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tampered2010-10-31 12:07 pm
laszlo-jamf.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2010-10-31 12:07 pm
Boys and girls of every age, wouldn't you like to see something strange~?
When; October 31st
Rating; G to PG-13 (please post warnings if your thread goes higher than this!)
Characters; Yours!
Summary; What better way to wrap up the stress of the October month than with a Halloween Ball? Come, join the festivities in the Square or in Xanadu! The City has been dressed to the nines with all the trappings of Halloween (from jack-o-lanterns to twisted trees, to eerie lanterns, to burial shrouds, to mounds of burning candles, to any horror your mind can imagine), and it hopes you'll be just so dressed too. Come and feast on pumpkin stew and roasted beasts, come and dance under burning orange stars and lights, come and laugh with witches and goblins of all sorts. But be warned: the witching hour is fast approaching, and all sorts of mischief will abound. If you're dressed as a cat, why not act a bit like a cat? If you're dressed as a king, why not act like a king? The clothes make the man (or woman), after all, or so the Deities will claim...
Log;
Misery Square bespeaks the holiday occasion today: Halloween, All Hallow's Eve. Already, the square is draped in holiday colors: orange, black, purple. Long rags of black hang down the sides of buildings or across alleyways and streets, touched only by strange banners sewn in diamond patterns, in harlequin patterns, of orange and black, and purple. Even the lamp-posts are wrapped in bundles of black sticks, hung with tattered harlequin banners of orange and purple, ribboned with tattered crow's feather's and black rags. And, look, the lanterns themselves are Jack-O-Lanterns, grinning out at the City with their mocking skull smiles. The last of the decorations are going up, the twisted ladders are being taken away from the sides of buildings, and the spidery climbers who had been on them are coming down again.
It is daylight yet, perhaps, and the scene seems more like something from a children's book: the Kingdom of Halloween. The walls are draped with the king's colors, of course, or the queen's. The streets are lined with pumpkins, the candles are waiting in windowsills and on rooftops to be lighted. Dead leaves blow in the distance, the trees are bare, or nearly bare, as the wind strips them further. It is daylight, and the scene is eerie, though perhaps not yet so interesting as it will be.
At night, though, the celebration will truly begin: with long tables laid out for a feast not yet there, but promising to be there, if the gray and grunting figures (almost simian in their appearance, almost monstrous in their movements) laying out black dishes and ragged silver (stolen from a thousand different pirate caches) are any indication. The tables are dressed in black lace, torn from the wedding dresses of jilted, ghostly brides, dyed black with hints of red (their blood perhaps?), and dressing now these tables. And the tables? Made from stolen coffin wood, of course. What else could bear such a rich shine? Their feet are old gravestones, their chairs are made of ebony and bone. The whole is dressed for mourning. Look, even the flowers are black or dead or only bare twigs. Watch how sadly the ribbons flutter in the wind. But there is an elegance to it. And perhaps these tables will bear wonderful things. Perhaps there will be sweets made from grapes stolen from Paradise and the last drop of blood from an enemy's heart, perhaps leaves and mushrooms from a thousand hidden forests where the oldest creatures in the world make their way through time to the end of the world will lie soaked in new wine and new vinegar, perhaps there will be a monumental and towering and toppling cake that fairly bleeds sugar when it is cut, perhaps those defeated demons will be roasted over a spit (look, they're digging out a pit to hold the creature now) and carved up in a victory feast, perhaps candy of every sort and every kind will lie in glittering obsidian bowls to be grabbed by the handful with utter disregard (and those bowls will never empty), perhaps wine will be mixed with blood (and even those who aren't vampires can partake), perhaps the ordinary will become extraordinary, perhaps the extraordinary will become horrific. Perhaps anything: the tables are bare for the moment--but only the moment.
But eating is only eating. What else is there? Perhaps that: a shining floor of ebony laid out in the midst of the square. For dancing, of course, and large enough to hold any number of waltzers or twisters or turners or swirling mass of dancers. Let the music take hold, as ever. It's guarded, of course, against those monsters and spirits and evil forces who (that explains the chalk lines streaking across the surface, doesn't it?). But how soon will those be smudged? There is no keeping things at bay on this night. And there will be no keeping still.
Look, a place even for musicians, hung with those same harlequin banners, draped in bunting of black burial shrouds, and lit by candles in their jewel-like glasses (but who knows what bony, knobby claws and talons will play those instruments, for they seem made of the flesh and bones of the monsters from the week before, now fused and melted into some new shape, gray and ragged, with fingerbones for tuning pins and knucklebones for the mouthpieces--perhaps the music will be sweeter than their appearance).
