station72 | PARTY PARTY PARTY

Entry tags:

PARTY PARTY PARTY

CHARACTERS: Everyone!
WHERE: The streets of Concordia
WHEN: Dusk til just before dawn on DAY 040
SUMMARY: IT'S A PARADE
WARNINGS: Add them to your top levels as necessary etc etc

As from the calendar:

Confetti! It's a parade! The annual Arista Parade, to be precise. Nominally a part of Aristana, the celebration of the ribbons of life, it's a holiday who's origins are nearly forgotten. Nowadays it's a big, raucous celebration pretty dedicated much entirely to drinking and partying. Almost all those in attendance will be wearing ribbons tied around their hair, their wrists, off of their belts and the edges of their sleeves. Pull one off, and you will be rewarded with a kiss - on the cheek, usually. The parade itself showcases a number of performers, costumes, and moving art pieces. It's route covers a number of the main streets of town (which will be closed, sorry traffic), and it lasts from dusk till nearly dawn on DAY :040. Have fun, if it's your kind of scene.

From the mods:

No notable NPCs are present at the parade - at least not in any official capacity. However if anyone wants to interact with a Concordian native, feel free to make up/interact with any randos you feel like!

Feel free to use this log for all of your parade day activities!

*moving art piece not included, original characters do not steal

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[ The ribbons hang off her wrist, looping around comfortably, a impromptu adornment of the day. Who knows what she'll have left by the time she's done. ]

Not if you're the one doing the chasing, I guess? [ A shrug - predator and prey. Not like there's a difference on Pandora - and maybe that's what this is, this crawling stretch under her skin. In this, she is what she is. Picks one, bright green, where she'd taken it from the fire dancer. Where he'd breathed it out like he was one of the animals she knows best. Not the glittering prideful thing of her lion. But the rawness of what she knows, that bit of herself that's Lilith and Maya and Steele, and it's there, sharp in her gaze, her only brittle edges that she keeps down, down in herself around almost everyone else.

Everyone else - that she hadn't shown all the parts of herself - good and bad too. Safe, with Ahsoka.

Doesn't dim it, and she doesn't hide right now. Here, amongst so many people where something base and easy comes out, it's there, right there, in her eyes and under her nails. The alcohol only brings it to the surface. She wasn't made to be scared, she's a siren, and for the first time since she was shut away as a child, she feels that in some simple way. Made possible, in the strangest of ways. ] Yeah - you can meet all sort of people here. I like doing that. Being near people, I mean. I like it like this too - it doesn't have to be for too long if you don't want it too. [ Control in the transient nature of the gathering, what she's best at. She tugs the green one undone, quick little shifting movements. The green isn't matching to what Ahsoka's wearing, but she gestures for her wrist. ] I got this from one of the dancers. He was breathing - some kind of chemical mix, probably methanol, I think, not sure - [ babbles. ] He smelt like smoke, up close. [ Meets her eyes briefly, grinning, doesn't need to explain. ]

[Ahsoka's smile loses some of its cockiness then, when Angel offers her first proposal. To chase, rather than be chased. The thought alone is absurd, perhaps even moreso than allowing herself to continue to drink -- whatever she had given her. In spite of herself, she thinks of Anakin, how he had woken from that dream of Padme and how happy had been.

Before he had collapsed in despair, with the knowledge that he would never see her again. That's not the chase Angel talks about -- her's is much more carefree, more innocent, less involved. And yet--]

That's not the Jedi way.

[And for a good reason, she understands now. In spite of that, she holds out her wrist carefully for Angel as asked (always, as asked, to give as much of herself to others when asked), listening to her explanation and observing the memory she recalls. Yes, fire dancers, she'd seen them before on other planets, humans and twi'lek and everything in between.

Ahsoka had always loved people as well -- it was part of her culture, as much as it was her need to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. Its why the Nest's mission does not bother her so much.

Even if its link interferes with her daily routine. Even if it interferes with its faint buzzing, and Angel's enthusiasm. The smell of smoke. She chuckles.]

So does the ribbon.

[ And for all it might be so serious a topic, right now, Angel doesn't have that in her and pokes her tongue out at Ahsoka's words. ]

Then the Jedi are boring.

[ Angel goes about tying the ribbon around her wrist. It's looping careful movements as she does it in a bow, breathless with the giggling she can't quite help. The fancifulness of the notion, like she's tying smoke to her too, dressing her in the adornments that Angel sees on powerful women more often then not - and she leans into her once it's done, her fingers carefully around her wrist in a light teasing motion. ]

Except -- [ it hangs, heavy, small, a pulse and beat of music, of people, a cheer that goes through the crowd and a shiver that comes through her just the same. ] -- you got a ribbon off me. So now you have to chase me.

