Happy Birthday to You...

[stillplaying]

Who: The Everdeen sisters and whoever knows them (plus dates, if applicable)
What: Belated birthday party for Prim.
When: Starting Saturday evening (6/8), around 5 PM.
Where: House 43
Summary: Thanks to the spirit possessions, Katniss cancelled the original party she had planned. Time for Surprise Party #2!
Rating: PG/PG-13 if any fights break out?

She had gotten up early to make certain everything was perfect. Double checked that all the bedroom locks worked, moved all of the valuables out of the living area and into Sharpe's bedroom. And then she cleaned the house more thoroughly than she had in a long, long time.

Hours later, with Aang's help, everything seemed perfect. The inside of the house was decorated with crepe streamers. Though there was an emphasis on blue, she made certain to alternate with other colors: whites and greens and purples and reds. Balloons floated along the ceiling, interspersed among strings of twinkling lights. A huge banner reading "Happy Birthday Primrose!" hung across the space between living room and kitchen.

Food covered every available surface, bowls and plates and bowls of punch and other drinks resting on top of blue paper table cloths. Peppermints and chocolates and other sweets covered the dining room table, with a two-tiered cake in the center. It had been pushed against one of the walls to make space for dancing and talking. In the kitchen, various dinners - stews and roasted meats and an assortment of vegetables and starches - covered the counters. Snack type foods were scattered both inside and out, a mix of cheeses and crackers, vegetables and fruits.

Extra chairs surrounded a table in the backyard, which had been equally decorated. Balloons were tied to chairs and a mixture of streamers and lights hung over any tree branches that crossed into the yard. In one corner, a goat stood tied up to a poll with a pink bow around her neck. Space had been provided for a D.J. table if Teddy or Sabriel grew tired of playing.

Everything seemed perfect. She only hoped that Prim would love it, too.

Comments

[antivanleather]

"I am tempted to make the most elaborate carving possible on the apple now just to spite you. I hope you know that." He tipped his chin in the direction of the sink, the aforementioned potatoes scrubbed and ready for peeling. A little salt, a little butter, then into the oven. Simple fair for simple needs and it was more comforting than he might have thought it to be to prepare it for Katniss and her sister.

"There might be some edible gold leaf sitting around here somewhere..."

[greenjacketed]

"Bugger yer gold leaf," he muttered as he cradled the first potato in his palm. "I won't be eating it."

[antivanleather]

"It'd be wasted on you anyway." He sniffed and turned the melon in his hand, peering at the space left. Leaf or flower. Furled or in full bloom?

[greenjacketed]

"Bloody right, it would. Do I look like a man much taken in by gold anything?"

The golden eagle currently squirrelled away in his bedroom to the contrary.

[antivanleather]

"A golden haired woman, perhaps. And coin. I've yet to meet a man that would not heavily consider the shine of gold coin."

[greenjacketed]

Sharpe, grateful that he was turned away from this man as he set to work, perhaps considered himself all too weak in the face of one of those things.

"All the guineas in the empire are no good to any man, here," he retorted -- quickly betraying his allegiance to the first by rejecting the second.

[antivanleather]

"And all the women in the world are not enough to put our situation from our minds, mm?" Furled flower it was, and he set about coaxing the shape from the flesh and rind of the fruit in his palm. "Or men, were that to your taste."

[greenjacketed]

"It ain't," he responded -- curt. Firm. But not, it would seem, horrified. There wasn't much left in the world that could surprise an old soldier. He also firmly believed that just the one right woman could make the most difference, but he couldn't bring himself to speak such sentimentality aloud.

[antivanleather]

"I was making no assumptions one way or the other. Men from other worlds seem to have varying stances on the matter and I'm never truly certain where one is until I mention it. The shades of purple most turn is quite fascinating." Zevran shrugged and glanced back over to the man. The knight? Noble bearing and a wariness in him that marked him as a warrior of sorts even if the blade did not.

[greenjacketed]

He was, at first, clumsy with the potatoes. Although accustomed to a knife, he rarely used it for such fine and delicate work as shaving skin off of anything. But he improved by leaps and bounds over the course of two or three potatoes. A quick learner; a hard worker.

"I think I liked it better when you were goin' on about edible gold."

[antivanleather]

"I was not allowed to bring any into the kitchen. Solano decided it was too...something about districts and fanciful foods, and made certain I kept to simple fare. As it is for her sister, I complied." Without any argument whatsoever, and for that he was proud.

