Truth or Dare: The Imperial Court

[madame_de_fer]

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.

Comments

[arcaneadvisor]

Hard to believe it's been a decade since she last saw Leliana smile. Baring teeth is a sign of aggression in so many animals, Morrigan knows that so very well, Leliana better still and she is not so foolish as to believe there were smiles until now. But Morrigan did not lie or deceive, Morrigan has agreed to help. Morrigan remembers old, forgotten things, things thought lost, she brings them back, restores them with hands that could break so easily as mend. Is that what she sees when she looks at this woman that could be one thing or the other, sometimes both, and sometimes something more besides. "Is that something that can be so easily afforded?"

And were she to ask if Leliana's fruit is more forbidden since she has become Left Hand? Luckily she isn't one for such tawdry remarks; a look coming from her can mean a thousand things.

"Are you not past such things? We are neither of us girls now," and if there is a small measure of sorrow in that, it is quickly gone. They were neither of them girls, they were always what was needed and it was not until she fled Denerim with three Wardens standing and a coronation as an archdemon's corpse decayed that she began to be a person. Tonight is not for dragging themselves over hot coals again and again, and Morrigan has so few shared beliefs, flame does not shield her, fire is not her water. "I believe the sight of you with your hood down and clad in less chainmail is enough," she continues.

And then she stops. Hesitates. Realises the words that have fallen out of her mouth and what they might be taken for, and of course something within her is annoyed, spiteful creature that she ever was and ever will be, but she finds herself smiling until she notes that of course there's an audience. But her point still stands; Leliana is here, Leliana is smiling, Leliana is not entirely the Nightingale, though why she phrased it in such a way=

"There are a few, I take great care to remove Oghren from as many as possible unless it makes Alistair look the fool." It's a gamble to say that name tonight when that wound must be so raw still, though she says nothing of the times she has told her son that Alistair is a good man, that his father is a good man. She is fortunate he tends not to pry overmuch. "Oh and shoes, he agrees of course that you were utterly ridiculous to care so about something so simple when tramping through mud, dirt, and other such unsavoury things."

They're drawing the eye, of course they are, Blight veterans, Celene's apostate, the late Divine's Left Hand and spymaster for the Inquisition, how could they not? Everyone wants to lean close to hear secrets and there are precious few spots in the hall free of them.

[fightingale]

"Perhaps not." Her brow flickers just a little, and it is all show, all steps to a dance that every bard learns, though some do not master it so well as others. It cannot be forgot that Morrigan has spent time in the company of Celene, and Celene was able to catch even the Nightingale out, at times. Then again, there was not a great deal Leliana had done to hide her sympathy and her conflict over the ultimatum the Divine had offered Celene. These steps, however, are all in jest, subtle as it may be. "I may have to demand satisfaction. A duel, perhaps?"

Such false innocence in Leliana's own tone was laughable, really, but she needed some outlet. Her mind has been so consumed with the little trails left out to see if any would follow them and would bring them to her attention, with the Game, with the accusations and the tensions between herself and Cassandra, with Galadriel and rifts and elves and Anders, with mages and freedom and how to make Thedas a better place... there is little room for innocence and humour. If she must be here tonight, if she must be away from her work for the sake of this diplomatic show, then perhaps she will allow herself something. And it seemed as though Morrigan and Josephine were the only ones she could turn to, and Josie was busy ensuring everything ran as it should. It was not to say that Morrigan was a last resort, so much as... in the past she would have been, and such habits were hard to break.

Leliana's could almost smile a little more, and perhaps she does. Thin, subtle, and it vanishes a moment later to be replaces by a slow and incredulous quirk of her brow, as if Morrigan had said something scandalous - a safe enough expression to make even here, when Morrigan is considered scandalous by default with the Orlesians, and is all the more intriguing for it. "Stop being so disturbing, Morrigan," she chastises, quiet veins of humour in her tone. And, primly: "Kieran suggested it."

