lucetilogs | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh, really? See -- now you've gone and undone yourself. Now I know all these compliments are just work." A dramatic but saucy sigh.

"I'm a chore to you."

And thus Jack falls for the great ploy. He's good with the ladies but not especially bright with dramatics concerning them.

"No, not at all! You don't snuff my meaning, Miss Summers. What I meant to say is that it's no skin off my back to pay compliment to a lovely lady such as yourself."

...Well.

"Gee. Don't you just know how to make a girl feel special and not at all like just another brand name on the shelf of life."

Her dry tone was filled with jest. Lately, she had been on the receiving end of such attentions elsewhere that she found herself unable to even accidentally perceive a slight.

"Ah," He gives up leaping to his own defense. Best to just take it. "-- forgive me Miss Summers. I had not meant to insult you."

He seems quite remorseful.

"Chill, Captain Aubrey. I'm far from insulted."

A smile.

Derp.

"Pulling my hair again."

Oh he went there.

O-oh. And instant flush came to her cheeks and she only then broke eye-contact.

"Hey. No fair. You're fighting dirty."

"I wasn't under the impression we were in battle, Miss Summers."

"I danced with an Admiral, once. He told me to see everything as a battle; things'd come a lot more easily, if I did. And you know what? He was right."

"Admirals often are."

Jack can dislike his admiral all he wants but there's a reason that Admirals are Admirals.

"Well -- this one ends up being a little left field. James. I mean -- Norrington. I'm guessing he's made it to a few of your little dinners by now."

"Yes, we've met." Not quite the talkative one at dinner, but Jack had been introduced.

"I'm impressed by how many of you sailor boys keep turning up in these parts. You're becoming very fashionable."

"Hopefully not a shot in the dark like so many trends."

He has to admit it'd be nice to someday have enough sailors to crew the Britannia. Properly.

"Well. My Jack's been here for almost two years. Archie for one. I think it's a bit more lasting than that."

"Long may it remain so."

With his conspicuously full glass, Jack toasts and raises it to the level of his eye before drinking.

Meanwhile, her glass is half-filled with hot chocolate that's rapidly cooling. She, too, raises her glass. A tight smile.

"There's some I'd be pretty bummed to see leave."

"Same held here, Buffy."

Meaning of course he agreed with her. Though you couldn't possibly tell that by the way he chug-a-lugged. Nope.

"What?" She laughed. "You've barely been here long. Don't tell me you've already grown attached to our little parade of sad clowns."

"Lieutenant Kennedy and Captain Hornblower have given me an extremely warm welcome. Sparrow, though strange I cannot ignore, has also been famously hospitable. You as well, Buffy, have been most charming. Ain't no wonder I'm so fond so quick."

In short: Everyone is awesome.

"You're Navy and Jack's been good to you? Please. Tell me how you managed that?"

"Normally not the type to be friendly, eh?"

"Oh. He's...plenty friendly," Buffy laughed. Glancing to the side. A brief moment of distraction; shyness. "But he's known not to get along with the official types."

"Not fond of the gold trimming, I see. Well I don't know what I did to earn such a reception but I am thankful for it."

"...You didn't feed him, did you? I fed him once. Can't get rid of him, now."

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