Morningstar Manor

Saturday, May 30th, 8:00pm
at Rollerama IV

THE LANDLOCKED CITY ROLLERGIRLS vs. THE BAY HARBOR BUTCHERS

featuring

a halftime performance by BRUCE CAMPBELL FOR PRESIDENT
a raffle with proceeds going to THE CITY'S WOMEN'S SHELTER
a CRASH COURSE IN SKATING by your favorite rollergirls
GOOD TIMES
GOOD PEOPLE
and lots of good ole fashioned ASS KICKING

Lara had told Ricky about a week ago that flyers were going to go up for the Landlocked City Rollers next bout on Saturday, but Lara only received the flyers Tuesday morning. That didn't leave a lot of time, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

Her team assigned her the general Vine Square area for poster plasterage, and Lara dragged Stone along to help her out. He was tall, he could put the posters up in higher spots. Or something.

They stopped by the noticeboard and Lara handed him the stack of papers as she grabbed some thumbtacks. "So I heard there's going to be a Flight of the Navigator remake," she commented with a glance in his direction.

Niles walked onto the stage of Upstairs wearing one of his signature, deep v-neck grey t-shirts, battered low-slung jeans, and scuffed black boots, confident and relaxed and completely at home. Sure, he was nervous. Sure, there was a chance that one, many, or all of the people in this room would think him and his set were a complete waste of time, but he wasn't aknowledging that fact right now. Now, he was in complete confidence mode, taking it all on like there was no chance he could fail. The only sign of nerves as he sat down on the stool placed in front of the microphone was the hand that kept scrubbing through his mohawk, which had started out coifed and in place, but now was as much of a wreck as it always was.

He'd also thought out his set list, opting for covers instead of originals, two of which were ironic, one of which he was playing simply because someone asked him to. 

 
He'd decided to throw the last one in because he promised Lara, and the people he'd played it for before had always found it hilarious.  Judging by the laughter that greeted him through the whole song and the fact that it seemed more like they were laughing with him instead of at him, he'd classify it as a success.

With a bow and a smile he stepped off the stage, his acoustic guitar gripped loosely in his left hand.

Niles sat down with his coffee and muffin with a perplexed look on his face, wearing a tight black t-shirt that only showed hints of the tattoos on his arms, ripped and faded low slung jeans, and bright green converse low-tops. His hair was messy, the mohawk almost prominent, but it was more from bedhead than any actual styling on his behalf.
What's up that woman's ass? He wondered as he turned to give the woman behind the counter a disgruntled look. He certainly wasn't used to people in a customer service position being rude to him when he was being perfectly pleasant, let alone a woman. His brow crinkled again and he took the lid off of his coffee to peer down into it and search for signs of spit or snot.
Had her nametag really said 'Joy?' 
Jesus. Hopefully that was a joke, because that was a little too much irony for a man who'd just woken up a few minutes into the afternoon and hadn't had his coffee yet.

Lara's roller derby teammates dropped her off after the Landlocked City Rollers' latest bout. She walked through the lobby with a slight limp, some red elbows, and a pretty big bruise on the back of her left calf. But she wasn't feeling too much pain at the moment. Nope, instead she felt like a badass. Her team had won, she helped, and she got some cool-but-temporary battle scars in the process. All in all a good night. It was too bad her boyfriend wasn't able to be there to see it all, but she was planning on giving him the whole rambly story the next time she saw him.

With her bag and her roller skates slung over her shoulder, Lara made her limp-y way across the lobby to the mailroom.

Stone's birthday present for Lara was a redo of their attempted getaway in the fall/winter. He'd even suffered and flew commercially in business class to keep her from getting all uppity at the private jet. They were, however, utilizing the Hawthorne penthouse in the Venetian. This one was legally Stone's, so there was at least not chance of Patience or Gibson being granted access. Anyway, they'd been in town for a few days, gambling, seeing shows, stuffing themselves and taking advantage of the warm dry weather. They'd even escaped injury so far!

After dinner tonight though, they'd split up to go do some gambling. By sometime around midnight, Stone had lost a little over twelve grand at the poker tables. He'd managed to win about three thousand back at the craps tables but then had decided he wanted to see how Lara was fairing so he started searching for her. He was pretty sure she'd be somewhere around the blackjack tables, which had been where he left her since she dug the game. So he started in that direction, looking for an excitable possibly drunk small blonde woman as he went.

There were feathers - quite a lot of feathers - and a pair of grey-pink feet and a surprised-looking pigeon's head and one exceedingly full Palug, sleeping off a surfeit of game on one of the benches in a patch of sunlight.

hearing fottsteps he opened an eye, turned upside down and said prrrt.

( Cut for Ceil's long windedness )

In the evening, there was a ghost in the conservatory, in a corner behind tall ferns, playing with a deck of tarot cards.