And over it all, strung up on some nightmare's wire, some massive spider's blackened thread, not a chandelier but its inverse: something hidden, something wrapped in black crepe and gauze and burial fabric. The whole of it hangs, like some malevolent cloud above the festivities, strung high between two buildings, and hanging delicately by those wire threads. The chandelier (if there really is one) is hidden--or nearly hidden, for there may be some hint of twisted metal or barbed wire peeking out from within, and the fabric that drapes it is hardly new and untattered, and those holes to move when the wind blows--under layer upon layer of widow's weeds, all black and darkly glittering, the lack plain and torn, the embroidery ragged. Jet beads hang down in long waterfalls, trailing towards the floor, caught up sometimes in some vain attempt to keep them out of the way by some hand somewhere in their time. A locket here or there contains some twist of black hair, and a name that can't be read. And those same harlequin tapestries mark the points of the compass, hanging down from this widow-turned-chandelier (a woman can be made into stranger things, can't she?).
And, to light it all? A thousand candles or more, black and white and orange as a pumpkin and purple as a sunset before a nightmare, all mounted up in thirteen times thirteen candelabra, each bearing thirteen candles, and all made of the twisted and filigree iron stole and re-wrought from the gates of churchyards and cemeteries and prisons and insane asylums. They are beautiful, in their twisted way, like twisted trees or the candelabras of a church or the great chandeliers that light so many manors and ballrooms and theatres of so many worlds. And all are draped in the colors of the day: black and purple and orange, in long swags of black gauze and those same harlequin banners. But, wait, what about those candles lying idly on those tables? Well, of course one needs a little more light for the occasion (though not too much): these are the candles that will be tossed into the air, and what hidden hands will hold them in the air are unknown. But know that these candles will yet be used, left to float in midair, all surrounding the rosette of crepe that hangs over the dancefloor.
And the Jack-O-Lanterns, too, of course, one cannot forget them, and the way they light the whole of the event: mounded up on tables, peering out from behind tables and chairs, sitting at the feet of the musicians' chairs, perched on window ledges, peering from rooftops, perched in trees--wherever there is a place for a grinning Jack-O-Lantern, there is one--save for when one looks for one.
But this is not the only place where the celebration will take place.
Xanadu, too, has been dressed for the occasion. Of course it must be, if it is, indeed, the famous pleasure garden. Though what pleasure can be found here must be strange, or so one must think upon passing through the twisted gates and under the twisted arch--though that arch is largely hidden by that same black crepe, those same black rags that seem to decorate the whole of the City this day and this night. Candles stand guard at either side of the entrance, melting quietly onto the real guardians: two massive statues (do they or do they not move as the night progresses?) of beasts perhaps only seen in some worlds (and those few are enough) that seems like creatures seen before or seen only in nightmares, with such fangs and such claws and such horns as that. And, grinning over it all, a Jack-O-Lantern, with his cohorts beside him, and their veritable army of burning candles.
The paths here are lined with those candles, like ghosts lights, and pumpkin and paper lanterns are hanging from the black, bare, gnarled tree branches. This is the antechamber of Xanadu, if one should like to think of it so. This is only the beginning. Look, this scarecrow (if one can call him that--he'd probably scare anything that came near him) is pointing the way: this way or that way? The paths diverge...
There are different paths here: those paths with little light or none, and those that glitter like Algol--the Demon Star. Choose whichever you would like.
If you choose the paths with little light or none, lit by those tiny ghost lights, burning blue and faint along the path, then be wary of the darkness. Be wary of those long rags that hang like mist or ghosts in the trees, blowing across the faces of those who pass. There are spiders in these trees, and the grinning faces of Jack-O-Lanterns--but never giving enough light to truly see. Watch for the shadows--there!--that rush by before one can see them, these creatures of fog and imagination. There are people in the trees all around, or creatures, or worse. Crows call as they do after they have found fresh carrion. Owls call, bats flutter across the sky. There are old houses, their broken windows menacing anyone who passes by like the empty eyesockets of a skull, there in the woods all around. The moon's light does little good here, and perhaps only casts a malevolent glow, twisting the shadows of the trees. But press on, find the way through the labyrinth of this path, and the horrors of one's own mind. The reward is yet to come.
