Halloween Party, Creepy But Nowhere Near Abandoned Mansion, Tuesday Night

[deathsmajesty]

After basically being dared to do it by Tony Stark (and putting in six weeks of renovations, bless Hannibal for the contractor), Liliana, dressed as an empress, hair pulled back in a profusion of curls by her angelic headpiece, was ready to throw her first Fandom party. Sure, it was for a holiday she didn't really understand, but she'd heard enough about it to make due: there was supposed to be candy and people were supposed to be in costume. Done. Everything else was just the same as a regular party, right?

Granted, the last party she'd hosted had actually been for a bunch of vampires and that had been seventy years ago on a completely different plane, but bah, details. You had food to eat, music to dance to, dark corners to sneak off to, and either enough witty people or enough alcohol to keep the conversation flowing. Liliana was hoping that there would be plenty of the former showing up, but just in case, she'd made sure to stock plenty of the latter.

Though her newly refurbished ballroom was actually very light and airy, she had done her best to recreate some of the spookiest elements she'd seen in her travels. The dancefloor was covered in about a foot of heavy fog that swirled and eddied with every movement. While most of the chandeliers were shrouded in fabric and false webbing, she personally found the main chandelier was decorated in something she much more unnerving. Black and red candles flickered about the room held by ghostly hands, dripping skulls, and the occasional elegant standing candelabra. One of the few concessions to magic she'd used tonight was to have the candles lit with tongues of false fire, which provided light but no heat. And they glowed blues and greens and purples, which was a nice effect. Red roses were placed upside down in vases, while more questionable arrangements sat in decorative vases. Out of deference to her guests' squeamishness sensibilities, all creepy critters, skeletons, and dead bodies were all cunningly crafted fakes, not a single real bone or drop of blood in the place.

Other than, of course, what her guests brought in with them. And should they leave with fewer of either than they'd come in with, well, that was hardly her fault. Probably.

Arrive and Mingle / Photos / Dark Corners [NFB] / Refreshments / Dance / Gardens / OOC

[Please hold for OCD up! Do the thing!]

Comments

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[texted3times]

Eric smiled sharply. "I'm always happy to provide that lesson."

He was a giver like that.

Re: Photos

[deathsmajesty]

"He still does, but now he's more bossy about it," Liliana said with a laugh. "Like his very rude insistence that breakfast should be served in the morning and not in my bedroom."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"How did you end up on a ship with a dominar anyway?" Liliana couldn't help but ask. Especially since one usually wouldn't refer to sailing in state with a ruler as being 'shipmates.'

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"If there's fighting at my party, someone will regret it," Liliana said darkly. She was not here to play, island, you hear her? "But, either way, it's certainly a very good look." She shared a conspiratorial grin with the other woman. "Between you and I, I have no idea what most people are supposed to be tonight."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[hasaknightjob]

Steven enjoyed this sort of conversation as well. Especially since it was a good distraction from other things best not focused on during a party.

"Right," he said, glad for Liliana's wording. "And when you think about it what's a light bulb if not taking energy and giving it shape and form? Or, er, a candle for that matter? It's just that in my world more people understand how lights and candles work, not as many do spells and the like."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"...Your mentor?" Liliana asked, head tilting. "In what way? Are you also a bartender?"

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"Only just a few minutes ago," Liliana said. "Which, having done so, I can say is an absolute crime that we hadn't met before. She seems an absolute delight. But I've been introduced to multiple people tonight and if nothing else, I'm going to count my party as a success for that reason only."

And then she smiled and waved down at her dress. "Oh hardly. Innistradi fashion is...closer to yours, I'd say. It's slow to change, as most of the nobility and leaders of fashion are secretly vampires. This...if anything, the design of the fabric is very New Capennan and the style is...something we collaborated on, I suppose, when I showed various sketches of Earth inspirations. Goddesses, empresses, that kind of thing. I wanted something that was very clear was a costume."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"And any time you can repurpose something you got from someone trying to murder you is a good day," Liliana approved. "I generally tend towards repurposing the murderer, but we all have different talents. And your most welcome, John darling, good taste should always be appreciated."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[stykera]

"He was on Moya as a prisoner," Stark said. "After his cousin deposed him a very long time ago. He got his throne back last year after we were all imprisoned. Again."

That was how they rolled on Moya.