But, even so, the threat of an audience and listening ears shifts ever closer, shadows stretches with the drift of the Sun. Leliana considers her next move, weighs up how it would be observed within the game - intriguing, exciting, something to set the court abuzz. Old allies from the Blight joining forces again, or perhaps even the Left Hand working to convert and tame Celene's apostate? It would be an entertainment, at the very least, and she holds her hand out to Morrigan, gloved and armoured as it is. "Would you care to dance? We might speak more freely, then, and I can tell you about how terribly wrong your son is."

And Lord Afton might stand less chance of moving back in this direction, though that concern is more for the sake of the man not being eviscerated by Morrigan's temper.

[arcaneadvisor]

"Anything to liven up this affair." And that's Morrigan, the old Morrigan, the girl that was half a wild thing and the curl of her lip that settles into a small wicked smile and a laugh. Again she can't shake the notion that once if their lives had overlapped the right way that one of them would have gotten on well with the other, better than they do at present. Although there are times, like this, when they can talk in a way they never did before. "Tell me, I am allowed to set fire to those that displease me, seeing as magic would be my weapon of choice."

But no, such things are not allowed in polite company, no matter if Morrigan has met Chasind with more respect and better manners; the Chasind understand value, not cost, something the assembled company would do well to remember. In Orlais, much as she hated it, flouted it, rose above it, and did as she pleased, there was much that meant she had to court Celene's favour. Perhaps that was where all the rumours came from, but the Inquisition knows her better and she laughs at Leliana's words.

(Perhaps, were they closer, were they the sort of girls she had seen in villages or young ladies at balls she would shove her. But despite time being kind to some small part of them, they are not young, they have not been young in so long, they weren't even young in truth when they fought the Blight. Not where it matters. There are some here older than either of them were now that seem little more than children with the dreams in their heads.)

It is scandalous perhaps, to lean so very close to the ear of the Nightingale when neither wear a mask, when the gossip will spread so quickly but she is smiling, Leliana is teasing. "Would you prefer it were I suddenly to gain eight legs? How many guests could boast that they have attended such parties?" In Orlais those stories are told less, they prefer to invent a past for her, she is happy to ignore them so long as it stays far from Kieran. "It speaks well for him then, that he has not inherited a taste for socks in need of darning, and shirts with gaping holes in them."

Well, some might argue were they to see him in travel garb, when they move as the Chasind but there are things even Leliana's scouts would miss amidst the snow of the Hinterlands.

No one has asked her to dance before.

Well, some have come close. They have strode up to her assured, they have simpered, they have tried to court her every which way and they are ignored each time, their stammers trailing off into terrified stutters. Kieran, she has danced with but that sends a pang; did Zevran not ask her once if that is what mothers and sons did, as if either of them between them would know? No, she cannot think of that, not when he decided to press a matter and brought up old wounds because he cannot know what it was like to be around Wynne trying to mother her when her own hurt her so deeply, when there are still barbs caught beneath her flesh, that still ache some days that she cannot tear out completely. Would Leliana call it fleeing if she refused?

"Curious that on a night to quell rumour you court more," she says at last, taking Leliana's hand carefully but firmly, so it cannot be said she backed down, even as her heart races. She can be just as cool and calm as a bard. "Is it the romantic in you that loves a tale? What wicked things they will say?" And she is smiling, almost laughing at that, and her face is lovely in a way it truly can be at times, the person she might have been had life dealt her such a different hand as she takes her place in the gown Leliana picked a lifetime ago.

[fightingale]

At that - all of that ridiculousness - Leliana only cants her head, eyebrow slightly quirked. Morrigan, please. There are so many questions to be asked in response, to consider, but she steals all these thoughts away for later, carefully packaged up and protected. That lean close is not lost on her, and she can all but feel intrigued glances and murmurs intensifying. Well played, Morrigan. There was little chance of the Orlesians being less scandalised and delighted by Morrigan, this evening.

“I do not know any dances with sufficient steps for eight legs,” she finally allows, grasping Morrigan’s hand a little more firmly when she accepts and leading them out onto the dance floor long, graceful steps. This are not the motions of the Nightingale of the Tower, too rigid and correct, but of the Nightingale of the Imperial Court, turing to face Morrigan and setting a hand at the small of her back.

