OPEN :: A golden bird was singing

[baedalites]

Who: Everyone!
What: St Kelley's evening
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Veerdi evening.
Notes:
(1) The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread.
(2) All mementos will appear overnight in some part of your character's apartment.
(3) Dance!

St Kelley's is one of the more sedate occasions in Baedal, at least as holidays go. It passes more or less unnoticed by the majority of the population as many of them feel it doesn't concern them. It's not their holiday; it's for the others. Those with severed ties and broken hearts. The temple and church preach that it's a time for reflection or for glorifying the generosity of the gods. It's one of the few days on which no one looks askance at first generation Citizens mourning their missing loved ones publicly.

As night rolls around and floating lanterns are set to sea, the Apache in Mog Hill prepares to accept guests from the newer cohorts. It's something that happens every year, making it a practical tradition. The alcohol will be cheaper for first timers, and the music will be kept at a reasonable level.

Comments

Courtyard:

[baedalites]

Slightly more sociable than back alleys, this outside option is lit with paper lamps in the shape of boats and hearts, surrounded by the ubiquitous fairy lights. The ground is damp concrete and some outsider furniture scatters around the space, barred off from the rest of the neighbourhood with rustic rough plank fencing. People stand, smoke, chatter in loose mingling in the chilly air.

[rhinemaid]

As much as Ilde likes to socialize, periodically, the way the Apache fills up when they do this is sometimes a little more than she's quite willing to embrace, and it's easier to be outside (where she can still wear her hat); it's cool enough that it's quieter out here, cigarette smoke rising and enough dimmed chatter going on that she doesn't feel isolated by drifting away from the bar proper, the lounge areas.

Her attendance had been spur of the moment, so she texts Ivan (at the Apache; are you coming?) after her cigarette is lit and-- watches, mostly, for the time being, big-eyed and quiet in her slightly unsettling way.

[indiscreet]

Her first thought on seeing Ilde is a sudden realization of how long it has been since they last spoke. And really, that won't do at all -- because these nights she finds that there's a true sense of satisfaction in being around other fae... regardless of how endlessly strange it is to start to identify herself as on some level one of them. Ilde could hardly be less like the Princess, of course, but there's a sort of conspiratorial levity about her that she remembers as being a refreshingly different sort of fae intensity.

She starts a bit at the ember of the cigarette, but it's not so bad. The real problem is that one of the time since they last interacted. Still, her smile is easy because she's good at faking these things.

"Ilde, darling-- I'm glad to find you here."

[rhinemaid]

Having both a good memory and some skill in social situations - imperfect but not absent, shades of the life not lived - she puts her cigarette out behind her as she stands up to greet Anna with cheek kisses and a warmly easy smile that would probably have been a little less of one or the other if she hadn't already eased her way into a drink. (It's nothing personal; a lot's happened, since they last spoke, and it'd be overly generous to say that Ilde is actually coping with any of it.)

"I was thinking," she says, drawing back, "that I hadn't seen you in too long."

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan's text back is simple and precise: I'll come if you want me. He'd been out and about himself, but it was a private moment watching the boats. He had a lot of past to consider.

He's not hard to tug away from it, though.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde hadn't lingered long after sending her own out; she's not sure what she's expecting, if she's expecting anything at all, and after a few moments by the waterside she hadn't really wanted to think about it any more. Something will happen-- but it will do so without her constant scrutiny, and even if it's been easier, lately, the distance between herself and her family...it's easier again with a bit of alcohol and some familiar faces.

I'm out in the courtyard.

[charismatic]

Aside from seeing her around the network a few times – which was more surprising than this, because of course she could walk around on land and use phones, and doesn't actually live in the river, so he's got all of that out of his system already – Will hasn't run into Ilde again, brief conversations about showcasing his junk notwithstanding. He's taking a break from all the chatter and crowded warmth inside, and it only takes a moment for him to decide to stop next to her.

“Hi,” he says, offering a smile. “Seems like a lot of folks are down here tonight.”

[rhinemaid]

Ilde doesn't actually think 'oh, the tolerable human' when he joins her, but it's a near thing; it's just the impression she has of him most strongly, and so it goes.

--regardless, she smiles, lazy.

"Embracing Baedal's many and varied traditions," she says, dryly.

[yeouiju]

Sunny doesn't smoke, but he does prefer to be outdoors; and the lanterns are tempting, so he has come to see them. He sort of circles a low hanging boat one, the red-tinged light spilling on his face as he notes the creases and folds that were created to make it.

