[[closed post: jormanen end denam danne näskelle*]]

[ravkanwitch]

There's something about Dark that reminds Nina of Fjerda – maybe it's the cold and the scarcity. She remembers working long shifts at the cannery in Elling when she was trying to maintain her cover. Everything in that town was worn down and washed out. Even the crystal whiteness of the Ice Court is a bit bland in her memory. While she loves the country of Fjerda itself, somehow (maybe it's Djerholm syndrome; that's a linguistics joke), it all makes her slightly glum. And that's when the brightly colored magazines in the library grabbed her attention. What better time to hold a "slumber party" than now, when the end to Dark is around the corner, but the prospect of winter is still lingering?

Her room has been set up for the party ever since the early afternoon. She pushed her furniture against the walls and moved all of her "stuff" out of the way. With the help of Dionysus and the aftermath of their pinball bet, she set up a spread of juice boxes, grapes, and some really strange but quite tasty Japanese grape gummies. He also provided the jelly for some almond butter and jelly squares that Luo Binghe helped to make – after she promised him that she would spend some quality time with him after the slumber party, of course.

She wasn't exactly sure how to decorate... Festive? Girly? Spooky? A little bit of everything? She hung up a few brightly colored streamers as well as some black streamers and then found all of the spare cushions and blankets in the empty rooms on her level of the mansion. The cushions are laid out on the ground for everyone to sit or lay on along with plenty of blankets on top. She did read that spooky stories are typical at a slumber party, so she's scattered a few decorative bones around the room for a spooky vibe... And then the final touch: she found three strings of fairy lights hidden away in a dusty closet and strung them around the ceiling of the room where they're sparkling away right now. Thankfully, there's been no restriction on that whole "electricity" thing. And then... the wait for the guests to arrive.

[[Let's try this slumber party post this way... For each stage of the evening, I'll post a top level Nina comment. Feel free to respond to whatever strikes your fancy and then interact with everyone else as needed! Hopefully we'll end up with multiple short threads!]]

*Be welcome and wait out the storm, in Fjerdan

Comments

[entering and intros!]

[ravkanwitch]

Work done, Nina awaits her guests, wearing a very cozy looking long black nightgown. She has a couple of activities planned – but she's mostly hoping to have a fun and distracting evening!

Re: [entering and intros!]

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally arrives precisely fifteen minutes late, which is new pretty standard for arriving to a bash. She'd tried in vain to make matching pajamas for herself and Gideon, but had ended up stuck with pajamas she'd made before dark and had to actually wash: a silky black camisole and matching full-length drawstring pajama bottoms. She's utterly excited for the party. Shay had thrown a slumber party for her, Fausto, and Peris after Tally had turned pretty, and sleeping next to her gorgeous, perfect friends in her mansion bedroom had made her feel like everything in her life was finally right.

Now, she's not sure if her life is better or worse than it was back then, but she's equally as anxious to feel like she belongs somewhere. The idea of sleeping next to Gideon is also totally nervous-making. She's tried, with mixed success, to remember what it was like sleeping next to David in their trek across the wild to rescue his parents, but even in Dark, the mansion can't be as anxiety-making or as gorgeously terrifying as those days.

Tonight is so not about kissing, though. It's about cementing her place in this new clique.

[ravkanwitch]

"Tally!" Nina says happily. "I'm glad you could make it. I've never hosted a slumber party before, so I wasn't sure how many people would actually show up..."

Re: [entering and intros!]

[ninth_cavalier]

Tally's here before Gideon, though she assumes she was exactly however late is considered fashionable. You probably, get, like, demerits if you're not. That's not really a funny joke, but Gideon snorts to herself about it anyway, eyeing Tally for a second before she goes to say hi.

