faderift | Truth or Dare: The Imperial Court

Truth or Dare: The Imperial Court

WHO: Select Orlesian and Fereldan Nobility and the Inquisition
WHAT: Josephine and Vivienne have orchestrated a good-will soiree in response to this dastardly rumor.
WHEN: Drakonis 15, Evening
WHERE: Skyhold Great Hall
NOTES:
- A list of nobles in attendance can be found here. The list was provided by the mods but there will be no npc support for them. Play away.
- A secondary outside party is being held in the valley in the tent town for anyone who couldn't/wouldn't attend and/or behave in the fancy pansty party.
- The goal of the evening is to clear up a spurious rumor about Cassandra and Leliana, with secondary goals of establishing the Inquisition as a respectable presence in Thedas (and fish for more money). Any major disruptions that would Game Over the court approval should probably be brought to the advisors and/or mods.

To say that Josphine has far outdone herself with this little soiree would be the understatement of the year. The Lady Ambassador has pulled out all the stops in providing a festive and yet elegant stage for this political intervention. Because sometimes gossip can be more deadly than a sword.

The Great Hall of Skyhold has been converted into a grand receiving hall, glittering with hundreds of lights around the room, in addition to the repairs accomplished to the original chandeliers. Of course, there has been artful placement arranged so there are a few shadowy corners for rendezvous of the more suggestive nature. Just in case. The majority of the floor has been cleared for dancing, and a fine troupe of musicians have been installed for the bulk of the evening's entertainments. Some members of the Inquisition have plans to entice attendees with their own artistic performances in addition to the group of mages performing illusory tricks to oohs and aahs.

For those who feel their energy flagging, there are chairs set against the walls, with a few tables interspersed between. Servers hired for the evening circulate the crowds with wine, fine Orlesian and Nevarran reds as well as crisp whites from Antiva. Refreshments are set out on buffet tables, tasteful and extravagant nibbles, including imported cheeses, spicy saucisson, dried fruits and nuts, and the highly sought after deep mushroom and anise petits fours that are all the rage in Orlais.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, we haven't known each other overly long," Hermione points out. "'Fairly decent' is about base normal. You haven't dropped below that yet, and that says more about you than it does some people I've spoken to, so I'll keep an optimistic outlook on things."

She does smile a little as she raises her glass to him in return, glad that she's found a Templar who doesn't fit the stereotype she'd been hearing about nonstop. As she sips at her wine, she tries to think about just what her own "Inquisition story" entails, then decides to settle on the most basic facts.

"It's not much of a story, or at least not a unique one. I went to bed and sort of fell into the middle of a group of demons, and into a world I'd never even heard of before. The Inquisition was there to help make sure I didn't get ripped to shreds, since my magic doesn't work properly here." As though it isn't obvious, she shrugs and looks down at her left hand, which she'd learned to keep tucked away at her side unless absolutely necessary. "Apparently, I came in through a rift, though I tend to think of it as coming in through a dream."

The cooling of Bellamy's expression is pretty damn instantaneous, but it isn't necessarily obvious. His smile drops a little--but who's to say that's not because the topic has turned a little more grim--and, anyways, he drowns it with another sip of wine.

Mages, fine. He loves mages. He's spent his whole life taking care of mages. That's an easy anomaly to fold in with someone's personality, so easy he doesn't even think of it as an anomaly. Magic is magic. Rifters are different. Uncertainty, wariness, knowing what else comes out of rifts: these are all things that make him a little more cautious.

He follows her glance down toward her hand, and though she doesn't have it turned palm out or anything, he knows what he'd see there if she did.

"Poetic," he observes, his smile tugged wry again, though not necessarily amused. "And pretty right. It's all the Fade, right?" As fortification, he takes another sip of wine, this one slightly larger. Mouth full, he gestures to her with the glass, prompting her silently before he swallows to say, "What's wrong with your magic?"