[ Check and mate. She skips back a step then, hanging only to see if Ahsoka would give chase into the people - the one person she can safely play this game with her. No doubt in her mind that Ahsoka could find her, and easily, even with so many people. After all, she said she was taking her somewhere - this was just a different way of getting there. ]

They can be.

[She smiles anyway, tactfully holding down the urge to laugh. But when Angel finishes her bow and mutters in her conspiratorial manner, her attention is drawn promptly. A curious blink of large blue eyes, a cautious curl of her hand to a fist, until she discovers what Angel is really playing at.

That's when the wall that holds her chuckle back breaks down, a roll of her eyes accompanying the gesture. But the game is harmless enough -- she starts to follow, slow to give Angel a proper head start. There's a small spike of adrenaline that hits her -- it would have been a lie to say she wasn't at least a little competitive, and the prospect of showing off just how fast she could hunt Angel down sounded exciting.]

( Better run fast. )

[So she breathes, and spreads her arms, dropping to one knee to focus herself. She waits as the Force pulses around the crowd, through them, past her and to her companion. Angel has approximately three seconds before her eyes snap open and she takes off into a dart, mindful of just how acrobatic she can be without drawing undue attention.]

Edited 2016-10-04 04:22 (UTC)

[ It's the confirmation she needs, as she turns tail and flees into the crowd. Her feet taking her quickly - glad for her training, as she gathers up the length of her skirt, and it flares behind her in a whip of fabric and the flash of the brightly colour ribbons that has her swallowed up into the people.

Blends in easy and she's laughing too much to be really stealthy. ] ( That's cheating! )

[ But it's nothing she minds, leaning into her own abilities to speed her movements up, and use the crowd to her own advantage. Runs into a man whose - big, much bigger than she is - who when she says breathlessly that she's playing a game, picks her up and spins her about before settng her on her way in the direction she was going and she takes off again. ]

[Ahsoka dodges and weaves skillfully whenever anyone reaches for a ribbon as she skids by. Soon enough, she's forgotten the entire premise of what she is supposed to be doing, laughing with the second-hand buzz that just keeps rising higher and higher. Angel's close, out of reach only by the virtue of people who get in her way enough to stop her from reaching the other girl.

She uses her slight frame to her advantage, to bob and weave around Angel when she gets too wrapped up in the chase. Just as it seems she might have gotten lost in the crowd, she reappears in front of her and grabs for her arms to halt her.

And if she tries to dodge the grab, she will simply spin and grab her from behind, pulling at limbs until they both become immobile, heart racing from the excitement.]

Tried to warn you, didn't I?

[ It doesn't take much to stop her as she is tumbled into by Ahsoka. Too easily knocked into and as easily feels her arms going around Ahsoka's shoulders to steady herself where she's most definitely caught.

Laughing too hard to even consider dodging really, her face pressed into Ahsoka's neck as she steadies herself, lungs burning from running and her head still spinning about with the drink. ]

You're really fast. [ She eventually manages to get her breath back where she's eager and giddy. Her hands bracing to Ahsoka's forearms both to keep steady and keep her near. ] Well, you caught me, you have to give me a kiss now - [ and mercifully enough, she presents her cheek to Ahsoka in expectation there for. Innocent, really. ]

[Whether or not Ahsoka had realized what completing the chase had meant, she seems startled by Angel's request. She wilts almost immediately, losing her sense of cockiness and confidence, orange cheeks going dark. Open mouthed stammering occurs while she looks over each shoulder, expecting someone to reprimand her. She had done the same in the presence of another, long before she had arrived in the station and with the Nest.

The gesture was innocent, it's impossible for her not to get the sense of Angel's request. Just a harmless game, they had said so before she ran, even through the strange haze of her broodmates' drinks. But what if someone got the wrong idea? What if--]

Angel--I--it's not that--

[It's not that I don't want to isn't said out loud, because that was almost as bad as committing to the charade. The mix of adrenaline from the run, the paranoia of wandering eyes, and the wicked urge to defy the Jedi once more all intermingle, sat firmly in her shoulders.

This time, she looks up at Angel for guidance (all while keeping her hold on her), rather than the other way around.]

[ It isn't what she's expecting. Ahsoka is always the sure one between them. Always stern and impassive towards so much that Angel battles with daily. ( she'll never forget how she'd held her up when Angel's legs wouldn't work, then - when the memories of her life had rendered her useless to the broiling emotions inside of her, Ahsoka had given her strength enough to face them ). ]

It's okay Ahsoka, you'll never have to do anything you don't want.

[ But that's the difference, she has no concept of that kind of restraint. In her blood is the roar of forgotten things, destruction, she's no finely controlled Jedi, nor the deep hatred of the Sith. She is cracked earth and everything that it means. Those rules don't apply to her, and that's it - it's about good or bad or what destroys or holds fast. It just is. People are people are people, good and bad. She is both, these days. No more deceitful or seeking to drag others down, no more building them up for anything other than the good of the hive. Just is, and that's all she has to be.

