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

Guess who didn't know movies came in black and white? :|

[mightymorbid]

Looking at Mozenrath, one wouldn't assume that he was the sort who watched a lot of movies, a habit he'd picked up from Snape and Martha. He wasn't the most accustomed to parties -- even his once revered enemy had noted he was not the sort who exactly got invited to many parties -- and so it was his first impulse to find a corner to sulk in, a familiar person to talk to or some sort of distraction that might prevent him from socializing too much.

A movie seemed like a fair compromise. He sat near Martha -- preferring to be close to someone he knew over the alternative (sitting awkwardly by himself), for a moment thinking he would slip in quietly and just not be noticed. He could do that. He was born to do that.

...But then he realized there was something different about this movie, that made it unlike any of the ones he'd watched with Martha. He leaned toward her and tapped her shoulder. "Where are the colors?" he whispered, looking mildly troubled.

[toldastory]

Martha had been very engrossed in the story. As soon as she realized what the movie was, she'd gathered up a pocket full of toilet paper and bar napkins in lieu of the tissue that she would have preferred. It's a Wonderful Life was just one of those movies that she practically was in tears for all the way through.

There were more tears there than usual, of course. Until she'd started watching this, Martha hadn't realized that it was Christmas. Her attempts to fix things with Severus had been a mad slap-dash way of not actually dealing with the fact that forever here meant 'forever without your family.'

But she was reminded that not all of her family were locked dimensions away when there was the tap on her shoulder. Quickly Martha turned and smiled with a slightly damp face., Looking to the film and back to him, Martha offered the answer in a whisper. "It's an old movie. From before they could color film."

[mightymorbid]

Mozenrath didn't miss the odd glimmer of light off her face where there shouldn't be, and his brow furrowed. Right. Tears. This was why he hated watching sentimental films back at home -- he didn't really know how to address them. Or want to. Being a power-hungry, genocidal hermit had its advantages. One of them: no situations like this.

The things he gave up for redemption.

Like personal comfort.

Akwardly, he started to reach to touch her shoulder, but stopped, instead just leaning closer and whispering. "Snape's going to think I made you do that."

[toldastory]

Seeing him reach for her like that made Martha smile through her tears and she knew what the effort of doing that was. It was odd how it was the little things that showed his redemption rather than the large ones.

Shifting a bit so Martha could look at him, she whispered back. "No, he's going to know that I got sentimental and cried at a movie," Martha countered his statement with a quick smile, but swabbed at the moisture on her cheeks with an impatient hand.

"But it's going to be okay." She was trying very hard to believe that--it actually sounded like she did.

[mightymorbid]

There was very little Mozenrath had to say on the subject of 'getting' how other people felt, a matter which Destane had made an art out of ignoring and had more than a decade to impart to his apprentice. It was something the good guys did. The old man couched it in loftier terms, of course. He still got Martha, though. He got most everybody on some level. There was no one here that hadn't wanted to get away at first.

He hoped her tears were some sign of resistance. He didn't want to be in this place forever, and his detriment for so many years had been his tendency to automatically assume no one else ever felt the same way that he did.

"You're right," he whispered, looking resolute.