aterat | A Winter's Ball

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A Winter's Ball

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.

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"It's the best description." He distracted himself from oversharing by decided to give some of the desserts a try. Ironically, he didn't have much of an appetite otherwise. "It...craves. All the time."

"Must be hard," she said with a sympathetic tone. "Unless you usually just give in to what it craves." That definitely wasn't the impression she was getting from him though. There was always an edge to him that had felt familiar from the very first time she'd met him.

He clenched his jaw, playing with the weird grey stuff on his spoon but not eating it. "It might win one day, but...not today." He looked up from his spoon, leveling his silver eyes on her.

"But you get that, don't you?"

His question was unexpected and she visibly tensed in response to it. "Yeah, I do." She paused to take the final bite of her grey stuff and then let out a light sigh. Fair was fair and he'd told her quite a lot already. Besides, there was something strange edging her to open up just a little bit more.

"Ferals always dance on the edge of losing it to our animal side."

She'd used that term before, but they hadn't exactly been in a position for him to ask what she'd meant by it. Now they had time, and something was making him want to keep talking. Normally he would have wandered off to sulk somewhere by now.

"And what's that look like? Losing it to your animal side?"

"Becoming the animal," she replied simply. This wasn't something she liked to talk about, not with anyone let alone someone that didn't even know. Yet, here she was, blabbering on about it and feeling strangely compelled to say more.

"My world doesn't have supernatural but we have new mutants. People whose DNA has been messed with gifting them with unique abilities. Ferals are part animal," she looked around for a second then turned to face him directly letting her eyes flash like a cats. "feline in my case. There's two sides to every feral that are always fighting each other."

"You seem to be doing okay." He could sense it, almost, her animal instincts idling beneath the surface. It wasn't something preternatural, but just a tension there, like a taut bowstring, waiting to fire. "But it can't be easy."

Lord knew it was a struggle to keep the demon in check. "There's a demon wrapped around my soul. It makes me immortal, faster, stronger, but it's also hungry. All the time." He didn't know why he was saying this, just explaining rather than going home to stew over it, yet here he was. "If I don't feed it, it will eat my psyche until there's nothing left of Thomas. If I give in...the same thing happens."

"For now. When I was younger it was a different story. If it hadn't been for Adam I don't think I'd have made it back." It wasn't something she'd admit to someone or even talk about with most people. Here she was though and she had no idea why. Then again she wasn't really sure why Thomas was suddenly offering up so much about himself.

"Sounds like a lose-lose situation there." She scrunched her eyebrows up and shook her head. "What do you do then?" Seemed like something that would be useful to know about all things considered.

"Adam? He sounds like a good guy." It took a special kind of person to help others, granted he didn't know the situation involving Adam at all, but asking her about herself made it easier to ignore that she was asking questions in return. They weren't answers he wanted to give but something was urging him to respond honestly.

That something was pretty damned annoying. "I have a battle of wills with it every day. I know it'll win one day. I just do my damnedest to make sure that day isn't today. Then I do it again. And sometimes..." He breathed a sigh, because he hated himself for it, even if he justified the actions as necessary. "Sometimes it's convenient that someone deserves it."

"He's...complicated. Wouldn't be who I am without him, for better or worse." Complicated was the only way she could think of to describe Adam, especially after everything that had happened recently. "He created us, which was a pretty big mistake, but he tried. Still tries, I think." A lot of people would say she was too attached to Adam, but she couldn't help it after everything he'd done.

"Don't give it anymore power by saying it'll win one day." She shook her head and then chuckled. "So, what you became a vampire vigilante? Did you give yourself a code name?"

"He created you?" That could mean a lot of things in Thomas' book. He could be some sort of demigod, a fae, something worse...or something completely normal.

"I don't have any delusions of grandeur." He scoffed, a self-deprecating sound. "I'm a monster. I'm just a picky eater."

She rubs the back of her neck, clearly a bit uncomfortable with the topic. Something edges her on though to explain something she usually wouldn't. "It's complicated," she starts. Usually, she'd leave it there. A lot of people would claim it was because she had some weird loyalty to Adam that drove her to want to defend him, even against looking bad to a stranger. Those people would be right. "Genetic experiments. He thought he was helping, that he was curing children of terminal illnesses. I mean...he did. Save us. Sort of," she rubbed her temples. "It just had some weird side effects." She was making light of it, extremely light of it, but she had never been bitter about it like some of the others.

"Damn," she let out chuckle and shook her head. "That's some impressive self-loathing." Honestly, she hadn't expected him to be so blunt about how much he seemed to hate himself. His entire story, his hesitation, everything about his demeanor told her that he hated himself, but for some reason she hadn't expected him to just basically admit to it.

