strangetrip | [GP] The De Rolo Wedding Reception

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[GP] The De Rolo Wedding Reception

The calendar of "Kahl-ee-Fornea" was very different to that of Tal'Dorei. But the spring dance had been a good reminder for the Exandrians (one of them, anyway) that the Renewal Festival would take place more or less this time of year, landing always on the thirteenth day of Dulahei. It seemed a fitting time to set the 'small family dinner' in celebration of the marriage of Vex and Percy.

...Yeah, but no. Because Vax'ildan didn't mind a bit of revenge for their having done the thing without so much as telling him for several weeks, and because his sister always deserved the best of everything anyway, the garden had a whopping lot more than that for the happy couple as they opened the doors onto what first looked like pitch blackness. Until the big, white-hot spotlight snapped abruptly on to glare down on top of the pair with blinding scrutiny.

A familiar voice sang out from beyond, his ever-charming booming and crooning amplified to fill the whole of the outdoors by something called a 'microphone,' Scanlan using all his singular panache to belt out a melodic tune:

"There she is, Mrs. De Rolo
There she is, your ideal
The dreams of a million boys and girls who want to find love in Emon City
For Vex may turn out to more than Baroness of the first house of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Hunt
There he is, Mr. De Rolo
There he is, your ideal
With so much brooding and tinkering he took the town by storm
With his all-Whitestone face and form
And there they are
Walking on air, he is
Fairest of the fair, she is
There they are - Mr. and Mrs. De Rolooooooooooo~"

A resounding wave of applause, murmuring, cheers, and laughter broke out all around the newlyweds - one such unbridled merry cackle absolutely coming from the bride's brother - and Scanlan's tone changed immediately to a much more vibrant, excited, sporting-event-enthusiasm style of announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen - it's the DE ROLO FAMILY!"

The strands of bulb lighting popped into yellow-soft brightness all at once, revealing the guests gathered around dozens of tables artfully set with dinner places enough for everyone at the Inn. Each table included flowers, linens, and garlands all matched in smart Whitestone-Blue, darker Owlbear-Blue, black and white with touches of gold accents, all thanks to Caroline's management. The outdoor area so far as one could see had been dressed in one of Lillith's illusions to mimic a beautiful forest clearing at purple-dusk with fireflies dancing, the shapes of buildings and foothills in the distance distinctly cast to look like the city and castle of Whitestone. Ignis and Emma stood by putting a few final touches on what they'd all started calling 'fancy barbecue,' an enormous buffet of haute cuisine smoked and grilled meats with artful sides, a table beside them holding up the massive layer cake Pike had tirelessly fussed into perfection. So many others had come together to help or to wish the de Rolos well - but there would be plenty of time over the evening for them to be thanked and recognized with food, drink, song - there was even an area marked out as a dance floor.

A freshly bathed Trinket in his very own bowtie lumbered up to Vex'ahlia to rumble and lick her face as the pair finally had a moment to react to the spectacle. At ground-level, a small disc-like device with a large serving spoon taped to it had been labeled with marker as Ensign Stubby, rolling its way between tables and chairs while balancing a large, many-times-stabbed basket of flower petals (with a handful left nestled in its giant spoon) on top of its flat surface like a drunken flower girl to finally bump into Vex and Percy's shoes. ...And possibly the best thing about their stunning surprise? That Peter boy had got the whole thing on VHS.

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The watching was a two-way street, though on Corbie's end it was more glancing his way now and then to see if anybody had found him (because like hell that was going to happen the other way around, especially this soon). And he seemed to be doing fine in that people were actually talking to him, so she hadn't fussed.

When Kash found her, though, it took only a brief back and forth about Mildmay's limp before she just took Kash by the hand and brought him over.

"Hey, Mildmay. This is Kash. He's a healer, and he'd like to talk to you 'bout your leg, if that's okay." Only if it was okay, though she didn't say that out loud. "Kash, this is Mildmay. He's a very dear friend of mine."

Edited 2018-04-16 01:32 (UTC)

Kash tossed her a little mini-glare for how she said it and muttered, "Makes me sound like some kind of pervert with a fetish," mostly under his breath but not too quiet for either of them to hear. Corbie knew what she was getting into introducing him to anyone.

Still, he sure enough offered his hand to the guy. "Good to meet you." Even if you don't want to talk about the leg didn't get said, but he did what he could to make it clear from how he was acting, he wasn't going to come over all creepy like take off your pants, man, and let me see that fucker.

Mildmay had seen the guy around. And had seen him noticing his leg. Fighter, Mildmay had decided. Maybe a soldier. Protective of the red, pregnant, demon-looking girl, Zahra, Corbie'd called her. Maybe bodyguard turned lover. That happened enough in stories.

So when Corbie led him over and said he was a healer, Mildmay hadn't been expecting that. Mildmay shook the offered hand, and nope, those weren't the hands of any healer type he'd ever met. "You too.

