eliotwaugh | Say When (A New Year's Brunch)

Current Location: Candlewood 9C

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brunch

Say When (A New Year's Brunch)

Eliot had been warned by various people that New Year's often brings some kind of supernatural mischief to Darrow, and this news had only made him more determined to stick to his plan. No power of god or man or eldritch entity place-spirit or army of fish people will prevent him from throwing a damn party.

It made sense, really, and part of him wishes he'd done something like this before now. He needn't frame it as a sort of surrender to this imprisonment, but rather just indulging in something frivolous because, as far as his understanding of the metaphysics goes, none of this really counts. So why shouldn't he enjoy it? He's been here long enough to decorate the apartment some, and it really is a marvel the amount of things available through Nile. There's more comfortable furniture, potted plants, and a series of apothecary cabinets and display cases for magical components that give the whole place the air of some eccentric explorer's gallery of curiosities.

He's even managed to get enough appliances that the little kitchen is decently functional, and has spent a few days stocking up and preparing for what he hopes will a successful brunch. He has enough eggs to feed an army. There will be copious crepes. There will be mimosas for days.

Eliot's used to working through a wicked hangover this time of year, so he built that into consideration in his prep time. Thanks to the night's adventure, though, he spends his downtime sober and scrubbing mer-blood off of himself, and still feels a bit frazzled by the time the first guests arrive.

[It's time for brunch! Brunch is a state of mind, not an actual timeframe, so please feel free to have your pups show up whenever in the day, honestly. Tag in, tag around, chase the memory of merman horror away with a mimosa, air your grievances and dirty laundry in the neutral ground of Eliot's apartment. This is a safe space. For Drama.]

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In keeping with last year, this New Year's had been gods-curst ridiculous. She shouldn't complain, really; the mermen were so slow that they weren't able to do much harm (unless you count whatever injuries folk suffered while stampeding away from them). But the downside to them being so slow was that she didn't have the time or strength to bear down on them all for as long as it would've taken them to get back into the sea, so she'd mostly been stuck halting their mischief at the last moment, or getting them turned around in the hopes that it would slow them up further.

It'd been a long night, and she's glad that attending Eliot's brunch only requires her to make herself presentable and climb up a few floors of her own building — and that it's timed such that she can slip inside a little before noon without feeling as if she's either too early or too late. She didn't want to show up empty-handed, so she's brought a few jugs of juice that she figures folk'll either use as mixers or just drink straight (depending on what kind of evenings they'd had).

She acquires a mimosa and a plate of crepes, and plunks herself down into the nearest empty chair.

"Glad you could make it." Eliot grins and pulls out another bottle of bubbly to set on the counter with the juice. "I hope you didn't have too much trouble last night, with all the...things." He gestures vaguely and frowns as a thought occurs to him. "Do you think they count as animals? did you get a sense of like, malicious intent behind the whole beach landing? Because if they were just acting out of instinct, because they were hungry or whatever...I have some regrets, in that case."

He's not exactly looking for absolution, it's not as if Daine is the Animal Pope, but Eliot would like to get some kind of perspective on exactly how immoral his fish-stabbing adventures were.

"Ugh," Daine says with feeling, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. "They were nasty, weren't they? Didn't feel quite like animals, though. More like immortals, 'specially the part-animal ones, like spidrens or stormwings. Itchy." She gestures vaguely to her own head for emphasis. She hadn't been able to speak with them, but she could feel the general mood of the things easily enough, and it hadn't been very pleasant. Much like spidrens and stormwings, they'd seemed to enjoy the prospect of causing a little misery. "You needn't feel bad for killing them, anyhow. They were out to make trouble."

"You didn't get bit, did you?" she asks, eyebrows rising. "If you get bit, you turn into one." That isn't true at all, and her solemn expression lasts about two seconds before it collapses into a snort, and she takes another sip of her drink. "Well, no. I s'pose if you got bit, you'd just have to live with the embarrassment of being caught by one of 'em."

He tries to keep a straight face at the way Daine's ominous pronouncement deteriorates, he really does, but Eliot can't help a bit of a giggle. "Ugh, that'd be shameful," he agrees, still laughing a little. "Either way really, being a were-fish or just knowing you slipped up that badly. Still, came away with my pride intact and..." he considers the events of the previous night, how it honestly felt good to be out being heroic again.

"You know at least it happened now, in the winter? They smelled godawful but imagine if it'd been in the summer." He shudders dramatically. "Reminds me of this giant...snapping turtle we had to deal with, that was high summer and he stank like nothing else. Good old Prince of Mud."

Daine isn't entirely sure her pride is intact, if only because it's gods-curst frustrating to face off against dumb, slow creatures she ought to have been able to handle, and find herself overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. But she's unhurt, and she knows she managed to do some good.

She hadn't even thought about how much worse the smell would have been in summer, and she wrinkles her nose with a good-natured groan. "Horse Lords, that would've been awful." Her mood makes an abrupt shift when the giant snapping turtle comes up, though.

"The Prince of Mud?" she repeats, plainly delighted. "What was the trouble with him?"

"Oh it was a huge ordeal." Eliot slouches in his chair, frowning at the memory of it. "We were on a, you know, quest to save the world from decaying and falling apart, extremely serious business, and Janet and I-" He pauses a moment, trying to think of a way to describe Janet that doesn't come off as deeply uncharitable to an outside perspective.

