→ take me to wonderland.

[thedominatrix]

Who: Irene & guests.
What: Birthday drinks.
Where: Syriac Well.
When: 24th Shadri.
Notes: An outfit.

Birthdays are busy when you maintain a variety of different social circles. There's the enormous, lavish, exclusive party she throws, where she stays stone cold sober and pushes drinks on everyone else, to fascinating results- there are numerous private one on one dinners for the people who all need to feel like they're her favourite, like they're getting the special treatment, poor things, and that's almost fun just because of how dishonest it is except the boredom tends to negate that. But then there's this, which is play and not work, Irene inviting people because she likes them rather than because they need to feel invited, and because when she likes people she has to insert herself into their lives and demand as much of their attention as possible.

The surroundings are incredibly sumptuous, of course, stirred by a slight breeze from the open balcony doors. The atmosphere is intimate, private, slightly heady and unreal, urged on by some excellent wine (far from the only thing on offer, of course, but particularly notable) and Irene's languid charm, her usual society persona toned down ever so slightly as if to say well, you all know the truth, which is a very insidious sort of lie that she can still have fun telling. She's being very attentive to her guests- an uncharitable observer might suggest, in fact, that she pounces on them as they arrive.

But they wouldn't get an invite.

Comments

[heardmermaids]

Assuming he survives the evening, Sebastian makes a mental note to be grateful for this time with the Malfoys. He's reasonably sure that without their comparatively constant companionship for the last year and a half, he'd be uncomfortably nervous about this evening. As it is, he's a little fluttery, but is sure that the gift he brought will be amusing enough to please and distract without bringing too much attention on his head.

In one hand, he holds a thin, softcover book wrapped in plain, but good quality paper.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde is among the first to arrive, in black and gold and carrying a small black box tied with gold ribbon because the effort it would've taken to resist matching gift to outfit would have also involved going out and buying different ribbon, when she already had this gold one at home. The gift itself is something she's slightly anxious about; she thinks Irene will appreciate it, but she's never given Irene a present before, how can she know? Maybe it's too sentimental, for all its artistic value, and she should've just--

Well, she's here, anyway, so it's a bit late to flee and buy something else.

“Happy birthday,” she says, beaming.

[asklepios]

Having not actually bothered to notify Irene she intended to show up, Benevenuta-- shows up, in an outfit that's more about the accessories than the dress; namely the pendant that she'd acquired from Irene's own collection when they first met, being not oblivious to how much she seems to like the idea of Benevenuta in her things. Aside from being pounced on, she's a relatively unassuming arrival and indeed guest; habit.

The gift she's brought is slightly experimental, and her first concern is finding somewhere to put it that it won't get wrecked before Irene has the opportunity to properly enjoy it - a miniature tiered cake, topped off with a very carefully crafted marzipan Louboutin, complete with red sole, a detailed small replica of a shoe Benevenuta remembers seeing Irene wear. The cake itself is red velvet, iced black, and it took her hours to get right.

[thedominatrix]

"Hullo, dear."

Well done, those Malfoys; Irene's quite impressed by how he's holding up. This might be a surprise, considering the fact that she does rather enjoy taking people out of their comfort zone- but then she likes watching people manage to find their feet, it's heartwarming.

"Well, now. Can I offer a drink?" She grins at him, and grins at the present in his hand, sly and wicked. "What've you got for me- is it rude to ask, or charmingly direct, in your opinion? People can be so funny about presents."

There's a glow emanating from the balcony doors; Irene had considered candles, but Beatrice is somehow more stylish- and she'd been struck by the strange idea that the snake might enjoy showing off.

(She rolled her eyes at herself when the thought occured to her, but Beatrice actually seems to be proving her right; she winds in shining circles when approached).

[heardmermaids]

"Hullo," he replies with a bright smile for her and then another for Beatrice. While she may be just a construct, Sebastian is pleased to see that she's doing so well and shows signs of adapting to her owner's personality.

"I'll go with necessary, because it comes with instructions that I suspect you won't want others to hear." Under the paper is a plain, used copy of Shakespeare's sonnets with a simple, uninspired dedication on the flyleaf. The cover is nice enough looking that it wouldn't be entirely out of place among Irene's belongings, but there's an odd sense of disuse to it. If one didn't intend to pick it up, it's quite possible that the eye would just slide right over it.

[thedominatrix]

Matching wrapping to outfit seems perfectly sensible in Irene's opinion, and really, she'd be far more surprised if Ilde hadn't.

"It had better be. You're a darling- and you look fabulous," she adds- Ilde gets a hug and a very careful air kiss to the cheek (no point in getting lipstick all over her). She means it, even though it sounds like something easy to bat around without any significance, a social nicety; she's always liked Ilde's aesthetic- and that's an important thing in friendship. Yes?

