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faderift2021-11-16 12:17 pm
deuselfmachina) wrote in faderift2021-11-16 12:17 pm
SATINALIA 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.
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
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.
no subject
She could try to dodge the question, but. They both know what Derrica's asking, and it's important, or she wouldn't.
There's heat in Ellie's ears, and she presses her lips together, her fingers slack in Derrica's grip.
"Nothing. Really." She says it quietly. "Just- y'know. This. Whatever this is."
Ellie takes a deep breath again, and reaches up with her other hand, rubbing at her cheek, the joint dangling from her fingers.
"I, um- sorry. It's not that you're not gorgeous, but I- I'm not ready for anything. Anyone. Not- not saying that you are, but-"
Fuck, she's fumbling.
"Sorry for making it weird."
no subject
She knows that's not quite wise, not without some clarity as to what the pair of them are doing.
Whatever this is could become such a muddy, indistinct thing. Derrica has learned to map out the edges, especially when she is so aware of the places Ellie could snag herself on.
Her hand comes to catch Ellie's slack fingers up, bracket her fingertips between their laced fingers and her own palm as Derrica turns in more completely. The space between them narrows, but is preserved. Derrica doesn't close it, just resettles herself, all of her angled in.
"Please don't apologize," she tells Ellie. "You never have to apologize for being honest with me."
This is important too. It matters what's true to Ellie. Derrica doesn't want her to curtail that trying to please her.
"I like what we have. Our friendship. It's important to me," Derrica says, before shaking her head a little, clarifying, "You are important to me."
And after a beat of quiet, Derrica resting their joined hands over the bend of her knee, she asks, "What does anything mean, when you think of it?"
no subject
It's been a while. No matter what way she slices it. But she's still not ready, and she's not sure if she ever will be.
And Derrica eases in closer, as if in reassurance, taking back the distance between them, and Ellie slowly relaxes. Clarification. That's all. She's not going to feel weird around Ellie, it's not going to fuck up their friendship if she's honest.
Ellie looks down at her hands, and allows herself that honesty. Maybe it's the elfroot, maybe it's her, maybe it's the closeness and how this place feels like a dream, but she's tired of feeling afraid.
"You're important to me, too," Ellie says softly.
"Anything... like-" she hesitates, but it's the hesitation of someone trying to find the right words. It seems presumptuous as fuck to put it like this, because Derrica hasn't offered anything of the sort, but-
"We weren't married, but it- it was close," Ellie murmurs, looking at the joint. After a beat of silence too long, she flicks it away into the dark, where it lands among the weeds.
"I'm not ready to be with someone like that again. I'm not- over her. Not really." Ellie huffs a soft, humorless laugh. "But it's over. And I don't blame her. I wasn't- I'm still not-"
Fuck.
"I can't give somebody a real relationship," she says, finally spelling it out. "It wouldn't be fair."
no subject
This too is a confirmation: I can't give somebody a real relationship.
So there is a moment of quiet between them. Derrica watches Ellie's face. There is pain there. The embarrassment has ebbed away. Her expression hasn't closed off, which is a measure of trust too. Derrica looks down at their hands, lifts them so she can shift her fingers and put a soft kiss to Ellie's knuckles.
"I've never wanted a real relationship," Derrica tells her. "Whatever that means."
Real relationship is a thing that shifts meaning, Derrica's found. Kostos is real to her. Loxley is real to her. The terms they've created, the familiarity and trust they place in each other not to push the other beyond their shared boundaries.
But pressing the point feels like pressing Ellie towards something she doesn't want. Derrica might be wrong. She could have misread, or it could be simply a function of her own wanting. She shakes her head.
"I'm afraid if I try to explain, it'll sound like I'm trying to convince you of something," she admits, with a small flicker of a smile. "But you should know that about me. I don't want to be with anyone that way."
no subject
Ellie's come to her with far weirder shit than this.
The small, soft kiss makes her heart beat up into her throat, has her cheeks furiously flushing. Her breath is a quick little gasp, her grip tight, because it casts everything in a different light.
"Okay, now you need to explain," Ellie sputters, lifting both eyebrows to stare at her. Because she's not making any sense.
At least- not to Ellie's limited experience. Her relationships have been very different.
no subject
Her brow furrows, thoughtful, before she carefully straightens. It isn't a rejection, not a retreat. But it is a gentle disentangling. Creating some space between them before she starts to speak, but it feels unfair, feels like she's tipping the scales, exerting some kind of pressure by staying curled in so close. Their shoulders stay close, where Ellie had maneuvered them. But the intimate drape recedes, put on hold for the moment.
One hand lifts to tease the folds of her shawl. The other stays intertwined with Ellie's, resting on her thigh.
"I don't like..."
Derrica starts, stops. Laughs a little as she sakes her head. The importance of saying it correctly is harder than it had been with Kostos, who had shared this preference with her.
"I don't want to be someone's wife," Derrica tells her, plucking up shorthand for the kind of stifling, closed off thing the idea of real relationship summons. "I can't be that. It doesn't fit me. When I'm with someone, it's because I care about them, and I like their company. And because they don't mind that they aren't the only one I'm with. They don't want to keep me all to themselves."
The fact that is feels like being caught up in a cage, sealed in a tiny box—
Derrica doesn't say this.
