Archie Kennedy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
simplestgift) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lucetilogs2012-12-01 11:05 am
simplestgift) wrote in lucetilogs2012-12-01 11:05 am
Entry tags:
- [atla] aang,
- [atla] katara,
- [atla] sokka,
- [atla] suki,
- [atla] toph,
- [bionic commando rearmed] nathan spencer,
- [btvs] buffy summers,
- [castlevania] isaac (laforeze),
- [clannad] fuuko ibuki,
- [darkstalkers] morrigan aensland,
- [disney: batb] beast,
- [golden sun] mia,
- [halo] spartan-23 (daisy),
- [kingdom hearts] ventus,
- [lok] ikki,
- [oc] helios sprensonne,
- [oc] syre atries,
- [potc] jack sparrow,
- [star trek] james t. kirk,
- [tales: legendia] fenimore,
- [tales: legendia] grune,
- [tales: legendia] norma beatty,
- [tales: legendia] walter delques,
- [tales: symphonia] sheena fujibayashi,
- [x-men evolution] gambit,
- [x-men evolution] nightcrawler,
- [x-men evolution] rogue,
- [x-men evolution] storm
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.
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.
no subject
But.
Balcony, moonlight, dancing. This night is not like others. And he decides he will make an exception. Because he has shared something with Jane Foster this night, even if he can't quite verbalize what. So tomorrow, perhaps, he will return to being so guarded and prickly.
Loki forces himself to relax slightly. And the next logical step is that he puts one arm around her, just lightly. Because there is always a part of him that hungers to have someone to hold, as if that will somehow protect him from the paranoia that always gnaws at the edges of his mind.
"It is difficult, to have no family."
He doesn't have any family. He doesn't vocalize this, because he guesses it will devolve into a tiresome argument.
no subject
It's the first thing she thinks, rather stupidly.
She notices, of course, the way he stiffens. She is actually anticipating the shove - it would have given her a very good reason to leave and not speak with him for a while and try to pretend this never happened. And, of course, he does not do what she expects, because when does he ever?
He's warm.
Jane summons her courage, trying to bolster her weakened spine, because if she starts to cry she will hate herself. She hasn't cried over her father's death in years. In the end all she does is lean into him in silence, briefly shutting her eyes and saying not a word. What could she say, after all? Sorry? She has nothing to be sorry for. Thank you? For what? Not being petty and awful like you are almost always otherwise?
Instead she is quiet, content at least for a moment to find warmth against a god. Just not, perhaps, the god she might have wished for.
"... this probably isn't what you bargained for tonight, huh?" When she finally breaks the silence, it's with weak humor, not even bothering to try and respond to his last statement. It's true, they both know it, and the sort of empty statement one gives when one has nothing really else to say. She's alright with that; she acknowledges that, in some bizarre way, it is the closest he is capable of being to kind in a moment such as this.
no subject
He's silent for what feels like a long time. Then very carefully, almost like it's an experiment to see how it feels, he leans over to rest his chin on top of her head.
"But considering the potentials lined up and waiting, it has all come out rather better than expected."
no subject
Well.
Her heart leaps into her throat, and the feeling is deeply pleasant and unpleasant at once. She is all at once aware of a number of things, like just how much taller he is than she and how close they really are and the exact pressure of his arm across her shoulders.
Briefly, her breath stutters in her chest. But she does not, ultimately, attempt to dislodge him. Much in the same way he did, she relaxes marginally over a series of moments, having initially frozen in place.
Please, please, let Tony Stark never ever ever find out this night occurred.
Jane shifts against him - slightly - recentering after her moment of discomfort. "Should I even be asking what those other potentials were?" She stresses the word so as to suggest some quotation marks around it.
no subject
no subject
"You know, it's weird, but -- yeah, I can." A pause, and she laughs again, glad at least to let go of some of the tension she'd been holding onto. "I know for a fact I'm not the first or last person you're going to dance with tonight."
no subject
no subject
Of course, this -- in a move of ultimate misfortune -- puts their faces rather close.
To her credit she keeps her composure, though she does -- pause. Observing him from this close is -- very strange.
Simply put, she thinks about it.
And then, marveling at the fact that she even thought about it, she ducks her head.
"You know," she says, in that mildly strained sort of voice a person employs when they are either very embarrassed or under a great deal of duress (or both), "maybe we should get back to that."
no subject
Did she...