“Perhaps,” Leliana begins, ever so diplomatic and entirely sidestepping the conversation about no longer being a romantic, “they will think that I am finally getting through to you. The Nightingale singing to you to sooth all your wildness, and share with you the blessings of the Chantry. Later you will fall to your knees, cheeks stained with tears, and we will recite from the Canticle of Benedictions together, and they will know that the Inquisition is safe.”

But Morrigan is not wrong, and admitting that now is less galling than it might have been ten years ago, or even ten months past. This is courting gossip, inviting it in via open door, but Orlesians delight in something gently scandalous and fascinating, and will empty their pockets if it allows them to be closer and learn something that they think will be only they.

These are not reasons Leliana asked Morrigan to dance, however beneficial they might be. The music is about to start, and Leliana adds very quietly, “If you get uncertain of the steps, just allow me to lead.”
A good dance partner can make their own look quite the expert, no matter how lacking in experience they might be.

[arcaneadvisor]

Just because she hates something, because she cares for it not, that has never meant she hasn't been keenly aware of the rules - how else do you so carefully make sure to thumb your nose at them, after all? If people will stare, let them, there are few of the guests who have been brave enough to attempt anything beyond a greeting, their little pointed barbs about her absence from Celene's court turned back on them and allowed to sink deep, as Morrigan smiled all the while, as she does now though she is so aware of Leliana, of her perfume, of her warmth of her skin, the strength of her hand.

Does Leliana know that there is a reason her dress allows so much more movement than would ever be allowed for a true lady of the court? For all the bards that they send Morrigan and Celene's way? Does she guess at it? (Does she feel Morrigan's heart beating faster, for when was the last time someone was allowed so close, someone that was not her son, someone that was not Alistair trying to save the skins and souls of three men plus her in one bed?)

"You're teasing," and perhaps she's a little delighted at the idea, that Leliana is still there beneath the Nightingale's cowl, allowed out at least tonight.

"They do not think I will do to you as some whisper I have with Celene?" Since the stories about Briala have come creeping out, the stories about Morrigan and Celene have only grown more ludicrous and lewd from certain corners but blood magic will always win, because there is something more dangerous about it, because they can blame far more on it, they can, in a certain way, seemingly forgive blood magic more than love or lust. "They might wonder about the raven you love the most, the one that your spies curse the name of that nestles so close to your bosom that it could draw blood if it wished. That one day the Inquisition will come for their lands and they will have signed them over or have had their hands forced from what you know, for you will have charmed them or stolen every secret without them even breathing them."

And...and no one has really asked her to dance. Not like this. They have bowed like toads, practically fought to make a great fuss over it and she shot them down one by one before she saved herself the breath, turning her head and walking away instead.

"I am trusting you, " and she could leave it at that perhaps, that's saying it at all is a lot, when Alistair and Zevran were given it and neatly smashed it on the floor, "not to make me look a fool before all these folk."

[fightingale]

The music starts, and the waltz begins, although one could suppose the dance had begun when Leliana first approached Morrigan. There are a hundred things she notes and wonders and files away for analysis. The dress, which seems structurally a little different than what Leliana might have expected, the whispers that she can see rather than here, people talking behind fans already, though she observes it from the corner of her eye rather than anything so unbecoming and direct as a look.

“I do not tease.” Outrageous suggestion. “The Left Hand would never stoop to such behaviour.” The Left Hand is not so thuggish as the Right, in the eyes of a good many Chantry members, although Cassandra is the Hero of Orlais and Leliana is but a companion to the Hero of Ferelden. “And enough of them fear the name Nightingale without needing to invoke mention of blood magic.” A pause, and for a moment she almost exhales a breath of laughter. “Although I think the same could be said of Baron Plucky, honestly.” Still, the raven you love most does get a quiet sound of amusement. “I take it he’s your favourite, as well, given all you know”

Imagining what could happen if they actually thought the Inquisition was under the control of blood magic was alarming, but Morrigan knowing so much about one of her ravens piques her interest. And, belatedly, she leans forwards a little closer so she is murmuring against Morrigan's ear. "I doubt we are in danger of stirring such vicious rumours," and there is laughter in that, because whispering against each other's ears will probably make some gossip's brain rush into overdrive. There is not part of her that enjoys the contact, that wonders at how Morrigan smells like the air before a storm, and who wonders what it would be like to hold her hand without leather and chainmail separating them. Those are the indulgent thoughts of a girl who doesn't exist any more, and are promptly dismissed.

