The Empty Party Halls

[Tyme]

Ytivicani swirled around happily in her dark blue masquerade dance. There was no music except what played in her mind, and no other people in the abandoned hall. This was Coral Hall, which was usually so overflowing with happy people that Ytivicani just had to ignore it. Of course, with the troubles the plauge brought, there were hardly any people out celebrating much of anything.

"Mmm. Such wonderful inactivity." she sighed contentedly and continued to dance with nothing but air. Her dress was exactly two hundred and fifty mortal years outdated. During that time bubbles had been all the rage. Ytivicani has bubble earings, and bubble patterened skirts. In fact, the gauzy material that was layered over her skirts was modeled to look like a bubble. Anyone who saw her would have thought she was crazy.

(ooc:I call all mortals and immortals. Anyone! Please? ;D)

[Farain]

The plague victim stumbled through the door and slumped onto the empty floor. Drool dripped from cracked lips for a brief moment. Then, shifting rags, he dragged himself to his feet and slouched against the wall.

He coughed and shivered.

Rheumy eyes blinked at the shining vision before him. He didn't bother to wonder about the outrageous fashion, because he figured it was just another hallucination. All of them had similar beautiful women in outlandish clothing that he, a now-failed fashion designer, wished he had the guts to create. What he did bother to wonder about was how this whole situation would be improved by hot, buttered, popped corn.

He was hungry, come to think of it. Too bad hallucinated food didn't have calories...

[Tyme]

Ytivicani paused for a moment and frowned distastefully at the mortal presence. It added a bit of activity ot he room, and that annoyed the demigoddess of inactivity quite a bit. Activity was what made her sluggish and retreat back to the comforts of her home in the plane of darkness. One mortal wasn't nearly enough to do anything big, but it was like a little itch that she couldn't quite get rid of. She stared at the mortal in thought. She could kick him out, which would eventually return the balance of inactivity in the room, but she would add quite a bit by doing something productive.

Ah. She would let him stay. A fiddle appeared out of nowhere.
"Play this mortal. I will grant you a happy afterlife." she said imperiously. She was daughter of Farain, and had little to do with the afterlife, but it usually worked. No one ever guessed she was daughter of the young party god. She handed the fiddle into the dirty arms of the mortal, and stepped away a bit. Ytivicani tried to summon an expression of great displeasure that would spurn the mortal to begin. Music would be an interesting addition this this dance that was usually performed in silence.

[Farain]

The dancer noticed him. That wasn't that unusual, really, but it ruined the popcorn idea. Her gaze was a bit unnerving when she lapsed into stillness, but apparently his subconscious landed and made the next happening happen.

A violin appeared in front of him, and she commanded him to play. He plucked it from the air and laid it against his against his shoulder. It had been a while, but before he'd managed to break into the fashion business, he'd made his living playing fiddle on street corners. Not very many people moved to Marina from Terra, since it was so far and so poor, so Terran folk music went over well enough.

He began to play a classic folk song. "My Girl is the Best Cook in Arkas", it was called. Some of the lyrics were about fried wattle... It had been so long since he'd had some. The greasy center, the peppercorn breading, the crunch of wattleseed... His mouth began to water, and he began to forget his aching bones.

[X]

A madman heard music (but it wasn't the song the plague victim was playing). Following his ears, he stumbled upon an abandoned hall, the state of which saddened him. The emptiness seemed lonely to him, and who was he to deny it company?

So, following the slow, sad tune playing in the back of his mind, he danced gracefully around the room in complete contrast to the tune that was being played by the plague victim. He couldn't remember where the steps to his dance came from, but them just felt... right.

In fact, he couldn't remember much of anything, except this song that had replaced his memories; a slow, sad tune for a slow, sad life. A few happy note quickly dashed, a few quick steps quickly forgotten, but an underlying solitude, an unescapable lack of purpose which showed as he flowed across the dance floor, for all he could tell completely alone.

A name? He hadn't one. Love? Maybe, but it was gone now, all gone, everything was gone...

[Tyme]

The tune was not as slow and empty as she had hoped from a plague victim, but perhaps he had once been a fiddler. She pursed her lips in a bit of displeasure at the tone of the song, but she swayed nonetheless. It was just like a poor street man to not know of the old party tunes that couldn't possibly go any slower. The tulle on her dress swished against the coral tile of the floor, and her feet tapped to the rhythm of the song. It was Terran. She had never liked Terran tunes. They were simply too fast.

Again, Ytivicani sensed a rise of activity levels in the room. She turned her head slowly towards the new arrival. Her bubble earrings shook a bit as she sighed. Why were these crazy mortals dirtying the purity of this room? The fact that he was dancing to another crazy tune conflicted with the fiddler's tune, and made everything even worse.
"What are you doing here mortal?" she asked imperiously. She wasn't used to dealing with this many in one day. Maybe she should retreat to some abandoned temple shrine. It would be quiet and filled to the brim with inactivity.

