C&C HOLIDAY JAMJAR ICE HOTEL HELL: PARTY

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

WHO: AHAHAHAHA. Just... just tag yourselves in.
WHERE: The Gorsewick Hotel
WHEN: December 19th. 5PM-7PM for setup, 7PM onward for dinner.
WARNINGS: Let's just cover for your basics unless something more specific comes up.
SUMMARY: Miles Edgeworth and Remus Lupin are hosting the second comm-wide holiday party and have rented out the dining hall in the Gorsewick for the night. Everyone comes in for food, warmth, and (relatively... hopefully...) civil company. Whether or not they can leave is another story.
FORMAT: IF IT FEELS GOOD, DO IT! Long prose, action brackets, rapidfire dialogue, present tense, past tense--whatever floats your narrative boat!



The Gorsewick is not all that large a hotel, although it would very much like to grow up to be one someday, a mere five stories tall and having only a small parking garage to its name. The owner is clearly an optimistic sort of fellow, building a place like this in the City despite the risk the existence of imPorts poses to it and the hits the tourism industry has taken from their antics; bigger places than this have been smashed to pieces by enormous grey lizards with bad cases of heartburn.

Sadly, it just isn't paying off. At a time when people should be on vacation, packing his rooms to the max, the Gorsewick is... really, really empty. The groups renting out the dining hall are pretty much the only things keeping it afloat this month.

Still, appearances must be upheld, and although it is mildly understaffed, it is currently no less well-cared for. The handful of people on duty that night are friendly and the place is clean as a whistle--no bugs, no rats, no dust, nothing like that. He may be running a sinking ship, but the owner is damned determined to keep it a tidy one on the way down.

Come on in.

Comments

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Matsuka's eyes stay on Beatrice curiously as she turns away from him. "...I'm probably being very foolish," he admits slowly. "But... this also is my choice, isn't it? My will."

He looks down, briefly, but then back up again to say, a little more quietly and as politely as he can manage: "I'll listen to your story, if you'd like." He's not entirely sure it'll be a story he wants to hear, particularly... but something in the way she's offered to tell it makes him feel as though he ought to hear her out.

[unastregadoro.livejournal.com]

"It is." She responds, slowly turning around and looking quite serious; her eyes have hardened, a bit. "But it doesn't mean it's the right one."

It isn't something he wants to hear. Beatrices knows this, but he has to hear it. Give it some thought. Relate it to his own situation.

"There was a little girl I knew once. Her name was Maria. She and I became very close---because she needed a friend, even though no one else could see me but her. Before I came here, I couldn't exist as I do now. Only people who believed in my existence could. Maria was one of those people. We played, told each other stories, had tea parties together...but her happiness was only temporary."

She inhales a bit, and there's a pause, before she continues. "Because all the while, her mother was abusing her. She struck her, beat her, insulted her, all for foolish and trivial things. Yet Maria never stopped loving her. She never stopped calling her "Mama." She would tell me about it. I would listen---and yet I could do nothing." Beatrice's voice becomes a hiss. "I watched that woman break that poor girl apart and abandon her only to come running back, apologizing like a fool. A foolish game of tug-of-war using Maria's emotions as the rope!"

Looking at Matsuka finally---she'd been looking out the window---Beatrice asks, "which is what is happening to you, even though your master doesn't put on the illusion of caring about you."

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

When Beatrice meets his eyes again, Matsuka's are wide in faint distress. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, looking down at the floor. "It must have been very hard... not being able to do anything."

The thought makes him uncomfortably aware of how the others around him must feel. Leo and Blue, Bakura... he knows they don't like the situation he's in, hates knowing that he makes them worry. But all the same, he continues to put Keith before their feelings. It isn't fair, but there's no solution that he can see.

"You're probably right," he agrees, after an interval of pensive silence. "He doesn't pretend to care for me. But I think... he does value me, a little." It's not wishful thinking, he tells himself. It's not. There was a time when he hadn't been sure, but Keith has gone to too much effort to keep Matsuka by his side.

[unastregadoro.livejournal.com]

"I couldn't save her." Beatrice snarls, swiftly turning away from him again. "And what did she get in return for all of her love and loyalty? Death."

But that's the thing. He has options. He just thinks that he doesn't, and that's what hurts and frustrates Beatrice all the more. Why? She thinks---and Matsuka may, in fact, be able to hear this thought of hers; since her emotions are becoming more and more apparent. Why do you continue to sacrifice yourself for someone who doesn't even acknowledge you as someone even remotely important?

She wants to help, but how can she help someone that doesn't want it? "If he values you at all..." Beatrice growls, her frustration and hurt seeping out of her like steam off of a stove, "...why does he hurt you?"

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Matsuka involuntarily shrinks back a little in the face of Beatrice's intensity. "I... I don't know," he says, looking a little more distressed. "I just know that - even if I am hurt sometimes - he is suffering far more than I am. His heart is full of pain. That's why I can't leave him alone."

[unastregadoro.livejournal.com]

When Beatrice abruptly whirls back around again, her eyes flash briefly with rage----only to see the renewed apprehension and fear in Matsuka's stance and expression. She stares at him for a moment, and then furrows her brow. She's looking down at the ground now. I... she thinks, but doesn't finish it.

"...My apologies." She murmurs. "I frightened you again."

After a slight, awkward pause, she takes a deep breath to still her remaining frustration before answering slowly, "...You don't have to leave him. But you don't have to be owned by him, either. To care for someone else is to care for them on equal terms, Jonah, not as master and servant. You have to make him see that---not as Jonah the subordinate, but Jonah the person. And if he refuses to acknowledge that...enough is truly enough."

"I may be making you uncomfortable, but I want to help you. I just need you to let me."

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

"You're very kind, Miss Beatrice." Matsuka ventures a cautious smile as he says it. "I'm really very grateful that you're concerned about me, so... thank you." The smile fades soon enough; his expression quickly grows more solemn as he continues, "I promise that I'll think about what you have said. I don't want to cause any trouble for anyone..."

[unastregadoro.livejournal.com]

Beatrice's eyes widen.

She has never been thanked like that all that often. Not so sincerely. Only Maria had shown her that kind of gratitude. She actually looks about to cry a little, before she finally smiles back.

'Kind', he'd called her. If only he knew. If only he knew what she had in store for Keith. But her wish to punish him stemmed not only from her desire to save Matsuka...but also, from a hidden pain all her own.

"No. I thank you, Jonah." She says, after a pause. "You're not troubling anyone. You have friends who care about you----you have to believe in that. You have to believe in yourself."

She points to his heart. "Without love, it cannot be seen."

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

For a moment, Matsuka is a little worried he's said something he shouldn't; Beatrice's smile reassures him, but he still watches her with concern as she speaks.

And then confusion, at those last words. He mouths them back in a silent echo, unconsciously lifting his hand over his heart as he does: without love, it cannot be seen. He's not sure what it means, but it strikes a chord in him all the same. "I'll remember," he says, "...although I'm not sure that I understand."

[unastregadoro.livejournal.com]

He kind of did...but...that's no concern of his for now, in Beatrice's mind.

"You'll know. In time." She says, putting a hand on his shoulder to reassure him, smiling at him in a rather motherly fashion. "And when you know...your own Golden Land will be lying before you."

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

He's still not sure he understands, but Matsuka smiles hopefully back at Beatrice at her encouraging gesture. "Then, thank you again," he says, feeling somehow slightly more at ease than he did when he'd first arrived. A Golden Land might be nothing different from the illusion of Terra that the Mother System used to control its pawns, but Matsuka thinks it sounds kind of nice. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to think about, at least.