[DH] The grand ball – 2 Apr. 2019 – Taffeta
Apr 7, 2019 16:47:35 GMT
Grimes, theduchess, and 4 more like this
Post by Malri 'Taffeta' Thistletop on Apr 7, 2019 16:47:35 GMT
1496 DR, 1 Tarsakh
The Auber mansion is growing quiet again. The illustrious guests (and their attendants) have set off for their illustrious homes (or places of employment) and the staff are quickly and efficiently clearing the ballroom of what’s left of the food, drink, and entertainment. Jean Auber himself, after a last brisk circuit of the room to check his servants’ work, sweeps past and up the stairs to his rooms.
‘Well,’ says Taffeta quickly before any of her companions have a chance to start grumbling once again about Auber’s rudeness and ingratitude, ‘I’m going to get changed.’
She retrieves her nondescript drawstring bag from an attendant and finds the garderobe – simple but spacious, clean, and more elegant than such a room really needs to be. After shutting and bolting the door, she reaches into the bag (far deeper than ought to be possible for its size) and pulls out her familiar shirt, jacket, breeches, and boots.
After the bright colours and sumptuous fabrics of the grand ball, the rough brown and ochre clothes look very drab on the shelf where she’s piled them. She lets her fingers trail across the pile and then moves her hand to the smooth yellow silk of the elegant ball-gown she’s wearing. After a long few moments, she gently shakes her head and laughs, then spins around. The marigold skirts billow out around her and then subside. ‘All right,’ she says to herself, ‘time to go home’.
The truth is, she didn’t enjoy the ball at first. It was too opulent and refined and alien. Too much etiquette she didn’t understand, dances she didn’t know, people who would never have given her the time of day if they’d known she and her companions were hired townsfolk and not aristocratic guests. Some of the others were able to enjoy themselves: she noticed Pieni mingling and visiting the fortune-teller; Oriloki (or his duplicate, she wasn’t sure) surprised her by joining a drinking game and then surprised her even more by losing to one of her own people; and Daisy really threw herself into the party, chatting to aristocrats and emissaries, joining and knife-throwing contest with Keriss, and then spectacularly winning the dancing competition with her partner the bearfolk ambassador. But Taffeta just felt acutely self-conscious and uncomfortable and mostly kept to herself. Which was fine: she wasn’t there to enjoy it, she was there to protect the host. Well, even that wasn’t her real reason for being there, but that was the task that the Duchess had hired her and the others to do.
The real reason was the Duchess herself. When she’d heard about the letter pinned up in the Ettin offering to pay handsomely for people to protect guests at a masquerade ball, she’d taken no interest until she’d heard who’d signed it: ‘Yours lovingly, the Duchess’. The last letter with that signature to reach the Ettin had floated in the air and read itself aloud, speaking of a certain place where one might find the power to put an end to a devastating war. And so, after a series of infuriating… she still didn’t really know whether they were meant to be tests or lessons or something else… Taffeta had found herself standing on Arbiter’s Promontory, gazing through a rift in the air to the tumult of a ferocious battle of witches, giants, and other monstrous creatures, above which grappled the flying figures of a familiar tiefling and a blazing-eyed crone; had found herself holding a strange artifact in her hands and having to decide which should live and which should die – the hag who had never done her any harm but was widely considered the greatest threat Daring Heights had ever faced, or the man she’d once trusted and admired but who had led her down a troubling path, taunted and traumatized her friends, and kidnapped and terrorized her family. The consequences of that letter had pitted her against many she had previously considered comrades and had almost destroyed her faith in the community she had fought again and again to protect. And then, from out of the blue, a chance – perhaps – to meet the author of that letter at last and ask: why?
That was why she went to the Menagerie Club at noon, as did six others: her dear friend Daisy; the bookish colossus Oriloki, who she still didn’t feel quite at ease with but who she was hugely grateful to for protecting her husband, daughter, and mother-in-law from the Lassitude; Varis the forbidding warrior, who she had fought with several times but spoken with very little; Keriss, the elven archer who she had met in Port Ffirst while Daring was under quarantine; Grimes, the guard officer who had refused to take any action against the kidnapper of her children and had been demoted as a result; and a stranger, Pieni, a curious blue bird-man. Once assembled, they were ushered into the club and given instructions by a straight-backed elderly human who seemed to be an agent of the Duchess. The host of the ball, wealthy councilman Jean Auber, had received a threatening letter, and so the group were to pose as guests at the ball in order to protect him. For that purpose, the Duchess supplied them with masks and also offered to supply suitable outfits if they had none of their own.