"C'n talk if you want," he added, slowly around the pull of the scar, "Leg's fucked. Nothing nobody can do." That was what he'd been told by hocus-healers in Troia, the physician-practicioner/magician-practitioner who'd kept him from dying of Winter Fever in Bernatha, and the hocuses up at the Institute. Try to remember you're lame. Like he could fucking forget, Rinaldo.

Corbie's returned look to Kash was one of perfect innocence and entirely unaffected by his snark. She'd thought from the first that if nothing else they'd get each other, and now, hopefully they'd like each other. But probably not with people watching. "Don't talk each other's ears off," she teased gently before she went to go dance.

Kash gave her another quick are you high? quirk of her eyebrow before he took a seat next to the guy, Mildmay. "Good thing she's cute," he said in a quiet, fondly conspiratorial tone that offered no kind of a threat. If anything, it was more like a promise to slaughter anyone who tried to hurt her than a threat, which he figured this guy'd understand, since the way he watched her wasn't too far off how Kash washed Snow, Curnen, Vex, Lilli and Zahra.

He nodded in the general direction of the leg, not to put too fine a point on it. "Mind saying what's actually wrong with it? Even if I can't fix it, maybe I can help out some with the pain."

Mildmay liked to think he was good at reading people, least some of 'em. There wasn't no threat or actual hard feelings for Corbie in what Kash said.

He didn't so much want to talk about his leg, to have another healer tell him there was nothing to be done for it. But better to get it out of the way now, than have the guy following him around or watching him half the time trying to figure things out for himself. "Was a curse. Got healed up wrong." When the Troians had bothered to really try at all, or listen to a damn thing he told 'em. He scrubbed the back of his neck with one hand, before the last bit, "Then I fucked it more overdoing it." He'd never pushed more than he had to, there were reasons he'd done what he'd done – all of it – but that didn't change the fact he'd asked more of his leg than it was capable of, and fucked any chance he'd had of getting by.

Still. "It's better than it was. Not gonna get any better now."

A curse that got healed up wrong. Kash rubbed a hand against his jaw. "Mostly, I can't heal what's already been fixed, even if it was fixed wrong. At least not with a single spell. I'd probably have to start over again and see about the curse, and if that couldn't be removed then we'd have to work on it pretty regularly to see if we couldn't improve it."

That was, assuming Mildmay even wanted to do that. Kash wasn't going to force him to. He'd had time to come to terms with it, so maybe he didn't even want to heal it.

"But if it's bugging you tonight, I've got a spell that might help with the pain a little. If you want, I can try it."

Uh-huh. Like Mildmay'd said – Fucked. Nothing nobody could do. Still, Kash seemed like he actually wanted to help, which was more than Mildmay could've said for the Troians who didn't bother listening to what he said in the first place. Yeah, he was still bitter about them, and it had to do with a lot more than just his leg.

Truth was, yeah, his leg hurt. His leg always fucking hurt. Wasn't as bad tonight as it was sometimes. He rolled his shoulder in a tight shrug. "C'n try if you want." The long as you don't expect a fucking miracle was implied.

It was weird to hear the tension of it ain't gonna work mixed with the certainty that magic is real. He usually got one or the other. But he got where Mildmay was coming from and there was a real chance Lesser Restoration would do nothing at all. If it did work, it would peel back the most recent layer of overworking and exhaustion in the muscles, loosen up any tight ligaments in the hip, lower back, knee, foot and toes.

"I'm a healer," Kash said again, as much a verbal shrug as explanation for why he was resting his hand on lightly atop Mildmay's mid-thigh and speaking in arcane mutters. A glow of gold fringed with an odd, black light lit up his hand and sent healing magic through other man.

Sitting in the back of the room while Felix was teaching, Mildmay'd picked up more about magic than most annemers ever would. And he'd heard the 'it's all metaphors' explanation more times than anybody rightly needed to. Cabalines and Coeurterrenes and Eusabians and Norvenans and Grevillians and more, didn't none of 'em do magic the same ways. Wondering what they – hocuses, but really, he meant Felix, because it always came back to Felix with Mildmay – would think watching Kashaw do his thing, distracted Mildmay some from a lifetime of knowing to steer clear of hocuses working magic on you. It was different with nature witches, healer types anyway.

The hint of black edging on the golden light didn't help sitting there and letting the guy do what he was gonna do, but Mildmay could feel as the swarm of bees in his thigh, mostly quiet, buzzing just enough to let them know they could get truly angry in a heartbeat if he weren't careful, they stopped their buzzing. The tension he was so used to he didn't notice much 'til it tipped over into cramp that couldn't be ignored, he felt it loosen up.

Nothing that would make him any less a crip, bone fit wrong was bone fit wrong, but at least for the moment, it didn't feel so bad. Physically.

Mildmay gave a small nod and a gruff "Thanks."

"Any time. Seriously," Kash replied, pleased to have noted the slight lessening of tension around his eyes and in the leg beneath his hands. "Corbie knows how to find me if I'm not in the clinic."