“The charming thing would be to say that such a thing is impossible, but truthfully I wouldn’t dare to make you look foolish.” Her tone says that she might, actually, though her expression - still not a smile - is a little softer than that. “Although I might be smug that you finally gave in to dancing with me, later.”

[arcaneadvisor]

"The Left Hand, the Left Hand; you are a woman, Leliana, you are more than whatever title she or they gave you, you teased a Sten of the Beresaad about dangling strings for kittens even when he denied it. I am sure even all this could be a tease for them - what does she do, the Lady Nightingale, cavorting with this wild woman who would spend so much time alone with Celene, taking down her hood for the first time in so long?" Orlais has no need of a Hero unless they mean to scour the place entirely, to rip it out and start anew and that is never a job for a hero, they'd both know since they lost track of Jonas years ago. "Like calls to like, does it not? Hard not to admire a bird that sets every one of your scouts to cursing and do not think I am unaware that some of them dislike being sent as runners for our messages."

It's why sometimes the raven arrives itself. Holding the message. She would hardly have missed that.

Were she the sort of thing the gossips say - temptress and tease and enchantress - then the gasp would be just a ruse, but people are not so close, and her spine stiffens without her meaning to, breath catching, cheeks flushing; with eyes so bright, so gold, with Leliana so close then the way her pupils dilate is obvious and that only allows the flush to spread down her long pale neck. She clears her throat, gives herself a shake. "You spend far too much time up in that tower, your mind is clearly wandering if you believe there is no danger of that though I will happily court it, if you wish to turn it to your advantage. Do not let it be said I gave less than my all to you and to this Inquisition of yours." There is a strange wonder at it all, as if in a dream, the very air charged the way it is in the eluvians where her skin prickles faintly with magic enough to make her wonder if this is all real or if she will awaken in her bed, curled beneath warm blankets and furs, Kieran's chest rising and falling in the bed across from her with a stuffed nug tucked under his arm.

"Ten years and you have grown so very wise," it is her turn to lean close, to let her darkened lips brush Leliana's ears and to absently smooth her hair just so before returning the hand to her waist as though it has never known any other resting place. "The terrible things I would do to you were you to cause me to stumble but once before these folk."

[fightingale]

"That was hardly the Left Hand," Leliana says, her tone a little more wry. She has said before that Leliana of the Fifth Blight was nothing but the desperate fancy of a woman determined to dismiss the reality of who she was and her talents. Misguided and ultimately foolish, to think she could change the world through love and kindness and mercy. Nevermind that Leliana still struggles with it, rather than it being dismissed and past; she would control it yet. It is easier to just laugh quietly at the comment about like attracting like.

And it might be a concern for Morrigan's sake, because Leliana is a bard, missing the sound of a gasp or the flush on her skin would be a great failing. The gasp, one could supposes, could be part of this game, but Morrigan has never been a player of the Game, never seemed to care for the art of subtlety, and there are some things that cannot be manufactured - a blush, for instance. It is noted and it will be analysed later, but for now it seems safe to say that Leliana might just be embarrassing her. "Perhaps we'll hope they believe it is faith and not blood magic that has us dancing. There have been enough complexities, of late."

If Morrigan is going to insist on making this look as elicit as possible to the nobles of Orlais and Ferelden and wherever else they might be visiting from, Leliana will not leave her entirely holding the upper hand. And perhaps it is something playful, something to "Oh? Do you promise?"

[arcaneadvisor]

"So it was Leliana then, as it is Leliana now?" She would not dance with a Left Hand, and well that should be known because that would mean something more than this, and already this will mean something. Of course this will be seen as the Left Hand and the Arcane Advisor more than what say Zevran or Alistair might see; two women who knew each other, who saw horrors together, sharing levity because when you have seen the worst then you can make certain allowances. "I do prefer someone that is rather more than just a title, something other than a name that is given when they are so quick to hang them about me."