She leans forward then, her fingers curling around Ahsoka's forearm, her fingertips are always soft, though it's not from say - Ilde's purity. ]

Promise. [ and she leans in to brush her lips against Ahsoka's cheek. The touch of her mind is sticky and sweet with the alcohol. Honey like for how she trickles against her. Her lips as soft as her fingers where they hold her. Not forcefully. Ahsoka is stronger than she'll ever be, easy to be pulled away from. ] You'll have me no matter what.

[She almost blurts out again in an attempt to save face, but fourteen long years of conditioning with a slight gap in the two years she spent on active duty, has taught her to hold her tongue. But Ahsoka knows what's coming, in spite of what Angel tells her.

There's a long beat, where she wonders what will happen when the Force recognizes what is happening as she does. It doesn't occur to her, in that panicked moment, that nobody had ever suspected Anakin and Padme -- that nobody simply knew when the Code was being dishonored. And Angel's mental bliss momentarily sets still her rabbit-quick heart.

Her cheeks don't lighten, but she doesn't flinch when her lips come to her cheek. She lets go of a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. There's no abolishing the shy state she finds herself in so suddenly, hiding in the curl of her arms while she tries to digest -- everything.

Its nice, the buzz she feels from the alcohol, the warmth from another body so close, the genuine affection she had realized she'd been missing since Anakin had perished -- though its a different sort of affection, a line she can easily draw. In spite of her strength, she doesn't pull away. In spite of every neuron screaming in warning, she stays close, grip going too tight around the other woman's arm. The promise she tries to make, of always having her no matter what--its a promise that can't be kept.

Experience has taught her that, more than anything else.

But she's quick to realize her world doesn't crumble, in spite of how long it feels like Angel has left her lips there. No one has descended to scold her, no lightening has come to strike either of them for daring to defy the Jedi Code. Anakin had been right -- love was not all seeing enemy the Jedi had always warned them of, though she now understood what ruin it could bring if allowed too close.

So she relaxes a little in the pickle of honey and lavender, disappointed in her own reaction. There's no question of her calm, her delight, in spite of it being overshadowed by her own disappointment in herself. Surely, Angel must be disappointed as well. Not in the enjoyment of it -- but in her own strange fear that she can't put a name to. She doesn't deserve Angel's affection -- anyone's affection, for that matter.]

I'm sorry.

[Its quiet, but it feels like the right thing to say. Carefully, she reaches with one of her arms to pull a tightly wound ribbon from her waist -- a royal blue, like the tips of the stripes on her montrals -- to instead tie around Angel's wrist.]

[ She curls around her, about her. Her hair brushing against Ahsoka's cheek where she's drawn it up. Ahsoka's fingers around her to hold herself steady - she knows, it's hard. It's so hard to have affection when there's a lifetime of denial to consider. How much it hurts, not the misery, but the kindness, the sweetness, the brush that others take for granted. Feels it echoed back in the sweet drink-fuelled haze of her mind. Lets her linger softly and contently against her cheek until Ahsoka pulls away from her. A note in her mind that is: formless, it does not have words, it is only intention that in that one second, hums through her whole body and presses back into Ahsoka.

They're here, they're here, they're here and no one could take this from them.

Because it is such a want, to be touched, even just slightly. To feel that shiver of life from another person and have it -- all to yourself. Living, she hums, living is these sort of moments. Right in its transience, she was a siren, nothing but movement, both here and there, dying to be reborn and for this one second the drink makes clear to her: Ahsoka is her whole world.

But the real core of it, always, she knows, is choice. In the keen absence she'd always had. The fear is nothing but normal. The shudder of it that always curled in her limbs when Ilde had whispered it to her. ]

There's nothing to be sorry for. There never has to be anything else but this.

[ She holds her wrist still, as still as she can. Letting the blue set against her skin, complimenting to the veins of her skin where she is pale. ]

Not everything the Jedi preach is bad, you know. Balance...that's important.

[She recognizes the sensation that Angel presses back to her as another animal -- an animal she has felt before, through others in her brood. Through Anakin, and that dream he'd awoken out of a coma from. It doesn't belong to her, shouldn't belong to her, but the longer Angel stands so close, lingers near her cheek, the more she craves it.

The memory is long and old, from when she was a child, and everyone had been so proud of her.

The process of tying the ribbon is purposefully taken slow, a more intimate gesture born of Angel's thoughts intermingling with her own. To feel the slide of satin along skin, the power of a siren, the careful and strong hand of the Force, the sweet burn of alcohol -- finally, she lets loose a small giggle of both delight and embarrassment. Ahsoka closes the distance again when the knot pulls tight, headbutting her to return the affection with a flash of small fangs. This wasn't so bad -- she could get used to the idea of indulgence with enough encouragement.

