faderift | [open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

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[open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

WHO: everybody who wants
WHAT: (lukewarm) BEACH PARTY (on rubble, in harbor)
WHEN: late Justinian
WHERE: the Gallows, amidst its newly-acquired sea view
NOTES: he's trying

I. Prep

He didn't ask for help overtly, but Benedict is clearly working hard setting up the space he's designated for the company to have their beach staycation: drapings taken from his own stash and salvaged from the Gallows' erstwhile guest rooms are drawn across glyphed-in-place poles to create shade. He's hauled out a table, onto which he proceeds to place a variety of whatever canapés he could afford to procure with his own wages-- it's not a feast, all right-- and beside which he rolls two barrels of decent-ish wine.

From the baths come a stack of towels piled high in his arms, hindering his vision to such a degree that he may crash into someone not paying attention; pillows and the like come next, in armloads that take multiple trips, by the end of which he's visibly out of breath.

Lastly, it's his very own water pipe making an appearance, which he arranges amidst comfortable ground seating mimics how his room used to look: in fact, most of the accoutrements here are his personal belongings.
As such, he knows just how to set everything to create an attractive, if minimalist, space for an afternoon's leisure.

II. Party?

It may not be an all-out bash like their excursion to the sandier shores of the Waking Sea some years ago, but this, if nothing else, is an opportunity for work on the Gallows to pause in palatable increments. One can be clearing rubble or cataloguing property for the morning, then pop over for an hour of sunbathing and a glass of wine; they're all within calling out distance of the courtyard, and the party likely bleeds into the day's work in a manner somewhat more comfortable than if it were sequestered.

That said: the early summer sea water is cold, the sun is out but meek behind occasional cloud cover, and the festivities are on clean-swept stone rather than sand. The view across the water is of mainland Kirkwall, and all that that entails.
But it's none of it so bad, for anyone looking to take a break. A few musicians even show up a bit later in the afternoon, and Benedict provides a bonfire in the center of the party space as the sun goes down.

Anything brought to share is met with effusive thanks from Benedict, who ensures its appropriate placement and distribution. He doesn't spend much time relaxing himself, instead making the rounds with the air of a fussy host, where he's quick to offer refills or alternatives in libations, or diversions for unsatisfactory activities.

[make your own starters, do your thing, go hog wild-- if you have logistical questions feel free to ask on plurk or discord]

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“Ah, Coney Island. Freezing water and extremely aggressive waves,” Strange says, charmed at the fact that Benedict had actually visited the Atlantic. There’s a sort of wistful fondness in his voice at the recollection; if that beach is a little bit garbage, at least it’s his garbage.

“The food can be sinfully good, though, down at the boardwalk. We should introduce Thedas to amusement park snacks. Cotton candy, donuts, funnel cake.”

See, he’s doing his part for rifter diplomacy. Sort of.

Oh, he's good— and the moment where she transitions from about to continue protesting that she's never really burned that badly to slightly aghast at the prospect of aging visibly plays out across her expressive face exactly as he almost certainly predicted it would. Her nose wrinkles, and then — somewhat comedically — smooths out again, like she'd suddenly thought of all the lines she might be furrowing into her face. In just about precisely half a year, she'll be thirty-one, and that's properly in her thirties, and for someone who not all that long ago had been facing the prospect of growing old beside partners who mightn't,

it's actually sort of comforting that Stephen is already greying, but it's only comforting because she's started combing through her hair in front of the mirror checking. It is, one might say, a surgical strike.

She rolls over.

“Well, if you insist, you can help.”

This logic will not apply to anyone else.

"It's fucking freezing," she shouts, as if they both didn't know this before they went charging in at all, and crosses her arms tightly across her chest. This does not really help. It's like they're doing a winter swim or something — "Why is it so cold!"

Doesn't make any sense.

Gwenaëlle is grabbing her elbow and Abby turns toward her instantly, body curled inward like a leaf in an attempt to converse any body heat that might be left. Maybe if she goes under the water it'll all... even out?

She needs a minute, first.

"Prove it."

He doesn't doubt at all that she can, but it's an excuse to make Clarisse willingly throw herself facefirst in the water, and that's sort of funny.

"Oh..." Benedict sighs, and he comes to rest by him a moment, perching on a large chunk of debris nearby.

