A Winter's Ball

[ateratmods]

Who; Everyone!
What; The Ball promised by Halcyn!
Where; A newly (and quite abruptly) renovated ballroom in the Noble District
When; December 15th, evening
Warnings; None as of yet, though there is some mischief afoot for those looking for it



The morning of the 15th, the day of the Ball, opens with a letter under every door, reminding the residents that today is the day, that the Ball to celebrate and be merry is upon you. It also includes a small golden ticket that all attendees are asked to present at the doors to be allowed into the hall in the Noble District. It bids the attendees to enjoy themselves, forget their worries for a time, and is each personally signed by Halcyn.

Arrival | Under the Mistletoe;

The chill in the air at the change of seasons makes for a cold journey to the Noble district, though the streets are well-lit (an improvement in the otherwise dilapidated quarter in the first place) and at the end of the street indicated in the invitation letter, stands a beautifully restored building wreathed in white lights and adorned with wreaths and holly. All roads and citizen paths have lead to the ballroom today, and it is a beacon of civilization in the otherwise unused quarter. A guardsman is checking tickets at the door, and allowing admittance to the foyer of the ballroom.

The foyer is also decorated in trees adorned with shining lights. There are people flitting about with trays of champagne and people are greeting each other, gathering in groups and generally enjoying one another's company. Six archways lead further into the ballroom, and into what seems to be a seating area with round tables atop which glittering floral arrangements sit and to which servers bring meals for those who have a seat. At the top of each of the six arches hang six bundles of mistletoe.

Some are able to pass beneath the bundles with no issue, but others may find their way blocked by an unseen wall, unable to escape the arch until someone joins them, and a kiss is exchanged. It could be innocuous, even a cheek would suffice, but who's to know that without experimentation?

Try the Grey Stuff, It's Delicious

In the dining hall, meals are limited, but there are options for various palettes and even a vegetarian option. There is wine and champagne, and also non-alcoholic options of you're less inclined to partake. The music from the main ballroom, accessible through a set of ornate double doors, is muted here, providing a sense of ambiance but not overpowering the conversations that may occur at the tables scattered about the room.

The desert is the same for all who try it, though, and fluffy (is oddly colored) meringue that is simply to die for, but it seems to have some strange side effects. As the night progresses for those who've eaten the strange confectionary, they will begin to feel more and more happy and carefree, but also much more open. Those who are reserved about their feelings or their thoughts, even their histories, will feel less inclined to be so withdrawn. That couldn't possibly make anything awkward, could it?

Shall We Dance the Night Away?

The main even by far is the grand ballroom. A 15 piece orchestra sits atop a small stage to the north of the dance floor, their music varying between melancholic, haunting, warm, and uplifting, and the citizens are quite enjoying the time to let loose and dance the night away with their partners.

Spiral staircases lead to the balconies on the second floor overlooking the dance floor below, affording tired dancers chairs and refreshments with which to rest in order to return to the floor below. The music here, due to acoustics, is muted which affords a more intimate place to converse.

Even more intimate are the outdoor balconies accessed from either side of the second floor. Here, small sconces have been lit to afford a romantic glow to the area, but the light is dim enough to enjoy the glittering starlight above. The flames also give the area some warmth, warding away the chill in the night air and allow guests to enjoy the solitude of the area without freezing. The music out here is a pleasant background hum, making the setting even more romantic and ethereal.

Comments

[asthecroweflies]

"Ooh, so you're trying to scare me off." He nodded. It was something he'd noticed about her from the first time they'd met, but he was still trying to work out why. "Which I do understand, but I'm trying to work out why."

"And it doesn't matter, love. Everybody has something they regret. You've had bigger stakes, so it serves to reason you've had to do bigger things." He frowned as she shifted the topic, though. "My father's a sad, lonely man who's angry at the world, but he doesn't deserve getting tossed into Hell," he lifted a hand to stay her comment. "A hell." But he shook his head. "I never knew my mother, and I only ever saw one picture of her. I...know how much he loved her, though. He...has a necklace that belonged to her. He gave it to her. Now, every time he looks at it, he thinks of how she was taken away from him and he blames me for it. I don't know why and he's never said." His expression darkened as he story continued. "He's said how much he blamed me more times than I can count, but never why. He never told me about the necklace, either. I just...touched it once." A beat. "Once was enough."

[soulsword]

"I am not trying to scare you off. You just seem easy to frighten," she said with a smirk. He seemed to get thrown off very easily and for some reason she found it relatively amusing.

"There are few things I regret." Very few. Some things she felt somewhat bad about, but she did not regret them. At least not in the way most people would. "Isn't it funny how people try to alleviate their own guilt by finding other targets? It makes you wonder how often he lies awake at night thinking of all the ways he failed only to wake up and decide to redirect the blame to his own son." What a pathetic sounding person. "You do not have to talk about what you saw."

