i'm taking back the crown, i'm all dressed up and naked

[disheveling]

[ open post! anything goes. ]

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[dhakira]

Asra's halfway into a cup of sparkling wine before he realizes this is one of those places. Where they don't even try to crowd the beast into their stables because they've seen bigger, and odder. Where the wine is sparkling--someone asks him how he likes the champagne, and he answers with a smile around the rim and a tip of his glass. Just fine, thank you. The champagne likes him as well, bubbling down his throat, not so strong as to put him immediately under one of the tables.

He's drinking champagne at something called a fête, and they call the language something different but they still seem to understand each other perfectly.

Just--one of those places. The beast had been following a river, and at some point it had become another river, in another land, and then canals, and then--this keep, dusted in snow. This festival, spilling into courtyards, lanterns hung, the halls of the manor somewhat empty and dark--but in a way that is warm and inviting. "What is the festival for," he'd asked, and been kissed properly on the cheek, handed a new cup. A lot of strangers come through, this time of year. The party lasts as long as the waning of the moon, and there are alliances made, wares sampled, children of odd gifts and coloring sired.

He'd barked a laugh at that, and clinked one glass to another, and let himself return to wandering.

Perhaps when he's all the way into his cups, he'll be persuaded to some of that. Right now he's content to sample foods, committing the shapes of lanterns and odd fashions to memory. Eventually he finds a spot under a tall tree, bare of leaves but made up for in strung lights. There are all shape and size of children playing games that seem to span worlds, and he gathers some of them in a demonstration of simple magic. Little tricks of water and light, pouring gold fish onto cobblestones that burst apart like soft fruit, splattering shrieking girls with gold dust and water that seems to hold no chill.

Toward the end of it, in a final trick, he picks one of them up on his shoulders and turns them to the tree, letting the little boy spread his arms and believe he is the one unfurling bright yellow leaves across its branches, obscuring and coloring the lights.

angelic_archer

[disheveling]

[ cont from here! ]

grumpy cat is just part of your charm. I've always found cuddling up to cats, grumpy or otherwise, to be quite lovely.

PUTTING IT OVER HERE SO IT DOESN'T GET SWALLOWED UP BY TFLN

[littlemissfutility]

I wouldn't blame my organs if they just decided to quit working after this weekend.

Way too much information, and it's only Saturday night--but it sounds like a fun party, and Monty did invite her. So Beth goes, and it's like all the best parties she went to in high school, except bigger. Fewer people she knows, more food and drinks, and it's indoors, which is pretty cool.

And unlike the parties she went to in high school, where everyone had known everyone since kindergarten, there's no way in hell her dad will ever hear about this. She's surrounded by strangers, untold miles from her family, and no one here will ever tell her father she showed up...let alone what she did after that point.

So she has a drink. And then another. By the time she finds Monty in the crush of people, she's tipsy, bright-eyed and willing to say stupider things than usual. "There you are!" she says, waving with her free hand (the other has a half-empty wine cooler--fakey peach flavored--in it). "You're not supposed to invite people to parties and then ditch them, you know."