voyagers | party post } { fool and king, ghoul and ghost

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party post } { fool and king, ghoul and ghost

On the evening of the twenty-ninth, the ballroom on the main deck of the boat is decked out in lavish black and gold, thanks to Carol and Sophie, and the assistance of the very strong men they enlisted to help (thank you, boys). It's been a while since Carol has thrown a full out ball, and she liked the chance to stretch her event planning limbs again, even if those attending are mostly the ghost robots in their cater waiter wear.

A soft music is playing over the guests as they enter. As they pass through the threshold, there's a table with simple masks for them to choose from, in case they've forgotten their's. Once they pass through the main archway, they'll find their way to the large dance space where the ghost robot band is sitting, because live music is so much better than a recording, and they actually don't sound half-bad, all things considered. They also take requests, so feel free to tell them that song where you always wondered what it would sound like with a full orchestral backing. There's a large, expansive dance floor in the middle, and you're welcome to get out there and shake your groove thing whenever you see fit.

Tables with food line the far left wall of the room, as well as clusters of tables for the guests to sit when they so choose. There's also an open bar nestled into the far corner, for all your alcoholic needs. There are also plenty of dark corners to slip into, if you don't want anyone to see what you're doing, however the narration suggests watching those dark corners carefully. Rabbit holes lurk in pretty much every shadowed area of the ballroom and while they won't always drop you into a strange location of your choosing, there's a high chance they will. There's probably a high turnover of people arriving back in the ballroom, looking like they've gone five rounds with a bull.

Probably because they have.

The boat seem to want to promote this event as much as possible. While not everyone loves a good ball, some non-attenders may suddenly find themselves in attendance, completely dressed and no idea of how they got there. Trying to leave? Might not go so well either. For some, socializing isn't so much a choice as a punishment, but there are probably plenty of people to help you have a good time.

Or you could go on a trip to Narnia. One never really knows.

[OKAY BALL IS GO sorry I was late getting this up. Rabbit Holes are to be used at your discretion, but if you need suggestions or want me to randomize something for you, just shoot me a PM/private plurk/ping me (

iluvroadrunner6) and I will give you a scenario. Otherwise, mix, mingle and have fun with all the pretty formal wear. o7 Actionspam/prose/whatever floats your boat for this, it was easier to just write up the top part in prose.]

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Alek lets out a breath that carries relief of his own, before he nods in agreement.

"It's complicated, but at least in my world, there was only six of us. I never met the guy - " Alek is never calling him a father, because he wasn't, " - but I know for a fact he wouldn't have been interested in having more children."

It's hard to admit, but it's true. He wasn't born into a loving family. His two parents weren't married, and they weren't looking to raise a big family. Alek and his brothers were made, because Lucien decided one day he needed a werewolf army of his own, made by his own design.

She pauses, shaking her head a bit a that. "No, that's not my family. We've been around for hundreds of years. Big families lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. My mom was one of the strongest alphas on the west coast."

So ... a completely different experience. She's not saying it to brag, just to make the distinction. She's sorry your sperm donor was not more like her mom, Alek.

It sounds nice. Alek can't say he'd know what that's like - it's been him and his brothers for the longest of times, but he can't complain. They've always stuck together and if he's felt alone, it's never because he's actually been.

"She sounds like she was a badass," Alek says softly. He hears that 'was' and he's lost his own, mother. He doesn't have to excel at social interactions to be sensitive when it comes to certain topics, and his mother is his own weakness.

"She was."

And now she's gone. She has been, for years now, but there's a part of her that things with a place like this ship, maybe, just maybe. It's something she shouldn't tempt herself with, the idea that her mother might have walked through the door and gotten stuck here all those years ago, and one day she might find her as she rounds the corner of the main deck or opens the wrong room.

The way she misses her mother is like the way she misses Laura. It sits like a weight in her chest, a kind of anchor that's far too heavy for her to be able to bear. She wants to let go of it, to give it away, but in some ways that means letting go of them and she isn't sure she's ready to do that yet.

"But she's been gone for a while."

Alek can feel a tightness in his own chest.

It isn't anything he's forgotten. His mother wasn't a werewolf, after all. She was human, skin and bones and something extraordinary in spite of that. If his she'd never met Alek's father, if he'd never used her for his little experiments, maybe she wouldn't have gotten so sick. Maybe she would still be here, but maybes don't count for much.

"Mine too," he says after a moment. He's not good at this; words, relating to people, expressing himself. But it's his way of saying he's sorry, that he's been there, and he knows that it sucks.

She glances back at him for a moment and nods. She gets it. Losing your mother is still huge - it doesn't matter how you lost her or why, but it's always going to be a loss you feel in a huge way. Then she swallows hard and there's a deep breath, before she gives him a small, shaky smile.

"I haven't been to a lot of these, but I'm pretty sure dead parents fall under terrible party talk."

Or something.

Alek snorts. If Cora was seeking to lighten the mood, she succeeded.

"Probably not, but I suck at dancing and socializing," he admits to her with the tiniest smirk. Alek glances around, and then turns to her almost conspiratorially. "I haven't finished exploring the buffet, though."

