EVENT- Genessia Masquerade

[phoenixstrut]

Masquerade! Paper faces on parade
Masquerade! Hide your face so the world will never find you
Masquerade! Every face a different shade
Masquerade! Look around, there's another mask behind you




Welcome
Though the evening outside is chilly, there’s nothing but warmth and lively atmosphere inside. The room itself (the ballroom atop the self proclaimed ‘most romantic and luxurious’ Genessian getaway) is almost blinding, glittering with gold from floor to ceiling, save for the towering framed windows that provide a beautiful sight of the city below. Tables are scattered here and there around the perimeter should attendees wish to rest their feet, but the centerpiece of the evening seems to be the massive, sparkling chandelier casting its warm, golden glow over a rather extensive dance floor. One end of the room is reserved for the band, poised just near the hearth featuring a roaring fire, while the other showcases a grand staircase on which one may make their entrance, should they choose to explore the upper lofts that surround the room beforehand.

Early in the evening, once the room has begun to fill, a couple steps up to welcome everyone on behalf of Genessia’s Performing Arts Center and the cast of their most recent musical. While the event is free, and they are delighted to be able to share a magnificent evening of splendor with everyone, they do wish to make everyone aware that should they choose to donate tonight, be it through benevolent gift or through the auction or gambling tables, all proceeds will be donated to the Red House Foundation- more specifically, Genessia’s branch, located in the heart of the city herself.
The call to enjoy the masquerade is punctuated with a deep bow and the swell of the band picking up once more to lead everyone into a night of majestic merriment.


Photos
With numerous celebrities about and the event in full swing, it’s to no one’s surprise that there are photographers practically crawling the place. Fortunately for all, quite a few have been hired by the event planning team and will be snapping moments (both candid and posed) of everyone in attendance. There’s even a designated area with various props to play with and a lovely backdrop doused in gold. These photos can be downloaded from the network later, so take advantage of these professionals, should your heart desire! After all, did one really look their best if there’s no photo to prove it?


Dancing
While there’s certainly no pop star performing and the music is much more classically suited, one will hear a familiar tune more often than not, spun by the tuxedo clad musicians to suit a more modern crowd. It’s upbeat and energetic for the most part, but every so often, they're likely to switch the mood to something much smoother (dare they say, romantic?) to sway to. Instructors are scattered throughout the crowd, should those unfamiliar with the ballroom style wish to learn something new!


Food
A party without food is absurd, regardless of the occasion. Drink flows readily from the bar, and an impressive variation of hors d’oeuvre has been laid out in a brilliant spread on the long tables along the edges of the room. Partake as you will, and leave a donation to show your appreciation if you’re so inspired!


Costume Parade
What’s the point of a masquerade without an outfit promenade? Show off your inspired attire to all who will gaze upon you. The more flamboyant, the more attention your costume will draw, and the more in-character one seems, the more believable the evening will be- Embrace the masks and let loose! Tonight is the night to be whoever (or whatever) your heart desires.


Gambling/Auction
Thanks to the generosity of local businesses, there are multiple donated items on which to bid, ranging from weekend getaways to baskets of sweets to… rather peculiar fashion and odd home decor.
To the right of the auction display, there are multiple gaming tables with waiting croupier, ready to assist those with heavy wallets attempt to woo Lady Luck. The winnings (should there be any) can be kept or donated- the choice is yours.


Gardens
If one finds a need to escape the swirling of dance and swell of the music, the gardens below may serve you well. There’s a lovely courtyard, and just beyond the fountain, a garden maze, well lit for the season with the gentle glow of dazzling lights. Take a stroll alone, or hide away with a lover or confidant, or snag a seat for the fireworks- the choice is yours.


Fireworks
No grand gala ever ended without a burst of excitement to round out the evening. Toward the end of the evening, the sky will be lit with a brilliant display of silvers and golds, all timed perfectly with the band’s final performance. One can watch from the gardens or the rooftop, or, if in need of something more ~private~, the balconies throughout the hotel.



