Gathering: New Guest Reception

[concierge]

The black sign positioned in front of the Dining Hall's main entrance reads:

New Guest Reception
TODAY
6 PM - 8 PM

All guests welcome

In the Dining Hall itself, the chairs have been pushed up against the walls and the long dining table turned into a buffet stocked with finger foods. At the far end of the room is a small bar serving beer, standard cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks.

Comments

[kuno_ichi]

Considering that guests of the hotel were fed for free in the Bistro everyday, April found it curious that the promise of free finger food could be enough of a draw for a party. Maybe she was underestimating the appeal of getting drunk, since she was only sixteen, had never been drunk, and had no desire to get drunk. Maybe people only needed a flimsy excuse to congregate.

Whatever the reason, there were plenty of people milling around as she peered over the buffet.

Ooo, cupcakes.

[rangerbecket]

In the past few days. Raleigh has learned a hell of a lot about this hotel. With Issac's advice, he did eventually find a door back to the Hong Kong shatteredome and realized that no time had passed at all. It's like this hotel exists only in his head and he likes to think of it as an extension of the Drift that he hasn't ever found before. He grabbed some clothes and a little cash before coming back.

Yancy could be here, in the Drift, and Raleigh isn't going to waste that chance.

When he gets back, dressed in fatigues and a t shirt, he sees there's some kind of reception going on. He snags a beer and stuffs a little sandwich in his mouth, nodding at the person next to him. "Sorry. Starving," he offers by way of apology.

[kuno_ichi]

"I'm constantly surrounded by teenage boys at home, I've seen way worse behavior with food," April replied with a smile. Her plate was already obscenely crowded, she definitely didn't have room to criticize anyone else.

"From where I'm coming from, what you just did would be considered good etiquette."

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh manages to swallow before flashing her a smile and a greeting. "Well, then I'm sorry for the bad manners of teenage boys everywhere. Name's Raleigh."

It's been a long time since introductions were a regular thing and Raleigh is more than aware of how insular he is on a regular basis. Maybe this party shit is exactly what he needs.

[malachai]

Probably the strangest part about this place, bar none, was the room he'd been assigned. In fact, he'd stood at the threshold for a good five minutes before walking into the mirror of his bedroom in his Bourbon Street house. Then he'd spent a good half hour just walking around, touching the familiar furniture, bedspreads, the picture of his mother on the dresser.

That picture had taken him a good few hours the night before to get over.

But the promise of numbing a little of the demon's voice in his head with a beer was strong enough to get him out of the room and away from it. Besides, he was curious enough about who else was here, and Dark Hunter enough to make sure none of them were Daimons.

[legendthatwas]

This time Martha was making a cup of tea.

No, seriously. She had ended up zapping back home two days after she'd first arrived in the hotel, while getting up to go to the loo in her suite and panicking about her next shift--the door had ended up being the door to the lounge loo in the hospital, about ten minutes after she'd left it--and she had decided to take it as a transdimensional fluke, report it to UNIT and Jack, and call it a day.

But this time she'd been just getting home, and she'd been bored and lonely on the Tube home from shopping, and okay okay maybe reminiscing a little, that was allowed. And so she'd walked through the door to the kitchen to boil some water, and there she was again. She was going to have to start carrying more cash, if this was going to be a thing, and if this was going to be a thing, she was going to have to figure out what the hell it was.

In the meantime, reconnaissance was in order. And if that dovetailed nicely with a reception, so be it. At least this time she had a little more prep time for the whole thing, time for a shower and to fix her hair and change into the jeans she'd got at Fraser's that she was still carrying with; by 6:20, she was downstairs with a cosmopolitan in hand, surveying the crowd.

[weighted_reality]

It's been yet another strange day. Arthur had closed his eyes to sleep and found himself on an airplane in Los Angeles. The loaded die had been rolled, assuring him (again) of his own wakefulness. After settling in–this time not in a hotel but in an old, beloved bed and breakfast–he's once again woken up (or dreamed?) of the strange hotel.

Just as in LA, he's in a new suit, this one charcoal gray with a crisp, ivory shirt and a darker gray waistcoat lined with silk the color of old gold. Concealed in a shoulder holster is a lightweight pistol, one that's easy to disguise with rigid posture and well-tailored clothing.

With a drink in hand, he could be any number of businessmen passing through a normal hotel as he surveys the others.

Arthur just hopes he won't have to kick himself out of the dream with any inelegant methods.

[vampire_shield]

Bella stayed to the back of the reception area. It wasn't that she didn't trust herself around humans, her super self control hadn't done anything but strengthen since she'd opened her eyes to this life a few months ago. She felt the burn in her throat, yeah, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Especially if she remembered where that door was, the one that lead outside into the forest.

Or it did for her. Or something. This place was putting even her mind through a workout. One she should be grateful for since it took her mind off other things. Like the frantic search she'd been through trying to find her way back to the cottage, to Edward, to Ness. To her life.

100 doors later, and she was still out of luck.

She was here to try and see who else was on the off chance that this wasn't what it seemed, that somehow Aro had found a way past her shield. Something. Anything she could fight against.

[malachai]

Nick approached the other Nick with an easy smile, nodding towards the drink in his hand. He waited until he'd caught the guy's eyes.

"Found that drink, I see," Nick said, adding the signing in as well for the hell of it.

[vikingvamp]

Being in a room full of humans was a test to his self-control that Eric wasn't sure he was entirely prepared to handle. While he had drunk on both Olaf and the Bellefleurs' fae girl, it still didn't change the fact that smelling humans made him long for blood all the same.

