[ ACTION ] OTA: You'll Never Know How Many Dreams I Dreamed About You

[nascensibility]

Who: Everyone is welcome, children and adults alike.
Where: First floor, ballroom.
When: Friday the 13th, from 9:00 in the evening on.
Rating: E (for Everyone)
Summary: Semi-formal themed fête.






[Guided by brassy music down an expansive hall residents will enter the first floor ballroom: it has undergone many transformations in its time, and suffered the myriad slings and arrows of Wonderland's event-related torment, but tonight its purpose has shaped it into something glittering and streamlined, the décor as advertised not long before. While socialising does appear to be the primary function, the arrangement of amenities would suggest differently.

The gilded walls border on overly opulent and a dancefloor - ringed with refreshment tables, an open bar, and scattered seating - is pointedly centred, and the brass band for which a Vendor Ticket was exchanged explodes with forceful tunes from a handful of different eras, some of which might be recognisable to those of the twenty-first century.

The only uncertainty is how one might spend the evening.]

Comments

Elizabeth | Open

[uncaging]

Elizabeth's tapping her foot along to the music, getting rather excited when a song she knows comes on, even if the arrangement's completely different to what she's used to - something that may confuse those who know her to be from an earlier time period to that the music comes from. It took her several attempts to pull a 1920s dress from her closet before she found one she'd be happy to wear, the shorter flapper dresses a little too short for her, and making her marvel at just how drastically fashion had changed within a decade.

She spends most of the evening gliding across the dance floor, pulling anyone who looks as though they've spent too long watching from the sidelines in to dance whether they like it or not. When she takes a break from dancing, she watches the band, enraptured at hearing music played live in front of her.

She glances over at the bar nervously, trying to make up her mind as to whether to be adventurous, but in the end just orders orange juice.

[ttlynotabloodmage]

The bar gets Jowan's attention as well, although not as much as the familiar young woman that he sees considering it. While they haven't spoken terribly often, she's one of the few people in the mansion that he doesn't feel as nervous around and he hopes she won't mind him stopping by to speak with her again.

"Are you only going to have juice?"

[uncaging]

"I've never really had anything stronger," Elizabeth admits, feeling rather silly and childish having to do so. She leans back against the wall, frowning at her glass. "I'm not sure where I'd even start."

[ttlynotabloodmage]

"I had an ale once," Jowan offers, though he looks a bit sheepish. "Not that that's very strong. We're not allowed to drink in the Circle, and I wasn't allowed to have much better in Redcliffe either."

He stops for a moment, thinking and then gives Elizabeth a small smile that's still more excited than he probably should be.

"Do you want to try something together? We could try some wine or spirits even."

[uncaging]

Elizabeth looks a little nervous at that suggestion, feeling that she's about to do something quite scandalous, then decides to throw caution to the wind. "Yes, let's. What do you suppose would taste the best?"

[ttlynotabloodmage]

Grinning in delight and more than a little nervous himself, Jowan reaches out impulsively to take her hand and tug her towards the bar. "Maybe something with fruit? I don't know much about the different kinds..."

And apparently even less so here. There's all manner of drinks in bottles on display in a rainbow of colours, the vast majority of which Jowan can't even begin to guess what they're made of, let alone what they'd taste like.

"A pink one might taste sweet?" he hazards a guess, giving Elizabeth a shrug. "But we can always try something else if we don't like it, right?"

[uncaging]

She's rather daunted by the sheer range of drinks on offer, and feels rather glad that he didn't ask her to choose. Nodding agreement, she turns to the bartender. "Two glasses of that pink thing, please!"

[ttlynotabloodmage]

If the bartender thinks it a bad idea to give them two glasses of that particular drink, he doesn't show it, merely half-fills two glasses for them both and moves onto the next order, leaving Jowan to pick up his glass with more bravery than he feels. He gives it a look and then shrugs at Elizabeth.

"Together?"

[uncaging]

"Together," Elizabeth agrees. Holding the glass by its stem, she lifts it to clink against Jowan's before sipping at it rather tentatively. It's sweet as candy floss, but that's quickly followed with an odd, bitter taste that can only be the alcohol, which she's not sure she's very fond of at all.

[circlejerked]

"My, don't we look radiant tonight. Careful or one of these lonely men might steal you for a dance and not let you leave," Anders greets.

He's in high spirits when he glides up to the bar behind Elizabeth just in time for her to retrieve her orange juice. Out of necessity he's more of a cheap beer or ale type, but tonight he's not limited in what he can have, and so decides on a dark red wine that looks as though it could be dangerous if consumed in large quantities. It'll do.

Turning to lean his elbow on the bar, he regards her with a smile. The examples he'd been given on what constitutes appropriate Earth fashion had been educative, if nothing else, and after some deliberation, Anders settled on something that still retains the quality of his robes, blending familiar Thedas with unfamiliar Earth. It's the most expensive thing he's ever worn by a mile. "How are you finding the festivities?"

