lucetilogs | Comfort and Joy

Comfort and Joy

Who: Come one, come all! ...So long as you're appropriately dressed.
What: Luceti's second annual Christmas ball, old-world style.
When: December 1st, beginning around five in the afternoon and ending when the last person leaves.
Where: The Battle Dome.
Summary: Earth's eighteenth-century peeps are throwing one hell of a party. Again.
Rating: Well, considering no one is serving water? Probably PG-13 for alcohol consumption and the results thereof (there's coffee and hot chocolate!).

Upon stepping into the program at the Battle Dome, snow crunches beneath your feet. Great flakes of it drift silently from the dark sky above. And ahead...

The chill in the air is penetrated by the promise of warmth and light within the castle. As you approach, the music and festivities from inside reach your ears--tambourines and laughter and the clink of china dishes.

The doors open to a host of candles and a warm, old-world smell and feel. The scent of food and spices hangs in the air—mulled wine, wassail, evergreen boughs, fresh bread and roast meat--and you're only in the entryway.

Inside the dining room, cream brocades, simple but elegant, are draped over the walls. Traditional red rugs have been thrown over the floor. The single long feast table is impeccably dressed with light linen cloths and set with fine china and crystal.

The tables are lit with candles and chandeliers, giving the room a golden glow. On the tables, boughs of evergreen and holly surround the candles, and mistletoe has been hung discreetly here and there. In one corner, by a large and beautifully decorated fir tree (Buffy’s insistence), musicians are set up to play.

Things will begin with a grand dinner late in the afternoon, with a light supper (mostly consisting of cold meats, bread, and other lighter fare) at around nine o’clock. The selection of food on the tables is enormous. Most of it is meat-based and some of it is simply meat. Roast beef with mushrooms, goose in giblet gravy, herbed chicken, baked salmon, and a whole pig are among the choices. There is some hope for vegetarians, though, with spinach mixed with bread crumbs and cheese on small toasts, turnips (or rutabagas if you speak American), onions, carrots, parsnips, mashed potatoes, asparagus in breadcrumbs, and savory onion and wild mushroom pies. There is hot fresh bread and rolls with butter and heaps upon heaps of small mince pies filled with fruit, molasses, and yes, a little minced lamb. Moreover, there are fresh winter fruits like oranges and mikans and many different desserts, such as Christmas pudding, a rum chocolate dessert, and spotted dog with custard. Sit and help yourself.

Among the drinks throughout the evening are wassail, tea, hot chocolate (less sweet and much more intense than most modern characters would be used to, made with cinnamon, vanilla, and a hint of cayenne pepper), coffee, brandy, wine both mulled and plain, port, sherry, and gallons of rum punch. Even though the food is fantastic, the conversation is the point of the game, and who knows who they will wind up sitting beside. At the center of each table is placed a pineapple as a sign of welcome and wishes of prosperity.

In the ballroom, there is dancing light as the music itself, with Archie Kennedy and Elizabeth Swann teaching the steps of each dance before striking up the music and letting everyone go to town with it. They are poised and elegant but relaxed and seeming to glide as they demonstrate the motions with an effortlessness that comes with years of practice. They were both raised on these dances and this sort of social function and seem completely at home here. The dancing begins after dinner with the minuets and continues after a light supper with some informal English country dances. Anyone unused to dancing like this may find that it’s harder than it looks, but when one gets used to it, it feels very graceful, beautiful, and…fun! In fact, it's perfectly acceptable to goof off during these dances, as long as you're charming enough that people aren't irritated with you when you mess everyone up. The activity will only end when there are too few dancers left to continue, and will continue all night if possible. As dancers pass each other or move hand-in-hand, eye contact can be made, quiet words exchanged, subtle (or not) messages passed as they spin through the room, or perhaps the room spins while they remain still.

It might depend on how much they’ve had to drink.

