[Featured characters: Aila, Alanis, Mel] Budehuc Castle: By the Lake This area sits lower than the main castle--So much so, in fact, that the only path up to the front door is up a long, narrow set of stairs. Nowhere does the castle itself look more worn down than here, where the walls are moss-covered and so well worn that defensive walls and pathways have smoothed into one. The buildings that have popped up here, however, are as beautiful and new as anything--Made of brick and white walled, with red-tiled rooves and sturdy wooden beams. Here the pathways have been repaved, as well, making a pleasant stone path that leads around the lake. A well sized outside cafe sits here, with half a dozen white tables set up in the sunlight by the lake. The lake itself is the most stunning thing here--Wide and beautiful, one can see far, far across the lake the silhoette of the mountains that sit north of Vinay del Zexay. ===== Today is slightly overcast - the skies are covered in clouds and there is a slight smell of rain, but the day is cool and breezy. It's still acceptable enough to be eating outside. The castle now is starting to bustle with activities - trade wagons are starting to stop by with the supplies for the Party that was going to be hosted here soon. Mel sits, with chopsticks in her left hand, eating a bowl of rice noodles that Mamie had managed to put together despite the extensive water damage dealt by Viki yesterday afternoon by Viki. Aila inhales deeply of the cool air, admiring the scents that hang dormantly all about her. She always felt there was something refreshing about days such as these. It follows, then, that she is in a relatively congenial mood, a product of the weather, the soda in her hand, and the prospect of food. Her steps light, she strolls along the lake, heading towards the cafe, and considers what she'd like to eat. Perhaps some soup. Soup with lots of meat. That sounded absolutely delectable. So, adopting a quicker pace, she makes a beeline for Mamie, places her order with a smile, retreives her food, offers some potch and, at last, sits down. Alanis likes to think she has common sense, at least once in a while. To her credit, she did check to make sure Viki was rooted to her spot by the mirror in the entry hall, snoring, before she made her way back down to the cafe to talk to Mamie before berakfast. She wanted to apologize - after all, she /was/ involved in the incident, and despite her efforts, she hadn't been able to save the kitchen. She feels a bit responsible. In the end, she offered to help with extra cleaning, and it is only now, a little past lunch, that she has been able to take a break and amble outside with a bowl of pork fried rice and a tall glass of melon soda. She scurries to the nearest table and slips into a chair, ready to dig in. Cleaning is hard work! Aila and Mel receive a cheerful, somewhat tired wave. Mel waves back at Alanis, her chopsticks catching the wind. She recognizes the girl as the one who was teleported into the bath by Viki at least once. "Hello, Alanis!" she calls out. "Why don't you come sit with me?" She is about to wait for the girl's response when Branky mumbles, "Hey, isn't that the girl who was bathing in the fountain?" Mel blinks, looking suspiciously at Branky. "Hey, I thought I had your eyes covered!" Branky shrugs. "And her! Too! That brown girl over there, she was in the fountain too! I think she's a little more my type... Alanis is a little young, I think. That Karayan girl had quite a figure... she even walked out for everyone to see! That was quite something. Oh baby." Mel gasps, covering her mouth. "Branky! Don't say that so loud!" she exclaims, which only happens to successfuly draw glances from passerbys. "You shouldn't talk about these kinds of things." Cleaning -is- hard work. Aila only recently managed to get the syrup out of her Karayan clothing. Just another Viki related cleaning exercise. She waves to Alanis and smiles, then plops a spoonful of soup into her mouth, a sip of soda following after she swallows. The routine is quite contenting, and she's perfectly happy to ignore all the woes of the world...that is, until she overhears Branky. Slowly, surely, her gaze swings around to fix upon Mel and her puppet, her aquamarine eyes blazing. She isn't certain whether she should be offended or not. Convinced that Mel is the one voicing Branky, she settles on being disturbed. Thoroughly, deeply disturbed. It's impossible for her to take another bite, in fact. "Um..." she begins, before she realizes she isn't certain what she meant to say. Alanis didn't hear Branky, thankfully, or she would be absolutely scandalized. The /nerve/ of saying something like that about a good Zexen girl! She has morals! Ahem. She does pick up her food and move closer, after a few bites of rice to tide her over on the