faderift | Open: Party Preparations

WHO: Josephine, Vivienne, OPEN
WHAT: Preparing the Inquisition for the Soiree
WHEN: 15 Guardian to 14 Drakonis (about a month's span before the event)
WHERE: Skyhold, varies
NOTES: * Josephine is the hostess of the shindig. Matters regarding invitations, guest lists, admittance, entertainment, food, or general complaints/suggestions should be directed to her.
* Vivienne has personally invited three tailors from Val Royeaux to assist with clothes making for the attendees. She is available to assist with design selections and/or advice on how to behave.
* YOU are open and invited to grab your nearest and dearest CR to complain about the party, ask for a date to he event, complain you have nothing to wear.
* Belinda Darrow has donated from her own private purse to the cost of clothing which people could otherwise not afford.

The Orlesian tailors arrived in great state, bringing with them a cadre of servants, workers, and snotty attitudes. They hate everything. It is cold in Skyhold. It is damp. Everything smells of wet dog. The working conditions are abysmal. The food is criminal. There's not a damned thing they don't complain about, except for the piles of coin they stand to make from this soiree. Yes, they are more than content to build a fortune with exclusive work that will be seen by some of the aristocracy's finest.

Harritt apparently doesn't much like them either. They've taken over his Undercroft with their fabrics and threads, designs and opinions. Oh they have opinions. He stays to one corner, attending his work, and grumbling under his breath about the poncy cheesesniffers.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“I had never seen a neckline so high until I saw your Chantry ladies and some of the mages here.” She’s teasing, there are modest ladies everywhere but the women of the Chantry were really just a face and hands swallowed in a sea of fabric to her eyes with strange hats into the bargain. It pulls a gasp from an apprentice showing her swatches of fabric as Araceli looks over to Christine. “The colour suits you, it brings our your eyes and makes your hair shine like fine-spun gold.”

Her new training isn’t something she’s told anyone about too much, not when it’s still in the early stages but a chance to talk about Orlais isn’t one to be passed up. “Honestly, from what most people have told me of Orlais thus far, there are a lot similarities to home. Masks are common in another country, and in my own there is a way of doing things. Of saying one thing but meaning another when you speak to certain parties. Sometimes you have to flatter them and flutter their hearts, other times you just have to keep your ears open and find them later. I hope someone manages to charm a cook who knows what spices are.”

"Oh, thank you," she answers, looking pleased. She does take quite a bit of pride in her appearance, especially her hair. Just because she's a healer doesn't mean it has to hang limp and lifeless, or be pulled back in a bun so severe it would cause a headache.

"Where I lived in the Circle, there were few opportunities for mages to be allowed out. One way was to take part in the Grand Game. Nobles often asked the Circle to send mages to entertain their guests at parties. Just silly little spells to form birds, trees, dragons, what have you. And if you were very lucky, you could catch the eye of someone, either to become their lover, or their little pet to show off."

Christine makes a vaguely disgusted noise in her throat. "I heard of that and wanted no part of it. I wanted freedom that was truly free; not to be leashed to some noble to do party tricks. The clever mages felt they could wrap the nobles around their fingers and play them like a fiddle, and perhaps they did, but that has never been the way I wished to do things."

"I knew that Circle mages were kept confined, but I never thought you would be summoned for such a thing." There are always musicians trying to entertain nobles and the palace in Castileos, dancers, actors, artists wishing to show off. Would mages be the same if they had them at home? "But that's allowed? Just for showing off? Is that part of the 'to serve man' thing that your Chant says?"

There's a quiet inhale, a low muttering in Orlesian. Rifters, what do they know of the Game, of the Chant? Well, this rifter knows enough to know she doesn't really care at all when it doesn't apply to he r and seems to exist to trap people, that so few are even born equal; do they have pointed ears, do they have magic? Well here is how much freedom we have allowed to you in this country, be thankful for it and don't ask for more.

Still, it matches up to the warning Leliana had tailored for Araceli when she and Beleth had met their teacher for the first time and she nods. "There is a way to do it, so the person doing the playing feels less like they're being played but not everyone enjoys it though such things? Necessary. But will you not have to do much the same now for coin for your research?"

"That is the thing, is it not? Those who are not mages feel free to interpret that part of the Chant in whatever way benefits them best. I do not have to want to be like Tevinter to think that is wrong." It's why Christine has complicated feelings about the Maker in general. She believes, but that line has ruined so many lives. Why did it have to be there? Oh, right. Tevinter ruins everything.

Her eyes dart over at the Orlesian mutter and she smiles faintly. It fades, however, at Araceli's next question.

"I will tell the trust. I need not lie about how much danger we are all in if we cannot put a stop to the Red Templars' plans."

"The Chant is the central tenet of Andrastianism, I am correct in thinking that, yes? It dictates the laws your rulers live by and thus their people, as well as governing the Circles and the Templars? And yet, there seems to be so much disagreement over the interpretation, is that not troubling when it could be considered so very grave in the eyes of the Maker?" She almost says 'your Maker' but best to cause as little controversy as possible at the moment, even when she doesn't really understand how a world can function when it seems so set in following the rules but then disagreeing over how they're enforced.

"Let us hope then that they see farther than their own homes and borders, I fought those things when I freed their prisoners from the cages. It isn't something I'll soon forget. You will be careful, if you are researching them? I would not want anyone to become ill from being around that horrible stuff."

Christine nods, though she tries not to involve herself in politics at any level. She is looking at this soiree as a chance to dance and have fun, but also an opportunity to continue her research with proper funding. It's all academic to her, and she doesn't want politics to come into it. She doesn't want politics to come into anything, but as Araceli has surmised, it winds itself around things, and using the Chant of Light as a base to build from, interpreting lines as each country's majority opinion wishes.

"Unfortunately, the Maker is not here to tell us if we have it right or wrong," she states dryly. How convenient.

"I will be most careful. I do not wish to lose anyone to this. I will be very strict in how we study it."

There are choice words Araceli could offer, about how the Maker never seems to be conveniently placed though apparently still always watching but those comments are best saved for fewer ears. Leliana had warned her about the way rifters might be treated and she's wary enough from similar comments at home about being the pirate's daughter or the whore's daughter. At least home can only use the sea, gentle but pointed reminders that they all come from the same place but here there seems to be no end to what can be done with a few words.

"If you need a hand in charming anyone, feel free to come find me, I'm good at playing the games and the Game? Honestly sounds like home but with masks."

If Araceli ever does feel like making her opinion on the Maker known, she'll find someone who can give her no answers, but won't be offended either. Christine's relationship with the Maker amounts to thinking He probably exists, but He's let the world become a right mess and only came back once because of a pretty singer. It's not very encouraging.

"I might do that," she answers, "Loathe though I am to participate in any fashion. I don't want to misstep."

The sea is better. The sea feeds you and there are sailors going off to different lands to bring back all sorts of food and drink, wood and ore, pretty fabrics and new books, all sorts of interesting people. A song that all can hear and enjoy, less of this ignoring people because the children decided to do their own thing.

"Given how I understand the Game, a misstep is breaking your ankle, your leg, probably your back and your mother's, and losing your dignity in the process."

Christine huffs out a laugh as the tailors say they've finished with her for the day and she steps down from the pedestal.

"Sadly, doing poorly at the Game can be a matter of life or death, but I am unremarkable enough to be marked for death. They enjoy going after the powerful, because they have farther to fall." She turns and nods her thanks to the tailors, who still look like this job is pure torture.

"I should be going, but I will find you when you are free so you may provide some tips?"

Open: Party Preparations

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