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

[katabasis]

[Smoothly, without blinking or missing an off-time beat:]

Natural skill.

[Also, they're great boots. Just because Yseult doesn't appreciate ostentatious pirate fashion— Cutting in this new direction, some new lay of hands cinches her in reasonably close as they trot out of firing range of the band.]

I keep a mistress in Hightown with particular tastes.

[hassaran]

In boots?

[ Now the teasing skepticism takes on an added tinge of distaste. She is not a fan of pirate fashions, it's true, as Darras's shifting wardrobe may attest, but there are worse things. Like having to even momentarily imagine Flint with mistress with a foot fetish. She deftly navigates the closer quarters their retreat has led them into, dodging a passing elbow as arms knit. ]

I met a man once who insisted women wear yellow gloves to bed.

[ Her shrug adds the faux-generous to each their own. ]

[katabasis]

In dancing, [he clarifies only after this bout of suffering has run its natural course, steering them around an oncoming collision with some significantly more boisterous dancing partners without undue effort.]

Was he rich, or just good looking?

[hassaran]

[ Yseult clicks her tongue as if disappointed with the correction, though maybe just that he felt the need to make it. ]

Only rich. The good-looking ones are much worse. [ She hinges away and back again, reversing the order of arms. ] Which is your mistress? You must tell me all about her.

[katabasis]

[The easy joke—something about her husband being notoriously easy on the eyes—is sublimated into little more than a faux scandalized sidelong look that's already boiled down to some more genuine flicker of good humor under that snarling wolf's mask by the time Yseult's been reeled back in under the new arrangement of hands and arms. The music is dreadful, but the night air has that sharp tang of winter in it and nothing's yet come crawling over the battlements. There are worse ways to occupy an evening.

With a hum of consideration as they steer round in some new direction to avoid further oncoming traffic—]

I'm trying to decide whether Madame Strasser [somewhat infamously shrewd when it comes to importing goods on behalf of the would-be fashionable of Kirkwall] or one of the Orlesians who insists on not being a refugee is more compelling.