Which is how Taffeta comes to be wearing this beautiful sunshine silk gown under a smart sleeveless chestnut jacket with matching elbow gloves, a golden necklace, and sparkling dancing shoes, holding in her hand a sparrow-like half-mask. She puts it on the shelf and shrugs off the jacket. Folding it, she notices a spattered line of dark blood on it – it must have flicked off Varis’s wide-swinging axe earlier in the evening, when things finally started happening.
It was after more than four hours of discomfort, tedium, and alertness that she suddenly became aware that Auber had vanished, along with Grimes and Varis who had been chosen to stick close to him. At the same time, Daisy had alerted the rest of the party that the ostentatious Lord Aubrington Mowberry and his bored wife Lady Juliana were nowhere to be seen. Through the shared mental connection Oriloki had given them all, Varis had called the party to follow him downstairs. Bringing up the rear, Taffeta had run into the basement room and into a fierce battle between her companions and two towering blue-skinned figures, with Auber caught in the middle of it.
The fight was bloody but swift. After shocking most of the party with an initial blast of ice, the first creature had little chance to do anything else as Keriss and Varis punctured and slashed and then Grimes struck the killing blow. The other was able to do even less, being quickly immobilized by a combined effort from Oriloki, Varis, Pieni, and Auber (who turned out to be a capable fist-fighter), peppered with bolts and arrows by Taffeta and Keriss, set afire by Daisy, and finally beheaded by a mighty blow from Varis.
Taffeta’s companions seemed surprised and offended when Auber, saved from mortal danger thanks to their efforts, simply dusted himself off and went back to his guests. Grimes even chased after him. Taffeta didn’t care. Since the evening began, their ‘host’ had made it clear that ordinary townsfolk like them were nothing to him, and any word or gesture of thanks he might have offered would have meant nothing to her. In fact, she felt suddenly free. Auber and his fine guests might know the correct way to address a Marquis, they might own tableware that cost more than her house, they might spin each other effortlessly across the dance-floor; but she had travelled the planes, she had made friends and enemies of dragons, and she had just helped to save all of their lives. If they didn’t care about that, then she had no reason to care what they thought of her. She’d done her job, and now she was going to enjoy the party.
Leaving the others searching the basement for clues or treasure, passing Grimes remonstrating uselessly with Auber on the stairs, she quietly slipped back into the ball-room. She ate, she drank. When the band finished playing their current tune, she applauded, ignoring the puzzled and displeased glances of the other guests. When Daisy came back upstairs, looking rather glum, she coaxed the dwarf into teaching her the foxtrot, and the friends one-two-three-foured around the room like a pair of woodland creatures – Taffeta a yellow and brown bird with skirts billowing, Daisy a tawny frog with gold sparkling on her brown tunic and trousers and her golden cape floating behind her. They joked about Varis and Grimes, both standing around in their best outfits (all black for Grimes, black and red for Varis) with nothing to do. They speculated about why Varis seemed to be avoiding someone in the crowd, and who it might be – an ex, Taffeta reckoned. They tried to guess which of the Orilokis was the original, and debated whether Pieni’s outfit – an embroidered shirt, flower-patterned waistcoat, and feathered hat – went with his mask, which looked like a snake crossed with a cow.
After their dance, Daisy seemed in better spirits and went off to talk to the other ambassadors, Raegar of the bear kingdom and Nerisel of the Summer Court. Taffeta tried her hand at knife-throwing and did reasonably well. She mingled with the guests, chatting to those few who seemed sincere and not too haughty. She tried to talk to the servants but most of them ignored her or scampered away when they caught their master’s disapproving glances. Keriss tried to talk to her about the monsters they’d just killed, and Oriloki tried to discuss his theories about the creatures’ connection with a cannibal group called the kazoku or something like that, but she wasn’t interested in either of those topics. She spent more time with Pieni talking about animals. But mostly she just listened to the band, wandered around, danced, ate, and enjoyed being part of the spectacle and glamour of the occasion.
She steps out of the garderobe and looks around for the Duchess’s upright retainer. There he was, by the door. She approached and held out a bundle of clothes toward him, the shoes and mask resting on top.
‘Please give these back to the Duchess and thank her for me.’
‘Madam,’ he replies, taking the bundle from her with a slight nod, ‘You will be able to thank her yourself.’
