An Early Mardi Gras

[bayoublues]

[That was certainly...an ordeal, alright. These trials just kept getting worse and worse as time went on. Within the span of twenty-four hours, six more people died. Four of them had been friends. And Lekmet, he--he thought--

Never mind that. Everyone else was probably hurting just as bad as he was. Last week, Kim had told Louis that he shouldn't be alone while he was sad--that sympathy probably extended to everyone else. He had to do something to help. The dead deserved a decent send off.

Well, except maybe Negaduck. But that's different.

After the trial, Louis seems to have disappeared back into his room. After a few hours, though, a messy, handwritten note is shoved under everyone's door.]



(EARLY) MARDI GRAS PARTY
-JAZZ
-DRINKS AND FOOD
-FUN AND FRIENDS
[He neglected to put the location down on the invite, but one can follow the sound of Louis's trumpet into the dining room. The place has been draped with colorful, half-finished banners--gold, purple, and green. Further down the table, a few bottles of alcohol and fruit juice have been neatly lined up next to a stack of paper cups. There's also a pasta bar set up, with individual bowls of spaghetti, pasta sauce, and Parmesan cheese. Hardly Mardi Gras food, but it's the only thing Louis knows how to make. At least there's also a plate of beignets.

Standing at the back of the room is Louis, playing trumpet like his life depends on it. His repertoire for tonight? The songs he's heard while watching humans parade through New Orleans on Mardi Gras. Songs about being carefree, about forgetting your worries, about enjoying life while it lasts.

Louis doesn't seem particularly interested in talking right now. He's not going to let people mope tonight. They deserved a good fucking party after everything, dammit, and they were going to get one.]

Comments

[kickbuttseatnuts]

[Okay, so, Allene has to admit, she hides in her room after that mess. That was a disaster. They lost five people and an evil double and then she got exposed as an evil double. I mean, sure, she's no Negaduck but. She's still kinda terrified.

Eventually though, after she briefly sneaks off to the artists studio to make some... adjustments to one of her casual shirts. Which brings to her arriving at the party with a shirt labelled I'M NOT SQUIRREL GIRL in big white letters. Its an inside joke.]

Who's ready to jazz and food, cuz Allene's ready to party!!!!

her room

[astronomics]

[ Jyn is just gonna... after giving her a little time alone, she's gonna knock on the door. ]

Allene?

[doopdoll]

Wait. No party yet. [Look, Molly's a little pissed. First off, none of you helped her kick Hades' ass, and while she won't admit it, she was maybe a little too scared to do it on her own. Secondly, what is this shirt.]

[lovelylilmouse]

[Yeah, she's having a terrible time. You can find Minnie in her room following the trial - it's not surprising if Minnie was one of the first to leave the trial room as soon as it ended. She wasn't able to find a whole lot of evidence when the bodies were discovered, and on top of feeling completely worthless to the trial, she had to witness someone die to the dip- and although she didn't really care that it was Negaduck, it's still something she didn't want to ever be thinking about.

So, she's a mess!

However, when she receives the invitation to yet another party, she hesitates a little bit before she decides to go. She follows the sound of Louis' trumpet to the dining room, and finds herself taking a seat down at the closest chair she could grab. She's still out of it, very clearly thinking of everything that had just happened, but she can't help but to listen to the music with a small smile on her face. At least that seemed to be cheering her up a little bit.]

Her room

[kickbuttseatnuts]

[Allene is worried about a lot of things, but right now she's focused on a lovely little friend of hers. Which she supposes she'll start with a small knock on the door.]

Hello? You in there?

[athleticallyinclined]

[ So this brush with death just happened and Gaston is still freaked out. He hasn't said a word since the trial, and is acting nothing like his usual spirited irrepressible obnoxious self. Instead, he walks into the dining room and without a word goes for the booze. He picks up a whole bottle for himself and immediately takes it over to the corner, where he slumps into a chair and starts drinking heavily. ]

[holdthetrumpet]

[Hey guess who else has the idea to drink heavily? This guy, who saw his best friend here get dismembered in the worst possible way and slowly bleed out. He settles next to Gaston (though all he's got is a cup, not a bottle), takes a sip, and makes a face.

He's... he doesn't drink a lot.]

This had better be worth it.

[angelgoatdemon]

[Well.

He's pretty shaken right now and probably can't look anyone in the eye. What he does well is cooking, and he's about to serve duck. So much duck. Peking duck, roast duck, duck soup, etc. For a tall goat guy he's hard to spot in the Dining room, if anyone glances at him for too long, he'll make a run for it.

Everything's pretty awkward now that a misvote nearly killed everyone. It should've just been him and Negaduck among the six. So he's feeling...survivors guilt? or some kind of weird twisted remorse and--

Oh would you look at that! Time to head up to the medical room to change his bandages.

He hopes you enjoy your meal!]

dining room

[bayoublues]

[There's the audible crack of a trumpet note, punctuating Lekmet's entrance. Louis continues to play, albeit with increased tempo and a few glances towards the goat's direction.

Once he finishes this particular song, he hesitates. It takes him a few moments to muster up the courage to carefully start making his way over to the goat.]

You--You doin' alright, man?

Dining Room

[sorrydoods]

[When Soos sees Lekmet, he'll have many mixed feelings, and he's unsure what he wants to do. Part of him wants to punch him. Another wants to scream at him. A third part wants to do both.

Instead, he goes with the final part, and hugs him from behind]

[scrapplinghook]

[They may not have talked much since the first week, but Mabel always liked the funny goat guy. So when she pokes her head into the dining room, when he spots her and tries to escape, she spraks up. ]

Hey, you don't gotta run away!

medical room

[hasit]

[You're not escaping a Mom Lecture that easily, Lekmet.

