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]

"Thanks for the tip." Yeah, she had a feeling that the boyfriend back home would be a bit opposed to her coming back married, so she'd do what she could to avoid that. It's funny because it's a joke; Emma actually contemplating actual marriage tends to come with the Carrie Bradshaw patented hives and cold feet, so it's good nobody is being particularly serious.

She doesn't bother much with conversation once they get into the fray of the music, though. It is a wonderful distraction from everything else she's had to deal with lately. It's not super easy to dance in a corset and 8 yards of skirt, yet she manages all the same. "You're not so bad at this," she notes with a grin.

[aintwejust]

"Glad t'help." Mal does what he can to make it easy on her, he's done this before on both sides of the lacing (not gonna talk about it) and knows enough on how to bend so she won't have to, how to lift so she won't need to strain so much, and where's good to hold as opposed to where would make the boning dig in all the more. Soon the music winds down a little and he swings her back out of he circle so they can walk and sit and talk a bit.

"Well it's a good way to meet people, dancing. Good way to introduce yourself. Hi, Malcolm Reynolds. Pleasure to meet you."

[dreamcatcher]

She does appreciate the forethought. Emma has yet to really master wearing a corset, and it's possible that she never will. She's not going to suffer bruised ribs from it, she actually can't, but that doesn't mean she wants to suffer for no good reason. She can still hurt just fine, even if everything heals before it can bleed.

"You think so?" Emma has a few unique ways of meeting people and trying to get a good judge of their character in a few minutes to save time. Never dancing, though. "Emma, and likewise. You don't sound like you're from around here." Everyone native to the area had much different accents, ranging from British to French and weird places inbetween.

[aintwejust]

"Better than a bar brawl or fall'n on top of them." A beat. "Those aren't related stories, I swear."

Not that it makes the 'falling on them' story better. Just means he was sober when it happened.



Wait that's not better at all.

"Well I grew up around a lotta different folk out in Fereldan- buncha Marchers, surface dwarves and the like. Hear that grow'n up? Changes how you talk." He don't much sound like a dog lord and knows it.

[dreamcatcher]

She laughs a little, shaking her head. "Thanks for the clarification." Because that does sound like a story that could be related. It also sounds like some of the ridiculous antics Killian used to get up to.

"Dwarves? I didn't know there were dwarves around here." That is the one race Emma hasn't met yet, and she has at least nominal experience with them in her world. "I'd ask what Marchers were, but I'm not sure tonight is about asking questions." It's about forgetting questions, for once in the time she's been here.

[aintwejust]

"Sure. Even got ourselves a famous author dwarf in residence." Varric and his coin never cease to be a point of ride for Malcolm. It helps the Inquisition to have him- and it helps Mal to have his money. "Free Marches- it's a country like Ferelden and Orlais. People from there? Called Marchers. And I don't much mind answer'n questions asked me by a pretty lady."

[dreamcatcher]

"Maybe I'll get to meet him sometime." Compare him to Grumpy and all her mother's dwarves. She had to guess they were not quite the same as the egg-born whistle-while-they-worked variety she was used to.

Emma had to lift her brows at the last bit. "Meaning you wouldn't answer if I wasn't?" It's teasing, even though it's a little dry. Very much a man answer, wasn't it? This guy was maybe a little too much like the pirate she was missing for her own good. Damn it, Killian Jones, for wearing down her immunity to charming men.

[aintwejust]

"He usually hangs about the great hall, writ'n letters, or the Herald's Rest, tell'n tales. Sometimes plays cards but you watch him good on that, he'll cheat." Most people do. It's half the fun of the game.

"Oh I'd still answer. I'd just flirt a li'l less." Not much less, it comes hand in hand with being civil and being kind.

[dreamcatcher]

"I am the bane of men that like to cheat at cards." It's always been a skill of hers, much to the frustration of the people she played with. Her internal polygraph machine had been showing its flaws lately, but she was still pretty handy at spotting a flub in a card game.

She laughs a little, admiring the honesty at the very least. "I'm guessing the fact I've got someone back home might discourage that, too." A boyfriend that she misses, that she loves. Loving her was apparently a curse nearly as potent as the one she was afflicted with, because in the end it left people dead or alone.

[aintwejust]

"Ah, shoulda known." He rests a hand on his hip, chuffing out a laugh all his own. "It certainly would mean I'd do that a li'l less- or I wouldn't at all. Your prerogative really."

Yes, that's a big word, yes, he knows what it means, yes, he drawls it out all semi-ironical like he do.