Come gather 'around the fire...

[kismet_loop_mods]

Who: Anyone
What: A gathering for the citizens of Haven.  A time to relax and mingle...and a little something more.
When: All day and night of the 14th
Where: Outside of The Hub, and perhaps inside too if you wish.
Event: Not everything is as it seems.  Some of the offerings will cause some...unexpected results.

The Guardians have been hard at work getting the large open street outside of the Hub and Warehouse set up for a massive gathering.  There were tables set up all over the place full of all kinds of food, drink, and fuel.  A large bonfire had been set up in the middle of everything, and various volunteers rotated in and out throughout the day and night playing various kinds of music or providing other types of entertainment.  There would be a constant flow of music, skits, acrobatics, and magic tricks.  The festivities will be held throughout the day.

Not everything would go as planned, though.  There were a few tables among that many that had been set up courtesy of the Miasma.  They go unnoticed with everything else going on.  Really, there is enough for literally hundreds of people of various races, the handful of suspicious tables are easy to miss.  The contents of these tables will have peculiar effects on those who consume the contents offered upon them.  Nothing harmful really, just some effects to further encourage the lighthearted purpose of this gathering.

((ooc: tag in, mingle, have fun.  Effects can last for only the party or through the end of the week, and can be mixed as much as you want.))

Comments

[fractalize]

In some sad attempt to be social, Elsa decided, sure, we'll go to this outing, and it'll be fun. There will be food, friends, and entertainment, it'll be just like a calm, but properly festive ball back at home. No big deal.

A couple of desserts later, (because she's guilty of missing chocolate cakes that Gerda used to make.) suddenly everything is overwhelmingly...light. Airy. Everything seems like it's going to be alright, and that tonight was going to be more than just a 'normal' outing, no, it was going to be fun, and she was going to make it fun if it wasn't.

And that was only after a couple of petite fours. No one let her near any wine or champagne, or it'll be a winter wonderland by the end of the night. She's already tottering to and fro, her ice heels in her hand (in her hand, not melted away like anyone with coherancy would've thought. They're in her hand.)

[10_20_15_5_50]

“Elsa, hey!” Sam waved, pleased she’d caught sight of the other woman. (Elsa’s decidedly distinctive aura had helped---had, in fact, allowed Sam to spot her amongst the others about.) That she held her shoes should’ve been a red flag, and would’ve, but as an U of A alumnus, Sam had seen her share of shenanigans. In this situation, it didn't seem strange. “How are you?”

[fractalize]

"Sam!" she practically blurts, excited to see her friend and at a party no doubt. With a controlled snicker, she approaches, looking for a spot to set her shoes down so that she might be able to welcome her with a hug. (Mmm, red flag number two.) She set them next to her feet gingerly, and then envelops her friend in a really good, Anna-worthy hug. Pulling away she replies.

"I'm wonderful. I don't think I've been to anywhere feeling so light before! Balls and ceremonies are always so uptight." Controlling her giggling again, she smiles. "How're you? You seem like you've only just got here."

[10_20_15_5_50]

The hug should've been a second red flag, but it's readily accepted and returned---even as Elsa pulls away, Sam claps a companionable hand onto her shoulder. Now that the royal's initiated some friendly physical contact, she'll be on the receiving end of much more---shoulder-to-shoulder, a little light elbowing, etc. The bar's been set, even if another bar's contributed to it.

"I'm glad to hear it! Me? I'm okay." It was an honest answer; she's still disappointed that the ritual she spent weeks preparing can't reach anyone off-planet, but the sting of it's failure is fading. "I've just been circling, since it's a lot to see."

[fractalize]

"Oh, I see." Elsa nodded, throwing some cautious looks around the gathering. There was a rather interesting amalgam of people, and it put her all the more at ease.

"It is! If I weren't used to it already, it'd be a bit overwhelming." It was. Oh it was. But the tipsy helped with that factor, quite a bit.

"Balls and Galas and all sorts of get togethers at home rarely happen." Through all faults of her own. "I might as well be getting used to it here! Like practice."

[10_20_15_5_50]

"It's still kind of weird to me, but I think I'm going to be able to get used to it. There's a certain amount of strange I'm already accustomed to---and a quote from Bradbury I can't quite remember." Sam shook her head, turning her palms up in mild mock-exasperation. "If you haven't heard of him, he wrote a lot of very good stories, some about situations a little like ours. And oh?"

She listened, nodding along as Elsa spoke. "Good attitude to take! Most of the celebrations I've been to have been significantly smaller---and I've never been to a ball---but a bonfire's a bonfire wherever you are."

Unless it's Burning Man.

By all accounts, Burning Man was madness.

[fractalize]

"Bradbury...oh I'll have to remember that, I do love my stories." she mused. "I've never heard of him otherwise."

Her response though has her giggling.