Masquerade! Burning glances, turning heads
Masquerade! Stop and stare at the sea of smiles around you
Masquerade! Grinning yellows, spinning reds
Masquerade! Take your fill, let the spectacle astound you

((ooc: Questions? PM this journal or poke dovefire on Plurk! Have Fun!))

Comments

[micancion]

mask||outfit

Llegada
The suit hugged his arms nicely, and for once he couldn't see his knee bones. Well, he couldn't really see any of his bones at the moment. The idea of being anonymous, returning to the bit of unknown figure from Los Olvidados. It had been a bit hard since really, there were only two skeletons in all of Genessia, and it's four sisters. And only one of them male with a perchance to let his friends talk him into things.

It was still odd, having muscles and skin again. He wished he could thank his Jefe, but perhaps another candle on the ofrenda would have to do. As it was, Hector wasn't going to be flesh for long. The feeling of a heart thumping away in his chest, air tickling out of his nose with each breath, and the tingling of sweat starting to form along his collar was distracting. It was as if everything he had never noticed while alive was now an echo ten thousand times louder than the original sound.

But he was here. Alive, dressed and masked. For all the glitter and glitz that danced around him, it was just a party. Just like the ones Ernesto and he had attended in Mexico City. He could do this.

Baile
Music was such a tease. She danced through his ears and ruffled past his hair as he watched the people on the floor dance. The inside of his cheek was getting a good chewing as he shifted from one foot to the other. Trying hard not to let the arms of the songs reach out to him.

It wasn't working very well and at a particularly familiar swell of tempo he sighed and moved towards the closest person that had no partner, male or female it didn't matter he had practice being either partner himself. "Perdon, but...would you like to dance?"

Aperitivo
"Okay, okay, okay! I get it, I get hungry now!" He laughed despite the annoyance at his digestive track. The old gnawing feeling from Los Olvidados was nothing compared to actual hunger. So he'd found his way to the food, recognizing only a few of the entrees. It was the biggest difference he had seen so far but after depositing a few bills as a tip, he made his way around before finally asking someone, "Ah, I am not sure what most of this is. Anything here have a bit of a, you know, kick?"


Huerto
He did not miss sweat! It stung his eyes, made his hair stick to his neck and had his feet regretting shoes and socks. It also made him antsy and needing a bit of air. Thankfully there was a garden, and while he had only intended to step outside...it was too hard to avoid the temptation of nicking a spare guitar as he passed the band stand on his way outside.

He'd return it later.

For now he was seated on a low bench, mask pulled to the side as he let himself relax in the night. His finger dancing along the strings, pulling a soft melody from the guitar. Out of habit, the case stood open in front of him and any money that might make it's way in there would promptly get donated to whatever charities were here.

Ostinato (closed to Imelda)
It had been a whirlwind bit of a night, and he was tired and confused by it all. His fingers itched and so did his heart, but it wasn't the sort that he could scratch. It was a deeper sort of discomfort that came from knowing he was doing something he shouldn't. It was a wonder his hair was still somewhat styled with how often he'd reached back to run his hands through it in nerves.

The night was half way over, or begun depending on what end of the candle one burned. Hector chuckled, so for him it had not even started and was well on it's way to an end. Two ends, two flames after all.

He was standing in a corner of the ballroom, the guitar back in its place and the dance music not the right sort for dancing with complete strangers. So he lingered on the outskirts, letting his eyes roam around the room and take in the costumes and elaborate masks.

[la_matrona]

She had seen him, of course she had. She didn't know when he'd arrived, but she had been watching him for most of the night. The first sight of him had taken her breath right from her gurgling lungs and she'd had to duck into the shadows, lean against a wall to try to keep her legs under her as they shook, her heart hammering in her ears.

She knew he would be here. Had hoped he wouldn't be. Knew he would like a moth to flame. Only no, this would not singe his wings but he would dance with them. It was his element, a time like this, where he belonged. So she had known and yet--

The shock of it-- How he looked-- As he had, as she remembered him in her dreams and nightmares. Did he somehow use a potion, too? And why? Was it to dance with others? To remember what it was to live again? Was he not as desperate as she expected? Or is she just a fool again, caught in his presence, thinking too much of herself.

