Comfort and Joy

[simplestgift]

Who: Come one, come all! ...In formal attire.
What: A Christmas ball, old world style.
When: December 1st, beginning around five in the afternoon and ending when the last person leaves.
Where: The rec center.
Summary: Earth's eighteenth-century peeps are throwing one hell of a party.
Rating: Well, considering no one is serving water? Probably PG-13 for alcohol consumption and the results thereof (there's coffee and hot chocolate!).

The recreation center has been utterly transformed.

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. Cream brocades, simple but elegant, are draped over the walls. Traditional red rugs have been thrown over the floor. Gone are the billiard tables, ping-pong, and foosball. It looks like a different place entirely, every table impeccably dressed with light linen cloths and set with fine china and crystal. At least one-half of the room is cleared and ready for dancers.

The tables are lit with candles, and five chandeliers have been temporarily added to the room for more light, giving the room a golden glow instead of the sterile luminescence of fluorescent lighting. On the tables, boughs of evergreen and holly surround the candles, and mistletoe has been hung discreetly here and there. In one corner of the dancing area, by a large and beautifully decorated fir tree (Buffy’s insistence), the musicians are set up to play, unobtrusive to the diners but essential to the dancers. Leading them is Frederic Chopin himself, and few here can say they have had anyone better play for their pleasure.

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. For a complete list of the food offered, take a look here.

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, overseen by Jack Aubrey, 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.

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! 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 corner, 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 well-lit and on the opposite end of the room from the musicians and dancers, 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.

Are you lingering at the dining tables, 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?

Whatever you do, have fun.

Comments

[herotypical]

Her fingers curled around the mug with the same delicate dedication that had characterized her interaction with the tree decorations. While it was all certainly very graceful, it was undeniably unnatural. She was trying to inhabit the dress; she was an actress trying to fill a costume. None of this was a particularly horrible notion. After all, the gown was gorgeous and she was very much indebted to Archie for singling it out for her. And she was, she admitted to herself, finding a peaceful time of it in spite of the nagging concern in the back of her mind.

Is he okay? Has he been left somewhere -- broken and tired? Maybe I should knock off early, go grab the compass. Patrol.

She raised the drink to her lips and turned away from the assorted beverages. And it was exactly then that she lifted her eyes and snagged her gaze on him. The very him of her thoughts -- right there, in the doorway.

Her face lit up.

[all7seas]

Annie. He lifted a hand in greeting and took a few steps further into the room. Jack Sparrow had been left broken and tired exactly where he needed to be. There didn't need to be any worries on that account.

[herotypical]

His few steps were matched with a great many of hers -- wide-striding and balancing that still full mug of very hot drink in her hand. Not a drop was spilled.

"...Welcome home." She pronounced the words without a hint of agitation over their implication.

[all7seas]

"Love."

Was there a slight urge to run? There was. It was difficult for a man like Jack Sparrow to settle in after such an unsettling week---and not just in body, but in mind as well. His desires were plaguing him again. Not to madness--not that far; but to second- and third-guessing himself and his motivations. That was always an unhealthy mental space for the pirate to inhabit.

"You---" Jack tried to collect his thoughts on her, and on this place or the occasion. "Exquisite."

[herotypical]

And all at once, her own shuffling and uncertain pieces fell neatly into place. Whatever alienation she felt from her own clothing dissipated with the compliment. Buffy's fingers curled around the mug and allowed her nails one satisfying drum against its sides.

"And you? Alive. Always the state I most like to see you in." Though, she couldn't deny that the alive-state still held some complications. But what she saw wasn't an embarrassment or even, necessarily, a mess. She took in his state as a compatriot should and she saw his appearance as concrete commentary on the mission.

Difficult and troubling.

[all7seas]

"Alive. There was never a question of it, Annie. Not for a moment. Captain Jack Sparrow is not about to get himself killed by moving many large, heavy boxes."

Jack wanted nothing more than to take hold of her right there and then, but he realized that doing so might mar this creation. Instead, his arms dropped to his sides, fingers tapping nervously against the pockets of his coat. One of these pockets held a small object that suddenly felt as though it weighed just as much as the crates he'd had to unload from the cargo ship. His reward.

"I missed you."

[herotypical]

"The feeling's mutual."

They were stuck, then. Two very happy-to-see-each-other people hovering in that eerie realm of not quite reuniting. Buffy decided to blame the hot chocolate and so attempted to drain it in one tongue-scorching go.