She smiles, as if to say yes. But she knows that when she finds herself face to face with the Duchess, ‘thank you’ is not at all what she’ll be saying.
The Auber mansion is growing quiet again. The illustrious guests (and their attendants) have set off for their illustrious homes (or places of employment) and the staff are quickly and efficiently clearing the ballroom of what’s left of the food, drink, and entertainment. Jean Auber himself, after a last brisk circuit of the room to check his servants’ work, sweeps past and up the stairs to his rooms.
‘Well,’ says Taffeta quickly before any of her companions have a chance to start grumbling once again about Auber’s rudeness and ingratitude, ‘I’m going to get changed.’
She retrieves her nondescript drawstring bag from an attendant and finds the garderobe – simple but spacious, clean, and more elegant than such a room really needs to be. After shutting and bolting the door, she reaches into the bag (far deeper than ought to be possible for its size) and pulls out her familiar shirt, jacket, breeches, and boots.
After the bright colours and sumptuous fabrics of the grand ball, the rough brown and ochre clothes look very drab on the shelf where she’s piled them. She lets her fingers trail across the pile and then moves her hand to the smooth yellow silk of the elegant ball-gown she’s wearing. After a long few moments, she gently shakes her head and laughs, then spins around. The marigold skirts billow out around her and then subside. ‘All right,’ she says to herself, ‘time to go home’.
The truth is, she didn’t enjoy the ball at first. It was too opulent and refined and alien. Too much etiquette she didn’t understand, dances she didn’t know, people who would never have given her the time of day if they’d known she and her companions were hired townsfolk and not aristocratic guests. Some of the others were able to enjoy themselves: she noticed Pieni mingling and visiting the fortune-teller; Oriloki (or his duplicate, she wasn’t sure) surprised her by joining a drinking game and then surprised her even more by losing to one of her own people; and Daisy really threw herself into the party, chatting to aristocrats and emissaries, joining and knife-throwing contest with Keriss, and then spectacularly winning the dancing competition with her partner the bearfolk ambassador. But Taffeta just felt acutely self-conscious and uncomfortable and mostly kept to herself. Which was fine: she wasn’t there to enjoy it, she was there to protect the host. Well, even that wasn’t her real reason for being there, but that was the task that the Duchess had hired her and the others to do.
The real reason was the Duchess herself. When she’d heard about the letter pinned up in the Ettin offering to pay handsomely for people to protect guests at a masquerade ball, she’d taken no interest until she’d heard who’d signed it: ‘Yours lovingly, the Duchess’. The last letter with that signature to reach the Ettin had floated in the air and read itself aloud, speaking of a certain place where one might find the power to put an end to a devastating war. And so, after a series of infuriating… she still didn’t really know whether they were meant to be tests or lessons or something else… Taffeta had found herself standing on Arbiter’s Promontory, gazing through a rift in the air to the tumult of a ferocious battle of witches, giants, and other monstrous creatures, above which grappled the flying figures of a familiar tiefling and a blazing-eyed crone; had found herself holding a strange artifact in her hands and having to decide which should live and which should die – the hag who had never done her any harm but was widely considered the greatest threat Daring Heights had ever faced, or the man she’d once trusted and admired but who had led her down a troubling path, taunted and traumatized her friends, and kidnapped and terrorized her family. The consequences of that letter had pitted her against many she had previously considered comrades and had almost destroyed her faith in the community she had fought again and again to protect. And then, from out of the blue, a chance – perhaps – to meet the author of that letter at last and ask: why?
That was why she went to the Menagerie Club at noon, as did six others: her dear friend Daisy; the bookish colossus Oriloki, who she still didn’t feel quite at ease with but who she was hugely grateful to for protecting her husband, daughter, and mother-in-law from the Lassitude; Varis the forbidding warrior, who she had fought with several times but spoken with very little; Keriss, the elven archer who she had met in Port Ffirst while Daring was under quarantine; Grimes, the guard officer who had refused to take any action against the kidnapper of her children and had been demoted as a result; and a stranger, Pieni, a curious blue bird-man. Once assembled, they were ushered into the club and given instructions by a straight-backed elderly human who seemed to be an agent of the Duchess. The host of the ball, wealthy councilman Jean Auber, had received a threatening letter, and so the group were to pose as guests at the ball in order to protect him. For that purpose, the Duchess supplied them with masks and also offered to supply suitable outfits if they had none of their own.
