Gathering: Garden party, interrupted

[concierge]

From grand galas to informal gatherings, parties of one sort or another were not an unusual occurrence at the Nexus Hotel. Today was no different, a low-key affair erected in the rotunda of the Italian gardens with the aspiration that tea sandwiches and mimosas would facilitate mingling of the hotel's ever-shifting population.

What was unusual, however, was the inclusion of a wayward, bipedal lizard courtesy of a door standing open on the hotel's facade. Green, spry, perhaps five feet long and roughly as tall as a man, this new guest featured a curved, hard plate across his (or her) forehead that was perhaps indicative of the stubborn nature lurking beneath -- Perhaps because the foliage was so tasty, this little dinosaur resisted all attempts by the staff to corral it back to its home. It would run away from ropes and outstretched arms, knocking over bottles of champagne and destroying the decor before settling several feet away to chomp on some accommodating flowers.

Comments

[legendthatwas]

It was kind of adorable, in a way, Martha thought--or at least from a distance, it was. A cross between Benny Hill farce and a children's story, The Dinosaur Who Came to Tea, or something like that.

She watched, frowning a little in thought, feeling slightly guilty for not stepping in to help. But her skills, while varied, didn't really extend to dinosaur wrangling. Even if this one seemed content to eat flower arrangements rather than flesh and bone, she was still wary of the entire branch of the evolutionary tree after the door that had dropped her into Jurassic Park.

Pursing her lips, Martha tried not to smile as an enterprising staffer tried to tempt the dinosaur by dangling a stalk of gladiolus in its face.

[debt_unpaid]

When the dragon had first appeared, Jaime had made an instinctive grab for his absent sword, and then masked the movement by pretending he was turning to look behind him. When no one else seemed afraid of the beast— which, upon a second glance, was not a dragon but some kind of large wingless lizard— Jaime was forced to conclude that his helplessness was a detriment to no one save himself.

A chuckle from the woman at the next table over drew his attention. "You don't seem surprised," he observed. "Is this a common occurrence?"

[legendthatwas]

Martha had noticed the guy at the table across the way, of course, (he was, to borrow a turn of phrase, really really ridiculously good-looking--not that many men around here were otherwise) but her attention had mostly been on the dinosaur until he spoke. She couldn't quite tell if his expression was alarm or merely surprise.

"Not exactly common," she admitted, with a wry twinge to her smile. "But I'm used to strange events, so when they seem harmless, it's water under the bridge." Not that she didn't still remain vigilant, but..."I mean, if that dinosaur ate meat, it'd have its pick of all of us, but it's completely ignored that guy's steak in favour of foliage, so I think this is all fairly safe."

[debt_unpaid]

A nod conceded her point. "Lucky us."

He glanced at her again, looking closer. Dressed more similarly to the majority of those he'd seen here, rather than himself, she clearly wasn't from Westeros, despite her accent. Or perhaps she'd simply gone native. "You've been here long enough to get used to strange events, then," he said, half observation, half question.

[legendthatwas]

"It's the small ones that you need to worry about," said Martha, "in most situations, not just dinosaurs. They play off being underestimated."

She couldn't help but smile at his comment, and thought for a moment of the Journal of Impossible Things. It was a memory tinged bittersweet, but she wasn't about to dwell on that, and it was less bitter now than it had been. "Oh yeah. Here and other places," she said, with a wry cock of her head. "How about yourself? You sound like you might have seen a few things, just not dinosaurs at dinner."

[debt_unpaid]

That got a rough huff of a laugh out of him, thinking of Tyrion. "You won't hear me argue with that."

Rather than get lost in wondering what Tyrion would make of this place (or what in the seven hells he was doing now, back in Westeros), he applied himself to answering the lady's question. "I've seen things which might sound fantastical in the telling," he said, "but of magic, or whatever power brought us here, this has been my only experience. This, and what I've seen through some of the doors," he allowed, his mouth slanting to one side in slight humor. "The one that gave me a woman's form— that was especially startling." As had been the sight of Cersei dressed in his clothes with a golden fist at the end of her right arm. He'd figured out quick enough what had happened, and had put himself to rights immediately— but the memory had stuck with him nonetheless.

