acrookedchild: (He found a crooked sixpence)
Abigail Widdowson ([personal profile] acrookedchild) wrote in [community profile] undergrounds2015-07-01 07:21 am

Stroke of Midnight [OPEN]

Miss Abigail Widdowson cordially invites you to Geap Manor on Wednesday, July 1st at 19:00.

Food, drinks, and music will be provided.

All are welcome, but individuals are to be aware that any hostilities during the evening's festivities will not be tolerated.


It is the first time in at least a generation that the doors of Geap Manor have been opened to the general population. Or, at least, as general as the supernatural community could be considered. Some invitiations were made personally, but most were formally sent to the higher ranking members of the various factions.

Dinner is announced precisely at 19:30. The small, intimate eating area for the family has been turned into a buffet room. The caterers Abigail hired have obviously been paid well to make sure there is something for everyone. Rich meat dishes, hearty vegetarian dishes, light fish dishes, plenty of accompaniments and finger food. There is also plenty of fairly fresh blood for vampires. For the others, there are wines, water, and tea available.

The grand dining room has had its large table removed, replaced, instead, by small tables that can comfortably hold four. They can, of course, be pushed together to allow for more room.

The ballroom is open to the guests, and the DJ has also been highly paid to make sure the music played is precisely to the hostess's tastes. There is plenty of modern music, good for dancing, as well as older classics. However, interspersed are classical pieces meant for waltzes and foxtrots and other such ballroom dances.

In the sitting room is a drink cart with wine, tea, water, and blood. Chairs and divans are available, as the room is a quiet place, a little away from the ballroom, so conversation can be had with ease. There is an unlit fireplace, and a portrait of Abigail a few years younger than she is now hangs above it.

Most of the rest of the house is locked. One can wander the hallways, but it may prove ultimately fruitless. One who simply walks up the stairways will find the walls of each lined with the Widdowson family portraits of every generation, starting with one of a ten-year-old Abby, her parents, and her six-year-old brother. As one takes in all the paintings, a pattern presents itself. Every Widdowson woman featured is pale, thin, and blonde.

The grounds are beautifully maintained and fenced in by wrought iron on top of stone. A very traditional look for such an imposing manor. On the path from the street to the house, there's little remarkable, save the knocker on the door. Behind the house, however, if one ventures away, one might get the keen sense of something from inside the house watching, waiting, and hungering. On the ground floor, the locked rooms are mostly unremarkable, save for the study at the back of the house. Linger too long near there, and one might hear a sound coming in a pattering set. It isn't a knock against the door, no. Instead, it is the sound of something hitting the wall. If someone were to force their way into the nursery on the second floor or the attic several stories up... Well. They likely won't be coming back to the party. Or to anything.

Wandering, of course, isn't a suggested enterprise. The old house doesn't like people poking around and trying to find its secrets.


(Everyone who has at least a familiarity with the supernatural is welcome, as the invitations were distributed widely. Mingle, make your own top comments, enjoy the food, etc!)
kleptofaeniac: (pic#6499888)

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-03 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
1. Arrivals

If you asked her, Kenzi would say she only showed up so she could dress up. And really, who wouldn't believe her? She's dressed up plenty. However, it was all - in her mind - a clever ruse. She wasn't quite ready to be out of the broom closet. Even if this was a party for just that. Abigail said that she and Nancy didn't have to go public if they didn't want to. Kenzi would hold her to that.

2. Dinner

Kenzi is enjoying herself. As much as she can be. The people she's sat next to are impossible not to listen to as they talk and she might be caught sniggering into her champagne at something they've (or you) said. Decorum is not her friend.

3. Ballroom

Kenzi isn't dancing. Not unless she's asked and only if her partner has some skill, of course. She can say without any shred of shame that she is a marvelous dancer and to pair off with anyone for these less synth'y songs who can't do more than a two step wouldn't be fun. Or fair. The club songs however, got her rolling her hips and laughing with delight.

She might be drunk.

4. Grounds

This house is wrong.

That might be the champagne, wine, cocktails and vodka infused tea talking, but Kenzi can't shake the fact that she can feel in her bones that something is wrong with this place. She bites her tongue to keep herself from chanting protection spells and crosses her arms against her chest to stop from rubbing the talismans she has that are disguised as bracelets and rings. She's gone to the gardens behind the house and is absolutely refusing to turn around and look at the windows on the second and third floors because she can feel someone - something? - watching her.

