Aelius's mood changed instantly when the near white headed blonde made his presence known. Icy and tense Aelius was none-too-impressed that Ren had decided to find Waru. Sure, Ren was technically Waru’s husband but that didn't mean the cocky, riched brat deserved Waru. In fact, Aelius would have been happy if Ren made himself scarce in both Faustite and Warus lives.
Waru, of course, was open and warm towards Ren. Which in turn, forced Aelius to reel in all of his thoughts about the rich boy.
“No introductions needed.“ He remarked with an obviously forced tone. “Not sure if Ren remembers, but we've met before when I was with Eion at the Wrestling match you took part in, Waru.”
He paused a moment then turned to the waiter and ordered 2 shots. One for himself and one for Waru. He had no idea what was in a poinsettia but he was going to drink it.
“I got myself, thanks.” He said to Ren as the young man mentioned getting him in on the drinks.
Aelius turned his full attention to Waru then, leaning towards the man just close enough to not quite be touching. “After drinks, do you want to go hit the dance floor?” He grinned. “See if you can keep up?” Stamina was something Aelius never doubted the man possessed. But, it would maybe be a way to pry Waru away from that annoying hand that now clung and traced the tattoos on his arm.
Sanaa considered Laike's question, her gaze still fixed on the mesmerizing jellyfish. "I'm not sure, to be honest. But considering the creativity and artistry behind everything else in Biolumina, I wouldn't be surprised if there's more to these mechanical creatures than meets the eye," she replied thoughtfully.
“I am so sorry or being so rude. I am Sanaa.”
Sanaa looked around the room. “I am going to check out the rest of the club. It was so nice to meet you.”
Sanaa turned to head towards the lounge area, leaving Laike standing by the jellyfish tank. As she weaved through the crowd, the vibrant lights and energetic music enveloped her once more, contrasting with the tranquility she had felt in the aquarium room.
Sanaa made her way to the lounge.
The lounge was a stark contrast to the serene atmosphere of the aquarium room. The pulsating lights illuminated the dance floor where guests moved with infectious energy. The music throbbed through the air, and laughter mixed with the clinking of glasses created a symphony of revelry.
Kailynne Stryder (Corrupt Super Meissa) Location: Dance Floor Rolls: 9
For a moment Kailynne could only stop and stare at the interior of the new club Biolumina. Her eyes widened with appreciation before she found herself checking to make sure that the little starfish pin was securely fastened to outfit for the evening: it was. Perhaps her accessorizing had gone over the top, just a little, but she truly had fallen in love with the dress when she had seen it. To complete the look she had on a simple pair of black flats that made moving around on the various surfaces of the club much more manageable. Spotting Morgan in the crowd Kailynne bit back the laugh that wanted to erupt before stepping onto the floor proper.
It hadn't taken much convincing for Kailynne to show up for the evening. She wasn't stupid. An extra $400 bonus for at least simply socializing wasn't a bad gig. Toss in the fact that food and drinks were on the house for all those that were in the know and it was downright going to be a fun night.
Sidling up next to Morgan Kailynne couldn't help but attempt to startle her roomie. She gently tugged at Morgan's hair before simply standing on tiptoe to whisper, "Boo!" into the right ear of her friend.
Activating her second glow stick Kailynne simply glanced out over the crowd on the floor before giving a shy smile to Morgan, "glad I decided to come after all. This place is incredible."
Baz Lemarchand (Corrupt Ilmari of Chastity) Location: Lounge (at the bar). Dice Roll: 8, 10, 6.
“Exactly. Hence the reason for the drink,” Baz agreed, holding up his club soda and grapefruit juice. “For not getting made, I mean.”
Everlee had rather swooped in out of nowhere, but that was okay. Either she hadn’t intended anything by it, or she had and the purpose was teaching Baz to stay on his toes in delicate situations (which sounded like an important lesson to internalize, to Baz, who had made any hypothetical lesson from Everlee up in his own head).
“Do you want anything while we’re here,” he asked, adjusting his position so that he more directly face Everlee. All the better to avoid the temptation of getting distracted by the Ravishing Blond (Lovely), the Hot Bartender Who Was Very Possibly A General-Sovereign (Jet), and Ms. Asher, with her Instagram-worthy drink. “I can’t say for Aelius or the other guy over there with them, but at least Waru is more likely to ignore us if we both have drinks. Gives us more of an opportunity to do the job.”
