[GP] Réveillon & New Year's Eve & Check-In

[st_rangepalette]

Emma had said, during Winter's Crest, that she missed a tradition from home called réveillon. She seemed also to miss her cousin, as Lillith missed hers. Since she wished both to learn to cook and to be of comfort to her friend, it had been decided they would make a réveillon dinner for New Year's Eve.

Yet when Emma began to lay out the courses -- oyster soup and potato & leek soup, salad, a gumbo, venison roast, cheeses, and creme brulee, plus several hors d'ouevres not yet decided -- Lillith quailed at the size of the undertaking. Surely she would wish someone to assist who could contribute more than roasted rabbit, wheat or potato flour dumplings, and koláč.

Since Sunny likewise missed her family and would certainly wish a distraction, when she entered the cafe where they were planning, the other two seized upon her almost at once. Sunny could hardly resist their dual entreaty, even had she wished to, and Lillith thought she seemed even more ready for company than previously. Of course Sunny had offerings of her own: jolloff rice, peppered chicken, and fried plantain.

Between they three, the planning and the cooking were very nearly merry, and Lillith kept them liberally supplied with champagne (her personal favorite), too. By late afternoon of the eve of the new year, they had begun lining tables with dishes, and enlisted the help of other friends to make the evening event widely known.

Of course, in addition to the réveillon feast that took over the steakhouse, alcohol flowed freely, lights sparkled brightly, the nightclub had music for dancing. And at some point the Inn or Caroline or Regina hung mistletoe from several of the primary entrances and exits so that unless one wished to or was unaware of the tradition, no one (not even any new arrivals) need greet the new year unkissed.

Comments

Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Celebrating the new year ten days after winter solstice was fucking nonsense as far as Corbie was concerned. For her, it has always been on the fall equinox, but really what could you do? Halloween? Candy. Thanksgiving? Food. Christmas? Presents.

And this one... well, seemed to be food again, but more importantly booze and making out.

It was in some ways a good time for Corbie personally, though, to be thinking about new beginnings because she had made some changes recently. She'd finally started wearing jeans--her legs were religiously covered, but she was in pants--and she'd worked up the nerve to talk to some of the other wizards here about teaching her. That had been terrifying, but she'd done it, and she'd gained new teachers for it. She possibly could have talked to Sunny, too, but. Well, Sunny was a bit intimidating, so that wasn't an option juuuust yet.

So yeah. She was adjusting. She had friends. She had fuck buddies. She had magic in her life. She was adjusting. She was... almost happy.

In any case, she was excited and chatty, eager and glad of the company. "Is this what New Years is like where you're from?" Hey, she had no way of knowing.

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

The champagne was flowing, there was plenty of food, her friends here were all safe and well – other than poor Snow's broken heart, and Vex had little idea how to help her with that pain – and Vex could let herself simply enjoy the party. So she had an easy grin for Corbie when she found herself nearby.

"Not really. This feels more like Winter's Crest to me, although with fewer competitions. We do have New Dawn on the first of Horisal, to begin the year, but it is not as large of an affair. What about you?"

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie grinned bright when she saw Vex, more than a little pleased that she'd bother with someone like her. "Wrong time of year," Corbie answered with a shrug. "I always celebrated the new year at the fall equinox. I didn't even know people did different until Felix told me wizards in his country count the year from the summer solstice."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"Elves came up with our calendar. So of course they had to make things way more complicated than necessary." Starting the year on an equinox or solstice seemed like it would make more sense than a random day not quite two weeks later. "Then you've got a bunch of different people adding holidays." She paused, then shrugged. "Kind of like here, if we're stuck long enough. We had snow for Winter's Crest, then there was Chrismass for some people, and now another party to welcome in the new year. Or say fuck you to the old; I'm not quite sure which."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"If by elves you basically mean snooty people, yeah. That sounds right." Again, Cabaline wizards. Corbie honestly wasn't sure what her sentiment was right now. She hadn't been here for a year, but...

"Could it be both? I mean, I ain't had the worst time this year, but there's some things that can definitely fuck off."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"Elves are the snootiest of people, in my experience. Feel free to replace 'elves' with whatever that would be where you're from." Especially since most people here didn't have elves in their worlds.

