Probably should have left the alcohol to Athos, really.

[at_your_side]

Intoxicated. Yes, that was- that was the word she was looking for. Intoxicated was just the very thing she could use to describe herself...or her state...the state of herself?

While the details of it had become increasingly fuzzy with each of the delightful, oh so colorful cocktails the bartender sat in front of her (how many had she had again?), Constance was fairly certain the day had begun well enough. There had been a bath, a bath! One with an endless supply of hot water piped right into her room so she might lie in her tub with the dawn light filtering in through the glass of her colored windows and wiggle her toes in easy contentedness.

But then there- ah! There had been the issue of dressing. Or, rather, not of dressing but of what to dress herself in when her only...dress, yes, had been worn already for the day before. She could have made do with it if she had had to, had even pulled it on while not pulling too much of a face, but had been all too grateful upon meeting the lovely Ruby in the hallway not far from her door.

Never had she seen a woman who wore so little out in public. It had left her gaping in the second before she had recovered herself, to see so much skin on display with not so much a flicker of concern in the other woman's expression as she had smiled and introduced herself. Somehow - now here the details were particularly fuzzy at that moment - they had gotten onto the subject of Constance's singular dress and somehow further the conversation had become one of the other woman, still a stranger, but so earnestly friendly, had volunteered her help.

All of which led to her sitting there at the bar of the Smoking Room, wearing pants of all things while Ruby slid a drink in front of her. She was certain there had been sense behind the action, and no, she did not feel the least bit overexposed with the buttoned shirt she wore beneath her corset or the coat she wore that hung down to her knees (she tried not to giggle at the thought of needing to cover her bum, but was only partially successful). What was even more certain was that these - those little cocktails, they were delicious.

Comments

[littlerubyred]

The simple joy of helping someone had always been something Ruby had taken pleasure in, dating back to her earliest memories of a child in the forest when she’d been known simply as Red. Her habits at the Nexus had skewed in that particular direction time and again with her position as a waitress at the bar, where she was granted access to so many of the hotel’s guests that she might not otherwise have met and where so many, who arrived in the hotel lost and confused, came to seek solace. Ruby was a talker and one that made herself familiar to her customers out of habit, and it was a habit that extended to the halls and other areas of the hotel. She had been in the Nexus long enough to recognize familiar faces and notice new ones, and when she’d spotted Constance in her dress, looking so pretty and yet somehow so out of place, she hadn’t been able to resist introducing herself.

A bit of conversation had Ruby offering to help her new friend into some new clothes, something she was now long used to, and the outfit her new friend had chosen was one that fit her emerging personality quite well, Ruby thought. A trip down to the bar had been enough to introduce Constance to the wonders of fruity cocktails, and Ruby couldn’t check her grin at how easily the woman smiled and expressed her alcohol-induced happiness. She looked to be having a wonderful time and Ruby was glad. She did so enjoy when her customers had a good time of it.

“You’re so cute,” Ruby said with a laugh at Constance’s look of excitement at a new cocktail being slid in her direction. “They really are the best things ever though, aren’t they?”

[at_your_side]

All that had weighted her down seemed as if it had slipped away with the taste of novel, bright flavors of fruit and chill and the backing of what must have been alcohol but tasted unlike any she had ever had. She had not meant to do more than taste as part of her fledgling exploration of the strange world she had found herself in, each turn seeming as if it allowed some new wondrous thing to marvel over, but had gotten lost in the novelty of the chill of ice on a warm day and the rainbow of offerings the bar had in store.

The assurance that the Queen was not only safe but occupied with the dauphin in her arms at once allowed Constance the freedom to spend the day following her own whims and the odd, heavy sensation in her chest in knowing that she was at that moment not needed. Where she begrudged the Queen nothing, least of all any small bit of happiness she could find, it had had her seeking out something for herself amongst the rest of the hotel.

There was a freedom she was not at all used to in knowing that in that moment, there was no need to guard her reputation. She remained fairly well covered in her clothes as was comfortable, but it was not Paris, it was not the Court. She could smile freely with her fingers curled against her glass and none would think less of her for having abstained her widows weeds.

"They are lovely," she agreed, the answer as easy as her use of the word 'lovely' for at least the tenth time since she had begun trying the concoctions Ruby brought her. "I have had nothing like them before. They don't have such things where I'm from, you know. Pretty cocktails and..." she searched for the word she had been given at least twice over by then, "Straws."