"What sort of world do you come from, if this is but one in a string of strange experiences?"

[legendthatwas]

The laugh made Martha lift both brows, lips quirking slightly. She wanted to know what was behind that sound--a story, she was pretty sure of it.

Making sure the dinosaur was safely across the room (which it was, noshing on decorative shrubs) with a glance over her shoulder, she leaned her chin on her hand, elbow on the table, and the quirk of the lips turned into more of a smile. "So it swapped sexes on you?" she asked, and shook her head, not really certain she'd want to see gender dysphoria on this man, especially unexpected. He didn't seem like he'd have initially reacted well, though she was willing to admit she might be wrong.

"I have to confess, my story's pretty much the same as yours--I've seen things that 'might seem fantastical', but all of them were explainable. Or so I was told by my travelling companion, who was more knowledgeable in advanced sciences and the local cultures--I'm just a doctor."

The last statement made her chuckle to herself. Just a doctor with a Doctor. "The thing about the universe is that magic's a lot less common than plain old strangeness, Mister..."

[boldly_going]

Jim has explored a good many of the doors in and out of the Nexus and while he has experienced the jungle full of dinosaurs, he hasn't ever seen one of them outside that particular environs. Being the adventurous sort that he is, he can't help but try to corral the thing himself and keep both the animal and the hotel's residents safe.

"C'mere, little buddy," he calls out, jumping out in front to distract the dinosaur. "Come to Jim. That's it, come over to Jim."

[morethanhuman]

Just a table away, Erik peered at Kirk over the tops of his aviators, snorting in amused scorn.

"When it flattens you into the ground, don't say I didn't warn you," he called, as the dinosaur suited Erik's word to deed and knocked one of the hotel staff into a nearby rosebush.

[boldly_going]

"He's just a small dinosaur," Jim scoffs in reply. He turns to face Erik and greets him with an amused smile.

"Did a dinosaur get the better of you recently? I can understand being a little gunshy at that point but you don't seem like the kind of guy who lets one bad experience ruin his fun."

[morethanhuman]

"Not recently," said Erik, "but memorably." He eyed the little lizard in amusement, thinking of its larger cousin which might have made a meal of him, if not for Banner's timely interference.

"They're not all as small as that," he said, though he thought Kirk probably knew that. "Let's hope none of the bigger ones come through from whatever door that one found."

[boldly_going]

"I prefer the small ones," Jim agrees. He doesn't know much about larger dinosaurs but what he does know from science as a child is that he doesn't want to become someone's dinner.

"Where did you see them? The door this one came from?"

[leftwithmybones]

McCoy's in time to see Jim suddenly call out to a dinosaur, which means he's right on time. He's managed to make it back to his normal self, but that doesn't seem to change the fact that Jim's out here seeking danger and a way to get himself in trouble. "...Jim," he deadpans. "Why are you calling a dinosaur to you like it's a kid?"

[boldly_going]

"Because it's almost like a dog, isn't it?" Jim should have known that Bones would show up exactly when he was in the middle of doing something that could be, in some circles, construed as potentially dangerous.

"He's not going to hurt anyone," he adds. "He's just lost."

[leftwithmybones]

"It still weights a dozen times more than you," McCoy patiently lectures. "Sure, a hippo is an herbivore, too, but those things kill a lot of people," he says, hands on his hips in a way that makes him look like a goddamn school marm, so he eases off. "Can we leave the dinosaur in peace?"

[boldly_going]

"We can, but it's not going to leave us in peace," Jim points out. "It's out here wreaking havoc on a perfectly-fine garden party and I'm going to try to salvage some of it. Come on. You can help me catch the guy and get him back through whatever door he came from."