It's nighttime...but she could swear she hears the faint sound of bees droning around flowers. And jasmine. For some reason she smells jasmine.

Two totally innocuous things are adding up to be entirely too creepy.
kleptofaeniac: (1105485 (7))

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-04 11:27 pm (UTC)(link)
"Nice digs." There might be a little bitterness in the compliment, but that's not unexpected - at least Kenzi doesn't think so. But there's more of a smile than she should have for the comment.

Abigail's gaining her trust. Slowly.
kleptofaeniac: (2759822 (10))

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-08 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, I can tell."

Kenzi says as she looks to the high ceilings in the house. There's something... weird about this place. The magic in it is easy to sense, but there's something else too. It doesn't feel right.

Kenzi ignores it in favor of smiling with a bit less anger and winking. "This party is gonna be a blast."

Especially the part where Sylvia Redbright shits her pants.
kleptofaeniac: (pic#6499888)

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-10 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"Fingers crossed." Kenzi feels as if she's about to go on stage for the premier of a show. Butterflies in her stomach and throat, and she feels as if she's going to overheat and melt off her make-up before the night is over.

Kenzi kisses Abigail's cheek in a friendly, but foreign way. It gives her an excuse to whisper into her ear.

"We're watching your back."

She draws back before Abigail can respond and squeezes her shoulders in an attempt to comfort.

"Merde, darling."
detectiveofthewest: (Heiji: !)

4 Grounds

[personal profile] detectiveofthewest 2015-07-04 09:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Heiji came around the corner without looking. He stopped himself just in time to keep from colliding into her, but only just.

"Oh!" he said, looking at a loss for a moment. "Kenzi. Hey." This place was pretty creepy, so what was she doing back here?

(He had a 100% completely legit reason for being here.)
kleptofaeniac: (pic#6499891)

she doesn't actually have her sword - but details

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-04 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
The scream dies halfway out her mouth and sounds like something a cat might do when startled. At least she doesn't jump - not that she could with the shoes she's wearing.

"Ya ne khochu umirat!" As always, she defaults to her first language when she's terrified. Kenzi brings a hand to her chest and smiles, out of breath and shaking.

"Heiji - Jesus. What's up?"

detectiveofthewest: (Heiji: /scream)

But everyone brings swords to dinner parties

[personal profile] detectiveofthewest 2015-07-04 11:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Her reaction was more of a shock than their environs -- at least he was used to the presence of fae magic. After a brief beat to recover, he gave her a slightly sheepish smile of his own. "Guess ya wouldn't believe I was looking for the powder room?"

He made a vague gesture aimed at the rest of the grounds. "Never really been able to resist a spooky house. Usually the ones that've advertised as 'supernatural hot spots' are actually just tourist traps."
kleptofaeniac: (2441023 (3))

drat - kenzi can never show her face in public again

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-05 12:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Mmmmno." It's enough of a tension breaker to get her to genuinely smile. For once, she's not nervous being around someone whose power she doesn't know the limits of. Around this house, at night, she'll take Ms. Sylvia Redbright herself if it meant having someone around who was strong.

"You actually like this sort of thing?" Kenzi doesn't have a hard time believing it - Heiji is a weird one. "I'm seriously regretting coming out here."

She'd just wanted a break from being social.
detectiveofthewest: (Heiji: a three pipe problem)

not if she keeps making that face at everyone >8|

[personal profile] detectiveofthewest 2015-07-05 02:53 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, sure! Most of 'em are fake, anyhow, so it's fun to figure out how they do it. This one inn I went to, they used kudzu soup to convince everyone they were haunted -- " Oh. He was getting a little off topic.

"Anyway, I thought I'd poke around a little, but it seems like it might be better not to. Y'know, delve too deep."
kleptofaeniac: (2759822 (15))

WHATEVA

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-05 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
Off topic is nice! Kenzi likes off topic! Anything to keep talking and ignore everything wrong with this place.

"Kudzu?"

She pronounces it much too harshly. The only foreign language she speaks being a grating one, she doesn't have a talent for assimilating other tongues.
detectiveofthewest: (Heiji: hee.)

[personal profile] detectiveofthewest 2015-07-05 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
"Japanese arrowroot. It's an invasive species in some countries. If you make it into a soup, though, it forms a dilatant fluid." Heiji seemed more than happy to go off on this tangent now that he'd had even the slightest bit of encouragement.

