SATINALIA 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.

[deuselfmachina]

WHO: All
WHAT: A second crack at celebrating Satinalia, because we deserve nice things.
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall
WHERE: The Gallows, in the gardens.
NOTES: n/a

It's twilight when Second Satinalia is in its fullest swing. The weather is unseasonably warm, and so they've made use of the gardens as the site for partying. Carefully placed lanterns shine through the odd tree or hover over bushes that have since lost their flowers.

However, decoration makes up for the lack of springtime flora. The space is decorated in shining garlands of gold and silver ribbons, paper flowers, and hanging ornamentations that flip between moons and suns. (If they look a little used, it's because these are second-hand decorations from slightly more affluent Satinalia parties been and gone, borrowed or donated.) There is also a firepit, providing a source of warmth and light.

In the invitations that went out, everyone was encouraged to come in costume as they'd intended to, but noted that for those whom their costumes were ruined or they would simply like to wear something different, there will be masks available, along with some costume pieces—fake jewelry, big hats, faux-velvet and harlequin coats, and so on, though they must be given back, s'il vous plaît. Florent will also offer his abilities in face painting and makeup prior to the party beginning, and will talk you into going spooky in case more skeletons come and they need to blend in to throw them off. (He can be found with his own stylish paintwork, a skeletal design in silver and white and grey.)

Everyone has also been invited to bring along some food and drink if they have it, as their budget is run a bit thin, but there will definitely be enough wine to go around, and some fruits and sweet pastries purchased from the market that day all offered on a table.

There is some music, a few local musicians (who have been promised, variously, tickets to shows, or work opportunities with certain prominent Orlesian playhouses, which may or may not be legitimate) set up with a fiddle, some percussion instruments, something that resembles a very elaborate xylophone, all playing a diverse array of up tempo tunes that allow for a bit of dancing in the more open area of the garden, but otherwise suffuses the shadows and fractured conversations with pleasant noise.

Drink, be merry, don't kill anyone.

Comments

[notathreat]

"Don't praise him in writing," Ellie groans under her breath, assuming the lead as easily as breathing. Even if they haven't actually danced together much, it doesn't undo the memories of phantom years of it. It feels good.

"Badass. I can totally picture that."

But Glimmer compliments her again, and Ellie flushes, just barely -- it definitely feels a lot like it did in the Aerie, and well. It's obvious that that's where Glimmer's mind is, too.

"Gotta make up for lost time?"

Ellie tries to make light of it, but. It's there, and they both feel it. The lost time.

[sparklequeen]

"Will he treasure it forever and then pull it out anytime you have a disagreement?" Glimmer asks, laughing at the idea. She nudges in closer as the music continues, her feet moving in a familiar pattern.

It shouldn't be familiar. But it is familiar.

"Yeah, I guess," Glimmer says in a soft voice, pitched so that just Ellie can hear.

"...We've never really talked about it, have we?"

[notathreat]

"Oh, it'll already be out. Right there on the mantlepiece." Ellie laughs too, and without realizing it they've ended up close, in that habitual hold, the way they could whisper during the sets and not be overheard. It was one of the few places they could actually talk.

She falls silent to listen, catching those words because she's used to the volume, and the smile fades off of her face.

We talked about it, she wants to say. Might have, if it had been before their talk in the Rookery. Instead she rubs her thumb over Glimmer's knuckle, catching on her skin. Letting her know she heard.

They'd talked about the killing. About the Quarry. They'd never talked about that night.

What's there to say? she wants to ask, in that dismissive way Joel used to get when something hurt -- or when he was afraid. Throwing up his walls. But she remembers how it felt, shut down and shut out. So she sighs and squeezes down on her fingers.

"... I feel like I stole something from you."

[sparklequeen]

Weirdly, it feels more comfortable talking to her like this, the two of them holding on and dancing. It's a mental and emotional remnant of the time they spent together in the Aerie, a time that feels half-real and half like a dream depending on the way Glimmer is feeling any given moment. Sometimes she's certain that Glimmer, the Aerie Glimmer, has to have been the real one. Most of the time, though, she's more planted. Solid in knowing who she is. Where she comes from.

"You can't steal something I gave to you, dummy," she mutters, her head ducking down low for a moment as if it might somehow hide the blush on her cheeks. There's embarrassment, yes. Also genuine affection and feeling. Glimmer is carrying two different torches that have somehow been bundled awkwardly into one that keeps burning, even if it's faint and guttering at times.