[rhinemaid]

Silk-organza and Ilde go together like wine and bad decisions - frequently at the same time, although not tonight, not when she's waiting on news. Over the past few weeks she's discovered that social niceties are significantly more challenging without the wine, and there is a certain element of terribly earnest fluster about her manner that she'd ordinarily fix just that way.

A hug helps, in its place; a little affection has always gone a (worryingly) long way with her.

“Thank you! I was aiming for fabulous, I thought it'd be nice to complement you.” See how smoothly she made that into a compliment for Irene. Clearly she is fine at socializing sober. “I brought you this,” she adds, offering the box when they separate again. “Should I put it somewhere or do you want to open it?”

[thedominatrix]

"Oh?" That's drawn out as Irene slowly unfolds the paper, eyebrows up and smile eager. She runs her hand over the cover of the book, looking at it with great interest for a moment before returning her gaze to him, her curiosity obviously piqued.

"You are a secretive one. Go on," she says, her voice a low, excited murmur.

[heardmermaids]

"Turn to number 129, read the last two lines aloud and then the lock will be set to your voice." Provided she follows his directions, after she's finished speaking, a series of blank pages will open up in the middle of the book. While Sebastian's own diary is keyed to his personal signature, he's reasonably sure this ought to work for someone without any innate magic.

"As you need more pages, they'll automatically form, and the lock itself isn't, well, it's not cursebreaker worthy, but what it lacks in strength, it makes up for in stealth."

[thedominatrix]

Irene is actually not sure anyone's baked her a cake before. It's not really what happens in the social circles she usually moves in, and not something she was expecting at all. She never lets herself get knocked too much off-balance in any kind of social situation, but the cake makes her forget the greeting that was on the tip of her tongue.

"Oh my God," she says instead, actually laughing- delighted. "Here, come into the kitchen a moment, quickly so no one sees and gets jealous. Oh, it's beautiful."

[asklepios]

Benevenuta has even gone to the trouble of a glass dome cover over the display plate, so it's all a bit charmingly over the top - she'd found the glass at an antiques dealer in Aspic, and the small bulb-handle at the top is intricately decorated. She'd held it and her clutch on her knees in the carriage over, utterly determined not to let anything slide or break in the process.

Putting it down on the kitchen bench is actually sort of a relief-- “I was hoping to give you something, ah, unique? I hope you like red velvet.”

[thedominatrix]

Very smoothly. Irene accepts the compliment ("Sweet talker.") and accepts the box, adding, with a wry smile, "Gosh, you must think I'm much more patient than I am if you're giving me the choice."

She unties the ribbon carefully, and opens the box with very delicate movements, a glint in her eyes that is entirely real- she loves presents, both for the simple materialistic pleasure of new things and what they reveal about the giver, the receiver, the relationship.

[rhinemaid]

Inside is a small disc for one of the crystal music players popular in Baedal; it had been short notice, but Ilde had taken the time to sweet-talk a jeweller into customizing a glass case for it, its title and artist delicately engraved:

Emeric Featherstonehaugh's Unfinished Symphony

Ilde Decima Featherstonehaugh

“I've been making recordings, where Jae works,” she explains, “but most of those I was thinking of seeing if I could make them commercial, this one I thought I'd save, since he never finished it, so it was just ours that he was working on before the storms came. He said it was meant to be listened to right before dawn.”

[thedominatrix]

She gives him a look and a slow smile, then flicks to the appropriate poem, reading the words aloud in a practiced and performative tone, enunciation perfect. The grin that appears on her face is real, accompanied by a surprised kind of chuckle, a real and genuine enjoyment of new things which makes her seem much less unreachably poised.

"Just like yours. It's brilliant," she says, running a hand over one of the blank pages. Whether she's capable of putting down hard fact in such a concrete way remains to be seen- but she will use it, in one fashion or another. "Thank you."

[thedominatrix]

"Love it," Irene assures her- true. There isn't a type of cake Irene doesn't approve of, really. And even if she didn't like it, she'd enjoy the fact that Vanessza-Benevenuta made it- whether that's sentimentality or ego is entirely up for debate. "I don't think anyone's made me a cake before- though I promise you've already made an impression."

A wicked grin and, as if to say for example-- "Nice necklace."

[asklepios]

It's true that cake does tend to go down well on birthdays, after all; she'd been relatively sure she couldn't go wrong there, if only because of the slim likelihood that anyone else would be baking for Irene Adler.

“I thought you'd like that, too,” she says, with a brief laugh, touching the edge of the pendant in question.

[heardmermaids]

"You're very welcome and if you need anything about it changed or if you've suggestions, I'd be happy to do what I can." He knows it's not a particularly exciting or unusual gift, but it's something he made himself and he feels that Irene should be able to get some real use out of. Even if it's only to keep track of her most secret grocery lists.