"She's one of my co-regents, the most formidable woman I'd ever met, perpetual bad mood but I don't hold that against her. You'd hate her. Anyway. She thought we should ask this ancient turtle fellow what he might know about where we ought to go to fix the damn dying world problem, because he's been around a long time, immortal being and whatnot, all sorts of things end up in the swampland and he probably knows a great deal. So we go to see him, and he does know where we need to go, but for that information, and passage through his swamp, he wanted to eat our horses. Obviously unacceptable."

"The cold-blooded creatures do tend to be a bit... single-minded," Daine allows with a lopsided, sympathetic grin. It's not that they can't be clever or engaging, more that they've often got less energy, and devote more of it to finding food or a mate or whatever it is they're after. Wanting to be paid in horse meat does sound like something an enormous turtle would ask for, at any rate.

"But I suppose the rest of the quest would've been miserable on foot. What did you end up giving him, instead?"

Daisy recognizes her in that way that she knows she's seen her before, but they've never properly met. Now seems as good a time as any to change that, so she makes her way over to a neighboring chair and offers the girl an up-nod.

"Alright?"

Daine's seen the woman around the building before, and it doesn't really surprise her that Eliot's made friends with her. He's good at that — far better than Daine is, really, and she offers the woman a faintly uncertain smile in response to the greeting.

"Better now than last night," she says, figuring that's probably true of about everyone. Her smile fades and her gaze sharpens as she feels a faint... she's not quite sure what, a something, a distant pang of familiarity that makes her think of Rattail and the rest of the Long Lake Pack. She wonders suddenly if this woman is like Biffy and Lyall, but she doesn't look with her magic quite yet. It'd feel like prying.

"I'm Daine," she says instead. "How d'you know Eliot?"

"Daisy," she answers, pretending she doesn't notice the sharp, studying look she's getting. "We almost had it out in the street. Misunderstanding, but he's... good." She looks over at the girl — Daine — and offers her another nod. "You live in the building. That how you know him?"

Daine's eyebrows creep towards her hairline at that. She has a hard time imagining Eliot brawling in the street, not because he isn't a fighter, but because he's so well-mannered that she figures he'd find a way to talk the other person out of it. Maybe that's what happened with Daisy; it isn't entirely fair, but Daine finds it easier to believe that she's the one who started it.

"Helped save him from the landlord," she offers with a slight lift of her glass. "He was trying to get back inside with too much shopping, and of course Peter had to come snooping when he heard us."

"But he is good," she agrees, looking over to where he's chatting with one of the other guests. "It's nice of him to throw a little to-do like this. Usually it's a big party, or nothing." And while the big parties have their place, she's more comfortable in smaller gatherings like this.

"Mm, any larger and I wouldn't be here," she admits. "Not a fan of crowds." It's an understatement, and she has a feeling the girl knows it. She's been watching Daisy with a discerning eye since before they'd started talking.

Maybe she'll ask John about her. Or Martin. Martin probably knows her sooner than John. Of the three of them, he's the friendliest, the most approachable. She's trying, sure, but... She's not like Martin.

Daine snorts softly. It's a preference she well understands, and not just because she shares it. The crowd was one of the main reasons last night was such a gods-curst mess. Folk tend to act more sensibly in smaller numbers, but when you put loads of them together, you're more liable to end up with a panic.

"Were you in any of the crowds last night?" she asks, her smile turning wry. "It was fair ridiculous, really. Could've been less harm done all around if folk had stayed calm."

There's definitely some judgment in her tone, but not as much as there could be. There's often a bit of ridiculousness to the threats Darrow cooks up, but it being silly doesn't make it safe. She can't blame folk for wanting to get away from the beach and the creatures in a hurry; she just wishes they'd at least used their eyes and their good sense a bit more.

"People don't stay calm," Daisy says with a shrug. It'd been a pity the creatures were so damned slow, actually. She would've liked to have seen—

No, she wouldn't.

"Especially in numbers," she continues. "A sort of herd mentality sets in, doesn't it? The more panic people sense, the more they panic, and it feeds the rest."

Daisy's not wrong, but Daine still wrinkles her nose at the assessment. "Except I can reason with a herd," she grumbles. Or, if nothing else, stop a stampede in its tracks. Two-leggers aren't half so biddable.

Belatedly realizing that what she just said won't make a bit of sense to someone who's only just met her, she adds, "I can talk to animals. It's magic." She can give a more in-depth explanation if Daisy wants one, but for now, she just raises her glass in a tired little toast and takes a gulp.

Daisy should probably be surprised, but she's not. She offers a little chin-raise, sort of a nod. With everything she's seen and experienced since meeting Jonathan Sims, finding out that someone can talk to animals feels rather... par for the course. But then a thought occurs to her, and she realizes she can actually ask, instead of just stewing on it.

"I wonder if a herd of panicked cows is more sensible than a herd of panicked humans," she says.

The nod is a little surprising, but not unpleasantly so. Daine's used to having to say more, to explain herself properly, or at least deal with more outright shock or wonder. A nod of acknowledgement — fellowship, even, though when she peers at Daisy with her magic, she doesn't see anything to suggest she's a fellow mage — is sort of nice, by comparison. Makes things feel simpler.

The question Daisy does level at her ends up being a tricky one, though, and Daine cants her head in consideration. "I don't know if sensible is the right word," she allows. "But I could at least stop a herd of panicked cows, so long as it wasn't too large. Getting two-leggers to mind me is a lot harder."

That changes her understanding of what Daine's said so far. Daisy looks at her, a bit appraisingly, then says, "Ah."

And promptly winces, because Christ, she sounds like John.

"I didn't realize it was that sort of magic," she explains. "Suppose I should've asked that, first."

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Say When (A New Year's Brunch)

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