multiversallogs | Two years in a row now, someone I loved died on my birthday

Who: Steph and friends!
What: A birthday party
Where: A restaurant in... let's go with Howl Barrow? It's not really important.
When: Sukkadi night
Notes: HI. If we haven't pre-discussed this and you're unsure whether your character would be invited, hit me up and I will tell you. On the off-chance your character would like to bring a friend/SO, we can work something out. But yes, come here, tag around and feel free to talk to everyone. Have fun or Steph will make sad faces. P.S. She's wearing this because I wanted an excuse to use it.
Warnings: None for now

Birthdays are weird. They've never been a big deal for Steph. Her parents never cared, she rarely had friends close enough to make a big deal out of it, and she didn't even tell Tim for a long time (she's pretty sure he actually found out by snooping). Last year it was a quiet affair, just dinner with her mom and a few small gifts. Things had been too awkward with Tim to do anything together, and Cass was - busy with something that Steph can't remember now. Baedal makes it even weirder, for starters she'd forgotten it was her birthday for a good two weeks and then she hadn't been sure exactly how to go about recognizing it, considering the fact it wasn't the actual date of her birthday here. On the other hand, she feels like she has more friends here than she has back home, so she takes Angela's suggestion about a party to heart.

After much deliberation, Steph decides to rent out part of a restaurant for her partying needs. Babs had offered her house, but Steph feels like the population of Baedal, her included, has imposed on Babs enough already. So a restaurant it is - one that Angela helped her choose, pay for and organize, which Steph is extremely grateful for. As a result of Angela's help, said restaurant ends up being a little eclectic, hole-in-the-wall place with a restaurant/bar downstairs and the private room upstairs, serving platters of food that Steph isn't entirely sure she recognizes. There's odd pieces of art on the walls, the chairs, small sofas and tables don't actually seem to match each other, but the whole thing seems to fit a general theme and Steph likes it, so that's good enough for her. She'd entrusted music to the venue, not really having the resources at the moment to put music onto one of those fancy crystals; it's been good so far though, a little on the instrumental side, but Steph doesn't mind that. There's a small bar up here, too, with Steph choosing the package that gets them free beer and house wines - if anyone wants anything stronger or fancier than that, it's up to them to pay (Steph isn't made of money, alright).

She's kind of nervous about it, this is the first party she's ever thrown for herself and she just wants everyone to have a nice time. When she'd invited everyone - either by private CiD message or in person - she'd told them that presents weren't necessary, that it was just a small get together to help her celebrate the technical passing of a year. She really just wants everyone to have a good time.

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Not coming had indeed crossed her mind, but Ilde likes Steph in a slightly 'what are you' kind of a way - which is probably how a lot of people look at Ilde, so there's that - and it just seems thoughtful to have been invited, so thoughtful to actually show up, too.

“I figured getting out of the house for something social couldn't hurt,” or at least not that much-- Ilde touches Steph's arm, light and friendly, her hand cool as ever. “Happy birthday.”

Steph's friends are probably a good crowd to be around when you're re-introducing yourself to the social world. They are mostly friendly, gentle people. (At least, if you're one of the good guys. Most of them can also kick ass if they have to.)

"Thank you," For the birthday wishes. She's curious about the lack of plus one, but won't say anything, "Have you been alright, after - everything?" Monsters and the sky breaking and Ilde's friend not being well.

Ilde and Sonja are 'the good guys' by way of a convenient technicality - which is to say that it's easy to be on the right side when the Pale Man is on the other one - but that's probably a topic best saved for another day. Or never, which is approximately when Ilde feels like discussing complex morality with someone who wears a mask like Zorro unironically.

(No offense, Steph, the costumes just bewilder her.)

“Work slowed down, but-- that's not really a surprise.” And Ilde is going to talk around the subject of okay and being it, because that's just what she does.

Steph notices the lack of a real answer, but knows that pushing it won't help at all. She'll just privately worry and maybe shove Babs in Ilde's direction later; Babs is better at this sort of thing.

"You do music tutoring, right?" Sometimes Steph is really good at remembering the little details about people, but other times she has trouble remembering what her friends do as a job. She's pretty sure music tutoring is what Ilde does.

“Mostly. I do interior decorating as well, but it's not as, um--” Ilde shrugs. “It doesn't pay as well.” She charges on the low end of that particular scale, given that she's still building her qualifications through experience; she can more easily get away with making her music students pay through the nose for a little of her time.

(Create a demand, and then charge accordingly; it's worked out well for her, so far.)

“And you're at the library?”

Ilde is in and out there, often enough.

"Does that mean you're one of those tutors who cost an arm and a leg to hire?" She's been thinking about picking up the piano again, because she misses it, and because it's something normal to do while she's in Baedal.

And she nods in answer to the library question, "Yeah, it took a while to reopen, but I've been there recently helping clean up." Fortunately TMU didn't get too damaged, but there was still enough damage done that people were called in to help tidy up the place and clean out some of the unpleasant things that had made their way in.

The inquiry about her rates just gets a quiet laugh-- which is a yes, essentially, even if she doesn't specify. Her going rate is roughly twice that of contemporary professional music teachers, at the equivalent of a hundred and twenty dollars an hour, and as the city gets back on its feet in the wake of the latest chaos, her working hours are picking up again.

“I end up there a lot, the St Brian. I heard there was a-- someone got into a fight there? A while ago?”

Well, that answers that question. Steph decides she'll need to save up before broaching the subject officially - she'd like lessons from Ilde, just because she's a friend and because someone who charage that much has to be really good at what they do. Unfortunately Steph just can't afford that right now.

That makes her wrinkle her nose, "A Candlelighter messed with a book. I'm not sure exactly what happened to him, but he's probably a smear on a Hellsing wall, somewhere." If this were anyone else, Steph probably wouldn't say so much, but it's Ilde. So, there you go.

Few things brighten Ilde's day quite like hearing about the terrible day of someone she dislikes - terrible but true - and she brightens slightly in turn, so Steph has at least correctly gauged who can deal with that information. “How sad for that guy.” It is not actually necessary to sound quite that upbeat about it-- and yet.

"You sound absolutely broken up about it," But there's amusement in her tone, rather than any sort of judgement. Steph isn't going to blame Ilde for hating Candlelighters, especially not after everything they've done recently.

Hand on heart, Ilde-- laughs, because yes, her very limited resource of bleeding heart is not under any circumstances going to find much sympathy for anti-xenian bigots. It is what it is.

“Well, some people.”

"I should have taken a picture of his broken nose and bloody face for you," This is how friendships work between a vigilante and a faery, apparently.

And then because they're on the topic, "They seem to have mostly gone quiet, after the sky broke."

Steph, admittedly, has only done a little digging, but she hasn't come up with much.

“I saw some pictures during all of that,” she says, and it is probably the first and last time that thinking of the events of last month are going to make her smile with quite that quality of absent-minded satisfaction. “I doubt there were many survivors after that.”

...yes. It's safe to say Ilde did not see somebody with a bloody nose.

(Ivan got bored of just texting 'are you still all right'.)

Edited 2012-04-13 18:12 (UTC)

Steph smiles, giving a small huff of a laugh, "I just got this image of you sitting there making a scrapbook. I think there's glitter involved."

It is both a hilarious and ridiculous image; Ilde gleefully sticking pictures of dead Candlelighters in a scrapbook, just to look over later.

Two years in a row now, someone I loved died on my birthday

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