"If it is edible gold you want, however, I might carve you a golden apple. I've a few I am not quite certain what it is I am to do with them yet. Something will come to me."

[greenjacketed]

"Solano?"

From the context, he understood the man to speaking of Katniss. However: "Like the wind?"

For Sharpe had been to Cádiz, and he had experienced those bloody hot winds on his own.

[antivanleather]

"Katniss." He provided with an emphatic flick of a sliver of fruit to the bin. "Solano. It is the Antivan name for a particular plant she reminds me of. Fairly plain at first glance, modestly lovely in bloom- terribly lethal if mistreated."

He set the finished fruit down and plucked up an apple to work on next. "I think here it is called 'nightshade'."

[greenjacketed]

"Antivan? You mean -- you ain't Spanish?"

Because he'd been assuming the man was Spanish, even with the elf angle. At the very least, this confusion saved him from weighing in on the choice of nickname.

[antivanleather]

"I do not even know what it is to be 'Spanish'. Save that your Spaniards have accents much like Antivans, though culturally we seem to have more in common with your Italians. I suppose this makes you 'English' rather than 'Fereldan'." A Spanish elf. He almost laughed at the thought, even if Antivan elf wasn't that much more dignified.

[greenjacketed]

"English, aye," he confirmed -- lightly, though. As if trying to suggest that the rest of the comment made more sense to him than it actually did. "But I spend a great deal of time in Spain, and I'd swear you speak a dead ringer for a Spaniard."

[antivanleather]

"I am terribly sorry to disappoint you." He said in a flat tone that suggested he was not sorry in the slightest. "Though I am surprised this is the point you choose to find odd rather than the fact that I am an elf."

Pointed ears, slighter frame than the average man, the height, even the tattoos or single pierced ear? None of that seemed to bother him. Just the accent. Odd.

[greenjacketed]

"A man learns to let a great deal slide by without comment, in Luceti."

There were things one didn't comment on for the sake of propriety. He likely would not have even tackled the issue of Spain had a familiar word not reared its head.

[antivanleather]

"There are few that seem to be of that frame of mind." The thin knife in his fingers twisted and flipped as he turned, and in a gesture that was far more playful than threatening, he flicked a bit of fruit in the man's direction.

"You, I like."

[greenjacketed]

It landed, with little circumstance, on his jacket's shoulder. By all rights, he should have been able to duck out of its way. But then he wouldn't have this delightful change to pluck the carved fruit-flesh from his clothing and pop it contentedly into his mouth. Score one for Sharpe's tastebuds.

After he swallowed: "Christ. I sure will sleep better knowing I've garnered your approval. Thanks for that." But the attitude was just a mite better intentioned than his earlier growlings. Blink, and one might very well miss the slight improvement.

[antivanleather]

He had fully expected the man to duck. The self satisfied way in which the man simply popped the morsel into his mouth, however, was far too amusing for Zevran to be anything but equally pleased. He had been bested. Bravo. The motioned earned the man a crackled laugh, warm and worn like old leather.

"Ah, but would not an assassin's favor cause on to sleep lightly instead?" Nonchalant as though discussing the weather, and another bit of fruit was shaved away from the apple in a slow spiral.

[greenjacketed]

"An assassin?"

Now that, at long last, was interesting. Either professionally or because he wondered what Katniss was doing socializing with a slippery bastard what could own that title. Sharpe dropped back to his potatoes but now could not shake the curiousity biting at his heels. What kind of assassin admitted to being one after so brief an exchange?

[antivanleather]

"Of Antiva's very own Crows. Though that means precious little to anyone not from Thedas, sadly." He sighed, quite put upon by this development, and continued to happily whittle away at the apple in his hand. "We are quite infamous in my world. Mostly for finishing any job we take, and mostly for how we are each marked."

Were the man looking he would see Zev reach up to tap the lines curving from his temple, down his cheek and jaw.

[greenjacketed]

He didn't need to look to know that some indication of the tattooes must have been made, so: "I just thought you were another sailor. They always seem to be covered in ink."

[antivanleather]

"Mm. Were that only the case." His life might have been much simpler that way. Ah well, what was, was, so on and so forth. "I might have chosen something far more colorful or vulgar were that the case. I will never quite understand their obsession with tattooing breasts upon their person. Yes they are lovely but it seems excessive."