"Basically, it acts like a liquid when you apply only a little bit of pressure to it. But if you strike it with enough force, it acts like a solid! Someone used that trick to make it seem like there was some spirit flittin' across the surface of a hot spring. Had a couple of journalists fooled, anyhow."
kleptofaeniac: (1105485 (7))

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-08 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Japanese arrowroot, huh? Kenzi didn't even know what arrowroot was, but...

"That's pretty clever," Kenzi muses with some consideration, as it she's thinking of using that herself.

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entitles: (look at those gray hairs)

2

[personal profile] entitles 2015-07-05 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Did I say something amusing?" Balem said, eyebrow raised.

He didn't, it was probably someone else that made her laugh and he knew as much, but he was bored.
kleptofaeniac: (2441023 (4))

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-05 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
Kenzi shakes her head minutely and keeps her grin small to match.

"Miss. Lip Liner over there thinks we're all going to get cursed by being in this house."

'Miss. Lip Liner' in question was an older woman seated on the opposite side of the table whose lipstick was bleeding into the age-lines around her mouth. She was whispering to the people next to her as if they were victims here about to be sacrificed.

While it's not too wild to think of being cursed in this ancient and storied mansion, it's a little on the hilarious side when she knows the purpose of this party.
entitles: (tch)

[personal profile] entitles 2015-07-05 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
"That would certainly make for an exciting night, at least," he said, mostly because it'd take a lot of magic to curse him in any significant way so he likely wouldn't be the victim.

"Although it's always the one who doesn't believe in curses that gets cursed first in films, isn't it? Fortunately for Miss Lip Liner."
kleptofaeniac: (pic#9185283)

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-08 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
Kenzi snorts inelegantly at his suggestion of it making the night more exciting. She thinks it's a joke.

"That's certainly true. But the pretty ones always survive, so I'm not worried about us."

You're going along with the joke, so she's including you in the compliment Balem.
entitles: (all hail space beaurocracy)

[personal profile] entitles 2015-07-08 03:48 pm (UTC)(link)
He smiled smugly and puffed up his chest; being called ‘pretty’ was always one of his most favored compliments. And feeding his ego was one way to get him to behave at least somewhat well.

“Alas, I doubt we’ll be seeing any curses tonight, so we’ll never know,” he said, “Unless someone here decides to have a little fun.”

Not him. The closest he got to cursing – giving someone a bad future – took way too much strength from him to be used for personal amusement.
kleptofaeniac: (1105485 (3))

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-10 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Kenzi's brow disappears behind her bangs and she swirls her drink in it's glass before downing the alcohol in one gulp.

"That's a pretty subjective definition of 'fun'."

Kenzi doesn't relish cursing folks, like the stereotype of a dark witch might indicate. But she knows of Fae who love ruining lives, but she doesn't know which are which at this little party.

entitles: (the night goes on)

[personal profile] entitles 2015-07-12 06:23 pm (UTC)(link)
"Anyone who'd decide to curse someone else at a party of all things must have an odd definition of fun," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
kleptofaeniac: (pic#6409527)

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-07-14 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
"It wouldn't be the weirdest thing about this crowd."

When the normal folks were witches, meta-humans, Fae and whatever else the world could make up - Kenzi wouldn't be surprised to find someone in the crowd was a bit of a psychopath.

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viduation: (pic#8952867)

1 (I hope this is okay :>)

[personal profile] viduation 2015-07-30 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Kenzi might not be ready for an outing yet, but when Derek sees her - black feathers, how appropriately witchy - he has his suspicions as to why. They haven't exactly discussed it, for the most part keeping their conversations comfortably distant regarding such things as personal business, but Derek thinks he's glad to see her here. He heads across the floor to her, hands in the pockets of his suit.

"You always find a way on to guest lists," he remarks, with a rare hint of humour lingering in his voice.
kleptofaeniac: (pic#6499888)

[personal profile] kleptofaeniac 2015-08-03 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Kenzi smiles at his comment, she's actually quite happy to see Derek, though she isn't surprised at all to see he cleans up nice in the suit. Of course he does.

"I can't help it if I'm popular," Kenzi simpered and flipped a strand of hair purposefully arranged in front of her ear.

Yes she did just quote Mean Girls, get over it.