Hat Shore hosts the UNDER THE SEA dance for Valentine's Day (open to all school)

[ugly_old_hat]

Hat Shore party planning had ended up falling mostly into the hands of a couple of contestants, along with set designer Jherek Carnelian. These 'couple' of contestants were actually the Shoggies and Beowulf, who'd squelched and shouted their way toward transforming Hat Shore into a strange Under The Sea experience.

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[blood_and_souls]

As the Adjudicator, Elric was in attendance at the party. He'd arrived well before-hand, as part of his job as Adjudicator was to judge the efforts of the contestants in putting it together. The end result was Elric announcing mass failure in leaden tones, and Adjudication for all. Including Beowulf and the Shoggies, as a lesson in the fact that Life is Not Fair. The Shoggies' reaction to this was delight- they'd loved Yoda Boot Camp, and thus anticipated their next Adjudication with excitement.

Elric was of course still wearing his Adjudicator costume, complete with carrying around the massive Banhammer of Adjudication. But, to the albino's dismay, shortly before the party began his tiara had somehow morphed into a big, sparkly red octopus-thing, equally stuck to his head. And so, Elric was doomed to spend the party moping about as Lord Pyaray of Chaos. Unfamiliar with the art of 'speed dating', Elric was performing this moping in the pink-stained battle fog of the Lonely Hearts Club, pointedly ignoring the occasional bell.

[ariemorytwo]

Ari, too, was required as Hat Shore host to wear a themed hat. Unlike Elric, however, she could take hers off if she liked.

Hers was supposed to resemble a friendly, cheerful sea turtle. The rest of her wardrobe for the event had also been chosen by the Sorting Hat. While the dress wasn't hideous, it wasn't to Ari's taste at all. Furthermore, she came bearing a molded gelatin, blue (one might assume raspberry flavor) with pineapple rings inside.

Flanked by the bewigged house-elves Flobby and Caddy as her cattle-prod-toting bodyguards, Ari carried her gelatin salad to the Lonely Harkonnen Hearts Dining Club Experience. She knew the Hat would be watching through the map screen, though the screen itself was currently displaying abstract water-like imagery.

She handed the gelatin off to Flobby and seated herself at the Adjudicator's table. "How are things going so far?"

[blood_and_souls]

It took a moment for Ariane's turtle hat to resolve into more than a brightly-colored blob as she approached through the thick haze of pink-stained battle fog. He cocked a sardonic smirk as it came clear, finding the turtle's happy expression some sort of cruel, personal mockery. Ari's dress, however, he approved of, despite the curious cut- it did show off all the right curves, and, served as an effective enough balm for the turtle hat's cheerful taunting

[ariemorytwo]

The house-elf had decided what she should do with the gelatin: serve it up and deposit little plates of it at each table, garnished with artificial whipped topping. The table where the Adjudicator and the Host sat was, of course, the first table to be graced with gelatin portions.

Ari looked at it dubiously. Then she poked it with the spoon that Flobby had thoughtfully nestled alongside it on the dessert plate.

"It's like aspic, I think," she ventured. "With fruit in."

[blood_and_souls]

Elric raised a dubious eyebrow at his portion of gelatin. The artificial whipped topping looked only slightly less questionable than the quivering, unnaturally blue substance beneath it. "It looks quite grotesque," Elric remarked, as he too prodded his portion with the spoon. Although Elric was weird for a Melnibonéan, he was still Melnibonéan, so after prodding the admittedly grotesque-looking dessert another time he of course ventured to try it. "It has an odd flavor, not very subtle. It is disgustingly sweet and has a very strange consistency." Despite this assessment, he took another bite- he'd had worse, and anything that wasn't Smaug-leftovers tended to be a welcome change. "I do not believe it to be harmful, although its more revolting qualities might suggest otherwise."

[ariemorytwo]

Ari spooned up a bit of gelatin, daring to include a dab of the faux cream in this tentative bite.

"The texture's not terrible," she decided, diplomatically. And speaking of things that were odd and potentially revolting: "Thank you, by the way, for the lovely gifts you sent. I'm curious, what sort of pelt is it, exactly? I couldn't get a usable cell sample off it to test."

[blood_and_souls]

"Actually, it is terrible," Elric decided after another bit of the gelatinous concoction, this one with a bit of pineapple. "The fruit within is fine, but, its presence only serves to enhance the questionable nature of the rest. And it too is tainted by the sickening sweetness of the rest." And yet, Elric did not seem exactly disgusted, considering he made no move to push it aside, instead trying to select a possibly-less-offensive bite of the stuff

[ariemorytwo]

Ari studied the rents left by the beast's claws. "Huge ..."

Too late, she recalled that the Hat was surely watching its show through the screen -- likely live. She leaned toward Elric, across the table, pretending to say something intimately close, but what she whispered was:

"The Hat will want to send Hat Shore after the bears. Won't it." It was not a question.

[blood_and_souls]

Elric had not considered this idea- which was, he felt, a very bad one. He did, however, pick up on Ari's sudden shift to secrecy- that damnable screen was something he tended to forget about. They didn't have talking screens in Melniboné, but he supposed that if people could talk to others through the screen it was only logical for it to transmit both ways. Thus, he too murmured his response, privately lamenting that murmured speech shared with Ariane was on the topic of violent beasts and their danger to the residents of Hat Shore in stead of a more pleasant and personal exchange. "Let us hope that it will not. I am used to such things and worse, and had Stormbringer with me. I am not so sure that a torn cloak would be all that others might suffer."

[ariemorytwo]

Those who'd been spending far too much time with the Hat lately, planning Hat Shore, had on occasion heard the Hat mention Canadian Weasley Bears. The concept seemed to serve the Hat as expletive, bogeyman, or both. Ari hadn't actually considered the Canadian Weasley Bear might be real.

She laughed a throaty Ari-One laugh, as though Elric had just said something particularly wicked or delightful. She whispered: "Canadian Weasley Bear."

[blood_and_souls]

((Edited for grammar!))

Elric's lips curled into an appropriately devious little smirk, and he leaned forward to murmur his reply close to Ari's ear. "I know little about the beasts of this world, but it sounds as apt a name as any. I am still not certain it was a bear. It was certainly bear-like, but, I have never before encountered a bear whose path left a smouldering trail through the brush. Nor have I met a bear who brought with it a profusion of tiny black spiders. I am not sure if they merely infested its fur- or if they came from inside of it." A thought occured to him, and he added, "I did make sure that all the spiders were cleaned from its pelt." Elric was strange, but, not so strange that he'd have thought spiders a good addition to a Valentine's Day gift.

[ariemorytwo]

"Of course; I wouldn't have doubted it," Ari murmured insincerely. She'd make sure the house-elves cleaned the pelt well. "The housemates didn't do well at boot camp. Do you think they could be trained to take down a Canadian Weasley Bear?"

[blood_and_souls]

Elric considered- the housemates' performance at boot camp had indeed been dismal. But, there were quite a few of them, especially when the Shoggies were figured in, and, Elric had experienced the Shoggies' resiliency first-hand in his own first encounter with them. They did take orders well, but, he had little faith in their ability to perform a well-coordinated assault. Still, against one potential Canadian Weasley Bear, Elric supposed they had a chance. Like throwing pirates at Melniboné, but on a smaller scale. "I believe they might be able to take one down by virtue of sheer numbers. The creature was large, but, Shoggies are curiously invulnerable, and might prove some small advantage. So I think they can, if they plan well in advance, and the number and condition of the survivors is unimportant."