She had even seen him with a guitar-- but hadn't been able to hear him play, like a coward had run from it.

And here she was a coward even now.

What she was here to do was to set things right. To make them better. To be how they should. But perhaps it wasn't needed at all...

That thought alone bouyed her.

So she pushed back the fear and the anger and the other things knotting in her throat, and the sharp, heightened awareness that she was being twice a fool for using the potion in the first place-- She was an old woman, not someone young and fresh and he would see through it.

But she would suffer that. She would learn her lesson this time. Close the book on it.

So it is time...

She moves from the shadows where she knows he will catch his eye.

Her plan was to go up to him, to face this head on, but as soon as he catches her, expression lost behind the mask, some other part takes over.

She says nothing, gives him a long glance over her shoulder, feeling the earring whispering against her skin, and then moves a bit further into the crowd. It is an old game. Their old game with unspoken rules.

But she is sure that she won't be followed and that in and of itself is an answer to a question.

[micancion]

There were a thousand sensation battling inside his newly formed heart. Each one with a tiny, sharp edge that cut even as it soothed. The mask his everything and nothing of the face looking at him from across time. Nearly as before.

But where there had been dust and hard packed earth, now there was marble and plush carpet. The sunlight had dimmed, becoming the mood lights and candles that tried vainly to mimic the shine on her hair. This is not their plaza, this is not their world...yet, he recognizes her eyes. Falls into them as he had over a century ago. The way her dress shifts along the ground with that proud step he loved.

The familiarity hurt, but he could not look away.

Nor could he keep himself from catching up, moving with an odd grace between the other dancers. The hands of the music pushing him forward until he stopped. Extending a hand as he stared, the softest smile (her smile!) coming to his lips.

"A dance? If you would honor me?" He waits with tense shoulders, realizing too late that he had once again acted on instinct. She only looked young and...alive. There was something there to worry about. How had she done it? Or was it this place, with it's strange magicks and even stranger machines? Had they somehow brought her back to this world in the same way that he saw her in his most telling dreams?

[la_matrona]

Her heart is beating so loud she is sure everyone can hear it as he comes to stand in front of her. So he had followed. That idiota. She wants to push him away. A part of her does. The small chilly part that is both furious and afraid and cursing. The rest of her is infused with the giddy warmth. It is difficult to think of much when he is this close, so alive, so warm-- To see his ridiculous nose and his ridiculous ears and thin lips, the soft hair that falls over his forehead and mask. The scent of him. It's intoxicating. More than any liquor she's ever had.

But it's always been this way.

And he had left and he would leave again, one way or the other. She would not think about it tonight until it was done.

"With you?" said lightly, her heart aching despite her determination; warring with the butterflies that go through her as she raises her hand, sliding her fingers over his and the cradle of his palm until she is not quite holding it.

"I don't know. You seem dangerous, Señor." She tilts her head, feeling the faint smile, even if there is a coolness to it. "Can I trust you?"

No, comes the echo from her bones.

And yet...

[micancion]

His eyes close slightly as her warm hand ghosts over his, and before he (or she) can pull away, he turns his hand and holds hers. "I am dangerous as a songbird." He grinned, gold tooth flashing for a moment before he straightens a bit.

The thousands tiny knives were back, little warnings traveling to his mind that he should leave. The atmosphere, the music...her scent and warmth- everything was intoxicating. If he stayed, he would hurt her; pain her just as much as he always had. Yet he was drunk on memories and pulled her closer instead.

He started to move, knowing that she could easily keep up with him. There was nothing but decades between them now, decades and the swelling music.

[la_matrona]

The gold tooth surprises her. Shocks her really. Drives home everything that had happened. Cracks the illusion so much so that when he pulls her into a dance, she stumbles and has to hold onto him. Her face stings with heat and that old shame creeps back through her.