She's not really much of one for introspection. She doesn't have the brain for it. But the brain she does have keeps throwing weird signals at her, ever since they kissed. Sometimes it's urges, which Gideon gets. Urges make sense to her. Tally hot, Gideon gay, it's not hard to do the math on why she wants to pick her up and throw her over her shoulder all Prehistoric style. But sometimes while she's agreeing with the urges, when they're kissing, or Tally touches the shaved back of her head, or she puts her hands on Tally's hips, her brain sends her a stab of fear so intense it makes her eyes water, or a guilt so deep it makes her nauseous, and she has to pull away, give some awkward excuse and make herself scarce so she can hide in a corner and wait out the sensation of being crushed to death by something unseen.

They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Thankfully, Gideon gave up on being sane a long time ago. She sidles up to Tally. "Hey, Whirlybird. Funny seeing you here."

Re: [entering and intros!]

[sporesprouter]

Never having actually attended a slumber party before, given that sleeping on the deck of a ship while the crew is moving around working probably doesn't count, she hopes she doesn't do anything grievously wrong while there. But she was invited, so she was clearly wanted at the party, so that helps. Still, she doesn't want to show up empty-handed.

So when she arrives, she's wearing a pale green nightgown that goes about halfway down her shins, and she's carrying a loaf of pumpkin bread that she managed to make with the help of some canned goods.

[ravkanwitch]

"Hi Tress! I'm so glad you could make it," Nina tells her, brightening as she walks in. "I love the nightgown."

Re: [entering and intros!]

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon slouches her way into the room in loose black sweatpants and a t-shirt emblazoned with a leaping bass and the slogan WOMEN WANT ME | FISH FEAR ME that she's cut the sleeves off with the knife she found with Susan. The Mansion is clearly in its "find out" era (preceded of course by the "fuck around with endless free commodities" era) but at least she'd gotten this out of it first. And Tally had been trying to get her to generate real outfits, whatever that meant.

She has no idea what to expect from a slumber party, especially once she spots Nina in a cute but decidedly PG nightgown and it's clear it won't be a recreation of Sapphic Sanguine Sylphs' Sleepover 6. Not that she thought it would be, but what's life without a little hope?

"Hey," she says, giving Nina a little bro-nod. She raises an eyebrow at the decorative bones. "Love the decor. You really know how to make a girl feel at home."

[ravkanwitch]

"Well, you know, my room is also the bone room," Nina says solemnly, a rehash of an old joke. Then she laughs. "I'm glad you could make it, Gideon."

Re: [entering and intros!]

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang has never had a slumber party before, or really any kind of party that wasn't an excuse for a public execution--so she's dressed in a soft strapless moxiong in pastel pink with teal and purple flowers embroidered around the breast band, a pair of loose kūn-style trousers, and a few knives strapped to her waist just in case it is the kind of party she's familiar with. Her eyes light at the decorations. "Wow, Nina, there are so many bones! Did you kill them all yourself?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Gu Xiang!" Nina exclaims happily. "Glad you could make it. I didn't kill all of them... I had to leave some enemies to keep everyone else sharp, of course."

Re: [entering and intros!]

[ninth_cavalier]

When Gideon sees Gu Xiang arrive she excuses herself from Tally to cross to her.¹ "Gu Xiang," she says, nodding solemnly, and puts out a hand for a low-five.

¹ She also takes a second to appreciate the bare arms and impressive array of knives, especially together. She's a simple woman.

Re: [entering and intros!]

[georgianosity]

Luckily, Georgia spent her first few weeks in the mansion getting it to magically generate everything she could think of, so she is well stocked. She arrives to the slumber party in her grooviest pajamas, a cami and cotton shorts covered in little cats, with her arms full of supplies: nail polishes, curlers, face masks, and even a packet of Jammy Dodgers she's been squirreling away since the start of this desolate month of tragicosity and sufferingosity. "Hi hi, where shall I put all this?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Georgia!" Nina's quite glad to see the Slumber Party Expert walk in. "You can put everything over there, there's some free space near the snacks."

[gossip!!]