"You mean like making you part cat? That...that's a side effect?" Thomas wasn't too sure about that. "I guess it does give you an advantage over others." Even he couldn't track by smell alone, after all.

"I guess." But she hadn't nearly killed the most important person to her, and he didn't expect her to understand.

"It's more than just part cat," she said with a smirk and a weirdly defensive tone. " I'm faster, stronger, all my senses are better, I heal faster, and I even have danger senses. Being a new mutant is pretty great. The side effect is more that our DNA is unstable and we might all be dying." That was not something she ever spoke about and she had no idea why she'd just said that. She frowned and ran a hand through her hair.

"You know, I'm not usually this open. Or chatty." Sure, she was good at flirty conversation or banter, but she didn't go deeper than that with most people. This was pretty weird.

"I was paraphrasing." He smirked in response. "I've seen what you can do." And it was nice to know what it had meant. His smile faltered as she continued, though, and his gaze darkened as the took in her words. That was a hell of a price to pay, but it was better than some.

"I'm sorry." He knew what she meant, though. He'd been oversharing himself, and yet he said the next without much of a hesitation. "True love is my one weakness. I can't touch it, and it protects you from my demon, some else's does, that is. Even mine." He took a deep breath, frown deepening.

"Do you think this has something to do with the weird mistletoe?"

"So was I," there was more to what she could do, but the summary gave enough of an impression. She shrugged at his apology and then shook her head. "Who knows. Jesse's past his expiration date and he's still alive. Maybe we'll be fine. Besides, there there are worse things than death. Ferals are..." she rubbed the back of her neck and signed. "Unique even among other new mutants. We're the least human," and for the first time she actually seemed a bit awkward admitting that. "When Adam found me I was gone. Completely...well, feral. Like a wild animal. I nearly killed him. I've seen some that let go to their instincts, it's...not pretty." Usually it was a topic she wouldn't have even brought up, it was a difficult memory to deal with all on it's own, let alone when it was almost being dragged out of her.

She blinked at his next confession and rubbed her temples. The question came out before she could stop it. "How does that work? What even qualifies true love?" Somehow, that part seemed the least believable out of everything he'd said. She shook her head. "The mistletoe? Maybe. Or maybe there's something else."

He knew something about that, constantly bring on the verge of losing yourself completely to the animal inside you, never knowing what would set you off, constantly having to maintain the cage you've built for it with your thoughts lest it escape...

His gaze darkened and he looked down at the table, at his hands folded atop the surface as he played at having a casual conversation while the demon he was trying to to acknowledge urged him to taste her.

How did he stop you? You know...bring you back? He wanted to ask, a part of him needed to know the answer, but she'd already moved the conversation on to a topic that made him even more uncomfortable.

His gaze took on a distant look, as he shifted his focus to recent events.

"Pure, selfless love. The kind of love that makes you die to keep someone else alive."

Something about that made her entire expression darken and she looked down at the empty dessert plate and poked at nothing at all. It made her think of Richard which was something she tried very hard to not think long on. Then her mind wandered to Brennan and she bit down on her lower lip for a second. Everything there had been too complicated for them to have time to even try to figure out what was going on and now she was here.

"Sounds like a faerie tale," she said with a forced smirk. "You know, I'd really like to know what made us so keen on sharing tonight."

"It's not." His response was sharper than he'd intended, curt and guarded. Whatever enchantment was working on this place, the last thing he wanted was to talk about how he knew. She was...too precious to be shared with strangers.

"Yeah. It's getting annoying."

She pushed her plate away and then gave a shrug. "Maybe we should call it a night. Before we share anything else we'll regret in the morning. Because I don't know about you, but I'm getting dangerously close to making regrettable suggestions about where we go when we leave."

His eyes flickered several shades lighter and he was leaning against the table, arms cross, expression eager, before he caught himself. His gaze didn't change but he did push away, standing and nodding.

"Good idea. I'll see you around." Even his voice was different, smoother, with an under-current of 'or follow me'.

She blinked and when she opened her eyes they looked like a cat's eyes shinning just before they leapt onto their prey. Her tone took a decidedly flirtatious tilt with a the slightest hint of something that resembled a purr.

"Yeah, see you around, Thomas." She wanted to follow him, she was drawn to him and that went beyond just what he was. It was the hints of danger that drew her to him. It was the same thing that had drawn her to the thief Zack and pretty much every other failed romance she'd had. She bit down on her lip harder than she probably should have and then got up. Something was wrong with both of them right now and the best thing to do was just to get out of there while they both could.

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A Winter's Ball

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