Merry Winsol! (Open)

[singularwidower]

Who: Daemon & everyone in line of sight that he can personally issue the invite to.
Where: Daemon's cabin at the treeline on the northwest side of the lake.
When: Evening on December 21st — the winter solstice, from sundown to sunrise
What: A Winsol party/observation (Daemon's canon Christmas/Yule/New Year's tradition)
Warnings: Blood and probably spiders (a blanket warning just in case, for Daemon's canon)

(Open) (This is a mingle, so feel free to toplevel, etc etc)

Merry Winsol

In the two weeks leading up to the 21st, Daemon personally passes a quiet invitation to anyone (and everyone) for the longest night of the year: "I'm opening my place up for Winsol, in case you'd like to observe the holiday in company. We'll drink hot blooded rum and dance for the glory of Witch." He doesn't expect anyone to stay all night—unless of course they want to—but at midnight he intends to toast Witch with anyone who wants to celebrate with him. If he catches you after the two days of freezing/boiling in your own skin, he mentions that maybe sticking around other people for the longest night of the year might be wiser than being alone.

Winsol Night

On the night of the solstice, he opens up his cabin to guests at sundown. His livingroom furniture has been pushed to the sides to make a dance floor and a fire has been laid in the fireplace. Snacks and the aforementioned spiced rum are set on the shoved-aside kitchen table. Of course the rum isn't necessarily rum or necessarily the good stuff, but he's been planning this for a while so there's a little of everything. And although he did invite everyone with 'hot blooded rum,' no blood has been included. He's a traditionalist, but that's not the kind of thing you spring on someone.

The snacks are half home-made, using some of the supplies that Gilia had so thoughtfully provided for everyone. There are little jewel-shaped cakes, cookies, and cured meats. Things he from the store that have other holiday names on them have been overwritten with "Winsol," but left otherwise intact.

There's a small pine tree set up in one corner, decorated with small shiny ornaments and gently burning witchlight in various jewel-tones. There are other pine boughs scattered elsewise, along with ribbons he's salvaged from the Christmas decorations provided, making the place look thoroughly decorated. Also there are some tasteful spiderweb motifs? For some reason?

There's also background music!
[Christmas Music | Winter Music]

A crystal (Well, "crystal." It's a rock. Maybe rose quartz?) settled on top of a woven mess of spidersilk in a wooden frame is playing music. It's orchestral-type and unobtrusive, and though the instruments don't exactly sound like flutes and violins and cellos, they're similar. But it's pleasant. A bit on the classical side. Lots of strings.

Slightly haunting.

Enough to give the evening a sense that Daemon is splitting the difference between a celebration, a religious observance, and a gentle sort of wake.

At Midnight

Daemon, as host, makes sure that anyone there with him has a glass of either the spiced rum or something else of their choice. As the deepest dark approaches, he gives a tiny explanation for exactly who and what they are celebrating:

Witch, among the Blood, is the living myth, and she is brought into the world by those who listen to the dreamers in the Darkness. The strongest dreams are plucked forth and woven into a web that binds those dreams to flesh. We celebrate the season of the dark to honor Witch, as she is both human and Other, a gift from the Darkness itself.

On the longest night of all, we toast her and offer our prayers and dreams and hopes at the time when the Darkness is wrapped mostly tightly around us and our dreams might be the strongest. And then—we celebrate.

The toast itself is to Witch, of course, but also to new friends and to avoiding the final death.

After Midnight

After the toast at midnight, Daemon invites everyone to dance. He continues to play host all the way until dawn. By dawn, the fire has burnt low and the music has all but faded out from where the crystal rests on now-blackened spidersilk.

His doors close when the first light breaks over the lake and the night has let them go.

Comments

Playing Host

[thelesserevil]

Some party celebrating witches isn't Renfri's idea of a good or safe time, but the lure of a good drink and the need to check out her - alleged - fellow prisoners has her reluctantly showing up anyway.

She keeps to herself and the shadows at the party, though, tense and taut, observing and not actually daring to touch the alcohol that looks so tempting.

The crystal playing music attracts her attention time and again, unsettled and dark looks she sends its way.

"You did lure us here with the promise of free drinks," she points out when she is approached by the stranger who had handed her an invitation.

[singularwidower]

With the limited number of people who live within their odd little terrarium and the fraction of that who accepted his invitation to Winsol, Daemon has found himself able to keep a general eye on most of his guests. The young woman whose name he had not yet caught seems...disquiet. And his music player seemed to catch her attention, though he is uncertain as to why. So when he offers her refreshment it's with a polite and careful deference.

At her reply, he offers her a small but genuine smile. "I did indeed." He takes only a moment to perform a small bit of Craft to vanish and call in one of the mismatched glasses of spiced rum from where they had been arrayed on the table at the side of the room. It appears in his hand and he offers to it to her with casual tilt to his head. "Hot buttered rum in the tradition."

[thelesserevil]

More magic. Great. It would have been too much to hope for the music to be a fluke.

She narrows her eyes at the glass, then at the man who is so flaunting his magic, and tension prickles down her spine. For a moment, she watches the drink as if the glass might turn into a snake at any moment - which it could, going by the magic of her own world.

Then she reaches out and accepts it, though even the appeal of alcohol has faded with the sheer overwhelming danger she feels here.

"That's an interesting way of serving your guests you have," she remarks, voice a little too jovial for the tension in her body.

[singularwidower]

With as much time as Daemon has spent in various courts, he doesn't miss the increased tension in his guest's frame, nor her narrowed eyes, nor the way she is looking at the drink as if it, itself, is dangerous. He tilts his head as he watches her hold her drink.

He's unclear on what exactly set her off, but he is well-versed in dealing with those skittish in the face of his reputation at home. This couldn't be quite the same—they are, after all, of different worlds, and he has little reputation here as yet—but the principles apply. He tucks his long, dark-lacquered fingernails into the pockets of his slacks and rounds his shoulders, slowly and gently, no sudden moves. He also shifts his eyeline away from her and toward first a couple of his other guests and then to his music crystal and then to the fireplace in a casual sweep of his cabin's interior.

"No reason to walk all the way to the table when a little bit of Craft does the same job," Daemon says, his tone deliberately friendly. "Is the method in some way of note to you?"

[thelesserevil]

"Magic?" she echoes, her voice just a little bit sharper than she would have liked, a little bit sharper than appropriate for a party. She's still holding on to the drink without taking a sip and she knows it should be fine, she knows, but... It just makes her skin prickle.

"I've had a run-in or two with magic over the course of my life." Yes. The kind of run-in where sorcerers destroy your childhood and your life. She can't say she's a fan.

"As a rule of thumb, I try to keep my distance to it." She flashes Daemon an amused look, brow arched in challenge. "And magic does best to keep its distance to me, too."