In his hand is a glass of beer he's been working on; he didn't buy it, but he was listening to the story of someone else who bought the table a round, so that was fortunate. He's in jeans, a bright jacket, a glimmer of silver stapled through his ear.

When he sees Ilde, the decision to bother her is almost instantaneous - he smiles because he recognises her from the itty bitty CiD screen, and moves on over.

[rhinemaid]

Her first, instinctive reactions are-- curiously contradictory in a way that merits her conscious notice and a very subtle frown, sitting straighter on the bench she's claimed. While the content of their conversation means she probably wouldn't say she enjoyed it, it'd been interesting and she'd been interested in his perspective; she's pleased to see him, pleased to see him friendly, and she can't quite put her finger on why it is she feels like a cat that's been stroked the wrong way. It's almost territorial and she rolls her lip in her teeth, considering him without smiling--

--for just slightly too long, until she realizes how far her mind has wandered and reels it back in.

"Hello," after a moment.

[fish]

So this little guy over here is giving Ilde kind of a weird look, obviously trying to figure something out, or decide something...or maybe that's just his face, who knows. (No, he's deciding.) Before too long, whether or not she notices—he's kind of hoping she doesn't, actually—he winds his way between a few little islands of bodies to approach her somewhat diffidently.

"Uh, hey... Ilde, right?" Fish has seen her before on the network, of course, but. Well. There was that whole thing with the river and all, and his attitude about clothes and/or the lack thereof isn't typically so blasé as hers, so mostly he's just hoping this won't be weird.

[rhinemaid]

His observation goes mercifully (for Fish, presumably) unnoticed; she's somewhere else in her head, thinking about messages she could've written for her lantern and didn't (Daddy, I'm sorry), and while she meets his gaze reflexively when he approaches her, it visibly takes a few moments to register that she's supposed to react to that.

“Quite right,” she says, and for all that oddness she's disarming when she smiles, the 'ingenue' half of 'psycho ingenue' rearing its pretty head. “I remember you from the river.” ...and the network, yes, but he'd made more of an impression in the water.

(Naked.)

(What.)

[gramarye]

Wolfgang spends more time outside than in, only venturing indoors to get more alcohol -- he's about two whiskeys in at this point, and he's tall so there's a lot more of him to get drunk, it takes a while. He's got a cigarette perched between his lips and a glass in one hand, which he feels is good enough; a few people have come up and asked him for a light, and that's like socializing, right?

It takes him a while to notice Ilde -- she's quiet, it happens -- but when he does, he smiles and waves. "That's a great hat," he comments. Of course he notices that, hi.

[martyrdomoption]

One of Mitchell's recurring desires since his arrival in Baedal is the need for company. Usually followed by the uncertainty of whether he deserves it or not, and the impulse to go ahead and try anyway. So far it's only lead to disappointment once he's realised how detached he feels to the people, the city, that surrounds him.

That means he's outside by himself for the second time tonight, smoking in solitude and lost in disarrayed thoughts. He's not doing a good job of looking like someone who would welcome idle chit-chat.

Re: Courtyard:

[djravenfall]

This really isn't the sort of thing that Kaitlyn has money for at the moment, and yet here she is. How could she not, sentimental sap she could be. A stop by the bar had rewarded her with a glass of whiskey, probably her only one for the night, and from there it was out to the courtyard. As much as she loves bars and would rather be leaning up against the jukebox, something about being outside just felt better for the moment.

Glass in hand, she spends most of the time milling about the edges of the courtyard. She'd been mostly trying to avoid thinking about back home too hard, but after finding out what today was all about, it was a bit hard. Still, she tries to keep a smile on her face as she mills about, offering a smile to anyone who looks in her direction. If nothing else, it's nice to be out and be something resembling social again.

[fish]

Congratulations, Kaitlyn, you have been chosen at random and thusly won the conversational lottery this evening. This isn't a pity approach, it's just that sometimes he likes to throw himself at people and see what happens. (Not literally.) (...usually.)

It's not a literal approach, mind, but a friendly look as she passes him. His coat's unbuttoned and there's a bottle in his hand, and between two fingers of that same hand an unlit cigarette awaits its own inevitable cremation. The other's going for his lighter at this very moment, in fact.

"What's up? You're new, right?"

[gwynn]

Megan is halfway to drunk by now and starting to feel stifled indoors, which suddenly feels very hot -- it's not, she's... you know, just drunk. So she traipses outside for a little chilly Kavadry air, polishing off her something-eenth beer and thinking she's going to have to piss like a monsoon sooner or later, when she nearly runs right into some chick. "Hi! I love your hair!" Well. Okay then!

