Paper Faces on Parade

[applesaucemod]

The residents of Manhattan will once again find themselves drawn into the currents of the rift when they sleep tonight. Once again, too, the rift is drawing in people from other worlds, both those who might one day find themselves pulled through in waking life and those who might yet escape its grasp.

Tonight, it seems, a celebration is in order. The ballroom of a country manor is the setting for tonight's gathering. Wood and marble gleam in the gas lighting, and a bar at one end of the room provides the, ahem, social lubricant some guests may require. At the other end, a staircase leads to a walkway that runs the entire parameter of the room, allowing guests to watch the dancing from above. While the party is localized in the ballroom, who knows what secret passages and hidden ways a grand old house like this one might conceal?

Those who appear here will find themselves wearing a disguise on arrival. Should the rift cause one to appear in a costume not of their liking (as it is fairly likely to do), an enormous wardrobe can be found through a door near the bar. In it, guests will find a seemingly infinite assortment of costumes and masks of all sizes and varieties ready for their use.


[Mod note: Usual dream-party rules apply. Both members and non-members are welcome to use any character, be they already in the game or no, and players can choose whether to have their characters remember this in the morning.]

Comments

[bluesuit_handy]

Different! It's different for her! Also, she's not naked at the moment.

Andrew gives a little hop and decides to throw all decorum to the wind. "James?" he calls. Jumping again and sort of spinning in place, he waves his arms in the air. "James! Where are you?"

[wildmage_daine]

Riiiiiight.

Daine stares down at him, somewhere between amused and mortified. "What are you doing?" she hisses before putting a hand to her mouth to smother her giggles.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew pauses in what he's doing to give Daine an innocent look right back. "Looking for James," he explains guilelessly. "Or helping him look for us. He's got good hearing, you know."

[wildmage_daine]

"I think everyone heard that," she replies, going back to scanning the crowd. "Wait..." she pushes up her mask and peers across the room. "I think I see him." It's a bit hard to say for certain, but she's pretty sure that's him in the gold mask.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Do you?" Andrew jumps again, sans flailing. "Where?"

Seriously, Daine, he's just going to keep doing this.

[wildmage_daine]

"On the other side of the room." She briefly considers inviting Andrew up onto the chair, too, but decides there's no way that'll work without one of them taking a tumble. Instead, she hops down. "Come on, this way," she says, taking him by the hand and pulling him into the crowd.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew turns to eye the chair, considering getting up there with her, but she hops down and grabs hold before he can get around to it. Laughing, he lets himself be tugged off into the crowd, form blurring for just a moment before he pushes down the urge to split in response to being pulled.

[wildmage_daine]

"He should be just over here," she says, slipping between various party guests. It's just as well Andrew's such a beanpole, as it means he can squeeze through all the places she can. By the time they reach the wall opposite, she realizes they've gone a bit off course. "Ah... this way, I think," she says, tugging him along to the right.

[bluesuit_handy]

"James!" calls Andrew, cupping his free hand to his mouth and trying not to laugh while he does it. He's apparently in a loud mood tonight; hopefully he won't swing by the bar and get truly obnoxious. "Are you sure?" he asks a little less noisily.

[wildmage_daine]

"Pretty sure," she says - admits, more like, because she isn't that sure. "He had a gold mask, and he was just down by that window over there..." she stands on her tiptoes a moment, but it doesn't give her enough added height to really see over the crowd. She does catch a glimpse of yellow and gold, though. "There!"

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew could split off a mini-him and she could hold him up so he could see

"There?" he chirps back, not actually that concerned at this point, since he feels they're having fun running about. Standing on his own tiptoes, he finally catches a glimpse of his partner. "Ah, there!"

And this time it's Andrew trying to charge ahead and lead the way.

[wildmage_daine]

Both Daine and the mini-him would be completely comfortable with that, doubtless.

Daine lets herself get hauled along, her free hand keeping her mask from falling off. She is having fun running around, though, and without a hand to cover her mouth, she's giggling openly. "Just don't plow into anyone!" she advises, swerving a little to avoid elbowing a random guest in the back.

[bluesuit_handy]

"Don't?" Andrew turns to look back at her, looking for all the world like it wouldn't have occurred to him to avoid it if Daine hadn't spoken up. He looks in front of himself again just in time to avoid running straight into a woman dressed as a koosh ball, and drags Daine along as he swerves out of the way.

[wildmage_daine]

"You're going to get us thrown out," Daine scolds, for all that she knows just how unlikely that is. She suspects only the rift could actually get rid of them, and can't imagine that it would after going to the trouble of pulling them here in the first place.

She casts an incredulous glance back at the koosh ball woman, then moves a bit closer to Andrew so she can ask, "What was that supposed to be?"

[bluesuit_handy]

"A Ononoron," Andrew explains cheerfully, throwing a glance over his shoulder. His steps slow and his brow furrows. "Or...no. No, that's a koosh ball. Why anyone would want to be a koosh ball...."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine suspects he might be making those words up, so she doesn't ask him to elaborate. "Maybe she didn't want to be one," she points out, eyebrows raised. "Could be she just hasn't found the wardrobe room, yet."

[bluesuit_handy]

"I could've been a koosh ball." The face he makes suggests that Andrew thinks that would be a fate worse than dress. A moment later, though, he's tilting his head and giving a thoughtful little nod as if maybe it would have been better.

[wildmage_daine]

Daine blinks up at him. "We all could have been koosh balls," she says with all the grave solemnity she can muster. She even manages to hold the expression for a few seconds before she has to bite her lip to keep from grinning.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew draws in a breath as he looks at her, for a second seeming as though he's going to tell her off for making fun of him. Then he grins. "It'd suit you."

[wildmage_daine]

Daine wrinkles her nose at the thought. "If I wanted to look like some sort of hedgehog, I would." Though she doesn't think any combination of creatures she knows could result in her looking like a koosh ball, even if she tried to mix it up.

[bluesuit_handy]

"A purple one, though?" asks Andrew mildly. "C'mon, we've probably lost him again."

[wildmage_daine]

... Now it feels like a challenge. Daine frowns thoughtfully, wondering if she could somehow manage a purple hedgehog. But Andrew's next comment shakes her out of her reverie. "Can you see him?"

[bluesuit_handy]

Right now, perhaps she could! One is limited only by one's mind in dreams, after all. And by whatever limitations the rift has put on them, but never mind that.

Andrew stands on the balls of his feet and surveys the people around them with some dismay. "No," he admits. "But he was that way, wasn't he?"

[wildmage_daine]

Daine nods. "He can't have gone too far," she says, starting in the general direction of where James had been a moment ago.

[bluesuit_handy]

Andrew takes the same direction as Daine, a little more subdued now. "I'm surprised he didn't hear me earlier," he comments, a bit put out.