[OPEN] We'll Take A Cup of Kindness Yet

[nascensibility]

Who: EVERYONE, but especially you!
Where: Wonderland Ballroom
When: New Year's Eve
Rating: PG - PG13 (will change if applicable)
Summary: New Year's Eve Party
The Story:

[The morning of December 31st, all residents will receive a handwritten invitation slipped under their door.]



You are cordially invited to attend a party
celebrating the New Year

Wonderland Ballroom
8 pm - 1 am

Semi-Formal Attire
Buffet & Bar
No RSVP Required

All Ages Welcome

For inquiries, contact E. O'Connell

[Punctuality in planning is important: the ballroom itself will only be ready for guests at exactly 8 o'clock, bedecked in glittering golds and the red-green of Christmas' vestiges, still clinging to the old year. Dining tables surround a central dance floor, bars and buffets dot the edges of the room and both holly and mistletoe are expressed liberally through the interior.

Mingle, dance, eat and be merry! The New Year will come in at midnight - the band will play and the drinks will flow for long after.]

Comments

[signalized]

"I imagine a lot can happen in a year in a place like this." A lot can happen in a year anywhere, but Wonderland seems to be a particularly eventful place from the little he can tell in his short time here.

[uncaging]

She can't help but laugh, feeling that was something of an understatement. "Oh, you have no idea."

[signalized]

He shrugs his shoulders lightly, not at all arguing with her assessment. "I don't, I've only been here a few weeks so far so I'm still catching up."

[uncaging]

"I didn't realise." Come to think of it, she doesn't think she's seen him around the mansion before. She cocks her head to one side a little as she tries to decide which of the events she'd experienced were worth sharing. "Well, there was one time a few months ago where we all thought we were students in some magical school. And a couple of months after I arrived everyone's emotions went haywire - that one was awful. Oh - there was the caves, too! The Deep Roads, I think they were called. That was a little frightening, with the monsters there, but there was treasure to be found."

[signalized]

"I've heard about the magical school one -- that seemed to resonate with a lot of people." And it honestly unnerved him more than some of the others because he doesn't like the idea of his mind being messed with to that large of an extent. "What kind of treasure? Was any of it actually useful here?"

Sorry, he has a lot of questions because he's still trying to get a base understanding of this place.

[uncaging]

Elizabeth frowns a little - she never had quite figured that out. "Everyone got something different, everyone who found something, anyway. Mine was similar to something from my own world, but different enough that I haven't dared to try to play around with it."

[signalized]

"I don't blame you. I would find it difficult to trust something this place gave me." He would probably risk it ultimately in the name of trying to understand it better but still -- the apprehension is smart.

[uncaging]

"Things it gives you in events, definitely," she agrees, thinking not only of the plasmid she'd found in the Deep Roads but of the weapon that had appeared in her stocking only a week ago. "Unfortunately it's downright impossible to avoid anything it gives us normally, food and the like, but that doesn't make me trust them any less."

[signalized]

"As you should. I was hesitant to trust the food and drink at first, given the effects they would have on Alice in the stories. They've seemed safe enough thought."

But given the nature of this place he wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't always true.

[uncaging]

"It would be too easy to thwart anything going on with the food. They can hardly stop us going on a mass hunger strike." Whatever the mansion was doing to them, there was no way to avoid it so easily.

[signalized]

"It's true, and it would be no good if we all used up our allowed deaths starving over and over again, somehow I have a feeling that would interfere with their plans."

So they have to find other ways of controlling them -- how they manage that, however, remains an unnerving mystery.

[uncaging]

"That's something I've never understood." She frowns a little, scratching her chin as she contemplates it. "Why we can be brought back but only so many times."