"We totally don't need any more tall dark strangers here!" he murmured, turning around the next card.

He had got much better at manipulating physical matter since last year. If your mind ran that way, you might even not notice that he was a ghost.-


[[OOC: New Year Tarot Post, open to all and sundry -- see last year's post that I linked above! Open until it scrolls off your flist!]]

Lara had woken up when Stone got out of bed in the morning, but after he left, she fell right back asleep. It wasn't too long after that when some noise outside the window woke her up once again, and she decided she would actually get out of bed this time.

After putting on some pajamas and cleaning up in the bathroom, she got something to drink and headed out into Stone's living room. She put on some appropriate music and parked her ass on the couch. She'd spent her last couple of Christmases mostly alone, so it was nice to know that once a certain someone came back (from giving away a pig they'd had to keep hidden in Poe's old bedroom for the past few days), that this year would be a little different.

I'm freezing my ass off in here and it reminds me...remember at the reception how we were saying we should go on a trip? We should definitely do that.

Just thought I'd mention it...

L

Lara really needed a break from all the hoopla going on inside. It was kind of impressive that she lasted this far through the night before she had to get out for some air. Unfortunately, the air was cold. The cardigan she had on over her dressed was a help, but not exactly ideal. Nevertheless, Lara was going to stay outside for at least a few minutes, free to be mopey in peace. It would make the air inside feel that much warmer (and therefore welcoming?) when she came back in. Besides, there was a lot of stuff to look at out in the fancypants courtyard she'd wandered onto. Statues and trimmed hedges and a tastefully lit fountain with benches around it. Lara headed in that direction, to get away from the noise she could hear coming from inside the building.

( Hahaha, Stone loves Lara [unfinished] )

The Mocha was comfortably busy on Sunday afternoon. Lara sat at a table in the middle of the cafe with a sandwich and her laptop.

She was nice and quiet until she read this. Then she let out a loud, "What?!"

A moment later, she blinked and lifted her head up to see a few confused patrons looking in her direction.

Tristan hadn't been able to go out last night for his birthday. No, he wasn't going to have a night off to go celebrate until the weekend. One of the downfalls of being a grown up he supposed. It had been two days since he'd gotten his mail. Sliding the key in the lock and opening the door reminded him he should check it daily.

The contents were packed neatly enough, though as he pulled the magazines out some of the smaller envelopes fell on the floor. Including an oddly sized pale purple one. He shook his head and reached down to pick it up muttering to himself. "Why does she have to send these stupidly purple envelopes?"

The weather was cold and drizzly. In other words, pretty miserable. Lara was in the front of the store behind the check out counter, trying to discreetly read a Knights of the Old Republic comic, but she kept looking out the window with a wary eye on the weather. She just dared it to turn into snow. And if (or when) it did, she was going to be pissed. Then she'd have to accept the reality that winter was almost here, and that was always a depressing moment in her life.

Poe had officially moved out. Lara knew Stone wasn't too happy about this, but there wasn't much he could do about it. And besides, there was a silver lining -- he now had his apartment all to himself again, which was an awesome kind of sweet freedom that deserved lots of celebration.

And celebrating had been had, and now they were both tired. The good kind of tired. Lara wanted to savor these moments after she had been so close to losing them forever. It had took them a long time to get back to this point in their non-relationship, but over the past number of weeks she was continually reminded that it was totally worth it.

"What are you going to do with her old room?" Lara had been gazing up at the ceiling, but after a moment turned her head to look at Stone.

Lara felt like she was in a maze. She had left Stone's apartment sometime in the early afternoon to get some fresh clothes from her own place, but after she fetched them she found that the stairwell she'd taken just a few minutes earlier had been blocked off. Confused and still unwilling to take the elevators after Halloween 2007, Lara headed down the hall to take the other fourth floor stairwell. That one was blocked off heading up, so she had no choice but to go downstairs.

And so began the wandering. She'd walk into one set of stairs that was blocked off one way, another set that was blocked entirely, and then back to the original set which was blocked off in a different direction that it had been just a minute earlier. Lara didn't know if she was seeing things or if a Manor something was messing with her, but she couldn't find a straightforward path straight up. Instead she was in an endless circle going up, down, down, up between between the first through fifth floors.

After what felt like a few hours had passed, Lara stopped in the middle of a hallway and leaned against the wall. She wasn't sure what floor she was on, but she really just wanted to give up.

((Placeholder as I gear up for Halloween and bad week stuff!))

Lara laid on the couch, poking at her stomach as she waited for Stone to answer his phone. She was pretty sure it only had two rings left before it went to voicemail. And that would be annoying.

"Answerrrrr..." she urged quietly as it rang once again. Only one more to go.

( Extreme alterna cheesiness ahead. )