seelie; video; why this

[depicted]

[Oh, look, it's Dorian Gray! Everyone remembers Dorian Gray, right? Sweet kid, a little naive, recently got scolded at the royal audience? Well, today you wouldn't believe it, not from how very self-possessed he looks, how pleased, how utterly brazen.

One might think that someone who just got publicly called out and punished might feel more need to keep their head down and be discrete, but apparently not. Every actor needs an audience, and this actor, at least, seems to be particularly committed to enjoy the show he's putting on. Feline in recline, he speaks as one who savours language, gesturing in smooth, languid movements. He is the 1890s Aesthete come to life, in all its hedonistic glory, and he is here to share.]

How dreary we all are getting. It's the fin de siècle all over again, but with far less Oscar. Or Yeats, for that matter. [Suitably, mockingly dramatic:] "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

[And here's a scoff.] I'm not feeling it. We are meant to be the court of tradition, of love, of welcoming the apocalypse. And yet I haven't seen even one orgy in my time at Caer Glaem. Frankly, I'm unimpressed.

[The headshake turns back into that canary-eating smile, and he purrs out his proposal for fixing this shameful problem.]

So tonight, at the sun's setting, I'll be holding a, ah, ritual in the Magi's Workroom. Wine from Mandragora Estates—top of the line, for those tragically ignorant of the most up-and-coming vinery in the Drabwurld—and various other substances. Children not invited.

It's a protection ritual, for the record. It would be so very unsuitable to be decadently useless in our embrace of the End. Try to bring yourself as magically charged as you can.

[ooc: THERE WILL BE NO LOG FOR THIS I am not going to put up an actual orgy log dear god. But this a thing Dorian will really be doing, any character can come as long as they're over the age of consent. Wine, drugs, and sex, all night. Technically, it really is an actual magical ritual.]

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[depicted]

[Now Dorian is indignant. The question is clearly not directed at Diarmuid: all of his attention is now on his Servant.]

Why the Hell not?

[babbylon]

Because you're an embarrassment.

[You have affronted me. You have insulted me. Those are the harsh words only Dorian Gray shall hear.]

And because I said so, and what I say goes, mongrel.

[And that's all he'll share on the matter. Back to your regularly scheduled... whatever this was.]

[oathshackledbird]

[Diarmuid watches the exchange quietly. Something big has happened between these two--that much is obvious--but what is beyond Diarmuid completely. Maybe he will ask later, but for now...

Gilgamesh is adamant about him not going and that is something Diarmuid will not challenge. Not when the golden king is so upset.]

It seems we will have to meet again some other time and some other place. Maybe by then there will be another way that I can help you.

[He pauses for a moment, curiosity and worry getting the best of him.]

If I ask the question you dodged before again, will I get an answer this time?

[depicted]

[For a moment, Dorian looks—struck. Wounded, badly, perhaps fatally, with rage of a man determined to go to Hell only in his killer's company. With stinging eyes, he closes his fists around nothing and focuses on the screen where Gilgamesh was.

Then Diarmuid talks to him: two blinks and the glassiness is gone from his eyes, a lift of his chin and his jaw unclenches. Like it was never there, Dorian returns to an amused confidence.]

I'm not sure what you mean. But if that is your choice, I won't push. I'm sure we can speak another time.

[Video-Private]

[oathshackledbird]

Are you all right, Dorian?

[Diarmuid repeats the question, giving the man a hard look as he does.]

Answer it directly. Do not dance around it or ignore it. Something has happened and it has changed you greatly. I am not in the same room with either of you and it felt as though I would be set afire by the heat and tension between you anyway. What is going on?

[Video-Private]

[depicted]

[The stubborn anger returns now, without the sense of injury. Dorian looks on Diarmuid as a lord looks on a servant who has stepped out of line—or more accurately, how someone in a city looks on a stranger who has presumed too much.]

I don't need to answer your commands, Knight of the Golden Cadre. If you want answers, you can go ask your king. He seems to have decided he knows my own state better than I do.

[Dorian ends the conversation now.]