[asthecroweflies]

"I'm not-" so, maybe he balked at new things a little but that didn't her a reason to call him on it...did it? Maybe it did. Maybe even a small part of him liked when she did it. He decided very quickly that part of him was stupid and had terrible ideas.

"He is." And there's a part of him, larger than he likes to admit, that fears deeper than anything that his father's weakness is inside of him. He shook his head. "It was feelings more than anything. I don't always see when I touch things. Sometimes it's...sounds, smells, but mostly emotions, at least when I'm not focusing."

[soulsword]

"Not what?" she smirked and then shook her head. There was no hiding that she took amusement from poking fun at him.

"At least you understand he's pathetic." Illyana was never one to mince words and this made no exception. "Sometimes feeling is worse than seeing."

[asthecroweflies]

"Easy to frighten, but I think saying that makes me a liar." He ran a hand back through his hair, which did nothing to keep it combed, as he'd tried to do given the suit.

"I'm starting to get it, yeah." He frowned, looking down briefly. "Yeah, it is. I know...just how much he blames me."

[soulsword]

"Everyone's a liar at heart." Whether or not she actually meant that was left up in the air. Which was just intensely amusing to her.

"You also know how misplaced his blame is. Or do you choose to ignore that to lament over your father's disdain for you?"

[asthecroweflies]

"I used to. I've been trying not to anymore." He rolled a shoulder in a shrug. "This took a turn."

He took a deep breath, shaking his head. "Look, Illyana. I like you. A lot. I also have lost all mastery of the English language, evidently." He looked down, because a 4 year old would have been smoother.

[soulsword]

"It seems as though you should try harder." Her smirk remained until he said the next part. Her expression turned quickly to something mixed with shock and confusion. Discomfort caused her skin to crawl and her desire to teleport away started digging at her. That was always her instinct when things that threatened to make her feel emotions appeared.

Instead though, something compelled her to speak. Words came out and she felt as though she wasn't even aware of why she was saying anything. "You do not know me or the things I have done. I tried to take the soul of a teenage girl who stumbled into Limbo because it was pure and I needed a pure soul." She narrowed her eyes. "I'm not someone to like."

[asthecroweflies]

"Yeah? When you were there, alone, and things were more dire than I can probably imagine?" He narrowed his eyes at her, tilting his head to the side curiously. He wasn't sure if he had her pegged or not and his next question was risky, but he was going to ask anyway, for some reason.

"If you needed a pure soul right now, would you take it?"

[soulsword]

"No. After my death from the virus Belasco attempted to bring me back. What he brought back was only the Darkchilde and in disgust he banished her. Me." She closed her eyes and looked down. "I had no memories of my past life and no soul. Then a group of young mutants fell into Limbo, among them was a girl with a pure soul. Belasco had sealed his palace away from me and my magic, I needed someone else to get in. I convinced the girl to let me preform a ritual on her." Did it matter that she had no soul and no conscience at the time? To the younger New Mutants it certainly hadn't mattered at all. "I wanted my soul back. I wanted to be whole."

For a few seconds she gave no answer to his question. "No. I remember now what it was like when I was a child. I remember what it felt like to have pieces ripped out one at a time."

[asthecroweflies]

"So it sounds like your soul's a decent person." He he smiled, slightly awkward. He knew from things she'd told him before that the soul was important, and that most people took it for granted. He wondered idly if it played that deep a role in one's moral compass. It must, religion focused on it too much for it to be useless.

"Look, Illyana. I'm not saying you're an angel, but you're also not a demon to spite everything Belasco put you through."

[soulsword]

"That was why Belasco took me. When he found me my soul was the purest he had ever seen." Finally after a few more seconds she looked up at him. "He brought me back because he loved me. That was what he wanted." There were quite a lot of implications in the statement and the air was heavy when she looked back down. "I do not speak to others about that." Her eyebrows scrunched together and she shook her head.

"I do not know why I am telling you this." She paused and then looked over at him again. "What did you mean by you like me?" There were many ways to like a person after all and she was not exceptionally good with emotions.

[asthecroweflies]

"You don't have to talk about it." Though he never really talked to anyone about his father, either, and yet he felt perfectly comfortable doing so with her. "I'm so...sorry that happened to you." It was a lame response, but he didn't know what else to say.

"...I enjoy talking with you, and your commentary makes me smile. You're smart and you're not painfully naïve. I like your fashion sense and your brutal honesty."

[soulsword]

"I...do not know why I have said anything at all. It is strange for me to share." Even with her own team, her own brother, she kept most things to herself. For both her own protection and the protection of others around her. Then there was also the aspect of her simply not having an urge to share. Why did she suddenly feel the urge here?