Hermione doesn't notice anything particularly negative about his reaction, since all things considered, she would have thought that magic was more poorly-regarded than this rifter business. But then, that might be mostly to do because magic tends to be what's on her mind the most, given how much she's been fretting over it lately.

She's about to tell him that her words aren't so much poetic as they are the simple truth; she really had been dreaming - or felt as if she'd been dreaming - when she'd arrived in the middle of Emprise du Lion. Sometimes she can't help wondering if she's still dreaming.

"Well... we don't really have the Fade where I come from. Or if we do, we don't know it as such. That's something the Unspeakables would know - that is, people who work for the Department of Mysteries. At any rate, the mages here draw their magic from the Fade, and since I'm unfamiliar with it, my magic hasn't been as effective as it should be. That, and my wand might have been damaged during my arrival. I use it the way a mage here uses a staff, and trying to do magic without it is even more strenuous than it is back home."

Pausing to take a small sip of her wine, Hermione shakes her head. "I've been told I'll learn to work around it, but I'm still overly careful with my magic. I don't want to risk hurting anyone or doing something that might have some averse effect on the Fade or these rifts."

His gaze is a little sharper now, and so's his interest. This might give away something of his feelings. Of the rifters he's encountered, she's the first mage rifter. That slants Bellamy's sympathy toward her more than he'd like. If one of his mages had a damaged staff, he'd help get whatever resources they needed to fix it. A rifter mage probably deserves a hard time.

If only she hadn't added that part about being careful. That shades him more sympathetically still, which he hates. How many times do mages get told to be careful? And they should be, magic's powerful, they work to control it for a reason. But there's caution, and then there's an imposition of caution, violent and terrifying. Making mages Tranquil. Keeping them contained, shackled, pretty much helpless. Stuff Bellamy knows to be for the greater good, at war with stuff he knows more personally about mages. It doesn't make any of this easier.

"Good," he says, vaguely, to everything she's just told him. It's not a very thoughtful response. "Hey, you know what else comes out of Rifts? Demons."

Even though Hermione had been starting off small, she has hurt people with her magic since her arrival, though it hasn't been anything more traumatic than a slip on some stray ice or getting sprayed by some debris from the backlash of a spell. But even that is more than enough to make her want to be even more careful, given that she'd never had those kinds of issues with her magic before. And she'd never forgiven herself for the one time someone had gotten dangerously hurt as a result of her magic back home, even if that had been a rushed, desperate situation.

Besides... she has reason not to want to rock the boat here, and she'd learned that fairly early on. She still considers herself lucky that she'd been found by the Inquisition rather than anyone who would have, at best, left her to fend for herself against demons and the wild.

His response, along with that sharper look of his, takes her a little off her guard, but the idea that he's implying something has to be silly. "I'm aware," she replies with a nod. "I... had something of a crash course on them when I'd first landed here, next to half a dozen creatures I'd never seen before." Her expression has gotten more uncomfortable, to the point that she shifts awkwardly as she glances towards the nearest window. "I'm sort of reluctant to leave Skyhold, to tell the truth. That whole fight had made me feel useless, and I don't know that I'm ready to risk facing another one of those things just yet."

Despite himself, and his newfound chilliness, Bellamy follows her gaze to the window. It's thickly dark out there, impenetrable beyond the glass. He can halfway guess at what she's seeing, when she looks out there. He's gone up against enough demons to know.

"They're not that bad." He shrugs, when he looks back at her. This is partly bravado and partly fact; partly conversational and partly establishing himself. "Not when you know what you're up against. If someone was giving me a choice, in a fight? I'd pick demons."

At what she considers to be his very obvious show of male bravado, Hermione glances back at Bellamy, the ghost of a wry smirk playing at her lips. "When you know what you're up against, perhaps. And when you know how to fight. But when you've never seen anything like them and your only means of self-defense isn't working properly?"

Shaking her head, even that vague smirk falls from her lips as she looks down into her wineglass. "They might be easy for someone like you to handle, but I was just more worried about not getting in anyone's way while they kept me from being ripped to pieces. I'm not used to simply hanging back and needing to be rescued like some sort of damsel in distress. I don't like it."

