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He's making a list, checking it twice. Gonna find out who's naughty.

Actually, it's never too early to start planning a Milliways New Year's Eve party, especially when you want to rent some space, practically a blank canvas, and make a proper event out of it.

Emcee is sitting cross-legged on one of the sofas, with a notepad in his lap and a glass of red wine in his free hand. Things that he's scribbled down so far:

mirror ball
mirrored walls and ceiling
~~chaise lounges~~ circular couches
chandeliers (maybe)
stage with: piano, karaoke machine, DJ equipment
glitter confetti

Is he going overboard? One thing for sure, Emcee never does anything half-assed.

Besides, this sort of thing is taking his mind off more pressing and important issues that are a matter of life and death and physical and emotional well-being and that is so not what he wants to deal with right now.

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Emcee's neatly arched brows rise a bit.

"I hadn't thought about using a hangar," he says, clearly interested in the idea. "It could work. I would have to see it first, though. Would you show it to me?"

"Absolutely. If you would come with me?"

Sahaal drains his bottle, places it on one of the table's coasters, and gestures Emcee to follow him to the lift.

"Gladly." Emceee also drains his glass of wine. Tucking the pencil behind his ear and taking the notepad with him, he hops to his feet and follows Sahaal.

"Good lord, you're a tall one," he can't help but remark with a smirk as they board the lift. "I only just about reach six feet in high heels."

Sahaal grins. "That's being an Astartes for you. Everything gets made bigger, or tougher, or both. You get used to looking down on people."

He presses the button to take them to the garage. "The last time we talked, you never mentioned what you did for a life. Is there a reason for that?

"And I tend to look up to a lot of people," he quips back.

Then in reply to his question, he shrugs, a small, delicate movement of his shoulders.

"No particular reason. I used to be the Master of Ceremonies at a nightclub in Berlin, and now I am not. I'm between homes at the moment, so everything is quite up in the air and not terribly interesting."

Edited 2017-11-21 22:26 (UTC)

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. I know what it's like to be without a home. Frankly, I'm just glad I found one before..."

He trails off, and gently raps his knuckles on the metal wall of the lift. A small smile curls his lips.

"I also apologise for the other part. Uninteresting is not something that I can abide."

Emcee exhales a soft, halfhearted laugh.

"Yes, well, we make do with what we have to get by," he says.

He doesn't elaborate, mostly because his recent backstory and bouts with depression are, well, depressing. In any case, the lift doors open, and he steps out into the vast expanse of the garage.

"I hardly ever come down here," he then remarks with a slight gasp. "Actually I think I've only been here once, to learn how to drive an automobile."

"I've been coming down here a lot recently, to do some work on the gunship I found down here. I've still got no idea how far this place extends."

He points a finger down one of the seemingly endless galleries. As far as the eye can see, there are planes, helicopters, shuttlecraft and a dozen other types of aerial vehicle.

"It's down there, by the VTOL section. Not too far."

"VTOL?"

Emcee takes his word for it and follows him.

"If I'm going to have the party here, I would have to put up big, bright arrows for people to follow," he adds with a chuckle as he stares up in awe at all the aircraft.

"Yes, Vertical Take-Off and Landing. It's a classification of aircraft." Sahaal spent two hundred years in a military force backed by bureaucracy. Initials are second nature to him.

"That'll have to happen, it's incredibly easy to get lost down here. Maybe some lights people can follow."

"Vertical Take-Off and Landing," he repeats thoughtfully. "That sounds like an incredible technical advancement. When I was a child, can you believe that airplanes had only just been invented?"

Emcee had read about the Wright brothers in an issue of National Geographic. It was all very exciting!

"I could ask my friend Jay to set up some lights like that. He's very much the expert regarding that sort of thing. Plus he has a workshop down here...somewhere. Have you met him?"

"No, I can't to be honest. I spent most of my adolescence on a strike cruiser in high Earth orbit, so aircraft were just a part of ordinary life to me. I do remember when they brought back anti-gravity technology, that was amazing."

That's an understatement for the sake of Sahaal's pride. The first time he saw a Land Speeder hovering, he couldn't believe his eyes!

"No, I can't say that I have. But, this is Milliways, I'm sure I'll bump into him at some point."

"If I see a bi-plane, I'll point it out to you, and you can laugh at how primitive it is," he says with good-natured humor.

"One of Jay's specialties is motorcycles, so he may be spending his time in an entirely different section of the garage. But in any case, yes, I'm sure you'll meet him. If you come to my party, you definitely will." And this is definitely an invitation.

"Alright then." He pauses to rack his brain for a second. "What's a biplane?"

"That's probably true, I'm not even sure where the motorcycle section is." In truth, Sahaal isn't very fond of motorcycles. He tends to crash them.

