[[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

[ninth_cavalier]

"What the fuck is a number three?" Gideon asks, and then doesn't give Georgia time to answer, kissing her on the mouth. It's not a perfunctory peck—that doesn't seem in the spirit of the game, and Gideon only gets called unsportsmanlike when she's doing something like driving a spike through a guy's foot in the middle of a duel—but it's absolutely nothing like the kisses she gives Tally, either. Their mouths undeniably touch, lips decidedly closed, and Gideon spends most of it being unpleasantly distracted by the sensation of sticky lipgloss against sticky lipgloss.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina purposefully says "oooooh" in an encouraging fashion as if she's watching a fighting match and a particularly good hit was just made, but it honestly looks awkward and a little uncomfortable.

[georgianosity]

It's actually not so bad. Not any worse than kissing Whelk Boy, anyway—less whelkiness—which doesn't seem right. Shouldn't Georgia be more disgusted by kissing a girl than kissing a boy, even if the boy is weird and a thicko? Does that mean unattractive lads are basically the same as girls to her, romance-wise? Or does it mean somewhere out there in the big blue yonder could be a Sex God girl who gives her jelloid legs????? Do lezzies have their own Whelk Boys among girldom that they're not really interested in either? Georgia's always assumed she's not a lesbian because she doesn't want to kiss her mates, but what if her mates are just not attractive in a girl-girl way? How does one know these things???

She must speak to Dave (who is the Hornmeister as well as The Laugh). He would know all these answers. But he's not here, and the closest equivalent to an expert on matters of luuuurve is Claudius from Hamlet!!!!

Georgia pulls back, wiping her mouth of leftover stickiness. From her extensive research, she knows lip gloss is meant to sort of melt into the snog, which is why it's the superior choice over lippy if you think there's a chance of snogging on the horizon. But admittedly, her research did not include double lip gloss. Blimey O'Reilly's trousers, there is so much more to the lesbian lifestyle than she knew.

[ravkanwitch]

"You're brave to go first," Nina tells Georgia, yet again unaware of the internal turmoil she's going through. Now she turns to Gideon. "What do you think? Want to go next or do you want to let someone new spin it?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon rubs the gloss from her mouth with the back of one hand—for the comfort of whoever she gets to kiss next, now that she knows how it feels—and reaches for the bottle. "Don't worry, there's plenty of me to go around." She gives the bottle a firm twirl, and watches as it spins, rapidly and then slowly. At first it looks like it's going to stop on Gu Xiang, but it slides just the slightest bit past her to point to Tress's left knee.

Gideon meets her eyes, eyebrows waggling, but there's a spark of real nervousness in her stomach, too. "Up for it, pirate queen?"

[sporesprouter]

Tress manages a little smile and nods. She's almost glad she wasn't bonded with the Midnight Essence for very long, or she'd be feeling a lot worse than she actually is. She'll have a bit of a headache later on and her lips are almost certainly still a bit chapped, but it's nothing to dissuade her. It's how the game is played, apparently.

"Ready when you are," she says, leaning forward.

[ninth_cavalier]

Full offense to Georgia, but Gideon's going to give this kiss a little more of her attention. She hitches forward and raises a hand to cup Tress' jaw, slotting their mouths together soft and slow.

[sporesprouter]

Outside of Charlie (or notably once, a lizard creature she briefly thought was Charlie, and the less time spent on that the better), she doesn't exactly have a wealth of kissing experience, and kissing Gideon the way she would kiss Charlie is very much off the table. Still, though, she also refuses to do an intentionally bad job. So she kisses Gideon back, soft and sweet, chapped lips and all.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon pulls back, eventually, and leans back on her hands. Her face feels a little hot. Right. Uh. She shakes herself and pastes on a sleazy grin. "Your turn. Unless you guys just want me to keep spinning—"

[sporesprouter]

"It's fine." She leans forward and takes hold of the bottle, spinning and watching as it circles, eventually slowing and stopping shortly before it moves past Nina.

"Well, there we go."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina lets out a small, dramatic gasp when the bottle lands on her. "It's about time! I've been pining after Tress for ages," she declares, giving Tress a wink to show that she's joking. She tosses her hair over one shoulder and lightly leans across the circle, letting Tress take the lead on the kiss.

[sporesprouter]

Tress smothers a laugh at Nina's comment before leaning in as well to give Nina a quite pleasant if remarkably chaste kiss.