"Kind of hard to take that claim seriously when you're dressed like that." He jerks his chin in her direction, like she'll have to take stock of herself to get what he means. Not that there's anything wrong with the way she's dressed, objectively speaking. It's a good gown, as far as Bellamy can tell, and she looks good in it. Objectively.

If she weren't a Rifter.

"You do a lot of self-defense, where you're from?" Magical self-defense, which can be a bit more brutal than the strictly physical. Bellamy knows that firsthand, as well as he knows how that brutality has saved his skin.

Surprised, Hermione looks down at herself, trying to figure out what's wrong with her dress. But then she realizes what he means, and she looks back up at him with a bit of a dry expression. "A woman can be feminine without being weak. Granted, I wouldn't exactly be able to fight much in this dress, but I'm usually wearing much more practical clothing than what I'd wear to a soiree."

Nodding, she replies, "We take seven years of Defense Against the Dark Arts in school. It's a good tactic, teaching young witches and wizards the horrible things that can befall someone if they use Dark magic while also teaching them how to protect themselves against it." She pauses for a moment before adding, "If you mean in terms of physical combat, then no. There are independent self-defense classes for non-magical individuals and the like, but I've never had occasion to take one. I sort of wish I had, now."

"There's feminine, and then there's the fact that I bet you can't run at all in that gown." Like maybe he's going to challenge her to a race, or make her prove her practicality here and now. "Rifts can open anywhere, right? We should all be a little more careful. Even if you make for a pretty portrait."

Somewhere in there is a disguised compliment. It's kind of teasing, like he'd been doing back before he found out her country of far-far-far off origin.

And as much as he's got to say with regards to all that about her magic, there's one little sticking point, for now, and that's: "What the hell is dark magic supposed to mean?"

"I've run in this dress before!" Hermione shoots back before realizing that, oh, he'd sort of been complimenting her. Kind of. Trying to ignore that, she looks down at her dress and absently brushes at the skirt, adding, "Granted, it had been much shorter then, and not quite as... restrictive. But I'd only asked for alterations to make sure it fit in with the societal norm. So you can blame your own culture for impractical ladies' fashion when the men generally seem much more comfortable without sacrificing their appearance, thank you."

Not that Bellamy is a good example of a man whose appearance hadn't been "sacrificed", not at all.

She's a little surprised by his question, blinking at him curiously. "Dark magic? It's magic with the main purpose of seriously harming others. Death, pain, torture, sickness, personal violation; it's all separated out as Dark magic, and is strictly prohibited... or, at least, regulated." Though she's clearly not proud of the fact, she shrugs her shoulders a bit and remarks, "We've been at war for a few years, so... sometimes the rules were bent. But that's hopefully a thing of the past. I can't imagine living in a world where people routinely claimed to be using one of the Unforgivable Curses towards the 'greater good'."

Mildly, patronizingly, Bellamy raises his eyebrows at all of Hermione's protestations. He follows the movement of her hand as she brushes at her skirt, and lingers there a second, like he actually has to think about what much shorter would, in this case, mean. He doesn't linger overlong, and he doesn't leer, or anything, just raises his gaze back to meet hers with another little lift of his eyebrows. Interesting.

But, okay. Whatever she says. Their conversation has turned to magic now anyways. Talk of shorter dresses might be appealing in one way, but an understanding of magic certainly isn't unappealing. Just appealing in a different way.

"Unforgivable's a pretty strong word. So what do you use to defend yourself, if you're not allowed to hurt people?"

That patronizing look of his doesn't go unnoticed, and she has to wonder if he's making a silent commentary on her dress or expressing doubt that she'd be able to take care of herself while wearing it (or at all). But rather than risk starting any sort of argument on the matter, she instead decides to settle on enlightening him on her sort of magic. That seems the more productive route, after all.