Those who do not wish to dance have other activities to participate in. In one quiet room, card tables are set up with multiple decks of cards stacked up, and there is even a box or two of dominoes and a handful of dice. The tables themselves are round and made of polished rosewood or mahogany. This area is quietly away from the ballroom, probably as a mercy to the tone-deaf Horatio Hornblower who loves cards but can’t abide music. Here, discreet (or indiscreet) gambling is inevitable. There may be no money here, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to wager.

This being a castle, there are other rooms to explore. Up in the towers are bedrooms, nooks and crannies, and a large private library. Sneaking back to the kitchen between meals for a preview or stolen taste of supper to come is not out of the question, either.

Are you lingering in the dining room, drinking and talking loud and laughing with friends, or will you shyly sit and watch the dancing and games and hope to be invited in? Are you sitting quietly alone and listening to the music as your foot taps on its own, or are you unable to sit still and ready to dance all night if they’ll let you? Are you playing cards with a few new acquaintances, or are you hanging on someone’s arm and helping them cheat? Are you content to enjoy the presence of people, or are you exploring the castle with a special someone?

Whatever you do, have fun.

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It takes some convincing, but Jane does, in due time, turn up to the ball. She feels uncomfortable in her dress, the first thing she spotted that seemed fancy in the clothing store. She looks pretty, wearing make up for once in her life, though her jewelry is somewhat less blingtacular.

She comes alone, dateless, and is initially not bothered by this. She won't dance unless asked, but she will mingle, smile in place, amicable as her normal self ever is.

But the sight of numerous couples, romantic or not, eventually drives her from the room. Because, you see, she ends up having a powerful mental image of what it might have been if Thor were here. She imagines helping him slip on his tie, and the warm smile that would be on his face as he looked down at her and they laughed quietly. It makes her heart unexpectedly flutter. But it's the sound of Loki's laugh, soft and low in the back of her mind, that dispels the vision and sends her fleeing from the room. Clandestinely, so as not to arouse suspicion, but in her white dress it won't be hard to spot her leaving.

She wanders the castle, aimless and slow, eventually passing through a bedroom (leaving the door open in her wake) and passing through it to a balcony outside. There, she leans on the railing and watches the sky, marveling silently at the power of the battle dome's technology.

Whether anyone discovers her there or not, she will eventually return to the ballroom once she's cleared her mind a little. She will be, however, somewhat more subdued and absent, as if her mind is not quite all there.

Jane is, indeed, easy to observe fleeing the ballroom. Loki makes a mental note of it, but does not immediately follow. Ladies sometimes depart for reasons all their own, and what Jane does is really no business of his at all.

When she does not return for quite some time, however, curiosity (perhaps a touch of concern, but no we'll ignore that) overcomes him, perhaps liberally helped by the amount of wine he's had. He's nowhere near drunk, better than human constitution and all, but it does make him a bit less cautious, a bit less able to simply ignore emotions.

He is much more circumspect about slipping out of the room; he always is. Once alone, he takes a bit of mirror from empty space and has it show him Jane. From there, it's a simple matter of stepping through one doorway, coming out another, and there he is, in all his archaic finery. It's a bit cool out on the balcony, but not too bad, and the view is very nice. Perhaps that's why she's come out here.

"Lady Foster. Is something the matter?"

Edited 2012-12-02 06:28 (UTC)

The sound of his voice makes her shoulders bunch together, an electric surge running down her spine. But she takes a moment to gather herself, breathing in deeply through her nose before she turns to face him.

"Hi, Loki. No, I'm -- fine. I just wanted some fresh air."

The rather standard answer for a party guest fleeing the site of the party, and a rather transparent lie. Her smile is pleasant enough, though. She doesn't seem entirely unhappy to see him, through there is something guarded about her stance.

Loki leans against the doorway... well, lounges, really, since that's his normal mode when he's not standing up straight. "Well, it certainly is a bit fresher out here," he observes wryly, one eyebrow cocked up to indicate that yes, he knows she's feeding him a line and he's being too polite to call her on it.

"I was a bit worried you were going to leave, since I hadn't had a chance to dance with you yet."