Without waiting for an answer, Baz flagged down one of the bartenders who didn’t seem likely to be a General-Sovereign in disguise. If Everlee didn’t want anything, he’d get himself some water.
lizbot
Spy senpai is so cool, Baz hopes to make her proud! emotion_kirakira
“I think this one might have missed the memo about being soothing,” Preston said dryly, still eyeing the little fish that was somewhat like a seahorse but not entirely there, but too close to the appearance of a seahorse for his liking. “Not certain what sex it belongs too at the moment? But I don’t know if that was on its creator’s mind, either.”
It might have been, for all Preston knew. But watching the strange little thing move in the tank, he felt it more likely that the creator had primarily focused on making the creature look like a seahorse. Perhaps they had focused on that too much, and it might not have hurt anything, had they spared more thought for the sex of this particular fake seahorse.
That being said, the girl raised a good point (albeit indirectly): the creatures being mechanical likely meant that the seahorse’s sex didn’t matter.
She made her exit for somewhere else soon after, but another good point had come out of her having done so. Probably unintentional on her part, since Preston didn’t know her and she could not be expected to know that a Captain who probably served under a different General from herself struggled at reaching out to other people in the Negaverse. It took Preston a moment to breathe deeply and steady himself—and to silently remind himself of the experiences at previous academic conferences when he hadn’t introduced himself to people and had gotten on the nerves of everyone with whom he’d attended said conferences—but he extended a hand toward the boy with the cat.
“Preston,” he said, his introduction coming out tersely because he could only think of things related to Negaverse business to say (a dangerous prospect when more people were filtering into the aquarium hallway and several of them didn’t have the starfish badges). And now, he……probably needed to give the boy with the Mauvian on his shoulders room to feel, like, listened to or something? People tended to enjoy that, right? Keeping his voice low, lest one of the potential victims heard, Preston said, “The creatures seem drawn to the glowsticks. Seems curious, don’t you think?”
It was probably a miracle that Sable didn’t openly sigh in relief when Emmett joined her. “Thanks, Emmett,” she told him with a smile. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
On the one hand, she could absolutely take care of herself, but it didn’t hurt to have backup in the form of a friend and colleague. Doubly helpful, Emmett was a man and thus, his presence might keep other guys from hitting on Sable when she preferred they didn’t. The last thing she needed to hear tonight was some kind of “You say that you a lesbian. Girl, me too” garbage.
On the other hand, intrigue seemed to be brewing at the bar, between the two guys down a ways from Sable (Ren and Aelius) vying for the attentions of a third (Waru), the increasingly tipsy blonde who seemed to feel extremely Over It about everyone (Lovely), and the woman with the Instagram-worthy drink (Emilia). The last one wasn’t actually doing anything wrong on her own. But sometimes, people out at clubs could be extremely weird about other people posting to Instagram or TikTok or wherever.
If anything wound up going sideways, having someone to watch the drama with would be better than watching alone. Or, if things really got hairy, somebody to escape with.
“What kind of drinks do you like,” Sable asked, slightly swishing her chilled champagne glass, which contained about half of her New Orleans-style French 75. “The bar has practically everything, and the bartenders know their way around plenty of recipes.”
They’d even had somebody who’d understood that replacing the gin in a French 75 with cognac didn’t make an entirely new drink, it just made the French Quarter version of said drink.
Half his drink was gone. Samir really didn’t want to chug it but he wasn’t sure what the policy was on taking drinks out of the lounge and he didn’t want to cause any trouble.
He was still looking at his phone when the second set of messages came through.
There was Jacob.
‘I’ll be right there,’ he said, knowing that he didn’t need to clarify that it was practically impossible that they were talking about different Samirs, not when Marissa was already texting him.
And Jacob had run into one of his brothers? He looked at the drink and sighed before chugging it. Before he’d finished, he had another message from Marissa and nearly laughed, but because he was already on his way out he didn't text her, too.
He thanked the bartender and pulled himself from the chair, gliding between people.
It was a short trip, and he already knew what Jacob was wearing so it was easy to find the group.
“Hey,” he greeted, smiling at the three of them. He smiled at Jacob, gave Marissa a quick half hug. “I didn’t expect for all of us to bump into each other tonight, I hope you're all having fun.”
January was the only one he didn’t know, but he had no intention of staying a stranger. He smiled and held out a hand in introduction. “And you must be January? I'm Samir, nice to meet you.”