If you chose the glittering path, then follow the lights that burn in the trees like stars themselves: purple and green and orange and white, wrapping around branches light fairy lights. The candles give way to glitter and starlight. There is no great light here, though--no, of course not. The whole is still in darkness, though in the darkness of starlight. The saddest spirits might haunt these paths, or the most beautiful, the ones who will lure the unwary into unsafe ways or into rivers. The harlequin banners are here, too, hanging from the trees, along with their black bunting. If there is a king's progress, then perhaps this is the way he would go, leading his court down a street of wicked trees lit with wicked stars. And he knows the reward that lies at the end of this road.
Regardless of the path one takes, one will find oneself, at the end of the maze, one will come upon the real celebration and come before a great twisting, spiraling tower of Jack-O-Lanterns.
Where Misery Square had its wretched chandelier, like a widow inverted and hung with candles, Xanadu has a blazing tower of Jack-O-Lanterns. All grinning, all orange, all burning with candles, the spiraling tower sits in the midst of another ebony floor (stained with chalk, yes, of course). It is like some stolen column from a monstrous temple, like some strange altar to a monster deity, like some horrific growth from a nightmarish pumpkin patch swelling up towards the sky. Be careful in getting too close. There are rumors flying tonight that some of the Jack-O-Lanterns have been seen laughing.
There are tables just beyond for conversation and a little rest, as one might expect (and still made from the stolen wood of old coffins, as one also might expect), and stone benches (stolen from cemeteries). Like Misery Square, the whole is hung with black rags and lace, tattered crows' feathers, and that same royal harlequin tapestry. Another ballroom, then. Though perhaps more secret, given the darkness just beyond the tables. Less grandiose, perhaps, given the simplicity of table and floor. Or better, if one so prefers to sit with one's companion over the soft light of a Jack-O-Lantern, and have sweet wine mixed with blood brought to one's table by a tall, dour, skeletal man who seems to say too little and know too much. Or so those burning eyes would suggest.
But, look: another stand for the musicians, with those same melted, stitched, ragged, wretched instruments. Who would touch these to play them? Who could play them well? The musicians will, of course, as they read their music by the light of the Jack-O-Lanterns staked on candelabra all around them. That is the light for this place: Jack-O-Lanterns and moonlight. Perhaps the better question, though, is to ask who would dance to it. And here is the answer, tumbling across the floor, skittering on stilts, twisting itself into knots and tangles: dancers themselves, or something like them, or perhaps something more like clowns, or jesters (if we imagine that Halloween King still). A flock of them, a troupe of them, each with his or her own skill. This one balancing high on stilts, that one bending herself into tangled knots, another breathing and eating and throwing fire, still another twisting herself like a serpent as she dances, still more tumbling in--clowns or jesters or the kin of Harlequin himself, yes, but masked as the day would require and dressed in its livery of black and purple and orange. They are amusing, yes, but perhaps they draw up the feeling one has when dreaming a dream that is mere moments, mere seconds away from turning into a nightmare. Watch, but don't stare too long: they seem human, if talented, but to stare too long will make certain inconsistencies appear, certain details grow clear, and certain unsettling problems very, very noticeable. Don't ask where they come from. Don't ask why they use a Hand of Glory to light their way. Speak to them, if you like, but don't expect answers.
Perhaps if Misery Square is meant to be supper with dancing, then this is the proper ballroom? Or does it work the other way? Or perhaps this is the entertainment after the ball? Or should one perhaps visit both? Yes, visit both.
Come, join the festivities. Wear your best costume, bring your best mask. The City has adorned herself for you. Show her the same courtesy, and let us all celebrate together.
[ooc: Welcome to the Halloween Party~!! Enjoy the festivities--and the things described here are just a starting point. Feel free to invent other things going on this evening~
To keep things basically organized, please feel free to note where your character is ("Misery Square, dancefloor"--for example) and whether the log thread is open to all or only certain characters in the subject line of your comment. Feel free to log things out in action tags or full prose tags, as you'd please. Just be careful as the effects of the curse start to bubble up~ Have fun and happy Halloween, Polychromatic~!!]
Rating; G to PG-13 (please post warnings if your thread goes higher than this!)
Characters; Yours!
