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lilliofthenight (lilliofthenight) wrote in thebrothelage,
@ 2011-12-10 22:20:00

Writing Exercise: The Celebration of Satinalia
Hey guys! It's that time of the year again, and whatever we may celebrate or believe, I thought it might be fun to celebrate the holiday spirit with some RP! Of course, this is optional, but it is a nice way to explore some aspects of your character(s), flex your writing muscles, and just have fun!

There's no real corresponding holiday in Thedas, but Satinalia seems the most fitting, and should give everyone a great deal of freedom since there are many different ways to celebrate. According to the Dragon Age: Origin's Collector's edition books this is the information:

Satinalia: In many places, this holiday - once dedicated to the Old Goddess of chaos, Zazikel, but now attributed more to the Second Moon, Satina - is still accompanied by wild celebration. Celebrants wear masks and lose their inhibitions, and they place the town fool as ruler for a day. In Antiva (Antiva City in particular), this festival lasts for a week or more, followed by a week of fasting. In more pious areas, this holiday is now marked by large feasts and gift giving.

The exercise is this, choose a time period in your character's life. It can be past, present, or even possible future. Write a scene that centers around this holiday and how they celebrate (or even how they don't celebrate it). You can feel free to hit up fellow RPers to scene together, or even start a celebration at the Keep for others to reply to. Just leave your scenes and stories in comments to this post. I'm looking forward to reading them all! And Happy Holidays :)

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	Kallian's Satinalia kallian 2011-12-12 04:40 am UTC (link)
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lilliofthenight
2011-12-22 05:44 am UTC (link)

One could never say that the Pearl’s Satinalia celebration was dull. The clientele there tended to prefer to spend the holiday surrounded by beautiful women with a plentiful supply of the finest Fereldan ales at their disposal. Better than a somber visit to the local Chantry and a dinner with the family. Lillie didn’t really know what it was like to have a Satinalia with family. She could hardly remember the Alienage celebrations that had happened before her mother’s death, and Paerel had certainly never had any room for cheer spent with his granddaughter.
This was the second year she would be at the Pearl for the celebration, and she was aware what fun it would be; the food, the music, the celebration. Everyone would don masks and pretend to be someone other than who they really were. It was a time not to worry about appearances, and actions and propriety (not that the women of the Pearl were ever truly worried about propriety).

The celebration would be after nightfall, and in the morning Lillie pulled on her green woolen dress and slipped on her leather boots. Though she wrapped a warm shawl around her shoulders the morning air in Denerim nipped at her with its cold as she stepped out onto the cobbled street. Pulling the shawl tighter she started down the narrow alleyway towards the open air and sounds of the market. Between the celebration of last year and the current one, Satinalia had taken on a more important meaning for her. Because it was the day associate with the birth of a man who had become an integral part of her life. If anyone had asked her two years before if a thief sneaking into her bedroom window one evening would become the man she would find herself falling in love with she would have thought them very strange indeed. And yet that is what was happening.
She approached the various stalls, moving past the people hawking foods and sweets. Whatever she was going to get for Matthew wouldn’t be something to eat. Not that she had any sort of idea what would make a good gift for him. He hardly seemed to want or need anything. She felt uncertain that anything she could give him would be meaningful enough. He already had the most valuable thing she had to offer, and perhaps anything else might pale against the worth of her heart. At times, Matthew could do the most romantic things that she had no doubt in her mind that he must love her in return, even if he had not said the words aloud.

But the time they had together was precious and stolen, like dreams between the days that made up their separate lives. A large, secret part of her hoped that might one day change, but the part of her that was afraid to hope for such a thing kept her quiet. She would take and cherish whatever time they had together.

Pushing those thoughts aside, for longing and the holidays did not mix well, Lillie moved amongst the merchants, her eyes gazing over their wares. On a small vendor clustered with toys she spotted some items that drew her attention. Not for his lover, but for the young girls she’d befriended in the alienage the year before. She wouldn’t pick the rag doll she might have for another girl, a toy she’d have preferred herself as a child. For Lalin she fingered the little wooden sword, painted with silvery paint, as she thought about her desire to be a Knight some day. For Azabeth she fingered a little soft bear with big button eyes. She remembered how the young girl lacked a father in her life, and it might be nice to have someone to hug at night, when she did not have her elven sister by her side.

