entrancelogs | Winter Wednesday Wonderball

Entry tags:

Winter Wednesday Wonderball

Who: E V E R Y O N E
Where: The Ballroom, Real Side
When: December 20th
Rating: PG
Summary: The invitation sent for you. Now the festivities begin! Come and join, Mirrors and Reals, and have a wonderful winter time!
The Story:

At last the invitations spell TODAY, and come 7 o'clock sharp the ballroom doors open to a beautiful winter landscape in icy blues and whites. Snow and ice of both the artificial and real variety decorate the ballroom, and white fog floods the dancefloor like an icy winter mist, making the atmosphere complete. Nevertheless the temperature is still pleasantly cool, allowing all to enjoy themselves without hiding their gowns under thick cloaks.

Decorations both standing and hanging are cool, elegant and... made with heart, though various symbols of the cool season, such as snowflakes and luscious winter conifers, have their place in the mix just the same. Chairs and tables of ice line the ballroom for anyone who wishes to rest their tired feet or enjoy the rich buffet of food and drink. It goes without saying that everyone's favourite cookies are still available, looking as delicious as ever. Still, there are alternatives, should anyone prefer to abstain for some odd reason.

For your entertainment piano music of various kinds fills the room at all times. The ball will continue well into the night, with food and drink replenishing as needed, and music playing as long as people will dance to it. Come dawn of the next day the ballroom will go quiet, all delicious goods will disappear, and furniture and decorations both will begin to melt, signalling even the most dedicated party guests that it's time to leave.

So go forth, dance, eat and drink, and be merry, and... perhaps spare just one moment to think of the ones less fortunate than yourself.

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She can tell it's alcoholic- from the look to the subtle smell. Max is perfectly fine with her soda, thanks very much.

"I get the impression all those warnings and puzzles we get aren't actually meant help."

She gives him- and a few other mirrors she's noticed- a curious look, tinged with worry.

"You don't board the event train every other week, right?

"Eh. We do and we don't." Heaven forbid he offer anyone a straight answer, no matter how polite she might be initially. And she might be kinder on the outset than most are, where he's concerned, but that's no reason to be anything less than what he is.

If she's anything at all like her Mirror, he might need to be careful with this one. Play it safe.

"It's not like we're not around for any of it."

"...Watching us, you mean?" There's a simmering of bitterness under her tone. How often has she looked with anxiety at a mirror along a corridor? "We're not your soap opera, you know."

It would be pretty messed up if that was Wonderland's real purpose. Recent events point to other, less straightfroward things.

"Woah, hey." He raises his free hand, palm out, eyebrows lifted, as if to say how could you? He's hurt, Max. Really. He thought they were bonding.

"What choice do we have, here? It's not like we've got anything else to do. It's not like Her Majesty," he adds in a stage whisper, despite knowing full well that he's safe from her prying ears as long as he remains on this side of the glass, "gives us any other option."

Bonding? With a Mirror? It's not that she thinks they're all bad. That would be way too judgmental right off the bat.

It's that whenever there are Mirrors, there are bad things happening.

Max hasn't died. It's been about two years. It's going to happen at some point, and it scares her.

Like this Tim does.

"...I guess so," she says sulkily. "But you can imagine how much it stings, right? You could always... I dunno, take up a hobby instead."

"Having your entire life on display, for others to peruse at their leisure?" That's a hint of bitterness in his smile, to be certain. It almost makes him look like his Real, for a fraction of a second.

Almost.

"Well, that's just how it is over there. If you're not with her, you're against her. And people that're against her don't tend to last long."

Now how much of what he just said is true? Take your bets now.

She shifts her weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. By now she knows Tim well enough. Knows a bit of his life, his attitudes, his behaviors. Max holds some of those things in her mind constantly, whenever she speaks to him. And she's willing to bet that a Real and a Mirror always share some traits.

Her gaze travels slowly from her drink to his face, until she finally decides to say what she's thinking.

"Unless you're a really good liar?"

He winks.

“C’mon, Max. I thought Mirrors were supposed to be different from the Real things.” No, actually, she got it in one. He’s even worse than Tim is. But like hell he’s just going to up and admit it like it ain’t no thing.

She shifts weight again. Uncomfortable. Awkward.

