Valentia is alive again! Still kind of torn up about the servants. Mostly because she failed in the mission that was assigned to her, and a little bit because she absolutely cannot bounce ideas for what to wear when their new host is entertaining off of any of the survivors. She hadn't really had to worry about this at Charthagnion Manor. She honestly finds Archduke Narikopolus moderately creepy, given she can remember what things were like three years ago, but for everything he's done, she has not heard that he's ever destroyed someone for wearing insufficiently fancy or feminine clothing to a gathering. Her brother once told her that he did torture a man to death for leaving a bone in a fish, but she thinks it was a guest's plate and not his own, which is technically speaking a positive sign about how he treats his guests. Sort of.

- anyway! Valentia brought her mother's sleeves of many garments (and still has them, since her corpse wasn't looted), so she can wear absolutely anything she wants. She tried wearing the kind of gown that the Duchess de Chelam does - slightly simpler, so as not to outshine anyone - but she's not used to the sleeves, and not used to the idea that she can simply take them off and be wearing her adventuring dress underneath. The dress fit her perfectly and was perfectly comfortable, but somehow she felt like she couldn't breathe, under all of those layers of fabric. Her body still felt like it might need to run at a moment's notice, and you can't run at all, wearing something like that. It wouldn't take a moment to remove the sleeves, but her lungs simply will not believe her about that.

So in fact she is wearing an adventuring dress to a social gathering. You could only very debatably call this a faux pas in Ilnea. It's tasteful! It's expensive looking! It's feminine! It is, objectively, very beautiful! But it's the sort of thing you could run in if you had to, and it's not what the Duchess is wearing at all, and she has no idea how much of a misstep it is in this company. She's gambling that it's less of a misstep than not breathing.

The archduchess is back, after days of wearing herself out too much for proper socializing. She's moving slowly, but relatively cheerful; tired like returning from a long but successful hunt.

She's dressed in a relatively narrow gown with a patterned print of songbirds on white and a high waist, which cuts off just above the ankles except for a train in the back, loosely based on what was fashionable in Galt or Andoran a few years ago.

"I heard you acquitted yourself very well, Lady Valentia," she says as she takes a seat, "I'm glad to see you are well and whole again."

Archduke Xavier's own arrival is, of course, flashy, since he is the sort of man to wear military uniform to many, many occasions, which he forgoes here only because his peacekeeping authorities have been archducal, not noble. Instead he is wearing clothes suitable for a nobleman who has to actually fight, which quietly rustles in a way that suggests he's wearing armor under it. "Indeed," he says. "You died as we all should, when our times come."

Joan-Pau probably counts as a subtype of those counts she wants to compliment, or at least those counts who, while not an ideal choice for her own marriage, are at least not shockingly terrible. He can dress well*, if not extraordinarily, and he looks good, and he's fifth circle, and he only occasionally accidentally makes enemies due to constantly underestimating how terrible everything in Cheliax is.

Anyway, he's here!

(*: This calls for a brief interlude in the current state of the Molthuni signaling equilibrium. Sleeves of Many Garments are very expensive by the standards of commoners, but cheap by the standards of the nobility. You would expect, therefore, that coming to court in one of them would be a sign of desperate poverty, but in fact one of the major cliques of the younger generation in Molthune has been pointedly wearing inherited sleeves to formal occasions in defiance of their elders since Galt rebelled, as a way of demonstrating that they were true patriots who spent their wealth on soldiers and magic items, unlike their decadent parents and cousins, and therefore much more suitable to give military commands to. Joan-Pau sold his silks when he was seventeen and is therefore semi-accidentally saying that he thinks the war is not over yet, due to being incapable of buying another set.)

Eulàlia despite having been making a point of reliably supporting the liberal nobles in everything they do had not yet received an invitation to their events, nor was she expecting to; she is the daughter of a notorious man, young and without friends here in Westcrown, until by sheer fortunate accident she was handed responsibility for getting the druids of the Barrowwood maps of Plant Growth routes through the whole Heartlands and half of Sirmium. She was expecting to prosper by that, eventually, unless it instead got her killed, but she wasn't particularly expecting it to improve things this soon. 

She'll delightedly attend, though! She has far less wealth than other parties present in terms of 'political capital' or 'assurance she won't be disposed of as soon as the Queen meets someone who wants Seguer', but she has plenty of wealth in the form of beautiful dresses, and Cheliax is not so turned on its head that it is not advantageous to look rich.

