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Contrary mother ********... She'd have grumbled if she thought it would have done her any good. Instead she sighed, rolled her eyes, and obliged in his request.

She had to give him some credit though. Insufferable douchebag though he was, he had managed to calm her down from seething to mildly annoyed.

"Let's just agree to disagree on the benefits of being thrown to the wolves early." Wolves being a metaphor for man-eating-slut-faced-hobags. Obviously.

"I know it must be really hard for you," Taym said distractedly, his eyes on the opening to the main ballroom, "to know that your friend's occupying your accustomed position of sucking strange face in a corner, but I'll have to take a rain check. I mean, thanks for the offer and all, but unlike your usual conquests, I come equipped with standards. Come and find me if you're empty handed at midnight, I'd hate for you to incur a year of bad luck. I might relax my requirements a little, if sufficiently moved by pity."

He settled the empty plate down on the table after a split second of considering shoving it into her hands, put his hands in his pockets, and gave her a winning, even, white-toothed grin before setting off.

[PUTTING HIM BACK INTO THE MAIN ROOM woo]

"Kat! My precious honey-bunch," Mark added in a few extra slathered on adjectives as he all but clung to his only lifeline, "I was just like, saying how um, how awesome you are and how we like have to leave like right now to do way more importanter things. Way, way more." Mark all but babbled this while slowly trying to drag her out of the dining area.

"Hang on," Sandy grabbed Mark's other hand, effectively grounding her twin. "What was this about favours again? I'm pretty sure you owe us something unless you want us to reveal your por-"

-"Okay okay! I got it. You guys are like bleeding me dry here." Mark grumbled and pulled out from his wallet a few hundred dollar bills giving Kostya, Jason and finally reluctantly Sandy two each. "There. Two weeks of labour and you could probably hire a small child on the island to like follow you around and sing your theme song and stuff, not that that thought ever crossed my mind. Can we please go now?" This was supposed to be addressed towards Kat.

The table nation of the ninjas of hidden Pikachu village were drawing straws over who got to colour each page of the Pokemon Pikachu and Friends colouring book. Allan waved a packet of crayons towards Robert and Ramona cheerfully, clearly colouring over the lines.

It puzzled Mimsy when his hand touched hers so quickly and held it there instead of moving it, which seemed to oppose much of her experience with similar responses. She didn't mind keeping it there if he really wanted her to, especially if it was of such an immediate importance that he had to hastily ensure that she did, but this was becoming incredibly confusing. This did not fit her idea of normal, sober behavior.

Her fingers twitched as she smiled at him with something between politeness and concern, occasionally glancing from his eyes to her hand pinned beneath his.

Maybe this was supposed to be a punishment (which was not working). Or a method of preventing her from ruining anything else. Or an odd new game that the children taught him. The possibilities were fairly endless at this point.

"Oh? Not everything?" she asked, listening to try and combine each new piece of information into a valid conclusion, pausing only to humbly make a correction. "Um. Only four. Not...not fourteen, I mean."

When it became evident that he was distracted, she trailed off with her freed hand still held out in front of her. She wasn't sure what sort of rule to follow to determine what to do with it, so she temporarily defaulted to nothing.

"Is something wrong? I am admittedly not well-versed in typical ballroom behavior, but you seem..."

She shrugged apologetically in favor of saying something questionable again.

A packet of crayons was enough to distract Ramona from the train wreck currently happening above the village, but not her father. She crawled under the table, snatched herself a crayon, and started looking for something to color on. She gave Allan a very serious, very adamant look, and whispered something of utter importance to him before she dove into her work.

"Adults are stupid."

Allan, clearly, did not count as an adult.

"Yeah." Robert muttered, watching his daughter traitorously abandon him in favor of some coloring books. "Something's wrong, and it ain't never gonna be right." He huffed out. "But that ain't nobody's fault but my own. So." Returning his gaze to Mimsy, he offered her a small, but favorable nod. "Like I said, you look real pretty in your dress today. And sorry I got the numbers wrong - I always get the numbers wrong. Actually," He laughed, self-deprecatingly - "Looks like I get everything wrong. Sorry for wasting your time."

The sound of a crayon snapping came from under the table, and Ramona's head popped out again, glaring daggers at her father. He pulled the tablecloth as far as he could, to hide her view, and put both of his elbows on the table. Then he plopped his face down in his hands, and guarded the table housing the village of abandoned children with absolute heartbreaking defeat.

With her hand still helplessly outstretched, Mimsy watched him sit with his head in his hands, expecting him to move again. He didn't.

Even if she couldn't definitively know what he was feeling, it looked like a feeling that she knew really well. That was not something that she wanted to make other people feel, especially not when her intentions were good; but good intentions only went so far, because she had. It was abundantly evident that she had caused this, in one long series of actions and reactions, beginning with the decision to selfishly disobey the rules and concluding with a visible indication that she had ruined Robert's night. Or life. Considering how far this might extend was absolutely terrifying, and she was the one who caused it.

Mimsy was never allowing herself to approach a meal cake-first ever again.

"Um," she timidly mumbled, clumsily trying to put her hand back on his cheek where he'd held it. This was no use. That piece didn't fit like it had before.

"Help." Her desperation made her request more of a plea, too selfish again, so she did her best to elaborate, rambling on in case something seemed to click. "I...um, help me know how to fix it. I know that 'never' might be a fair assessment based on all of your known options, but...because adding a new set of potential solutions gives you more chances, I thought...and if none of our options are correct, I will...I'll get more people to help until we find what makes it right again."

There was a badly-muffled sniffle before she continued, voice wavering in and out of states of panic.

"And numbers are not important all the time. And...nor are the degrees. I don't--I have a doctorate in neuroscience that felt like it would be the answer to everything but I can't even use it to--" Another sniffle. "And thanks for complimenting me. I...that was rude. To not thank you before, that was very...um. I am glad that you noticed, actually. I almost did not wear it. Or come at all. But Clerise, she helped me so much, she said that...oh no, oh, I'm so sorry, I destroyed my piece of you!"

She suddenly found that she no longer knew if she could continue to talk without being sick. This was so much worse than she ever could have imagined.

There was a ninja clan under the dessert table. Noah stacked various sugary things onto his plate, glanced around furtively, then slid a bowl of jello cubes under the tablecloth. Whether these were meant as treats or as ammunition was unclear.

He wandered back to sit with Corbin, smiling innocently.