[diogenesis]

Mycroft arrives like clockwork precisely at 9, dressed in grey and gold and accompanied by Alan Shore.

It's unusual for Mycroft to go anywhere with company—he keeps very tight schedules and can't abide the unpredictability that traveling with others often involves—but he'd decided to try it this time, since ignoring the fact that Flyside was directly on his way to Syriac Well would have made no sense. In the end, any worries he might have had were rendered moot as Alan proved to be both on-time and, as ever, pleasant company.

Entering Irene's flat brings with it an instant curiosity. This is a place that's been closed to him for some time, now, and although no one plays the waiting game like Mycroft Holmes, he's not above feeling pleased and even excited when an opportunity to learn something new finally presents itself. It's a kind of thrill he knows Irene also enjoys, a fact that had been on his mind when he'd finally settled on a suitable gift.

Speaking of the gift, it's nowhere to be seen.

[thedominatrix]

"Oh, hello," Irene says, sounding positively rapturous- her usual promise that there's absolutely no one in the world she'd rather see than the people right in front of her. It's all so overdone that on someone else it might be embarrassingly false, tawdry even, but when she does it it works. It might be because of what lurks beneath the surface of everything she does, something predatory; it makes everything seem more real- or at least more interesting.

"Don't you look dashing- both of you."

She's got a glass of wine in her hand, and her expression suggests that she rather thinks Alan Shore would go well with it. "Mr Shore. Gosh, just look at you. What an thrill to finally meet you with all your clothes on." A glance to Mycroft, eyes wide and innocent, expression who me over her wine glass, soft and flattered--

"Though honestly, you needn't have wrapped him."

[thedominatrix]

"--in that case, I'll do that."

That's- unexpected, she wants to say sweet but it doesn't seem to fit, seems too silly and immature all of a sudden. She glances back to Ilde, smile growing on her face. "Ilde, you're exceptional. And I can't wait. Thank you." Saying you're exceptional is odd, people don't say things like that, but she manages to avoid making it sound stagey or forced, her voice a low murmur. And her smile spreads more- she can go from surprised to touched to slightly wicked so easily. She holds the box close and takes a few steps back, still facing Ilde so she can talk; "I'm going to have to find somewhere safe to put this until just before dawn comes. Come on, come with me, I'm not going to maroon you in my living room. You know, I've never even heard you play anything before, how did we let that happen?"

[rhinemaid]

“I don't know!” Irene's reaction goes a long way to easing the slightly over-earnest eagerness to please - now she has, and she can relax a little bit, and follow along readily. “This is a piano symphony, that was his preferred instrument, but mine is my cello, or my harp. I have a Domenico Montagnana, which is ideal for concertos, if I had an orchestra. Which I don't.”

But still. If she did.

(Music and Ilde are inextricable from one another; it's inevitable that this is the way in which she reaches out to someone, the language that she's learned for the purpose of sharing.)

[heardmermaids]

Once the party is underway and Sebastian has paid Ms Adler her fair share of attention, he follows through with his promise and goes to check up on Beatrice - the lightsnake he made for her one late night in a diner. He'd cast the containment spell in a fairly haphazard manner and while he's confident the construct is settling in well, it's only polite and proper to make sure that she's truly comfortable. (If an image created from breath and light can truly be said to ever really 'be' much of anything.)

It's a simple gesture and a couple of hissed words that allow Beatrice climb out of her glass and wind up and around his wrist.

[thedominatrix]

Benevenuta was right in recalling how Irene likes to see her wearing her things; it's being possessive, and half a kind of secret understanding between the two of them, with only them knowing the story behind the pendant- relatively harmless and relatively frivolous, not like her other secrets, but thrilling all the same.

"Rather a lot. So; are you spoiling me or being calculating?" she asks archly, hands on her hips and a grin on her face. "Or both, of course."

[asklepios]

“Yes,” she says, tartly, laughing - baking for Irene is a bit of a joke, a bit something intimate, something that no one else would do, but it's also just the sort of that the Benevenuta does. She's a bit somebody's mother, in that way; she makes preserves and birthday cakes and feeds people when they come to visit her and does all her tellings-off in the kitchen. It makes a funny sort of contrast in her own mind, at least, of her gift and their secrets - the sort that she enjoys.

Benevenuta does have so many secrets.

“Happy birthday, hm?”

[thedominatrix]

"You're giving me an excuse to pester you; I think you must like it," she purrs, flipping the book shut and tapping him gently on the chest with one corner, mock stern but with a grin curving the corners of her mouth upwards irrepressibly. "Of course, next year you'll have to top it, and then the year after you'll have to top that, and-"

There's a brief break, like she's forgotten her lines. Next year, and next year, and next year, here, in this one city, until what? Until when?

"Well. At some point you'll have to end up gifting me a village," she says, recovering her conversation with barely a hitch, charming as ever, smiling wide.

Until when?