And for a moment, she doesn't care that anyone might be watching as she laces their fingers together. Or maybe Angel doesn't care -- and Angel is the perfect height to allow her to press her lips carefully (shyly, uncertainty, nervously, quickly) to her cheek in return.]

Edited 2016-10-08 14:49 (UTC)

[ There's something of the feeling of ceremony to it, all binding between them. Likes it, she thinks. Feels right more exactly. Something quick and clever on her tongue, but the way Ahsoka leans in and kisses her cheek gently - stills it for a moment.

Her eyes lower, feels the shiver that comes from it eagerly. Where it curls warm through her, all the way down. Affection feels like the waterfalls tumbling down in the Highlands. Wearing at the earth, making a groove in the earth of her for others. It's not bad to be wanted and needed. Even if it was just for little things like this. The smile curls small and secret, eyes on their linked hands, and feels the giddiness eagerly. ]

Nah - [ she says after a moment. Light and flippant, Ahsoka might be a Jedi, might feel something for those orders that speak of restraint, and in another time, Angel might find counsel within Ahsoka's words relaying those teachings.

But, right now, Angel most certainly doesn't. ] - They're still boring.

[The shiver is hard to resist against and think past, but somehow she manages it with a small exhale. She had already allowed herself too much, had let curiosity take her for a ride. It was time to come back to reality.

Her lips pull back, a tingle in the nerves as she clears her throat and drops her eyes to their hands. She doesn't force Angel to let go yet, but there is a definite firmness in how she squeezes the other woman's fingers.]

Well, I guess one of us has to be.

[Delivered easy, with a kind lifting of her hand to press her lips to Angel's knuckles one last time in an almost apologetic manner before she removes any sense of touch entirely.]

Try not to get yourself in too much trouble, ok? It's a little early in the evening for a rescue mission.

[ She feels the brush of Ahsoka's lips, thinks of her pretty sharp teeth and sucks in a breath. Another time, maybe, when things are different. When there is not so much in both of them over this. ]

I would never. Besides, siren, remember? They'd be in trouble, not me. [ Giddy, really, she's learning to not be so shy of her abilities. Being free, so far as anything would be, after Jack, was doing wonders for her confidence. ]

Come on, I found something for you. [ She nods her head in the direction close by. ]

[That gets her to scoff. This hadn't been the thing she had wanted to show her? Whatever--this--was?]

Oh come on. You think I'm gonna fall for that twice?

[Ahsoka's one talent as a young Force sensitive had been her incredible empathic sense, and she recognizes Angel's thoughts for what they are. But since she doesn't know what to do with them, her thoughts on the matter go unvoiced.

Suspiciously, she glances in the direction Angel is nodding in.]

[ She gives her a grin, and a shrug. Like, oh - maybe. ]

Promise, really this time.

[ Because she had a goal in mind when she'd run, at least, and where she'd meant to take them is clear.

It's a vendor, and it's selling meat on a stick. Just like the first time they'd tried something together. Angel tugs, to leading her towards the line. ] Told you.

[In spite of herself, Ahsoka rolls her eyes gently at Angel's initial response. Without resistance, she allows herself to be tugged toward the line in the mean time, eyeballing the crowd with a half-smile.

She's still thinking about what she had just allowed herself (whether or not she should have, as well as how much she had enjoyed it), but she allows herself to be distracted by Angel's triumphant tone.]

Alright, you win this round.

[ She grins, wide and bright, flash of her own teeth for once as she brushes her thumb across the back of Ahsoka's - and happily she supposes they match in the oddness of the crowd enough that no one pays attention them. Ahsoka's... everything not quite human. A girl foot to chest covered in tattoos that's bare and showing through her thin loose-hanging clothes. It feels right though.

hers, she thinks. this is hers, and Jack can never take this off her and her head's so deliriously happy in the haze of drink and music and the feel of Ahsoka's lips on her cheek. ]

Of course. I'm sneaky.

Edited 2016-10-13 14:50 (UTC)

You are inebriated, is what you are.

[Of course, so is she, by proxy of her broodmates. With that thought, she rubs the side of her montrals -- she'll have to have a conversation with them about moderation at some point, if only for her own sanity. She can't imagine who in her brood might have gone to excess--

No, it was probably Nate, she realizes quite suddenly. Hux and Lexa were far too stiff spined for such things. And then it is pushed from her mind, in favor of taking two of the favors from the stand as they reach the front of the line, passing one to her companion.]

[ It hits Angel like a light, her eyes going wide as she takes the food and - ] Oh, is that was this is?

[ Huh, well, she had been throwing them back like no one's business, she supposed, so - it was only natural. ]

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PARTY PARTY PARTY

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