nexus_sages | The Samhain Ball - Come as You Aren't

A woman strides through the Nexus, garbed in royal finery of a distinctly Elizabethan style. In the crook of her arm, she carries an ebony scepter shod and capped in silver. There may be something familiar about her confident bearing, her angular features, her mismatched eyes. When she pauses to speak, the cadence of her words might spark recognition--is this Schön?!

"People of the Nexus, friends, in the world from which I hail we stand on the cusp of a special day, a harvest-fest when the walls between worlds grow thin, when masks and costumes are worn to frighten away the wicked spirits--or to invite them in on more congenial terms. So on this day, I invite you, each and every one of you, to join me in a revel to bid farewell to Summer, and welcome with fire and song the coming dark! Join me, won't you?" Letting her gaze sweep the crowd, she raps the heel of her scepter once against something solid, vanishing in a flash and leaving a sparkling trail for the curious to follow.

A cool wind herds dry, crackling leaves through the gathering gloom. On the cusp between the parklands and the residential district, darkness and cloudy skies have been slowly coalescing for days around a stately house of Gothic style, ivy-encrusted and showing its age somewhat. A square tower stands vigil over the entryway, tall windows overlooking the flagstone drive looping around a fountain gone dry. The house’s angular wings stretch to either side, the windows dark save for occasional glints and gleams of colored lights bobbing within. A glow does creep over the line of the roof, however, and the faint throb of distant music hint at something happening behind the house. The door stands open, a silent invitation to every brave soul who passes by.

((Happy Halloween! Enjoy the festivities. All LOLs are optional. Threadhopping is encouraged. Backtagging is forever, so don’t worry about missing out: we’ll still be here when you get back from your more mundane ghosties and goblins.))

Playlist
Visualosity
The Entrance
The Ballroom
The Banquet
The Bonfire
The Corn Maze
Dark Corners
Costume Icon Requests
The Photo Booth

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Staring is a-okay. And really, what on earth was Matt expecting. Of course the guy would be shocked!

"Well, tons of apartments, flats, lots of land development. Farms are more Upstate now if they're even in the state. There's been a lot of redistributing." To put it mildly. Maybe he should have started with something smaller.

"Logistically though. The trains must be running nonstop to get food into the inner cities." Unless trains aren't the major source of travel anymore. Or they've shrunk food into those pellets like they talked about in those pulp science magazines.

"So New York City is still a thing, the neighborhoods are still there. But there's a bunch more people than there already was? It must be so crowded there now. I thought it was stuffy when I left!"

"There's always some way in and out of the city no matter the hour." Matt was thinking public transit but wait, Steve's talking about food? Uhhh. "Stuff comes in from the harbor too, a lot of different advancements have been made so that food keeps longer. Not just cans but frozen, vacuum sealed, preservatives..." The latter making some things taste terrible if you have a sensitive palette like Matt does but worth mentioning.

He smiles. "There are far more apartments than there ever was. That much I know. My father used to point out a building and say when he was a kid it was some kind of a mill or factory. Now it's called Emerald Estates Apartments."

Matt takes a sip of his cider. The warmth from his throat to his stomach really is a treat.

Feeding that many mouths sounds like a miracle to him. Especially with farms out of state now. The future is a place of wonder, as far as he's concerned. More apartments makes sense, though he has to wonder where all the mills ended up then.

"Where do people work if all the mills and factories are closed?" More people and less places to work? That seems weird. "Or has that turned uhm..." Steve makes a noise of concentration. "Those little bricks everyone carries around and pokes all the time. The...uhm. Electric...automatic...uhm...devices?"

Cider knows what he's talking about. It knows he's out of place here in the future.

It's a world Matt's always known. He's trying to pick apart pieces and bridge the gaps in Steve's awareness. If only he paid better attention to history. "There are restaurants, shops, gas stations, transit, museums, offices, construction, lawyers, cops, firemen, maids, teachers... people work everywhere."

Matt tilts his head trying to figure out what he's saying. "Oh. Cellphones? Some people do their work from home if it's more desk work, yes. See, you're catching on."

"...I'd really like to see it sometime." Steve talks mostly down into his mug, sounding equal parts wistful and sad. Bucky would love to see places like this. It doesn't feel right being here. Not when everyone he's ever known is already long gone.

"I wish I could show you my New York." Steve finally says, voice withdrawn and quiet. "But I only work through sketches, and that's not...really a medium I can share with you."

Oh. The turn to more morose has come up so suddenly. Matt's smile gets lopsided a second in dismay. He carefully reaches to give Steve a pat on the back. "Who knows what will happen to you next. Maybe." And maybe not just as much but the glass is either half full or empty where it stands.

"You could on uh thicker paper. Or if you're heavy handed. I'm used to feeling out things. Tell me about it, please. Sights, smells, whatever you want." Though it will likely not help the homesickness. That's an ailment with no cure.

"We got this tiny apartment in a beat up old place. Door gets stuck every summer from the humidity and hates to open in the winter from the cold. Walk up three flights--you know you're close when you pass Mrs. Hemmings. Her place always smells like worn leather coats and cloves. She always makes me a cake for my birthday, lets me use her sewing machine whenever I need to patch up my clothes."

Steve's got his eyes shut, walking home in his head. Climbing the warped wooden stairs--always skip the third from the top because it creaks so bad. Their home was never something special but it was theirs.

Old place never quite kept out the cold and the wind howled when the weather got bad enough, rattled so bad you'd think the windows would break right off. Sometimes, when they couldn't get any extra money, they'd go hang around the corner store and listen to the Dodgers on the radio.

Steve talks about all these things, never once cracking an eye open. His home is in his head now, and that's okay. It's still there, and no one can take that away.

"Never lived anywhere other than Brooklyn, and never really wanted to. It's home."

With a world of no color or light and only memory of what could be seen with the eyes, Matt lets Steve's voice and recollection decorate the canvas of his thoughts. There are many small places so he thinks it's something close to what they're talking about. A humble place for a humble guy.

A fresh sip from his cider makes it all the more cozy, intimate like. Matt smiles at the Dodgers still being in New York but says nothing at all. That's a change worth saving.

"No? I lived in a dorm at Columbia for college. Before that I stayed in Hell's Kitchen." Saint Agnes was not so far from the apartment he grew up in. "People don't get it until they've lived in the city." There's no place like it in all the world. No matter what time it seems.

"It's not bad being here though." Steve wishes he weren't stranded, but there are worse places to be. "Everyone's real friendly, its like there's no bad people around. I"m not used to folks bein' so...decent. Weird as it sounds."

He hasn't gotten into a single fight the entire time he's been here, and that's seriously a miracle.

"Plus, throwin' huge parties like this? Just brings everyone closer together, feels like."

"Well if they're as friendly as you are, can't be half bad." Matt sends a smile in the direction of Steve's voice as he lifts his mug. "Why aren't you used to decent people?"

That's worth celebrating by far!

"I haven't really been a party person in some time. It's not as stressful as I thought it'd been when it's on this scale."

"I...guess there's not a whole lotta city folk around maybe? No one pickin' fights or bullying people. The anti-violence whatever might be a part of that but it's like...people just seem to get along better here."

Celebratory cider! Mmmmm nice and warm.

"I never was. But I'm meeting people here, so it's not a bad thing."

The Samhain Ball - Come as You Aren't

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