Summary; What better way to wrap up the stress of the October month than with a Halloween Ball? Come, join the festivities in the Square or in Xanadu! The City has been dressed to the nines with all the trappings of Halloween (from jack-o-lanterns to twisted trees, to eerie lanterns, to burial shrouds, to mounds of burning candles, to any horror your mind can imagine), and it hopes you'll be just so dressed too. Come and feast on pumpkin stew and roasted beasts, come and dance under burning orange stars and lights, come and laugh with witches and goblins of all sorts. But be warned: the witching hour is fast approaching, and all sorts of mischief will abound. If you're dressed as a cat, why not act a bit like a cat? If you're dressed as a king, why not act like a king? The clothes make the man (or woman), after all, or so the Deities will claim...
Log;
Misery Square bespeaks the holiday occasion today: Halloween, All Hallow's Eve. Already, the square is draped in holiday colors: orange, black, purple. Long rags of black hang down the sides of buildings or across alleyways and streets, touched only by strange banners sewn in diamond patterns, in harlequin patterns, of orange and black, and purple. Even the lamp-posts are wrapped in bundles of black sticks, hung with tattered harlequin banners of orange and purple, ribboned with tattered crow's feather's and black rags. And, look, the lanterns themselves are Jack-O-Lanterns, grinning out at the City with their mocking skull smiles. The last of the decorations are going up, the twisted ladders are being taken away from the sides of buildings, and the spidery climbers who had been on them are coming down again.
It is daylight yet, perhaps, and the scene seems more like something from a children's book: the Kingdom of Halloween. The walls are draped with the king's colors, of course, or the queen's. The streets are lined with pumpkins, the candles are waiting in windowsills and on rooftops to be lighted. Dead leaves blow in the distance, the trees are bare, or nearly bare, as the wind strips them further. It is daylight, and the scene is eerie, though perhaps not yet so interesting as it will be.
At night, though, the celebration will truly begin: with long tables laid out for a feast not yet there, but promising to be there, if the gray and grunting figures (almost simian in their appearance, almost monstrous in their movements) laying out black dishes and ragged silver (stolen from a thousand different pirate caches) are any indication. The tables are dressed in black lace, torn from the wedding dresses of jilted, ghostly brides, dyed black with hints of red (their blood perhaps?), and dressing now these tables. And the tables? Made from stolen coffin wood, of course. What else could bear such a rich shine? Their feet are old gravestones, their chairs are made of ebony and bone. The whole is dressed for mourning. Look, even the flowers are black or dead or only bare twigs. Watch how sadly the ribbons flutter in the wind. But there is an elegance to it. And perhaps these tables will bear wonderful things. Perhaps there will be sweets made from grapes stolen from Paradise and the last drop of blood from an enemy's heart, perhaps leaves and mushrooms from a thousand hidden forests where the oldest creatures in the world make their way through time to the end of the world will lie soaked in new wine and new vinegar, perhaps there will be a monumental and towering and toppling cake that fairly bleeds sugar when it is cut, perhaps those defeated demons will be roasted over a spit (look, they're digging out a pit to hold the creature now) and carved up in a victory feast, perhaps candy of every sort and every kind will lie in glittering obsidian bowls to be grabbed by the handful with utter disregard (and those bowls will never empty), perhaps wine will be mixed with blood (and even those who aren't vampires can partake), perhaps the ordinary will become extraordinary, perhaps the extraordinary will become horrific. Perhaps anything: the tables are bare for the moment--but only the moment.
But eating is only eating. What else is there? Perhaps that: a shining floor of ebony laid out in the midst of the square. For dancing, of course, and large enough to hold any number of waltzers or twisters or turners or swirling mass of dancers. Let the music take hold, as ever. It's guarded, of course, against those monsters and spirits and evil forces who (that explains the chalk lines streaking across the surface, doesn't it?). But how soon will those be smudged? There is no keeping things at bay on this night. And there will be no keeping still.
Look, a place even for musicians, hung with those same harlequin banners, draped in bunting of black burial shrouds, and lit by candles in their jewel-like glasses (but who knows what bony, knobby claws and talons will play those instruments, for they seem made of the flesh and bones of the monsters from the week before, now fused and melted into some new shape, gray and ragged, with fingerbones for tuning pins and knucklebones for the mouthpieces--perhaps the music will be sweeter than their appearance).
