#7kpp week

Day 1 - Background (Remix)

What is your character's background and why did you pick it? How do they feel about it? If you've talked about this before, you can instead consider the following: Have you considered using an existing MC for one of the secret backgrounds? Is there another background you think might be interesting for your MC? Elements of another background you could incorporate into them for an AU?

Day 2 - Date Night

If your MC had a friendship date (or a real one), what would it be? How would it play out? Who would they invite? What stat(s) would it raise? What would the achievement for success be named?

Day Three - Letters

Over the course of the game, we received letters written from loved ones of both our characters and our LIs. Who would send the LI a letter on behalf of your MC? What would it say?

Day Four - Angst Week (Turnabout)

Let's share in the angst of week 5! If your LI had a near-death experience during the courting phase, how would your MC react? Alternatively, did your MC ever consider breaking things off? If so, why?

Day Five - Secrets

If your MC had a discoverable secret at the Summit for other characters to find, what would it be? Would it be a chain? Something that is needed to get to know them? Is it blackmail material?

Day Six - Suitcase

Does your MC bring any non-essentials with them to the Summit? What do they take home with them afterwards?

Day Seven - Epilogue

Conway scans the horizon, looking for the ship the spotters at the docks had reported. The Blackwater, they’d thought.

The ship returning with his son. And, if nothing had gotten mucked up on the trip, his future daughter-in-law.

The jewel of the Corvali delegation, to hear everyone tell it. Trust Hamin to manage to do the one thing he wasn’t expecting.

It probably would have been more efficient for Corval to send her on a boat themselves, but Hamin had volunteered. He’s always had a fancy for the idea of properly kidnapping one’s spouse. (At least he, unlike some of Hise’s youth, realizes that the phrase “kidnapping” is mostly a joke these days. Once or twice every year, Conway has to deal with some wayward upstart who took it bit too literally, and their disgruntled would-be spouse.)

Based on Hamin’s behavior shortly before he left, there’s also a very real possibility he would have gone stir-crazy if he’d had to wait that extra week or two before seeing her again. The pacing, the early morning walks to the shore, the smiling off into space when he thinks no one’s looking. It’s good to see him—it’s good to see.

As the Blackwater draws closer, Conway puts the looking glass up to his eye and scans the deck.

It’s pretty easy to pick her out. There’s only one person on deck in a skirt, and she’s got her hands on the railing, leaning forward eagerly, like her new life will start sooner if she can spot it. He knows that look.

The dockmaster catches him then, with a long list of annoyances he’s been meaning to bring to the council. Some of it really does need to be looked into, but a lot of it…

By the time he finally gets free, the Blackwater’s docked and they’re dropping the gangplank. He spots his son directing from the deck, making sure it’s firmly settled before heading over to the woman he’d spotted through the looking glass.

She’s stepped back from the railing, gathering up her skirts as she looks over her shoulder and smiles at him.

Hamin scoops her up and lifts her off her feet, carrying her down the gangplank like a prize.

(It’s pretty much exactly what Conway was expecting, but from the woman’s surprised look, she wasn’t.)

She thumps his chest playfully, laughing. “Hamin, put me down!” If Conway hadn’t already known she was Corvali, the lilting edge to her words would make it clear.

“Mm…no, I think I like you like this.” He looks over and grins. “Hi Dad.”

“I—Hamin!” she breaks off into breathless laughter. “I can’t—introduce myself—to your father like this!”

“Sure you can,” he says. “Dad, this is Shahira. Shahira, Dad.”

She inhales deeply between bouts of silent giggles, clearly struggling to compose herself, and twists around to face him, her cheeks flushed with laughter. “I’m—pleased to meet you, sir.” She tugs at the dangling fall of her skirt in something that might be aspiring to become a curtsy.  

He holds out a hand for her to shake, and she takes it, still laughing.

They look good together. Young, happy, ready to start a life side-by-side.

It reminds him of—

He firmly drags his mind away from that well-trodden path. She’s not coming back. He hopes she’s happy, wherever she is. Hopes she’d be proud of their son.

But he’ll just have to be proud enough for both of them.

Jiyel

Scholars differ on whether Jiyel or Revaire has the longest theatrical tradition, but no one questions that Jiyelese theater is an ancient and varied art that takes a very different form than it does in any of the other nations. The following are just a few examples of Jiyelese traditions as there are too many to go over here.