"When I was freed from where I was being held it was by my friends on Moya. They weren't friends yet. And they let me come aboard and then come back later and then I stayed."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

Amusingly, Liliana and Steven would end up having a conversation about the overlap of science and magic a bit later in the evening!

"And that's why I found it so particularly resonant," Liliana agreed. "It felt like someone watching an incompetent Stitcher with an unwarranted god complex fall victim to his own hubris and manage to blame everybody but himself for his own failings, while demonizing his creation that he considered a failure for not living up to his lofty goals that were out of reach of his level of competence. I'm not entirely sure Mary Shelley wasn't a Planeswalker, or knew of of one, the depiction was so realistic." She laughed. "Steven recommended me the book, and I devoured it in a day, yelling at it mightily and throwing it at the wall. And now I'm reading it to Ignis, but it's very slow going, as I have to frequently pause and rail about something in the text that's caught my ire."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"Ah, but lights and candles work on the same principles every time, correct?" Liliana said. "And work the same way for everybody. But magic certainly doesn't do so. Even if you took two black-aspected Planeswalkers, we wouldn't cast magic the same way, even though we're using the same mana to do so, our spells would be different, and a white mana user and someone without the spark at all wouldn't be able to do anything at all."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"Of that I have little doubt," Liliana said with a laugh. "But truly, darling, can I get you a glass, either pure or diluted with wine? And will room temperature be fine or should it be warmed slightly for you?"

Liliana would never be such a bad hostess as to not have some refreshment on hand for him.

"Or do you subsist wholly on the synthetic variety now?"

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"I do what I can to be an inspiration for the betterment of all," Liliana said.

You know. Modestly.

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"Oh, how my classmates in Quandrix would love to hear that," Liliana said with an amused shake of her head. "While everyone in Silverquill might have just paled and gone to lay down. For the magic users in my neck of the Multiverse, it's mana and will. The will shapes the spell, the mana makes it happen. You can have all the aptitude and will in the world, but if you don't have the right mana, you're screwed."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[heroic_jawline]

Steve laughed. "You're doing us all a great service," he agreed, nodding.

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[texted3times]

Eric made a face. "I prefer the real thing," he admitted easily. "Warmed, undiluted. Please."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

Yeah, Liliana wasn't exactly an expert on 'friendship,' so it made sense she would also gravitate to the lower-effort end of things.

"So how do you know the Dean well enough to tease his haircare products?"

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"After you were enslaved by the via--" right, no, they weren't viashino. "The lizard people who saw you as a trophy," she confirmed.

Look at her, putting Stark's rambling thoughts into a cohesive narrative! It might not be correct, but it was coherent!

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Nah, there was always enough ambient magic for anyone traumatized enough to be able to use it," Margo said. She shrugged the non-raveny shoulder. "Until the gods turned off the faucet."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Oh, god, no." Interacting with people all night sounded a bit like Hell to Jon. "I'm a teacher. She teaches, too. I ended up here not expecting to be...well, anywhere, really. The school assigned her to help me. She's...she's terrifyingly good at it."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"Of course darling, just a moment."

Not that she went, perish the thought. Liliana didn't fetch. Instead, she gestured to one of the bartenders who brought her over a flute of champagne. And while she was there, Liliana murmured some instructions and sent her off.

"There," she said. "Any time you'd like a refill, simply let that one know and she'll make sure to fetch you another glass." Raising a playful eyebrow, she added, "Do refrain from nibbling the help, won't you, darling?"

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[unusual_sith]

"Ah, right." Lana shook her head. "He tries so hard to present himself as the perfect, uptight Jedi, I sometimes forget how very much he isn't. At least by the standards of my time," she amended.

She looked over Atton a bit more seriously, then shrugged. "I won't push about anything, but if you want to spar to work off whatever it is, just let me know. We've got those holorooms, or you can come back to Odessen with me and run a gauntlet of Masters and Lords if you want a challenge."

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"At teaching? Or at mentoring you to teach?" Liliana was intrigued; she hadn't really expected either to be within Summer's purview. "What are her views on pedagogy?"

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[deathsmajesty]

"The same gods that made you Queen of Fillory?" Her lip curled. Gods.

Re: (Eventually) Arrive and Mingle

[suitably_heroic]

"Don't try to read me," Atton said. He sounded a lot more casual about it than he would have with most people - he actually liked her - but still, it was a point he was instinctually required to make. "But sparring doesn't sound too bad. No gauntlets for me, though."