Event | Masquerade Ball

[redlightgreenlight]

Characters: All
Date: The Evening of October 30th
Location: The Courtyard of Public Opinion
Situation: Valdis and 'Rue' have put together an All Hallows Eve Masquerade Ball.
Warnings/Rating: None

The day has finally arrived and the morning and afternoon are spent putting together what will be the scene of the Masquerade Ball at the Courtyard of Public Opinion. Kedan can be seen coming and going, carrying in decorations and lights and later on, various foods and desserts. Valdis, and Rue can occasionally be glimpsed directing people and moving things around, but anyone not a part of the setup will be ushered on and discouraged from lingering.

As night falls, the Courtyard will be brightly lit and ready for guests...

Comments

[highprofilerichkid]

"It's hard to conceal everybody's identities when we all know each other so well already," Tony says, laughing a little. "I've only seen a couple people I didn't recognize right away. And we'll probably have them figured out by process of elimination by the end of the night. Though, honestly, I like knowing everyone and pretending I don't a lot better than not knowing anyone and pretending I do. This is way more fun than my dad's business parties."

[looksfine]

That, and the fact that Aya's identity was a little more...obvious than most.

"I still do not fully understand the appeal in feigning a lack of familiarity between friends. However, if you insist that this game is mean to be played for pleasure, I will go along and continue my attempts at identification based on individual physical and aural clues."

That aspect was interesting, at least.

"...what were your dad's business parties like?"

[highprofilerichkid]

"Um... I guess it's fun because everybody's doing something unexpected. You can act however you want, and it's like a puzzle to figure out who everyone is. And it's fun to dress up in really flashy clothes." He shrugs. He's not a sociologist.

"Dad's business parties were all, you know - business. Everybody's dressed up in the same suit and talking about stock prices and crap." Once he'd gotten older and his dad had started involving him more in the business side of the company, not just the science side, those conversations had held more interest for him. But for most of his childhood, they'd just been excruciatingly dull.

"Everyone was older than me, no one was as smart as me, and I didn't know any of them but they all knew who I was. So, pretty boring. Unless I could find some scientists to talk to."

[looksfine]

"Do you often find it difficult to converse with those of a lower intelligence than you?"

Aya wasn't judging. Oh, no, if anything there were hints of a curious empathy to her question.

[highprofilerichkid]

"Um..." he smiles sheepishly. It sounds bad when you say it like that, Aya. "Sometimes, I guess. But we also just didn't have a lot to talk about if they weren't scientists. They wanted to talk about yacht vacations and capital gains, and I wanted to be back in the lab."

[looksfine]

She didn't mean it bad!

"...I do not know what either of those things are." Yacht Vacations or Capital Gains. They were foreign concepts to her. "However, I do not generally prefer to remain enclosed in a laboratory setting unless it is absolutely necessary. It is precisely because of this that I constructed my physical form, after all."

She'd wanted OUT of the ship and INTO the field of combat.

[highprofilerichkid]

"Okay, I don't like to spend all my time in the lab—" Crap, now he sounds like a jerk AND a loser. You suck at small talk, Tony.

"I just mean... I'd rather be in the lab or doing Iron Man stuff or hanging out with my friends than standing around at a boring party doing nothing."

Hmm. "...Not like this party. This is a good party."

Maybe if he stuffs a cookie in his mouth he'll stop saying stupid things. Can't hurt to try!

[looksfine]

A smile. His words hardly offended her, and his reaction to her reactions were almost as interesting as the conversation itself.

"I am inclined to agree. For my first large social gathering, I am...pleased."

[highprofilerichkid]

"This is your first 'large social gathering'?" Not exactly shocking information, since Aya socializes a little differently from most people. Still, it makes him wonder— "So, back home— what did you do when you weren't doing Green Lantern stuff?"

[looksfine]

"...I do not understand the question."

(Translation: she was always doing Green Lantern stuff.)

[highprofilerichkid]

"Do you... You don't really do 'hobbies', do you?" What did he expect her to say, that she's gotten big into crochet? "What did you do whenever there wasn't some... galactic emergency or whatever? You couldn't do whatever it is that Green Lanterns do all the time, right?"

Speaking of which: "What do Green Lanterns do?" From bits and pieces from their conversations, all he's gathered is that the Lanterns are some sort of... space police force? Collection of interstellar superheroes? Ragtag but lovable band of energy-wielding vigilantes? Something like that.

[looksfine]

It's so funny you should mention that...