"Sometimes I think I dreamed how sweet things were," he admits, folding his arms around his knees, "which-- I suppose I did, but. Sugarcane. We've got to have something like it, somewhere."

He taps his mouth, narrowing his eyes. "Par Vollen?"

"I'm," Barrow frowns at the jar, "I'm not doing that." His gaze flits up to Strange's face and then away, with a suspicious air-- just because somebody says it isn't a prank doesn't mean anything.

Worth additional mention is the cigarette in his mouth, another mote of advice it seems he opted not to follow.

Edited 2024-06-25 23:40 (UTC)

"You and Talis, gonna keep us all drunk." Not complaining. A lone seed crunches anise-sharp under tooth. "Can't say I miss the snow. Guy at Skyhold got his tongue stuck to a canteen."

Or so the story goes. He swirls the new round under his nose to examine. Citrus and spice, and a lot of it — nose wrinkling to suppress a sneeze —

But it's good. It is. A good drink grabs the moment from you: Freezes time for all the summer heat, hands it back to you new. It's good, it's better like this; a moment. Shared. Given.

"My, uh," There's that sneeze. Cedric readjusts, "Sorry. My Captain was a hand at it, carving. Guess I never... y'know, it was his thing."

Redvers twists his head back to look at her hair, which makes his neck pop, and nods. All right. Fair point. Perfectly normal objection to have, and not fair warning at all that she's about to be weird, actually—

So he needs a moment, when she asks about the berries. In the span of that moment he eats two more.

Once he's thought about it that long, he says with arid gravity, "I don't know."

"Never sure anymore," Redvers says, hauling himself up to follow. The berries are left behind. Then his shirt. If his knees give out—

Well, they won't. And if they did he'd swim back with arms alone. But if that were somehow a problem, Lazar is large enough to tow him back, so clearly the best person to do this with.

It'll take a fair amount of wading for the water to get deep enough they'll need to swim, so on the way he says, "I didn't know Anders could swim. But I guess you do have the sea. And a river. Right?"

Not all dead, blighted desert.

Clarisse is not typically the sort of person who sits quietly and still to listen to a story. Even when she's enjoying one, she fidgets and asks questions. Gwenaëlle is lucky tonight, because Clarisse has just hit the level of drunkenness where she's pleasant to be around—chill and willing to go along with pretty much whatever.

So she listens in silence, hardly moving, a little hypnotized by the flames and the weird bear head's glass eyes.

"Luwenna Coupe," she repeats when there's a pause in the story, sort of testing how the name feels in her mouth. Since this is a Gwen story literally anything could happen, but Clarisse is already suspicious of anyone new showing up in any kind of tale, since there's a decent chance they're going to end up being a villain. The Gwen factor only adds to it. "Then what?"

“I didn't like her.”

What a breadth of sins that covers.

“I'd heard of her, a little; la limier, the mage hunter. A Templar, but the Chantry hadn't recovered then the way that it has now, so that wasn't a straightforward thing any more— they'd all been disavowed with the war, and the Divine's death, and sort of no one was a real Templar any more, they were just a bunch of drug addicts with swords.”

Now, of course, some of them are Templars again.

“But what that meant for people was different. She came to Riftwatch representing some dried up Chantry mothers somewhere in Orlais; I don't think I ever got the entire story. She had an interest in the propaganda I had been writing— which didn't explain, to me, the interest that she took in every other aspect of my life. Coupe, Coupe, Coupe. Everywhere I turned, there she was, at my elbow, having a fucking opinion about what I was doing.”

(Wow, that doesn't sound like anybody familiar at all.)

“When she first met me, I was— a soft thing with sharp teeth. A hot house flower in fine dresses. The only knife I owned was the one that my uncle had given to me, and I'd never held it to purpose; I'd lifted it, once or twice. Examining the jewel settings. Showing a friend. But only that. Coupe had decided to put herself in charge of my further education, insisting upon my practise and study with the powers that the anchor-shard was developing, and when the second ability was more ... projectile than what I had had before, she decided that it was past time I learned to defend myself. I didn't want to.”