Re: Courtyard:

[deadclumsy]

Tonks has occupied one of the chairs near the door, watching the comings and goings of others and being more than a little too quiet. It's just that sort of night, isn't it? When one can sit and consider all those who have been lost?

She's not one to dwell - not really. But she can't help thinking of Sirius, or, to a lesser degree, of Remus (because that's something she's told no one). She can't help thinking of Bellatrix and wondering who was behind her killing. Or of Lily Potter, and how she must be missing her husband terribly. She hopes Harry has contacted his mother. She hopes he's keeping her company.

Maybe she'll call Snape-the-younger and go have a drink with him, she thinks, then writes it off almost immediately. He tolerates her (she supposes) in much the same way she tolerates him. He probably has his own lanterns to set loose tonight, anyway.

She's getting a little too sentimental, is the problem. There's no raucous howling and laughter from her, no pig snouts or duck bills or fire engine-red hair. She settled on a nice brown and stuck with it. Everything about her is quite muted, and she's content to just sit here until someone she knows - preferably someone from home - wanders along.

[hearditbothways]

If Tonks wanted peace and quiet, then karma had it in for her today.

Shawn strolls past her with a cheery spring in his step, seemingly oblivious of her presence - but then stops with his back to her. One hand goes up to his temple as he utteres a low hum. "Oh my God. I feel a tremor in the force so strong that I can almost sense it."

Shawn whirls back around, his other hand pointing straight at Tonks, his voice doing a dramatic octave-drop. "I know you."

[norea]

Hasi is a little--or, okay, more than a little, but pleasantly so--drunk when she comes into the courtyard, though not teetering (never) in her high heels and gold dress, bare-legged with her coat somewhere in the bar. The courtyard is pretty depleted of people at the moment, and she separates from her in-bar company--all male, at the moment--with laughing but firm dismissal. The fairy lights and lamps cast strange shadows over the courtyard, and she trails around, tracing fingertips over the old walls of the courtyard.

"There needs to be a piano out here," she announces, half-to herself. Nothing grand, she thinks, not at all, just a little thing to bang around on.

[martyrdomoption]

"Something to play or lie on?" There's a familiar voice coming from a shadowy corner, and if Hasi investigates, she'll see Mitchell not intentionally skulking in the shadows. But these things happen, sometimes (vampires).

Regardless of intentions, he's smoking and making himself inconspicuous. Apparently the desire to be social and the reality haven't quite meshed tonight.

[ruinedu2]

Things have started to feel less overwhelming over time, which is as much a good thing as it is a sign of resignation, as far as Olivia's concerned. Life has started to take on a sense of normalcy, and it's partially out of a wish to defy complacency that she gets a little dressed up to attend the St. Kelley's Memento celebration. The open black jacket and the beer in one hand take some of the softness off the more feminine image created by her sleeveless red and white dress, and black pumps.

She's not necessarily looking for anyone as she sort of meanders through the courtyard so much as she is just looking. It makes her seem more approachable, anyway. If there was anybody she's hoping to see, she's not actually expecting to see them. Her little boat has already been sent off. She'll see if there's an real merit to all this soon enough.

[captaincocksure]

"...Didn't need air already, did you?"

The smile on his face matches the tone of his voice--gently teasing, and not at her expense. Jim rises to his feet, smoothing out the jacket of his suit. He gestures at the bench where he'd been seated.

"You're welcome to join me here, if you want."

[captainredwhiteblue]

There's a part of Steve that's occupied tonight, busy thinking of home, of lost friends and loved ones, of what was left behind. But he's an old hand at remaining optimistic even in the face of adversity.

So he's his usual cheerful self, outwardly, as he roams the courtyard, saying a few hellos. After a while, he leans on a wall, people-watching, nursing his glass of club soda.

[supersonic]

Steve isn't the only one doing more people-watching than socializing just now, although for Pietro that is less an anomaly and more a chronic affliction. He didn't come here to make friends, or even mourn lost loved ones; he simply came to get a feel for the cohort, which he can do well enough from over here, thank you. At some point he'll get bored enough to strike up a conversation, he imagines, but for the moment he is content to watch.

What he doesn't expect is to spot a familiar face in the crowd.

"Rogers?" Hi Steve, there is a white-haired, sharp-boned gentleman coming your way. For a few steps, Pietro moves a little too fast, crossing the courtyard to the other man. "What the devil are you doing here? Wanda didn't tell me this place had you too."