all_inclusive | Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

The annual Nexus New Year's Eve gala began at 8 in the evening. Too grand to be contained by the lobby or dining hall, the gardens at the front of the hotel were employed, with long strings of white lights forming a twinkling canopy from the front doors all the way to the hedge maze. The weather was temperate and calm, and the night perfectly clear.

Drinks were served at various bars set up throughout the gardens and lobby, with champagne cocktails being the specialty of the night. Wheeling through the crowd was a bartender with golden cart providing warm drinks on the go: Tom and Jerrys, rum punch, negus, and Irish coffee.

Crisply-dressed wait staff wove through the collected guests with an abundance of hors d'oeuvres for all different tastes. The Bistro remained open with a limited selection of items for those who were wanting something more substantial.

Above the front doors was hung a large, gold-rimmed clock counting down the last hours, minutes, and seconds of the current year.

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For all the swirling, maddening, ridiculous tales of the Raven King and the Faeries, he knows well enough to be wary of such magical parties where music is struck and deals are made. Jonathan isn't sure where it is he's found himself, but the people look distinctly different from faeries and it's in this moment of clarity (while pursuing his madness) that he realizes that he's back in the mirror.

Not the King's Roads, though, no. No, this is the Nexus. He must reek of that awful Venetian abode, but he's in the midst of the room and doesn't think using magic to clear it would be quite intelligent, so he begins to traverse it carefully, but he stops all of a sudden, regarding the man before him.

Blind, yes, but aren't there histories upon histories of those without sight being the best seers of all? (Has his madness set in entirely? Has Jonathan Strange truly gone around the bend?) He's lingering for so long that it turns awkward. "Good day," he greets. "Sir. Are you a faerie?"

Maybe this isn't the sort of question that should surprise Matt. He's standing in the middle of a hotel that transcends all of time and space, after all. Yet he can't help but feeling he's not had near enough to drink to answer remotely seriously.

"I have to say, that's probably the most straight-forward pick-up line I've heard in my entire life, congratulations," he says with a slight cant of his head.

Strange blinks and almost as if the shroud of madness has been peeled back, he gets a glimpse of life on the outside. No more eating mice, he suspects. At least, not until he finds himself back on the path to the King's Roads. "You mistake me, sir, I'm a married man both widowed and desperately searching out his wife," he says, gravely serious. "But if you are a faerie, you might lead me to her."

There's no need for spells, not yet, but they tickle at the back of Strange's mind, whispering to him as they beckon to be used.

"Okay, that really doesn't negate..." Matt begins, but quickly enough abandons the argument. There's a manic energy around this man that doesn't seem as if it would be much affected by logic, and it had been a joke in the first place.

"I'm not a faerie, buddy. Sorry," he says instead, with a helpless little shrug.

The disappointment builds in Strange until it's a terrible thing, clawing at him and causing a new sort of anger and madness, one that he can barely control. "I suppose I saw your predicament and I thought that you might be as though Cassandra," he says, the hope slowly weaving out of his words. "I'm searching for my wife, and I know a faerie can aid me with the task. Here, on what I still believe to be part of the King's Road, it only seemed right to find one."

And yet, he has not. "My deepest apologies, sir," he says, offering a curt bow. "Jonathan Strange, at your service."

"Matt Murdock."

By this point, it isn't often that he legitimately feels compelled to give away that he can, actually, see when someone naively thrusts a hand his way or dips into a bow, but this time it's tough to restrain himself. This man is a walking contradiction—Outwardly he's prim, but chaos is pulsing around him like a heartbeat. The guy is clearly adrift in a very real way.

"No need to apologize," he says, gaze firmly on the middle distance. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but what happened to your wife?"

"A terrible thing, I'm sorry to say," Strange replies, his own guilt rising at the memory of how he had accepted the wooden bog creature to be his wife, how he had sworn himself to her, and then how she had been taken. "She died. But you see, it was not her," he shares. "For when she was dug up, it was the bog that we found, not my wife. My wife, and Lady Pole, they have been taken by the faeries," he says, reaching forward to clasp onto Mr. Murdock's lapels.

"Madness will draw me to them. When mad, one can see them!"

Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

Re: Matt Murdock - OTA

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