It's hard to imagine, now. Oh, she swans around the Gallows or about her Kirkwall errands in a fine dress often enough, but she's rarely unarmed doing it; always among the first to volunteer throwing herself bodily at whatever Forces needs of them. It's still strange, sometimes, to know that there are people who wouldn't recognise the girl who had been sent, wailing, into the Frostbacks.

“I didn't understand why it mattered so fucking much to her. And I could have made her stop; my grandfather is l'Duc de Coucy. If I'd told him I wanted her to leave me alone, he'd arrange it. If I'd told him I wanted her sent to the Emprise and left in the snow somewhere, he'd probably have arranged it. I didn't...” Her nose wrinkles. “I didn't like the idea of being unable to manage it myself. I could have ruined her life with a word, but we'd both know I'd had to go running to bon-papa to do it, and I couldn't stand that. So I tried to hurt her, instead. To make it so unbearable to be around me that she wouldn't bear it — no one had ever asked her to. I am exceptional at making people fuck off when I want to. I got to know her, as she was getting to know me; I tested every vulnerability I could think of. I pressed her past the bounds of patience or politeness. I was cruel,” matter of fact, “in the hopes that I would find the knife that hurt her so badly she would stop making me handle the one my uncle had given me.”

It's possible that Gwenaëlle is the villain of this story.

“And there she was, inexorable, at my elbow. I always remember when we were standing in what had been my ballroom, converted for the purpose, and I was holding that knife, and over and over she would say: who is holding the knife? She would make me answer, and it was ... worse than the demon. The first one I ever saw, the rage demon that did this to me,” drawing her thumb down the line of burned-in clawmarks that curve around her breast, disappear down her sternum into her decolletage. “It felt like laying in the dirt, burning, waiting to die. I was so sure that these people protected me only because they had to; that if I learned even a little to fight, that they would abandon me to die. That if they could tell themselves, it's a shame, but we expected her to be capable, they would— it would be a little diplomatic incident, but not impossible to smooth over. I didn't see what she was seeing.”

"I'm perfectly content to be a scaredy cat about it," says Mobius, who is fully aware of the slang and is choosing to be more friendly about it. "I think I'd rather take a dip in a river instead. Less salty, just as cold, might not drown, probably won't get bashed to smithereens on rocks."

It's very Kirkwall, this so-called beach. Unpleasant with just enough effort from the people around to make do. He lifts a snack at her before popping it in his mouth. "I'll just enjoy the view."

Oh, right. Clarisse gets it. Like training a service dog, kind of—expose them to all kinds of different distractions so they don't go nuts if they happen to fly past a beach party at some point in the future. It makes sense.

"Still pretty dedicated considering it's supposed to be a party," she says, but without much bite. She even whistles to try and get Potato to hop up from the spot where she's crushing Astrid. See? Helping.

For a second she thinks about telling Astrid that if she likes working with the griffons so much, maybe she should apply to be griffon keeper. But she can't bring herself to actually say the words out loud. It would feel like a betrayal, somehow. And she's been kind of enjoying working with the griffons and heading over to check on the horses every day. Maybe enjoying's not the right word, but it's been... comforting, in a weird way, having that routine.

Wherever Stephen has ended up in the evening, when his only option for reading is by flickering firelight, Mobius will also end up, sitting heavy with a bottle of whiskey procured from his own stash. It's likely he's done some of his own imbibing so far.

Eventually, wordlessly, he offers the bottle over to Stephen. If he wants a nip.

And after a few more moments, he takes a breath, seems to collect himself or come back to himself in some manner. "I'm keeping away from the waterline," he says mildly, like that's the main concern here. "Not gonna slip my way off the rocks." (To be fair, he's been keeping away from the waterline the whole party, knowing how cold the water is and knowing that he isn't a strong swimmer by any stretch of the imagination. Still, seems prudent to say.)

She seems to have caught on to his plan.

"If I do it here a wave is going to hit me in the face." And if she does it a little deeper in, it will hit her in the ass. This is a problem.

But Clarisse is not one to give up easily. She's brainstorming. "Maybe there's a sandbar I could swim out to and do it there." That way she'd be in the water but out of the waves.

Lia frowns.

"I suppose they could be harmless, but you really should not eat berries without knowing for certain."

She sits down and begins to take off her boots.

