Have a Drink On Me [open]

[cordy_estwynde]

Who: Everyone!
What: Tavern's grand opening
When: Monday Evening
Where: The Frolicking Stoat
Special Note: New thread for each conversation, please (not for each post)

Comments

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra stood by the entrance to the card room, holding a round palette in front of her chest, her arms folded around it as though she were hugging it. It reminded her of a shield, in a way. Not that it was protecting her. Not that she needed protection. At least...she hoped she didn't. There was no sure way to know. She had never done this before

[creaoi_ang_cor]

Cristal entered The Frolicking Stoat (what an amusing name) and paused, briefly, at the door to take in the atmosphere. There was already a well-sized crowd that was obviously enjoying itself. The music was exotic to his ears, but had an inviting sound. The light was a friendly orange glow.

Yes, he could definitely see himself doing business here.

He walked through to the back of the tavern, scanning for Cordelia. He saw no sign of her, at least not on the first glance. No doubt she was busy entertaining other patrons.

Cris shrugged. There was no rush. While he waited to find Cordelia, he might as well get himself a drink.

There was a woman nearby who appeared to be a barmaid- she holding a drink tray, anyway, and that was as good a sign as any. She wasn't quite facing in his direction, so Cris held up a hand and snapped to get her attention, "Excuse me-"

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra turned at the sound of the voice, not the snap. She was surprised, of course, to see Cris there. It was another second before she was a bit indignant too. She was not an animal. But then, she remembered why she had signed on for this little adventure and she swallowed her pride, smiling slightly. "Well, well, well," she murmured. "Looking to seduce a few demon girls tonight?" She planted a hand on her hip. With the new corset, it was easy to find her hips. She was slowly discovering her figure.

"It probably won't be hard."

[creaoi_ang_cor]

She hadn't looked like Cassandra from the side, especially when she was wearing... that. Cris was caught between shock and a half-smile. Shock, because he was surprised to see her, and their last encounter hadn't exactly ended well. A smile, because her reaction to seeing him seemed better than he might've thought it would be.

He did want to apologize for how things had gone last time. But spitting out an apology while she was clearly prepared to play the role of the bar wench seemed... rather awkward

[weedyshyguy]

Bret was nervous. More than he would've been back home. But, back home, he always had Jemaine to rely on. If anything went wrong, he'd fix it. Or well, that was what he assumed. The things that went wrong in their shows weren't usually musical problems and those were the sorts of things Jemaine was pretty decent at dealing with. But that was his main concern at the moment. Messing up. Forgetting the words. He'd never really had to worry about that before

[melodyofwater]

Demyx was watching him on the side, having just got himself a glass of water and waiting for when Bret needed a break. Plus, it was still fun to listen to other musicians. He didn't try to interuppt Bret during the songs, but gave a wave when he was in between playing to let him know that he was there to sub out for him if he wanted. Or to do their duo.

[weedyshyguy]

After his fourth song, Bret decided to give Demyx a chance to get on stage. He gave a simple explanation that he was going on a break but he'd be back in a little while and the demons seemed vaguely aware that he existed so he took that as a good sign for his next set. He hopped off the stage and smiled at the blond.

"Do you want the stage or are you ready for our duet?"

[melodyofwater]

"Whatever works for you." He wasn't sure if Bret wanted a break yet or not. "If you want a break, I can go up for a bit and then we can do that when you get back." Demyx was more than easygoing about this. And Bret would have enough sense to stay away from the alcohol. Or, at least he thought he would. Bret'd preformed before, anyway.

[tenuefarfalla]

Cho wasn't having any real occasion to leave the kitchen, though she was happy that her food seemed to be so well received, from what she could tell. She'd cut her test menu in half when Cordelia had insisted that it was perfectly normal in this setting. What the hell did Cho know about this setting? But she didn't want to strain herself, so she went with it. She'd kept the onion rings and chips, because they were simple, and also salty, and they would make people want to drink more. The rest she decided to take in rotation, always leaving the vegetable pie and at least one soup as a meat free option

[rowan_narrators]

Niko glanced around, a little nervously. He'd totally missed the dinner that Cho threw, a couple nights ago - he'd encountered a lot of problems on a spell he'd been casting, and he was pretty sure what had happened was that he ended up in a long-distance battle with an Elf sorcerer of about equal power.

