Gathering Post

[londoncallingmods]

The best thing about London was that there was always something to do, no matter what your interests were. This weekend there was a jazz festival in Bloomsbury, an ale festival that would take you through a drunken train tour of the city, an African culture festival near Covent Garden, and several movie screenings, parties, and other pockets of fun.

Tourists were flooding in from all over, and many Londoners were slipping off to, or coming back from, their latest trips to Barcelona, Paris, or Ibiza. The weather was warm, and it had been fairly dry and sunny lately- Really, it was the perfect place to be right now. ...At least that's what anyone who wasn't heading off to some tropical wonderland would tell you at least.

As day faded into evening, bars came alive and shop windows lit up, inviting in tourists and locals alike. The city buzzed well into the night, calming only briefly in the morning, before bursting back into life again.

(Have your pup be anywhere in the city you like. This GP is intended to take place over the course of Sat and Sun, but will be open all week long! Remember to add your pup's tag after you tag in!)

Comments

[hollow_moon]

"Sadly it wasn't that sort of rough night," Val chuckled, rolling his shoulders a bit, and slumping lower in his seat as he stretched his legs out with a sigh.

[codenamemilady]

"What a shame. I do hope it was a one-off, then." He wouldn't make bad scenery on a better morning, she thought.

"Although, if you're sick, perhaps you should see someone, instead of ordering pastries you haven't the stomach to eat." Milady broke off a second bite, delicately each flake of pastry and fleck of cream from her fingers after she ate it.

[hollow_moon]

"It's less a sickness, more of a condition. It flares up now and then is all," Val shrugged, flashing his most charming smile. "Nothing contagious though, I promise."

[codenamemilady]

"That's good to hear." Milady leisurely continued to break off pieces of the sweet to eat as they chatted, not intentionally trying to be seductive about it, although someone would have been excused for believing it was.

"I would've hated to believe you were the kind of man who'd give his pastry to someone while contagious."

[hollow_moon]

Val chuckled softly, not subtle about the way he admired her while she ate. On a better day he'd have been flirting up a storm- As it was, unfortunately, he was slightly off his game. Though the charm was still there, he hoped.

"Are you off somewhere wonderful then?" Val asked curiously. "My miserable condition dooms me to a day of sulking and napping I imagine, but you look bright eyed and bushy tailed, my dear. Go on, indulge me, let me live vicariously through you- Off shopping perhaps? Out with friends for brunch and gossip?"

[codenamemilady]

"No plans." Milady leaned back easily in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. "Just whatever fancy strikes at the time. It is such a nice day, I thought to take a walk and see where things go from there."

She smiled, not exactly sweetly. "It's served me well so far."

[hollow_moon]

"Oh? You enjoy the company of haggard looking men that much?" Val quipped playfully, leaning back in his chair and stretching his aching legs out with a sigh..

[codenamemilady]

Milady tilted her head as though considering, although it was hard to tell if the subject was his question or the line of his body. "It's not nearly as enjoyable as if I were the one who'd left him so haggard. But I got a bite and not unpleasant conversation out of the arrangement."

[hollow_moon]

"And I got the company of a beautiful woman," Val smiled.

[codenamemilady]

That earned him a cat-with-cream smile. Milady always enjoyed compliments.

"Far better than a breakfast you weren't going to eat regardless."

[hollow_moon]

"How very true, my dear," he laughed. "And now that lovely breakfast hasn't gone to waste- An added bonus."

[codenamemilady]

"Clarice. Winters," she added. "I feel like Clarice is much friendlier, though. Mister...?"

[hollow_moon]

"Valentine Collingwood- Though most just call me Val," he smiled.

[codenamemilady]

"Val." Of course Milady would immediately opt for the familiar form. "You don't look like a saint to me. Unless that's wishful thinking on my part."

[hollow_moon]

"Well, I do quite a bit of charity work these days... But no, I'm not exactly the saintly sort," he chuckled, shaking his head a little.

[codenamemilady]

Milady had no interest in charity - offering or accepting - but people with names like Collingwood who talked about doing a bit of charity work, well, they could be interesting.

"Good. Self-righteousness is so boring, and sins more fun than virtues. Some of them at least."

[hollow_moon]

"I suppose, though to equate charity with self-righteousness is a bit cynical," he countered, smiling and shaking his head slightly. "I'll take a virtuous optimist over a sinning cynic any day, no matter how much more 'fun' one might be. I wasted far too much of my life being a cynic and a pessimist. It only caused me to miss out on fascinating things and people I believed were beneath me, or wrongly assumed were naive and witless."

[codenamemilady]

Milady had meant the self-righteousness of saints, or would-be ones, but she'd no more explain her thinking than she would admit her own opinions of the naive, witless, or otherwise beneath her. It wasn't being a cynic; it was having an eye for what, and who, could better her own life, and what else mattered?

"Oh, I'm no cynic. I'm a sybarite, who doesn't like to miss out on anything."