Even Witch of the Wilds is an appellation not all her own but one that she still wore because it suited her then as it suits her now but far too many are ill-fitting. Witch of the Wilds is a skin she fashioned for herself, the rest have been thrust upon her.

Is that how it goes with Hands, she wonders, is this how you make a Bard? Do you whittle down a girl into her parts and pieces, into one of those dolls an artist will pose just so until you can contort it as you choose and then, just like some stories she has read and heard, breathe life into it? She does not pretend to know every sordid detail of Leliana's life or that she will ever be privy to them, there are things that belong to the people that lived them alone and she won't pry, but how many masks does she shuffle between and what lies beneath when at last she snuffs out the candle and goes to bed at night?

"A marriage might do well as a distraction, I did remind the Lady Seeker that she is of a rather distinguished bloodline and that there are many men of a good age in need of a wife. There are worse ways to claim the legitimacy the Inquisition needs." It's cruel to laugh but then Leliana did not see her face, did not hear Cassandra say that she would rather fight Darkspawn before a woman in the thick of the Fifth Blight who stared at a broodmother with her own eyes, tasted the filth of the air in her own throat. "Do they make masks the cover all the way down to the neck for cases such as her?"

It would be a welcome distraction from her own blush.

"I can keep promises, after a fashion, I have always helped, have I not?" That might be a dare to say that she has not, because well she has a certain talent for saving skins at just the right moment with knowledge only she can provide. "You might find your shoes rather imperilled too, were you to do so."

[fightingale]

She doesn't want to talk about the past or Leliana or what she is or was and the misunderstandings and the delusions that her companions of years past seem to desperate to hold onto. "Maybe it is all a matter of your perception," she offers instead, fantastically unhelpful and evasive, and her smile asks Morrigan not to press it. She can only hope that Morrigan complies.

"Ah, but that is a plan likely to go up in flames sooner than work." Gently wry and teasing, and yet there is something faintly protective in her reasoning for the response, even if it is not audible. Cassandra might be headstrong and brash and foolish, but she is someone Leliana has held in high esteem, nonetheless, and she remembers how brutal the lash of Morrigan's words can be. "I think your wit has better targets, and more willing victims."

Herself included, as the case may be. It seems an apt enough response to both the barbs for the Seeker and the teasing directed at Leliana, which makes her arm press steadier at Morrigan's back. "I'll trust you if you trust me. Fair?"

Probably not, really. No one should trust a bard, but she and Morrigan have always existed a little outside the rules of propriety.

[arcaneadvisor]

Were this not a ball and a dance, she would sigh, instead she would very dearly like to roll her eyes but covers it with a smirk and lift of the brows, the sort of thing she's never managed to make herself grow out of, not when she realised how quickly she could use it to aggravate Celene to no end. "I shall defer to your expertise then, shall I?" It comes out as a question when it's more an offer, an olive branch extended and she's been doing that a lot tonight, making these strange overtures but she would have Leliana's friendship, and if she cannot have that then she would have them at least being able to be something more than merely civil if they're to work together.

"She had the gall to wonder if Vivienne had proposed marrying me off, as if she would still draw breath if she had." Only Morrigan would smile so openly at voicing such a thing but well, we take our little pleasures where we find them, don't we Leliana? Surely Lord Afton's demise has been plotted at least half a hundred times tonight by whomever he has struck up a conversation with. "I was rather disappointed she played the wallflower, I did think the Hands of the Divine to be made of rather sterner stuff but then who might hold a candle to you after all, if you are offering yourself up in her stead."

Because that has been heard by all those leaning close, there is no way out, she will remember that.

She inclines her head, looking up through her lashes as if coy but well, how often does she make such gestures, how often has she ever voiced them? "Very fair, I will hold you to your word then Leliana."

Again, Leliana. Always, Leliana. That is who she trusts because she is there, somewhere, and if there is one who recognises things thought lost and how to find them then there are none who can argue with her opinion, least of all those lost things.