"No really, I've never been to a bonfire, either! It's much more relaxed, I wasn't expecting a non formal affair. Balls are uptight and quiet, and sometimes the only thing to look forward to is the food, especially if it's thrown in your honor! Then everyone's looking at you, constantly, asking you to dance...which usually isn't a problem, but you don't really want to know how my last one went..."

Inebriated is probably not the best way to start this story, but it seemed inevitable at this point...and who didn't know about her powers?

[10_20_15_5_50]

"I think I saw an anthology when I was in the Warehouse, once. This brick of a book---had to have a hundred of his stories. I'll see if I can't find it for you sometime soonish." It would have to be 'soonish,' since Sam couldn't remember exactly where in the Warehouse she'd seen it... and the stacks were so many. "If I had the opportunity, I'd take you to another, since you seem to be enjoying this bonfire quite a bit. When I was in university, there'd usually be one accompanying the ill-advised Gopher Hill Grand Prix, but we'll get to that."

The adept looked at Elsa, slightly surprised and entirely earnest.

"I do want to know, though."

[fractalize]

Gopher Hill Grand Prix, University, Anthology...yeah, she might as well be speaking Greek. She reaches over for a flute off of a side table, humming with amusement. Oh, how was she going to start this epic.

"Okay, okay. Well. It's a little bit of a long...confusing story without any context, but...you'll get it. Anyway." She takes a short sip out of her flute and with only a moment's thought.

"To start, I sort of froze over my entire country. On accident. On my coronation day."

[10_20_15_5_50]

That was some start.

Sam spent a long moment staring, eyebrows up, before she shook herself and settled---with an effort---back into something approximating her usual attitude.

"I've got a couple of questions, and I find myself f-floored," nice save, Samantha! "but I'm following. Do tell, please."

[fractalize]

"So that happened, meanwhile I was...well, I panicked, like anyone would, and I ran away. And my sister, Anna. Anna came to find me, try and make me feel better, but you know. My whole country. I was still a little unnerved. Well, then I pretty much---well, I did it again. Only to her. On accident! On accident. But to her heart. So things sort of went....downhill from there."

NO BIG DEAL. No big deal. Right?

"Sorry, what was your question?"

[10_20_15_5_50]

"My first question..." What was it? Right. Back on-track, despite not the start but the whole story so-far. "Was going to be 'excuse me, but how?' My second question would be 'did everybody get better?'"

It felt like a legitimate query, since she'd started to suspect magic---something which would explain Elsa's unusual aura. She hoped it was one, and hoped like hell the answer would be an affirmative.

"Third---your coronation? I've heard correctly?"

[fractalize]

"Oh! Yes, yeah, she was fine. Act of true love, so on, so forth. We were all really worried for a while there though!" Again, said nonchalantly. Thanks to the intoxication.

"Oh, how, that's, uh. That's a thing, I should've probably explained awhile back, huh?" Now putting ice in your champagne was sort of a big no-no, but freezing the glass it was in?

Holding the flute out at arms length, frost crawls up to the rim.

"Yes. Coronation." Oh wait.

"I didn't....tell you that either, did I."

icon keywords

[10_20_15_5_50]

This story was starting to sound like a full-on fairytale, but after befriending a fairy, (and a knight, and a dragon,) Sam wasn't about to discount it---not at all. She listened, rapt, until Elsa decided a demonstration was in order, startled into a wordless exclamation by the sight. Then:

"That's friggin' fantastic! What---what do you do, to do that? How long have you been able, and! An entire country..." Sam clapped her hands together, shaking her head and laughing a little. "I've got some good tricks, but they're all much smaller scale. Skin-deep stuff, I should say; that's my sphere."

She cupped her chin with one hand, and cast a contemplative eye at Elsa. "No, you didn't. Coronation... as in, you've become queen?" It hit her, really hit her, and the cupping hand rose to cover her face.

"Oh, man. It took me minutes to swear in front of you; my mother would be mortified."

[fractalize]

"Skin..deep? Wait, woah, I don't---follow. What're you----yes." She grinned, sort of waving it off.

"Yes. I'm queen---but where I live, not here, of course! Swearing---oh. I don't mind it at all. It happens. I'm not a prude." Actually, yes, she was. Just not when she was half a glass and well magically sloshed.

"I've had them for as long as I can remember, they're really just. There." she punctuates with a wave of her hand, and a neat little gust of flakes burst forth.

"There's a time I tried to suppress them, thinking maybe they'd go away, but then you know. Kingdom froze over and that was that."

[10_20_15_5_50]

"I've also got---ah, abilities; I can affect the superficial, the immediately-accessible, from first impressions and some assumptions to physical surfaces. It's not exactly easy to explain, but bottom line; I can work some witchery and have only ever met a handful of others who're able." Sam's surprise had started to fade in favour of delight and something resembling relief. "This is awesome... and alright."

