eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow the mansion could implode via magic

[thesamurai]

Who: Michonne and other residents of Wonderland
Where: The garden
When: April 9th from 4 pm to ????? (probably around midnight)
Rating: Let's start at PG and adjust if necessary
Summary: Michonne throws a party outside because there's nothing prepared to eat her.
The Story:

[She misses it. The house in Alexandria full of people, enough that it spills out onto porches and front yards. No fear of something shuffling its way behind you to take a bite out of your neck or shoulder. Just conversation, the sound of crickets and cicadas in the summer, and booze that's been scavenged with care. That's what she misses, and the people too, but.

She has people here.

It's an epiphany that's come with time and conversation. Just because these people haven't been through her world with her, they've all been through some shit here, and more of them than not have taken care of each other. Maybe that was what it was about. What you'd do for someone, not where they came from. So, she's taken it upon herself to throw a party. Before the end of everything it was the kind of thing she liked to host, especially pre-Andre being born. After that her time was split between courtrooms and midnight feedings, but she'd still done her share of entertaining clients. Then things ended and it became more about sharing scraps of meet and jars of food when they could, hoping things would get better.

They can. They do. Even without her family, her people, she's made a new home, a different group. People she'd go out of her way to do a lot for, and today they get a potluck. Everyone has to bring something; she's provided the main meats and drinks, but the party is open to everyone who offers an item for others to enjoy whether it's food or booze. Everything is casual outside in the garden, with people coming and going from late afternoon through about midnight when Michonne's finally ready to pack it in.

You take moments like this with the people you care about any time you can get them. That's a far cry from her early ambitions in Atlanta to stay alone.]

(ooc: treat as gathering style, make top levels, tag around!)

Comments

[circlejerked]

Yes, it was certainly an experience...

_{[Anders' hedges his answer. He's quick to talk about most things, but feelings--namely his feelings--don't make for the best conversation. Too thin and bitter, like a tasteless broth.]}

If there was a way to push them to the back of my mind, I wasn't in a state to figure it out. _{[He laughs, a sheepish puff of breath, and smoothes his fingers over the cat's head.]} And there's something about having the choice to deaden your emotions that gives me the creeps. We have something like that where I'm from. A means to separate someone from their emotions permanently. It's used as a punishment, and the end result isn't pretty.

_{[If his feelings aren't any prettier, they're still his. Doing a lesser version of the Rite of Tranquility to himself doesn't feel right--what if it hadn't gone back to normal? Being divorced from everything that makes him him is the worst thing he can imagine.]}

[thesamurai]

[This isn’t the first time she’s heard about emotions being taken away as punishment in other places. Well, Regina’s was the whole...heart thing, which sounds messier. Still.]

I couldn’t figure out which one was worse. So I just locked myself in my room to keep everything to myself. Healthiest way to cope? Probably not. But no one got the full extent of what I’m like when I’m emotional about shit. But I can see why you just...why you wouldn’t turn them off.

[circlejerked]

Nobody can fault you for that. I'm not sure what the healthy way to cope is when an outside power fans your emotions into an inferno, if there is such a way. You probably did yourself a favor, avoiding temptation. _{[A regretful sigh marks his next sentence.]} In hindsight, I wish I'd been that smart.

<sub>[Things had gotten... messy, for lack of a better word. So much so that the simple act of sipping a foreign drink in a chair with a potential new friend strikes him as the best gift in the world.

There's nothing like being put through the wringer to make you grateful for the small things, after all, and he throws her an easygoing smile.]</sub>

Pulling up a seat in the tavern didn't do much to take the edge off this time, eh?

[thesamurai]

[She gives him a sidelong glance at that, because that hadn't been her finest moment.]

It's not typically how I deal with things. Just let the worst of a bad situation get to me. The bar with friends, that's for good times, usually. But I will say some drinking did happen in that room to pass time.

[circlejerked]

_{[He doesn't doubt her fortitude in that regard. Anyone who manages to keep their head screwed on straight between events has some mettle, he's sure.]}

I'll tell you a secret...

_{[He leans a little ways over the arm of the chair, then allows a sheepish, laughing smile.]}

It happened in mine, too. That's hush-hush, I have a reputation to uphold.

[thesamurai]

[Michonne laughs, pretty delighted by that before toasting him with her bottle.]

Well, here's to drinking for better reasons, in good company.

[circlejerked]

Cheers! I'm pleased to be here and I couldn't agree more. It's good to have friends in strange places, especially the kinds of friends who let you partake in free food and drink.

_{[He'll drink to that.]}