player plot | meanwhile, in orlais,

[cozen]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Orlesian hangout interlude
WHEN: Late Wintermarch 9:50
WHERE: Halamshiral
NOTES: OOC post including some historical context that didn't fit well into the body of the log here. Mentions of fantasy racism and related violence in the log text. Use CWs for threads as needed.

There was a time not very long ago, like just six months ago actually, when the Baroness Egelatina de Martigny was only the Lady Egelatina de Martigny and it seemed possible she might die that way. She'd spent her entire adult life on the modest allowance granted to her by her aunt — several years younger than her, as these things sometimes happen — who held the title and the family land. But now her aunt is dead, the new Baroness de Martigny is in charge, and this winter she is starting off with a bang by filling her freshly reclaimed ancestral property with professors, artists, and Riftwatch.

This is not madness. Egelatina is savvy and mindful of her reputation. But the reputation she cultivates is one of a knowledgeable, eccentric supporter of arts and cutting edge ideas. She loves interesting anecdotes and shocking company, so long as the shock isn't that they're boorish or foul smelling. Whatever aid Riftwatch can provide in that endeavor likely to be rewarded: she's freshly rich, childless, unmarried, and without any close heirs, and she has disclosed an intention to spend her inheritance on her passions, causes, and friends rather than die wealthy and have everything go to her excruciatingly dull seventh cousin.

All of this to say: through her old pals Alexandrie d'Asgard, Byerly Rutyer, and Bastien Bastien, Riftwatch has received an invitation to send representatives to stay with her for a week in snowy Halamshiral.

HALAMSHIRAL.

Halamshiral as Riftwatch finds it is a sea of small houses and single-story workshops and market squares, though the hilly terrain and strips of snow-coated greenery that the city's original elven planners left behind mask the extent of the sprawl from any viewpoint outside the High Quarter. The main streets have been rebuilt and improved upon; while the nobility generally won't deign to visit themselves, rather than sending their staff, there are some charming market squares, affordable taverns, and the shops of tradesmen and artisans. On these streets Halamshiral is a city like any other, save that the majority of its citizens are elves.

Venture off those streets, however, and find clusters of shacks among patches of half-completed reconstruction — walls half finished, stacks of rotten lumber that never made it into the shape of a house — and pockets of outright ruins, evidence of the fire and violence that caused them still there. The poorest and most neglected denizens of Halamshiral, mostly elven but some human now as well, live in lean-tos and shabby tents around the edges of these areas.

That they live on the edges, specifically, is due to the hauntings. Typical for sites of violence and fear, the veil has thinned in Halamshiral. Glimmers of past conflicts show through it — a glimpse of ghostly elves cowering before Chevaliers, spirits clashing in the Exalted March of the Dales, an elven lullaby from an unseen source. Shades and demons of despair or rage may lurk in the dark corners of ruined buildings. Inquiring among the locals will reveal the troubling news that these occurrences have become much worse over the last month or so.

HIGH QUARTER.

On a completely different note, the High Quarter where the nobility sequesters itself each winter is a gated community, literally elevated above the rest of the city on the hilly terrain, that progresses from fine inns and stately close-quartered apartments and townhomes near the gates to more impressive mansions with sprawling gardens the nearer to the center you go. The center itself is the Winter Palace, but Riftwatch isn't invited there.

Instead, they're invited to any number of other gatherings at smaller estates. The finest and largest of the week is a soiree hosted by the Duke de Freyen, for which nearly everyone who is anyone puts in an appearance; even the Empress might be glimpsed for a moment, though briefly, and approaching her before she departs will be impossible. Every evening there are several other somethings going on: banquets, card tournaments, chamber concerts, smaller dances in smaller ballrooms, and other genteel gatherings. Together they provide a variety of opportunities to impress, whether that's with fashion and dancing or skillful cheating at cards or allowing tittering lords and ladies to feel your arm muscles.

Regarding Masks
Within the High Quarter, a clear view of anyone's face is very rare. The nobility have their elaborate and unique masks, and every servant has a simpler version to indicate which household they belong to. Meanwhile, the Orlesian commoners who are present, from the untitled wealthy to visiting workers, paint their faces in the nobles' presence at a minimum and may wear high collars or low hats meant to obscure their faces further. It's good manners. But not such required good manners that they expect it from Riftwatch and other outsiders; showing up with your whole nose and both cheekbones out for the world to see is more the equivalent of arriving underdressed and barefoot, not naked.

