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

The rest of their Ferris wheel ride is a quiet one, but Ashara is... content. Content to sit there with Ned’s arm around her and their hands clasped together. It is... wonderful. Almost a dream. Only it is very, very real, and she feels the loss of his hand even as she once more slips her arm through his.

She thinks for a moment, contemplating the choices around them. “There’s a great deal of food on sticks,” she observes in amusement. “What about that?” She points at a food stand proclaiming to have something called... “Corndogs?” She cannot even begin to figure out that particular food item is.

"Yes," Ned says with a chuckle, glancing where Ashara does. "They seem obsessed with the notion of food on sticks. It is true, that was popular in Winter Town as well for occasions like Harvest Feast, but never quite such variety or strange assortments as here." Or such colorful advertisements.

He studies the one she points at. "I have not had this one either, but I would venture to guess that the bread is made out of cornmeal. As for the dog part...I have recently learned that the meat here is in fact derived from plants. So even if they consider this a kind of dog, it is only imitation meat." Which reassures Ned that he will not be eating any poor canine. There is no way he could eat an animal so close to a wolf.

He grins at Ashara. "Let's give it a taste." And before long, they are setting off once more each with a so-called corndog held by the stick. "It is not the strangest thing I've ever eaten." And Ned goes to take a bite.

“There’s so many of them,” Ashara agrees, laughing. Sunspear too had the occasional foods on sticks at festivals later in the year... but never like this.” They might have to try others, after. There are a great many options and they have time. And they do need to eat. Why not partake of countless foods on sticks?

But first, this... corndog. Which, she’s surprised (but reassured) to learn is made of imitation meat. “Good, I’m glad to know that we won’t be eating actual dog.” She has too great a fondness for wolves to do eat their cousins.

“Nor I,” she replies, eyeing the corndog in her hand curiously. It looks a bit awkward. She watches Ned take his bite, before opening her mouth to take a bite of her own.

Ashara has always had an adventurous spirit, Ned thinks to himself, seeing her ready to try anything here. Well, almost anything. They were clearly in agreement that real dog was off the table. But it warms him to watch her embracing the new experiences and, even more so, accepting him back into her life. She might have held a grudge, or still been so hurt and angry that she might have pushed him away, but she didn't. And he knows she is most likely still hurt, maybe even still a bit angry at his choice, and he wants to do everything he can to make it up to her while they have this time here.

Ned is jolted out of his reflections by the sight beside him. Ashara, delicately biting the tip of the corndog, lips wrapping a moment around the top of the long cylinder. Memory floods back to him, vivid and lewd, and wholly unbidden.

Flushing, he bites his lip and glances away. Takes another bite of his own just to buy him some time to not have to come up with words while he tames his rampant thoughts. By the time he's swallowed, he's able to speak casually. "Not bad," Ned comments. "If not as good as a skewer of roasted meat and panbread fresh from a campfire." He glances at Ashara, thinking of the short journeys they have taken together. The meals they shared by the fire. The nights...

No, don't think about the nights. And he's blushing again. Tongue-tied. Time for another bite.