Leia takes awhile to surface, because she just had to watch someone very dear to her be dismembered and she's pretty sure that image is never going to leave her, but when she does, the first person she seeks out is the goat. She's got some serious talking-to to do, and even though she knows he's likely already learned his lesson, well. She's a General. This is her job.

She pokes her head into the medical room in her search, and is grimly satisfied to see she's managed to track him down.]

Lekmet, I shouldn't have to tell you this, but you put all of us into grave danger tonight. [She leans against the doorway.] Can I trust that you're not going to pull another stunt like that?

[faciliheir]

[you know what. Freddie is a VK. a villain kid. that means she's half villain and half [truck horn]. that means she can do whatever she wants.

so that means FUCK legality. FUCK the fact that she doesn't even like it. that bottle of rum is now HERS and HER FRAYED NERVES'.

how the fuck do you even drink this shit. how did the Hooks do it? just fucking pop the bottle and swig it down--]

Yeeccch! [... okay maybe the second will be-- NOPE JUST AS BAD AS THE FIRST.]

[notasingleword]

Maybe take it easy Freddie. It's not worth it.

[She tries to ease it away from her girlfriend...]

[upgradeit]

You wanna put that down and play dolls with me?

[He holds up two Oswald dolls, because Marco's talking to Saba and he's trying to give him space or something which has resulted in this.]

We don't actually have to, I just got these last week and didn't have a chance to give them to you.

[doopdoll]

[Don't mind Molly, she's just sitting in a corner, seething after the trial. She's too lonely to sulk off to her room, but she's mad at pretty much everyone here. She's aggressively slurping spaghetti noodles, drinking copious amounts of fruit juice, and making faces at people across the room.

Basically, she's being the world's biggest child right now.]

[sorrydoods]

[Well, what else is a child supposed to be? An adult? This adult can barely adult, so why should they expect so much of her?]

Hey Molly. Are...are yo-...

...that's a stupid question, isn't it? The answer is probably no.

So...are you feeling better at all?

[The answer is probably still no, but it's better than the original, right?]

[upgradeit]

[. . . makes a face back at her. He's also a Very Mature Boy.]

[hasit]

[Normally Leia wouldn't be in the mood for dealing with childish antics, right now. She's not. But Molly...she hasn't stopped to think how hard this must be on the poor kid right now, and she happens to catch a stank face from across the room, so with a resigned sigh, she gets up and goes to sit nearby, her bottle of rum coming with her, naturally.]

Someone used to tell me that if I made too many faces, my face would freeze that way.

[nachosquire]

[He said he couldn't watch her execution and he absolutely meant it.

Up until Hades showed up, Marco had spent the time sitting on the floor in front of his pedestal, singing Love Sentence songs to himself with his head covered with his hoodie as he tried to block out Kim's screams, her sobs. The floor next to him opening up to send Negaduck down to his death only made him scoot close to Hiro's side, singing louder even as the shadows came and then it all just.. stopped. He managed to keep his cool when talking to Hades, and he kept it while going to Kim's room to take Saba but the moment he returned to his own room with the sword he.. broke down.

He sobbed to Saba, telling him about how Kim had killed four of their friends without even realizing it and that he heard her screaming and sobbing so frightfully. Of course, the sword didn't take the news in well at all so.. honestly Marco skips the party this time. To console Saba, and himself.

Though his door is open, and anyone walking by can see Marco just laying on his bed, curled up with the sword hugged (carefully) to his chest as the two of them moped silently together over Kim's death.]

[astronomics]

[ Jyn's... not in the highest of spirits, it's hard to be after something like everything today chose to be, but. She wants to help those who aren't used to war crimes and public executions and such first!

So when she sees Marco she... politely knocks on the doorframe. ]

Marco?

[upgradeit]

[Hiro doesn't even bother knocking, because he has two plates of spaghetti. Is he a mom friend? No, but he is an aggressive problem solver to avoid his own problems and right now he has so many problems to avoid.]

Marco, Louis made spaghetti and you're gonna eat it.

[hasit]

[Hey so you know who's having a really bad time? If you guessed Leia, you're right. The girl that she'd started to view like a daughter is dead, and her execution was somehow worse than Jane's, if such a thing is possible. She hadn't had to watch Jane cry and scream, limbless on the floor, for what had felt like hours.

She needs a drink. Everyone else seems to be turning to the bar for comfort, so fuck it. Leia's a human being, too, leader or not. She finds a bottle of Alderaanian rum nestled in the back of the rows of bottles, and that feels highly appropriate right now, so she pilfers it, and then goes downstairs and sets herself up at a table, head cradled in her hands. There are so many things she wishes she'd said to Kim before she'd died, and now they're all bubbling to the surface in a horrible mishmash that even the rum can't help subside.

If you've got an idea for a distraction, now would be a good time before she drinks herself into a stupor.]

[stanbyme]

[You were looking for a distraction?

He pulls up a chair next to her, and automatically puts his arm around her shoulders.]

I got an idea, sugarbunny, you wanna hear it?

[stanbyme]

[Well now that that horrific incident of terror is over. Stan's not much in a partying mood, and while oblivion sure sounds good the instinct to keep his wits about him is stronger than the pull to fall off the wagon.

So he goes and gets a soda from the fridge, and nabs a beignet, sitting at a table and picking at it until there's sugar all over the table.

Alright so sue him, maybe he's not in the best mood right now.]

[For Mabel]

[Stan seeks his niece out eventually, after she's had a chance to recover from. All of that. At least Louis knows how to throw a party.]

Hey Pumpkin, you got a sec?