station72 | 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[When Lexa falls into place just beside Bellamy, a number of people around their age are ready to scatter, leaving behind a deck of playing cards. While the cards themselves are familiar in their shape and consistency, the pictures on them are different, and are clearly indicating some kind of game that's only a part of this world. Lexa's seen playing cards before: of the many things found in the various bomb shelters around rural Virginia, they are and have been the most common. Her people don't know the purpose of them, but they've collected them just the same, certain that they would someday find a purpose. (Lexa is more aware of that purpose now with all of her reading. Many of the other commanders and citizens in Polis never bothered.)

When the people scatter, clearly off to dance with one another, her eyes point up toward Bellamy's face.]

How do you play? [She's certain he had been taught the rules, and some part of her is curious—even if it's all but obvious that she's taking care not to get too swept away by the festivities.]

[ Bellamy doesn't verbally acknowledge Lexa, but there's a cursory brush of his mind against hers as he finishes the last of his conversation. The deck is left in his care, and he shuffles it idly as he watches the beribboned group disperse into the throng of people. There's a very faint, wistful sense of envy, but he doesn't get up to follow after them. He's never been a part of any celebration in quite this way before. His limbs are loose and his face flushed with drink, but his hands are sure as he fans the cards out on the table in front of them. ]

Quickly. [ Bellamy responds, flashing a smile at her, before he amends. ] It's simple.

[ It's not the same as playing quarters with bolts and washers, but it was just as easy to catch on to. Apparently that was a trait that transcended worlds. ]

I'll flip over a card, and you guess whether the next card I flip is lower or higher than this one. If you're wrong, you drink.

[Her mind moves swiftly. First, she considers the composition of the deck, then the game itself, and decides not to ask to see the cards more closely. She trusts that Bellamy won't play the game in a way that leads to her making poor decisions this evening—and her trust comes easily to her these days, at least when it comes to him.]

Simple enough. Do we pass it back and forth?

Yes. It's just the two of us, otherwise we'd pass it around the circle.

[ He can see her assessing, and assumes that least part of her calculations has to do with how much she might end up drinking while she plays this game. Bellamy places the deck on the table between them. ]

Do you want me to get you a drink?

[ It's a little bit like how he'd talked to Clarke once. The princess is worn into the tone, lingering at the end of the sentence. Charm had come easily to Bellamy once, before it had been drowned out in blood and death and guilt. ]

[After a beat, her eyebrows raise upward at the change of tone, one that she hasn't been privy to around him. She hadn't been around the radio when Raven had been manning it, so what charm and grace he carried with his people had never been present around her. Before they sent him in, she recalled his tight jaw and uneasy glances, and her last interaction with him had involved him bursting into her throne room, thoroughly tricked by the Ice Nation as he walked into what he believed was the scene of a crime that Lexa would never be stupid enough to commit.

Her features relax soon after, no longer giving Bellamy the same amount of scrutiny as before.]

Go ahead, [she speaks, and there's a sense of lingering curiosity over this Bellamy, one that has muted enough of his hatred to allow himself to be the man underneath. What if the one he projects these days isn't who he really is?

Then again, some might ask the same of Lexa. That's a question that she could scarcely answer herself.]

[ For a night, maybe he can forget. Or if not forget, ignore. It gives him enough room to pick up the vestiges of easy charm. Being swept up in the crowd, warmed through with alcohol, it puts a certain amount of distance between himself and the burden of guilt he walks around with daily. The festival offers a fair amount of distractions, between the alcohol on offer and the myriad of people stealing kisses. It's enough, for a single night. It's who he used to be. But it's not possible to maintain this level of frivolity in the light of day.

When he returns, it's with the same beverage he's drinking. Bellamy offers it to her without commenting on the gesture or her scrutiny. ]

I'll flip the first card?

[ It's unnecessary to remind her to sip slowly. Lexa doesn't want to drink to excess, and she won't. Bellamy's not worried for her. ]

I can take it easy on you.

[ Because that'll diffuse any competitive instincts between the two of them. ]

I'll learn nothing that way. [That is why the Commander trains with the novitiates. While the Flamekeeper does guide most of those lessons himself, Lexa had always seen a value in fighting alongside the people she would one day have to kill. It's a dark, morbid thought, but one seeped in reality. Her reality. It's the same reality that touches on her people's way of life.]

I'll come to see the probability that I'm wrong. But still. Go ahead. [When she finishes speaking, she brings her cup to her lips to take her first sip. She has drank elsewhere this evening, but she has been cautious there and will be cautious here.]

[ There's no point where her dedication lapses, Bellamy's discovering. He keeps waiting for the break, something to mirror the moment Clarke had dropped her guard and dissolved into laughter, balancing a washer on her nose. But it doesn't come even here, but Bellamy can't help himself looking for it.

He sips from his own cup out of turn as his hand drops to the deck to flip the first card. Five of clubs. ]

Alright. Higher or lower?

[ Maybe he could get her to laugh. That seems like a reasonable goal, or maybe Bellamy's just overly optimistic after having spent the night drinking and kissing his way through the festivities. ]

[Ah, laughter. Does Lexa ever laugh? That is a mystery to everyone. There is the sense that she isn't opposed to the festivities around her, but guessing whether she knows how to laugh might be one of the universe's greatest mysteries.

(Multiple universes?)]

Higher.

[Her eyes are intent, long fingers patiently wrapped around her drink as she waits to see if she has guessed correctly.]

PARTY PARTY PARTY

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