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

[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.

[we_do_bones]

Gideon is extremely colorful and it feels deeply strange, like maybe it should be illegal to wear this many colors at once.

"Is that why I'm blue?" she wonders, then looks back over at Harrow. "Yours looks good. I like that suit. Very Ninth House-chic."

[we_bring_hell]

"I am a character from a story about the holiday," she says. "Perhaps yours is also a fictional individual."

The Bar helps out by manifesting a DVD cover.

[we_do_bones]

Gideon picks it up and looks it over, then looks down at herself.

"Well, I'm glad it didn't give me the dress," she says, and hands the cover to Harrow.

[we_bring_hell]

"I can't imagine you in a dress," Harrow murmurs; it's apparent from her expression she is, in fact, imagining it.

She reaches out and takes Gideon's hand, in conscious or unconscious imitation of the cover.

[we_do_bones]

There isn't a full harvest moon rising behind them, and they're at the crowded Bar instead of standing in a gloomy pumpkin patch, but Gideon leans to kiss her anyway.

[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."

[herald_ingress]

Ingress does a spin, because Gideon is, indeed, taken, but Ingress does not mind an appreciative look. Or several. She's had a fair few tonight from others, and she's going to do something about it, damn it.

"Why, thank you, thank you. I have to say I feel pretty awesome too."

[we_do_bones]

"You could stop a fleet with that look," she says, honestly. Damn! Those legs!

"Harrow said it's from a comic?"

[herald_ingress]

"Yes, Wonder Woman is a comic super hero. But I met the real person here when I was a girl. That happens a lot at Milliways - the characters you think are from books and movies end up being real people in their own worlds."

[we_do_bones]

Is there anything in Gideon's realm of understanding that's like this, even a little, even at all? She guesses it would be like Matthias Nonius strolling in for breakfast one day, but also not really because she's always thought he seemed like kind of a drip.

"Well, whoever she is," she says, admiringly, "you are pulling that off."

[herald_ingress]

She dips a little curtsy.

"You and Harrow match. She's the Pumpkin King from a movie, and you're the woman he loves."

It's very sweet.

"Do you even know why you're in costume?"

[we_do_bones]

Does Gideon look a little extra stupid and pleased at that? Is there a faint blush turning her blue cheeks a light purple?

"Harrow said it's some holiday with skeletons and death," she says, editorializing as usual. "It all sounds very Ninth, except for the costumes."

[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?"

[acrookedpath]

"These," he says with a broad sweep of his hand, "are chocolate cupcakes from Madam Bar to celebrate my birthday. Please, have one. Have more than one! Ah, and if you like the wings -- "

He pulls the sunglasses down a few centimeters to show off eyes nearly identical to Gideon's own, arching his eyebrows with a knowing grin.

[we_do_bones]

"Oh damn!" she says, grinning hugely. "Looking good, Wei Wuxian."

She also grabs a chocolate cupcake and rips into it without waiting. Gideon will help you tackle this mound of desserts, Wei Wuxian! Like a true friend!

[acrookedpath]

Truly, her commitment to decimating a plate of confections, lest the poor Yiling Patriarch go into a diabetic coma, will be sung throughout the inn.

"Thank you!" He snags a cupcake of his own to join her in this shared quest. "I have no idea why Madam Bar saw fit to change my eyes, too, but I have no complaints. She is welcome to do all she wishes if it means I get free desserts."

He gestures to Gideon's outfit with the cupcake.

"What about you? Have you discovered what your costume is meant to be?"

[we_do_bones]

"Ingress said it's from a movie," she shrugs, with her mouth full of cupcake. Having never seen a movie, she's not really sure what that means, but she's happy to roll with it. "And that Bar dressed me and Harrow up in matching costumes."

She looks like a skeleton with aspirations as a mafioso, kind of. Gideon's into it.

"These are for your birthday?" She looks at the pile of cupcakes with wide eyes. "Is this what usually happens?"

She's never celebrated her birthday, aside from by trying to find her mother's skeleton in the snow leek fields.

[acrookedpath]

"Well, whatever you are meant to be, it looks very nice," he says before taking a bite of his own cupcake. "And -- I suppose? I never had anything this elaborate for my other birthdays. A small treat or gift, perhaps, but not... this."

He pats the bartop affectionately.

"If it is what usually happens here, you have my great thanks, Madam Bar."

[we_do_bones]

The cupcakes are tooth-achingly sweet for someone with a Ninth House palate; the difference between Harrow and Gideon is that Gideon likes it.

But she's also thirsty, so she's pleased when Bar manifests a glass of creamy white liquid for her. Whatever it is (it's milk), it washes down the cupcakes perfectly. "So how old does this make you?" she wonders.

...is he even aging, anymore? How would that even work?