And over it all, strung up on some nightmare's wire, some massive spider's blackened thread, not a chandelier but its inverse: something hidden, something wrapped in black crepe and gauze and burial fabric. The whole of it hangs, like some malevolent cloud above the festivities, strung high between two buildings, and hanging delicately by those wire threads. The chandelier (if there really is one) is hidden--or nearly hidden, for there may be some hint of twisted metal or barbed wire peeking out from within, and the fabric that drapes it is hardly new and untattered, and those holes to move when the wind blows--under layer upon layer of widow's weeds, all black and darkly glittering, the lack plain and torn, the embroidery ragged. Jet beads hang down in long waterfalls, trailing towards the floor, caught up sometimes in some vain attempt to keep them out of the way by some hand somewhere in their time. A locket here or there contains some twist of black hair, and a name that can't be read. And those same harlequin tapestries mark the points of the compass, hanging down from this widow-turned-chandelier (a woman can be made into stranger things, can't she?).
And, to light it all? A thousand candles or more, black and white and orange as a pumpkin and purple as a sunset before a nightmare, all mounted up in thirteen times thirteen candelabra, each bearing thirteen candles, and all made of the twisted and filigree iron stole and re-wrought from the gates of churchyards and cemeteries and prisons and insane asylums. They are beautiful, in their twisted way, like twisted trees or the candelabras of a church or the great chandeliers that light so many manors and ballrooms and theatres of so many worlds. And all are draped in the colors of the day: black and purple and orange, in long swags of black gauze and those same harlequin banners. But, wait, what about those candles lying idly on those tables? Well, of course one needs a little more light for the occasion (though not too much): these are the candles that will be tossed into the air, and what hidden hands will hold them in the air are unknown. But know that these candles will yet be used, left to float in midair, all surrounding the rosette of crepe that hangs over the dancefloor.
And the Jack-O-Lanterns, too, of course, one cannot forget them, and the way they light the whole of the event: mounded up on tables, peering out from behind tables and chairs, sitting at the feet of the musicians' chairs, perched on window ledges, peering from rooftops, perched in trees--wherever there is a place for a grinning Jack-O-Lantern, there is one--save for when one looks for one.
But this is not the only place where the celebration will take place.
Xanadu, too, has been dressed for the occasion. Of course it must be, if it is, indeed, the famous pleasure garden. Though what pleasure can be found here must be strange, or so one must think upon passing through the twisted gates and under the twisted arch--though that arch is largely hidden by that same black crepe, those same black rags that seem to decorate the whole of the City this day and this night. Candles stand guard at either side of the entrance, melting quietly onto the real guardians: two massive statues (do they or do they not move as the night progresses?) of beasts perhaps only seen in some worlds (and those few are enough) that seems like creatures seen before or seen only in nightmares, with such fangs and such claws and such horns as that. And, grinning over it all, a Jack-O-Lantern, with his cohorts beside him, and their veritable army of burning candles.
The paths here are lined with those candles, like ghosts lights, and pumpkin and paper lanterns are hanging from the black, bare, gnarled tree branches. This is the antechamber of Xanadu, if one should like to think of it so. This is only the beginning. Look, this scarecrow (if one can call him that--he'd probably scare anything that came near him) is pointing the way: this way or that way? The paths diverge...
There are different paths here: those paths with little light or none, and those that glitter like Algol--the Demon Star. Choose whichever you would like.
If you choose the paths with little light or none, lit by those tiny ghost lights, burning blue and faint along the path, then be wary of the darkness. Be wary of those long rags that hang like mist or ghosts in the trees, blowing across the faces of those who pass. There are spiders in these trees, and the grinning faces of Jack-O-Lanterns--but never giving enough light to truly see. Watch for the shadows--there!--that rush by before one can see them, these creatures of fog and imagination. There are people in the trees all around, or creatures, or worse. Crows call as they do after they have found fresh carrion. Owls call, bats flutter across the sky. There are old houses, their broken windows menacing anyone who passes by like the empty eyesockets of a skull, there in the woods all around. The moon's light does little good here, and perhaps only casts a malevolent glow, twisting the shadows of the trees. But press on, find the way through the labyrinth of this path, and the horrors of one's own mind. The reward is yet to come.
If you chose the glittering path, then follow the lights that burn in the trees like stars themselves: purple and green and orange and white, wrapping around branches light fairy lights. The candles give way to glitter and starlight. There is no great light here, though--no, of course not. The whole is still in darkness, though in the darkness of starlight. The saddest spirits might haunt these paths, or the most beautiful, the ones who will lure the unwary into unsafe ways or into rivers. The harlequin banners are here, too, hanging from the trees, along with their black bunting. If there is a king's progress, then perhaps this is the way he would go, leading his court down a street of wicked trees lit with wicked stars. And he knows the reward that lies at the end of this road.
Regardless of the path one takes, one will find oneself, at the end of the maze, one will come upon the real celebration and come before a great twisting, spiraling tower of Jack-O-Lanterns.
