everyone shifts masks, every hour of every day. for maxima, from fairbanks
thrust // accepting // @middener @midd3n
"Hm."
Daphné smiles, head tilting to the side. Perhaps yes, she didn't know many orlesians that attended important courtly events that didn't have masks. Physical or otherwise. But everyone did have masks, he was not the same man here, sharing a glass of cheap wine served in a cup that should never be used in pleasant or polite company. He was certainly not polite company, though he could dress himself up to be and she was dressed as polite company though the form that lingered beneath shifted - just like the masks that he mentioned.
"Revolutionary, leader—" two fingers raise through the cloud of alcohol and the warm voice hoarse from the singing earlier in the night. This would be a regret in the morning when she would need to rise just as early and look presentable and yet still feel the warmth of the alcohol and the biting of the fatigue in her lids. One finger lowers, though lifts again. It could be both in one "champion of the poor, patron saint of lost causes, dead man."
Nothing in the interaction is poisonous. Not the wine or the lining of the cup, only the hand that pushes it in his direction. Green eyes find his from across the table, mirth dancing in the candle light and on the bare lips now cleaned from the red paint that she had worn through the day.
It too was a mask that he wore, was it not? One did not bear the shape of those that would consider themselves his betters if his hands had not dug through the very heartbeat of what made Orlais tick. It required an analytical eye, sure, but one needed to know where to look still. His name was starting to pick up among circles that spoke it like he was already a martyr to his cause.
Some even joked how the Emerald Graves had known many beyond than the elves that had died for their cause, and that it seemed that Orlais was to see history repeat itself.
"I know the shape of those masks very well." though hers were far less evocative, far simpler just like the masks provided to her to clearly identify her as a servant. A mere entertainer despite the clothes and the poise. They fit her and while they shifted they did what they were meant to do: keep her protected "Is this the life you had envisioned for yourself, Fairbanks?"