Cosette Fauchelevent (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lark_in_flight) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
milliways_bar2017-01-05 11:32 pm
lark_in_flight) wrote in milliways_bar2017-01-05 11:32 pm
Twelfth Night Party, Pontmercy style!
You -- yes, you, whoever you are -- got an invitation to the party. All of Milliways is welcome!
If you choose to come, you'll find Bar directing you to a big round tent that went up this afternoon on the lawn outside the bar. Marius and Cosette and various friends spent a lot of time this morning ferrying decorations in, and the waitrats spent a lot of time in the afternoon ferrying food in, but the doors won't officially open until close to sunset.
But this isn't a cheap white plastic tent, oh no. It's warm and domed and made of thick fabric, something like a very large yurt. A bit of magic keeps out the drafts, making everything extra cozy.
There's a fire in the middle of the floor, with a low screen encircling it but also magic meaning that this fire puts of warmth but will not actually burn anything, even if you step right into it. The floor is wood -- great for dancing, if you feel like it! There's a piano over against the wall for anyone who wants to make some music.
Everywhere there are garlands of European evergreen branches and herbs, studded with bright dried fruit and sparkling ornaments. (Mistletoe might very well be among them, though the Pontmercies haven't thought to supply that as an intentional party game.) There are candles and lanterns everywhere, and a big chandelier. There are no electric lights at all -- it's all fire -- but a good number of them are magical, so that nothing's going to get set on fire or covered with smoke. The general intended impression is of genteel, welcoming festivity, in a very French and very early 19th century European way.
There are food and drinks galore. Come in and enjoy the party!
[OOC: Party-style post! Subthreads for various categories and activities, etc. Open from now until whenever!
Edit: As of Joly's arrival, Cosette now has a mini-polaroid camera. Fear, Milliways. Feel free to assume that she's popped up to take a candid picture of your character(s) at any point, as long as they're not doing or wearing anything scandalous! She will happily give the resulting picture to your character if they want; it probably won't be a very good picture, in terms of composition or focus, but it will be cheerfully enthusiastic.]
If you choose to come, you'll find Bar directing you to a big round tent that went up this afternoon on the lawn outside the bar. Marius and Cosette and various friends spent a lot of time this morning ferrying decorations in, and the waitrats spent a lot of time in the afternoon ferrying food in, but the doors won't officially open until close to sunset.
But this isn't a cheap white plastic tent, oh no. It's warm and domed and made of thick fabric, something like a very large yurt. A bit of magic keeps out the drafts, making everything extra cozy.
There's a fire in the middle of the floor, with a low screen encircling it but also magic meaning that this fire puts of warmth but will not actually burn anything, even if you step right into it. The floor is wood -- great for dancing, if you feel like it! There's a piano over against the wall for anyone who wants to make some music.
Everywhere there are garlands of European evergreen branches and herbs, studded with bright dried fruit and sparkling ornaments. (Mistletoe might very well be among them, though the Pontmercies haven't thought to supply that as an intentional party game.) There are candles and lanterns everywhere, and a big chandelier. There are no electric lights at all -- it's all fire -- but a good number of them are magical, so that nothing's going to get set on fire or covered with smoke. The general intended impression is of genteel, welcoming festivity, in a very French and very early 19th century European way.
There are food and drinks galore. Come in and enjoy the party!
[OOC: Party-style post! Subthreads for various categories and activities, etc. Open from now until whenever!
Edit: As of Joly's arrival, Cosette now has a mini-polaroid camera. Fear, Milliways. Feel free to assume that she's popped up to take a candid picture of your character(s) at any point, as long as they're not doing or wearing anything scandalous! She will happily give the resulting picture to your character if they want; it probably won't be a very good picture, in terms of composition or focus, but it will be cheerfully enthusiastic.]
Re: Meet and Greet
He's worried she might find some of them scandalous - mostly the years in Antioch, with Mariam - so he's thinking about what he can tell that would amuse her without straying into that.
"And many more to come, it is to be hoped. Will you stay in Paris, or make your home elsewhere?"