Which is how Taffeta comes to be wearing this beautiful sunshine silk gown under a smart sleeveless chestnut jacket with matching elbow gloves, a golden necklace, and sparkling dancing shoes, holding in her hand a sparrow-like half-mask. She puts it on the shelf and shrugs off the jacket. Folding it, she notices a spattered line of dark blood on it – it must have flicked off Varis’s wide-swinging axe earlier in the evening, when things finally started happening.
It was after more than four hours of discomfort, tedium, and alertness that she suddenly became aware that Auber had vanished, along with Grimes and Varis who had been chosen to stick close to him. At the same time, Daisy had alerted the rest of the party that the ostentatious Lord Aubrington Mowberry and his bored wife Lady Juliana were nowhere to be seen. Through the shared mental connection Oriloki had given them all, Varis had called the party to follow him downstairs. Bringing up the rear, Taffeta had run into the basement room and into a fierce battle between her companions and two towering blue-skinned figures, with Auber caught in the middle of it.
The fight was bloody but swift. After shocking most of the party with an initial blast of ice, the first creature had little chance to do anything else as Keriss and Varis punctured and slashed and then Grimes struck the killing blow. The other was able to do even less, being quickly immobilized by a combined effort from Oriloki, Varis, Pieni, and Auber (who turned out to be a capable fist-fighter), peppered with bolts and arrows by Taffeta and Keriss, set afire by Daisy, and finally beheaded by a mighty blow from Varis.
Taffeta’s companions seemed surprised and offended when Auber, saved from mortal danger thanks to their efforts, simply dusted himself off and went back to his guests. Grimes even chased after him. Taffeta didn’t care. Since the evening began, their ‘host’ had made it clear that ordinary townsfolk like them were nothing to him, and any word or gesture of thanks he might have offered would have meant nothing to her. In fact, she felt suddenly free. Auber and his fine guests might know the correct way to address a Marquis, they might own tableware that cost more than her house, they might spin each other effortlessly across the dance-floor; but she had travelled the planes, she had made friends and enemies of dragons, and she had just helped to save all of their lives. If they didn’t care about that, then she had no reason to care what they thought of her. She’d done her job, and now she was going to enjoy the party.
Leaving the others searching the basement for clues or treasure, passing Grimes remonstrating uselessly with Auber on the stairs, she quietly slipped back into the ball-room. She ate, she drank. When the band finished playing their current tune, she applauded, ignoring the puzzled and displeased glances of the other guests. When Daisy came back upstairs, looking rather glum, she coaxed the dwarf into teaching her the foxtrot, and the friends one-two-three-foured around the room like a pair of woodland creatures – Taffeta a yellow and brown bird with skirts billowing, Daisy a tawny frog with gold sparkling on her brown tunic and trousers and her golden cape floating behind her. They joked about Varis and Grimes, both standing around in their best outfits (all black for Grimes, black and red for Varis) with nothing to do. They speculated about why Varis seemed to be avoiding someone in the crowd, and who it might be – an ex, Taffeta reckoned. They tried to guess which of the Orilokis was the original, and debated whether Pieni’s outfit – an embroidered shirt, flower-patterned waistcoat, and feathered hat – went with his mask, which looked like a snake crossed with a cow.
After their dance, Daisy seemed in better spirits and went off to talk to the other ambassadors, Raegar of the bear kingdom and Nerisel of the Summer Court. Taffeta tried her hand at knife-throwing and did reasonably well. She mingled with the guests, chatting to those few who seemed sincere and not too haughty. She tried to talk to the servants but most of them ignored her or scampered away when they caught their master’s disapproving glances. Keriss tried to talk to her about the monsters they’d just killed, and Oriloki tried to discuss his theories about the creatures’ connection with a cannibal group called the kazoku or something like that, but she wasn’t interested in either of those topics. She spent more time with Pieni talking about animals. But mostly she just listened to the band, wandered around, danced, ate, and enjoyed being part of the spectacle and glamour of the occasion.
She steps out of the garderobe and looks around for the Duchess’s upright retainer. There he was, by the door. She approached and held out a bundle of clothes toward him, the shoes and mask resting on top.
‘Please give these back to the Duchess and thank her for me.’
‘Madam,’ he replies, taking the bundle from her with a slight nod, ‘You will be able to thank her yourself.’
She smiles, as if to say yes. But she knows that when she finds herself face to face with the Duchess, ‘thank you’ is not at all what she’ll be saying.