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lilliofthenight
2011-12-22 05:48 am UTC (link)

Lillie thanked the merchant as he wrapped the gifts in brown paper and tied them with simple red strings. To the girls it would be quite a treasure, and it made Lillie smile to think of their smiling faces. She bought something for Paerel, a well-made woolen shirt to keep him warm throughout the cold winter. He would not thank her for the gift, but he was not too proud to take it. Shifting her basket to her other hand she wandered over to the jeweler’s stall. Her eyes moved over the gems and precious metals. She would not buy him a watch or a locket. Something like that would not suit him, and would not be as meaningful. Those were gifts any woman might get for a man, perhaps with an inscription on the inside. She moved beyond those things, her brow furrowed in thought. Matthew would probably ask for something simple, like her, with only a bow on, or even leave the bow. The thought made her smile and she smothered a laugh behind her hand as she approached another vendor.
It was the man selling the imported wares that drew her interest. The odds and ends gathered here were varied and strange. Not one thing was something practical, and Lillie appreciated that about it. He began to tell her stories about each item she eyed, an elephant-shaped vase from Tevinter, made from the heat of a mage’s flames, he claimed. And there, some Antivan silk, bright purple with nude figures stitched in gold. She chuckled softly then caught a glint of gold out of the corner of her eye. The coin was larger than one someone might use for money, and intricately carved. She picked it up, studying it carefully. One side was a carved face, a cloaked figure, hand outstretched. Around the border were words in a strange language, in curling script.

On the opposite side, a blooming flower, the edges gilded in silver. She looked at it, startled, and at the man selling the items. “Where did you get this?” she held it up. Lillie had often seen Matthew toss a coin, worry the metal between blackened fingers. She knew this would be a gift that would suit him. It was the flower on the back that would remind him of her whenever he ran his fingers over it.

The shopkeeper gave it a look, curiosity flicking briefly through his eyes and then he smiled. “Ah yes, I procured that one on my travels. Not sure where it originated. The merchant who paid me with it claimed it was genuine ancient Imperium, but I know they never used such symbols in their currency. In either case, it’s more a pretty item than worth anything.”

Lillie was surprised, momentarily, at the honesty of the merchant, then smiled. “Then what little is it worth? I’d like to purchase it. “

She didn’t really care at the cost, her mind was set on this gift, and Lillie smiled as the merchant boxed it. She tied it with a black and silver ribbon she’d purchased the day before from the tailor. Colors that suited her lover for the day of his birth. Tucking the box into her basket she made her way from the market again. Preparation would already be underway at the Pearl, but she didn’t care about the party. She was more looking forward to her own private celebration with the man she loved tonight.

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azabeth
2011-12-22 06:10 am UTC (link)

They spent Satinalia on the road.

Somehow, Az wasn't surprised; there was a fairly regular rhythm to their little group, consisting of being sent on a mission, becoming mired down in detail as said mission turned out to be something entirely different from what they were briefed to expect, somehow pulling off their objectives despite the entirety of Thedas being arrayed against them, then returning home only to be handed another bloody mission. For luck's sake, was it so much to ask to be allowed to stay at Amaranthine a week to recuperate? Most nights she felt like she would never be clean again, and the dust of the road would simply etch itself into her frame until it penetrated her flesh, even her very bones.

But Satinalia was different. For one, it was tentatively Black Matthew's birthday - not that he celebrated it, except when dragooned into it by his adopted daughters, or his Arlessa or maybe even his half-elven lover - but mostly, it was because it was a holy day, and much as the Wardens liked to push their stewards and companions alike, there were a double handful of devout Andrasteans among the travelers. The faithful would not stand to move on during the holy days, and so Declan - blessed, steady, level-headed Declan - had found a small town in which to stay, and granted what amounted to a brief shore leave for all those who felt the need to go a-reveling.

Now, generally, Azabeth Kordura enjoyed Satinalia. Matt had taught her that it was a pickpocket's paradise, and true, even now she felt the pull to kleptomaniacal behavior, odds and ends that didn't belong to her oftentimes mysteriously turning up in her pack, or in her tent. (She particularly loved nicking Ariadne's jewelry - the Teventer mage might claim they were paste, but Az knew real gems and gold and silver when she saw it. Still, she gave the items up easily enough when Ariadne's frowning elven sex toy came hunting for them.) But this eve, for some reason she could not name, she was in a mood much more somber than was her wont; she wandered throughout the little village as if she were a redheaded ghost, winter's bite pinking her cheeks and raising gooseflesh along her arms. She passed through and among the celebrations, unnoticed and uncalled to - she was a stranger here, after all, and in her fey, detached frame of mind, even those who knew her well would have had trouble approaching her, with her blank eyes and maudlin face.

And those in her little adventure party, well, they certainly didn't know her as well as they all thought they did.