Being complimented by two archdukes on the manner of her death is really not on the list of experiences Valentia expected to ever have, let alone be present to have to respond to, but she will do her best!

"Thank you both, you're very kind. I would rather have succeeded, of course, but I suppose we can only choose if we fight, not if we win."

Heloisa was quite disappointed that the riots put a temporary end to events where her daughters could be induced to speak to fine young noblemen thus far bereft of wives, and is glad to return to her true work. The Duchess de Chelam, unmarried as she is, is in theory their direct competitor, but there is such an overwhelming flood of unmarried noblemen at this time that she dares hope they can all achieve their aims.

Scholastica does not especially wish to speak to any of these people, but she can appreciate the necessity of both marriage and of meeting the people who she will spend the rest of her life working with. Her priority ought to be physical power, she thinks. Scholastica is overwhelmed at the thought of eventually managing a duchy herself, but it doesn't seem completely hopeless. Defending one seems hopeless.

Carlota has actually put a lot of thought into what she wants from a husband but it all came out a little depressing. The thing is that she ought to have a lot of children; one of Cheliax's most important present deficiencies is the kinship networks that let the nobility sometimes back down from a war with one another, and there are at least five alliances by marriage she'd arrange if she had anyone to hand out for them. And if she marries a man with a title (and she means to) she'll need a reasonable crop of options for his lands, too, and she's already 27, which is old to be getting started. She ought to plan to spend the next decade continually with child, and she's well aware that this is famously exhausting and might well prove incompatible with running Chelam, defending Chelam, clearing out all the monsters in Chelam, occasionally participating in the kind of high stakes politics in Westcrown where one values the ability to flee a mob as a gas, and otherwise pulling her country together.

Her task is less burdensome if she marries a man without a title, in that she could probably get by with four children not eight, but a man without a title will want to run Chelam, and she finds something particularly dreadful about anticipating the sort of marriage she spends trying to fence her husband out of the political power that is hers by right while, of course, obeying him in all other things as is her duty. 


This leaves marrying a man who has his own title and doesn't want Chelam, is powerful enough he can divert some resources towards it if she needs them, and ideally likes her for the person she is at present while also handling it reasonably gracefully if she is too exhausted to keep it up; she prefers that to 'finds the person she is right now vaguely annoying, but will probably like her better once she's too exhausted to do any politicking', even though objectively the latter would be fine, because she does not really want to resent her husband and she worries that she will if he thinks that bearing him eight children and being too tired to do anything else improves her. But then, the only options are someone who'll gracefully tolerate it and someone who'll actively prefer it, and perhaps it's a very dangerous arrogance to look for the first. Blessed Iomedae, show us the path of duty.....ah, actually, You just decided to remain celibate. 

Carlota's anxiety about the whole thing has not of course stopped her from politely but unambiguously flirting with the archdukes and Lord Cansellarion. With everyone else she's aimed for good working relationships, but with a mind to which of those good working relationships could turn into a marriage in a pinch.

Salut would not marry for the good of the realm if her life depended on it, and it does not. Give her an adventurer with poetry in his heart and not the slightest taint of hell about him, or give her nothing at all.

He's aware, of course, that many of the noble attendees of the convention are looking for husbands or wives, especially those resurrected out of the past without whatever spouses they may have had originally. He probably ought to be working on it himself. It's still going to be awkward, especially given the recent revelations about his family that no reasonable person would hold against him to his face but might well still consider when choosing a father for their children. At any rate he expects to spend much of the dinner answering less-than-pleasant questions about his genealogy.

... one advantage of the Menadorian nobility with all its tieflings and orcs is that they know they live in a glass house with respect to this sort of thing. Valentia doesn't look hellblooded. in fact she's quite pretty, and she seems much more interesting than the typical noblewoman—

Huh, what the fuck? Where did that come from? He buries it; she's the exact opposite of who he should be looking for along so many axes.

Juan is present! He greets his host politely, and introduces his sister.

Lucretia is not currently holding up an invisible sign reading "HELP, I'M TRAPPED IN MY INSANE BROTHER'S HOUSE", but only because she's not sure whether it'll help right now. She convinced her brother to bring here using reasoned argumentation - that is, observing that he can make allies by arranging a match for her. So they have the same goal! The goal for her to end up in someone else's house, and not his!