Anyhow, he was also pretty sure that he won. Though he couldn't be 100%, obviously.

But yeah. He figured he'd stop by the kitchen and apologize. So he ducked on in, with a cautious, "Cho?"

[tenuefarfalla]

"Niko!" Cho brightened a little, seeing a familiar face, and immediately thrust a tray of unbaked pies at him. "Hold this for a second, will you? Niko, Mary. Mary, Niko." She nodded her head at a pretty redheaded girl who was up on a stool stirring a large pot of soup. Mary waved, then went back to what she was doing, scraping the bottom like Cho told her to so the cheese wouldn't burn.

"You missed my dinner," she pointed out, taking a tray of finished pies out of the oven and depositing them onto plates just in time for Wendy to come back to collect them. The system of using letters and numbers had worked well at the party, so Cho had kept it. It made things easier for everyone. Cho took the tray of unbaked pies back from Niko and slid it into the now empty oven. "What happened?"

[rowan_narrators]

"Oh, hey, Mary," said Niko, with a little bit of a wave. He was pretty sure he'd seen her around the army kitchen tents before.

Right. That was the question he didn't really want to hear. "You know that spell I told you about?" he asked. "The ambush one? It just - there was a problem with it, so I had to do the whole thing over. It was a total pain, I'm really sorry for missing out. Anything I can help with?"

[ruathanrefugee]

It felt right to be working again. He’d worked all his life, and it wasn’t until this afternoon that he realized it was something he could miss. To have a job, JY hoped, would be to have some semblance of the life he’d always known.

He stepped quickly to his right, scarcely missing a customer who had chosen that moment to push his chair back and stand. He almost smiled at the tray in his hand, where nothing had spilled. Because this was familiar. Noise, occasional commotion, and something to do. Not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, of course-but if he had some sort of occupation, then his mind was otherwise engaged, and he didn’t have to wonder about the rest of his life. Or even how he’d get home. He just had to worry about crossing the increasingly-crowded room without dropping anything. And so far, the demons weren’t any unrulier than the Ruathan courtiers.

[rowan_narrators]

Nazarene, unfortunately, isn't here to pick up girls.

No; she and Royal both know that his presence, for whatever individual reason, has been rejected by the vast majority of those who come through the tree. He doesn't want to disrupt them, particularly - though, she has to admit, his plan of trapping them in the city and leaving them to fend for themselves has produced impressive results, at least in this particular tavern.

So, no. She's not here to pick up girls. She's here to see how it goes. To see if Royal's plan to tie the tree babies (ugh, is that terminology really picking up in Nazarene's mind?) to Jhelbor is working.

And so she takes a drink, herself, and she watches.

She probably looks a lot like she's about to go try to pick up some girls.

[cassie_of_troy]

Cassandra made her rounds through the room. With each pass, she found her eyes drifting over to Nazarene.

It wasn't that she was surprised to see the woman there. Half of the demon army, it seemed, was crammed into the tavern. There was something else bothering Cassandra about Nazarene's presence. It was the fact that she was sitting. Something about that just went against everything Cassandra had observed thus far. Nazarene was a woman of action, someone who rarely remained stationary for long. Even when talking to her, Nazarene had insisted on walking. So why was she so still now?

She made her way over, skirts rustling, holding the empty tray against her chest. "Something to drink?" she asked.

[rowan_narrators]

Nazarene glanced to Cassandra, and let out a little bit of a sigh. Looked like her and a couple others that were working in this place.

"No thanks," she said. "Not a heavy drinker."

[cassie_of_troy]

"No," Cassandra murmured, "You're not the type." This put Cassandra even less at ease. Something was definitely wrong with this picture.

She paused, glancing around the room. "So what do you think of Cordelia's little party?"