simplestgift: (Just a little idle talk of this and that)
Archie Kennedy ([personal profile] simplestgift) wrote in [community profile] lucetilogs2011-11-30 10:14 pm

Comfort and Joy

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.
all7seas: (under your nails)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-01 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
That rhythm was such a natural one: like breath. Like blood pumping, or goosebumps in a chill.

"Moi? Encourage yourself in imbibing vile drinks what turn the most honestest of souls into foul villains?



Aye. Seems like." He raised his goblet and poured part of the contents into hers.

"Cheers, lovely."
nocorsetsplease: (*a man sized swig*)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-01 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Her eyebrow rose at his small contribution to her drink, but she rose hers after in suit.

"Cheers to you."

She took a sip and chuckled over the brim of the cup. "Rogue." Not that she was any less of one herself. He simply embodied it, whereas she could hide her shadows in layers of fine linen, stays and underskirts.

all7seas: (for you anything)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-01 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)
So many underskirts. Jack was rather an expert on underskirts, actually.

"Firebrand," he whispered back, before swallowing what was left in his cup. "You enjoying it all?"
nocorsetsplease: (The best dreams are of the improper.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-01 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"I am," she replied jovially. A far cry from the sombre tones of mid-November.

"Settling in has slowly become far more agreeable, and I relish the chance to be a part of something cheerful."
all7seas: (hear me out)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-01 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
The pirate lord considered the king for a moment. He had never envied the shore life she had chosen, back home; the decision to watch from cliff-tops rather than continue her duties to the Brethren had always nipped at his sense of the rightness of the world. Far be it from Jack Sparrow, though, to dictate where anyone else's place should be. He was much too busy continually seeking his own to bother, really.

"It took me a long time, myself. No horizons; no ocean, even, at the start of it all. No treasure. Nothing for a long while." No one to trust; few friends; no safe ports except for Good Spirits. No proper boats.
nocorsetsplease: (This whole charade is bloody boring.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-01 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Her look toward him was a bit more studying, though that was hardly unusual. She felt as though she had been a pupil of his, an accidental protege for a time, and even still.

"I miss her too, Jack, the Pearl. I worry for the Brethren as well."

A solemn sigh.

"Though I have learned there is little to be done in my current predicament."

She wanted to be happy, regardless of the pressures that had made her shoulders their mantle and would not leave until she faced that battle.
all7seas: (break the chain and we break down)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-01 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"The Pearl." A happy purring rumble accompanied that name. "I've got her back, you know--in my time. She's mine again, Lizzie, in my When. We can do nothing about our imprisonment here; we can only take what we can from it. But when I return home? I'll have her."
nocorsetsplease: (With sun in the creases of her grin.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-08 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Elizabeth smiled before a bit of wonderment crossed her face. A dash of surprise.

"You lost your beloved once more?"

A slightly scolding tip of the head and arched eyebrow.

"Jack." Have you really? Good God.
all7seas: (sass)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-08 06:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"There might have been some losing, aye; possibly some losing." Barbossa, that great scabrous wretch. "But the important thing is the finding. And the having."

He licked around having like a cat at a fountain of cream.
nocorsetsplease: (Her hands held no such gentleness.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-08 08:42 pm (UTC)(link)
She narrowed her eyes, playfully as she might.

"What is it that leads me to believe there is more in this 'having' than your dear ship?"

Intuition might have been an answer, or perhaps that the best predictions were all based in previous behaviour.
all7seas: (not a cry you can hear at night)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-08 08:49 pm (UTC)(link)
"Because I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, possibly?" The pirate chuckled. "You know, Lizzie, in our last draft here we fought upon the high seas."
nocorsetsplease: (....maybe :D)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-13 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
She did not answer his first question, biting the bottom lip in her smile as though she wished to protest being so amused by his cavalier behaviour. She did not often protest it, and she didn't truly now, either. Such was their game.

"Is that so?"

A drink from her cup and a curiosity sparked. "You must have been very much at home."
all7seas: (leverage)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-13 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Actually, it had been a highly alienating battle as first mate aboard Beckett's Mum, a great iron cargo ship. And then he'd nearly died aboard the airship he had hijacked.

"I in fact named my vessel after you, you know. The Elizabeth flew rearguard for part of the mission."

Until she'd gone down in flames, that is.
nocorsetsplease: (They told her stories that haunted men.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-13 06:49 pm (UTC)(link)
A flash of surprise, then a look that spoke enough that his flattery had not been wasted.

"You named a vessel... after me?"
all7seas: (plotting always plotting)

[personal profile] all7seas 2011-12-13 06:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Aye. The Elizabeth was a small, shapely, and swift airship. She flew high above the waves and protected the cargo from behind. She was beautiful, Lizzie. Flying? Everything I ever hoped it would be."
nocorsetsplease: (It need not be voiced... such sweetness.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2012-01-05 07:05 am (UTC)(link)
"She flew."

Elizabeth shook her head. She had come to know too many impossible things in the company of this man, and could not rule this as such.

That, however, did not rule out the exaggeration she had come to expect by his tales.

"Swans cannot fly, though sparrows were made for such things." She smiled. "Only you, Jack."