She couldn't've kept a mischievous little grin from her face, even if she'd bothered to try.

"It's said 'profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer,' but since I like using sacres, I get the best of both."

[fractalize]

"I'm afraid I still don't understand, like...people's opinion's of you? Really?" That's all she'd managed to understand so far.

"You know, that's not entirely incorrect. I know a few who swear quietly to themselves." she muses, sipping down the rest of her champagne flute.

[10_20_15_5_50]

"Expectations more than opinions, but a bit of both. And I can manage more tangible effects, for shallow stuff---heal a scrape, open a scar, or---or push pigments so that they're somewhere else on the spectrum." It's an admittedly odd sphere, and stranger still for being between 'sympathetic' and 'blood' magic, but it's always made sense to Sam... Even if explaining isn't easy. "You and I have got to sit and talk shop sometime soon. Party's not the best place for it, but hell's bells! I'm glad I didn't learn later. All of this just got a little less lonely."

The gorl's grin softened, until she again glanced at Elsa, one eyebrow up.

"Am I looking at an example?"

[hotheadwarmheart]

With all the people acting strangely, Lea had realized by now that they were all victims of someone doing the magical equivalent of spiking the punch. It all seemed harmless enough though, so for the moment he was just enjoying the chaos, and being very careful of what he ate and drank. Someone had to keep their head on straight, after all.

Though it was about then that he noticed a distinctly tipsy-looking Elsa. And if her wobbly walk wasn't enough of a clue, she was holding her shoes in her hand, something he knew Elsa well enough to know that she'd never do at a party. At least she seemed to be having fun with it.

"Hey, Elsa," he greeted her. "Looks like this is shaping up to be an interesting party, huh?"

[fractalize]

"Oh. Oh! Lea. Good evening!" With all her lack of inhibition, she positively beams at the sight of him. Of course he'd be here, why wouldn't he be?

Big, dopey grin takes over her face, and she's caught herself with it; and it's not embarrassing. No, right now it was a little amusing, and she snickered.

"I'm sorry, I'm...I'm not feeling myself right now. But no! It is. It's a very very interesting party." Her shoes are lost somewhere along the line. But she approaches, rather casually. Not so much nervous, not right now, more along the idea of....paced. Well paced.

"H-How long have you been down here for? Just. You know. Frame of reference."

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea grinned right back. He also made note of where the shoes ended up, just in case Elsa wanted them back later. That was, assuming they didn't melt before then.

"Me?", Lea said. "About an hour or so. Got here early with Jendayi so that she'd have time to enjoy herself and still get to bed at a decent time."

"Though I think she got into some of the same stuff you did," he said, grin only broadening as he stepped forward to put his arm around her both in welcome... and to help steady her. "Fortunately, there are still enough adults around with their heads on straight to watch her."

[fractalize]

"How kind of you. It's not often I catch children at parties." It's true though; they were usually to bed in the palace---in the kingdom, by eight. Six, if they were unlucky.

The sudden closeness helps the warm feeling she already has thanks to her inebriation. Without any second thought, she rests her head on his shoulder with a dreamy sounding sigh.

"I'd hope so! You gave me the run around when she went missing, the poor dear. I never heard what happened."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"I bet,", Le said. It hadn't sounded like there'd been that many parties in Elsa's life back home. Though that was all the more reason to make up for lost time now.

And needless to say, when Elsa rested her head on his shoulder, he had absolutely no objections. "Yeah, sorry about that," he said, sounding a bit sheepish, though whether he was apologizing for giving her the runaround, not telling her, or both was unclear. "Turns out she went off exploring without telling anyone and wound up getting lost. Predaking brought her home, and that night I set down some rules for future explorations to prevent things like that from happening again."

[fractalize]

"Predaking...I've never met. But he sounds kind enough." To bring her home?

"Oh, no, really? I was going to plan a big snow day with her, without telling you. I'll have to find a way around those rules, now, won't I?" she muses, only half serious. She thinks she's amusing enough to smile though, maybe even chuckle. Pressed now by the seemingly accidental intoxication, she snakes a hand down his arm and into his, another thought not given. Kind of like it belonged there. Here you go buddy, it's Elsa with no brakes on when it comes to her public displays; quite honestly, something she should do more often.

"So then you'll be staying longer, then? I don't have anywhere to be."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Well, he's a big dragon type robot as far as I know," Lea said. "Jendayi seems to like him, though."

Lea chuckled. "Really now? Planning a snow day without including me? Shame on you." He leaned in slightly and gave her a quick peck on the cheek, readily looping his arm with hers. "Any snow day, I definitely want to be involved in. I promise not to melt everything."

"And yep," he said. "Barring unforeseen circumstances, I've got nowhere particularly urgent to be either."