[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

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"A shotgun to the head works good with zombies and of course a good machete to decapitate a vampire." Dean added his two cents in. It was nice to talk hunting - sort of - with a cute girl. Not that other female hunters weren't cute, female hunters were just few and far between.

But there was something in that litany he'd never heard of, "A liche? What's that?"

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Your world has guns? My friend Percy invented them in my world. They do seem rather useful." Pike loved learning about new worlds and new baddies that existed. "Beheading vampires would be so nice! For our vampires, when their bodies die they turn into a mist and if they make it back to the resting place they regenerate. You have to use sunlight or running water to kill the mist before it gets there." In hindsight, they had been really lucky during their fight against the Briarwoods.

"I don't know the specifics, but from what I understand, a Lich was an incredibly powerful spellcaster who uses their magic to defy death. They bind their...life essence...to an object and will live as long as that thing is unharmed."

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

Leave it to witches to be bitch ghosts. "Yeah we have that in our world, too. Well they aren't witches - uh magical people, but some ghosts if there is something important tied to them, any object, destroy the object and they're destroyed." He took a sip of his beer, "it's easier to just salt and burn the bones though if you can find them."

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Liches are more like zombies than ghosts. They cast a specific spell and do a ritual on the object and poof!" She shuttered a bit. Binding her should to something seemed so extreme. "Salt and burn? Oh! Do you know Sam? He mentioned something about that when we were on a field trip with the Inn's ghosts."

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

Of course Sam would have worked the Inn's ghosts.

"Sam's my brother." Dean admitted. "Field trip, huh? Did he make you dig the grave up for the bones or did he let you fire the pit up?"

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Your brother! That's wonderful! I have to say, you two are very different," She laughed. "But there was no digging or burning that time. I almost wish there had been. This was a simple day trip through a temporary portal that led to a little town."

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"A temporary portal?" Dean asked. "You mean this place has portals? I mean besides the one we obviously came in on."

So did that mean there might be a way out through one of them?

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Every few months or so a portal opens up in one of the rooms that leads to a new world each time," Pike had only been here for one of them, but had heard about the others. "We led the ghosts into this little coast town with the same level as technology as here, but when the portal closed they all reappeared back here."

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"Huh." Dean mentally speculated. "So either their remains are here and they can't stay in another world or whoever's behind this place is a sick son of a bitch and likes to dangle carrots only to rip them away."

Dean was leaning toward the second theory.

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Some of a bitch sounds about right," Pike couldn't help but agree, "It wasn't just the ghosts, it was anyone who tried to stay behind."

Pike took a look at the bottle in her hand, then back up at him, "At least the stuff from there that we brought here stayed put."

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

Every bit of information was being filed away. "So one way in and it stays." That could work in their favor, he'd just have to figure out how.

"Good to know." Dean took another long drink of his beer with a hint of a smile. "If it means more free beer, bring on the portals. Sooner or later, someone will figure out how to use the portals." His lips quirked higher, "it just won't be me. Not in my wheelhouse." And he was quite okay with that.

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Glad to help," If she could clear things up for someone who'd just arrived, Pike was happy to do so. What was the point in playing coy? They were all stuck here. "Yeah, I know how you feel. Heavy thinking is not my forte. I'm much more of a do-er than a thinker. Luckily there are some really intellectual folks here."

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"See, that's what I'm talkin' about. Just point us in the direction of whatever needs taking care of and we do it. Leave the nerdy stuff to people like my brother." Dean lifted the beer bottle in a salute.

"So how did you get started in being a doer instead of a thinker?"

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Well, I guess it would have been when my brother, Grog, came crashing into my life. He's the epitome of a doer. The two of us became adults together and he taught me how to live instead of stand in the background. He's never had any schooling, can't even read, but he can fight," She smiled warmly, the way she always did when she thought about her best buddy.

"We're almost the complete opposites. He's 8 feet tall and 650 pounds of pure muscled Goliath. But he saved my great-great-grandfather when his barbarian herd was going to kill him. Grog fought to protect him and nearly died in the process. I healed him back to health in thanks and then my pop pop adopted him, just like he did with me."

She'd said more than she'd been expecting, but the subject of Grog was one of her favorites...even if she deeply missed him.

"What about you? How did you get started doin'?"

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"My dad." Dean began. "It's the family business what Sam and I do. I really got into it when I was about fifteen. I loved the adrenaline and never looked back."

It was just the surface of why he'd embraced hunting. He wasn't ready to tell why they'd become hunters in the first place.

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"The adrenaline is pretty addictive, isn't it?" She kicked her feet a bit, swinging them back and forth on the too big chair, "I'm also a fan of the feeling I get when I help someone. Some adventurers do it for the money or the glory...but when you get to rescue a little kid or save a town? Get to make people's lives better just by being in the right place at the right time? That's pretty wonderful, ya know?"

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"Yeah hunting doesn't pay well either." Dean smirked, "or at all." Well it did with favors owed sometimes, but money not so much.

"And you're right. It's the helping people that makes it worth it."

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

Pike couldn't help but smile. It was good to know that he did what he did for the right reasons. "So, if you won't tell me your name, at least you can do is tell me more about one of these hunts. Maybe one where you saved the day and Sam did something embarrassing that I can tease him about?"

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

There were plenty for Dean to choose from, but the problem was, they would have to be from the timeline Sam was from, not Dean's. Which meant way in his past when they'd first started hunting - looking for their dad.

"Ask Sam sometime about the Rakshasa hunting we did." He grinned thinking about the killer clown and then added, "and I'm Dean."

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"It's nice to meet you, Dean," Pike smiled but then processed the rest of his statement. Her attention went from light and relaxed to immediately rapt. "A Rakshasa? Shapeshifter? Tiger face, backward hands under it all?" The levity in his voice didn't match the shit storm that had come along with Hotis. "Did you go into the hells and kill it where it's reborn?"

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"You've heard of one of those?" Dean asked surprised and wondered at that story. "And no, we didn't go into hell but Sam probably would argue that point."

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

“Oh yeah. My friends killed one, then it came back for revenge. He attacked in the middle of the night along with some assassins. I actually got the kill shot that time. It was pretty epic. There aren’t many people who can say they’ve killed a demon wearing nothing but gauntlets.” She gave him a wink, “But it turns out you have to kill them on their own plane for the death to stick.”

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"Damn." Dean was impressed. Not sure if he was impressed that she killed one or that she'd only been wearing gauntlets at the time. Probably both.

"You went after one and assassins in only gauntlets? Now that's something I would have loved to have seen."

Re: OTA

[st_ealthless]

"Well, they attacked while we were sleeping. I wasn't going to throw on clothes when my friends were in danger," She shrugged with a laugh.

"A repeat performance isn't technically out of the question, I do have the gauntlets here." As the words came out of her mouth, she felt her cheeks grow warm as she blushed a bright pink. She usually wasn't quite that forward.

Re: OTA

[st_illfighting]

"Do you?" Dean waggled his eyebrows. "I'm sorry I missed that if that's how you arrived here." He was pretty sure that they hadn't but that didn't stop the teasing flirt.