Truth or Dare: Side Party for Servants and Scoundrels

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone!
WHAT: A party for people who might scare the nobility, are deathly afraid of chandeliers, or fled the soiree with cheeses hidden in their clothes and need to make a clean getaway.
WHEN: During (and after) the soiree.
WHERE: The valley beyond Skyhold.
NOTES: Drinking, revelry. People might make out or something. We're not responsible for your actions.

The soiree might be fun, if you're into that sort of thing, but that isn't what it's for. It's for impressing the powerful and opening their pockets—and, necessarily, some people aren't invited. In some cases that's personal. In others, it's just understood. When they're done helping to set up, most of the servants and workers who aren't needed to serve make themselves scarce. The usual trickle of refugees to and from the fortress slows. Some people used to sleeping in the stables may find their "beds" occupied by nobles' horses or the rooms they had been squatting in cleaned and prepared for someone else to stay in.

There's no resentment. (Or at least very little.) That's how these things go. And in the valley outside the fortress' walls, there are foot soldiers and refugees and a number of miscellaneous exiles who welcome the company with large fires, cheap but freely flowing alcohol, and whatever music can be wrung out of instruments exposed to such low temperatures. The crowd thins and dwindles as the night wears on, but even after the last person has left the Great Hall in Skyhold, there's still a sizable gathering near the river with no intention of going to sleep before sunrise.

No masks allowed.

Comments

[el_tybs]

Seeing the offered space, Sam scoots over more so that he's sitting closer, head tilted as he watches Merrick light up his pipe.

It's not surprising that Merrick doesn't say anything, but when the pipe is handed over Sam's eyes widen a bit. That was pretty big to have that done. Course he's never smoked, just been around smoke, so when he takes the pipe he raises a brow and looks at Merrick curiously, silently asking for some instructions.

[dalishious]

The expression on Merrick's face is part derisive, part thoroughly amused.

"Just take in the smoke," he instructs. "Don't just hold it in your mouth though. Open up your lungs, really let it in, then breathe it out."

[el_tybs]

He's still getting used to experiencing a bunch of things. Smoking just was never something to pick up.

The instructions are fairly simple, nothing too complicated, but it does have him looking at the pipe some in curiosity. Well it doesn't appear that Merrick is going to say more, Sam puts the end of the pipe to his lips and sucks. Clearly it's a bit more complicated than explained or it's just he isn't used to smoke and almost immediately he starts coughing, putting a hand in front of his mouth to help quiet it and hopefully calm it down.