When she’d signed up to help out at the opening, Canary had half expected to be told to keep to the shadows and be sneaky. Instead, she’d been given a darling pin told to keep it on or else and given leave to go out and shmooze amongst the unpinned public. All she had to do was be herself and make sure that the special little glowsticks were moving.
Getting herself a drink, Canary held a small court within the lounge, pulling people in and cooing over their clothes, their hair or their makeup. It was so easy to snap up the graying glowsticks and replace them with fresh ones, all in the name of having a good time.
Smiling, she moved through the crowd, determined to make her way into as many sections of the club as possible. She was in her element and determined to shine.
"Ren, is it? I'm Waruhiu--but you can just call me yours." Waru stifled a laugh, buried what he knew would've been loud beneath a bitten bottom lip. He thought it was sweet, a harmless game, a play at getting t'know each other all over again. The way Ren complimented him over nothing --- over everything. It made him wonder if the 'good taste' the silver-haired-fox thought he actually had lay more in the people he chose to surround himself with, rather than the drinks he'd picked. Waru took it, nonetheless, good naturedly, with a grin.
"N'Sure, s'real good taste---" an almost teasing purr, the way he settled in, let his focus fix n flicker between the two men closest to him "For a group of college girls lookn' t'get sloshed realll quick at d**k's Dive. I did backroom prep-work there once for like -- allluv' five minutes?" He remembered how the place was practically invisible, how the hood n grill up front seemed to catch fire like a yearly event. The place was a hideaway dive--- and yet? It had copper-topped tables, champagne walls. Seemed to go on forever in spite of looking so small out front. The front bar and the back rooms were nothing alike, and the kitchen?
"N'of allll the champagne n' juices mixes? Cranberry was always the best." Waru shrugged, caught himself before he ran on rambling endlessly. The green tea shot was just an appetizer in his mind. A 'wake-up-call' for the mouth. Something quick, easy to down, n which he'd never seen a place get wrong yet. The things could be made cheaply, with top shelf s**t. He'd found it didn't matter, they'd always tasted the same to him no matter the quality of ingredients in 'em.
Waru watched with an amused *blink* as two shots appeared before him, and then another: the appetizer. Flexing lightly under Ren's covetous, warm touch. A bit like a friendly, neighborhood hound who didn't care where it's scritches came from. If Ren had truly been a stranger? Waru might've accepted the pleasant cloying all the same.
Aelius was a record scratch reminder that he was in a crowd, the stiffness he felt beneath the brush of fingertips he'd run over the other man, leaving him wondering if he should snatch'em back before he lost them. But he told himself he was braver than that! "Oh? You have---" and he winced for Aelius tone, a memory he wouldn't soon forget, and offered the man a smaller smile paired with a hopeful sort of look. "Awfh--yeah, but...Heh, y'never know, right? Maybe he's got sudden amnesia! Maybe we're jus' playin ---- for fun ----" smiles for miles as he pulled on his endless well of optimism, and threw energy into the words. A low, half-laugh. "N'this? Ren. This is Aelius -- just in case you two haven't actually met before and it's...like...a fresh start."
He hedged with a shrug, swallowed burning hope in the flavor of irish whiskey sour, peach schnapps, n sprite. Was about to reach for the second shot when he felt Aelius close enough to be in his ear -- to feel his heat -- to wish he'd just....
Close the gap.
"With the drinks, or with the dancing?"
Was that a challenge!? Another blink, a sharper look, eager, pleased, wanting. Because Waru loved a challenge -- a game -- 'life' being his most favorite one of all.
Discreetly tossing a small bundle of used glowsticks into the designated bin, Canary paused in the Aquarium Hallway to admire the scenery. Really, it was worth the admiration. It was beautiful. The cats and their helpers had outdone themselves! In fact, if she hadn’t been working, Canary would have been perfectly happy to sit in here for the rest of the night and simply watching everything.
Alas! She was working though and spotted a tiny cluster of club-goers nearby. Tripping over, she was all smiles and laughter and compliments.
“Oh, honey, that dress is just divine! You guys are just too damn cute! Love it!”
As she passed through, she tucked new glowsticks into pockets, carefully lifting old ones in the process. For some people, all she had to do was shove a stick into their face and offer to take and toss the old so they could keep gawking.
Wanting a quiet moment, Canary took the opportunity to duck into the bathroom. Not that a club bathroom was going to be quiet, necessarily. But it would be quieter and she could touch up her own hair and makeup. Taking a tissue and dabbing at her face, Canary was only half paying attention to the other women around her. Some were definitely looking a little worn around the edges. And, well, good! It meant the glowsticks were working a treat.
