open post ● we're about to get up and burn this floor

[boomvox]

Who: Everyone.
What: The Grand Re-Opening of the Gravity Falls Station.
Where: Babylon.
When: Veerdi to Sukkardi.
Notes: Party post!!! Go nuts y'all.
Warnings: Probable alcohol (and drug?) use. Flag stuff in subject titles if it needs a warning and I'll edit it up in here.

It's clear from the first moment anyone even gets on the Skyrail tonight that the Stratosphere Entertainment Group's pricey investment is going to pay off - every rail car is crowded with people decked out and excited for the event. To natives of Baedal, the idea of a holiday is days off work, maybe some camping - escape is alien, a little frightening, and completely thrilling. Even when the Gravity Falls station had hosted other venues, it was nothing so ambitious as to capture the imaginations of the city as a whole. And to immigrants to the city who no longer have the luxury of even simple trips out of town - well, it's priceless. A bittersweet but suddenly vital excursion.

Doors open just as the sun begins to set, the light reflecting off the water of the ocean illuminating the great floating platform as if the entire sky was on fire, before slipping into deep purple then black, the ceiling of their experience dotted with brilliant stars. Staff members wrangling the hazards of the first night are anxious but excited, kind and helpful even if they end up frazzled by the overwhelming turnout. There is security, all sporting neon purple shirts with lion logos, but even by their own admission, they're only there to breakup fights - and even they're smiling all night, too.

Comments

the grounds ● pools & bars

[boomvox]

In the more central areas of the main grounds, there are a handful of inter-connected swimming pools with luxury-grade decks, cabanas and lounge chairs, even bottle service. The bars - one pool-side, one in the pool - play music piped in live from the club. There are lifeguards, yes, and they exist tonight in a perpetual state of exasperation with the number of drunk patrons ending up fully clothed in the water.

[rhinemaid]

Presumably it comes as no surprise that Ilde eventually ends up by the pools - it's not unusual when she wears a dress long enough for it to become inexplicably damp around the hem if she isn't paying attention (magic, it's exciting), but tonight she has indeed come by it honestly, exploring the interconnected areas and carrying her shoes. Her grip on her illusions is loosened, here, and the lights reflecting off the water catch on her skin, gleaming, which makes her a pretty bit of background as someone else takes a drunken tumble and she laughs, startled, navigating a few fast-paced steps in a half-circle not to end up set off balance herself by the ripples of stumbling around the edge of the pool.

It's probably a good thing she hadn't ordered a drink yet, anyway; she's meandering with vague intent towards one of the bars out here for a non-alcoholic cocktail she can nurse on a lounge chair until she decides where she wants to go next. Maybe she'll go put her shoes in her hotel room.

[gwynn]

Megan suddenly pops up in Ilde's line of vision, hanging upside down from the air. Her wing is out of the cast, she can fly on it as long as she takes it easy - no extended trips, nothing in high winds. This is fine, though, just a few minutes at the time to stretch them a bit.

She's holding a drink upside down (right side up in context to everything else), dress pinched between her thighs to keep her from just flashing everyone here. "Hi!" she says, tipsy, alcohol on her breath.

[rhinemaid]

“Megan!” --as though it was going to be anybody else accosting her from midair, pink-haired and upside down. “You look really good, hello!” It feels like it's been forever since she saw her - she remembers that Megan had gone, but...here she is, evidently, maybe she missed her coming back? She must have.

It's kind of nice. A nice surprise, for once.

“i didn't even know you were-- you look really good.”

[gwynn]

"See, now I'm like... in this awkward position where I have to be like 'no! Thank you!' as if I don't like. Know. That I'm totally hot. And now I sound conceited. Let's just agree that I'm fucking fabulous." She's beaming, though, she's happy and drunk and in a good mood and she only ever talks like this when she is... yeah, all of the above. It's all facetious, anyway. "Were you swimming? I kinda wanna but if my wings get wet then I'm like... grounded and like what if something goes wrong and this place goes like crashing into the sea I'd like, get eaten by a kraken or something."

[rhinemaid]

“I would protect you,” Ilde says, reasonably, as if that should be patently self-evident. Why wouldn't she totally fight a kraken for Megan, after all. “And- I was thinking about it, you know, I don't think anyone would mind if I were topless.” Since she didn't wear a bra.

To be fair, she could just borrow a Babylon swimsuit, like Jim did, but where's the fun in that.

[gwynn]

"Yeah I was gonna say, like... we're not a very pearl-clutchy set here. But like, you know - people gotta pay to see mine, I'm not gonna like, just be handing that out for free. Or d'you think that'd be like, advertising, like? Like, 'here they are, now come see them at the Vault!'"

These are the things Megan thinks about.

"But maybe we could be trendsetters."

Topless ones.

[rhinemaid]

“If anyone wants to see my breasts, they can just wait by the river in Raven's Gate,” she observes, plucking at the edge of her chemise's neckline - her bust is bigger than the last time they spoke to one another, and she's not quite used to it, yet. They've probably not yet stopped changing yet, either. “They tend to be a bit prudish about it, though, I don't know why.”

Whatever. She's a naiad in a river.

[gwynn]

"Did you know you're allowed to go to the beach naked? I didn't know that until I woke up one time there super drunk and also naked and was like, oh my God, but like, nobody cared. Well I mean they cared but nobody called the cops. Maybe you're not allowed, they just didn't feel like callin' the sheriff or whatever. That's weird, though, isn't it? 'Cos like, on Earth if you go to the beach naked everyone flips out like, oh my God, a boob! Anyway the moral of this story is that I'm goin' swimming." And with that she flips herself rightside-up - dropping her drink and deftly catching it in the process of inverting herself - and begins the arduous task of untying her boots.

