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

[Lancelot's nose wiggles in a friendly motion as he gives Ned's fingers a good sniff. He smells Jon but, more than that, he smells his fuzzy four legged savior; Ghost. Comforted by these scents, Lancelot jumps into Ned's lap but his jump is lopsided and his back legs furiously kick against his thigh to find purchase to sit on his lap.]

Oh. [Inesa is caught off guard between Lancelot's sudden leap forward and Ned's introduction. She'd seen pictures of him through Jon's memories and has heard a great deal about his strength and honor.] Oh!

[Her faces flushes in embarrassment. The soft rosy pink accenting the pale flawless curve of her cheeks. ] Excuse me. I should have recognized you. I have heard about you from both Jon and Sansa. It's truly an honor to meet you. [She inclines her head in a soft bow before gently closing her sketchbook and tucking it into the bag she had discretely looped around her shoulder.

I assure you. It's your children who have been very kind to me. I don't know what I would do without them.

[ Suddenly there is a bun in his lap, nearly falling. Ned laughs and reaches to hold the brave little knight in hands both strong and gentled. He's held five babes of his own; he knows how to hold precious wee things. Lancelot is secure in his lap and settled between a pair of big warm hands that smell like Ghost, after petting the direwolf on his most recent visit to Jon.]

How could you have known? I am glad to finally meet you, Lady Inesa. [ His gaze returns to the young woman, now that Lancelot has found his new resting place. ]

Have they indeed? I tried to raise my children to be kind and good people. I think I succeeded. Tell me what you know of them, make a fond father proud.

[Inesa's expression softens as Lancelot settles comfortably in Ned's lap. For such a firm looking man, his hold is gentle and sweet. It further confirms who he is and is proof that all of the stories that Jon has told her are true.]

It's nice to meet you too. Jon speaks very highly of you. [She doesn't speak to Sansa about her father too often. The girls have other things they spend their time gossiping about.]

Well. Your daughter is my very best friend. She's strong and kind and honest. She is with me when I don't even know what I need or what to say. She makes me feel like I can be as strong and amazing as she is and there are so many things in this world that neither of us really understands, so it's fun to explore with her too. [Humans are so strange.] As for Jon....

[Her cheeks warm to a rosy hue.]

Well, he's kind and has saved both me and Lancelot more than once. He has the kindest heart I have ever known. He's always there for me and we love to see new things together. I want to-- I want to show him all the beautiful sights. If I can.

[ Ned has always been good with animals and small things both. How fortunate that both Jon and Inesa have ones that he can visit and pet. He gently scritches Lancelot behind a floppy ear. ]

Sansa is amazing, isn't she? When I last knew her, she was still a little girl to me, on the verge of womanhood. Now, she is a woman who is everything you say.

[ That time skip still boggles him sometimes when he thinks too hard about it. But Sansa is still the same person, just a grown, complicated, wonderful version of the girl he'd raised.

Ned smiles at his son's girlfriend - Sansa has explained the unfamiliar terms to him - and at how sweetly she blushes to describe Jon. Her heart is wholly given, he can tell.

The hand not petting Lancelot reaches over to squeeze the top of her hand, earnestly. ]

I couldn't ask for a better companion for my Jon than you, Inesa. His heart is very kind, though deeply hidden at times. He has walked alone too much. I am glad he does not have to, here.

[Lancelot settles into Ned's lap and makes a little vibrating noise that is easily misinterpreted as a purr. He is in no mood to move, unless Ned gets tired of the ball of fluffy heat that's taken over his lap.

Compliments come easily because they are true, what Inesa doesn't expect is the warm touch of a father's hand gently squeezing her own. It's true that she considers Seregil her family, even a father figure, but there is a different sort of comfort in Ned's touch. It's strong and steady. As if the ocean could crash against it and it would remain standing tall. He is very much the man she had imagined when Jon described his father. This is truly Jon's family.]

Thank you… He is very sweet, even if he doesn't let everyone see it.

[Her heart skips nervously at the thought of Jon as well as Ned's approval.]

I want to stay by him, while he's here and… forever if that's what he wants.

[It's something she's mentioned to both Sansa and Jon but if she can find a way back to Westeros with them… and they want her to return, she will. She'll do anything to be with Jon; even become human herself.]

[ Contrary to what his enemies say about him, Ned is a very warm person, physically speaking, and his lap is as good as a space heater, with his hand warm and heavy though gentle over the bun's head.

The other one clasps Inesa's, letting her know without words that he is with her, that he approves of her clear love and support of Jon. That is all he could ever wish for from a companion for his son.

The murmur of forever earns another squeeze. ]

You love him that much? To give up your own life, your own world, for him?

[ Ned scans her face, her eyes, wondering if she truly understands all that will entail. How awful their world is, what enemies they face, the demons that plagued House Stark and Jon's heritage alike. ]

[Her expression softens and her eyes deepen in their knowledge, as if seeing something beyond the tangible world.]

I have already left my world. A long time ago now and I cannot return. That isn't difficult. But yes, I will give up my life for his. If that's what it takes. [It's lucky for Inesa that it's very hard to kill her.]

Every world I see has darkness and every life has troubles. It might be small and only those I am able to meet but it's worth bringing a little bit of light- [Her eyes focused on her face and she smiled.] Don't you think so?

[ She has seen much, and yet it has not tainted her that Ned can see, or clouded her eyes with darkness, only added to her knowledge. It is remarkable. ]

He needs someone like that. [ Someone who would stay by his side in spite of it all.

Ned can't help but smile back. ]

I do. And I think that is exactly what you do. [ Absently, he strokes Lancelot's head. ] If there were more people like you in our world, it would be a much brighter place.

How many worlds have you seen? [ He's curious. ]

[Inesa's experience doesn't show nor does it mark her skin the way it does for humans. She's been hurt, sold, used and locked away but her heart and love she felt for those around her had remained intact. At the time, she hadn't known what it was but she'd found something within her; a strength that rivaled the strongest soldier.

Nothing can defeat the truest feelings of love.

Her expression saddens.] Yes, well, not everyone from my world is like me. Just as with humans, we are all different. The fact that I left homes proves that I wasn't meant to be there. Our citizens don't leave. I never found out why that is. I never finished my training.

[Her expression lifts as her cloudy blue-gray eyes looks up at Ned. She doesn't need to see where they are going to walk.]

I have been to a handful of worlds, though not for long. Using gates can be difficult when you don't know where you are going. I have spent the longest time where I was born and then on a planet called Earth. There are many species there, humans as well as Fea and others.

Not all world have life as it is defined here but it is all beautiful.