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

blithely declaring this happened before threads above la la

[rhinemaid]

...well, that was a lot of words, Fish, well done.

"It's all right," she says, eventually, meaning both how it's going and the--whatever just happened there with Fish's mouth, that was kind of cute. Ilde's generally inclined to have some sympathy for awkwardness (she's more aware, lately, of how certain natural advantages of hers have smoothed it where she might otherwise have struggled), though admittedly it also depends on her mood and who's involved. "I was thinking of dragging my boyfriend to Gutters afterwards, if he shows up."

yes that is correct

[fish]

He will accept his motormouth award later tonight, ever so graciously.

"Gutters, whoa. That place is kind of intense." He likes it. And he's not going to ask if she knows what kind of place it is; if she and her guy are at the dragging stage, it's a pretty safe bet that they're aware. It does intrigue him, though. "D'you go there a lot?"

[rhinemaid]

Ilde makes a so-so gesture, not ignorant of the many different things this could potentially be suggesting about her (or Ivan, for that matter) and blithe as ever, all the same. "I prefer it to most places." The Vault is a close second, and there are places she goes when she doesn't feel like being hyperaware of how far away from Ivan she is at all times, but still.

With a shrug, "I like the atmosphere."

Yes.

[fish]

So Ilde is kind of an intense person, then. Duly noted.

"Yeah..." Fish really wants to respond with enthusiasm, or some cool guy equivalent thereof, but there's a reason he said whoa in the first place, and it ain't his Keanu impression. The scene still frightens him, basically. The attitude here toward cruorvores is vastly different toward the one back home, though; he hopes it'll help him shake his baggage. He's trying hard.
To...get comfortable with being a murderer. (That line of thought will be harder to shake than most.)

"They've got some good music down there, usually... I thought about shoving a mix tape in the suggestion box, like to help expand their library, but I dunno if it'd be appreciated or anything." He doesn't want Deacon to totally reject his sweet tracks, basically.

[rhinemaid]

A little, yes.

“Deacon seems sort of choosy,” she remarks, kind of thoughtfully; it's not so much that she imagines him to be picky as she thinks he's probably the type to personally choose everything that comes in, goes out. Controlling. Not uptight, but-- still. It's an interesting thought, briefly, even if it is kind of a lot to take away from some speculation about mixtapes. One day she'll stop being so prone to tangents.

(No, that's not true.)

[fish]

"Yeah, I guess he does a little." Urge to gossip... rising. Resist, man, resist.

Fish lifts his bottle again, and asks, just before the rim touches his lips, casual like, "How d'you know him?" And watches Ilde while he sips, quietly attentive to her voiced and unspoken replies, both.

[rhinemaid]

A contemplative pause follows that question; she hasn't actually had to either explain their acquaintance or even give it a definition before, and she takes a leisurely approach to attempting to do so now. Assess that pondering as you will, Fish.

“We party sometimes,” she settles on, because it's oddly accurate, now that she thinks about it. “He makes for interesting company.”

[fish]

Jeez, could she be any more mysterious? That word comes with a few definitions, socially... but the time to ponder that is later, for right now he is attempting to navigate this conversation without crashing again and spilling words everywhere.

"If you like crabby guys, maybe." He doesn't exactly look displeased as he says this.

[rhinemaid]

“Arguably,” she observes, considering this notion with all the weighty seriousness that it deserves. (No, honestly, look at her social circle. About half of it could be described that way. There's a pattern.) “He doesn't seem so much that way, though, does he? I wouldn't call him cranky. An arsehole, certainly.”

She thinks he's lovely all the same, but that's because Ilde has problems. And apparently she's a connoisseur of jerks now.

[fish]

Excellent, they can have problems together. Problems about (but not necessarily with) jerks.

It should be noted here that Fish does not seem to possess the genes required for chuckling; he would not be offended if someone said he tittered just now, because that was exactly what he did. Breathy tittering. "Yeah, I guess. You probly know him better than I do." Yes. Probly. "Don't tell him I agreed with you, though."

[rhinemaid]

She lays her hand over her heart, solemnly-- “It'll be our secret. Ours and everyone else he's ever spoken to.”

Ilde has been drinking.

[fish]

"Aww, no, that's harsh. He's not that bad." Fish, you named this guy Dickface after meeting him just the once. "I was kind of a jerk after I got here, too... like, more than usual. Maybe it's just a thing." Words are hard.

And speaking of drinks, he will finish his now, turning slightly away so he's not drinking it at her, because it seems somehow impolite to tilt a bottle in someone's face.

[rhinemaid]

“No,” she says, ruminatively, “I think it's just him. That isn't such a terrible thing, you know.” There is room in the world for people like Deacon, and given the fact she keeps gravitating back to his nightclub and, at said nightclub, often his side - well, she doesn't actually object to that, to the surprise of almost no one who's ever met her here.

[fish]

"Oh, okay, I get it. That's... actually, that's really honest of you, then." He sounds surprised that he's impressed, frankly, and the lift of his eyebrows supports this. It's not that he didn't expect to be impressed by her, specifically—little moments like this one have a tendency to blindside him, and he himself has a tendency to react candidly to nearly everything. You'd think he would get used to it eventually, but no.

"I like that. Even if it is kinda harsh." Tee hee.

[rhinemaid]

A bit of selective bluntness suits Ilde well - sometimes she's very forthright and other times, not so much - and she smiles, slightly, disarmingly girlish in a way that's slightly incongruous with the topic of conversation.

Witness: “I like him the way that he is,” with a loose shrug. “We have that in common.” She and Deacon.

[fish]

"Yeah." Fish smiles, because she's smiling—he can't help it, really, it's sort of Pavlovian—and bows his head a little, too, and shifts his weight from both feet to just the one, and puts his hands in his coat pockets after a lengthy shrug that isn't meant to indicate anything, really, he just felt like shrugging. All of these things. A full body fidget, if you will.

By the time he settles, some of his hair has slipped down to cover most of one eye, as usual; he just lets it stay. "It's good, it's...good to know where you stand with someone. Guessing kinda sucks."

[rhinemaid]

“I hate that, the-- wondering, and stepping around--” there is some gesturing here, vaguely irate in the lazy way of someone who isn't terribly sober and doesn't feel like expending the effort involved in actually becoming passionate about any given subject this evening. “It seems like such a terrible waste of time.”

[fish]

"It really is. And it's stressful too, sometimes, wondering about that shit. I know you're not supposed to care what anyone else thinks, or just not let it bother you at all, but how can you not? Or like, not even wonder about it. Why even live around people if you don't give a shit?" One of his hands snuck back out at some point to do a little gesturing; it's likely this is a topic that concerns him personally.

[rhinemaid]

“I think it's that there ought to be a difference between caring and being bothered, or between...” Ilde rolls her teeth in her lip as she tries to think her way through this concept in a way that's less filtered through her cocktails. “It shouldn't be everything. But it's not nothing.”

...eloquent.

[fish]

Fish is fluent in Drunk Eloquence and therefore accepts this fully. "Yeah, totally. That's exactly... I mean, I try to keep it there, somewhere in the middle. A lotta the time it just ends up going back and forth, though." His hand flops left and right, loose in the wrist, as if to indicate a busted dial. "Like, between the extremes."