It is an impressive array of delicious finger foods. Sophie made sure even popular choices would be served nicely.

She was, and she's glad that it worked. The smile brightens a bit at the mention of food, before nodding in agreement. Yes, food is good. Because she's pretty sure she sucks at dancing and socializing too.

"Food sounds good to me."

(Alek is actually lying like a lying thing, Cora. His mother made him take ballroom dancing - along with the rest of his brothers - when he was little. So he can dance, he's just horribly and grumpily shy about it. She should figure this out somehow down the line, clearly.)

He grins a bit at that as he leads the way. "Food always sounds good to me."

(Yes, yes she should. At some point. Silly, Alek, don't you know lying liars can never really lie about things for long.)

She follows after him, peering at the piles of food to try and determine where to start. "They could probably feed an army with this."

(He's only half-lying! He thinks he's worse than he actually is.)

Unsurprisingly, he's starting with the mini-burgers, loading a generous amount onto his plate. "I don't know," he says with a bit of a smirk. "If all my brothers were here, I'm sure that's the only army that would be needed."

She laughs a bit at that. "I'm pretty sure if this pack I knew back home was here, this wouldn't be enough. But I guess that's the problem with teenage werewolves." They will eat you out of house and home before you can figure out what's happened.

She picks up her plate and takes a little of everything, knowing the value of trying new things, now that she can take the time to try them. She doesn't know if she's going to like everything, but at least she's tried it.

"So there were a lot of you guys? 'Cause you're one of the only other teenage werewolves I've personally met," Alek says. He's sure there were more of them in Chicago but not in his close vicinity, at least.

Edited 2014-09-12 19:01 (UTC)

"There were a couple." She pauses as she grabs one of the fry cones and then moving on. "My brother is here on the ship. He's not a teenager, but he was an alpha for a while, and he had a pack." A pack that's mostly dead too, but she tries not to think about that. "There was four or five of them? Plus actual human teenagers who can put away just as much."

Ooh, fry cones. He's definitely getting one of those.

"How does it all work in your world? The whole alpha thing," he asks curiously. He notes Cora said 'for a while' so it's clearly something that you can lose.

"It's a power set? Alphas are more than just the name - they're stronger and faster than betas and they're eyes are red instead of gold or blue." She glances back over her shoulder for a moment, before flashing her eyes - beta gold - so that he can see. "They're also the other ones who can create other werewolves, which is why they lead the packs. Usually, once you become an alpha, you stay one until you die. Usually you become one by either killing another alpha and taking their power or if your parent was an alpha, if they die then their oldest child usually becomes the next alpha for the pack."

Alek looks over at her once her eyes flash gold, his eyebrows climbing up a bit at her answer. "That's ... not really how it works back in my world, but I can't really be sure how alphas are different for us outside of leading packs," Alek tells her. "My brothers and I, we've laid low for most of our lives. It wasn't safe otherwise. The way it worked overall is that there was someone acting as the head of their species, usually due to seniority. They call them Vampire and Werewolf kings, and they control everything."

Her eyebrows raise a bit at that, and she shakes her head. "There are way too many of us for anything like that. I mean, we have our packs. Some are larger than others, and some alphas are stronger than others, which means other alphas will come to them for advice, or are terrified of them, depending. But we don't have kings."

"This is so weird," Alek says after a small laugh, shaking his head in amazement. It's not that he doesn't believe her - it's precisely that he does. (He wants to ask about the full moon, but doesn't. Can't.) "But I shouldn't be surprised. Different worlds and all that. It's kind of cool, in a way."

"Yeah, it is," she nods for a moment. She's never really thought about there being other wolves, or a whole other hierarchy of a system, but she's still new to there being a universe other than her own. Parallel worlds were not part of the usual crazy in Beacon Hills. "Do you deal with other worlds a lot?"

"Oh, all the time." Alek makes it sound like it's an every day thing, and - well, it kind of is. "Back in my world, we have these wormholes they call rifts. They don't work too differently from the Door. As far as scientists know, it's holes in the fabric of the universe, and people fall through these 'holes' all the time."

Or, they did. Alek doesn't know the world eventually ends, but he never wants to.

Her eyebrows climb a bit at that, pulling one of the fries to chew on it a bit. "That sounds ... kind of insane." It sounds like Beacon Hills on speed, to be honest.

"Oh, it was. You rarely had a boring day," Alek assures her, and a touch of warmth enters his gaze that maybe wasn't there before. He doesn't think to disagree with her observation. Chicago was many things, and insane was one of them. "But it's home."

Most of all, that's what it is.

She smiles a bit at that, and she nods. "That sounds like Beacon Hills. No boring days, a whole lot of insanity. But home."

Alek smiles a bit back at her, nodding quietly his understanding. He gets what that means; home. "Come on," he says, tilting his head back toward the buffet. "There's still the dessert section we need to get through."

He doesn't plan on calling this night quits until he does.

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impetere - 2014-10-03 22:21 (UTC) - Expand

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