This is Halloween!

[we_bring_hell]

The Bar loves her holidays, but she is also capable of respecting religious strictures. That's why she put a lot of thought into finding a Halloween costume for Harrow that works with her face paint and general insistence on the monochromatic.

Harrow, for her part, is baffled by the white-pinstriped black suit and the oversized bow, but the gloves are very cool, and the buckled shoes suit as well. She has no idea what's going on but she can live with this.

The Bar seems even more unusually populated than usual, and there are a lot of gourds around. Hm.

Comments

[herald_ingress]

Ingress walks into the bar wearing her usual white uniform, knee length boots, and sword and sheath. All of a sudden, she feels...

A chilly draft?

She looks down at herself, decked out in Wonder Woman's bathing suit of a costume. She met Diana Prince, a long time ago. Ingress definitely doesn't fill her bustier in the same way the actual Wonder Woman did, but her legs go on for days in their cool boots. Even her hair has changed color.

Ingress starts laughing as she notices the decorations and the crowd and understands what has happened.

She sees Harrow, dressed up as- she can't remember the name of the character, but she saw it in a Muggle movie when she was a kid. All thoughts of previous awkwardness between them are banished from her mind. This is the first time as an adult that Bar has dressed her for Halloween, and she's over the moon.

Ingress saunters (because she can't do anything but saunter in this sweet costume) over to Harrow and says, "Happy Halloween, Reverend Daughter!"

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow turns to greet in her in return, and suddenly the air escapes from her lungs all at once.

She swallows, twice. "Well-met, Lady Ingress." A careful observer might notice that Harrow is not looking directly at her, but slightly past.

"You--ah--what is Halloween?"

[herald_ingress]

Her night with Wei Wuxian in London Above gave her a rush much like the one she's experiencing now. She's a young woman - a pretty young woman. No. A sexy young woman, and why not be proud in a costume like this that highlights every asset she possesses?

She beams at Harrow. "Oh, of course, you wouldn't know, and there are never informational fliers for this kind of thing. It's an Earth holiday. One of the main features is wearing costumes, so Bar decides for you and voila!" She puts her hands on both hips, striking the classic pose. "Ooh, I wonder if the lasso works?"

[we_bring_hell]

"You appear to be dressed like a foreign sorceress from one of Griddle's comics," Harrow observes. "While I am... a Third House dandy in Ninth House drag?" She straightens the enormous bat-like bowtie.

If the Bar had dressed her like Ingress she might have spontaneously combusted from embarrassment.

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian is sure his birthday was more than a month or two away when he died, and he is fairly certain he hasn't been at the inn that long... but if Madam Bar insists he is a year older, than he supposes he is a year older!

Especially since she gave him free dessert.

A lot of free dessert, in fact; what good is a birthday celebrated alone?

She's also clothed him in the manner of the holiday that apparently overlaps with his birthday. It's closer to the outfit he wore in London Above than his usual attire: a suitcoat, the same indigo pants (though thankfully ones that aren't as snug), tinted sunglasses for some reason, and a small pair of feathery black wings for some other reason. When he curiously tips down the sunglasses, he laughs in surprise when he sees a pair of golden eyes reflected back at him from the mirror behind Madam Bar.

Whoever -- or whatever -- he may be, he doesn't look too bad. And he has a full dozen chocolate cupcakes to give away.

(Devil's food cake, of course, though he doesn't know it.)

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is also in a snazzy suit, although she has a tie; a bow tie with wings that approach her padded, upturned shoulders.

"Greetings, Wei Wuxian," she says. "I am given to understand it is the anniversary of your birth."

Harrow looks, it must be said, ebullient. Wei Wuxian saw her in a previous good mood, but this surpasses that. She seems suspiciously pleased with herself and the universe.

[acrookedpath]

She really does. Wei Wuxian eyes her over the top of the sunglasses, which displays his changed eyes to great effect, but his grin is as bright and easy as ever.

"It seems so!" he laughs. "Either I have lost track of time or Madam Bar's calendar is very different from my own. But who am I to argue with this?"

He spreads a hand to indicate the cupcakes.

"Would you like one?"

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow's eyes widen at his golden eyes in combination with the sunglasses, but she has a different agenda.

"I absolutely would not," she says calmly. "But I have obtained a gift to mark the event."

She draws it from inside her jacket; Ingress has managed to make an impression on her regarding the necessity of bows, and so it is wrapped in black paper with an ebon row. However, she has not gotten the hang of shapes, so it is very clearly a human femur, wrapped in black paper.

[lightamidchaos]

By the time he finds Wei Ying, he has at least learned enough about the holiday called Halloween to no longer be disconcerted about his changed attire.

It is just as well, because his breath is nearly knocked out of him when he sees the other man.

“Mn.”

[acrookedpath]

"Lan Zhan!"