And speaking of, she waited for the herd to thin out slightly before making sure that there weren’t any gray glowsticks in the trash. Satisfied, she washed her hands and dried them before fluffing up her hair and straightening her starfish pin.
The music drew Canary out to the dance floor. She’d thought originally to avoid it in favor of being a little more hands on, but she could deny herself no longer. Besides, she could dance and still do her job. And unlike college, no one here would be trying to stuff dollar bills into her pants. So, wins all around there.
Giving herself up to the music, Canary danced, thoroughly enjoying herself. But even as she danced, she was keeping her eyes open for anyone who might need a new glowstick. Since everyone else out on the floor with her would likely be feeling extra happy and into the aesthetic, it was easy enough to take the old and give out more of the new.
She did find herself wondering how much energy they were harvesting tonight. She hoped the numbers were completely insane.
Moving to the edge of the floor to catch her breath, Canary couldn’t help grinning. As far as assignments went, this was so much fun! She was being paid to dance and party and earning (she hoped!) brownie points at the same time. She did wonder how the other volunteers were doing and could only hope that everyone was doing well. Much as she hated sharing credit, the sheer size and scope of this operation would need so many people to make it viable.
It would just be better for everyone if they all could succeed tonight. She could always go back to being completely mercenary in the morning.
Breath caught, Canary smiled as an invitation to dance was extended and let her new partner whisk her out onto the floor. And if she playfully lifted his worn out glowstick and swapped it for a nice, new shiny one, well. She was just being friendly and making sure that he had fun!
Perhaps there was something of a nerve pinched, or a stick placed somewhere that had never seen the light of day.
Did Ren care? Not particularly. Not when it was Heliodor’s fault that Faustite could have died. And yet, how easy it was for betrayal to be forgiven and forgotten, apparently. How fast it was to shift from being the liability of Team Liability. How long would it take for Waru to have to babysit a grown man because he was incapable of doing anything without suspicion?
Probably why he missed all the signs of the game. Just like he’s missed the signs (or signals) for the ambush.
“Sorry, I think I’d recognize such a cute, childlike face,” Ren flashed a cheerful smile at Aelius. “Are you sure you’re old enough to drink? You look so young! Like a toddler!” he laughed warmly, before turning back to Waru.
“What a beautiful name. Waruhiu. Rolls off the tongue with such ease and grace, yet it demands respect -- majesty in the sound. I can think of other things that could roll off the tongue easily as well,” he hummed with suggestive amusement.
Ren picked up his shot to throw back, doing his best not to visibly judge the lower quality content, when he had better options at his home. The drinks themselves weren’t bad, so he would have to keep them in mind for what ingredients to add to his own collection.
“Dancing sounds fun. I’d really like to dance with you, Waruhiu. We could probably make some space for Aelius to join us. Really, are you sure you didn’t draw that stamp on your hand yourself?” he laughed again. He didn’t get spooked away from what he wanted so easily.
Shiningamisgirl
Waru
Kolina
Aelius
Guine
Crew
Lonely Explorer
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Kolina rolled 1 10-sided dice:
1Total: 1 (1-10)
Kolina
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Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2024 1:00 pm
Mauvian Magnus Location: Aquarium Hallway Dice Roll: 8, 1
Magnus caught on to Laike’s little display as he spoke to the girl off to the side. Magnus was forced to stretch himself a bit around Laike’s head to see the person properly. Unlike Laike, Magnus spotted the small, denoting pin and relaxed against the boy’s shoulders again. “Ah. One of those games you like to play.” His knowledge of video games was….almost nothing. He just knew Laike liked them because he’d seen him play one before and he’d mentioned enjoying them.
“Hm…”He purred softly in thought. “I am honestly not sure if they do. I wasn’t involved with them. It owuld be smart if they did. They’re very mesmerizing to watch after all.” And at that point, Magnus was now curious enough about it that he made a mental note to find out. Surely if they hadn’t been designed that way, they couldn’t be tweaked to drain energy. It would be easier than passing out glow sticks. “I think the biggest problem would be making sure they have a way to offload any energy they take without having to be removed from the exhibit to do so.” Again he was careful to keep his voice low, leaving it to Laike to share with the other girl. Better to be safe in this situation. Magnus certainly didn’t want to be the reason why the club drew unwanted attention.