Where Misery Square had its wretched chandelier, like a widow inverted and hung with candles, Xanadu has a blazing tower of Jack-O-Lanterns. All grinning, all orange, all burning with candles, the spiraling tower sits in the midst of another ebony floor (stained with chalk, yes, of course). It is like some stolen column from a monstrous temple, like some strange altar to a monster deity, like some horrific growth from a nightmarish pumpkin patch swelling up towards the sky. Be careful in getting too close. There are rumors flying tonight that some of the Jack-O-Lanterns have been seen laughing.
There are tables just beyond for conversation and a little rest, as one might expect (and still made from the stolen wood of old coffins, as one also might expect), and stone benches (stolen from cemeteries). Like Misery Square, the whole is hung with black rags and lace, tattered crows' feathers, and that same royal harlequin tapestry. Another ballroom, then. Though perhaps more secret, given the darkness just beyond the tables. Less grandiose, perhaps, given the simplicity of table and floor. Or better, if one so prefers to sit with one's companion over the soft light of a Jack-O-Lantern, and have sweet wine mixed with blood brought to one's table by a tall, dour, skeletal man who seems to say too little and know too much. Or so those burning eyes would suggest.
But, look: another stand for the musicians, with those same melted, stitched, ragged, wretched instruments. Who would touch these to play them? Who could play them well? The musicians will, of course, as they read their music by the light of the Jack-O-Lanterns staked on candelabra all around them. That is the light for this place: Jack-O-Lanterns and moonlight. Perhaps the better question, though, is to ask who would dance to it. And here is the answer, tumbling across the floor, skittering on stilts, twisting itself into knots and tangles: dancers themselves, or something like them, or perhaps something more like clowns, or jesters (if we imagine that Halloween King still). A flock of them, a troupe of them, each with his or her own skill. This one balancing high on stilts, that one bending herself into tangled knots, another breathing and eating and throwing fire, still another twisting herself like a serpent as she dances, still more tumbling in--clowns or jesters or the kin of Harlequin himself, yes, but masked as the day would require and dressed in its livery of black and purple and orange. They are amusing, yes, but perhaps they draw up the feeling one has when dreaming a dream that is mere moments, mere seconds away from turning into a nightmare. Watch, but don't stare too long: they seem human, if talented, but to stare too long will make certain inconsistencies appear, certain details grow clear, and certain unsettling problems very, very noticeable. Don't ask where they come from. Don't ask why they use a Hand of Glory to light their way. Speak to them, if you like, but don't expect answers.
Perhaps if Misery Square is meant to be supper with dancing, then this is the proper ballroom? Or does it work the other way? Or perhaps this is the entertainment after the ball? Or should one perhaps visit both? Yes, visit both.
Come, join the festivities. Wear your best costume, bring your best mask. The City has adorned herself for you. Show her the same courtesy, and let us all celebrate together.
[ooc: Welcome to the Halloween Party~!! Enjoy the festivities--and the things described here are just a starting point. Feel free to invent other things going on this evening~
To keep things basically organized, please feel free to note where your character is ("Misery Square, dancefloor"--for example) and whether the log thread is open to all or only certain characters in the subject line of your comment. Feel free to log things out in action tags or full prose tags, as you'd please. Just be careful as the effects of the curse start to bubble up~ Have fun and happy Halloween, Polychromatic~!!]
Either Location | Open~
It's not even that he likes gatherings like this, really; he's been to so many of them in the past ten years that he's actually lost count of how many times he's followed this routine, mingling and chatting, seeing and being seen. He could do it in his sleep.
Sometimes, he does.
But regardless of his personal preference on these sorts of things, the fact of the matter is that Finnick Odair, the living legend of Panem, would never miss a party like this. And so he is out on the town tonight, dressed to the nines in the costume (http://i669.photobucket.com/albums/vv60/Fortunes_Wings/Polychromatic/LordoftheSea.png) Cinna made for him and working his very best socialite act. It's what he does, after all.
we got magic, good and bad
Since sunset, she has spent the evening flitting from place to place, unable to hold a conversation for much longer than a minute at most. Her own brand of magic is useless against the deities' tonight and it's with exasperation that she ends yet another brief interaction with a curious stranger and flies off again, as darting as the Quidditch ball her costume was inspired by.
The redhead has probably zipped past Finnick several times in the course of the night, probably waved at him from above the dance floor with something of an apologetic expression before disappearing again. At least her hair is holding up in all this flying about. What a depressing thing to be cheered by. Hair.]
