[[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

[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."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally gives Gu Xiang her prettiest smile. It's not her fault!

"Thanks, Gu Xiang-la," she says, adding on the suffix and hoping Gu Xiang takes it as the gesture of affection it is. She spins the bottle without making eye contact with anybody.

Tally's flash tattoo spins with nerves as the bottle spins slowly past Gideon, but it lands on Nina instead. Thank you, bottle-wa. She'd been secretly hoping for Gideon since the game had begun, but it would have been utterly awkward at this exact moment. Instead, she'd turned her hopes to Nina or Tress. They're her friends, and neither of them are terrible-looking for uglies. (Georgia's her friend, too, but she's not sure she wants an hour-long dissection of her snogging skills later.)

"Alright, Nina-la! Pucker up."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon grins up at Gu Xiang where she's perched in her lap. As expected, she was very fun to kiss, and she looks about as victorious as Gideon feels--until she starts talking to Tally, when her face falls. Gideon turns to follow her gaze, but Tally's just smiling her too-pretty smile and reaching out to spin the bottle.

Gideon lifts Gu Xiang off her lap and sets her at her side, leaving one arm slung across her shoulders, because they just kissed and she's not an animal. Her eyes are on Tally, though, trying to tell if something's wrong.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina was watching Tally's expression as Gideon and Gu Xiang kissed -- then Gu Xiang's expression once she saw Tally's expression -- and now she glances quickly at Gideon, arm slung around Gu Xiang, much too casual expression on her face. She sighs a little internally; this was like when Jesper kissed Kuwei thinking it was Kuwei!Wylan and then nobody talked about it but everyone felt the ripples for days. Well, there's nothing for it but to wrap it up and sort it out later.

She looks up at Tally through her eyelashes; Tally is absolutely gorgeous, so it's not difficult to bat those eyelashes and give her the prettiest, most charming look. "How did I get so lucky today?" She asks, as she leans in for the kiss.

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally giggles a little, pleased by the flirting, and kisses back gently. A crazy impulse to really give it her all crosses her mind, but Nina's too nice to wrap up in all Tally's ugly-style jealousy. Weird bone stuff aside, Nina probably has the prettiest attitude here--mature, friendly, and effortlessly charming, everything Tally had always hoped she'd become with the operation.

The kiss itself is actually totally bubbly--Tally can tell Nina's had more practice than Gideon--but it doesn't make Tally as bubbly. As she pulls away, she touches her own lips, almost puzzled to find them full and soft instead of thin and chapped. She hardly ever thinks about the strange disconnect between her old face and her new face while she's with Gideon, but right now she's feeling that old confusion from right after the operation, when her face had felt like a stranger's.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina pulls back with a little smile. She hadn't really kissed anyone since Matthias -- hadn't really had the time to -- but apparently this place is giving her the opportunity to kiss a lot of women. It's a nice feeling, especially without strings attached like this.

"Well," she says, looking around the circle at everyone, "I suppose that's it for spin the bottle."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon watches Tally touch her own mouth in the wake of Nina's kiss and tries not to feel weird about it. They hadn't kissed. Which is fine. They've already kissed, and will again, probably, the next time Tally gets too pretty-brained? But. She'd sort of assumed they would—that at some point, on her turn or Tally's, it would have happened. It would've been nice, she thinks, to have, like. Introduced the concept, to this group of girls. And then she could have asked Nina, after, like, hey, do you think Tally kisses me different than she kissed you? Not that she'd know what to do if Nina said yes, anyway, but—she drops her eyes and drinks her juicebox. Ugh. Whatever. It was just a game, and it's over.