"Lo siento." She murmurs it without thinking, keeping up with him on pure instinct as everything inside her wants to shake loose. They are both really dead. Their -- they were long since over if they had ever been. It is not her. It is not him. As she tries to fight down the rising panic, her voice comes out of her sharp and acrid.

"The song bird? Really? Only you."

Because now the song rises like a ghost in her memory that she hasn't heard in nearly a hundred years and yet it nettles now more than it ever had before.

"Golondrina viajera
De mirar dulce y triste,
Que tu nido formaste
Dentro del corazón.
Di, por qué me has amado
Si tan pronto te fuiste?
Di, por qué me quisiste
Golondrina que vuelas
Como una canción?


Traveling swallow
of sweet and sad glance
that you built your nest
inside the heart,
tell me, why have you loved me
if so soon you left?
Tell me, why did you want me.
swallow that flies
like a song?

She would love to go back in time and strangle whoever wrote that cursed thing.

[micancion]

"I was never a songbird" He was the lowly cicada at the base of the tree, who fell in love with the dove. But he no longer heard the sweet voice of the dove, just...this. The bitter discord he had caused.

And it was his own doing, right from the start of it all. the music felt flat suddenly, but he still dances with her, clinging to nostalgia like a drowning man. Which, he was, in a way. Drowning in the consequences of his actions.

He frowns for the briefest moment before he shakes himself a bit. It didn't have the same feel as a hundred bones rattling together to knock his mood away, but it worked somehow.

[la_matrona]

"You always were." And she'd always loved it.

And she still did.

And she wished she didn't. She wished she didn't care about him at all or he didn't care about her.

One of those she could fix.

The shake makes her frown. She knows what it is or has an inkling and wishes she could, too. But she could only push down and push down and try to forget for another moment, another heartbeat.

"Just an estupido song bird. Always singing. Always there even when I didn't want you to be." He never left. That was the truth of it. Not really. His memory never did and it had always lodged itself there, alive and dead.

She buries her face against his shoulder, gripping his coat from behind.

"Idiota. Idiota!" The tears are running out from her mask and her heart feels like it's trying to strangle her but she won't let go. She won't let him go. She has nothing else to hold on to.

[micancion]

The words cut, but he simply twirls them until she stops. He frowns, not able to stop it from forming. his heart aches in his chest, but it isn't the ghost of a memory. It's real and he misses his bones and vague feelings.

But instincts over ride everything and he holds her against him, slipping them off the dance floor towards a corner. It's gold and dimly lit, but it hides them as much as the masks do. Carefully he tilts his head, "Mi diosa..."

He has no other words, she had never needed them. his comfort had once been songs and smiles. Letting her relax until she could talk and ask and rant and he was there. Except when he wasn't. When he left and her fire turned to steel. Harsh, cold and strong.

[la_matrona]

She's hardly aware they stopped. Her world is still spinning. If there's anything more she hates, it's tears. It always makes her end up feeling hollow and shaky... and embarrassed. What was she doing clinging onto him like some poor girl? He hadn't asked for this. He probably would rather do anything else with his night no matter how young she looked now.

His diosa... she was hardly anything but a bitter jaded old woman with burning eyes and a full nose.

Ay.

She has no tissue, not even a handkerchief. She hasn't had to use one in so long. She digs around in his pocket absently before finally spotting the little white handkerchief all tuxedos seem to have but no one ever seems to use. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose and stuffs it back in place before slipping both arms around him and holding on, not daring to meet his eyes.

She hates him but she can't let go.

She loves him but she can't forgive him.

What is she supposed to do? Where is she supposed to put all these feelings that have lived, dulled inside her?

"Sing for me, song bird."

It's snappish, but she doesn't care. Or she does but she has no other way of being right now. She missed his singing and his attention, and hates it too-- and maybe he'll hate it as well but she'll pull it out of him anyway because she wants it.

At the same time, she hopes that he'll refuse and leave her with her own cursed misery.

[micancion]

Imelda...

He doesn't say anything, but he can't help the soft smile when she automatically looks for the handkerchief he no longer carries. It had been a while since he'd needed it but, even a hundred years could not break a habit. Carefully he rests his hand at the base of her head when she buries against him. His thumb moving along her proud neck. There are so many confusing thoughts at her request. Even in the Land of the Dead, the Rivera's distaste for music was fairly known.

