thespherelogs | (no subject)

Who: Everyone!
What: November open log
When: November
Where: The Merchant Dome/The Pools
Warnings: NA
Notes: NA

Holiday mingle log

It’s the most wonderful (welcome) time of the year

Christmas is coming earlier and earlier every year, which isn't a surprise but hey they're starting the Christmas/Winter stuff the week before thanksgiving. Because why not. this month’s party takes place in the Merchant dome. But it’s not the everyday appearance of the merchant dome. No, for the next five days the Merchant dome’s appearance has been altered to look like a sort of Bavarian Christmas Market. There are small clusters of tables every so often, so people can just sit and chat and eat and drink.

Some enterprising person has even managed to make it snow through some unknown means. It’s not cold, but the snow is soft and steady and slowly building up.

The entire dome, all of the streets and all of the merchant stalls are practically glowing with white fairy lights that are strung everywhere. Vendors in their stalls gleefully cry out to paterons passing by, offering them free food or drinks. The food consists of the sort of things that one might expect to find in a place like this: sausages on buns and on sticks, pretzels, pizza, loads of cookies of every variety that one could think of, including elaborately decorated gingerbread, chocolates, fruits, french fries. Think winter fair food, and be as absurd and as complicated and extra as you want. It is a fair, after all. Go nuts. Drinks are also along the same line: hot cider, mulled wine, hot buttered rum, hot chocolate both with booze and without, as well as all the normal things: water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, and a variety of fruit juices that you’ve both heard of and not.

But food isn’t the only free thing that people are giving away! They’re also offering characters hats and gloves and scarves, small toys, books, delicate ornaments, perfumes, wine… it’s a giant welcome party after all, and these people are cheerful and happy. Even offering to pay just gets met with laughter and being told not to worry about it.

Fun and frivolity.

There are even carnival rides set up! A medium sized ferris wheel, a carousel, a giant slide and ice skating ring are all along the outside of the stalls.

At the far end of the dome, the snow has fallen deeper and held to several inches. Wouldn’t you know it just happens to be perfect snowball snow! So, there of course needs to be a snowball fight! What did you think those free mittens and gloves and scarves are for after all? The snowball fight can be organized into teams, or one on one depending on the player’s choice. This is a friendly fight, of course, so no rocks or slush balls or anything. Well, probably not. No one in the Sphere is your mother.

So you want some summer?.

While the welcome party rages on in the merchant dome, people have made a smaller party in one of the recreation domes. Around the pools, as a matter of fact. There’s almost like a small barbecue clustered around the largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks. Loud music is playing from a local band that’s just generally of a pop sort. There’s people dancing rather in a rather haphazard fashion, but the dance floor is there and present!

Oh yeah, and there's definitely the baths and everything too!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Enis didn't have much of an interest in 'fun' but she has to walk between her room and the mechanic shop, which means she has to pass by most of the loud november event. She scoffs, "It isn't the time of year for this." But her words are barely mumbled beneath her breath. As grumpy as she is, she wasn't going to ruin anyone elses fun.

It was heading to the shop that she stopped and stared at the Carousel.

That can't be Tommy…. but it is.

Enis just stares at him as he circles around the carousel before stepping close enough to stand alongside the ride. There is a fence around it but she jumps it, like the rebel she is. No one seems to notice or don't want to say anything to her after her role played in the last month.

She then hops onto the spinning platform and walks up to Tommy's horse, grabbing the fake bit to keep herself steady. "Is this really fun for you?" The ride was almost over but this was important to ask and worth jumping a fence for.

Wow Enis, he saw you coming a mile away. He grins as he leans forward over the horse and shakes his head at her.

"Is it a problem if it is?"

"No put I'm curious." She waved a hand at the setting that circled around them with the carousel. "I haven't been into this kind of thing and you stand out on that horse."

"I never did this before in my life," he admits, smiling to himself. "I like this. I like getting new experiences."

Enis looked around at the carousel and then back to Tommy. "Is it more fun sitting on the horse?" She didn't see the appeal from where she was standing but she was also just standing next to him, her hand out stretched to keep her balance.

"Yeah, the horse goes up and down," Tommy agrees with a grin. "The benches just, you know, bench."

"Is bench a verb now?" She grinned. "Alright. Ride again with me." She moved around him as the ride came to a stop and hoisted herself onto the horse next to his.

"I mean, yes, it always was, when referring to lifting," Tommy points out.

But the fact that she's doing it too makes him smile.

"Wow, who is adventurous now?"

"You know I like trying new things." They had made a day of it once though that had been months ago.

"Besides, I have nothing else to do." Enis shrugged and was obviously trying to play this off as something that she didn't want to do. Even so, when the carousal started up again, she released a surprised bark of laughter as butterflies fluttered in her stomach.

It was embarrassing...

They had, and it had been a lot of fun. Really, Tommy missed this place being peaceful enough for them to hang out.

But he grins when she's laughing, because yeah, that's what it's like.

"I'm guessing you never got to do this shit as a kid either."

Enis shook her head, leaning forward on her horse as if she was interested in what might come next. It suddenly didn't matter that they were going in a circle.

"No. I grew up in a room that was more like a cell. I wasn't allowed to go outside." She was legally dead and her father had to keep up that image. "I've never done anything like this. I've watched videos but it isn't really the same, is it?" She's finding that a lot of things from the internet aren't the same when experienced directly.

"I remember," He says, they've had this talk before. Not so deep, though. And it makes him sad anyway.

"I got to see kids on these in parks. My parents wouldn't let me, of course. Not worth the money."

Enis just shrugged in response. It was sad but it was over and there was no turning back time.

"Are park's usually expensive? Everything here always seems to be free." It was really weird.

"In the world there are tokens or stuff like that. People have to pay for it," he says, sighing.

Enis looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. "Is that a roundabout way of saying yes?"

"I mean, no. Sometimes they're not in special parks. They're just in PARKS. And then it's like a buck or something. It's not expensive. But..."

But his folks had been stingy.

Enis inclined her head in a quick nod. "I get it." She was could understand Tommy's childhood. It was, at times, very similar to her own.

"I don't hate this." Which was the way she said that she liked something.

Yeah, she does. And he respects that. And he grins at the way she says that.

"Yeah. I don't either."

"Cool." The ride continued with only the carousal music playing over head. Enis tried to hide her smile but it was obvious that she was enjoying herself.

It was only when the ride was over that she hopped down from the plastic horse and spoke. "I'm glad I jumped the fence." She was also surprised no one yelled at her for it. Security here was lacking.

When it stops this time, even Tommy gets down.

"Yeah," he agrees with a smile. "We both deserved it."

Enis snorts. "Yeah. Sure." She might have helped with the chaos a few weeks back but she didn't think she deserved fun or happiness. It was for that reason that she went out of her way to not enjoy things.

"Time to get back to work."

"Need a lift back to the place?" Tommy offers, holding a hand out to her.

Her eyebrow raises. "You mean the shop?" She considered his hand and then took it with a small smirk. "Alright, yeah. Let's go."

He smiles and winks, and in a rush of blurred vision, there they are, outside of the shop, Enis in Tommy's arms for a moment before he puts the woman down.

"There we go."

Enis readied herself for the blur of movement but it still took her a second to regain her center of gravity once they arrived. "Thanks."

She lifted a hand in a silent goodbye before heading into the shop to get back to work on her many projects.