The girl in the corner was interesting. She didn't smell human and, strangely, smelled the closest to vampire of anyone he'd scented since arriving here. He drew closer, a little further into personal space than normally acceptable.

"You are not human," he whispers, just below the audible range of most humans.

[iwillnotsettledown]

MacKenzie has not been able to go home yet and while the clothes she arrived in are perfectly serviceable (especially after a wash) she's a bit tired of the same sweater and the same skirt. She luckily arrived with a good bit of money but there's very little to actually purchase in the hotel gift shop that she'd concede to wear so for now, she's making do.

She has her own cosmo in hand when she spots a woman with the same idea. MacKenzie lifts her glass in solidarity. "Great minds, right?"

[vampire_shield]

Bella spun and darted two feet back when the strange man spoke behind her. She studied the man, listening to his breathing, a definite heartbeat though it sounded different, but nothing about him made the burn in her throat feel worse than usual. "Neither are you," she said back, her voice like bells and not much louder than his.

[hearnospeakno]

Nick doesn't catch exactly what Raleigh is saying, what with a mouth full of food and a bad angle to see anyway, but he can spot an apology when he sees one. He shrugs it off, waving a hand casually.

He's covered in streaks of dirt, exhausted, and surprised to realize how hungry he is--except he hasn't eaten since he got here. Nick doesn't know why he still gets hungry, actually, or why he sleeps, or why so far it's just him and Larry, and the benefit of being sunburned and aching is that he's worked himself into a kind of bruised, grieving calm where the answers don't weigh on him with such urgency. He needs to eat, so does the man next to him, and Nick points at the next tray of sandwiches, then gives a thumbs up.

They're good, is what he's trying to get across.

[vikingvamp]

"No, because I am vampire," Eric said, watching her carefully for a reaction. She was some sort of supernatural creature, that was certain, but he had not pinpointed exactly what. He grinned, showing his fangs.

"But you have nothing to fear from me. Something tells me you wouldn't be very good to eat."

[vampire_shield]

Bella frowned. Fangs? Edward said that was Hollywood's thing. He didn't have them, none of them did. They didn't need them.

"You could try to bite me, but you'd probably just chip one of the fake fangs you've got there, Dracula," Bella sniffed, trying for bravado. He wasn't human, that much she knew, but it didn't mean she was going to be the helpless human she'd once been.

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh swallows and flashes a grin. "Sorry, I was a little into the food and not so much into the introductions. It's been a while since I had such a spread."

Food isn't so good along the coast and while he gets better rations in the shatterdome, it's still not like it was before the kaiju showed up.

[vikingvamp]

"Fake? Hardly," Eric said, biting into his own wrist lightning fast. Vampire blood wouldn't sustain another vampire, no, but it was more about proving a point and less about tempting her with anything.

"Enduring the presence of all the humans, I assume?"

[hearnospeakno]

Nick has a proper notebook, finally. It's nothing fancy, just spiral bound and blue-lined, but he's been assured it's not going to, say, scrawl his conversations out on every piece of hotel stationary.

Beats eating out of a can. Nick smiles after he writes that, looking up at Raleigh. It's thin, wan, and more than slightly sad, but it's a smile. Nick Andros, Boulder, CO.

[vampire_shield]

She'd heard the others talking, both here and around the hotel as she'd checked the doors for the one that would lead her home. That people were here from all kinds of different places - maybe wherever this guy was from vampires had fangs? Considering she was stuck in a hotel, it wasn't like it was the weirdest thing she'd encountered lately.

"So you're a vampire where you come from? Are the others like that?" she waved a hand towards the fangs, and the blood - and damn did that stuff smell almost Jacob level rank or what? "With the teeth and blood and heartbeats?"

[onamissiontocivilize]

Will feels like shit. He's been stuck here without his meds for a few days--both the crazy ones and the ulcer ones--and now he's feeling it. A beer probably isn't the best solution to this problem, but it's the only one he's got at the moment so he figures what the fuck, he'll have one or two because they're there. It'll at least make this party somewhat tolerable. He fucking hates parties, no matter where they are.

[weighted_reality]

"Have I?" Arthur asks, wondering who the stranger is that they are apparently on such familiar terms.

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh hadn't realized he couldn't talk and it takes him a moment to parse that before addressing what he wrote. "Raleigh Becket. I'm from Anchorage, Alaska but I've been living in Hong Kong. It's good to meet you."

He knows the feeling about eating out of a can. After K-day, rations were slim and growing slimmer.

[malachai]

Well, shit. This again?

As soon as he heard the voice he knew this guy wasn't Nick. The other Nick. Thankfully, it also wasn't his first trip with clones, or dopplegangers or whatever the hell made two different people share exactly the same face.

"Yeah, nevermind that comment. You look like someone I met the earlier, but since he's deaf, and mute, I think, you're clearly not him." With that, he extended a hand towards the guy. "Nick Gautier."

[vikingvamp]

"Yes, all vampires are like me. Except, apparently, you, which is an anomaly. Can you walk by day?"

The biggest fascination for vampires for as long as Eric had existed had been daywalking. The Queen of Louisiana had built a palace that simulated a beach party and Russell Edgington had met the true death seeking the sun again.

[vampire_shield]

"No offense, but from where I'm standing, you're the anomaly. My whole family is like this, and so is every other vampire I've met. Some have extra abilities, but they're nothing like you."

Bella smiled, showing perfectly normal, straight, white teeth. "You mean do we go up in a puff of smoke and ash if we stay up past dawn? No. We just have to make sure the humans don't see us if we do. Our skin is more like a diamond than anything you could bite into," she said with a wave of her hand towards the blood on his arm. "And just like diamonds, we throw prisms when the sun touches our skin."