For the visit, Riftwatch will have available a quantity of simple masks — more like those worn by servants than the elaborate ones worn by the nobility — painted the slate grey and green of their uniforms. Opting to wear masks is a statement, which might be regarded as presumptuous by those around them and may ultimately be considered a signal of Riftwatch's entry into the Game (and submission to the rules, such as they are), especially in conjunction with any other perceived maneuvering for influence. But it's fine. It's an intentional statement. And those who would prefer not to wear a mask still have the option of maquillage or a gauche naked face.

Pleasant as these activities might look at first glance, there's an ever-present undercurrent of passive aggression, gossip, and scheming, punctuated by occasional grandstanding accusations and deadly duels: the Grand Game. Riftwatch members are unlikely to find themselves involved, save as pawns in someone else's attempts at impressing or humiliating their neighbors, but being a pawn isn't exactly a great, safe gig.

As is always the case, these gatherings are also lousy with entertainers who might also be bard bards. While there's no general directive to assassinate Riftwatch members, anyone trying to sneak and snoop in private rooms while parties carry on elsewhere, searching for hints of conspiracies in letters or signs of eluvians in attics, may stumble on an assassination in progress or run into someone else trying to rifle through correspondence and willing to kill to be first.

INSIDE.

In the house where Riftwatch is staying, things are less fraught. Though only ("only") a Baroness, Egelatina is on the wealthier end of the Orlesian nobility bell curve, and her expansive property has a lot of comfortable beds and oversized fireplaces. The decor has some nods toward the latest of Orlais' fast-moving trends, for appearance's sake, but the Baroness has put more effort and money into filling the library with more interesting books and the gallery rooms with more unusual art than her aunt preferred. A greenhouse in Serault glass is kept warm and sticky-humid even in winter, filled with rare flora from Thedas' northern tropics and a collection of live butterflies. Her most cherished prize, on a second-floor balcony, is a large telescope for the clear nights.

The telescope is a popular focal point for her little gatherings, when she invites whomever has caught her interest that hour to join her and encourages them to talk to one another. So is the oversized chess board now laid out in the center of her ballroom. Smaller game boards are scattered throughout the house, and in the evenings — or the late afternoons, or sometimes the early afternoons — the bulk of the guests might gather around card tables to drink and carry on their debates while trying to take one another's pocket money.

A rotation of visitors drop in to visit day to day, but in addition to Riftwatch's number, the guests staying in the house include: Lord Remonet Nicollier, a writer of praised but unprofitable imaginative fiction about a land on the other side of the Amaranthine who wants nothing more than to tell everyone about his plans for the next chapter; Josset de Rodin, a naturalist and explorer who was on the edges of the Donnarks cataloging wildlife when the Anderfels imploded and adds new harrowing details to the story of her escape back to Orlais every time she tells it; Gaultier Boucher, a professor at the university now doing work on authenticating the details of the Canticle of Shartan with the help of his elven research assistant who is actually doing most of the work, Maren; and Mathé Leroux, a middle-aged, taciturn commoner and former sailor in the Orlesian Navy, prior to his honorable discharge after the loss of his arm, who now paints unusual, emotive portraits with remarkable talent but little recognition (yet) and lives in the Baroness' household on a permanent basis. (They're bangin'.)

OUTSIDE.

While the Baroness de Martigny is more of an indoor cat, many of her friends and neighbors are not. This time of year Halamshiral is covered in a thick blanket of white snow, and aside from one evening in the middle of the week when a snowstorm rolls through to add to it, the weather stays clear and ideal for getting out to enjoy it. The neighboring mansion's back garden has been sculpted into an ice maze, with glowstones frozen into the ice so it can be enjoyed night and day. There's also an annual snowy hunt for a snowy wyvern; it's only successful once every five years at best, but still a rousing adventure during the other four, and Riftwatch members might field their own attempts to catch the beast for clout or accompany any number of curious lords and ladies who'd like their help while they "track the beast" (drink and walk) through the surrounding countryside. They can also take a sleigh ride, participate in a snow sculpture contest organized by the legion of servants during their free time, or join Halamshiral urchins in a snowball fight. Because there's snow. If we didn't mention.

Comments

[ipseite]

“Well and good,” she murmurs, leaning into him a little, “we will do what we can for them.”

A promise, delivered matter of fact. It's so easy to put herself into this man's shoes— where Julius remembers being the child, the way that her daughters slipped through her fingers has defined her in ways she can barely stand to face. There are ways that this might benefit them, yet, but if they can spare him that...

It is worthwhile, in itself, to do.

“My work may be of use, too. We had best keep in touch, wherever he goes or does not.”

[overharrowed]

"I'd planned to, if he'd let me," Julius admits. "She's a very winning little girl, and I'd like her to have someone she can turn to with magical questions wherever she is. Two sometimes, maybe," amended.