Yes, she gets it from his body language as much as he picked up on the lie from hers. Momentarily, her smile is tight on her face, but with a sigh she relaxes.

However, what he says next obviously takes her aback, her eyebrows flying up. She considers him for a second, leans back on the balcony railing in turn, bracing her elbows on it in a rather unladylike fashion. She doesn't seem to care much, though.

"You? Ask me to dance? You actually want to dance with me?" She laughs, incredulous. "Then I'm sorry to inform you that I'm not very good at it." It's not a dodge - it's the truth, as it turns out. "Iiii haven't had a chance to dance since my high school prom. And it wasn't a very elegant affair or anything."

Loki steps away from the doorway and moves forward to lean against the railing next to her, though carefully not too close. "I wouldn't have mentioned it if I did not want to." He smiles. "I'd suggest you just haven't had a good partner yet, if you think you wouldn't be good."

Loki shrugs one shoulder. "It isn't really about elegance, at any rate. Though I'll admit, the sorts of dancing they've done downstairs are very patterned. Fun, but not my favorite."

She sighs again through her nose, her head turned sideways so she can watch him. He's exasperating and horrifying and manipulative and awful and charming and sweet and gallant and extremely confusing, all in one elegantly clothed package. Maddening is probably the best word to sum him all up.

"Oh yeah?" The corner of her mouth is curled in a somewhat conspiratorial smile. "Then what is your favorite?"

Well, he can hardly ignore a set-up like that, can he? Loki laughs, head tilting. "Shall I show you?"

That was rather the point. Her smile curls further, hovering somewhere between private amusement and happiness. She stands up straight, turning to actually face him, and drops a shallow curtsy. "You may," she says, her words turning into a laugh. There's this sense of ridiculousness and artifice about all of it, but for some reason she sort of can't help herself.

Well, he knows when he's been set up, and in this case he doesn't mind in the slightest. He makes a small gesture to create a little floating globe of light, which begins to play music, the same bit of magic he'd used at Rapunzel's Thanks Giving Feast. The music sounds rather traditional, flutes and lyres and drums, but it's got enough of a driving rhythm that it's definitely intended for dance, and an energetic one at that.

Loki offers Jane a hand and grins. "And if you tread on my foot, I swear I shan't tell anyone."

Her eyebrows jump again when that floating little ball appears, and she laughs again, the sound genuine and somewhat delighted. Gracefully, she takes his hand, beaming for all the world like there's no place she'd rather be.

"How gracious. Well then, lead the way."

While Loki enjoyed the dancing downstairs, the groups and careful patterns, he much prefers simply having a partner and being creative. So he pulls Jane a bit closer, holding her hand, his other hand coming around to rest lightly against her back, and pulls her into the music.

Perhaps the closest Midgard equivalent for the step he uses is a Polka, something quick and light and guaranteed to leave everyone involved laughing breathlessly. He's used to having partners that are less certain than himself, so he leads firmly, but is also careful to not be too demanding since this is supposed to be, above all things, fun.

And dancing is one of those few activities where it has to be fun for everyone, or it simply doesn't work.

Oh god. A polka is absolutely above her skill level, and it's only because he's holding her - and she him, in turn - that she doesn't fall right the hell over. As it is she trips a few times, laughing her head off as she goes.

"Oh my god," she says at some point, "I am -- so sorry, I mean, seriously, I tried to tell you--"

"You're doing fine!" Loki grins. Stumbling or not, it's the laughter that makes it fun. They're not in some kind of contest here, after all. He's laughing as well, with her and not at her, breathless and grinning.

The song eventually ends; the next is far slower. Loki smoothly transitions over into a much more sedate, simple dance, not letting go yet.

He's sweet like this. And she finds herself inexorably drawn to him, like a moth to flame, finding a way to curl her fingers through his.

When the song changes she keeps laughing for a moment, breathless and flushed from the activity. But after a moment she settles into a warm smile, watching him thoughtfully as they move through the far simpler and easier forms. She hasn't let go of him either.

