therookery | a raffle;

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Val & Wysteria
RECIPIENT: Riftwatch
NOTES: Val is in red. Wysteria is in blue. If you comment on this post, in any form, your character is automatically entered in the raffle to win Thedas' first medieval bike. The winner will be randomized at the end of the month.

[What's the one thing all but guaranteed to send a shiver up the spine? An ominous whiff of smoke on the air? The faint stirring of dread? The breath of a spirit across the back of the neck?

No! It's a familiar prim clearing of the throat followed by—]

Good afternoon, Riftwatch! This is Wysteria Poppe—er de Foncé speaking along with—Monsieur de Foncé as well.

[Poorly done. But onward!:]

We would like to announce a contest. And yes, before you ask, there is a prize.

To begin with: notoriety. This is good for a man’s name, and good for a man’s career--or a woman’s, of course! But one cannot subsist upon mere notoriety, even if it does facilitate the linings of one’s purse or pockets by furnishing future opportunities. And so for those materials of desire, we are pleased to say that there is something more, something physical that one will gain from participation in this contest. Something entirely unique. Think of it! You will be the envy of all society, the talk of all parties that you attend, the name whispered in drawing rooms and salons and parlors--notoriety!--and then the something! Further reward.

By now you cannot resist this temptation.

Yes! The prize is of an extremely physical nature. And happily, there is only a very modest requirement for entering this contest. One need only make an appearance in the main courtyard this afternoon and attempt to mount and ride the something. It is a prototype which requires testing, you see. And so the winner of the contest will be able to boast of having the first ever of this particular creation before it becomes wildly popular abroad in all the fine cities and various courts.

Valentine, you've ridden it. Tell them how pleasurable the experience is.

In a word: beyond. If you are suffering under the belief that you yourself have experienced the pleasure of a ride? You have not. Not until you have taken a turn upon the something. This experience is akin to nothing else. Smooth, easy, entirely lacking in the occasionally uncomfortable quivering one might experience during--ah, no, there are not words with which to describe it, not truly. One must simply experience.

Which is precisely why you—the general you; I am addressing you all in Riftwatch once more—really must come. Also because I would be very personally appreciative. But mostly on account of the prize. Once more, that is to the main courtyard this afternoon if you wish to have a chance to win the something.

[Her voice becomes tinny; Wysteria must have turned her face toward her accomplice and away from the crystal. 'It really does need a proper name. Maybe that should have been one of the prizes—']

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh really. There is no need to make it sound so— I really don't understand why everyone has decided to be so—

I don't wish to hear how you spend your evenings, sir.

Oh. You'd rather have a demonstration, then?

[This is the pause where he'd be fanning himself ever-so-gently, fingertips tap-tap-tapping at his own collarbone.]

Darling Wysteria I never knew you fancied me. All this time I thought it was...animosity between us, not animalism.

I stand sternly corrected.

[A beat before he adds, slyly:]

I'll see you there.

I am a married woman, sir!

Well he can join in too.

[As if that is the part of this equation that's causing friction.]

Gods, darling, I'm not a bore.

Ah, but I believe Madame's protest is that she now holds only animosity for those around her. It is a portion of the vows made at the marriage so often overlooked--I believe its history has roots in Andraste's betrayal--but I am no scholar of religion!

I am sorry to dash your hopes, monsieur.

[Ordinarily, in any case slightly less obscene, Wysteria might take exception with this characterization. However—]

Just so. So you see, it's quite impossible.

[He's silent for an overly long minute, before:]

So what you're saying is that if you were both somehow divorced, there'd be no problem.

[Scoff. SCOFF!]

Really, Mister—Astarion. Must you be so relentlessly foul minded? Where is your sense of—of invention and discovery? Of curiosity! Those cannot be solely constrained to your—

Trousers.

Ah, but ma biche, has he not already agreed to be in attendance? This, clearly, indicates a mind of curiosity--and to me suggests that all this is but a farce, to disguise how keenly interested the owner of that mind truly is.

Mm.

Clever lad.

[Offhanded. Maybe a little amused.]

But you have to admit, it is fun ruffling all her delicate little feathers.

[Oh, but:]

And I actually don't mean that as an innuendo, for the record.

Of course you do not. But even so, I shall have to take your word for it, monsieur, for I do not have any inkling of what you might mean.

I certainly derive no pleasure from any feather-ruffling whatsoever, regardless of the size of feathers under discussion--and certainly I do not ever raise any controversial or easily-arguable topics with my lady wife simply for the joy of beginning a debate--and most undoubtably I do not engage in any sort of spirited disagreement with her for sport or for the simple amusement of hearing her voice rise several, several octaves, or to behold the phenomenon of the shade of her skin turn a very fetching shade of pink or red or--if it is a topic most infuriating--purple. I should not know anything of any of that whatsoever. A foreign concept to me, yes? Highly foreign.

My voice does not rise several, several octaves!

[—She protests, in several (several) rising octaves.]

Ooh, there it is.

I'll defer to the expert— [oops] I mean, inexpert. The man who absolutely, definitely, would never do a thing to agitate his beloved pet darling.

Never at all. Which is indeed a mighty sacrifice upon my part, monsieur. You cannot imagine the sport of agitation that I am now missing out on. I shall be commemorated one day, I am certain of it.

Post-mortem, perhaps, if things continue on as they are.

I'll try to remember to bring flowers.

[In exactly the same tone of suffering,] No lilies.

[While plugging one ear as a paltry defense against the operatic turn that her tone takes--]

Of course it does not! We are in the completest of agreements!

a raffle;

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