"And it can definitely be both. Both is good." She told herself she could have not scanned the room until she set eyes on Percy pouring himself a glass of wine. It was a nice thing to believe, even if she hadn't noticed she was doing it until just before she found him. "There have been a lot of good changes this year.... And other parts that were absolute shit."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"Sounds like most years," Corbie had to admit, even though she didn't really want to. After all, were she not here, she wouldn't have met any of these people. But if she hadn't come here at all, she wouldn't have needed to make new friends. "Only definitely more shit than usual."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

For Vex, not all, but at least most of the shit had been at home, with mostly good since arriving here. Other than the interminable boredom, of course, and being forced to stay here. But once again, she knew she was luckier than most in that regard.

"So we start the new year with an excess of good things." Decadent food, light champagne, festivity. "Isn't there some saying, about how begin and what kind of year you have?" Percy would know, and of course, there being such a saying in Tal'Dorei didn't mean there would be one where Corbie was from. "If there isn't, there should be."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"There definitely should be," Corbie agreed with a sage nod. Then she grinned big, dropping any semblance of dignity. "But I'm pretty sure by midnight we'll all be too drunk to remember one anyway."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"Or drunk enough to make up a new one." Not that Vex was usually one to get that completely hammered anyway. Not without a very good reason. She and Vax had had to watch their backs too long for drunkenness to feel comfortable.

"As long as we can all find our way back to our rooms... or someone else's," she said with a conspiratorial wink.

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie snorted. "My other room is probably well on his way to a severe case of whiskey dick, so we'll have to see about that." Not to mention that while it was a regular thing there was zero guarantee that Jackson wasn't trying to seduce someone else and it's just be her and her right hand, but she'd spent worse nights.

Whiskey dick was funnier.

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"Oh? You could have something to say about that, if you wanted to, I'm sure." Women could wield quite a lot of power when they put their minds to it. "Do I know your 'other room'? Or is it a secret?"

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie shrugged. It wasn't like either of them were secretive about it, but it wasn't exactly something much worth talking about either. "If it were anything more serious, maybe I would, but it ain't. And yeah, you prolly do."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"Fair enough." If it wasn't all that serious, no real reason to talk about it, and Vex was sure she'd notice if she bothered to pay attention. Corbie was a dear, but not close enough, yet anyway, that Vex felt an obligation to pry. Of course there was no need to say who Vex would be going 'home' with at the end of the night. That claim was clear to anyone who'd seen her with Percy, or talked to either of them for long.

"It's hard to believe my brother has been here a year," she said instead. "And so many others as well."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"I can barely believe how long I've been here, and it's only like half that long." Corbie's face slowly changed to an expression of concern. "I still wanna go home. But now it's complicated."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

She thought of Vax, who'd seemed happier the past week or so than she'd seen him in a very long time. Of Percy, who'd found a measure of peace here. Then of Whitestone, and the rest of Vox Machina, of Cassandra and Velora, Gilmore and Zahra, Allura and Kima.

"Very. It is possible, though, to both yearn for what we miss, what we're kept from, and yet want to cling to what we've found here. And as we don't seem to have any choice in the matter of where we are..."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie nodded. "I'm not exactly lonely, but it'd be nice to see someone from home. 'Cept that means they'd be stuck here, too. That'd be nice for me, but shit for them."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"It does make things more difficult, doesn't it?" Vex offered her a sad, knowing smile. "New friends are wonderful, but iit's not the same."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie didn't want to think about all of that right now, though. "But old friends don't have flying brooms."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

Vex practically twinkled. "Flying brooms are a plus side." Maybe she'd gone about getting the broom in a wrong way, but she'd meant to give Gern a bunch of dragonscales in trade, if he hadn't run off so quickly. And it really was a most wonderful magic item. It had saved all of Vox Machina at one time or another.

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"There's so much weird magic all in one place." It was a thought so exciting that Corbie almost started bouncing right then and there.

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"Enough to keep a wizard busy for a long time, if they wanted to learn about it all," Vex guessed. Corbie's enthusiasm was so different from Tiberius', adorable really, but some things were true regardless of the wizard.

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"If I can convince people to teach it to me," Corbie allowed. "But so far, people are bored enough that that don't sound like a terrible idea."

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_ubby]

"Boredom can be a great motivator." Not that Vex had had much of a chance to experience that before coming here. And even now she filled her days with hunting, the boutique, and wrangling the inn's Exandrian males, which was really a full time endeavor and more important if they became bored. Her brother especially was drawn to trouble when there was nothing to distract him.

Re: Corbie - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"That or maybe they don't want the baby wizard blowing anything up," Corbie allowed with a shrug. "I don't really know. But I'll take it either way."