She draws up one leg to put her heel on the bench, rest her elbow on her knee and prop her chin on her palm before saying, "I like that we're friends. If you want something more than what we have now, or if you don't want anything else but this, it won't change anything."
no subject
(Sometimes it's what she needs. Sometimes not.)
She curls forward, tipping her head, letting her hands settle in her lap. The posture rumples the outfit she's wearing, but she stays like that. Waits for Derrica to sift through her feelings and find the right words.
The place between her brows furrows, because she has the vague sense that Derrica's idea of partnership doesn't line up with hers, but it relaxes when she goes on to explain. It opens a door, an option that Ellie had never fully realized existed. And like other things, it leaves her curious.
"Is it like... friends-with-benefits?" she asks, wincing because that sounds kinda shitty, but she doesn't know how to put it better. "Or full-on relationships?"
rereads tag, observes typo with frown
Negotiating? Maybe.
But Ellie deserves to make up her mind without Derrica crowding her.
Though Derrica isn't sure how to say it any better than Ellie. There's some space between the two options, and perhaps between them there's some kind of accurate description. Derrica turns Ellie's hand in her own, contemplating.
"It is friendship. That is the part that is most important to me," she answers slowly, mirroring that first furrow of Ellie's brow. "I don't think going to bed together is so very..."
She trails off with a short, brief laugh.
"Maybe it is between those two things. I don't know that I've ever tried to affix a particular word to it."
no subject
"Makes sense," she murmurs softly; and the casual way that Derrica says it feels... like it gives her breathing room. Proper space to decide. Safety that she's never really felt or had before. It's- nice. To be able to follow her wants, knowing that whatever her answer, Derrica will be there, and won't judge. That her hands won't ruin this. That she won't break her by holding on too tight, or too loose.
It feels so safe it scares her, and makes her look for the catch.
"I think..." Ellie trails off, sighing. A small huffing sound, a bit of frustration over how to explain.
"I know what you mean, but I'm-"
She pauses, lightly frustrated again. But she pictures Glimmer's face, and wonders if she's a convenient out for her own fears. If all of this is. She desperately wants something, but doesn't trust her hands to hold it.
"I don't want to be an asshole, and right now I think it would make things super fucking complicated."
It is the truth, yes. But it's more complicated than that. And because it's Derrica, she hesitates again, and pushes through. She's told her nearly everything else, she might as well tell her this.
"There's somebody I don't exactly have a thing with, but it could've been. And we're still kinda fucked up over it. So if I did something with you so soon, it-"
Ellie sighs, rubbing at her cheek.
"I'm trying to not be such a shitty friend."
no subject
Not so far as Derrica understands, at least.
She watches their hands. Ellie has rough patches, worn calluses where she has wielded weapons and tools and whatever else. Derrica likes the feel of them. She considers this for a long moment as she turns over Ellie's words in her mind.
"And I'm glad, that you care so much about being kind to other people."
Or more accurately, being gentle with someone else's feelings. It's a good thing to know of her. Derrica wouldn't want someone who was careless with another person.
Derrica's throat is rough with smoke and she can still taste it on her tongue. She draws in a deep breath of cool air, tips her head back to look up at the sky for a moment before her gaze slants back over to Ellie to tell her, "I asked because I wanted to know. I wasn't sure that I wasn't misreading you. Not because I wanted you to say yes to me, if you don't want to, or you aren't ready. I don't want anything except for you to be happy here."
In which happy is a complicated thing. Derrica is certain happiness is not such a straightforward state for Ellie to achieve, even if she's noticed so much change in her in the months they've known each other.
It's why she adds, very gently—
"You can ask me months from now, if that's what you need, if you think you want me then, and I'll say yes. As long as it doesn't bother you, that you wouldn't be the only one for me," she says, before crooking a smile and ending on, "Or we never have to mention it again."
And none of this matters if Ellie decides she doesn't want any of it. And Derrica does trust her, believes that sharing this part of herself won't make Ellie thinks harshly of her.
thanks for patience, brain is mush
"It kinda-"
Breaking off with a breathless laugh, Ellie shakes her head, shrugs one shoulder.
"It's actually a relief. To get it all out in the open. And know that you're not like- waiting for me to be ready, or- putting anything on hold. And that we're not fucking up our friendship."
That's the biggest relief, probably, awkward as this is. Getting to acknowledge the mutual care, the mutual attraction, and just... have that be okay.
"I dunno where I'll be at in a few months. But I don't-" Ellie pauses, stumbling over her words. "It's not a no."
As long as that's okay, they'll be okay. And what a wonder that is.
who among us does not have mush-brain i ask
Because that's the important thing, isn't it? All the affection and intimacy and care they've built between them matters more to Derrica than anything else.
And it is a good thing too, being plain about the yet-unshaped thing that sometimes sparks up between them. But Derrica doesn't need Ellie to want her that way to care this deeply.
But, now that the matter is more or less settled, Derrica squeezes her hand and asks, "Will you dance with me if we go back inside?"
gently places a bow on this
She cares about her, wants her, even if she can't pull those feelings into a distinct shape. Maybe that's all right.
"You bet," she says, and gets to her feet, bringing Derrica's hand with her to help her up.