"Taking pity on my two left feet, or...?"

Loki laughs softly. "I'll never tell. Perhaps I needed a moment to breathe."

He's a bit surprised but gratified that she hasn't let go, stepped away. Really, he'd expected it, for all that she'd been the one to ask him for a demonstration. And unless Jane manages to strike his temper, she's always the one who retreats first, ceding him victory that has lately come with an odd pang of loss in it.

Loki grins, ducking his chin down a little. "There's always more where that came from, whenever you're ready."

Perhaps she might, in a different moment. She really ought to let go. But she just doesn't want to. This is fun and enjoyable and not yet tainted by reality, and she kind of wants to leave it that way just a little longer. The dreamer in her can't help it. The idealist in her wants to believe it's okay. And the realist has gone to sit down in a dark corner of her mind and mope for a while, utterly ignored.

"Iiiit's almost like you want me to stomp on your feet." Her grin turns a bit mischievous. "Buuut, you know, maybe in a minute or two. I'm still getting over the last one."

Of course, the more time that passes, the more aware she becomes of ... him. Of their closeness. Of the soft light... of the pure romance of the scene. Color appears high in her cheeks when it finally strikes her, and she draws in a breath and darts her glance away. Good lord, Jane. You're dancing on a castle balcony with Loki, of all people, beneath a soft starry sky and to the strains of gentle music...

Oh boy. She is in wayyyyyy over her head. Moreso than usual, even.

Loki laughs. "Well, if the offending feet are attached to the right person, mine don't seem to mind so much."

He notices the blush, one eyebrow tilting slightly. Nothing he's done, surely, but the notion that her thoughts have taken a particular direction is difficult to ignore. It forces him to consider things in a slightly different light.

But it shouldn't be so strange, should it? He can easily recall picking her up by the lake, admitting that he had missed her, and it hadn't entirely been a lie. There is a traitorous part of himself that does miss that simplicity, and those few days when she didn't look at him like he was a monster. Or even that odd moment, when she'd let him take her hand, and he still hadn't quite figured out why, not when only days before she'd shouted at him and fled.

He still smiles, but it takes on a slightly wry tilt. So will this herald the next bit of fleeing, he wonders. Would it be a relief if it did? Caring about anything is terribly dangerous, it's an invitation to bleed. And some small part of him he hasn't quite killed yet is desperate for it, desperate to care and be cared for in return, and it's so much easier to deal with when people won't let him.

Like when they held hands before, he slowly moves his thumb over hers.

"They'll mind when I stab you with my stiletto. And with my track record, it's going to happen."

The humor is easy - something of a deflection from her real feelings. She moves slowly to the music, her eyes locked on his, searching. She, too, is thinking back to those days. Just a few, quiet, oddly blissful days. Spent believing, hoping against hope, wishing for something she couldn't quite name.

And when his thumb begins to move over hers - when that small gesture sens a wave of goosebumps rushing across her skin - she comes to a realization. She knows intimately how dangerous he is, the atrocities he's committed, all the things he's done. He is dangerous and possibly insane.

No, not insane. Completely sane, in fact - which actually makes it worse.

But here they are, together - quiet and warm and happy. She can see it in him - that he's pleased in a genuine sort of way. She remembers what his happiness looked like. She remembers it from that week.

In her mind she hears Tony. Tony, berating her over and over and over again that Loki is horrific and evil, a genocidal maniac not to be trusted with even the slightest thing. She hears Pepper, soberly recounting to her the story of Coulson's death. She sees Clint, bloodied, hurt.

But what she realizes is that she can't stay away from him. She has tried, over and over and over. And she feels sick, sometimes, hating herself for granting him even a shred of her feelings. In the end, though.... in the end...

She realizes she meant what she said. That she wants to believe. Believe in him. He isn't evil. That's too simple a label. He's dangerous - in ways too numerous to number - but he isn't evil. And maybe if she keeps believing... maybe...