Re: Meet and Greet
Because Cosette is a Victor Hugo character, she has never imagined herself living outside Paris, really. Visiting, certainly, perhaps even having a pied-à-terre or living for a year or two if her father's mysterious reasons compelled it, but not living outside Paris for good.
"We haven't discussed it. But, well, Paris is where we both are from. My husband and I, we've both always lived there."
Re: Meet and Greet
Cadfael nods.
"That is as good a reason as any to stay, if you both remain happy there as it certainly seems you do. Strong foundations to build on, without which there can be no security at all. I only passed through Paris in my travelling days, on my way East."
(Which may have been a detour because he wanted to see it.)
Re: Meet and Greet
Re: Meet and Greet
He smiles. "It was a great many years ago and I had many happy days there. I came first as a soldier and stayed as a sailor on trading ships, calling at many ports, and then settled for a while in the city of Antioch. It was there I learned much of what I know of herbs."
Re: Meet and Greet
She doesn't even exactly know where that is, except that it's in the Holy Land somewhere. It sounds far-off and exotic and mysterious to her, a sheltered girl who's never left her city. (And who lives in an era when the word orientalism hadn't been coined yet. We're sorry.)
"How amazing! Oh, I know nothing of such things, but that sounds marvelous!"
Re: Meet and Greet
"I found it much more to my liking as a boy than being apprentice to a wool merchant as I was for two years, and likely never leaving the isles - or not by very far, at any rate - or working my family's parcel of land as I waited for the right to till it to pass to me." He doesn't often think about these things now, and there's a wistful - but not unhappy - smile on his face. "So, at sixteen, I joined Robert of Normandy's troops, and off I went."
Re: Meet and Greet
Of course it makes perfect sense. How else does a young man see so much of the world? There are ways, but not many. But it's not her first thought, when looking at this mild, humble holy brother.
"Was it a Crusade?"
Again: Cosette's society has never met any orientalism or ethnocentrism it didn't like, just yet. So she might have vague concerns about the poor people of Algeria in her present day, insofar as she thinks about such things (which is not much at all), but she finds this purely exciting. A Crusader! A holy brother who fought in far-off holy lands for Christianity! How noble and exciting!
Re: Meet and Greet
Nor would he expect anyone to think of it, to look at him now - or want them to.
"It was. The First Crusade, in the year 1096, and a great adventure for a young man it was." He doesn't feel the need to go into the things he did and saw in the heat of battle, especially not with a bright-eyed innocent girl such as Cosette. "I was there when Jerusalem was won, and saw Godfrey crowned its king, from a distance."
Re: Meet and Greet
"To see Jerusalem won for Christendom! Oh, that must have been marvelous. What a life you've led, brother!"
Re: Meet and Greet
"It isn't one I speak of a great deal nowadays. I'm told", he says, with a touch of dryness directed at someone not present, "it is not good for the novice brothers to hear tales of adventure beyond their scope, though it is no secret that I took the cowl late in life and often they ask. I myself was not ready to turn for home after the First Crusade was done, so I stayed in the East, sailing cargo boats."
Re: Meet and Greet
"Yes, I suppose that's sensible! The holy sisters at the convent where I grew up never spoke of worldly things, they never liked us girls to speak much of them either. They lived the soul's greatest adventure, of devotion to God, that's the sort of thing they'd say about it. They're wonderful, they're holy, but I admit it, I like the little adventures of the world too."
It's a careful line she's trying to walk, because she doesn't want to sound at all as if she's criticizing the cloistered life, or the good nuns of the Petit-Picpus convent. But she is glad, for her own sake, that her father moved them out to a house when she was 14, and that she's found worldly love and marriage and the ability to host parties and walk about the city, and that she can hear stories of glory and adventure.
Re: Meet and Greet
Cadfael smiles at her.
"It is not a life that suits everyone, and no more should it be. The world needs all its wondrous variety, which of itself some will like better than others."
Re: Meet and Greet
Re: Meet and Greet
"Thank you", he says lightly. "But as much of a pleasure as it is to speak with you, you mustn't let me take up all your time if you have other guests to greet?"