GP - dreaming of a black christmas

[lcrpg_npc]

The repurposed railway arches that housed Beagle's bar and restaurant were decked in shades of black: black christmas trees glittering with sparkly and satiny black ornaments, black wreaths with perfectly tied bows, black garlands draping along the walls and bar, ribbons edging the long banquet benches in the restaurant dining room. A gentle snow seemed to fall from the ceiling, a specially designed lighting effect much more pleasant than the cold and wet that would've accompanied real snow. Christmas music played over hidden speakers, setting the mood without interfering with conversation.

The Kraken Black Christmas feast was a different spin on the holiday than you'd find most places, and yet, a christmas feast all the same. All the flavors of the season were there, both in the bar's specialty cocktails and in the feast itself, served banquet-style to those fortunate enough to get tickets - mulled wine, egg nog, roasts and stuffing and puddings, and so much more. Yet the food and drinks all shared the same theme as the decor, shades of black augmented with squid ink, charcoal, or black sesame seeds.

Guests had been encouraged to continue the theme with black festive attire, but it wasn't required, and spots of color could be found here and there along the table or mingling in the bar. There was one thing everyone could agree on, though. No matter how black the theme, the mood was anything but dark.

Comments

[jageskro]

Jag didn't own a lot of black clothes at all. He liked earth colours better. So he'd borrowed clothes from Jake, since they were sensibly the same height. It meant the trousers were slightly too long, but the black henley shirt fit him well enough. Of course, the minute he'd seen Em in that dress, he'd felt woefully underdressed.

It didn't stop him from coming, of course. There was free food and drinks, and he could look at Em in that dress all night.

Right then, he was sipping a thematically black cocktail and wondering when the food would be served. "Is all the food really going to be black, too?" he asked the person next to him, wondering how that might work.

[akatawitch]

After talking to Em, naturally Jag had been Sunny's next stop to find out about this person her friend was seeing. She had a nagging sense that his face was familiar, but... well, she couldn't place it.

"That's my understanding, yeah. I suppose the point is take our attention off of visual to focus on other senses. Like one of those blindfolded dining experiences, except slightly less why the hell would you do that."

[jageskro]

"I don't know, I can sort of see why you'd do that," Jag answered. He wouldn't want to, personally, but... yeah, whatever. "The idea of black food sounds like the opposite to me, though. Like the visual will be seriously distracting from the flavour. I mean, it's all going to be black. Proper black, I'm guessing."

[akatawitch]

Sunny huffed a soft laugh at that. "Yeah, probably. There's studies about colors affecting how we taste things. Here's hoping black doesn't code as 'char' or something."

[jageskro]

"The cocktails are working out char-free, I've found?" Jag pronounced hopefully, raising his glass slightly to emphasise his meaning.

[akatawitch]

"That's true," Sunny allowed, saluting him with her own drink. She'd just hope the dye wasn't staining her teeth or anything.

"I'm Sunny, by the way. I'm a friend of Em's."

[jageskro]

"Oh, hi!" Jag smiled at her. "I'm Jag." Which she probably knew already.

[akatawitch]

Sunny smiled back. "It's nice to meet you. When did you guys upgrade from roommates?"

[jageskro]

It shouldn't be surprising that Em was telling people. But it felt all the more wrong that he still hadn't told Val. "A couple of months ago?"

[akatawitch]

Sunny's smile quirked into something apologetic. "I'm sorry if that's a bad question to ask, just she's so happy and it's really adorable."

[jageskro]

Jag shook his head. "No, no, it's fine. That's - that's really fucking amazing to know, actually," he said very genuinely.