[MINGLE] Saints & Sinners Masquerade

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Corn field next to the inn
WHEN: 31 October, all day and night
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn as appropriate in your subject lines
NOTES: Please make sure you have read and understand the event details! If you have questions, drop them here. RECOMMENDED BUT NOT REQUIRED: Put your SCRUBS COLOR in your OTA subject line for folks doing bingo. Time your OTA for the harvest feast, the masquerade, or both. Costume matches and details for folks who did not get matched are here.

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This morning, our intrepid villagers awoke to a surprise of the nicer kind: A bundle of clothing left at the foot of their bed, tied with a bow. There is also a note: Put on your new outfit and join the festivities in the corn field next to the inn.

You may be thinking, what corn field next to the inn? The one that sprung up fully-mature overnight, of course.

In the middle of the field, villagers will find an autumn feast: Tables piled with harvest time food and drink, warm and rustic decorations, the day's sunshine fending off any chill in the air.

Tuck in and enjoy, villagers, but take note: Things often look different in the dark, and you might be one of them.

Comments

[cannily]

Cael has two antlered pieces of proof that he never looks a gift horse in the mouth, and his collected boxes and rummaged supplies have hardly been punishments to break the habit. When he finds a sturdier set of hide trousers and thicker tunic for the winter, he's happy to put it on, reduce the layers needed to head out into the dimming light for another of these staged celebrations.

Better to move in, if things go sideways.

Until he actually reaches the destination, and the sun dips below the trees. He doesn't quite fall over when the outfit shifts--such magics had been used in the theaters, but it's enough to make him grab the arm of the nearest villager.

Lucky it's an arm he might have grabbed anyway. "What on earth--"

Looking down, it's easy to see why he's stumbled. Trousers and boots are now a tightly caging tail, and the cold touches more than his arms--thick tunic gone, a decorative binding at his chest and his hair pulled back with pearls and shells. Looking up, it's easy to see he isn't the only one getting a wardrobe change. "Why did you at least get a jacket," he asks, tugging reproachfully at Vasquez's new sleeve. "Are you meant to be some swarthy bandit after a siren's pearls?"

[quinientos]

When he feels his vision go back to normal, Vasquez looks over to see who he's been steadying from falling, hand around his arm, and the other caught around his waist to yank him in to prevent him from tipping over. Amused, more than a little delighted, and definitely glad that he's covered, Vasquez thinks he's very happy with the way this turned out.

"What kind of asshole would I be if I didn't offer it to you?" The answer, of course, is Vasquez, the usual kind of asshole. "Are you actually cold?" he demands bluntly, before he's willing to give anything up. "And I don't know, I just have a hat and layers." And something covering his eye, which he pushes away instantly, annoyed by whatever it's meant to be.

[cannily]

"I was still conducting my study into your exact species markers," Cael promises, prodding a finger at Vasquez's hip. "Perhaps one night we'll stay up and think of a name for men like you."

Not that he doesn't have several, most of which he's sure the man would favor.

Cael mounts his expression at the chin, as if setting it on some invisible bar. His mouth shapes between a purse and a pout, and he casts his eyes up at Vasquez and then away, eventually sliding back. "Would you actually offer it if I was? We could trade, I might like to see how the little stones look amidst the hair on your chest."

[quinientos]

Vasquez snorts as he runs a hand over his shirt, the hair extremely buried under what seems to be at least two layers of clothes. "I think it looks better on you," he guarantees, and hefts him a little higher by the waist. "If you're cold, I have this jacket, I don't think that I need to get your sparkle stones to give that to you."

His gaze slides down, though, to waist and below. "I don't know what we're going to do about the rest of you, though. I think maybe this is almost inappropriate for people to see."

[cannily]

"Only almost," he says, one brow climbing behind the sweep of his hair. "Perhaps wholly inappropriate if we put it on you." Entirely, if the tail wouldn't stretch to match the difference in heights.

Cael wiggles his toes, finding less give than he'd like between the material and the ground. "Very appropriate if we're in a place where they don't like to see your feet."

Resting somewhat on the arm around his waist, he puts an answering arm along Vasquez's shoulders. "I think I'll want the jacket sooner than later, and I might appreciate if you'd hoist me over to a table with food and drink in arm's reach. Things might get a sight more inappropriate if I have to peel this off to walk."

[quinientos]

Vasquez isn't looking to get himself rushed out of town for being inappropriate, so he nods his head and agrees that probably, the tail isn't something for him to be swapping. Shifting, he glances to where he can set Cael down, hoisting him over to settle him on a table next to some of the drinks, stripping off the jacket so he can hand it over to him.

It would be much more chivalrous, except that Vasquez is already thinking about when he gets get it back. "So what are you supposed to be? Mermaid? I thought this a drunk sailor's story."

[cannily]

With a gentle wuff of breath, he's hoisted up and placed at a decent vantage; Vasquez gets gratitude pressed to his cheek, briefly. A hand ruffling his hair, short thanks made long in the vowels as Cael adjusts his posture under the coat.

He's had to sit pretty at parties before. It's dull, but hardly torture.

"Does a thing have to be real to make a costume of? The lady over there has a pair of wings."

[quinientos]

Vasquez swallows harder for the touch to his hair, throat clicking with the tell of how much he likes when he's touched like that. He breathes in steadily, and then out warily, because he's not sure Cael noticed and he's not sure he wanted him to.

"I mean, it's very nice wings," he admits. "You got made into a mermaid, though. This seems like someone had it out for you. Who'd you piss off?"

[cannily]

If he hasn't noticed that Vasquez likes to have his hair played with by now, he might well throw in all his years of spying; there's the briefest tug at a curl, just to tease him for his little tell. "I would imagine people here to be more direct, but if you mean the forces that built themselves a village of dolls to play with--I've no idea."

And if they are dolls, to be dressed and changed and cast in rolls, it might not be punitive. Curling his legs under him at an angle, he's all but playing the part, waving from a table instead of barnacle coated rocks.

"Aside from the chill, I've worn worse. I just can't tell what manner of role I'm meant to play: all the tales I've heard, they're as likely to save sailors as they are to drown and eat them."

[quinientos]

Vasquez inhales sharply for that tug, knowing that he shouldn't be so easy, but at the same time, does he care that Cael is so good with it? Not really, because he gets the benefit of someone playing with his hair like this.

He still works his outermost jacket off, draping it over his shoulders even though he's said that he's fine. He's not an asshole all of the time, after all.

"Where did you wear worse to? I think you have some stories you're not telling me," he snorts.