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

[wandandawolf]

Power called to power. Or he sniffed it out, or something. There was something...not quite there about the bloke Remus had been watching, and he wasn't the usual scent of the wizards he knew, all carved wands and dusty power, or the sharp hot-metal sting in his nostrils he'd learned to associated with the Cabalines. No, this was something different.

So of course Remus made a bee-line right for it, and eased himself onto the stool next to the other man. "You want a different drink?" he gestured, pulling out his wallet. "That one doesn't seem much to your liking." Understanding better than most the desire to hang back and be a wallflower, he smiled: "C'mon, it's a party. You're doing fine and you look a treat." If his eyes briefly glinted gold, well, that just had to be a trick of the light, didn't it.

[faizel]

"Hmm? Oh, no, the drink is... It's fine," Faizel assured the other man, fussing with his jacket a little and then pushing his long hair back out of his face.

He could sense something about the other man, something familiar, but he brushed it off as nerves as he sighed and looked around the room.

"This just isn't my sort of thing, I suppose. My ticket was a gift though, and I don't want to seem ungrateful."

[wandandawolf]

"Ah." Remus looked around at the crowd, then back at the other man. He didn't exactly seem to be setting the guests on fire (metaphorically speaking), but the night was still young. "You could always have the one drink and scarper. I tend to escape to a good book and a pot of tea half way through most of these things. Have you any friends who might be showing later on?"

[faizel]

Faizel didn't have many friends at all, let alone ones who might turn up here. Still, he didn't want to say so, and he offered a weak smile as he shrugged one shoulder and sipped his drink.

"It's not something I'm counting on, no," he said honestly. "Part of me acknowledges I should be social though, and that's enough to compel me to stay for now. ...Who knows, perhaps by the end of the night I'll have made a new friend, and events like this won't be such a burden on my time."

[wandandawolf]

"You might have already," Remus told him, twinkle in his eye, and toasted him with his glass. "Cheers," he said, before reaching across to extend his hand. "I'm Remus. Here's to us wallflowers."

[faizel]

"Faizel," he replied with a polite bow of his head, before taking the offered hand. "A pleasure to meet you."

[wandandawolf]

Remus shook his hand, his smile turning a touch conspiratorial, even as he leaned forward a little. "Indeed. Night is young and all that." He reached for some bar nuts, and offered Faizel the little bowl before he took a small handful himself. "...So what would you rather be doing, if you weren't here?" he asked, swivelling a little on his stool so he could watch the crowd as well.

[faizel]

"Reading, most likely. I was reading all about, erm, a rare plant and its potential healing properties before I came out," Faizel said, carefully dancing around the magic parts of the topic.

[wandandawolf]

"Sounds fascinating," Remus mused, and meant it. "Any current uses? I work as an archivist," he explained, "and there's always some medieval manuscript with something medicinal we seem to have lost." The Department of Mysteries was sort of like an archive, anyway. It was definitely one of his smaller lies.

[faizel]

Faizel seemed to hesitate, then smiled awkwardly. "Oh, um, I'm not sure. I haven't finished reading yet."

He needed to get away from the topic of magic herbs, and he clumsily changed the topic. "The menu tonight is curious, isn't it? A monochrome feast isn't something you see often."

[wandandawolf]

Remus caught that hesitation, and that awkward smile. He didn't say anything of course, merely filed it away.

"Can't recall one myself. I s'pose people want to do something memorable for the season. Otherwise it's just...family and the usual cold cuts, for most. For me, anyway." When his family were still alive. "What about you? Do you have family in London?"

[faizel]

"Oh, no. It's just me, I'm afraid," Faizel smiled, shaking his head. "And my family never celebrated Christmas. At school it was an excuse to stay behind and have the library mostly to myself," he added with a fond smile as he thought back at the most pleasant part of his school years.

[wandandawolf]

"I went to one of those schools too," Remus murmured, with a fond smile of his own. "My family took me when they could over the winter break, but more often than not, I ended up staying at school." Easier to avoid the questions of the neighbours, that way. Easier to just go to the Shack like any other month. Visiting James-and-Sirius, on those few rare occasions, required adherence to a strict schedule. "Used to explore the Library and end up in the common room with the hearth going and a big book to read."

His mother had coped the worse in having her son away for Christmas, but she was safer at home. "Mum sent me decorations in the post, and I'd make my own little tree." That was the closest he'd gotten to a family Christmas for those seven years.

[faizel]

"That's lovely, truly. ...My mother has never been terribly interested in the holidays, nor was my father ever terribly inclined to celebrate. It was all a bit too- Well, outside their small sphere of interests."

[wandandawolf]

"No siblings?" Remus wondered. He didn't seem like the sort who had siblings: typically they would have been mentioned by now. "Cousins in town? Pet dog?" Faizel's life seemed content, just rather lonely. Remus got lonely, knew it down to his bones. Always seemed a shame for others and less so for him.

[faizel]

"No, nothing like that. I do have a few friends here though. I've become quite close with the guardians of one of the students I was tutoring, Finlay and Will. Their ward, Winter, is a friend, of sorts, from back home. Oh, and through them I met my dear Sunny," he added, gaze drifting over the room before settling on her. She was currently speaking with someone he didn't know, and looking as beautiful as ever.

"We ran into one another tonight by happy chance," he said, gesturing over at her.

[wandandawolf]

"Oh? What's your specialty subject, then?" Remus sounded like he was asking the bloke what he'd do as a Mastermind contestant. (He'd caught the new series on the telly. It wasn't the same.)

Still, Remus always felt a kinship with tutors and teachers: he'd taught a few students whose names James had chucked his way, back in the day, and well, he'd sort of ended up a teacher. A version of him, anyway. Sometimes thinking too much about it felt like stepping on his own grave. In his own time, he'd never gotten too close to any of the students he tutored: that way led possible discovery, but he wasn't a prude about socialising with students or keeping strict boundaries or anything. It would have been nice to make friends.

Following the other man's gaze, Remus' own face brightened in a pleased grin: "Oh, Sunny! I know her! We seem to bump into each other a fair amount. It's lovely to meet another of her friends." And he knew Felix as well, but Felix wasn't the sort of person he would blather on about.