Jilia has not entirely gotten used to the idea that she ought to need children. The Lord Mayoralty isn't properly inherited and she had a chosen successor if she happened to die in a position to favor one. What she actually believed was that she'd either die condemned a traitor for dancing too close to the edge of Asmodean orthodoxy or survive to die in the revolution that would have come in time. In any of those cases she'd not be best served by marriage or children. Also she's very old to be starting, 31; there will only be a few even if she's married tomorrow.

Really she ought to find a powerful adventurer of decent character - fifth circle or so - who can handle serious monster attacks across an entire archduchy. Preferably with some support network that can respond to smaller crises lesser nobles would handle, so she can pick some lesser nobles who can't, in fact, handle those. If he's no good with politics that's entirely well, and if he wants to run most of the duchy and leave just Kintargo to her that's fine too, as long as he isn't an idiot who will botch the job.

So, the ideal looks more or less exactly like Joan-Pau Ardiaca. But unfortunately the primary face of warmongering for the Molthune faction is one of the few men who would cause her political problems she isn't sure she could handle. And in any case, of all the men who will be massively in demand, she suspects he will be second of all non-archdukes, and possibly ahead of some of those.

She is decades out of practice at flirting seriously and would be utterly hopeless if Rexus didn't tease her enough to keep her from entirely forgetting how it works.

"Yes. When the fight comes looking for you you can fight or you can run, and you picked the right option."

Xavier needs to marry, and he is talking to an interesting and attractive young woman, but he is not, particularly, thinking of these two facts as related, twenty percent because she's a tiefling, ten percent because she's only a count's niece, ten percent because her father's illegitimate and sixty percent because his last three marriage proposals to Interesting People were met with, respectively, flat refusal, howling gales of laughter, and "I like you, but..."

The problem is that Chelish noblewomen are fundamentally very uninteresting, because everyone who isn't inclined to run off and be a hero is uninteresting, but people who do want to run off and be heroes don't want to stop until they're forty. Hence the unsolved problem.

Joan-Pau is happy to greet the new guests as they arrive!

(His romantic opinion is that he probably has to get married at some point, little though he likes it, because he's not going to find the right person. The right person would have to be as smart as he is, as full of honesty and integrity as Feliu, and willing to run support for his latest insane schemes, and no matter how eligible a bachelor you are you can't plausibly ask for two of those and at best you have to settle for one.)

Oh, yes, Juan Ventura! He met him once, back before he was duke. Liked hunting, he recalls. He should greet his vassal.

Alexeara Cansellarion has spent his entire adult* life celibate because any family would happily be used against him by the forces of evil, and has long since gotten used to celibacy. He's abstractly aware, now, that he should be looking for a wife, he just...doesn't know how. And nearly every eligible candidate is half his age or younger. Most of the women he actually likes on a personal level are married, themselves celibate, or dead. So rather than looking for a potential wife, he's spending a fair bit of time avoiding potential wives when not busy with other obligations. He still goes to convention dinner parties, though.

*Also his childhood, but that's less marked.

"Count Cansellarion! A pleasure to finally meet you. Allow me to also introduce my daughters, Scholastica and Salut."

Scholastica curtseys, and smiles sincerely. She supposes the man must have his pick of every unmarried woman in Cheliax, but that's no call to avoid the man; he must pick someone. And if one has to marry a Chelish nobleman, one really couldn't ask for more.

One could, one just isn't likely to find it. Not here, anyway. "I am sure you must be bored of talking about your struggle against the Thrunes, but if you do find yourself moved to storytelling tonight, I am sure you will find an eager audience."

Who are these people and why did Chelam invite them instead of the usual set of variously pragmatic gentlemen? 

"I don't doubt that I would, but I have just spent most of the day explaining the events of the convention to a Lastwall investigative team, which has rather blunted my desire to tell tales, regardless of how attentive and enthusiastic the audience." Now, for a way to escape without offending anyone before they find some other reason he should spend the next half hour in their company - 

"Unfortunately, I have some things to urgently discuss with Archduke Requena about the events of earlier this week. I thank you very much for the introductions, Duchess."

"Of course. We shall have to speak more later, when your business is concluded."

Oh he's as bad at this as she is, isn't he. Shelyn save him, and he's the - second-? - most eligible bachelor in Cheliax.

"Xavier! I wanted to ask how well your men have encountered any issues patrolling the city, where I or my men could be of more help?"