[X]

The madman stopped, still as a statue, when addressed, and remained there for some length of time before answering,"Well, that question could be taken two ways: The first, theologically, which I think you are more suited to answering than me. The second, obviously, is dancing, although in stopping to answer I seem to have made my answer a lie."

Satisfied with his answer, he returned to his dance, as he was very much against lying, even to people who went around addressing others as 'Mortal!' this and 'Mortal!' that. It was rude if not simply odd, reminding each person with your opening line of conversation that death is inevitable. Some might even find it downright depressing, but this madman wasn't the sort to spend too much time thinking about it. There's no telling what dangerous places thoughts like that might lead!

Well, needless to say, he quickly forgot about the odd lady and her strange question/manner of speech.

[Tyme]

Ytivicani was irritated by the complicated answer. She wasn't one for thinking. It wasn't in her blood. Her father was a mindless party god who lived for the fun of life. Her mother, by all accounts, had been a silly daft fool who had addled Farain enough that he forgot to make parties for a few years. She was the product of the two, and they did say the apple did not fall far from the tree. The demi-goddess naturally filtered out most of the answer. Philosophy was for other immortals.

"Are you mad?" she asked in exasperation. She wondered if she would receive another answer that was longer than a sentence. If he was mad would he reply no? Her brows furrowed as she tried to figure it out. The activity levels were giving her a headache. If she'd asked grandfather that question he would have a very long answer. She could hear him drawling on for at least an hour about the little details on the question. Of course that was only if he wasn't annoyed enough with her question that he threw her out. Malar didn't seem to like Farain, so Ytivicani typically avoided his house.

[X]

The madman was puzzled by the question, and contemplated it for several minutes before replying,"No, I don't imagine myself to be angry in the slightest if that's what you meant, otherwise, if I were departed from my sanity then I doubt I'd be able to tell you what sanity was for me to be lacking in it. Much like asking a man who has his whole life been blind to describe to you colors so that you might know what he is missing."

Thinking farther, wondered to himself why she was asking suck impossible questions, and eventually gathered the wits to phase a comment and a question all his own,"Yet again, I find myself unable to properly answer you, M'lady. Perchance you are trying to school me in my incompetence?"

Then he stilled his body and thoughts in patient wait for an answer.

[Tyme]

Ytvicani smiled pleasantly at the silence that followed her question. She resumed dancing to the Terran song. It was rare she could think of something to puzzle someone so. She was the one who was always puzzled about one thing of another, not someone else. When the answer finally came the demigoddess was not giving it her full attention. Her feet stopped in the middle of the step to pivot and face the madman again. It was another long answer. She could ask him a simple yes or no question and he would probably give him at least two sentences.

"I don't care for schooling anyone mortal." she said, her voice becoming whiny with irritation. She liked being alone. Mortals were pesky creatures. She rarely gained pleasure from meddling with their lives. Each of them thought they were so important, which made it even sillier. Very few of them had a part in the bigger scheme of things. It was the immortals who decided everything, whether the mortals knew it or not.

[X]

"No offense, ma'am, but I didn't ask if you cared to or not. A great deal of people do things they don't care to, or don't do things they'd like to. I simply asked if you were or weren't. Regardless, you seem unused to civilized company. I bid you good day."

He was starting to think she wasn't the smartest person to have her wits burned away by plague. That, or she was poorly raised to treat other people so poorly. She probably needed to get out more was his diagnosis, so that she might learn how to properly interact with others, but he wasn't volunteering to put up with her. There were other places he could dance to his life's story. So, he turned his back on her before seeing her response and started to walk away, a slight dance to his step.

(You have permission to smite him as soon as the immortal gets annoyed enough. Tis part of the fun of being immortal.)

[Tyme]

"Civilized?" Ytvicani said, only half directed at the crazy mortal. Who would call a madman civilized but the madman himself? Hadn't she heard somewhere that insanity was infectious? Then again, if that was the case she would have probably gone crazy centuries ago with all the madness that flowed naturally through the Immortal Realms. Anyone would call grandfather mad. He was obsessed with all that strange talk with the seed of pain. Farain was probably crazy too.

She shot a glare in the direction of the madman that was dancing gracefully away. She was beginning to feel her nerves wear thin. He obviously didn't realize whose presence he was in.
"Do you know who I am? I am daughter of Farain and grandchild of Malar! How dare you turn your back to me in such a disrespectful manner!" she said. She felt herslf tiring from the effort of spitting out so many words at once. She carefully left out her domain. It sounded better when she simply listed off her heritage. It also helped to leave out Grangria, because she was one of those "nice" goddesses. Very few mortals knew about Ytvicani anyway. She was hardly a demigoddess that people would wish to pray to.