. But his attention has moved from the ice or the fire and is settling more on her, conscious of the heat trapped where their hips touch and the comfortable curve his arm settles into around her waist.

He could prattle on a bit, both playful and earnest in collecting praise as to his grace and sped and et cetera. Instead, "It would have been devastating," still playful, "to think that the one person I care to impress wasn't watching."

There is little need, considering they are already cinched comfortably close, but Derrica turns in by degrees. Tucks in against him properly, closing out what little space was left between them. Abandons her folded hands so she might reach back to set her fingers over his where he's set them onto her hip.

"Devastating," she echoes. Slightly safer ground than the one person, which prickles a mix of feelings in her chest. "I wouldn't want that."

And Loxley is impossible to miss. Not because of his height, or the bright colors. He's impossible to miss because she is always looking for him, marking his position in a crowd to keep comfortably aware of him.

"Are you reassured?" is underscored with a little press of her fingers. "Safe from devastation?"

There is a rueful twist of a smile from him, his dramatics called out. No backing down, though. Under her hand, his fingers stretch, while he reaches blindly and off to the side to set down the cup she had given him. It means he can settle that hand at her knee, where they are more tightly tucked in together.

"In the nick of time," Loxley says, and he leans through that diminished distance to kiss her—it's sweet, gentle, and he isn't doing much in the way of calculating the light of the fire, the length of the shadows, the amount of silhouettes in his periphery so much as doing what feels good to do.

Not so different from before, but perhaps the prickle of awareness immediately after would be different. Instead of acknowledge any of that, he adds, "I'm glad you weren't on duty all day, although I think I missed you when the music was going."

A little moment of—

Not hesitation, exactly. Derrica wants to kiss him. It is only the newness of the moment, of being so obvious.

But how far is this from Kostos' finger catching in the neck of her tunic or Ellie taking her hand in the midst of a packed room? If it is farther, then it must only be by increments.

And it helps, knowing that Loxley isn't doing any of this with intention of leaving some sort of mark on her. There is no calculation in it, so she can squeeze his fingers a little tighter in hers, smile a little when they part.

"Even though it wasn't nearly as nice as what Bastien might have done?" is a little tease of a thing too. She tacks on, "We could still try if you'd like."

They're skilled enough to dance even without any music.

"I quite like where I am now, is the thing."

There's a distinct difference between enjoying finding comfort in public displays of affection without concern for the thoughts of others, and actively seeking it out with great concern for the thoughts of others—this, if Loxley had to think about it. He is more singularly focused on having her attention, and giving his own, at least at this hour of the evening.

And no music to show off to. He slides his fingers between hers. "I'll take or leave the scenery." This close, it's easy to spot the thin cord of leather at his throat, where it disappears into his collar. Familiar, in that it holds the golden pendant she'd gifted him last year.

She is fond of where he is now too.

Self-consciousness aside, she is aware that Loxley has a singular gift. The drape of his arm doesn't feel like a yoke over her shoulders. Even with all that has shifted between them, no poisonous, possessive edge has permeated the way they link together.

So it is simple enough to readjust, put her legs across his lap so she can face him more directly. Mark the cord at his throat, revealed by the open collar of his jacket, even if she only catches the lapel of his coat as she looks up at him.

"Will you stay in my bed tonight?"

Their habit has been his apartment, his little room. The warmth rising up from the tavern, the many locks on his door, the cracked jar of dried flowers on the table. Derrica knows exactly how she fits in that space. They have so rarely found reason to bed down elsewhere.

Maybe she won't want to. She is content with their shared habits, after all. But tonight is a good opportunity to try making some changes. His gift is still in her room, isn't it?

There's a quiet, pleased sound as she adjusts, almost a laugh, Loxley shifting by degrees to accommodate the drape of her legs over his. Laying a hand at the outer of her thigh, feeling the warmth of the nearby fire at the back of his knuckles as a harsher heat than the warmth she naturally gives, against his palm.

He's thought only a little of his arrangements tonight. Had considered the likelihood of laying facedown and sodden with mulled wine on the other bed in Richard's room, for instance, and that was high. Had entertained, too, wrapping Derrica up and carting her back across the water.

But being invited to stay is superior to both of these. "I will," he says, with a tip of his head. Little cosmetic chains dancing off his horns. "Perhaps a little ways into the morning as well."

At his collar, her fingers slip along the lay of draping fabric to trace the leather cord. Her thumb sets at the hollow of Loxley's throat, feeling the beat of his pulse as she looks up to the gleam of metal off his horns, looks into his face. Measures the quality of his response, the warmth of his expression.

It is a small thing, isn't it? Space in her narrow bed, in the room allotted to her here.

But it feels bigger than that. Just like the pendent is something more weighted than it might appear.

"I'd like that," she tells him. "And it will be nice, without having to run for the ferry."

Though the day after Satinalia, barring any unforeseen disaster, is rarely a day requiring people to rush for desks and assignments.

"Mhm," spoken (or hummed) in the tone of someone who has never run for the ferry.

Or at least, someone who has only done so for wholly selfish reasons, a primary one already half-draped over him, fingers at his throat and gaze focused forwards and on him.

"Very logistically convenient," Loxley agrees, anyway, tone teasing. He has been in her space once or twice, but comparatively less than the other way around. On a delay, it's a thought he toys with, turns over in his mind like a coin, and seems to recognise it as a change. He'd sort of asked for change, hadn't he?

In some small way. There are others, too, she could spend Satinalia with, even more conveniently in reach than he. "You know," he says, after a moment, humour not yet leaving his tone. "This party's gotten very dull all of a sudden in the past, you know, five seconds. Want to do something else?"

The slip of skin under his fingers is very warm. The worn gold of the pendant glints at her, within easy reach of her thumb if she traced lower. It has been some time since she put this pendant around his neck; Derrica is pleased to find now that it suits him just as well as she recalls.

"What else would you like to do?" she asks, though she could certainly guess at the possibilities.

One of which might even be wrapping her cloak and shawl more securely into place, trust that no one means to injure themselves more seriously on the remnants of the ice, and let Loxley steal her away across the water.

She has made an offer. There is no expectation that he take her up on it. Derrica isn't even entirely certain what she's hoping for from him, whether it would be a relief for him to say yes, or a relief for him to say no. Or if she's foolish to be so caught on the idea of proposing he join her in a space he's already set foot in, if rarely.

In spite of his claim as to the boringness of their surroundings, he hasn't moved, hand idle on her thigh and content in this little aura of warmth and intimacy she's created. Certainly, if he wanted to steal her away across the water, they'd need to go rouse the ferryman sooner rather than later.

"Well, I've a gift for you," Loxley suggests. "I got it a little but ago so there's been plenty of time for me to question whether or not it's any good. We could find out."

He is, anyway, assuming a specific destination now that it's been offered. What they do when they get there and when is more malleable, while not inscrutable.

loxley. ota.

skating.

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dancing.

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i have a permit

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