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

[cozen]

Bad news—or good news, maybe: Bastien is, among other things, a professional noticer. A professional noticer with fantastic timing. Just as the polite length of time to observe the skaters is winding down and (if the pattern holds) Josias will be stepping away to wander somewhere else, or perhaps to leave altogether, Bastien arrives at his elbow with his own drink in hand.

His sideways look says, Caught you. But what he says out loud is, "If you had to be from some other country besides Antiva, which would you choose?"

[dastardly]

Josias' expression, is, entirely, one of having been caught. Eyes a little wide, body stiffening slightly, a nervous glance to the nearest exit. Less, perhaps, in being caught following a well-practiced routine, and more in being caught in any sort of conversation at all - least of all one that could easily be quite loaded. From one of his Diplomacy superiors, no less.

"Ah." He takes a sip of his wine, perhaps the first all evening, before answering hesitantly, "Orlais?"

Where Bastien was from, obviously, and therefore the safest answer to this trick question.

[cozen]

"Orlais," Bastien echoes, with eye-brightening enthusiasm and no sign of feeling sucked up to. He considers Josias for a moment more before a skater zips by and catches his attention. "To try your hand at the Game?"

It is—gently—a joke. A shy, timid clerk with a fortune at stake would be devoured alive and have his bones used for toothpicks.

[dastardly]

At this, Josias seems to pale, looking even more like a snared rabbit than he already had. "No, I am no good for-" he catches himself, seeming to remember both that he works in diplomacy and also bears his father's reputation, even here. Admitting so boldly that he was shit at political manoeuvring could be a dent on both, even if it was abjectly true.

But he struggles, for a palpable moment, to remedy the mistake, before finally: "I have been told the food is wonderful?"