That done, he slumped back against the seat and let his arms hang and wrists rest against his own thighs. "In case he doesn't make it over here, I'm sure Vax would want to thank you for supporting his revenge." As he recalled, Vax had met Corbie's friend Mildmay the first day he arrived.

"Revenge?" Mildmay wasn't sure how a party, celebrating his twin sister getting married, was supposed to be revenge. Although the groom did look a little worn around the eyes. If he'd had to guess, though, he would've thought Vax's ideas of revenge would be more like his own.

Mildmay didn't seem to lack a sense of humor, so Kash assumed he simply hadn't had the situation explained. "His twin ran off and got married on the space station without him or anyone." Of course, that part wasn't funny. "So Vax decided to get his own back and threw them an ambush wedding reception."

Felix, if he ever let himself be tied down into a marriage he wanted, would insist on a huge party to celebrate. To show off the pretty man on his arm and have all eyes on them, more like. Even a surprise party would be seen as his due. If it were Mildmay getting married, though... yeah, Felix would definitely throw some huge soiree in revenge. After throwing a big fit and making his displeasure known in other, more familiar ways.

Maybe a party as revenge made sense after all. "How's that going over?" He didn't know the newlyweds to judge for himself, and Kashaw seemed to, if he was thanking Mildmay on Vax's behalf sorta.

"Better than you'd expect," Kash assessed it, clearly entertained by Vax's plotting. "They're shocked to high hell we managed to keep it secret. But Vex likes people and Percy was raised as nobility. He knows how to do the whole social thing, even when he doesn't want to."

That was actually a lot of words for Kash, but some questions required them.

Mildmay had no doubt Vax could be a secretive bastard when he wanted or needed. But Kolkhis' three can keep a secret if two of them are dead echoed in his head. No way he could've pulled this off without most of the people here knowing. Keeping a secret like that, especially if Vex liked people as much as Kash said... that took some doing.

He didn't say any of that though. Kash would know it anyway.

"Yeah, he looks flash." Flash, but maybe not a flat. Good thing to keep in mind.

It took Kash a few seconds to place the word 'flash', after the few seconds to make it out around the pull of Mildmay's scar on his words. Even so, he wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or sort of a bad one. "He's all right. Definitely a guy you want on your side in a fight."

"Steada the other side?" was muttered mostly to himself, and the scar turned it to nothing but mush. Probably better that way, since Percy was onea the guests of honor, and a friend of Kash's besides.

"Yeah?" was clearer, and an invitation for more, if Kash wanted to explain. No fuss if he didn't.

"Dark sonuvabitch," which was saying something, considering him and Vax. "Smartest person I know but Lilli and maybe Kitty, and carries weapons that cut a man in half between blinks. I can hold my own, but I wouldn't want to fight him if I didn't have to."

Kash was a soldier, not a hero. A cleric, not an adventurer. He could kill monsters and protect people and heal them, but fighting the likes of Percy wasn't for him. Maybe someday he'd figure out how to help him, though. That would be a thing worth doing. For Vex and Vax, and Keyleth, and Percy himself. But first he'd have to figure out how to help himself, and good fucking luck with that.

"Wantin' to fight-" if you didn't have to, "'s a good way to end up dead." Or with a nasty fucking scar that fucked up your face, making it impossible to hide who and what you were, among other things.

Mildmay knew from smart people, though. Hard not to, with Felix being smarter than just about anybody in the Mirador and maybe the Institute too. And dark, fuck. He knew about that too. Vax, Mildmay decided, was easier to understand, and maybe Kashaw too.

"So's fighting everything you stumble over without planning it--" Which these idiots excelled at. "That's why they need at least two clerics, a bard and a druid to keep them alive." For once, it was said with real fondness.

"Corbie warn you about the bear?"

Mildmay gave a short nod. "Don't hurt the bear 'less I want an arrow somewhere uncomfortable or worse." She'd rightly assumed Mildmay would perceive a bear as a potential threat and wanted to reassure him it was safe enough if he came across it.

Kash pulled a couple of bottles of beer seemingly out of his pocket (they actually had been there) and offered one to Mildmay. At that moment, 'the bear' was ambling by and Kash opened the one he handed toward Trinket.

"That, and he makes a great drinking buddy. Right, pal?"

Edited 2018-05-27 00:54 (UTC)

Mildmay had wondered what the man had in that pocket, noticing such things so engrained he couldn't do anything else. He took the bottle with a short nod, and watched as Kash opened another and offered it to the approaching bear. If he'd been another person, one who hadn't been learning to keep his feelings off his face even before the nerve damage that left half of it mostly immobile, surprise would have been written all over it as the bear rolled onto its back holding the bottle in its paws to drink from it.

Mildmay's only experience with bears was the practice of bear-baiting in the Lower City. He'd never liked it much. Identified too much with the bears. Never woulda thought to share a drink with one, though.

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[GP] The De Rolo Wedding Reception

Mildmay & Kash

Kash, Mildmay (Corbie)

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