<div align="center">(https://i.imgur.com/yYT4Yor.png)</div><br/>On the 1st of July In the Barovian year 750, the Grand Opera Nationale sat empty but for roosting crows, the Musee du Port-a-Lucine gathered dust in its curios of savage men of lands faraway and relics of the glory of Dementlieu, and the Theatre de la Baie took down all its stylistic affiche, leaving tattered paper corners and discarded handbills to flutter in the cooling sea breeze. There was another diversion for all peoples hungry for culture and mindful of the social mores of the day, and to great fanfare on the port tented with colored canvas, the Rose d'Orchestre played a grand anthem of pride to godspeed the Charlotte on its voyage into terrifying, merciless, barbarous paradise.<br/><br/>Such a magnificent baroque ship was a rare site indeed to the industry of Port-a-Lucine, a lovely high-castled galleon bustled in balconies for the ladies of The Cocoa House to wave kerchiefs to sun parasols below, for the well to do of Voix de l'Ame to promise such stories to teary-eyed admirers, for the Society of Antiquity to blow kisses from rosette lace gloves, for the White Egg Ornithological League to release fifty-three turtledoves, for the Blackwell Coffee Club and Saint Ezra Country Club to shower coin into the muddy water for the benefit of the poor.<br/><br/>Painted in an adventurous azure, like a palace behind the galleon's three towering masts, the deck house sat broad over her rudder like a young oak, leaves of gold filigree in heraldic devices, motifs of dolphins and Saint Ezra long and lissome in white, and through them a shining prayer,<br/><em>Deliver us to the place of Our bidding<br/>With you Our Guardian as Guide. </em><br/><br/>A hundred prayers went with them as the Charlotte cut elegant into the waters of the Sea of Sorrows, pushed by an auspicious cooling breeze on that hot day, such a powerful ship to bear Dementlieu's women of higher learning and bold adventure, the gentle Goddess' own cupped hands.<br/><br/>~ ~<br/><br/>On the 2nd of July, as the sun became hotter and the air humid and heavy, Mlle. Goulet was the first to reduce to her petticoats and so appear in galley, much to the delight of Brigitte and Jeanne of Cocoa House decadence. A scandalous fashion caught flame, with Genevieve of White Egg and Eloise and Camille from the Saint Ezra Country Club bereft to smock and chemise within quarters and without under complaint of exhaustion, whilst Captain Thoubold and her none too gentle crew toiled day long to make smart use of a beneficial wind.<br/><br/>There was a restlessness in the belowdeck passenger cabins, a feeling of malaise with the rocking in claustrophobia, the sloshing washbasins and fluttering lantern light, the creaking of wardrobes and stiffness of narrow, shallow beds. Increasingly the posh appointed saloon which dominated the deckhouse became the ship's sanctuary, shy of the crew's eyes save for the warm lantern light illuminating its lovely leaded windows well into the night. Here Giselle of the Antiquitists charmed pretty on the piano for mild compliments, and when the mood took her Emma La Berche of Voix de l'Ame struck a more experimental sound, scoring the dances of Melodie with a poet's soul. Mlle. La Berche was the first to bare her breasts to the company of Charlotte's saloon, and not the last.<br/><br/>It was a time of vulnerability, but no place for the gauche swords or armor of the lady duelists hired to safeguard the ladies of Antiquity and Blackwell and Ezra's grace. They were all beheld to this dream, penetrating the mists forbidding for the distant pleasures of Markovia and its pristine white sand beaches like angel's dust on pink bodies, its roar of plunging water from black mountain peaks into crystal blue lagoons, the exotic cry of its tropical birds from dark primeval jungle, the scamper of playful monkeys after lunch scraps. A landing awaited them there, from which to strike out on adventure and the clubs' dubious purposes, and yet the mood in the Charlotte could not wait. Libations flowed freely from the saloon, bodies curled into armchairs in eschew of the privacy belowdeck.<br/><br/>~ ~<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://i.imgur.com/Z3otLvj.jpg)</div><br/>On the 3rd of July, the mists came and the good wind left. There remained nothing to see beyond the saloon windows, and in a sluggish grey purgatory between Port-a-Lucine and paradise, Emma La Berche read of her poems,<br/><br/><em>I have robbed the garrulous streets,<br/>Thieved a fair girl from their blight,<br/>I have stolen her for a sacrifice<br/>That I shall make to this night.<br/><br/>I have brought her, laughing,<br/>To my quietly dreaming garden.<br/>For what will be done there<br/>I ask no man pardon. </em><br/><br/>In the calm quiet of the saloon the voices of the crew were heard cursing the turn of weather, an unwelcome intruder on the seductive slide into luxury.<br/><br/>Pure tonic of Von Wagner Elixir passed the saloon gathering to ease the melancholia and numb what pains the corporeal form bring. It was Jeanne and Brigitte at first partaking, and Emma La Berche who shared stories of suicide by laudanum and suppository, a death by pleasure. Giselle of the Antiquities read privately in a cushioned seat, her hair teased by Mlle. Garsenda Goulet in a ploy for attention. Tending the libations was Genevieve once the servants had gone to rest, loosening the chatter of Eloise and Camille and Hannah and Zoe, all the women of Saint Ezra stripped of inhibitions and shift linens damp to the skin with sweat and fog. There was talk of climbing the poop deck, to brave the fog and witness the buck moon, mob courage willing.<br/><br/>A feeling, perhaps only of the fog-mired mind imagining things beyond, that something was not right in the water lapping at the immobile hull.<br/><br/><div class="codeheader">Code: <a class="codeoperation" href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="return smfSelectText(this);">[Select]</a></div><pre style="margin: 0; padding: 0;"><code class="bbc_code">[floatleft][img height=250 padding=8]&lt;Character portrait, if any&gt;[/img][/floatleft]<br/>[b]Name: [/b]<br/>[b]Location: [/b]<br/>[b]Wearing: [/b]<br/>[b]Content: [/b]<br/>[b]Tagging: [/b]<br/><br/>[hr]<br/><br/></code></pre>