"I know. Things were different there and stuff. But that person..." Glimmer takes a breath. No. No. She needs to stop thinking of that Glimmer as someone else.

"No, I made that decision. To share that with you." Glimmer swallows and the blush on her cheeks is even more pronounced.

"It was one of the only decisions I ever made where I wasn't scared about what someone else was going to do to me. To you." She trembles a little at that and the hand in Ellie's squeezes a little tighter. The trembling eases.

"And for once I didn't care so... so don't feel bad about it, okay?" She fidgets. "I know that it was an alternate thing but--but the feelings were real. Are real. Whatever. It's not like the Aerie made me feel that way, Ellie..."

[notathreat]

Ellie listens, feeling hot and cold and hurting at the edges, where she isn't numb. Her hands stay in Glimmer's hands, and she squeezes back, firm where she trembles.

It hurts, feeling -- disconnected from this. That there's a wall there, even if she doesn't want there to be one. Worse, she doesn't know if it's her own bullshit and hangups, if she's still in love with Dina, or if she's broken somehow.

It doesn't seem fair to her that Glimmer has these feelings for her when she can't return them on the same level.

"I know, I just..." Ellie trails off, feeling lost, and swallowing down the fear she doesn't know how to express. She tells herself this isn't a conversation for the dance floor, but maybe it's just that she's scared of having it at all.

"... hope you don't regret it, you know?"

[sparklequeen]

"Never." Glimmer responds with a hurried, emphatic hiss, almost too loud for this conversation. She takes a breath. Closes her eyes and centers herself for just a moment.

"No. No I don't regret. I... I have a lot of feelings but more than anything I feel so lucky that you're my friend, Ellie. That... that you're still here," Glimmer murmurs, hesitating as they make a turn on the dance floor and while she tries to find what she needs to say.

"I was scared you'd want to leave because of what I did."

[notathreat]

"What you did?"

Ellie sounds genuinely confused for a second, hesitating with her before she puts two and two together.

"I kinda remember being involved, so uh- I don't think it was all you."

[sparklequeen]

"That--it's not the point--!" Glimmer says, her cheeks flushing a dark, dark pink. She stumbles over her own feet for a moment as she tries to find the words to explain what it actually is the point.

"Just. After we said we'd just be friends and then--" The Aerie had messed that all up.

[notathreat]

Ellie's flushing too, though not as much. She automatically tightens her grip around Glimmer's waist, her feet slowly in their movements, pausing as her mind catches up to the implications here.

"Neither of us actually remembered saying that," she points out, a little flustered. "How am I going to blame you for not sticking to something we both didn't remember?"

But even as she says it, she knows. Ellie's terrible at talking about things, as Glimmer's told her more than once. It's not completely out of line to worry that she'd avoid her out of awkwardness rather than work things out.

Slowly, she pulls Glimmer into the next step of the dance, guiding them both.

"I wouldn't leave you," she says, very quietly.

She's learned, now, how horrible that is.

[sparklequeen]

As Ellie says those words there's a flicker of emotion in Glimmer's face. Something like relief, maybe. Glimmer exhales, her eyes drop closed for a moment. The dance continues and she moves with it until she can make herself find a word to say.

"Promise me you'll stay?" she says. It's the same scared phrase she'd murmured a lifetime ago in that horrible suite of rooms that she never bothered cleaning. It's not a plea to spend the night or for a kiss this time, though. Just a wish for reassurance from a friend. A need to feel, for the moment,that she's worth it. Ellie is her anchor in a world that feels so badly out of her grasp almost every day she wakes here in Thedas.

"I wouldn't leave you either, though," she adds a moment later. Laughs one of her genuine, happy laughs.

"You're stuck with me."

[notathreat]

Promise me, she says, like staying is fully under her own power, but Ellie knows what she means. Knows that laugh, even if she hasn't heard it in what seems like a really long time.

Ellie gives a huff under her breath, splays her fingers across Glimmer's back, and pulls her in close.

"I'll stay," she says.

"You're stuck with me, too."

[sparklequeen]

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Glimmer replies softly, then laughs again as the music begins to pick up its beat a little, moving into something surely designed to chase away melancholy moods.

"...Let's just dance, okay?"