Again, her eyebrows furrowed and she looked down awkwardly. Awkwardly? Why did she feel so...awkward? "This is...strange."

[asthecroweflies]

"It may be strange, but I'm not complaining about it." He could tell she was going to start contemplating just teleporting away soon, so he sat back, taking a breath.

"Do you...want to end dinner? Go out separate ways? We could talk later."

[soulsword]

"The strange thing is...for me to feel. I do not understand..." she shook her head. Feelings. She did not understand these feelings. "I...enjoy your company. It is strange for me to talk to someone so much. At home most will not interact with me." She looked down and then shrugged. "Not that I try to interact with them much. Even my old teammates are uneasy around me." She looked up for a second.

"You are the first person to not be uneasy around me." Despite her best attempts.

[asthecroweflies]

"Well, to be fair, I don't get any sort of...aural residue from you any time you've touched me, which might be a factor, but I also really don't think you're evil. I've...seen evil. Felt it. In a house everybody thought wasn't haunted, so..." He gave her a shrug.

"Not to mention, you're really grounded, and a bloke could very easily lose his head around here."

[soulsword]

"Most psychics find it frustrating they cannot read me freely," she said with a small smirk. "Though the last one that I allowed to enter into my mind regretted their choice. I could allow you to see if you wanted." Perhaps seeming so amused by that was not very nice of her, but then again her sense of humor was often slightly twisted.

"People have a hard time accepting things that go outside their own beliefs." That applied to both the supernatural and moral quandaries.

"I have been traveling through dimensions since I was six," her smirk widened. "I lost my head long ago."

[asthecroweflies]

"Well, people are tricky. Sometimes I get...desires, sometimes past events, the future, thoughts. I can't read minds, though. It's just...odd. Everything's got a psychic imprint...except you. Or I guess it's that you do, you can just hide it?"

He was trying to understand exactly how it might work, but was having trouble computing it.

He chuckled at her comment, though. "Yeah? Well, you've gotten a pretty cute replacement."

[soulsword]

Usually when asked questions about her psychic shielding she was evasive and ominous. It was more fun that way. Something compelled her to actually be honest this time though and so she shrugged. "When I first came back from Limbo my mind was unreadable, even to the Professor. I do not know why. When Belasco brought me back I found that I could control the psionic shields. Perhaps it had something to do with the growth of my abilities." Her eyebrows scrunched for a second. "My abilities have grown quite a lot. All of them." And truth be told she was not quite certain why. Perhaps it had something to do with the missing portions of her soul and her more frequent use of dark magic. Though she had also refined her ability to teleport through time to quite a large degree.

Her cheeks turned a slight shade of pink at his comment and she quickly looked down to hide it. "Do you not remember seeing me with horns?" Surely that had to have bothered him to some degree.

[asthecroweflies]

"See? That already makes sitting in your presence way more preferable to others. At least I don't have to worry about accidentally reading something if we brush shoulders." He knew no matter how long he knew her, he'd never understand what she went through with Belasco. He couldn't even actually imagine what it must be like to have pieces of your soul stripped away one by one. A part of him was glad about that, but another almost wanted to, if only so she wouldn't be so alone with it. He knew how illogical that was, but for most of his life he'd felt alone, having only met a handful of people with abilities beyond the normal, and they were fleeting. He felt a connection with her on that level, he didn't have to hide it or pretend to be normal. It was nice.

"Yeah, I do. Do you remember how it only threw me off for a moment?"

[soulsword]

"Then isn't it possible that is the only reason you like me? You don't have to worry about accidentally spying upon my nasty little secrets." Perhaps that was a bit mean of her to say, especially in such a curt tone. Illyana was never one to bite her tongue but she seemed even more loose right now.

"I do recall you being startled by it. Not as startled as you should have been though."

[asthecroweflies]

"Sure, if you want to look at things in the worst way possible, but it's not." It was true he'd never met anyone before who was capable of blocking his reading of them, but that hardly even crossed his mind when he was speaking with her, let alone motivating him to do so more often.

"And sure, I wasn't expecting you to grow horns or hooves, but given the circumstances, it's hardly the strangest thing about this place."

[soulsword]

"Can you be certain it's not? Or is that just what you think?" She tilted her head and let a tiny smirk spread across her face. It was easier to tease him than to really think about whether or not he liked her for her. Or why she even cared if he did like her for her or for her ability to hide her mind. Why she cared was definitely the most confusing part of the entire situation.

"You forgot about the tail."

[asthecroweflies]

"Yeah, because I enjoy spending time with you...it doesn't even cross my mind." He could tell she was enjoying teasing him, and it was more than slightly frustrating that he liked when she teased him.

"Shit, I did. I guess it didn't really matter all that much to me."