"Only three curses are technically labeled as Unforgivable, but they've earned that title," she tells him, trying not to grow dour. Determined not to think of specific instances from her past, she add, "We can certainly hurt people. We have Stunning Spells and Stinging Hexes and all sorts of minor jinxes that can cause injury. That's mostly what we learn about in Defense Against the Dark Arts, actually. But instigating any sort of violence is highly frowned upon, since these spells are, theoretically, supposed to be strictly for defense and nothing more."

"What's the difference?" He nods down at her hands. Without a staff, they're the most incriminating part of her. Bellamy's own hands are covered by his handwraps and his gloves, fingers cut away for extra dexterity. The leather is good quality, but they've seen wear and use. "Unforgivable's still a strong word. What's so unforgivable about it?"

He's curious, in his way. Seeking a kind of enlightenment. Who's he going to tell this information to? There's no one to make reports to. Maybe Clarke, if he ever sees her again. Maybe Octavia. You won't believe it, O, but in other worlds? Violence from mages is frowned upon. His sister would laugh. Maybe asking is a way of understanding without getting too friendly.

Maybe it's because Hermione--rifter or not--is about the only decent conversation he's had all night. Not that she has any particular competition, but, still. He's not exactly being nice; his tone's too aggressive for nice.

"Unforgivable Curses can't be reversed or fixed, and are generally so despicable that even some Dark wizards are hesitant to use them," Hermione explains. "One causes instant death; the Killing Curse is generally thought to be the absolute worse curse in existence, since it can't be warded off by magic. Then there's the Imperius Curse, which is essentially brainwashing someone to do your bidding. And there's... the Cruciatus Curse, used for torture." She falters for a moment at that, but takes a sip of her wine as though to explain it away before continuing. "It causes immense pain, like red-hot glass being raked along the inside of your skin. But it's debatable that everyone feels it differently."

Though she hadn't meant to, she realizes she's just implied that she's felt it herself. She'll need another sip of wine before she can even begin to pretend otherwise, and even then, she can't quite bring herself to smile when she looks up at Bellamy, so much as simply give him a wry sort of look.

"You can Stun someone, or knock someone back, or even temporarily paralyze someone, but all of those things wear off or can be guarded against with shield charms or be reversed with a counter-spell or some good old-fashioned bed rest. You don't get that option with Unforgivables. Even though the only permanent one is the Killing Curse, the rest leave a mark on the victim that they'll feel their whole life."

He's not stupid. Even if he was, Hermione's allusion to her personal experiences is a line pretty clearly drawn, no matter what subtlety she'd maybe hoped for. The neat little sips of wine that she takes during and after this confession only help to prove that guess.

But whatever that new knowledge makes Bellamy think of Hermione, he doesn't say. Maybe a little bit of respect, a nudge up on his scale. Maybe something a little bit like pity, or sympathy. Maybe nothing. He's been complacent in some pretty terrible magic. You do what you have to do to survive. How does he know Hermione's a good guy? Innate suspicion is closer to his general impression of her, thanks to her Rifter status.

He nods, short. Thanks for the explanation. More importantly: "So you've never used the Unforgivables?"

Just had them used on you. There's a little bit of that in the look he gives her, a flicker of knowing. Let's not pretend. Who hasn't had bad shit done to them?

Bellamy has no reason not to wonder whether Hermione deserved whatever she may or may not have been implying about her personal experience with these curses. They've only been speaking a few minutes, and while they've been cordial enough to one another, there's absolutely no reason to assume that she's been purely a victim. Granted, though, she likes to think she doesn't exactly look like some sort of villain, even if she is wearing a red dress.

"Of course not!" she exclaims, hoping she looks more scandalized at the thought of having cast an Unforgivable than she does at the thought of having had one used on her. She's terrible at lying when it isn't a matter of life or death, and right now, it's not nearly as important as all that. That doesn't mean she's going to be open about something like that with a stranger.

"Even during the war, I could never bring myself to use any of them. I didn't even want to watch when my best friend was forced to use one once, but I didn't have a choice in the matter. No, these spells take a toll on a person, and I had enough to worry about over the past few years without dabbling in highly illegal Dark magic."