Merlin's beard, I'm starting to sound like Lavender Brown.
[Murmured under her breath with a groan the moment she stops flying again, still hovering a few scant inches above the ground by a table laden with drinks. Ginny eyes them warily, wanting one, but uncertain if she'll be able to down it before another flight into the sky will send it spilling over Cinna's masterpiece.]
we got magic, good and bad
Fortunately, speed has always been one of his most valuable assets, even when he's wearing heavy boots, a cloak, and what effectively amounts to armor. So he moves silently through the crowd toward her, weaving through people with his trident low at his side, and attempts to get close enough to say hello before she gets away again.]
Nice wings. Are you and Claire twin fairies tonight?
we got magic, good and bad
Also, getting these wings to move in the direction you want? Not so easy.
Still, the witch manages a grin as she shakes her head, one hand propped on her hip and silver wings beating a hummingbird's blur through the air.]
Sort of looks that way, doesn't it? We didn't plan it. I'm supposed to be a Golden Snitch.
[She'd explain, but she figures that'll come along eventually, so she moves on with a quirked brow,]
Nice armour. Did you duel a knight for it?
we got magic, good and bad
[Seeing her plight, Finnick retrieves a glass of punch and hands it--not quite up, since she's shorter than he is and the hovering is actually bringing them closer to eye-level for a change--over to her before securing one of his own with the hand that's not holding his trident.]
And no, it's just courtesy of Cinna. I'm the god of the sea, apparently.
we got magic, good and bad
God of the sea. It suits you.
[And then she proceeds to down the drink as quickly as possible without spilling a drop, not unlike a girl who doesn't know where her next drink will come along. It's true. In a few minutes, she'll attempt to grab some food before her next lap around the party on speedy wings. Lowering her glass with a sheepish look over the rim of it.]
I've told you about that sport I play on broomsticks, right? The Snitch is one of the balls in the game. It's the smallest and fastest one and whichever team's Seeker catches it first earns their side 150 points. It also ends the game. I played—
[Suddenly, her wings decide to send her jerking off to the side without much warning. The glass tumbles from her hand with the movement but it's with trained reflexes that she manages to twist in the air and snatch it up before it shatters to the ground. With a sigh,]
I played Seeker on reserve sometimes.
we got magic, good and bad
Small and fast, huh? You've got that much right, too; you've been buzzing around this place all night.
[He knows, of course. He's been watching.]
we got magic, good and bad
[The look she shoots him is more exasperated than irritated and she waves her free hand at his trident with a shake of her head. Ginny's eyes are as quick as any Seeker's, as sharp as her mother's, and though she might not be as accomplished at reading people as Finnick is, she's not entirely oblivious either. Especially knowing what little she knows of his world, what she's experienced in her own; there are certain things that a witch just picks up on.]
Calm down. I'm not going to fly into you. [And now, with a wry twist of her lips,] It's not like I can control these things. A Snitch isn't meant to stay in one place for very long, it'd make catching it too easy.
we got magic, good and bad
[What is that look in those sea-green eyes? Why, it might just be an idea. And also a hint of mischief.]
we got magic, good and bad
It should. Otherwise why—?
[Here's the problem with Snitches. They know when they've been seen. They know when they're about to be caught. So what do they do? They fly off in the opposite direction, as erratically as possible to evade capture.
... this is exactly what happens. Ginny Weasley doesn't get to finish her sentence as she darts off again through the air, probably knocking over a few party-goers along the way, nothing more than a shimmering gold blur.]
we got magic, good and bad
And gradually, he starts working his way closer, adjusting his course to any new movements she might make, slowly but surely getting himself into range.]
we got magic, good and bad
But she isn't stopping yet. No, right now she's darting from place to place, two seconds by a table, a half second behind someone's head, and there's one time where her wings threaten to flip her upside down and she scrambles to hold her dress up. Bloody hell.
The next time she does pause to linger, she's at the edges of the party, no people to knock over here, but hovering a few feet above the ground. Her hands are on her hips and the witch looks irritated. What time is it? When does midnight hit? BLOODY HELL.]
we got magic, good and bad
As it is, he's spotted her, and she's near enough to the ground that he thinks he can grab her without too much leaping and grasping. This is one of the better chances he's going to get, he thinks; better not let it go to waste.
