( open ) I'll wear your colors til you come back home to me

[dothelokimotion]

Who: Everyone!
What: Masquerade Ball
When: 17th of October
Where: The Opherium
Content Warnings: N/A

[ Much like Loki's last party-venture, this is set up very much in the same vein. a large ballroom for dancing needs. Tables and waiters passing around hors d'oeuvres and drinks. At the entrance of the ball room, there’s a fancy mask waiting for you if you don’t have one already. There’s a strict dress code for the event this time and Loki expects everyone to dress accordingly.

The masks also have a spell attached to them. They’ll afford you complete privacy. No one will recognize you under the mask. Unless, of course, you take it off and let them know. Perfect for the party guest who may want to indulge without causing a fuss. Hit up a partner and see where the evening takes you.

This event wouldn’t be complete without candy, of course. There are candies arranged on the tables in all types and colors. In front of them is a small description regarding each kind of candy. Be sure to read them carefully, as Loki has added a little . . . extra to the sweets, to give them a little . . . zing. ]

🍫 White Chocolate: For those who needs a little honesty ( truth effect )

🍷 Alcoholic Chocolate: For those who need to loosen up ( slight aphro effects, please mark headers accordingly and communicate! )

🍬 Sour Candy: For those who are tired of being nice ( shorter tempers )

🍓 Fruit Candy: For those who need to open up ( increased generosity )

If you have a question or comment to direct at the host, Loki is by the entrance dressed in red and gold with a mask to boot. he’s instantly recognizable, compared to the masked attendees. ]

Welcome.

Comments

[badbutsadboy]

[Oh, Titan, he's in trouble. He'd expected this to just be fun, not... not...]

[Thrilling.]

[(And it's all his own fault for starting it in the first place.) The intensity of it's throwing him a little. Logically, he knows this is a normal thing teens do. Or at least they do it in the books he's read.]

[They dance. They flirt. They feel things. Like all kinds of things because of crushes and friendships. Because there's room for things other than duty.]

[In a way, it hurts just as much as it feels good. His devotion to his uncle and fear of failing him had been all-consuming. Not just because failure was sometimes punished, but because who wants to show someone they love, someone that took them in, ingratitude? Who wants to fail enough to be cast aside, forgotten, relegated to un-importance? Serving Belos had been far more than a full-time job. (He's read that some humans have more days off than one day a year!!!) Belos had also just taken up so much space in his head that there wasn't room for anything else.]

[In the end, it hadn't even been that Belos' love was conditional, he just...hadn't been loved at all.]

[It feels nice to fill all that empty space with normal feelings, like putting up the very first picture on the empty walls of a new room that's all your own.]

[Even if it's just one special moment on one special night, it feels so much better to be the center of someone else's world the same time they're the center of yours. To be looked at with something other than indifference and disapproving disdain.]

[It feels like it'd felt getting dunked with apple blood by the team after winning at flyer derby, or fighting side by side with Willow, or developing his special handshake with Gus.]

[Just...a lot more tingly in the stomach. And flushy in the face.]

[With Dylan's head tucked in close he can't see Hunter's half-lidded eyes and soft expression as he tries to think of something to say back.]

[But the music...stops. The party is ending. Hunter looks into the building and sees that people are starting to disperse, moving slowly towards the secluded little paths they'd taken in to pick up the masks. He draws away enough to look at Dylan.]

Sorry. Looks like we don't have all night.

[codicies]

Yeah. I guess not.

[ Dylan deflates a little, then smiles sheepishly. ]

M-maybe it's for the best. I was... kind of getting carried away there.

[ To say the least. His heart's still pounding and his stomach's still twisting, and he really doesn't want this to end. It's really hard to hide the disappointment in his voice when he speaks. ]

I, um... [ He blushes a little, the red flush on his cheeks peeking out from under the mask ] Don't suppose we could hang out again?

We don't have to, you know, be super fancy like this masquerade.

Unless you want to!

[badbutsadboy]

[Oh no.]

[Oh no.]

[ABORT MISSION.]

[He vastly miscalculated here. He thought it'd be fun and nice and that he could tell Dylan later that it was him and it could just be a little fun thing they did and Dylan could laugh about it being someone he already knows. They could think it was fun they'd sort of play-acted at being mutually dashing, like out of a story.]

[But if he's getting carried away, he's feeling something, and if he wants to hang out outside of this he thinks Hunter's actually charming or something. Like...for real. Not just for fun. And that is an absolutely incorrect thing to think.]

[Hunter has at times had to be confident and unflappable. That confidence had sometimes had to be a sneering confidence, due to backstabbing being the primary past-time in the upper ranks of the Emperor's coven.]

[But confident's not the same thing as suave.]

[For some reason, trying for the confidence, minus the condescension, has actually charmed him, but since he had to throw away the Golden Guard persona, he's never been even close to charming without the mask. It's a stretch to even manage confident, especially since he'd been terrified when facing Belos.]

[He'd tricked him into thinking he could be like this outside of here. By accident, but still. And if he admits it now, Dylan will feel deceived and it'll explode a growing friendship and send it right to the depths of the boiling sea.]

[He needs an exit strategy.]

[And he doesn't want it to be something that tarnishes the...the feeling that'd been there. Maybe it's selfish but he doesn't want to remember this as a time he wound up mortified at the end by his own social awkwardness. And if Dylan did feel charmed and delighted, he deserves to have felt that way - even if it's kind of fake and not something Hunter'd ever be able to keep up.]

[He deserves to not feel rejected. If he disappears, it has to be a part of the moment.]

[He tactically withdraws. They were still holding hands and Hunter's hand is very loose in his glove, so it slips off when he steps back, still in Dylan's hand. He doesn't ask for it back or try to grab it again.]

Maybe.

[He shrugs as he walks backward, off the balcony into the building again.]

If you want to hang out, I guess you'll just have to find me first.

[And then he bolts and doesn't even consider how cool he's about to look, because this is just... it's just movement. He does this all the time if it feels necessary, because his way of compensating for a lack of magic during his witch's duels was making himself terribly hard to hit with anything. Speed and agility meant everything if everyone else had to keep drawing circles in the air and aiming things at him.]

[To bypass people walking down stairs that lead to the greater ballroom, he jumps up, runs along the railing, straight up skidding down the steepest part attached to the stairs, then kicks off, grabbing a curtain and using it to slow his fall as he slips down to an even lower level.]

[He lands on steady feet and looks back up.]

[There are now two levels and a whole crowd of people Dylan would have to shove past to beat him to the place where they have to give back the masks, so he can try to see Hunter's face.]

[He gives him one last little sassy wave with the hand that lost a glove. It feels like the thing someone would do in one of the books he's read. Dylan might get the sense there's some kind of mark - maybe a birth mark? - on his right wrist, but not what it is.]

[The next part he says more out of imitation of his Golden Guard attitude than out of attempt to look cool. It's audible even with him being that far down.]

BYEEEE!

[Then he disappears into the crowd, racing to give back the mask, and then slipping away from the theater as fast as he can.]

[codicies]

[ Dylan watches in awe as his dance partner begins to parkour away from him, and steps back inside just in time to lean over the banister and watch him make his dramatic exit.

"Maybe," he had said. ]

I guess that's a no.

[ It's fine. Really, it's fine.

It's not fine this really hurts.

He's used to people getting bored and ditching him. He smiles despite himself, closing his eyes and hugging the glove close to his chest. It'll be a nice memory to look back on, at least. He has that much. ]