[uncaging]

"That doesn't sound too terrible a prospect." Elizabeth leans her back against the bar, then shakes her head to pull her ponytail free from where it's become jammed between herself and the counter. She takes a sip of her juice, smiling over at him. "Oh, it's just wonderful. A little loud, maybe, but ever so much fun."

[circlejerked]

"In that case, I wish your feet the best of luck," is his reply. Some of the shoes Anders has seen women wearing in Wonderland look more like torture devices than footwear. How they do it, he'll never know. One stray pebble in his boot and he's down for the count, forget trying to look poised on a heel three inches high.

He looks to the band currently working their way through a fast-paced number with jazzy high notes. "I'm beginning to see a trend. A lot of this music is on the upbeat side." Not that he's complaining. No good party is without its noise and festivity, and they've had enough of being in quiet mourning, carrying the weight of the last few events around with them like an invisible ball and chain.

[uncaging]

"I'm not used to hearing music arranged quite like this, though some of the songs themselves are familiar." She rocks back on her heels, tapping her toe to the beat. "And of course hearing music played live is completely new."

[circlejerked]

"That's more than I can say. I assume you must be from the same world or a variation thereof?"

Earth seems like a popular place to snatch people from. Or perhaps it's just a popular name for worlds, sort of like "Anders" for any fair-haired person from the Anderfels that happens to walk on by.

"When you escaped from the place you were kept, did you not get a chance to enjoy the free life?" he asks, taking a sip of his drink. Anders had been lucky in that the first time he'd escaped, he wasn't diving into a whole new world, merely returning to an old world that he'd lost.

In retrospect, it's hard to tell if that's better or worse. A person can't miss what they haven't experienced.

[uncaging]

"I'm from Earth, yes, but Columbia doesn't seem to exist in any other version of it." For which Elizabeth was very glad. "I'm from an earlier time point than most here, too - I suppose the style of music I'm used to must seem very old fashioned."

She shakes her head, her face suddenly overcast. "I was only out of the tower for one day. And it wasn't much in the way of freedom, though I was trying to get away from there to Paris."

[circlejerked]

His time has been spent trying to learn as much as he can about Wonderland, which is a trial in and of itself, and as such Anders has only a vague understanding of Earth. He wouldn't know the first thing about which cities or land masses normally populate it--and to this day he has to suppress a chuckle at how strange it is to think about another world's geography.

"To others from Earth, maybe." In his opinion, every style of Earth music is new and different.

Noticing her shift in mood, Anders puts on a smile. "Two steps forward, one step back?" he suggests playfully. "Wonderland is a headache and half, but it's not as heavy on the restrictions as your average prison. We can stretch our legs outside whenever we feel like it and no one's stopping us from going to dances like this one, for example." He salutes the room at large with his drink. "It's all up from here. The little tastes of freedom we get along the way all add up on our way to where we're going."

And for her, perhaps that's Paris. For him... well, that's undecided as yet. But somewhere, some day.

[uncaging]

"That's true," Elizabeth concedes, gazing around the room at the others dancing and drinking and enjoying the evening, then smiling sadly and pensively. "Just as long as we don't forget that no matter how gilded it is, it is still a prison. Having that little taste of freedom is almost cruel in a way, to make us feel happy with our lot."

[1908]

Adaline comes up beside her while the band plays, smiling broadly, lips lined in crimson. When they pause between songs, she smiles over at her as she claps.

"Wonderful, aren't they?"

[uncaging]

"They really are!" Elizabeth applauds enthusiastically, still swaying to the rhythm of the music even though the song has now finished. "There's something wonderful about hearing music played live."

[1908]

"It's one of my favorite things."

There's just something about it.

"And this type...definitely my favorite."

[uncaging]

"I'm not used to music being played in this style," she admits, feeling as always a little embarrassed about how behind the times she seemed to be in comparison to most everyone else here.

[1908]

"Live music, or the genre?"

Adaline could understand that. She reasonably shouldn't know anything beyond, say, the late eighties as far as music goes. Yet here she is.

[uncaging]

"Both." She reflects that she ought to start a list of all the things she has yet to experience, though often it doesn't occur to her that she's missed out on something until after she's encountered it here. "I saw people playing music at Battleship Bay -- it was wonderful, though very different to this. And before that... I was always locked away. I'm from a time far earlier than this sort of music, it all sounds very loud and frantic, though I still like it."

[1908]

Locked away--

Adaline almost wants to comment on that, but she doesn't elaborate and Adaline herself can be a very private person, resisting when pressed.

"I felt that way about hip hop. Too much..." She waves a hand. "Going on. I suppose if it's something you aren't used to, it can certainly sound that way. I'm glad you like it, though."

[uncaging]

"Hip hop?" Elizabeth blinks confusedly, the term sounding more like an ailment than a type of music. "I don't think I've ever heard that before."