But she isn't just the Rivera Matriarch at the moment. She...she is Imelda. The woman who faced the world with brazen fire. And he couldn't be the 'bad husband' now, the one who left. He had to be the wind, soft and cool to stoke that fire against the world that would drown it.

Or the tears in this case.

Softly he starts to sing, a song he'd heard near the train station years before Imelda would join him in death. It had caught his attention then, and was truly one of the few songs he still let into his heart.

"Cuando te hablen de amor
y de ilusiones
y te ofrezcan un sol
Y un cielo entero
Si te acuerdas de mí
No me menciones
Porque vas a sentir
Amor del bueno."

He tilted his head down to try an catch her eye, losing himself in her warm arms and the lyrics of the song.

"Y si quieren saber
De tu pasado
Es preciso decir una mentira
Di que vienes de allá
De un mundo raro
Que no sabes llorar
Que no entiendes de amor
Y que nunca has amado."

[la_matrona]

"Hmm." She feels chilled and warmed at once as his thumb runs along the back of her neck. How she'd missed it. How she still missed it even when it was happening. It's an oddly safe feeling and her hands slip up under his jacket without her, palming the warm skin of his back she can feel against the thinner shirt.

The song hurts and she knew it would though she hadn't remembered that all of their songs are sad ones now. Music is like a constant pain in a wound not quite healed-- and maybe never would be. Is he being sincere? She wants to believe it and doesn't. Doesn't want to know how much he says he cares because in the end, he didn't care enough.

Or maybe it's just that she wants to much.

Or maybe it's just that he doesn't understand how it is to be left behind always.

Though maybe now he does.

She could say that the love of a familia is greater and stronger than any love in the world -- but that would be cruel and she's tired of always splitting his skin to get at his heart.

She avoids his searching gaze stubbornly, knowing she will either melt or receive another shock of pain and she would rather this now. She nuzzles the crook of his neck instead, feeling the vibrations of his voice and hearing it so close.

A feeling so close--

No. None of that.

"Bandito." She mutters this, nips his neck. "You've never met a hole you didn't put your foot in." Another nip. And then a kiss against that spot just to make him pay, warm and lingering. She skims the nails of one hand deliberately down his shoulder blade.

There is more than one way for a song bird to sing.

[micancion]

Hector's voice shudders when she nips his neck, a current of icy electricity running down his nerves and making his toes curl. There are too many memories crawling up with every little move. The ballroom has nearly faded, the light reflecting from the gold feeling more like the candles of their small room in Santa Cecilia.

"Porque yo adonde voy
Hablaré de tu amor
Como un sueño dorado
Y olvidando el rencor
No diré que tu adiós
Me volvió desgraciado."

Bandito...oh, that brought back memories, "Only holes I can get out of!" He isn't sure what made him squeak, the kiss or the nails along his back. Well, she had her warmth for this old, old game; but he still had his voice.

Purposely taking the song down the octave, his lower voice continues, "Y si quieren saber
De mi pasado
Es preciso decir otra mentira
Les diré que llegué
De un mundo raro
Que no sé del dolor
Que triunfé en el amor
Y que nunca he llorado."

[la_matrona]

Not resent her goodbye? He was the one who--! And no matter how soon he'd died-- and whatever intentions--

The squeak in his voice does strange things to that boiling anger, braiding with it a sense of triumph, a kind of fierce joy that she always felt when they played this game. She felt like a storm was brewing in the pit of her with no way to get out and the angry twitchy energy made her want to move. The song wasn't right for it. Neither what he was singing nor the one who was playing but she wants to do something.

Then he drops his voice, the cheating flojo and she can't help but press nearer to him, her toes wanting to curl. She stifles the sound that escapes from her against his shoulder and then nips that too.