Single-gender Productions

Until the mixing of cultures brought about by the formation of the summits, it was seen as improper for actors of different sexes to share the same stage in Jiyel. While this view is no longer widely held, the tradition of single-gender troupes is such that there are still many active today. In both all-women and all-men troupes, actors are broken into “male roles” and “female roles” based on the gender they tend to play on stage. While there are plenty of members of these single-gender troupes who blend into mainstream Jiyelese society by marrying someone of the opposite sex during their career or after their retirement, it’s something of an open secret that single-gender troupes often provide a relatively safe space for the exploration of non-traditional gender or sexual identities. Some actors or actresses live with each other for their entire lives as partners both on and off the stage. 

Busu

Among the common folk of Jiyel, there is a wildly popular form of theater known as busu which makes use of stock characters, exaggerated and formulaic motions, and slapstick to tell comedic stories. While commonly looked down upon by those of the upper class, busu productions are often more than meets the eye and will hide biting social commentary behind their simple plot lines.*

*This is based on kyogen, which is great and more people should know about it and maybe I will talk about it sometime when I’m not very tired from my job. 

Arland

Theater is not viewed as favorably in Arland as it is in the other nations, but even Arland has its unique theatrical traditions. 

Tableau Vivant

In general, it is viewed as vulgar to take up a living as an actor or actress in Arland, but drama-based games are still a popular pastime among the nobility and are often featured at parties. Of particular note is the creation of tableaux, which involve dressing up and posing to make scenes from famous paintings, literature, or history. 

Nude Tableaux 

Beside her, Zarad pushed Sabine’s game chips over along with his own. “I am afraid we always sit at the card table with the princess to our doom.”

“She sure is--” Emmett started, interrupted by a tonsil-revealing yawn. “--the best here.  Sorry.”

Cordelia gave him a practiced and indulgent smile. “I hope you all have enjoyed yourselves.  I certainly have, but I am afraid I am quite tired.  I think I shall retire.”

“I think that is a good idea,” Clarmont said.  He stood to pull Cordelia’s chair.

“Oh, no!” Sabine protested.  She fluttered the fingers of one hand, a champagne flute in the other. “Oh, don’t go, loves!  I haven’t lost nearly enough yet!”

Cordelia, Clarmont, and Emmett smiled and made their apologies.  They left the parlor, leaving the dwindling little clusters of chatting delegates and the ever-deepening shadows.  It had become the habit of the more night- and company-inclined guests to linger together in the parlor for after-dinner drinks.  For the last few days Zarad and Sabine had run a cards table with rotating partners as their friend’s obligations changed.

Zarad leaned back to the little rolling cart with its ice bucket and pulled the champagne bottle out.  His silken robes slid a bit more open (shocking that such a thing was even possible!) and the low candlelight went gliding over his desert moon skin.  He caught her looking and gave her one of the smuggest smolders she’d witnessed yet.  She returned a very arch brow.

“Congratulations are in order,” he said, pouring the bottle’s last drops into his glass.

“Excuse me?  I know you are a little unique in the head, but you can’t have already forgotten that I am considerably lighter in the purse tonight.”

“Now, now,” he said. “You don’t have to be so modest with me.  You’ve succeeded in your greatest ambition, dear.  Quite an accomplishment!”

She sipped at her glass and didn’t dignify him with a comment.

Undeterred, he leaned forward with a smile and a wafter of spiced perfume. “You’ve finally gotten me alone, all to yourself.”

Sabine stared at him. “You know, you have gotten quite presumptuous of lately.  Assuming you know my mind before I do.  Quite ungentlemanly.”

“Gentleman?  I should hope I would never be called that.  I don’t know how well I could bear such an insult.  And the only thing I know is that I am helpless to stop the heights to which I bedazzle you.”

She placed her flute on the green felt of the card table and pulled some the discarded hands closer to them.

“I don’t believe that a bit,” she said, using a finger to flip some cards over, one by one. “In fact, I think-- no, I know you have caught on to more than you show.  So show me.”

He gazed at her with quizzical smile. “Show you?”

“Tell me which card I am.”

And she flushed then-- because his the muscles around his eyes relaxed that small bit that told her he was looking at her with the constant mask had lifted.  Lifted just enough for her to peek under-- but it was enough.  Those peeks felt like being trapped together, nose to nose, beneath a veil.  She wouldn’t say it, but he was right.  He bedazzled her with his night eyes.

Zarad looked down at the cards, his crooked smile curling back up.  His fingers danced over the remains of their games.