"You really won't know for certain how your body will react for awhile unless you get the blood flowing. So, I suppose swimming is the solution and I must come with you in case you die."

She stands up and motions to the water.

"Come along!"

"Ogres gotta cool off somehow."

Skin pimples and shrivels against wave. The water’s cold, day’s sharp. Still beats Val Royeaux this time of year. Less piss than le miroir. It's a rare thing Lazar bother to pitch his Trade any kinda way.

This is a special occasion. In decent brogue:

"Ander walks by a field, sees another in a boat, rowing at the dust. Come help me out, boatman yells. Second shakes his head. Would, mate, but I can't swim."

Bottle thunks into hand. He squints about the beach, points one thick pinky at Siorus.

"Warden’s big enough for a base. Or Talons," Jayce. But thinking strategically — "We got a better shot of knocking over the skinny qunari. Him and Abby, yeah."

Close enough matched that no one’s gonna cry for cheating.

He just grins, but doesn't goad her-- it's a joke, after all, and he doesn't want her to actually get injured. Or drowned. Optics would be bad on that one.

"I think so," he muses, taking a step or two toward the water to point out to where there are a few people milling around, waist-high. "Looks like there's ground to stand on out that way."

“Well—”

Stephen shoots a vaguely self-conscious look across the rocky beach; this sort of contact is a little too uncomfortably intimate of a position for their coworkers to see him in, but. He can’t exactly dispute Gwenaëlle’s logic, when it’s genuinely hard to reach one’s back and this is a fairly normal part of going to the beach, is it not?

“Touché,” he says, bemused, and scoots over so he’s kneeling beside her, able to scoop out some of this awful paste and then start to carefully slather it onto her shoulderblades above the edge of her chemise. He maintains a discreet and frankly prudish distance for now, but his fingers dig into the meat of Gwenaëlle’s shoulder; kneading in the sunscreen, halfway to a massage.

This is going to become a problem when he needs to get even lower to reach the rest of her. He eventually mutters to himself (and her), “I might have misjudged this part of it.”

“It grows in warmer climates, so Par Vollen sounds right. Perhaps you could task Diplomacy with making some new mercantile friends within the Qun.” Strange’s smile is a little lopsided, looking off at the water. Trade’s fucked and probably will continue to be fucked for a while, but a man can dream.

“Which is admittedly a joke but also not entirely a joke. My own diplomatic efforts with the locals is largely focused on arguing with people about medicinal advancements, but… While your average Thedosian citizen probably won’t like to sit down for a medical lecture, people do enjoy exotic food and drink and a party. Morale.”

Vague gesture. The rubble around them.

The doctor looks at the cigarette a little too long, but then one can practically watch him in realtime decide not to fight that particular battle. Addiction and lifelong habits and comfortable vices are hard to be argued with. A once-in-a-while beach excursion, though…

“I read up on it in a local herbalism book,” Strange offers, in a feeble attempt to make the ghastly jar sound a little more appealing. “It’s actually a folk recipe commonly used amongst the Rivaini. Perfectly vouched-for. People do this sort of thing on the open sea and on the islands.”

It is very normal!!

(He’s very aware he probably sounds like a freak.)

Stephen’s been squinting more and more at the text as the light drained out of the sky, the sentences fading into dimness; eventually he’s had to admit defeat, close his book, and set it aside. He exchanges it for the bottle of wine and takes a swig, no longer particularly fussed about things like proper glassware.

He looks at the waterline, following Mobius’ comment. There’s probably a joke here somewhere, one he wants to make,

but he waits, first, to see if he still feels that nervous jolt at the thought of a loved one drowning. It’s been thirty years— and it’s there, certainly, but it seems it’s muted and faded with age. Good. That’s alright, then.

“Do you know how to swim?” he asks, neutrally.

"Ellie was teaching me. Here and there, on and off."

And, shit. Shit. Maybe he'll just have to get someone else to keep doing it. He rubs his hands together, which looks actually a little awkward and uncoordinated, given, well, so it's really just a nervous habit his muscle memory wants to resort to. "I won't immediately sink like a rock, anyway."

"Oh," Barrow says, amiably enough, entirely unconvinced, "that's nice." We all read about things in books Stephen

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[open] beach episode volume 2: gallows edition

my lol

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sunscreen

drinks and a salad

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