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

[dreamcatcher]

"Well, it isn't actually my first time." That makes her a little sad, to think about her first proper dance. She wishes Killian were here. She's glad he's not, that he's not in danger involved in being stuck in a different world and hell, just being near her... but that doesn't mean she doesn't miss him, or feel badly about their last moments together.

Oh, god. Nickelback. "That might be the only thing I don't miss. These people deserve better than that." Ruby doesn't have to do all the leading, Emma lifts her arm to let her taller companion spin to the beat of the music, too. They might be breaking convention but let's face it, two women on the dancefloor were probably breaking convention around here as it was.

[eviscerates]

"No?" Red's surprised, but maybe she shouldn't be. More she hears, the more it seems like she missed more than she thought was possible in so short a time. The whole time issue is a whole different can of worms. "You could've pretended you were just amazingly talented." She tsks softly, and hopes that she hasn't trodden on anything painful.

"Everyone deserves Nickelback," she replies, with false severity, which gets promptly lost with the spin. Instead she's laughing, happily breathless as she stops. "Or maybe I could be merciful."

[dreamcatcher]

Technically, Red hasn't been gone that long, and yet things move around so fast in Storybrooke, it's easy to lose track of what she wasn't there for. Things move so fast back at home, Emma feels like the past two years have been a separate lifetime. Or maybe she just wasn't really living in the stretch of time between losing Henry and him finding her again.

"Let's go for mercy," Emma suggests, laughing too. It's easy to get lost in the beat and the swing of the music and the simple feeling of the party around them. She hasn't felt so light in ages, and maybe it shows in her steps. Less of a monster and more of a woman, for once.

[eviscerates]

Red twists them around, and for a brilliant moment it seems like it's going fine, before she kind of twists and her ankle folds underneath her, and she's torn between holding onto Emma to hold herself up and letting go so she can hop sort of pathetically as she tries to figure out what she just did.

"Oh God," quiet, gasped and laughed, as she winds up with a hand on Emma's shoulder. "Oh, I probably deserved that for threatening a world with Nickelback."

Instant karma via twisted ankle, the worst.

[dreamcatcher]

It's kind of hilarious that Emma isn't the one that managed to hurt herself dancing. Despite the last name, Emma is not known for her gracefulness. "Whoa," she says sympathetically, reaching out to try and consolidate the worst of the damage by giving Ruby something to hold onto. Doesn't seem to help too much.

"Okay, dancing queen. Maybe we should sit down." Emma pulls Red's arm over her shoulder, and her expression does not offer any flexibility. She'll be helping you to your chair now, Red!

[eviscerates]

"It looks like my ballet career is over," she laments as Emma steers her, thowing her friend a look that is most definitely along the lines of "poor me :(."

She hops as Emma leads her to a bench, letting herself be supported a bit and her eyebrows raising with exaggerated woe as she looks at her ankle, which has approximately zero swelling or bruising, and is making her feeling like kind of a wimp. "What do you think? Will I make it?"