[ravkanwitch]

After a couple seconds, Nina leans back and gives Tress a smile. "I suppose we're all lucky enough to go twice in a row," she says, giving the bottle a hefty spin. It circles around many times before it lands on -- Gu Xiang!

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon wolf-whistles. At Nina and Tress, or the prospect of Nina and Gu Xiang? Yes.

[thepurpledanger]

The moment the bottle stops spinning, an icy dread creeps over Gu Xiang like a river starting to freeze--a sluggish, slushy dread with a fast current beneath it.

If Ragnelle had never kissed her with Qi Yan's lips, she thinks her heart would be fluttering with excitement. Nina's so pretty and nice and scary; she would be a perfect person for a first kiss. And it wouldn't mean anything, anyway. It's just a game. She wouldn't expect anything. It'd be safe. It'd be fine.

But this isn't her first kiss now, and Gu Xiang is never going to get a first kiss again, because hers was stolen from her by someone she thought she could trust.

She can't let anyone see. She doesn't know how to grieve for this except with rage, and she doesn't want to wreck the slumber party with her rage. What they have here is special, and fragile, and new. It would be like stomping on a baby duck. She wants to protect all of these girls with every bone and muscle in her body.

So she puts on her cockiest smirk, leans back on her hands, and says, "Sure, come and get me."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina can sense that there might be something going on deep down inside, a sixth sense only borne of knowing people well enough to imitate them and fool them-- but Gu Xiang is good at hiding it. She gives her a hesitant, considering look for a second, enough time to back out of it if she wants, but the smirk doesn't fade. The kiss that she gives Gu Xiang is as gentle and sweet as she can possibly give.

[thepurpledanger]

Oh, no! Gentle and sweet is going to make those feelings come back!!! Gu Xiang tangles her hands in Nina's hair and dips her, kissing back fiercely.

[ravkanwitch]

Well, alright-- it takes a split second to recover from being dipped, but Nina matches the energy of the kiss quite easily. After a moment, she pulls back, just a touch breathless.

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang emerges from the kiss as though from a battle, breathless herself, smug and triumphant. "So I just spin the bottle again, right?" she says

[ravkanwitch]

"Spin away," Nina tells her, with a little wink.

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang looks around at the assembled girls and considers her options. Most of them are great, actually; even Tally proved she was more than just some giggling pretty girl during Truth or Dare, and she would be lying through her teeth if she said she'd never thought about kissing Tress before. She hopes that the bottle doesn't land on Georgia, though. Georgia looked like she didn't understand the first thing about kissing girls.

With a mighty twist of her wrist and a glassy rattle, Gu Xiang sends the bottle careening around and around and around--it whizzes past Tress dozens of times, and every time, Gu Xiang's heart lurches just a little with fear and hope.

It's almost a relief when at last it rolls to a stop with the neck pointed toward Gideon. Gideon will treat the kiss the way it ought to be treated: as a challenge.

[ninth_cavalier]

After seeing Gu Xiang kiss Nina like that there's no way Gideon's going to let herself be upstaged; as soon as the bottle stops on her she's reaching across the circle to bodily haul Gu Xiang into her lap and, if Gu Xiang allows herself to be hauled, kissing her with gusto.

[georgianosity]

The shock of seeing full-on lesbian number five right in front of her is quickly upstaged by righteous affront at Gideon two-timing Tally. Well, that is how the game works, but after all, you don't have to be so gung-ho! Georgia glances over at Tally with her best sympathetic face on, to see how she's taking it.

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's definitely not taking it well. She's been in spin the bottle games with couples before, of course, but the people in couples are never so enthusiastic about kissing someone else. It's utterly bogus and socially missing! From Georgia's face Tally can tell the rules are the same with Rusties.

Tally allows herself a few moments of helpless jealousy at how easily Gideon can move Gu Xiang. Of course she doesn't actually to be shorter than Gideon, because that would make her freakishly short, ugly short, but right now she totally does.

After a long look Georgia, Tally does her best to school her face back to blankness, imagining that Dr. Cable is interrogating her. No, Dr. Cable, I don't care who Gideon kisses or how much, duh! She can't ruin the bash by getting all jealous, especially since they're totally not even a couple. She's not sure if she wants the bottle to land on her next or not.

[thepurpledanger]

Gu Xiang emerges from the kiss wearing most of Gideon's lip gloss, smug and breathless and triumphant. She has won the game of Spin the Bottle! Surely no one else could do better than that!

"Tally, it's your--"

Oh. That blank look can't mean anything good. "--turn."