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

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky scoots in towards the table a little more closely, his expression pulling down into an earnest little frown, "I'm sorry to hear that. It was always my understanding that the relationship between a mother and her children was more significant than any other."

He fills his new glass with beer, frowning ponderously, "When I would see mothers and their offspring together, they seemed very... active in the guarding of their children. I was always really quite jealous of them."

Almost all that Shrieky has seen of mothers has involved monitoring their children's proximity to the moat, so he might be speaking from a point of bias here.

[gwynn]

Megan pauses with her glass halfway to her face, her eyebrows going up. "You didn't know your mum?" She sounds alarmed and saddened by the thought -- and now feels a little guilty, because her mother wasn't perfect, but at least she was there. She's known a lot of people from non-nuclear families, but mostly people who never met their dads, or whose parents were separated or nearly separated, like hers. "That's so sad."

[wontturntofoam]

"I spent almost all of my childhood alone, actually. The significance of not having parents, specifically, was sort of lost on me. Someone explained it all to me later, but I think he may have oversimplified it all somewhat." Shrieky doesn't sound particularly disheartened by any of this. Parents were always something that he sort of fancied, but which he imagined he could have done without, if he'd had all the other things that he'd wanted. He pauses at her final comment, "It is sad though, growing up alone. I'm glad you think so."

Delicious vindication of his issues.

[gwynn]

"Oh my God, that's so sad. I can't even imagine. Just, like -- being alone, I mean." Megan can't even live without constantly texting other people, checking her Facebook, her Twitter -- although with the absence of the latter here, it's more checking the Network every five minutes. "But! You're here now, to the realm of awesome people? And booze?"

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky smiles, a little reassuringly. He does like having someone acknowledge that his life was a source of great sadness and that he has good cause for feeling sorry for himself, but... at the same time, he doesn't actually want Dragonfly to feel upset, even if it is only on his behalf. "I am here now! And I have booze, and I have our cohort, and I am surrounded by people almost constantly!" Keeping his voice utterly earnest, he adds to this: "I am most happy here. Beyond the bounds of any other happiness that I have ever known."

[gwynn]

"I'll drink to that!" And drink to that she does, downing the rest of the glass in one go -- which, to be fair, she stops after to cough, hits her chest, and then lets out the tiniest of burps. Because she's a fucking lady, okay. "'Scuze me."

[wontturntofoam]

"You are excused!" And there he goes, cheerily topping her up from what's left in the pitcher, and... it's probably safe to say that Shrieky is not going to be the best influence when it comes to helping Megan to moderate her alcohol consumption.

"So what posession of your mothers were you given?"