“It depends,” he said, tone low, “Which version of you we’re speaking of.”

She tilted her head, long earrings swinging. “I have versions?”

“If it is the Red Baroness of Revaire we speak of--”

He pushed a card face-up toward her.  The queen of clubs, wielding her scepter in a threatening fist.  The queen of violence.  Of aggression, self-service.

Zarad’s fingers left the queen of clubs to pick up another card. “If it is the public Sabine, the baroness you present to society--”

Beside the queen of clubs, he laid down another.  The queen of diamonds.  The materialistic woman.  Wordly and unmindful of greater concerns.

He gazed at her as he selected and put down a third card. “But beneath even that--”

The queen of hearts.  The queen of love.  Love both romantic and platonic, and the people’s queen.

Sabine propped her chin on a hand; Cordelia would be horrified at such a casual and unladylike pose.  But she couldn’t help it.  He was so dangerous, because he made her want to drop each and every facade and game.  She smiled at him.

He gazed back for a long moment.  He blinked and dropped his eyes to the cards, surprising her.

She tapped the queen of hearts sitting by her two sisters. “And this is the true Sabine?”

He smiled and stared at it. “I wonder.”

Before the moment went too long and too close, Zarad’s hand reached for the cards again.  He plucked one up, brows back down into their flirty set and his eyes glittering.

“As for myself--” He laid his card down with a flourish. “The jack of hearts: the constant servant and devotee to his queen.”

The jack and queen of hearts stared up at them from the green felt.  They certainly looked a pair, with their matching red ink hearts and twining roses.

Sabine hummed. “Again, you are always so slippery.”

“Oh?”

“In some games the jack is the highest ranking, and in others it is the lowest.  Your jack plays at the lover, but he is a trickster.” She raised a brow at him; he smiled vaguely. “I believe it is my turn?”

She reached forward and shifted through the mess of cards.  When she found it, she glanced up and carefully laid it down before him.

The king of hearts.

They were two of the last delegates left in the parlor, and she could feel the eyes of the servants at the edges of the room.  She was afraid there was a particular pair of violet eyes boring a hole in her head, but at the moment nothing mattered more to her than the eyes in front of her.

The king hearts is unique of all the kings, not holding his weapon before him.  Rather, his hand held a sword aloft, stabbing backward and appearing to go straight through his skull.  The suicide king, he’s called.  The king of sacrifice, of ill-fated ends.

She watched him stare at the card, and she watched him command the muscles of his face into a smooth facade.  She summoned her own soft smile, as aware as he of the eyes in the room on them.

“I worry,” she near-whispered, “That the path you’re on is treacherous and unforgiving.  It is narrow-- too narrow to allow you the comfort of your true thoughts and feelings.  That you kill the Zarad you deserve to be constantly.  Every day.”

She ran a finger up the side of the little paperboard card. “But you know, there is a different interpretation of the king of hearts; that he is not stabbing himself, but brandishing his sword high in victory.”

Her finger walked from the card across the table to his hand resting on the felt.  She slipped her fingers beneath his.  Their eyes met.

“That is the Zarad I see,” she said, voice so low it was little more than a silent mouthing.

His eyes roamed over her.  Then darted beyond her, and back again.  He smiled. “Then the situation is worse than I feared; you have become so bedazzled that you are quite seeing things.  It seems it is time for us to finally part-- no, don’t cling, dear, we must be strong.”

She slipped her hand from his with a wry glare, just as Jasper materialized silently at her shoulder.

“My lady--”

“Yes, Jasper,” Sabine said, standing.  Zarad stood as well, and she eyed him. “I was just giving some wasted advice to this fool I found here.  But I had best be on my way now.”

Jasper gave a half-bow and stood aside waiting.  She gave one last raised brow to the usual sparkling smoulder in Zarad’s eye, and she dipped into the habitual curtsy before turning.

And she stopped.  Because she’d laid her hand on the back of the chair she’d been sitting in as she turned to sweep her skirts free of the card table and its ornate chairs, and on the hand she’d so thoughtlessly dropped to the back of chair now laid Zarad’s hand.  His fingers caught her pinky and ring finger, and they lightly squeezed before letting go.  When she looked up, his smile did not pull a bit out of place or his eyes register anything out of his usual nonsense.

She did not fare so well.  The suddenness had surprised her, and so her defenses were quite helpless against the strange intimacy of such a small thing.  Heat rose in her face.