If she knew this song she would sing it with him, just to watch his pupils dilate. She doesn't, though and instead juts her chin up and meets his eyes, daring him, daring him. Daring him to do what, she didn't know, but the challenge was there as she moved her arms to wrap around his neck as she swayed against him, feeling his lean, wirey frame along the length of her.

[micancion]

Her rules, weren't they? He does hazard a small snicker when she presses against she shoulder. Which becomes another squeak when she bites him. There's so much more pain there than the little pinch of teeth. He glances at her hair for a moment, but the audience applauds and they are back in the city.

"Imeld-" He sucks in a breath, not having expected her to look at him. His heart is in his throat again, and he would really, really like it to stay in his chest where it belongs! Not so close to his ears that he can't hear anything except Imelda breathing and the memories bearing down on him of her angry voice condemning him in a hundred ways. Or the softer memories of her voice in the kitchen or bedroom of their tiny home.

Hector swallows heavily, aching to lean down to kiss her. She looked so much like she had the last day he had seen her as he waved to her from beside Ernesto. Promising money and letters to come in his place until it was over. Yet, that challenge...he leans in a bit, eyes shining a bit behind the mask.

Instead of a kiss though, he leans his lips against the very corner of her mouth. Speaking softly there, in the one secret place that only he had ever managed to touch. "Ay, mi llorona, mi reyna morada y bella."

[la_matrona]

She shivers in something like anticipation and anger as he leans down. She wants... Ay, she wants.

What she does get is intimate. Tender. And such beautiful words.

He was always good with beautiful words.

And in this case it's like a lid put on a pot, with only thin curls of steam escaping. She disentangles herself from him and brushes the wrinkles from her dress, straightens her hair, feels a hideous stab of pain through her which makes her cringe, but she rises above even that, lifting her head as her knuckles whiten and shake in the folds of her skirt.

"No, Hector." Her voice is cool. "You made your choice. Passion is one thing but this--?" Another stroke of pain which she manages to hide mostly, just a twitch through her.

"You don't get to say pretty words, even if you feel them. After all, a goddess is worshiped from afar, isn't she?" Far and above and oh he would prostrate himself in grief and apology but that will change nothing.

"Your misery also isn't going to change anything. You punishing yourself" A wince, her time is running out faster than she expected. "You live in a shack because you don't believe you deserve better. You always have. And if you ever want to rise above it--"

She remembers the vial then, the other thing she got in Fayren, this evil thing. Rather than waiting for him to take it, she puts it with cold shaking hands into his top pocket.

"You are already a dead man, but now you have another choice. You can either stay in misery or you can learn how to live again for a daughter that admires you."

And she turns and starts for the door, her head high; even as every nerve twists and sears against her.

[micancion]

When she pulls away he locks the memory of her warmth to his heart and mind. It refreshes what was there before, what he'd kept with him for so long. "I live in a shack because I can't get anything else." it comes out before he can bite it back, but he only winces and looks away.

It was only slightly different here. There was nothing he could do in the 'modern' world and Fayren quite frankly scared him (odd that Everglade did not?) but it was a habit. He looks at the vial in confusion before setting his shoulders and reaching out to lightly take her elbow.

"No, Imelda. I can't live again. This?" He gestures to his fleshy body, "It isn't real." With a sigh and a light, gold glow, the flesh weakens- see through- to the bones below. "I am a dead man. My choices were made for me, all but one and that was my fault." He takes the vial out and holds it back to her. Whatever it is, but he doesn't want it. Doesn't need it. He'd give what he had to see Coco. To fix his own mistakes.

His body solidifies again, but he still watches her. Letting go of her, "I am being forgotten...I." He grips he left arm, looking down but his eyes stay on her, "I traded something precious for the promise to not be forgotten long enough to see her once. Nothing is stronger than the Final Death." He had seen it happen far too often to argue that. "But you? You're remembered by a family that care for you. My misery should not be yours."

Stepping away, he wouldn't stop her leaving again. She'd forgotten him once, what was stopping her now?

[la_matrona]

He stops her because of course he stops her because he never wants to do things the easy way, it always has to be the hardest way possible. Pain is lancing through her sharp as knives but she focuses on him, clutching at her skirts to stop from clutching at her stomach, feeling the world revolve.