[ravkanwitch]

After everyone's arrived and settled in with whatever food and drink they'd like, Nina looks at the list she had written in her slightly sloppy hand -- notes from one of the magazines -- of what people typically do at slumber parties. Gossip is written at the top of it.

"Thank you all for coming... and a big thank you to Dionysus and Luo Binghe for the snacks," she starts, quite solemnly, before breaking into a little bit of a sly smile. "Does anyone have any good mansion gossip?"

[thepurpledanger]

Immediately, Gu Xiang is rapt, focused. She sits cross-legged in the purplest nest of pillows and props her chin on her hands, her eyes wide with curiosity.

Re: [gossip!!]

[sporesprouter]

Tress thinks this over for a moment. "What counts as mansion gossip?"

Re: [gossip!!]

[thepurpledanger]

"Anyone who's fighting with anyone," says Gu Xiang immediately. "Or anyone who's sleeping with anyone. Or both."

[truth or dare!]

[ravkanwitch]

There's a slight lull in the conversation, after the gossip dries up. Nina offers the plate of almond butter and jelly squares around.

"I think we could play truth or dare next," she says, thoughtfully. "Georgia, maybe you can explain how to play?"

Re: [truth or dare!]

[georgianosity]

"Oh, fabbity fab, yes. Erm, so everyone gets to choose truth or dare, and if you say truth then we get to ask you a question and you have to answer. And if it's dare, then we get to give you something to do and you have to do it. Just something that's a bit of a laugh, like putting ice down your pants, or ringing a teacher and then hanging up, or snogging someone—" Georgia is about to add but there's no boys here, but stops herself out of consideration for her mate Tally's burgeoning lezzie lifestyle. "Something like that."

Re: [truth or dare!]

[thepurpledanger]

"Dare me," says Gu Xiang immediately. Taking turns is for suckers.

[....spin the bottle?]

[ravkanwitch]

"Georgia," Nina asks casually, off-handedly, absolutely innocently, after truth or dare is over, "do you know what spin the bottle is? Isn't it also something people usually play at slumber parties?"

Re: [....spin the bottle?]

[georgianosity]

Georgia feels herself go red as a tomato. Spin the bottle in a group of girl mates??? The absolutely tragic thing is, it will be the most action Georgia has got for ages! Perhaps this is exactly why lesbians become lesbian in the first place. They have all ended up in an all-girl snogging deprived situation.

Back home, any sign of lezzie behavior would lead to days if not months of grief from one's mates, if not a little light duffing up in the loos. But here, it seems like Georgia is the only one not on board the gay train! So it would be quite uncool to throw a complete tizz and to-do about it¹, not to mention rude and a bit intolerant. In this situation, dipping a little pinky toe into the girl-loving waters is the only thing to do to maintain her dignitosity and charm. She will not be the Ellen of the gang. "Some do," she says, with utter casualnosity.

¹Number two on the losing it scale.

[ravkanwitch]

"Which means... we should?" Nina continues, unaware (well, possibly slightly aware) of Georgia's internal turmoil. She turns to the rest of the group. "From what I read, spin the bottle is when you sit in a circle and someone spins an empty bottle in the middle of the circle. Whoever the bottle ends up pointing to, the spinner and that person have to kiss."

[Princess, barbarian, or cave! aka FMK]

[ravkanwitch]

After spin the bottle, when there's a lull in the chaos, Nina looks thoughtful again. "You know, there's a game in Ravka that the young women sometimes play... it's called Princess, Barbarian, and Cave. You name three individuals you know and then you have to make a decision. Do you want to marry them? That's the Princess. Do you want to kill them? That's the Barbarian, of course. Or... do you want to spend the night when them in a lavish cave decorated with furs?" She waggles her eyebrows slightly so that everyone understands her meaning.

"We should play."

Re: [Princess, barbarian, or cave! aka FMK]

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon, who has never wanted to marry anyone she didn't also want to kill, privately thinks these categories are pretty bogus. Cave is fun, though. "I'm in."