[leftwithmybones]

McCoy already sees his day stretching out in front of him and he knows that if he doesn't help Jim, they're going to be at odds all day and Jim's still gonna end up helping out this damned dinosaur. With a long sigh, he consents with a nod. "All right, fine. What do you want me to do?"

[speedy_queen]

Thea barely manages to get out of the way of an entire tray of champagne flutes as it comes crashing down but her shoes aren't as lucky as her dress in that regard. She slides them off and grabs a napkin, furiously trying to dry them.

"These are satin," she says ruefully. "I could have worn the Louboutins but oh no, I had to go and wear the cream satin Manolos before Easter and now the fashion gods have smote me."

Still, she says it with a smile because it's a lot better to be concerned about shoes than the next guy hellbent on murdering her brother - shoes are a nice, normal concern.

[lip_service]

Lip doesn't usually belong at any fucking garden tea parties, but this one feels like a special kind of lack of belonging. In the middle of stealing as many miniature sandwiches as he can jam into a tupperware container (gotta keep the family fed somehow and this is pretty much his contribution for the month), he catches sight of the dinosaur chowing down on the flowers. "Huh," Lip comments, yanking up one of the bottles of champagne before it spills.

He salutes the creature and shrugs before taking a swig. "And here I thought I was the strangest fucking thing in the ten mile radius."

[iwillnotsettledown]

"Now, anyone who's been here longer than three and a half seconds knows that isn't possible." MacKenzie, for her part, is sipping champagne and watching the dinosaur with a very casual eye. It's been two years since she showed up here the first time and she's seen a great many crazy things.

"Dinosaurs are mild at this point."

[lip_service]

Lip glances sideways, a weird feeling of deja-vu hitting his peripheral vision because it's sort of like Helene, except a little off center, like looking at someone in a funhouse mirror or something. It's a little less hair and darker, but it's a lot the same. So, you know, yeah, he kind of likes looking at her. Life's all about the aesthetics.

"What kind of weird are we talking about here? Because I thought the universes pressed up against one another was the height of this."

[iwillnotsettledown]

"More or less," MacKenzie says, "But there are few things that can really surprise me on this side of the door anymore. I think I've gotten a little touch jaded over the last two years."

She laughs a bit and steps to the side, avoiding the crash of a serving cart. "At least I'm a little more athletic?"

[lip_service]

Lip feels like this is the sort of thing you need drugs for or it's the kind of thing that you only see when you're on drugs. Either way, it's not what he's become used to at Chez Fancy-Fucktown. "Jesus christ," he mutters, at the chaos around them. "It's like a Friday night at the Gallaghers," he mutters. "Just replace Frank with a dinosaur."

"Two years, huh? This place have a date when it was established? Or are we all assuming it's just been here forever?"

[iwillnotsettledown]

"I don't know about an establishment date," MacKenzie admits. She taps her lips a bit, thinking out loud. "I want to say that it felt like the place had been here for quite a while when I showed up two years ago. I think it was here before I ever started coming here...but I think I'm one of the first of this current group to have arrived. Does that make sense at all?"

[phrynefisher]

Where she stood watching with avid interest splashed clear across her face, hat tipped and the white silk of her dress as clean as when she had stepped off the tennis court, Phryne had to think that whatever the creature was it was surely an improvement upon one of Aunt P.'s garden parties. The fact that she held a mimosa in one hand rather than a drink the teetotalers might better approve of made the scene all the more appealing, although she couldn't say she didn't miss dear Dot's presence at her side at that moment.

"However did it manage to get into the hotel in the first place?" she found herself wondering aloud, the question one that tugged at a minor mystery but one that did not send her chasing down the answer quite yet. It wasn't as if it were a murder or some other crime in need of solving, after all.

Perhaps she might've wished for Mac instead of Dot, as however sweet the younger woman was it would be certain that Dot would be busy wringing her hands or standing with her eyes wide. Mac would likely have just asked for a stiff drink and joined in for a little color commentary as they watched the staff attempt to wrangle the creature and keep it from demolishing the garden.