Wei Wuxian, by virtue of spending so much time with Lan Zhan lately in a... shall we say, variety of contexts, is not as oblivious to his reactions as he used to be. Cheerfully innocent, he strolls to meet him, hands in the pockets of his trousers. "Madam Bar has dressed you tonight, too?"

(And dressed him rather well. He is not immune to a close-cut pair of trousers, either.)

[lightamidchaos]

“So it seems.”

He remains a little dubious about it, but resigned.

(He also does his best to ignore the teasing in Wei Ying’s smile. He cannot blame him, to be honest.)

“I do not understand the wings, though.”

He stretches one out, having discovered that they are articulated.

[herald_ingress]

Ingress stops short when she turns around, still some ways away from the familiar duo. Her eyes grow wide with shock and surprise.

"Aziraphale? Crowley?"

She's completely forgotten she's dressed as Wonder Woman for the moment.

[acrookedpath]

Having already seen Ingress in a short, form-fitting dress, Wei Wuxian isn't as taken aback by her costume as he might have been some weeks ago. It's still startling, to be certain -- her entire legs are bare! -- but he recovers quickly enough.

Especially since...

"Ingress!" Unless Crowley's voice and demeanor have changed drastically in the past decade or so, his true identity quickly becomes apparent as he waves a hand over his head. "You know who we're supposed to be?"

[lightamidchaos]

He arrives at the inn with a package stowed in his qiankun bag, but is rather forcefully distracted from his plans as soon as he crosses the threshold.

Lan Wangji stares down at himself. He is wearing brown trousers of a soft material (corduroy, although he does not know it) that are much tighter than he is used to, and a pale blue sweater over a white shirt with cuffs and a collar that both show.

That would be enough to startle him, but somehow he is also now wearing white wings, as if he has become some sort of large, strange bird.

It is beyond odd.

[we_do_bones]

"Whoa!" says Gideon, who has had to stop abruptly or risk losing an eye to a wing that appeared out of nowhere. "Nice."

[lightamidchaos]

He pulls back, and discovers in that same moment that the wings are articulated and that he has control over them, somehow.

Hastily, he raises them both straight up, high in the air overhead. It is a spectacle to be sure, but at least they are out of the way for the moment.

"--Gideon?"

[we_do_bones]

"Lan Wangji, hey," she says, staring up at the wings. They are really...something.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?"

[we_do_bones]

Gideon, who had earlier picked out a shirt from the wardrobe that said my give a damn's busted in blocked white lettering, says "Hey!" in a dismayed kind of way as a swirl of magic rearranges everything she's currently wearing.

It leaves her with a tailored, patch-worked suit in gold and plum and forest green, and her skull paint has disappeared. In fact, her regular skin has been recolored to a powdery blue, and she can't see her own face, but it's covered in painted black seams, as though she were a poorly constructed ragdoll.

She has never seen The Nightmare Before Christmas, so she has no idea what this whole get-up is supposed to be.

[we_bring_hell]

A small skeleton in a bowtie scampers up and offers her hard candy from a pumpkin-shaped bucket.

At the Bar sits the Queen of Halloween, in pinstripe suit and boney gloves and a bow-tie with wings that stretch almost to her padded shoulders.

[we_do_bones]

She takes the candy – of course – and makes her way to the Bar, though it takes her longer than usual to shoulder her way through the large and oddly dressed crowd.

"Hey," she says when she gets there. The suit gets an appreciative elevator glance, and then she turns to lean against the Bar and look out over the bustle. "Do you know what's going on?"

[we_bring_hell]

"It is a holiday," Harrow says, more discreetly observing Gideon's patchwork adornment. "Celebrating the dead and all things frightening. A post-harvest festival from ancient history, I believe, as the agricultural year turns into the dead season."

"Costumes, apparently, are required." She seems extremely cheerful about it, for Harrow. Of course, it is on theme.

[herald_ingress]

Ingress saunters over, hands on hips, as Wonder Woman, but she's smiling like Ingress.

"Oh, Bar dressed you in matching costumes," she says, trying to keep the "omg too cute" squeal out of her voice.

[we_do_bones]

Gideon turns and does her level best not to let her jaw hit the floor as it drops.

(She might be taken, but she's still got eyes.)

"Holy shit!" she says, delighted. "You look awesome. Damn, Ingress, check you out."

[acrookedpath]

Colorful patchwork suit and blue skin aside, her build is instantly recognizable as Gideon from across the room. And so:

"Gideon!"

There is Wei Wuxian, cheerily waving an arm overhead -- and, inadvertently, a feathery black wing as well. Next to him rests a platter loaded down with chocolate cupcakes, some dotted with raspberries, other frosted with an icing so rich and dark it's nearly black.

[we_do_bones]

Grinning, she pushes her way across the room to him. "Wei Wuxian, hey. Like the wings."

She glances at the platter when she gets there, and her eyes don't quite bug out into hearts, but it's a close call.

"What are those?"