He has a point. This Tim has been open and friendly (in a weird way), and who knows how else he could be different from the Real?

She gulps down her drink. There was that wink, and the tone, and the entire thread of their conversation... The Mirror is strange, confusing.

Her brow furrows. "Tim's doesn't... always lie." She's gonna stick up for the guy at least a little bit.

The Mirror blows out a long, amused breath, as though about to correct a particularly glaring error.

"Wow," he says, drawing the word out with a sympathetic wince. "You, uh...really don't know him that well, huh? I mean, I get there was that whole truth-telling scenario, but that was kind of hell for him, y'know?"

Ran away to hide in the woods like a little baby - like a little, miniature Tim.

It was hell for him. God, that event was terrible, and it feels so long ago, like a dream. Did all that actually happen?

But no. Tim's shared something of himself to her. About It. That memory she saw in his head- he didn't lie about that. Not after what she'd seen. Right?

Or did he? And who does she believe more, anyway... the Mirror or the Real?

She shakes her head. Her voice wavers with uncertainty.

"I don't know him well, but he told me the truth about... some things."

"That's how he worms his way in, you know." The Mirror taps at the center of his chest with the tip of one finger, his smirk right-handled and resigned, like someone who already knows how this story ends. Or maybe that's just the picture he's painting. "He gives you just enough to tide you over. Just enough to make you think he's all sincere."

Just enough to open the door to trust, before he yanks the rug out from under you.

She could just ask Jay, after all.

"...You really don't like him." That shouldn't surprise her. That's the theme with most Mirrors, isn't it?

Or is this one just... toying with her? Using Tim as an excuse to string her along? Make her think he's the sincere one?

The thoughts fire through her head as she finishes what's left of her soda.

"Why do you care? Why're you even talking to me?"

"I don't like how he works," the Mirror says, with a shrug. "He's so good at pretending to be something besides what he is, he even has himself fooled. And I'm not fond," he adds, with a white flash of teeth in an arching smile, "of liars."

Another truth? Another lie?

Who can say.

She considers him for a moment. Him and his big smile, casual poise, smooth outfit. "So... if you were to describe the real him, what would you say?"

The Mirror sips again at his drink, thoughtfully. He savors the silence, the contemplative pause he prefaces his answer with.

"Someone in denial," he says at last, "about what he is. Someone in denial about the difference between potential and inevitability."

Yes, thanks, Mirror Tim. That's very clear.

Max resists the strong urge to rub her temples. She can't imagine the exasperated headache she'd be sporting if she had to talk to this guy for an hour.

Instead she bites her lip and stares off intently as she works through his words.

"So... He thinks he can change what's going to happen to him, and... You think he can't?"

Or did he mean it the other way around?

"I don't think he can't. I know he can't." He drums at his temple with one fingertip, and grins. "It's just how it is, for people like us. We spread to everyone else, and once they're stuck...well."

He snaps his fingers.

Bam.

"That's the end of it."

The moment he starts talking about us, Max turns pale, obvious even in the bluish light of the party. He's talking about her too, whether he knows it or not. Does he? Does the way she look right now give it away? She tries to bury the worry in her eyes but she was never good at that.

"You sound like Alex," she says, accusation in her tone before she can hide it.

"Haven't you heard?"

His smile abruptly drops clean away, and his expression becomes strange and intent. That name still holds a lot of power, where Max is concerned. You sound like Alex, she says, and she makes it sound like an indictment.

She's blanching, pale in the frosted light.

"Alex Kralie was right."

No, he wasn't. He couldn't be.

Max throws an indignant look at the Mirror, coupled with a sharp exhalation of breath. Exasperated.

Alex was sick. He was... not okay, he had all these ideas, and she tried to help him but she couldn't. Deep down even he knew how wrong he was. She saw it in glimpses now and then. Before he... changed.

But this Tim is saying that they'd all be better off dead. Something Alex would imply in his weakest moments.

She sets her empty glass on a table and turns her back on him, ready to walk away.

He lets her go.

He hit her where it needed to hurt, and that's all he really needed from this. That, and the solemn guarantee of what he already suspected was the case - that she really isn't, and might not ever be, truly done with the man who is Alex Kralie.

The Mirror drains his glass and lets it drop to the floor with a quiet tinkle of shattering glass.

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Winter Wednesday Wonderball

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