On a slightly more positive note, he does catch that particular social cue. "Oh. I'd love to come, thank you."

"Well, it's a propeller airplane with two pairs of wings, one on top of the other. Umm, there must be one around here..."

He cranes his neck to look past other aircraft and peeks under wings as they walk along, but in the meantime--

"Oh, you're welcome! Everyone is, really," he adds with a grin, "even people I don't know. I'll be sending out invitations via the Bar as soon as I've planned it all out. A-ha! There's one!" He suddenly points to the left, beyond the nose of a 21st century jet, to a classic Sopwith Camel.

"I believe that was a fighter plane in the Great War. Or World War I, as history refers to it."

Sahaal cranes his neck around the jet's nose cone to take a look. "Huh. That is... certainly not like anything I've ever seen. Still, it looks effective." Given that the twinned machine guns on the nose look quite similar to the ones in the 42nd Millennium, he's sure this Camel packs a punch.

"That's something I still can't get my head around. Most people here only talk about two world wars. I thought there were more." Or maybe he's wrong, his history lessons weren't too good thanks to most of the information being missing.

"Well, if we're doing it in the hanger, I'm going to have to move my Storm Eagle."

Edited 2017-11-22 18:24 (UTC)

"I'd met a few flyboys who piloted those things, a few of them even having gotten into 'dogfights,' as they called their aerial battles. It was an entirely new way of warfare. But pilots in my time were always charming and prone to tall tales of derring-do. Still, I humored them for the free drinks." He smirks a little.

"Oh, Earth has had a lot of wars, but so far only two have been designated as 'world.' Perhaps the people you've met only know about the two. I myself am less than a decade away from the second one, so, being from the country that started both wars, I am in the midst of leaving for someplace safer."

As they approach the hangar, he then asks, "Is the Storm Eagle directly from your world or did you find it here?"

"That sounds like the pilots from my Expeditionary Fleet. When they were off duty, I hated them, always getting drunk and having relations with the civilian staff. Then we'd be back in combat again, and you'd remember why they were kept around."

"Perhaps. I hope you find somewhere safe to wait out this second war. Just don't go to somewhere called Britain, it won't stay safe for long." From what Sahaal remembers, it was quite radioactive when he was growing up there.

He pulls out a small key from his cargo trouser pocket and slots it into the lock. A twist and a click, and the door slides open. "I found it here. I think someone else was using it before me, but I'm not sure." He quickly reaches inside to turn the lights on. Usually he keeps the bay in darkness, to help his eyes.

Edited 2017-11-22 19:34 (UTC)

"Pilots like that seem to exist everywhere," he chuckles. Except for Cassian. He's not that sort of pilot.

"No, I know about Britain, so I'm going to America instead. They also become involved in the war, but at least they're further across the ocean."

Upon entering, Emcee casts his wide-eyed gaze around the hangar. "Ooh, this could be nice..."

As far as he remembers, America will be fine for a couple of millennia. No large scale nuclear warfare.

He puts his hands in his pockets and smiles. "I'm glad you think so. I can move the Storm Eagle, but the tool cabinets are bolted into the floor. Those gantries up above have been tested, they won't collapse, and there's plenty of two-pin and three-pin power sockets along the walls."

He's not really sure what you need for a party, but he'll try his best.

Emcee steps around the aircraft, looking up at the gantries and wondering how many mirror balls he can get installed.

"I could drape something over the tool cabinets," he muses aloud, "or put speakers on top of them. And I bet the acoustics are wonderful here. I'd have to put in different lights, though. These are far too bright."

Edited 2017-11-22 21:37 (UTC)

"I know. That's why I keep them off. Speakers on top sounds like a good idea, and I'll stow the delicate tools inside."

Sahaal stands next to Emcee, trying to visualise what it will all look like. "So, what is essential for this party to work?"

"Music," he replies, slowly walking around the perimeter to get a feel for how much room he has to work with, whether it's too much or just right. "The piano could go here, the karaoke machine and the DJ stand can go there. That's why there must be room for dancing. Tables with food and drink along that wall, the round sofas dotting the floor here and there. Above, mirror balls and chandeliers. And something to release the confetti at midnight--I'll talk to Jay about that. Maybe dark velvet drapes on the walls to soften the look and add some warmth."

He plucks the pencil from behind his ear and scribbles some notes on his notepad.

"Sounds like you have it all planned out. Is there anything that you need of me?"

Sahaal looks around the hangar, making mental notes of what he'll need to move out for this to happen. The gunship will have to go, the tool cabinets are going to have to be locked down, and the ammunition will definitely have to go.

"Only hypothetically just yet," he chuckles as he returns to Sahaal's side. "I'll let you know about a week before the party if I'm going to use this space, but I do like it a lot. Thank you for suggesting it."