Bite they little heads off! Nibble on they tiny feet!

[baedalites]

Who: EVERYONE.
What: Catenrat party.
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Givdi the 22nd of Toidaren
Notes: The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread. When your characters are ready to leave, they'll be given a little wooden cheese, a glass fish, and a voucher for a big basket of snacks.
Warnings: None yet. Please put warnings up on individual threads.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap. Above the doorway and wound through a few of the sets of antlers some enterprising soul has placed a garland decorated with little blue and green fish.

Comments

[betterthansubpoenas]

Kalinda presses her lips together in the way that people sometimes do when they're stifling laughter. And although Alan surprises her some when he mentions Cary, it doesn't chase away the mirth or otherwise show in her face. Two and two are put together rather quickly. "I'm not the spend holidays with friends type. He's not missing out."

And she refuses to think about what Cary might be thinking right now, in regards to her. "He's got his own circles. I'm sure he's enjoying himself, wherever he's decided to spend his time."

[alan_shore]

Despite being denied the satisfaction of witnessing the precise moment recollection scrapes up against intellect, producing that spark of realization, Alan will be pleased to know it's happened somewhere along the line, and Kalinda will rise a few notches in his estimation.

But here and now he simply nods. "I see." Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't (the lighting is awfully dim), but there's a solemnity in the steadiness of his gaze, the softness of his voice. "I'd meant to ask," he adds, recovering quite handily from that lapse into sincerity. "What do you think of the pie?"

[betterthansubpoenas]

She isn't trying to game him, which is precisely the reason why he doesn't witness that moment when she realises she'd spoken with Alan on her first day. She gains nothing from letting him see her work it out, so she doesn't show it. Nothing personal, Shore.

She smiles when he asks his question, grateful for the deflection from serious topics, even if she's more than capable of holding her own on that front. "The pie's delicious. Worth whatever bad karma I may have earned myself by coming over here and making conversation while people are trying to watch an American Christmas staple." Not that she believes in karma. It's probably a fairly safe bet that lawyers and the people who happily work for them don't much care about their karmic status. (Your mileage may vary?)

[alan_shore]

Oh, please. The mere fact that Alan's here, safe (or, at any rate, not in any immediate danger), warm, and leisurely stuffing his face while in the presence of a beautiful (the lighting isn't that poor) woman rather than beaten and left for dead in a ditch somewhere is one of the more compelling arguments against the existence of any sort of cosmic balance scale.

"I made it," he boasts, unable to conceal a touch of childish pride. "Well," he amends a moment later, stealing a look at the couch, "I suppose if we're to be technical, Ki over there did most of the actual cooking and I allowed her the benefit of my brute strength."

[betterthansubpoenas]

Kalinda oohs appreciatively. "Did you gather the sugar cane yourself?" she teases gently. "Job well done, Mister Shore." See? She remembers your name, Alan. That also slides very neatly into her next topic of conversation.

"Speaking of jobs... You wouldn't happen to have any work for an investigator, would you?" asked oh-so-slyly.

[alan_shore]

"Ah." Alan doesn't look disappointed by the conversational shift, merely unsurprised. What had been an interesting discussion has come to a thoroughly predictable conclusion, like a winding alley widening into a well-traveled main street.

With a theatricality that would put even a teenager to shame, he sighs. "If we must talk business," he says, resigned, "we'd better relocate to the bar."