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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"Yeah, Santa Monica." It sounds like she's probably from the US or something, so he doesn't bother specifying the state. "I'm originally from Miami though."

Hurley continues dancing. He might not be that great at it, but it is fun.

"Yeah, weird's probably an understatement. You know Oceanic Flight 815? Flight from Sydney to Los Angeles? Crashed in the Pacific?"

"Miami, huh? I've heard the beaches there are really nice. I'm from Toronto - Canada. So not exactly big on the white sandy beaches." Which was a shame, really, but Bo smiled anyways.

"Sorry - I don't really keep up with the news. A plane crashed?"

"I've been there," Hurley says, referring to Canada. "Just once. It was nice. I liked the poutine."

Man, he'd kill for some poutine right now. He didn't have the slightest idea how to make it, though.

"Uh yeah, our plane. On this island. And all these weird things started happening there. Really weird. Like monsters and this weird underground hatch with a timer that went down every 108 minutes unless you punched in these numbers." Well, one monster. And Hurley wasn't big on talking about the numbers.

"You got weird stuff going on?" People here tended to have weird stuff going on, or so Hurley's observed thusfar.

At least that all explained why he was new but seemed like he was completely okay with all the weird that the Inn was about, unlike Hathaway who was still processing everything.

"Yeah. Not stuck anywhere, but monsters too. We call them Fae. Most people know the big ones like vampires, shapeshifters, faeries... there's a lot of different kinds. All real. Though most humans don't know about it." Bo was thankful she could at least be forthright about that particular part of their world even if she was keeping what she was close to her chest.

"Maybe we're from the same world, you just landed on some weird Fae island."

"Huh," Hurley says, clicking the inside of his mouth with his tongue. "You one of the humans that knows about it?"

Seems logical enough. She did say most.

Here was the question. To lie to the new guy or to tell the truth.

A mischievous expression passed over her face. "You tell me."

Or Bo could pick option C - not answer it entirely.

"I don't know," Hurley says. "I didn't know there was going to be a test at the end of this."

He's clearly joking.

"But I guess, I mean, what other options are there?"

Bo couldn't even answer that if she wanted to. Pretty much every other day she was looking at Trick or Hale or Dyson like Really, there is a Fae that does that?1. There wasn't even an encyclopedia for them all - how fair was that.

"Well... let's see." She did a bit of a twirl. "I could be a vampire? Or a Siren? I could shapeshift into a wolf. Maybe a pixie? Or a Gnome. Werewolf? Brownie? Succubus?" She decided to stop listing the ones she knew. "Or just a human." She winked at him. "But then, so could anyone else here."

All of those were options, probably. But still, Hurley has one pressing question.

"Okay, I know what most of those things are--"

Mostly thanks to TV and movies.

"-- but what the heck is a Brownie?"

He's guessing she doesn't mean a girl scout.

Bo laughed. "Right?" Because what the hell, really.

"I only met one. He was really nice and liked to cook and clean. His name was Mumphert and he'd do all the chores around the house as long as we bought him cereal. Only we didn't know that and my roommate, Kenzi, told him to buy his own and, well, let's just say when they don't feel appreciated, Brownies can be a pain in the butt."

"So wait, this guy just cooked and cleaned your house as long as you bought him cereal?"

Hurley looks at her, disbelieving.

"And he was a pain in the butt?"

"You're supposed to not take them for granted and Kenzi did. Think... socks in spaghetti, wearing your clothes, wet towels in bed... basically the most passive-aggressive being on the face of the Earth." Not dangerous, just annoying, though to be fair, she probably should have treated him better.

"Gross," Hurley says. "I mean, I could be bad sometimes, but not that bad." Not with his Ma around.

"So is cleaning basically their thing? Do they just... leave if you don't give them cereal?"

"They also apparently are great personal shoppers and can find you almost anything." Bo wasn't entirely sure what else they did, she had been rather busy trying to stop a Fae that was putting humans to sleep and killing them.

"But this one left when they found someone who they thought needed them more." She shrugged while dancing. The Bakku was a shut in and apparently that was alluring.

"Maybe there are a bunch here and that's how everything gets fixed over night."

"I haven't been here long, but that wouldn't surprise me."

The song's starting to wind down. Hopefully someone puts something else on afterwards.

"You guys got smoke monsters where you come from?"

And someone does.

"I don't know... what do they look like? Do they make smoke or like to smoke or look like smoke?" With Fae, there were always so many options.

How does he even begin to describe it? Hurley hasn't seen it himself, but enough people have that he can describe it with some level of accuracy.

"It's just this long black trail of smoke, and there's like, this mechanical clicking noise like chains being pulled or something. And it makes this call, like a loud-pitched shout."

Maybe not what she was looking for, so Hurley continues.

"It's really strong, too. Knocks trees down and stuff even though it looks like it's just smoke."

"Wow." Sounded like something she'd be sent to stop, really. "I've never met one, but life tends to throw some crazy things at me, so who knows." She offered a smile and then, because Bo wasn't one to be submissive often, she attempted to spin Hurley on the dance floor.

Hurley clumsily manages to pull off a spin. It's awkward, and Hurley feels a little awkward dancing like this.

"I'm not really used to dancing like this," he says almost apologetically. "I wasn't exactly anyone's first choice at school dances."

And it wasn't like there were many opportunities in adulthood for you to dance with someone.

"People can be lame." Bo didn't have that problem, it was usually the opposite, which a lot of people didn't think was a problem, but it was exhausting and sometimes you just wanted space.

"I think you're doing fine. Dancing is at least eighty percent faking it until you make it." She grinned with encouragement.

"Yeah, well," Hurley pants. "You're kinda hard to keep up with."

It's true. Bo's way more energetic than he is. Sure, all those long hikes on the island had contributed a little to Hurley's overall stamina, but that wasn't busting fast dance moves. Those were slow treks, not fast-paced dance moves.

"You know--" huff "--the people who got married?"

Had Hurley not said anything, Bo would probably not have noticed too quickly. She was used to partners who could keep up, at least outside of the bedroom.

"Nope. Well, not really. As much as you'd know anyone stuck in an inn like this. But I'm friends with one of their friends. Her name is Pike."

Bo took the opportunity of the end of the song to attempt to twirl him again and then grinned. "I'm also a bartender. If you'd like to go get a drink." and rest, which went without saying.

"Yeah, sure." Hurley's still panting a little, but it's not as bad as when they went full speed ahead on the dance floor.

"Were you a bartender before you ended up here? Or is bartending one of those skills you picked up when you really didn't have anything to do?"

"Both. I did a little back home." When she was on the run. "Easy cash. But I'm actually more of a private detective back home."

She walked up to one of the bar areas and reached for two beer bottles. She held them up with a questioning look like 'these good?' because she had no idea what Hurley liked.

"What about you? Before you were on an island with smoke monsters and a count down button."

Hurley nods. The beer works for him.

"Oh, me?"

This wasn't particularly impressive.

"I worked at a Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack. Eventually I owned it."

Actually the entire franchise, but. That's kinda a long story.

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