This ended in a considerable amount of sputtering and coughing.

[all7seas]

"Oi---you alright? You're going to drown yourself in it, woman." He hurriedly patted himself down for a napkin.


There had never been a more fruitless search for anything. Ever.

[herotypical]

"Don't--" another cough "--call me that."

The spell was broken or perhaps recast. Her glance recovered its sharp edge and wiped her mouth with the side of her hand, happily abandoning the mug to the seat of a nearby chair. Let someone else deal with it.

[all7seas]

"Then what shall I call you? 'Girl'? Hardly appropriate." Jack relaxed slightly as things found a different footing and managed to locate a napkin for her from a nearby table--too late, it would seem.

[herotypical]

"...Since when are you ever hardly appropriate?"

Oddly enough, she still accepted the napkin. It simply seemed like the thing to do; although, in the end, it was only yet another barrier to what she really wanted to be doing.

[all7seas]

"Hornblower and Kennedy have outdone themselves, it would seem. I'm thinking I should...possibly bathe." A face. "And return less hardly appropriate myself, and less like a nasty beggar." Thoughtful, Jack touched one of the tears in McCoy's coat--gifts from Third Party swords. Of everything that had happened over the past week, it was these wounds that bothered him the most.

[herotypical]

"...Possibly."

She took that additional step closer. "I'll come with you. You don't have to go far -- just back to Seven?"

[all7seas]

"Mmhmmm. Back to Seven." He reached for her, stopped himself, and offered to take her napkin instead.

[herotypical]

"We could..."

She dodged his attempt to take her napkin. The napkin he gave her. Why did that make it somehow more than what it is? And instead she snagged onto his hand and began to fuss and scrub over the space of skin between his index finger and thumb.

"I don't think I'll be missed. Not for a little while. And then we could come back and--" A nod of her head back to the room at large. "Dance."

[all7seas]

It took a lot for Sparrow not to pull away from her. Carrying powder and shot didn't exactly lend itself to having clean hands. Much of his tiredness fell away at that suggestion.

"Dance," he agreed. "You know how?"

Because Jack was fairly certain that Buffy had once told him the dancing in her day was very different.

[herotypical]

"...Uhm. I was watching Archie and Elizabeth teach everyone else. I've got pretty good watch-and-pick-up quick study habits." But she didn't sound too convinced.

"I don't like all that...group dancing stuff. Too complicated."

She just wanted to dance with him.

[all7seas]

"How's this, then? You wait here for me. And you learn it. And I'll clean up and..." Jack's gaze drifted to Kennedy. Hornblower. Aubr----what the hell was Aubrey wearing? Maturin.

"And I'll find something to wear. And I'll come back and you can teach me, savvy?"

She belonged at this party, shining thing; not off giving a scruffy man a bath.

[herotypical]

A suggestion of disappointment clouded her face. He was just now returned -- she wed So very disinterested in giving him up to the cold outside and waiting a moment longer. Patience had been a difficult virtue to master this past week and now that it had been rewarded, she wasn't at all certain that she could lapse back into it.

"I dunno..." She hesitated.

[all7seas]

"You don't know?" he prompted.

[herotypical]

"Me? I've already done enough waiting." She lifted her chin; defiant. "Let me just get my coat..."

[all7seas]

"No. Stay, lovely." Jack Sparrow sounded very much like a man with his mind made up. "Swore to help you have fun once, didn't I? What sort of man would I be, letting you leave a party? And I told you when I got back, you'd have me. Give me one hour. Wait under the mistletoe."

[herotypical]

"The sorta man who..." But she trailed off -- shaking her head. She didn't want to fight. Not right now. Not so soon. And certainly not with a dozen other prettily-gowned women whirling about.

"Fine. Forty-five minutes. And I wanna make sure complete dissatisfaction with waiting -- mistletoe or no mistletoe -- is noted."

[all7seas]

"Noted and witnessed." He couldn't kiss her, didn't want to mar her; so Jack tipped his hat in a salute.

[herotypical]

Then he would be the victim of a ploy. Because Buffy Summers would not be content with just a salute. Similar to how she had strong-armed the napkin away from him, Buffy snatched at the hat and stepped closer as she did so.

"And I get a hostage. Just in case it's more than forty-five minutes."