It was a few hours before dawn when she found herself on the steps of the Chantry; on holy nights, their doors never closed, welcoming the huddled and hushed masses to prayer and comfort. Without really knowing why, Azabeth allowed herself to be drawn inside, past the banks of guttering candles, past the rows and rows of empty pews. It was late enough - early enough? - that there were no sisters or brothers attending, no Chanters at their work minding both the candles and the words of Andraste. Az took the chance, nicked a candle from the corner of a stadium of them ("Sorry," she winced, shielding her face from Andraste's inscrutable gaze) and ducked into one of the many small side-alcoves, normally serving for private conversation or confession, now providing a guilt-ridden thief with the solitude she desired. The candle flickered with her every swift movement; it took only a trice for her to sweep closed the privacy curtains behind her, but once done she was rather more careful about her movements, setting the candle on the wooden bench, slowly removing and then neatly folding her winter cloak, kneeling down on the wooden planking that formed the floor, once rough-hewn and since smoothed by the passage of thousands of feet - and probably not a few knees.

For a woman who stoutly believed in making her own luck, it would have felt wrong, to pray or talk to Andraste. So instead, she chose to speak to a figure closer to home, and one who would have far more likely understood her predicament, or at least the barrage of feelings ricocheting around inside her skull.

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azabeth
2011-12-22 06:13 am UTC (link)

"I miss you," she blurted, when the words on her tongue had been so here we are; she was mildly mortified for a few moments, first that someone may have heard, second that she was talking to herself in a chantry and then had the gall to be embarrassed about it. The fact that she was in a chantry at all was proof positive enough that she had lost her bleeding mind, after all. But Azabeth had never been one to balk at anything, and given a moment in the thundering silence to gather her nerve again, the words began to flow, unbidden and cascading from one moment into the next.

"I miss you and I wish you were here," said the thief, starting once again, tipping her face that her scarlet hair hid her visage from the candlelight; she felt almost as if someone sat in judgment of her, that fate or luck or simple coincidence would take this moment of weakness out of her hide in some fashion that she was unable to foresee. She laced her fingers corset-tight against themselves, to keep from fidgeting with nervousness in the flickering dimness. "Sometimes when I least expect it, I find myself thinking of you, how easily you found humour in everything, even in the blackest of nights. I always envied that of you, you know," she admitted to the candle, head tilting to one side and her eyes skating sideways along the edge of the bench. "As they say in the Chant, your raiment was made of strength and honor, and you laughed in the face of the future. These are dark days, my friend, and I wish so dearly that I had such poise as you did."

Her teeth briefly met on her tongue; then she wet her lower lip, continued with a lowered gaze, as if afraid of being caught speaking the rest of her confession aloud. "I am both certain that you are dead and terrified that it is so," she whispered, "but I miss your counsel and your friendship, all the same."

Their time together had been short, but full of a passion Azabeth had thought long lost to her - dead, or stolen, or buried years since, with the love she had once felt for Conlan Delaine that the man himself had put firmly into the ground, no matter what her aching heart could say. But then for a bright, brief time, her heart had felt lifted, and she had felt an inkling, no, a surety of a future, of something greater than the sum of its parts awaiting her just over the horizon, if only she could have the patience or the cunning or the wit to reach it -

- Only to have it fade, like the stars at dawn, cold and distant and unmourned, except by those who dwelt in the moonless black.

Perhaps it was a girl's fanciful dreaming. Perhaps she put more stake into what they had so fleetingly had that it merited - but Azabeth was still a girl, somewhere in her lonely heart, and tears pricked in her eyes as she contemplated the possibility that their two ships had passed in the night, a chance at happiness lost forever, and that there was nothing, nothing that she could have done about it.

Sometimes, the greatest of love stories did not end well..... and sometimes, they did not begin at all.

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azabeth
2011-12-22 06:13 am UTC (link)

"And so it is - just like you said it would be," said Azabeth, her voice cracking on forced laughter at the poetry of it as salt tracked down her road-dusted cheeks. "The shorter story; no love and no glory. Not much of an end for the likes of us, is it?" Unfortunately, it did not take much of her vivid, powerful imagination to foresee what had become of him. Ferelden was a hard land, and the road he had chosen to take - been called to take, if Az was being honest with herself and his memory - was hardest of all. Very likely he had died fighting, a warrior's bloody death, reaving a blood-soaked swath of carnage across the battlefield as he went - felled at the end by a great creature, perhaps, or by stealth and trickery (he never had watched his back to her satisfaction) or simply by exhaustion.

Face down in the muck, streaked and tattered with blood, mud and rain, the passionate fire leaching from his eyes, like water from a cracked vessel.

She clenched her eyes shut against the image, her hands rising to cover her face, as if she could prevent such an occurrence simply by denying the thought had ever existed.

Must I always be the one that is left behind?

She left the candle where it was, unable to bear the thought of snuffing it out, and retreated into the night in a swirl of her cloak-hem, a flurry of fallen snow, and chased by the memory of the deep-chested laughter of Aurin Demarc.

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