(no subject)

[i_am_your_host]

A short while ago, the Master of Ceremonies received something from Abe no Seimei via the bar. It was a poem written in German, in beautiful calligraphy, on a white-flecked sheet of blue paper. It read:

Like the fisherman's boat,
I must depart with the rising sun.
But keep a beacon burning for me
On the shore,
And some twilight,
I shall return.

Well, that was one of the nicest morning-after notes he'd ever received. He kept it in one of the drawers in his vanity table upstairs in his room.

Tonight, Emcee is lounging at a table, a combat-booted foot propped up almost indecently on a chair. Almost indecently, because he's wearing the leather kilt he wore to Bonnie's wedding.

Otherwise clad in just a white, sleeveless undershirt, he has very little makeup on besides his usual smoky eyeliner. While he takes intermittent sips from a glass of red wine, he busies himself with re-painting his fingernails silver.

Comments

[arcane_mixologist]

Eliot walks over, leans against a post and says, "Hi. I feel like I would hate myself if I didn't try to get to know you."

For his part, he is wearing a lilac suit jacket with a mint green handkerchief, a tan waistcoat, a burgundy shirt, and a pale gold tie. His pants are a deep shade of indigo and he is holding a martini glass filled with a pale red liquid; a cosmopolitan as it happens.

[OOC: Actually running to bed, but these two need to met. Be back tomorrow.]

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee pauses his work and looks up at the sound of that voice.

...Well, what do we have here. A modern-day dandy, it seems.

The man gets some serious elevator eyes as a slow smirk slants Emcee's lips.

"There is absolutely no need for self-loathing, darling, all you had to do was say hi," he says with a gravel-on-velvet German accent.

He offers him a hand to shake -- except it's just his pinkie, the fingernail of which isn't painted yet.

"I am the Master of Ceremonies, but please do call me Emcee. And you are...?"

[ooc: yesss, I was hoping you'd tag in with him ;)]

[arcane_mixologist]

Eliot accepts the pinkie, curling his own about it in a manner suggesting intimacy rather than a pinkie swear. He also smiles contentedly when he gets the elevator eyes.

"Then let me say 'Hi" again. Hi. Of course now I've said it thrice which makes it magical. I'm Eliot and I can't say I'm a master of anything, at least not yet."

To anyone else, Eliot would likely claim mastery of several things, but Emcee doesn't seem like someone Eliot needs to wow.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee chuckles brightly at the pinkie shake, his cheeks dimpling and dark eyes dancing.

"I think it worked, because I'm utterly charmed," he says. "A pleasure to meet you, Eliot. Won't you sit down?"

He pushes out the chair that his foot had been propped up on.

"And surely you are already at least really very good at something. You don't strike me as the type to be satisfied with mediocrity."

[arcane_mixologist]

"Oh there are many things I am very good at," Eliot retorts with a wicked grin. "Some of which don't even violate the rules here. For instance, I can make one hell of a cocktail."

[i_am_your_host]

"Ah, is that so?" he says with a grin of his own. "That must be very useful. I like my drinks straight but I can never resist something a little fruity."

[arcane_mixologist]

Eliot sighs dramatically.

"Fruit in mixing drinks is like using salt in cooking. Far to easy to over use and typically very limiting in imagination. Let me make you something. What is your preferred poison?"

[runningred]

"Want someone to do your toes?" Jay teases, leaning on a nearby table.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee glances up and snorts a chuckle.

"No, thank you, I'm not that much of a completist."

He briefly pauses his work to blow on his wet fingernails.

"How are you, darling?"

[runningred]

"Sure." Jay chuckles, leaning over to kiss the top of his head. "I'm good. Setting up to do some serious moving around in the garage. Want to get things tidied up before I got back to the shit I'm avoiding at home. How are you doing? I hear you've been singing with that pretty blonde who hangs with the Vikings. Sorry I missed it."

[i_am_your_host]

He smirks at the kiss to the top of his head as he continues to paint his nails.

"How very responsible of you. At least you can go back, I'm still bound," he huffs.

"But yes, Sinric and I have been passing the time making music. I really wish Autor were here, he could very easily have joined us for a little concert. I don't suppose you've heard from him in any way?"

[runningred]

"You know me. I'm an incredibly responsible person." He managed to keep a straight face. "Once I get through with the shit-storm I need to sort out, we could go check out Berlin in 2009?"

At mention of Autor his expression darkens. He slides down onto the seat next to Emcee, his voice low. "No. No, I haven't heard from him." He closes his eyes a moment. "I'm fucking terrified for him."

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee pauses and nods. "Yes," he says quietly. "I had actually been meaning to ask you about that. Now that I've had time to...process the fact that I have-- options."

He shakes his hand out, drying his nails.

"So it might be true what I'm thinking about Autor? That he's stuck in the Great War?"

[is_the_motion]

"I take it you are now a fan of leather?" Bonnie asks with a grin, sitting nearby and putting her swollen feet up. The bump, at twenty one weeks, is now a fair size.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee looks up from painting his pinkie nail and smiles at Bonnie.

"Oh, I have always liked leather, it's the kilt that I'm enamored with at the moment," he chuckles.

"You're coming along nicely, I see. How much longer now?"

[is_the_motion]

"Nineteen weeks more, I already feel like a whale." Bonnie says, with a chuckle in return.

"I wanted to thank you fer yer help at the weddin'. I hope you and Jay enjoyed Vegas."

[i_am_your_host]

"Oh, pff, at least you're far from looking like one, darling," he says with a smirk. "Nineteen weeks is still a long way to go, so you should probably save the whale analogy for when you're further along.

"And you are most welcome, I was only too happy to assist in whatever way I could. And Las Vegas was enormously entertaining! Such dazzling lights, so much gambling, so many dancers covered in feathers!"

[is_the_motion]

"Maybe, but look at my poor little feet." Bonnie points down to her swollen ankles.

"I'm glad you enjoyed Vegas, Ernest was happy he made a friend."

[i_am_your_host]

"Oh dear," he says with a grimace. "Can you do something to help that? A cold or warm compress? I'm afraid I have no idea what to do for swelling of that kind.

"And-- Ernest? Oh! Yes, well, he's a likeable boy." He shrugs and smiles.

[onceaviking]

Sometime later, a vampire comes down the stairs.
And pauses.
And continues down the stairs.


There's no mistaking the smell. Or the overlay of a life lived.

He wouldn't admit to it, but an older Emcee is rather a relief.

[i_am_your_host]

There is certainly a smell! Of the chemicals in the lacquer drying on Emcee's fingernails.

But other than that, yes, the usual Emcee smell that Eric is most familiar with.

His back is toward the stairs, so he's completely oblivious. Eric had better not sneak up on him and make him mess up his work.

[onceaviking]

See, the thing is, Eric knows that nail lacquering is a task that, even when one is fully focused, often suffers from small imperfections.

In other words, that smudge was likely there already.

Which smudge you ask?


"Hello, Emcee. "

That smudge.

[i_am_your_host]

Emcee gasps.

"Oh, verdammt."

That smudge.

He looks up at Eric with an ineffectual glare.

"You did that on purpose!"

[onceaviking]

"Greeting people normally happens on purpose," Eric replies. Dryly.

[i_am_your_host]

"I mean the silent...sneaky...stalky...thing you do."