Very quietly, he makes a wide circle to get behind her and sets his trident soundlessly down on the ground. Three careful steps bring him into line with her, and he carefully gauges the distance one last time, easing his cloak back off his shoulders to give his arms full and unhindered reach. Then, once fully prepared, he dashes forward and launches himself into the air, arms coming up to loop through hers and circle around her waist, dragging her down to the ground with him as his arc completes.
When they hit the ground, the thud of his boots is accompanied by the sound of his amused laughter.]
Hi, there. Does this mean I win?
we got magic, good and bad
But Merlin, does it feel good to stand on solid ground again. And Ginny never thought she'd think such a thing. She twists around to look at him, fiery hair coming loose and straying into her face, and she just stares. Then bursts into laughter, out of all things, swatting at the arms circled around her waist.]
Unbelievable! [Is she putting on a commentator's voice? Yes. Yes she is.] Odair's capture of the Snitch pulls his team ahead 150 points—Gryffindor wins!
[And now she dissolves entirely into giggles, mostly relief with a healthy dose of incredulity. What just happened. What just happened.]
we got magic, good and bad
[But despite that swatting, he's still not letting go. Not until he's absolutely certain that this "catch" did the trick, because he'd rather not take the chance that he might have to do this all over again. Still, he's grinning down at her from beneath his hood, even as the edges of his cloak slip down over his shoulders and shroud his arms in warm black fabric once again. All things considered, this costume he's wearing tonight is probably the most covered-up he's been in a long time.]
So, what does the Seeker do with the Snitch after he catches it?
we got magic, good and bad
[The witch smirks up at him before disentangling herself from his arms, taking one careful step, then two, glancing over her shoulder to check her wings. It seems like they've returned to the charm she'd cast on them before the curse, fluttering every once in a while, vanishing from sight sometimes and reappearing another time. Just as it should be. Just a costume.
Ginny turns to face Finnick fully now, one hand propped on her hip and the other coming up to tuck the loose strands of her hair behind her ear, smiling. Now anyone can see and appreciate Cinna's handiwork without having to wonder if the wearer is going to fly off again.]
Thank you.
we got magic, good and bad
[But he catches her hand as it comes away from her ear, guiding it up the way that a dancer would lead his partner into a twirl--which, clearly, is what he intends for Ginny to do. It's a beautiful costume, the one Ginny has on, and it reminds him vaguely of another one like it that he's seen before, one covered in flames. Cinna's dresses are always radiant when they spin.]
And speaking of heading places, don't you owe me a dance?
we got magic, good and bad
The redhead raises her brows at Finnick with an amused expression illuminating her freckles, and though she's shivering in the crisp October air, she reckons there's nothing like a quick dance to warm herself back up.]
I do. And when a Gryffindor makes a promise, she bloody well keeps it. [Here, Finnick, have an impatient tug on your hand.] Grab your fork and let's go.
we got magic, good and bad
[Though he's laughing has he goes to retrieve it, watching Ginny out of the corner of his eye as he does. It does look like she's safely back with her feet on the ground, but better safe than sorry. Once he retrieves his weapon, he secures it onto his back by some fastenings in the costume and then returns to Ginny, brushing his hood back off his head to reveal his face in full.]
we got magic, good and bad
How different this Halloween is turning out to be from the last. She'd been alone in the cabin, then. Alone from her world save for Tom Riddle. That thought alone sends a chill shooting up her spine that has nothing to do with the autumn season and she glances back to the victor, smile fainter but no less beaming for it.]
I don't know if I promised your trident a dance, Finnick. It'll have to wait its turn. But I'm warning you, I'm not very good.
we got magic, good and bad
[He sees her shivering and assumes it's from the cold--all these girls wearing skimpy dresses in this weather, how do they stand it?--which is a natural assumption to make, given the chill in the late October air. Fortunately, he can think of a few ways to warm her up. Physical exertion, for example.
The song currently playing as they reach the dance floor is fast, which means none of the slow, leisurely turning in a circle that passes for dancing in the Capitol; instead, he swings her out into another spin and accompanies it with some swift footwork of his own.]
we got magic, good and bad
It doesn't take more than a few measures into the song until the witch starts laughing again, clearly delighted and clearly determined to ignore, at least for now, the past month's trials. There are moments in the dance when her wings lift her into the air in time with her partner so it seems like she hangs a second longer than the others. Simple magic.]
Re: Either Location | Open~
She catches sight of Finnick and smiles as she moves through the crowd toward him.
"Fancy costume. I like it. Especially the trident."
Either Location | Open~
Re: Either Location | Open~