Gathering: Masquerade Ball

[concierge]

A large sign placed prominently in the Nexus lobby reads:

The Nexus Hotel
proudly presents the
MARDI GRAS MASQUERADE BALL

Event Location
Nexus Dining Hall
8 PM - 2 AM

Masquerade dress recommended, but not required for all guests

The Dining Hall's central table and chairs had been removed to create a dance floor wide enough to accommodate fanciful masquerade costumes. On one end had been placed a long bar providing free drinks, and on the other a small chamber orchestra providing the music for dancing. The entire room was bedecked in gold bunting and twinkling candlelight, and masks were available for those guests who hadn't brought their own.

Comments

[tooktheblack]

"It was meant to be a wolf," Jon said, touching the edges of his mask lightly. "I thought that would be appropriate, considering the sigil of my father's house. Do you really think it looks like a fox instead?"

Judging from how the woman colored, Jon thought perhaps she had another meaning but he could not quite determine what that meaning was.

[the_dawnster]

"Ohhhh!" Dawn says with a nod, her eyes wide and scrutinizing as she looks over the mask again in a new light. Sure, just the mask. That's all she's looking at. But given the truth of it, she can see it's a wolf now. "I see it now. Definitely a wolf."

Not a fox. Way to embarrass yourself, Dawn. Good job. "So the sigil of your house, huh? That's all... purposeful and profound." Her reasoning for choosing a butterfly was nothing so great as his.

[tooktheblack]

"I could see how one could confuse the two from a distance," Jon said, smiling just a bit and touching the edges of his mask. "My name is Jon. Will you honor me with yours, my lady?"

[the_dawnster]

Well, the 'my lady' gets a bright smile out of her that she couldn't have stopped even if she tried. It's like something out of one of the historical fiction novels she sometimes reads. And deep down, it just makes her a little giddy. "Oh, I'm Dawn. Summers. Dawn Summers. It's nice to meet you, Jon."

[tooktheblack]

"Dawn? What a lovely name." Jon had not heard that used in Westeros unless it was among the common folk - they often named their children for simple things like emotions or flowers but he liked the idea of a name that hearkened back to the sense of hope that one felt upon rising in the morning.

"Have you been here terribly long?"

[the_dawnster]

"Thanks. That's nice of you to say." Most people just went straight to the annoying part of her that got up in the middle of everybody's business. Compliments were something she took note of and would try to remember.

"Yeah, I've been here over a year. Completely cramping my absentee record at Berkeley but I guess that's okay." She shrugs lightly. "I got to see dinosaurs... which was both super cool and terrifying. Be careful about that door, by the way."

[tooktheblack]

"I am familiar with dinosaurs," Jon said, smiling ruefully. He had experienced them in the other place, on the island where his family was before coming here to the Nexus. It had been so, so long since he was in Westeros that he felt like, sometimes, it was a dream and not this place.

"I have found that they often have more teeth and claws than I want to deal with on a regular basis."

[the_dawnster]

"Yeah, it got very Jurassic Park very fast." Which, in hindsight, she should have seen that coming. But right now she's trying not to smile like a big ol' dork in response that smile of his. It's really a cute smile.

"But there are other fun doors, like to beaches and shopping malls." She adds. Because really it wasn't all bad. And Dawn knew it could be worse.

[tooktheblack]

"Beaches, I know what that means," Jon said, mulling over the rest of it. "But what is a shopping mall?"

The only shopping he had ever done had been at the small villages between Winterfell and the Wall. Most of them had been even poorer than where he grew up and he knew nothing of life in a city.

[the_dawnster]

"Oh. Well it's a place with a ton of stores where you can get pretty much anything you can think you might want or need, all in one place." She explains as best she can. "You shop there. Like a market but with designer duds and stuff."

She offers him a small smile. "I always joke that I have mall-dar. You know, like radar but for malls? It doesn't matter what city I'm in, I can find the mall."

[tooktheblack]

Most of her words were unfamiliar but Jon had lived outside of Westeros long enough to gather some of the meaning. It helped, being with Leah and the others, because then he could follow the vernacular of these people better.

"Do you need so many things that you have to have a whole market in every city?"

[the_dawnster]

"Well yeah. And then you need the shoes to go with that dress and different shoes to go with those pants and so on." She says this as if it were obvious. Only after a moment of consideration does she quickly add. "I mean for boys it's not usually so complicated. Most of them throw on whatever old thing and go. Girls have a lot of... fashion stuff."

[tooktheblack]

"Some of them, anyway. Take my sister Sansa, for example. I think she has a gown for every day of the month," Jon said, laughing lightly. It had been a long while since he thought of Sansa but the idea of a wardrobe overflowing with shoes and gowns made him think of her before anyone else.

[the_dawnster]

Dawn has to smile when he mentions his sister. Not only because they have the whole siblings thing in common, but also because he speaks of her with a certain amount of fondness. She likes that. "How many siblings do you have?"

[tooktheblack]

"Five," Jon said, smiling a bit at the thought of them. While it still hurt to know that Robb was dead in Westeros, barely only a man, he knew that Robb was alive and well back on the island and that was enough to satisfy Jon and keep him from any deep melancholy.

"Two sisters and three brothers."