"I have always been designated on-duty, particularly as I was the only member of our crew who did not require regular sleep cycles in which to recharge. My only times of rest had been when my systems or physical form were severely damaged and in need of long-term repair."

To answer his first question. Somewhat. As for his second...

"Green Lanterns are meant to serve and protect all those residing within Guardian Space, and beyond. Most are assigned a Sector, though we may also respond to distress signals and do our best to fight on behalf of innocents who are otherwise unable to protect themselves."

[highprofilerichkid]

"I know you don't need to sleep, but don't you need, to, you know... have fun? Do something other than be a Galactic Space Cop all the time? Even I don't do science all the time. And I definitely couldn't be Iron Man all the time, even if I didn't need to sleep."

[looksfine]

"I know how to have fun, Tony Stark. Although I do find a great deal of pleasure in my work." Both as a Green Lantern, and at Stark Enterprise. "I have also engaged in several activities in the past that were meant to be associated with casual, friendly interactions."

[highprofilerichkid]

"Okay, like what?" Tony teases. It's all good-natured - and he does want to know. Now that it's come up, he feels like maybe he's been lax in his duties as a friend. He's spent plenty of time with Aya in the lab, and he's so comfortable with that that he hasn't really gone out of his way to spend time doing other things with her.

[looksfine]

"Flying," was her first, almost immediate answer. "The kind that does not require a specific, extensive distance traveled for any other reason than the experience. In some instances, we raced to determined who possessed superior speed."

Although she hadn't done much racing in some time. Quite possibly since before Kyle left....

"I have also engaged in friendly sparring, knitting, and most recently have taken it upon myself to learn how to operate a most unusual contraption. I believed their call it a two-wheeler." (Bicycle)

[highprofilerichkid]

Oh. Well. Apparently getting into fiber arts is exactly what she's done. Go figure.

He can't say knitting really pushes his buttons, but the rest of it resonates. "Flying is— it's great, isn't it?" It's the best thing about the suit. Planes still make him anxious, but the flying in the suit is a whole different animal. There's nothing else like it.

"What kind of two-wheeler? Like... a motorcycle?" Motorcycles are pretty cool. Not as cool as flying, but fast cars and motorcycles have their own appeal.

[looksfine]

"I do not believe this particular vehicle possessed any motor." Unless she counted. "It is maneuvered by a repetitious set of foot rotations, activating a set of chains and gears to move the wheels while a set of sticks in the front allowed me to position the direction I desired to move forward in."

[highprofilerichkid]

"...A bicycle?" Tony smiles, amused by the image of Aya bicycling. "I never actually learned to bicycle. I don't have my driver's license, either." He can drive, technically, but the DMV might not accept driving practice hours logged in supercars on private race tracks.

"But I can rollerblade." He's awesome at rollerblading. that's why he put roller skates in his armor.

[looksfine]

"I was not aware you require a license in order to drive."

She drove the Interceptor literally from the first moment she could remember, and nobody ever gave her a license for that.

"...although, I can understand why that might be necessary for certain organic life forms."

(Such as Hal Jordan.)

[highprofilerichkid]

"Yeah, human beings aren't born knowing how to drive cars. Actually, we aren't born knowing how to do much of anything except poop." Ain't biological life great?

"So you get a license to prove that you're probably not going to kill a bunch of pedestrians every time you start blitzing around in a one-and-a-half ton hunk of metal."

Tony grins. "They've got to do something to keep the taxis from running down all the tourists."

[looksfine]

"...you require proof of a lack of intention to cause harm to others?"

Tony, you forget who you're talking to here. She was getting better with the jokes and sarcasm, but the way he continued to lay it on thick made her wonder if he meant it.

[highprofilerichkid]

It's called learning through immersion, Aya - it's the best way to learn a foreign language! (Jokes count a foreign language, right?)

"No, a license is to prove your driving ability, not your intentions," Tony replies, laughing. "You have to prove you know how to drive safely and won't be causing accidents everywhere you go. But maybe they should have that other kind, too. Definitely for the taxis."

[looksfine]

(For her? They might as well be.)

"What is a...taxi?"

[highprofilerichkid]

"It's... taxi drivers drive other people around for a living. If you don't want to take your own car or public transit, you can call a taxi and they'll drive you wherever you're going. But since they make their living getting people around, they can get kind of, um, aggressive when there's a lot of traffic. Everybody always says New York taxis are the craziest."

Tony grins again. "That's why I fly everywhere now. They don't make you get licenses for flight-capable exo-suits yet." Even though they definitely should.