dualislogs | oh, we dance in misery

oh, we dance in misery

WHO: Open to all Dualizens!
WHAT: the Plague Memorial Masked Ball
WHERE: the Mayor's Mansion (central Dualis)
WHEN: the evening of November 16
WARNINGS: Visuals/discussion of disease and death in the setting. Anything else, please use appropriate warnings!

At 8 p.m. sharp, the lights inside and around the Mayor's Mansion turn up, and the doors are opened to the crowds that begin to trickle inside. All entrances are manned by Iterations, and all party-goers are scanned for both proper attire (formal and masked, mandatory) and weapons (absolutely forbidden) before being allowed entry.

Once inside, attendees are greeted to a spectacle of warmth and light and lavish decorations, all themed in white accented with gold and violet. Venture into the ballroom, and you'll see intricately carved ice sculptures in various representations of death, all laden with garlands of marigolds and violet chrysanthemums. At one end of the room, a rotating cast of musicians plays soft music in differing arrangements of strings and piano. Long tables at the other end of the ballroom are piled high with punch fountains and platters of delicious party foods, and a few bar stations serve beverages of the more adult variety to those of age.

Outside the main ballroom are seven smaller rooms, for more intimate conversations and quiet recovery from the main gala (or just skulking like a brooding weirdo, if that's your thing). Six of the rooms are decorated in monochrome blue, purple, green, orange, white, or violet, and the seventh room is pitch black with red accents.

Throughout the night, the mayor herself winds in and out of the crowds, shadowed by a pair of bodyguards. She is all smiles, greeting people with a friendly handshake and effusive words of thanks for attending the ball, but she never stays in one place long enough for a true conversation. This is a celebration of life and a remembrance of the dead, after all - not the time or place for talks of business or politics.

Enjoy yourselves tonight, everyone! And remember - death eventually comes for everyone.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nick's only here to observe tonight - no revolutionary activities planned, honest. As far as most people should suspect, she's just another ordinary citizen in a tux wandering through the crowds, chatting with people she knows from the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey, occasionally stopping for a dance, if asked. She's been meaning to check in on Hank anyway, but this loudmouth complaining about kids today is obnoxious as fuck and needs to be shut down, so she has exactly zero guilt about interrupting their conversation.

"Y'know," she says, placing a mask of saccharine-sweetness over the black domino she's already wearing, all smiles and her best customer service voice, "where I'm from, there was a great prophet by the name of Aaliyah who once famously said, 'age ain't nothing but a number.' Maybe think on that for a sec before you start runnin' your mouth again."

Verbal takedown complete, Nick turns to Hank. "I believe there is a refill calling my name at that other bar over there," she says, pointing to the station on the other end of the room. "Care to escort me?"

The guy's face tenses up, wearing the fighting expression of someone wanting to protest. All the comebacks were visible on the curve of his frowning mouth, in the flare of his nostrils as he was attempting to mention something about her own maturity. But Hank punctuates her clapback with a simple, "Right. Gotta go talk to her, she knows where the decent whiskey is."

He'd been wanting to make a comment all night, bring up that her and others were around and that as a big public event? Probably not the best call. Even if they weren't planning harm. His concerns ended up misdirected, but they are still present.

He joins her over by the bar and leans on it. This time careful to avoid any questionable subjects.

"My fuckin' hero." He snorts. "God, I fuckin' remember every millenial bullshit headline back in the teens. People couldn't deal with the fact we didn't care about fabric softener or that people fuckin' liked avacados."

She snickers softly. "Right? Couldn't possibly be 'cause of that whole recession thing that happened in '08 trashing the economy, or the world just going to shit in general because of hundreds of years of clueless rich white dudes being in charge. Nah, it's those damn millennials and their smartphones and their avocados that're ruining everything. Pfft." She takes a sip of her fresh drink, grinning behind the glass. "Shit, I was almost a technical adult by the time Y2K rolled around. I didn't stop using a flip-phone 'til I got dumped in Hadriel. We didn't even have fabric softener and avocados there."

Nick doesn't know the OK, boomer meme, on account of being shuffled around the multiverse at the time it happened, but the same sentiment applies.

"Say, wasn't there a dustup here over avocados a little while back, too? I think I heard someone talking about that."

"I can't even blame it on that here. Maybe we just hit a point where we start being assholes at a certain age."