oh-so-long trip to Aila's table. "Do you mind...?" She would sit at Mel's table, but Aila's has more room, if the other girl doesn't mind sharing. And really, how can two people be caught in a Viki Disaster together and not bond at least a little? SHAFTED! Mel's wave slows down as she watches Alanis head on over to the Karayan girl's table! Well, if that was the case, she would just have to continue eating by herself. Branky mutters, "Oh, that's pretty cold! Well, it's a good thing I'm not a part of the nudist's club! Harumph, you two can just go eat your lunches by yourself." Mel claps her fingers around Branky's snout. "Look! There's no nudist's club here and I'm sure there's a perfectly nice reason why Alanis didn't want to sit with me!" Branky retorts, "It's because SHE thinks you're weird, Mel!" Mel's mouth drops. "Branky!! BAD BRANKY! BAD! BAD! Don't say that about me again! BAD!" Mel throttles Branky's face against the table, shaking it and causing drops of soup to fly out of her bowl of noodles. "Ow! OW! Stop it! I'm sorry! You're perfectly nice, Mel! Mel! MEL! I love you! And Alanis! And the Karayan girl, too! They're all perfectly nice people! Mel! You're not weird, Mel! OW!" Somehow, Aila manages to tear her gaze away from Mel and Branky, at which point she nods to Alanis and says, "Oh, of course." Then, albeit cautiously, she dips her spoon into her soup and elevates the utensil to her mouth--carefully does it. It's dropped before it can even reach her lips, when the uproar between Branky and Mel assaults her ears. Her soup splatters as the spoon lands with a loud clank into the bowl, and she looks pleadingly to Alanis. This castle will be the end of her sanity. Nonetheless, she does her best to end the racket by, cordially, asking of Mel, "Would you like to join us...maybe?" She isn't certain whether she'll be heard over the noise. "Yeah, Mel - come over here! The table is bigger!" This is said cheerfully as Alanis deposits her own lunch onto the tabletop and slides into a chair next to Aila. She was going to wave Mel over anyway - it would be bad manners not to, after Mel invited her! And if Alanis is one thing, it's courteous. At least, she tries her best... and that's probably why she wasn't able to prevent the disaster yesterday. Next time, she just has to snatch that wand away and hide it in the sublevel somewhere. Mel stops beating Branky just enough to hear Aila and Alanis invite her over. She casts a glare at Branky and then says, in an all-knowing voice, "See? They didn't totally ignore me, nor do they think I'm weird." She sticks her tongue out at the wolf who is still reeling from his corporal punishment. Mel grabs her bowl of soup deftly in one hand and then carries it over without spilling a drop. "Hello everyone! Sorry about that - Branky was being a bad boy." Now, wait a minute. Branky was being a bad boy? Aila reels at this. Wasn't Branky controlled by Mel? /Wasn't he?/ Ah, well. Just eat and forget, eat and forget. Distracted by a few spoonfuls of soup, the Karayan nods a greeting to Mel, only barely managing to sneak in, "Hello! I'm Aila." Please don't clobber me with the puppet! But she neglects to add that. It wouldn't be very courteous. Besides, she's less of a threat than Viki. Anything is less of a threat than Viki. Luc and his followers are less of a threat - at least the disasters they cause are /intentional/, though she's starting to wonder about the teleporter girl. Is it /possible/ for a person to be so empty-headed, /really/? Alanis sighs. That isn't a very nice thought. It isn't as if Viki has ever been /mean/ to her. "I'm Alanis," she says to Mel after swallowing a mouthful of rice. The puppet gets an odd look, but she has seen stranger things while traveling with her father, so she doesn't say anything about it. As long as it - or Mel, or whatever - isn't rude, she won't blast it with a fire spell. It's that simple. "Hello!" Mel replies happily. "I think we met when Viki accidentally teleported you into the bath, Alanis," she said, smiling. "Yes, this is Branky. Branky, say hello." The wolf was silent for a moment, but Mel cast him a harsh glare and he capitulated. "Hello, Aila. Hello, Alanis," he droned. "Good," Mel said, and content with Branky's accomplishment of the day, began to move noodles into her mouth. While Mel was in the middle of swallowing, Branky suddenly exclaimed, "Hey, there's a dance coming up. Who are you all going to ask?" A fit of coughing keeps Aila from immediately answering Mel's question, as she chokes on a piece of chicken. Or, at least, she tries to choke on one. It doesn't work very well, and she ends up swallowing it instead. This was nothing to be embarrassed about, she reminded herself. It just never came up back in Karaya. They didn't have fancy ballroom dances, just good ol' festivals and large