[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

[3ofswords]

He hasn't worn a pair of heels in, well--nevermind that there's a number to even attach to that. He certainly hasn't worn them to a fucking harvest-fest, and it's a bit of damper on his normal and healthy appreciation of a pair of red pumps to have them sticking down into the mud.

Ola Ray got pavement to walk on, even if she was being terrorized by a cat-man in red leather.

When he sees Karen stomping back in through the corn, he's only a little tempted to follow suit: you never know how long things like this are going to last, and there's some kind of dream being fulfilled by leopard-print denim, even if it links him inextricably to his ex's red jacket tonight. "I can't tell if you're no fun at all, or the best person I know," he says, admiring the juxtaposition and offering an arm.

For his own sake, at this point. "Between the chill and the price of fashion, I'm not going to have toes tomorrow."

[digging]

"I don't think I'm ready for the pressure of being the best person anyone knows, so I'll take being no fun," Karen replies, and accepts Kira's arm with a steadying one of her own, hand clamping against his shoulder through denim.

"What in the hell are you wearing?" she asks, sweeping a look from red patent leather up to impressively-coiffed hair. There's a vague familiarity about the outfit she can't quite place, but she knows for a fact that she made the better decision of the two of them when it came to footwear, fun or otherwise.

[3ofswords]

"I'm the girlfriend from the Thriller video," he explains, counting himself lucky he didn't get the more generic Mary Janes and poodle skirt. "Somehow on par with angels and--broccoli, I guess." The theme of the evening is a bit muddled, until you get down to the people in black and white.

Much like the universe itself, Kira is accepting that he'll probably never understand the through-line of natural disaster, blood vials, and themed parties with clothing tricks.

"Three guesses who got the red leather jacket, and the first two don't count," he adds, nodding at the bit of red in the crowd. "I'm a little surprised you dropped by at all, much less came back. Can't resist free food and the ambiance of--corn?"

[digging]

"It's more the alcohol, actually," Karen corrects with a cant of her head. "Not to disparage your fine efforts, of course. Sometimes a girl just likes something a little more mellow than paint thinner."

That in mind, she tugs them gently toward the table crowded with bottles, careful of Kira's inconvenient pumps. "I don't know, I just think with everything... It's not giving up, really. It's just knowing when fighting doesn't do anybody any good. I don't know if my little download is stuff that actually happened or not, but I just feel more..." She pauses, casting for the appropriate phrasing. "Settled, I guess? Which isn't the same as resigned, for the record. Just less likely to have an emotional breakdown over the possible blood of a guy who, by the way, is here somewhere."

Reaching for a glass, she glances back out over the crowd and then back to Kira. "You tell him yet?"

[3ofswords]

Ah, the infamous MM appears - the traginine, as Kira has decided to shorten it, LL to Karen's reporter wiles. "Is he hot," is his immediate and blankly delivered query, for all the he knows that has nothing to do with any reaction to the guy's presence. Maybe just his own.

Finding his footing at the table, there's nothing that can offend him in the presence of enough Grey Goose. "Well it's not even Christmas yet, so no. Did you settle enough show Matthew," he says, over-pronouncing the name in a way he's decided he's going to forever, even or especially to the man's face, "your memento of him?"

Which is more offense than defense, and in his: "I did have a lovely time talking him down from that list that implies I died once when nobody was looking."

[digging]

One hand on a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle, the other on her glass, Karen pauses, focus on the table, and bites against her bottom lip with a slight shake of her head. "You're in fine form tonight, I see," she finally replies, resuming the business of pouring out a finger of bourbon.

"No," she continues, blithely capping off the bottle and lifting her glass as she turns back to Kira. "I haven't gone full Angelina Jolie. I would have taken it back to the bunker by now if it didn't take all damned day to get down there and back."

It doesn't escape her that she could just get rid of it — Dump the blood down the sink, pitch the vial — but can't quite manage to care that little about the possible consequences, even with Matt in front of her daily.

She takes a slow sip, regards the crowd again as she swallows, and then slides a glance back to Kira. "Is being upset about you having been dead a bad thing, though?"

[3ofswords]

He shrugs - it wasn't really his form he was asking after. "If you ever want it hand-delivered, I still take shifts by the tubes." And if she didn't, well, he has more than enough coats to justify burning the old parka.

Pouring none of the vodka into a glass, he sniffs the open bottle just to remember what it's like, not inhaling paint thinner before a direct sip. In this weather, it's well-chilled and tastes like starchy, burning clarity - of which it provides none.

"It's an annoying thing, when I'm here and alive right now. And it's just - more wood on the already burning pile. I don't want to add the past to the present mindfuck."

[digging]

"If you're already going down there, yeah. Just stick it back on the shelf for me." Even shoved in the back of a drawer, having that blood around is just asking for an awkward confrontation.

Licking the bourbon lingering at the corners of her mouth, Karen leans back against the table and considers the crowd as she picks apart the bigger picture of what Kira's said. "I guess that makes sense, but you have to know he's not going to thank you for it." They never do, in her experience. "At least you know he cares. Maybe he's using your possible death as the thing he fixates on while he processes the whole clone thing, because that's moderately less of a mindfuck, even if they're technically connected."