"Of course not," he repeats, flatly, "yeah. Good for you. But your friend used one. Was it in defense? Not that it'd make a difference. So what do you think of him, now that he's done it? You tell him you think it's left a mark on him, or do you keep that to yourself?"

It's unfair, maybe, to turn these questions on her. Dark magic shades too close to blood magic for Bellamy to feel good about it. He's never been one to refrain from personal bias. Why start now?

Jaw tight, he meets Hermione's eyes. Hardly a cheerful party conversation anymore. Maybe he's had a little too much wine, too; that doesn't help things. "People get forced into it. You know that, you said it. If it's defense, what's it matter, holding some standard of morality over them?"

She's taken aback by the sudden barrage of questions, feeling her face heat up a bit in a way that the wine can't explain away. "Wh-... it was war," she replies lamely. "I didn't let him torture or kill anyone. We just... we needed an artifact, and the only way to get past the guards was with the Imperius Curse."

Huffing a bit, she looks away from his gaze, feeling something all too similar to tears stinging at her eyes, regardless of how determined she is not to let them fall. "I'm not condoning it or condemning it. They were extraordinary circumstances, and I felt awful the entire time he was doing it, but he understood the risks and considered what we had to gain to be important enough to bend the rules. I'm no fan of rule-breaking if I can help it, but... my hands were tied. All our hands had been tied. It wasn't about moral standards by then. It was about doing what we had to do to accomplish what needed to be done."

That almost makes Bellamy feel bad. Not the near-tears thing, exactly. He's not that much of a sucker--or at least he tries not to be. But whatever else he might say to her, the last bit of that protest resonates a little too clearly for comfort.

You do what you have to do to survive. He said that, to Clarke. After everything in Montemps. Good guys and bad guys. It's not like they used to say. Hopping over that line is easy, so easy you don't even know you're doing it.

So, fine. He looks pointedly away from Hermione, out across the crowd. Glittering finery, the smell of food and drink, closed-in air. Laughter and music and conversation, light and airy, and Bellamy feels sick about it, sick that he's here, which makes him angry. He folds his arms over his chest, his jaw tight.

"Yeah," he says, tautly, "well, you're right about that. It's survival. I'm just saying, maybe be careful with your judgements. You never know who else is just surviving at the end of their rope." But even as he's saying it, he knows: you can't think that way. You have to vilify, demonize; someone's got to be the bad guy. Frustrated with himself, with this stupid argument, with morality and everything else, Bellamy rubs a hand over his face.

"Look, I'm sorry," he says, abruptly and brusquely. He doesn't sound very sorry, but he's said it. "There's a reason I don't get invited to parties. Just-- forget it, okay."

Edited (quickly gives hermione more credit she didnt ACTUALLY cry sorry) 2016-04-21 21:41 (UTC)

The only reason she doesn't cry is because she's too angry to do so. Defending choices that had been beyond her control to a total stranger? How did they even get to this point, and why had Hermione allowed it? Is that what people had meant when they'd told her that many Templars had a proclivity towards cruelty?

If nothing else, she's just glad he doesn't seem to be actively trying to make her question what she'd done - or, more aptly, what she'd allowed Harry to do - even if getting a flat-out apology surprises her. It doesn't sound like a sincere one, but at the same time, he doesn't sound wholly insincere, either.

"I'm not making any judgments," she tells him levelly. "I only said that there were some laws that are considered unforgivable in my world, and why the law deems them as such. There are exceptions to everything, especially during wartime. I know that as well as the next person." Perhaps better.

Finally bringing herself to look at him again, she wonders if he's trying to disengage or if this entire conversation had simply spiraled out of control. "Can we start over? From the beginning, I mean? Though you won't have to crash into me again, if it's all the same to you." At that last bit, she offers a small smile, though she's ready to wipe it off her face with an apology and a farewell, if that's what he really wants.