He knows that he did. He follows after her, bordering on asking if she's sure it's a good idea to be here. But he opts for thinking not mentioning it at all would be the better course of action. Ears and eyes everywhere, he knows. And the Heart is in some pretty fuckin' real danger.

"Oh, yeah. Kid named Squall cut loose when his bosses were assholes; honestly, can't blame him. He organized a rebellion against his bosses. Really was good about getting out the people that got caught in the middle. Place was one of those locations that Sam's Club's fans think they're too good for. Too expensive stuff or too damn much stuff, I guess. No in between."

"Maybe some of us hit that point of being an asshole early on," she says, half-grinning behind her glass. "Luckily, some of us make an effort to quit being an asshole, too." Speaking of herself, of course. "Thing that pisses me off so much about that whole damn millennials bullshit is it's so goddamn stupid, and it's a thing people've been doing forever. I mean, the Who wrote 'My Generation' way back in the '60s, for fuck's sake, and that's the generation shitting all over the millennials. You'd think they'd know better."

She taps a finger along the glass in her hand, thinking back to what she remembers of the reports of that avocado incident. "Yeah ... it was a Premium Foods, right? I never shop there. But that was Squall?" She laughs. "I know that kid. Every time I've seen him, he seemed way too uptight to ever cut loose about anything." She shakes her head, still grinning with amusement. "It's always the ones you least expect, right?"

"Yup, that's who that was. You know he had to be at the end of his rope when he cried revolution."

But he knows that Squall probably would do the right thing anyway. Not that it's something to say here. Making fun of the extreme corporation feels more fitting for the environment. "But yeah, I remember Gen X back in the nineties. They were getting it too.

"...Wait, when were you born? I was born in ''85? God I fuckin'... aged like a fuckin' raisin. Jesus Christ."

"Never knew he had a revolution in him. Guess I need to have a chat with him, next time he visits me at the bar." For that other revolution underway in the city. Someone with experience would be a good asset to have on their team.

"I was born in good ol' 1983," she says, "so not too far ahead of you. I just have an eternal baby face, that's all." She laughs under her breath - that's true, but not in the way most people would take it. "And you're a bit ahead of me on the timeline, don't forget. It was still the 20-teens last time I was back on Earth. And for the record, I happen to think you look really nice tonight."

"Thank you. I uh..."

He sighs one of those deflating, gravelly sighs. "I shouldn't have fuckin' come. I don't know. Wanted to have a good night with Connor and he's been busy all night and now I'm just..."

He gestures at the guy that had just been talking at him. Right. That's the sort of night he's having.

"I sure as shit wouldn't have dressed up for them."

"You could always just dress up for yourself, y'know. That's what I do, anyway - try not to give a fuck what anyone else thinks about how I look." Maybe that's a little easier for Nick, since she recognized and embraced her identity as uncompromising outsider at a young age. She shrugs. "Still, y'look nice. And if your date blew you off to go be busy with somethin' else, I may need to have a talk with him about that being bad form."

She shifts her gaze to scan out into the crowd. "Is he even here? 'Cause I'm serious, I'll give him the Scary Dad Date Talk."

"No, no. He's over there..." He loosely gestures in the direction Connor was in twenty minutes ago.

"There's a woman with the ability that every teenage girl would die for. She can make people like her. But it doesn't work on AI and Connor got roped into doing that tonight. I think he thought it'd last shorter than it did."

Though Hank has long since realized it's not a brief thing. It's an all night thing. He'll have to walk her home, so he has to go on his own. He feels a little dumb for that.

Nick exhales a breath through her teeth, rolling her eyes in disapproval. "That sure as hell sounds familiar. Before I got wise to their bullshit, I went through a few sorta-boyfriends in high school who kept stringin' me along, all 'hangin' out with my bros, we'll meet up later' and then never showed. Not that I'm sayin' that's what Connor's doing." He better not be, anyway. "Just ... I get it. It sucks, getting ditched like that. But I learned after a few times where that happened that boys are usually unreliable, and that getting prettied up for them's a waste of time."

She shrugs. She knows she's probably in the minority on this outlook. And other than Connor, Hank's only ever mentioned having a wife in the past, so for all Nick knows, maybe she's preaching to the choir on the subject of dating guys.

"Doesn't sound like he's being shitty on purpose, though. If he's following this chick around, I'm guessin' he's trying to protect people, right?" Not a huge consolation, but at least whatever an android like him has for a heart's in the right place. "He doesn't have any kind of, like, dating programming, does he?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

oh, we dance in misery

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