lucetilogs | Comfort and Joy

Entry tags:

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.

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The look she gives him in response is bewildered. For someone who never considers how she looks--for someone who would never need to even if she had an intact memory, thanks to her incredible beauty--his answer makes no sense at all.

"But dancing is so much fun. Especially when you dance with a friend."

Meanwhile, Robert has never been anything but awkward and self-conscious and hyper-aware of how he looks. Even on Terra, he's been physically and emotionally strange - far too pale for a proper Terran, and thin in places he shouldn't be, and riddled in scars - and then when he came to Luceti he became a glaring beacon of plainness amongst softly glowing stars of beauty.

How could he not cringe at the idea of himself being put on display like that? Especially at something he has no skill for, something he has never been trained to do?

"... It... is f-far from fun when... you m-make an utter fool of yourself, Grune..."

Robert hunches in on himself a little, protectively.

"... I... h-have enough to be uncomfortable about, here, without adding to it."

Somehow, his answer only confuses her further. Dancing isn't about how you look--it's about having fun with your friends. And no one would say anything bad. Why would they?

She doesn't understand why he would be uncomfortable, either. Robert is such a nice person that she can't even imagine it.

Eventually, she says, "I'm sure you'd be just fine, Robert. You don't need to worry."

It doesn't matter if they say it - Robert knows, or rather anticipates, that they'd think it. Feeling that those impressions could be there is almost worse than hearing them jeer.

And so he flinches a little at Grune's words. "... I... I can guarantee I would... not be fine, Grune...

... I... a-appreciate the sentiment, but..." But... when he can't even allow Don to take him to the dance floor...

She looks at him for a moment, taking in his distress. Then, she gives him a warm smile.

"It's all right." She leans down and kisses him lightly on the cheek. "We can dance together the next time."

... He actually goes a little pink at that. Truly, that was the last thing he expected from Grune.

But it's not bad. Grune is so sweet and gentle.

"... Th-thank you, Grune..."

... Maybe it would be easier, if there were fewer people. ~~Grune should definitely dance with Robert sometime.~~

With all the mistletoe around, it's been that kind of evening for Grune.

"You're welcome," she immediately replies, although she's not exactly sure why she's being thanked.

"Would you like to do something else instead?"

"... I... I a-admit I... am unaware of what... there is t-to do..."

Robert sort of cringes in on himself somewhat, fingers fiddling idly with his sleeves as he admits this. The complete lack of social ability he has in a place like this is more obvious than ever.

She looks around a bit, considering their options. "Well, we could go have something to eat. Or maybe we could play a game."

She doesn't know how to play any of the card games, and the likelihood of her picking them up well enough to get anywhere is pretty low, but she's always willing to try.

"... Perhaps both... if, if you are h-hungry, that is..."

Helios might have taught him a little about how to play, at this point, but of course teaching Grune will be somewhat more difficult. However, Robert is also willing to try.

This is bound to end well.

"That sounds like a good idea. Let's go!" She reaches for his hand.

And he gently takes her hand in his small, slender one - his grip is never very strong - before walking with Grune towards the tables.

"... What sort of food do you l-like, Grune?"

She gives his hand a squeeze and immediately responds, "Oh, I like all kinds of food!"

It's entirely true, and not just because she has no sense of taste whatsoever. Grune has never met a...well, anything she doesn't love.

"What about you? What sorts of foods do you like to eat?"

"Fresh fruit and v-vegetables," Robert says, smiling a little. "I am... partial to cheeses as well, as they are rare in my h-home..."

He would have said meat, particularly poultry, but... earlier encounters with Eggman have made him waver a little there.

"... Much of the f-food here is... new to me, though."

"Yes, there are all kinds of new food in Luceti, aren't there?" she agrees.

Some of them have resulted in very interesting mishaps in House 34.

"Yes... I am u-unfamiliar with much of the foods, but it... is i-interesting to see all the variety...

... Even if I c-cannot... understand why people might eat some of it..."

... Especially that pudding.

"Really?" That confuses her somewhat. "Why not?"

Of course, since she has no sense of taste and will happily dig into a black mess of charcoal (and has actually done so in the past), it's not too likely she'll understand his answer.

"... Well. It looks... entirely i-inedible..."

Meanwhile, Robert has a fairly sensitive palate, and as a matter of course much of the food here is foreign to a Terran palate. Granted, after almost a year here, he's getting used to the differences in taste and texture...

"Oh. I thought it all looked nice."

Oh well. Everyone is different.

Oh, Grune. But Robert isn't too surprised, in all honesty...

"... Ah... w-well, you must... certainly be easy to... p-prepare meals for, then."

"Hmm.... Do you think so?"

She hopes that's the case. It would make things much easier for Fenimore and Norma.

"Well... if you h-have such... broad -" - or, perhaps, blind - "- tastes, then... I w-would certainly think so.

... Still, if... th-there was even a general c-category of foods you liked, I... would be h-happy to make some for you..." Like a nice dessert. He got some practise during that horoscope event.

Grune's face lights up. "Oh, my, that's very kind of you! Thank you!"

She's so caught up in Robert's kindness that she forgets entirely to specify what kind of food she likes.

"You are... w-worth the effort, Grune," Robert says sincerely, and then adds more sheepishly, "Th-though I would... need to know what to make first..."

"Oh." Hadn't she told him?

She thinks about that for a bit. "Do you think you could make cookies?"

She'd be happy with any kind, because Robert made them for her.

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