...no, that was silly.
Hm.
Well, he is a god. Mortals do tend to find them very pretty, even if he's the black sheep of the bunch. He keeps his smug expression carefully hidden and straightens, though he does give her a pointed, curious look as he offers her his arm.
"As the lady commands," he says.
The strangest part of it is, he did enjoy having her lean against him, once he got over the shock. There is some part of him that missed her, that liked her. He's having a difficult enough time dealing with the fact that he wants something from Rogue. And now a second mortal is doing strange things to the inside of his head. He does his best to act confident about it, and in isolated moments where he can simply be, he still feels reasonably in control. It's after, when he's trying to figure out wall the why and how and fit it into the vague plan he's trying to construct, that things get their most frustrating and confusing.
The damn amnesia. That's where it all seems to have come from, something he wishes he could just drop and ignore, but can't quite picking at because his mind reminds him at the most inconvenient moment that it was nice.
Then again, both women in question seem all too aware that Loki isn't supposed to have a heart, that he's untouchable in some way. So it's probably an academic question anyway. One that he shouldn't care about.
Life was so much simpler when he was just worried about blowing up a city and keeping far enough ahead of his plans that his allies wouldn't have a chance to cut him down from behind. Life was so much simpler when all he had to worry about was being coldly angry and hating his enemies. The simple potential of non-enemies, of friends makes it all infinitely, horribly complicated. And he can't bloody let it go.
Hel.
no subject
Jane considers him again, eyes searching him for answers as they so often do. It's different now -- different since that moment earlier when she came to her decision -- but not so much so that he won't recognize it as that look she gets when she is not quite sure how to answer a particularly difficult question.
In the end, she graciously takes his arm with a small smile, meeting his pointed look with a calculated grace of her own. Which is a feat, considering her natural state of awkward.
"The lady does," she says simply. "In hindsight, it wasn't too bright to come out here in a strapless dress in the first place."
The problem with Jane is that she rather does believe Loki has a heart. That is really the issue in its entirety - the reason she has been utterly unable to let go. If she truly believed him heartless - as baldly evil as many of the rest seem to think - she would have left all this nonsense behind weeks ago. Perhaps months. It is because she cannot bring herself to believe that he is such a monster that she keeps clinging to whatever it is that exists between them. If there is a good person in Loki, she wants to hang around long enough to meet him. Or, perhaps it should be said, meet him again. Anew.
For all she is practical and a bit blunt, rather fierce and straightforward, and above all absolutely possessed with her work in her daily life, the true Jane Foster deep down is an impulsive, unwise dreamer. Loki has discovered this. He has used it to his advantage. And it will either be her triumph or her downfall at his hands.
She's not thinking about that now, except in perhaps the most abstract way. No, as she looks up at him, she is thinking about going inside and getting warm.
And, perhaps, one last dance.
no subject
"I do not know if Stark is in the ballroom." It's a warning, and an offer. He'll let her go before they get there if she doesn't want to risk being seen with the pariah of Luceti.
no subject
"Ah," is all she says to that, rather short and suddenly none too pleased. The slightly twisty downward set to her mouth shows what she thinks of that. Jane is acutely aware Tony will eat her alive if he spots her with Loki. And he wouldn't actually be the only one. It's imagining what Pepper would say to her that gets her to wince.
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.
"I..." She trails off, obviously thinking hard, slowing her steps if not outright stopping.
no subject
He understands that anyone who wants any sort of friendship with him must act as if it is a dirty secret. Again and again he asks himself if it is worth it, and why it would bother him to begin with. He still hasn't quite decided, though he can always rationalize it as a means to make useful allies and gain information.
He stops before they are within sight of the doors and releases her hand with a bow. "My thanks for the dances."
no subject
So all she does is turn and give him a slightly apologetic smile when they reach the doors. Then, as carefully as she can, she gives him a shallow curtsy.
"I really should be the one thanking you. You're a pretty good teacher, as it turns out." Said somewhat wryly as -- per their occasional mathematical conversation -- she already knew that.
But still. Her smile fades as she regards him for a moment more, actually looking a little -- just a touch -- sad. "... goodnight, Loki."
With that, and without looking back, she leaves him to proceed through the doors and vanish from sight.
no subject