As they walk, he adds, "It's hard for me to imagine what a magical education from only one teacher would even be like. It's so foreign to my own experience. I've only met with her once so far, so an opening lesson with a particular goal was no hardship. But the more voices she hears, the better."

[ipseite]

A discreet code, then— nothing that he should trust as unbreakable, but perhaps something that hasn't been necessarily shared with the Inquisition—

She turns that over in the back of her mind as she says, “My husband was my only instructor, you know. I envied so much the breadth of knowledge available to mages here, at first.”

And still, now, but she better understands the nuances. The limitations. The unique benefits of a magical education that had necessarily been somewhat ad hoc and practical.

[overharrowed]

"It's relative, I suppose," he allows. "I was told often how lucky I was to be allowed correspondents outside Kinloch Hold, and now that I've had a chance to compare, I suppose that's not untrue in its way. But even so."

He glances back over at her. "I imagine there were trade-offs, both the ways we learned." An invitation to elaborate, if she likes. He has no plans to start pushing her, but there's also something particularly intimate about walking the hallways lit by the warm glow of the sconces, heavy carpets and tapestries absorbing the sound.

[ipseite]

An intimate, easy moment; Julius beside her as warm as the light, her hand tucked at his elbow familiarly, their companions at a distance melted into the unobtrusive hum of the city evening. A moment for conversation. It still isn't immediate,

maybe because she isn't sure, immediately, how she would answer. What she might say, these years removed, about the way that she learned magic.

“I wanted something different for my daughters,” she says, finally, and she speaks of them so rarely. Veda and Thaïs, one born into war and one into a palace, both of them far and long out of her reach. A whole part of her heart, and the terrible failing of that comfort of leaving her life behind,

them, too. Thaïs to grow up into a (tall, beautiful, strange) woman who knows her only as a portrait, a memory, a handful of contradictory stories about a woman who cannot defend herself against hagiography or villainy.

“It was so great a responsibility. It was so...” Finally, “It was necessary to love it.”

There's no warmth in that, as she says it; no joy.

[overharrowed]

"Necessary in what way?" is not because he can't imagine any, but rather because he'd like to hear from her which way it was. He's had glimpses of her life before Thedas (sometimes literally, in one way or another), but he's always been so careful not to put any pressure on what felt like a deep bruise just below her skin. Even now that she's opened the door a crack, he steps lightly.

Still, he's there with her, warm and patient and truly interested. Ready to receive whatever she's ready to give. He can't help but feeling a little raw himself, after talking with a father so desperate to keep his little girl close. Being with Petrana, even talking about complicated things, steadies him.

[ipseite]

Gazing down the hallway they're slowly walking through, Petrana —

knows her answer. It isn't not knowing that slows the words, only the difficulty of saying. How long it had taken her even to look at these things honestly; how she had avoided even considering, don't you miss your home? don't you wish you were there? Admitting even to herself that she might not had been unconscionable, twisting her stomach to knots of grief and shame.

“If I were to love it,” she says, picking her way through it slowly, “this thing that had been chosen for me, that would define me, that— if I were to love it,” deliberately, “then I might have some agency of it. It was important to Marius and I both to maintain, for so long, the pretense of my agency. He did not love me as you do,”

a thing she speaks at a clinical remove, a fact,

“but as a talisman against his loneliness. He had ruined all that he loved. He needed me to love him still, even with all that he had become. Even,” neutrally, “all that he had done to me. I needed to love him to survive him. Magic was — inextricable from that. Even at its most beautiful, he had made a choice that put a death sentence upon my children, and he wrapped it around my throat and bade me tell him I wished it there. So— I did.”

thank you for waiting such a stupidly long time for this tag

[overharrowed]

It hurts him, even if it's not a surprise as such. It doesn't make it easier to hear, or reduce how much he wishes he could have spared her from the jagged edges of her life before Thedas. "I can understand that," he says, low, after a small pause. "Making that choice for yourself. And wanting something different for your children."

He's quiet for a moment, considering whether he wants to walk further into the room she's opened to him. He doesn't decide against it, exactly, but he feels it's only fair to give her an opening too. Not comparison, exactly, but a return of trust for trust.

"There was a little game, some of the children played when I was young. At Kinloch Hold. What you would trade away your magic for. 'To go home' was obviously a common answer, especially for children who went to the Circle a bit older. Sometimes 'to be very rich' or 'to see the world,' other sorts of natural dreams children might have." He exhales. "I never understood. There was... when I was small. I could not imagine anything I would give up magic for." There had been no reason he'd encountered that anyone else wanted him.

"I can think of a few reasons, now," he adds, with a ghost of a smile. But it was ... while our situations were very different, I can understand the importance of loving something to survive it. It isn't hard for me to picture."