fires. Bravely, she downs another spoonful of soup, then replies, her voice not in the least bit reflecting her momentary confusion. "I plan on asking Jacques. And who are /you/ going to ask?" Nothing like a little afternoon gossip. Alanis had forgotten all about the dance! Not that it matters, for her... she's just a little girl, and her parents probably won't even allow her to go. Not by herself. And who is going to ask her - the bishop? Ha! Melville and Elliot are too clueless, and she doesn't really know anyone else besides Hugo... She sighs, and takes a big mouthful of rice, so she won't have to answer Mel's question. Aila is better at this anyway. "I'm going to ask Barts!" Mel says confidently. "He's definitely the talk of the town, I think!" She smiles smugly. "And you know? We have to make sure that Belle asks Hugo!" She says that much louder than Belle would have liked - then again, merely uttering her name and Hugo's name in the same sentence caused Belle to blush madly. "How about you, Branky?" Branky makes a big show of thinking. "I don't know..." he mumbles. "Hmm. I'll have to think about that - there's a limited selection of eligible females at this castle..." Mel smiles. "Well, there's a large selection of eligible males, aren't there? So who is it going to be, Alanis? Hmm?" Aila grins and nods at Mel, upon hearing her suggestion to fix Hugo up with Belle. She busies herself with another few bites of soup, followed by a sip of soda, and tilts her head inquisitively, looking to Alanis. "You do plan to go, right? And if you go, you should go with someone." Then again, Alanis is a bit young, isn't she? Well, there are plenty of younger boys, too. While waiting for Alanis' response, Aila suddenly pales a notch, and she pushes her soup aside. Oh dear. It suddenly occurred to her, as most startling revelations have a tendency of doing, that she had neither a dress nor knowledge of dancing. Most twelve-year-olds don't know much about dancing either, and Alanis is in the extreme minority - it's one of those things her mother taught her, for some obscure reason she hasn't guessed at yet. She's a bit young to be married off, and they forbid her to go anywhere /alone/ with a boy, so... why? Being a kid isn't all it's cracked up to be. Fun and games? Ha. "I don't think so," she mutters around the end of her bite of rice, swallowing hard. She wants to take another, but now that they've asked... "Even if my parents let me go, I have no one to go with. It would be silly." Mel reaches to Alanis with her left hand. "Oh, come on! I'm sure your parents won't mind... what's there to be worried about? It's a /dance/. Celebrating the /Flame Champion/. I bet that THEY'RE going to go to! No one on this side of the Grasslands is going to miss it!" She gets caught up in her romantic notions and continues. "When I was thirteen, I always dreamed of being able to attend a gigantic ball and being able to wear a pretty dress and then asking all of these handsome young men to come with me... didn't you have those dreams? Aila? Alanis? I thought that was exactly the kind of dreamy story they told Zexen kids! But... uhh, maybe not the Karayan ones." She shrugged, and took another bite of noodles. "It'll be fun, Alanis. It's okay. You don't NEED to invite anyone, I'm sure it would be okay if you just went by yourself, too." "We didn't have dances in Karaya like the one planned for here," explains Aila. "They were a bit less...organized, I guess. Festivals. When I was young, I used to drink about catching a prizewinning bore for the festival..." Karayans and Zexens have vastly different cultures, apparently. Who'd have guessed? Against her will, Aila ends up sighing, then folds her hands, "As a result, I don't even know how to dance. Don't have a dress, either." She finishes her soda in one swill, looking speculatively to Alanis and then Mel. "Guess that'll make attending sort of hard." Alanis shrugs a bit self-consciously, staring down at her rice. Really, it isn't like she has any reason to go. She can already hear her mother going on about how this is a grownup thing, and she can let Hugo know she's happy for him later, or send him a letter... It makes her sigh again, with just a hint of exasperation. She doesn't really /care/ anyway. "I have pretty dresses, but I don't think it matters. I'm too young, you know?" She shrugs, trying to appear casual, and looks at Aila. "If you want to learn... I guess I could show you a little bit about how to dance. It's not hard, as long as the other person knows how..." Mel looks from Alanis to Aila. "I can't believe you two! Look at it - if Alanis teaches you how to dance, then... who'll be there to help you out if you need a sudden pointer? I mean, you do want to look the best for Jacques, right?" She puts on an inredulous expression on her face, although she