Bellamy's mouth tightens a little, but he keeps it shut. At best, he might articulate just how much he hopes that she's right, that other people think of it that way. The pressures of war. But that's hoping for too much, isn't it. Judgement is way more absolute than that. And it should be.

What's more, seeking refuge in excuses isn't the right thing to do. Whatever happened, happened. Pretending it was something else doesn't do them any credit: not him, not Clarke, and not Hermione's friend. The price that was paid was paid for a good cause. That should be defense enough. No horrors of war, no shields or hiding places.

But he nods, tightly. Like he gets it. Like he agrees. Because he does, sort of. So much so that he puts on a smile in return--weak, not altogether convincing. Forgivable, though, since he'd just finished snapping at her.

"Not unless you want me to." Rifter, he reminds himself. Someone he should be watching, whatever her opinions on magic and war and whatever else. "Do we start from before the thing about you falling out of a rift, too?"

She can see the tension there in his nod and in his forced smile, and she doesn't believe for a moment that he's appeased, regardless of what he says. She'd made things uncomfortable and she's not even entirely sure how, but that's probably why it's for the best that people watch their wine intake. Things get said and following the thread that will help take those things back is all but impossible.

At that question of his, Hermione hesitates, thinking it over. He hadn't started getting really bristly with her until finding out she was a Rifter, she realizes. She doesn't know if that's the whole story behind how strained this conversation has become, but it's as good of a thing to address as any.

"If you'd like," she concedes carefully. "But it might still come up eventually, and I wouldn't lie about it, so I'm not sure how much good it would actually do." Taking a deep breath as she glances down into her wineglass, she asks, "Would that change the way you feel about me? Whether or not I was a Rifter, I mean?"

"Yeah," he answers, plainly, "it would."

Sorry, but not sorry. Bellamy takes a quick brisk sip of wine. He swallows, and shrugs, like that's going to denote his partial apology.

"Think about it. You know what we usually get coming out of rifts. You saw it yourself, you said. Demons. I've fought off enough demons to learn not to let my guard down. And I think until we figure things out, we're right to be wary of you, and anyone and any thing else that falls out of the rifts. If you weren't a Rifer, this would be easy," he adds, like that's going to make it better. The corner of his mouth twists up into a bitter smirk. "Too bad."

Does it help, getting to know her? Does that soften him? Bellamy likes mages because he's always liked mages, since the day Octavia started doing magic. He's made it a point to help keep the mages of Kaiten safe. Bad things, and good things, in equal and unequal parts. So why stop now, just because this one's got a shard shoved in her hand?

Because he has to. Because you have to remember who's on your side, and who's your enemy. Thinking of Hermione like an enemy isn't exactly easy, but Bellamy's learned not to fall for anything.

"You can prove me wrong if you want."

She isn't sure why she'd expected him to sugarcoat it, but Hermione has to take another long, thoughtful sip of wine to hide her wince. She'd only met one person here who'd been outright wary about her being a Rifter, and she was sure Cassandra had been more concerned about her being a "mage" who'd never undergone a proper "Harrowing". From the sound of Bellamy's explanation, though, it sounds like he's rationalized it to the point that he can get over her being a mage, but any sort of Rifter garners a fair amount of suspicion.

For some reason, that hurts. It hurts a lot. She's going to blame the wine, rather than consider the fact that they'd seemed to be getting along up until this whole Rifter business came up. She's not that sensitive, after all.

"You want me to prove I'm not a demon?" she asks, trying to make light of it as she looks up at him again. "I'm practically half your size, my magic is barely strong enough to cast a Shield Charm, and I've just been utterly frank with you about some painful details in my past. I might not know how to prove I'm not a demon, but if that much doesn't at least prove I'm no danger, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for suggestions."

Shrugging, she glances away again and comments, "After all, I can't change what I am, and it doesn't change who I am. Witch or human or Rifter, I know I'm a good person, and if you're too leery to give me a chance, you're well within your rights."

Truth or Dare: The Imperial Court

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