[rhinemaid]

Well, if Megan is doing it--

Ilde's sandals are already off, and she sets them down on one of the lounge chairs for safekeeping before she peels out of her tulle underskirt and chemise; it isn't very hard get out of what's essentially not even an entire outfit, it turns out! What's left is going to swiftly end up negligible once she's in the water, little white bloomer-knickers. She's filling out with early pregnancy, already, but even near-naked it's not necessarily obvious exactly why, just yet.

“Don't let anyone fall in on you,” she says, stepping down into the water.

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan let her have her fun, but he generally circled back to her. Not only was he inclined to have her in sight because of safety, but for the less fraught reason that he simply enjoyed watching her. "Aren't you a vision?" he says, coming to join her, and silently offering to take her shoes for the time being. He's had a drink, but isn't carrying one currently.

[rhinemaid]

She holds them up for him to take, resting her free hand on his waist and rising up onto her toes to kiss him hello- which would be easier if she were still wearing her shoes, actually, but she'd taken them off to navigate poolside, and she's in a good mood, and she doesn't mind that he's obnoxiously tall or that he's incredibly reluctant to let her wander too far from him lately.

“I am,” she says, insouciantly lacking in modesty, “and I like it here.” In case he'd failed to notice that, somehow.

[deservesadaisy]

"I did foresee regular excursions, once the pool area came into view." The rest had its charms, certainly, but he knew what would be the most winning. "You seem to be having a good time."

He was glad. For all the tension - the fighting, and then her kidnapping - this was a good evening, for her and for them. It was pleasant, just to enjoy.

[rhinemaid]

“It's so expensive,” she sighs- which didn't stop her getting a hotel room for the night, mind, and which probably won't stop her coming back in the future, just maybe not as often as she'd really like to. “I'm glad we came, though-- buy me something I can drink?”

It feels like a reprieve; she'd like to enjoy it as long as it lasts.

[deservesadaisy]

"Any more particular request on that, or shall I surprise you?" He was, if nothing else, glad to see her smile.

[rhinemaid]

“Surprise me,” she says, lowering herself back down from her tiptoes and straightening his jacket reflexively, probably unnecessarily; it isn't that he needs straightening so much as Ilde needs to be constantly asserting herself into his space.

[deservesadaisy]

He gave her a quick kiss, then went to comply, taking her shoes along. When he returned, it was with something ridiculous, fruity and non-alcoholic but tasty for all that. He hadn't rushed back, drawn into some small talk on the way, but he still had moved with purpose for all that.

[captaincocksure]

Some patrons, however, are using the pools for their proper, intended purpose. Swimming, appropriately undressed, rather than being tossed in, pushed in, falling in with all their clothes on during drunken carousing.

One figure was cutting strong, decisive laps up and down one of the pools, but the more drunk people with clothes on he has to dodge, the slower he gets. Finally, Jim gives up, surfacing from the water seemingly all at once, hands grasping the sides, strong arms hauling himself up with a bit of a splash as he breaks the surface.

He climbs out and strides to a nearby deck chair, completely unselfconscious about the fact that he's dripping wet and clad in a small swimsuit (generations way before his own would have referred to such a garment as a "Speedo") that's neon purple and bears the Babylon's logo. He's got the flushed skin, slightly heaving chest, and pleased smile that one gets when one is enjoying a good post-workout endorphin rush; the smile doesn't fade as he plucks a towel off a pile folded neatly on his chair, attacking his hair first.

[andyoullmissit]

Clarice is sitting on the edge of the pool, idly wishing she'd acquired a swimsuit at some point in her stay in Baedal. The water looks inviting, but she's not wearing much under her light belted dress. Instead, she's just removed her ankle boots to trail her bare feet in the water.

She doesn't (quite) startle when the man breaks the water - she's sitting near enough to the ladder that it's to be expected.

"I imagine it's hard to get much exercise when people keep falling in," she observes to him, amused, in a light way that may or may not invite more conversation.

She came to the party to be with people. She might as well actually talk to some of them.

[captaincocksure]

Jim's grin widens at her observation, and he shrugs, the rest of his face falling into a what can you do? expression.

"It is, yeah," he replies, shifting the towel to quickly dry his right hand, arm, shoulder. "But maybe I'm the ridiculous one to expect I can actually get in some exercise in the middle of a party."

And then the reason for the hurried drying-off becomes evident, as he offers his hand. "Hi. I'm Jim Kirk."

[andyoullmissit]

She laughs and takes it, grip firm but not competitive. "Clarice Ferguson. Most people call me Blink. And it looks like you made the most of it." The exercise, she means.

[captaincocksure]

"Yeah, I think I did all right, all things considered."

He wraps the towel he'd been trying off around his waist, and he drapes another over his shoulders. And then he lowers himself beside her, also dangling his feet into the water.

"Have you checked out the rest of the club yet?"

[andyoullmissit]

"Just to walk through. I'd love to come back when it's not so crazy, sometime - I don't generally mind people, but I'm not used to so many in a concentrated space." She smiles a little, though, seemingly at ease anyway. "How about you?"

[captaincocksure]

"The same." He scrubs a bit at one side of his head with a corner of his towel. "I just walked through. I didn't even get all the way through, once I got here I stopped. I'm glad the club rents suits if you didn't bring one. I might go check out the rest of the place once I'm dry. Care to join me?"

So many guys might make that last question creepy, pushy, or an assumption, but in Jim's case it's clear it's a friendly, no-obligation request. If she'd like some company, he's happy to provide, but if not, no harm done.

[andyoullmissit]

She tilts her head, then makes a choice. "If you're sure - yeah. That'd be nice." He's friendly, and clearly not nervous around xenians, and there are worse starting places. "I may rent a suit later, but I figured I might wait until things had started winding down a little so you don't have to throw elbows to get any space."