doesn't know who Jacques is... Branky says, "Mel, you don't even know who Jacques is." Mel pauses. "That... that doesn't matter! It'll be impressive if you ca ngo to the ball and then look all beautiful and dance with him, wouldn't it! I bet he'd love it - all guys like things like that! There are a lot of dresses in the Budehuc wardrobes. I'm sure Thomas or Sebastian can hook you up with something." She then whirls on Alanis. "Too YOUNG? I bet the first person to show up will be Cecile, and she's maybe your age! And look, I'm not even that much older than you, Alanis. And Belle! She's probably going too. That's no excuse! Don't worry if you don't have anyone to bring with you... a lot of people there I bet will be going by themselves. And there's dinner... and they're serving wine, and drinks, and snacks, and everyone's going to be happy and..." Mel calms down at this point and then sighs. "Well, okay. If none of you really want to go, I guess I can't force you. But... but you really should! Or I'll get Viki to /teleport/ you there!" She hadn't really intended the last line to be a threat - Mel thought it was more of a suggestion, herself. "It isn't that I don't want to go, just..." Alanis shakes her head, and stuffs some rice into her mouth. She really is hungry, and she has to finish this before it gets cold. Cold rice isn't deadly, but it's not nearly as good that way. "It's really bad taste to go to something like this alone..." she contninues when she has swallowed, and takes a long sip of her soda. Nothing like melon soda to cheer a girl up! "I don't know, maybe not for someone my age... I bet people will just assume I'm there with my parents." That's not a happy prospect either, really. Mel simply levels a stare at Alanis. "Bad taste? Alanis. You're young... do you think anyone will honestly care? Even if no one would ever date me, I'd still go alone!" She puts Branky underneath the table and a muffled grumble could be heard before she lifts up back up. "No one will care, Alanis, in the long run." She nods reassuringly. "But you know... if you do want someone to go with... I'll start asking around! How about that?" "Ah..." Alanis drops her spoon for a minute, and has to snatch it back up before it can bounce over the edge of the table. "No, no..." Is her face turning red? It feels a little hot. How embarassing. "That's just the way it is here, that's all..." Well, that's the way it is in Harmonia, where your dancing partner is a sign of status, or... something. Her mother had lectured her on that too, when she thought they'd be staying there for a long time. She almost wishes they /had/ stayed, even if it was a really strict place. "Way it is here? We're half in the Grasslands and half in Zexen. I've lived here for quite a bit of time and I have quite a bit of experience in these matters," Mel says, as if this fifteen year-old was the resident expert on relationships and etiquette. "Don't worry. Branky and I will find you a GREAT dance partner!" She then resumes eating and finishes her food, pushing it aside gently, politely waiting for Aila and Alanis to finish. "And Aila - I'll be sure to let Master Thomas and Mister Sebastian know you're looking for a dress and dance lessons! Unless Alanis here is going to teach you?" Hmmm, maybe she should point Aila to someone else after all. Alanis isn't experienced enough to actually /dance/ with the other girl and use the boy's steps... she'd have to just show her some other way. That might not work. But... nown that she's offered, how is she going to withdraw? And she /can't/ let someone else try to find her a date! That would just be disasterous! "No, really, I... I can just ask one of my friends or something, don't worry!" Assuming her parents let her go at all, of course. She almost hopes they won't. Mel smiles widely. "Well, that's great then! Your friend Mel'll find you someone in no time!" She picks up her soup bowl. "Okay. I have a few things I have to do now... yes, I'll be looking after some decorations for the party!" Mel grinned widely. "It was great talking with you, Alanis and Aila!" Branky rolled his eyes. "Alanis... I feel for you," he said grimly. With that the girl returned her dirty dishes back to Mamie's counter and then bounded off for her day's work, peering suspiciously at all of the young men she encountered, along with a glance back at Alanis. Right... Once again, she has managed to land herself in another bit of embarassing trouble. And she can't blame it on Viki, this time. What if her parents hear about this? That could be bad... very, very bad. It takes Alanis a little while to finish her bowl of rice, and drain her soda, and when she's finished, she offers Aila a weak good-bye before trudging across the patio to the kitchen again. A good bout of scrubbing should help this situation... she hopes.