It's idiotic. It's so idealistic she could scoff at herself. But maybe if she doesn't let go of him, maybe if she keeps believing, maybe...

God. God. What is she even thinking? That she can redeem a murderer? A criminal? A monster? If she condones him - accepts him, even - isn't that tantamount to condoning and accepting his crimes? Isn't that a way of saying, essentially, that she's okay with everything he's ever done and it's all forgivable and that he can just move on from his past so easily?

Then again, she was the one who had asked him to move forward. He can never atone for his past - but he can try to change in the future. And how can she ask him that if she keeps simultaneously existing that he is nothing but a villain through and through?

He can't atone. He can never atone. But maybe he doesn't have to be their enemy. Maybe he can become something.... better. And that should be the goal, shouldn't it? Maybe all these atrocities would stop happening if someone believed in him for once. Maybe he can be held accountable for his actions without chaining him to the label of monster, practically ensuring that he'll continue to be what they all insist he is.

At the very least, her hypocrisy needs to stop. And that is her final realization. That she has been nothing but a hypocrite to him from the very beginning. How can she even claim to have the moral high ground?

God. God. If Tony knew what she was thinking, he would never speak to her again. Ever.

Jane doesn't move away from him, instead sighing very softly through her nose and ducking her head. She isn't precisely sure in what way she cares for him... if it's as a friend, a confidante, a fellow intellectual... or something more.

But she cares. And continuing to fight it is just going to keep making her miserable. So she might as well be honest with herself - and maybe, in so doing, give him something he's never had.

"So." Her voice is soft when she looks back up at him, her expression gentle. "... how long do you think we can stay here before anyone realizes we're missing?"

We can stay like this, for a while.

"I am impervious to such wounds, I assure you." But just in case, not even a flicker of effort showing on his face, he puts a simple kinetic shield over his feet.

Plagued by his own rather tangled thoughts, the conflicting desire to be left alone and to finally not be alone at all, he remains silent until she speaks. There's something different in her eyes when she looks at him now, and he can't quite place it. People simply don't look at him that way. There's something faintly disturbing about it, something that makes his heart twist uneasily in his chest.

But he smiles, and there's genuine warmth to it, called by her own expression, by the implication that perhaps this once a conversation isn't going to end with one of them fleeing the other in anger or fear. "It's a large castle," he says, and there is an odd note in his voice. "As long as we like, I should think."

She said we.

Edited 2012-12-02 09:46 (UTC)

With a small smile, Jane breaks his grip and takes a step back, only to drop another curtsy.

"Then.... how about another dance?"

Whatever thoughts were troubling her before - when that moment came as it always comes, the moment when one of them backs off and leaves and everything becomes a painful tangle all over again - they are gone now. The moment doesn't come - at least, not from her. She's at peace.

For a moment there's a spasm of something in his expression when she steps away, so quickly hidden that it might have been imaginary. But then he smiles when she curtsies, and he gives her an elegant bow in return, offering her his hand again. "I should like that very much." His smile goes crooked. "I'm quite greedy in that way."

Edited (I just wanted a different icon) 2012-12-03 06:43 (UTC)

If she notices the crack in his mask, she gives no sign. Instead she beams and laughs, stepping close again.

"Just... be gentle, okay? Maybe second time's the charm. Orrrr maybe not. Guess we'll find out."

He laughs. "I don't know if I've the knack for such things, but for you I'll try."

No, he doesn't think anyone in their right mind would ever even think that Loki has the capacity to be gentle.

Another quick song starts up, though not as fast as their first dance. This time he has a better idea of what makes her stumble and tries to compensate for it. In this, he really does want to be a good partner; it's more fun that way.

He smiles as they dance.

Edited (grammar fail) 2012-12-03 07:28 (UTC)

Given his thoughtfulness, she stumbles quite a bit less this time around. In fact, she's being more careful, watching him more carefully for cues and only stumbling once or twice. But she still laughs, the sound as light and carefree as before.

It's nice like this, isn't it? Just for a moment, with no one here to remind them how opposed they normally stand.

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