She was being metaphorical about living again but he has to show her and then she is livid at him giving up something precious. Panic flares through her with the pain and she wants to shake him. What did he give up?! How can she get it back?! But it is her fault that he had to do that as she wanted no one to know him, wanted to erase him from her existence.

His misery is on her and she doesn't know how to fix it. His. Her familia's. If they cared about her it was only because she had taken care of them but had she really? To cause this much pain and she had loved him and now once again she is at the bottom of a sheer mountain with nothing to climb it with, only watch it getting higher and higher so she wants to scream and she almost does but bites it back, a trickle of blood cooling her palm and dripping from her finger to the floor, hissing with steam.

There is nothing she can even say to help. Saying she will, saying she won't, it all ends the same, everything always ends up shattered.

"They were right," she says finally, voice hoarse from holding back, barely a scratching whisper in her spasming throat. "We should never have been together."

What he could have done if he had someone who hadn't held him back. Who he could have been. How happy everyone might have been. But the past is unchangeable and the future is a growing mountain and soon she will be swallowed up.

She doesn't take the vial because she can't unclench her hands and instead moves as rapidly as she can back out into the night.

Aperitivo

[hotheadwarmheart]

"I can recognize some of it," Lea said, glancing up at the man who addressed him. "But some of it... I'm really not sure. I'm debating whether I want to taste them and find out." There was something very familiar about this guy, he thought, but he couldn't place it just then.

"But anyway, if you're looking for something spicy, these meatballs are a good bet," he said, indicating a tray of sauce-coated meatball, each speared with a toothpick for easy eating. "I'm pretty sure the sauce is gochujang, and they're pretty spicy. And there's the firecracker shrimp too; those are really good, especially with a little cocktail sauce."

Re: Aperitivo

[micancion]

"Goch-wha?" okay shrimp he knows, not guaca-whatever. So he takes the shrimp and after a moment he laughs, "Ah, this isn't spicy! It's good though." He does reach over to grab a meatball and sort of stare at it.

"I have no idea what this is beside a soggy albondiga. Are you sure it's good?"

Re: Aperitivo

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Gochujang," Lea repeated with a bit of a smile. "It's a type of chili paste that's mixed with a few other ingredients to make sauces like this. And I'm sure they're good, since I've already tried a few." He popped one into his mouth to demonstrate before offering the tray to Hector.

Re: Aperitivo

[micancion]

He is still not going to attempt to say it, but he will try it. With a little shrug he plucks one off of Lea's plate and pops it into his mouth. It was sweet first off, and the meat was tender.

With a soft whistle, he swallows heavily, "Ah! Okay, that one was a little spicy!" But good, he grabs a few and places them on his own plate.

"What else have you tried?" He picked up what looked like a strange little empanada, but it was really pale. Hector was not really familiar with pot stickers but he held it out, "I will say this is not an empanada, right?"

Re: Aperitivo

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Nope," Lea said as he snagged a few, "though thanks for pointing them out. Those are called pot stickers; they're basically wonton wrappers stuffed with finely chopped pork and vegetables, then fried. They're not usually really spicy on their own, but... ah."

He took one of a number of individual-sized metal cups of sauce set out near the pot stickers. "But they're usually served with a spicy dipping sauce," he said. "That way, if you like things spicy, you can make them that way, but if you don't, you can just enjoy them as they are. They're pretty tasty either way." He dipped one in his cup of sauce then popped it in his mouth, clearly enjoying himself as he chewed.

When his mouth was free again, he pointed out a platter of elegant but somewhat odd looking hors d'oeuvres. "I tried these earlier," he said. "If you're looking to get a little bit more adventurous with your choice of food you might like them; they're squid, with Thai chilis and cilantro. Definitely spicy, but not something you see every day."

Re: Aperitivo

[micancion]

Pot...stickers? He doesn't have much of a reaction until Lea snags it, "Hey!" Alright...he grabs another one, glaring lightly (and pouting) as he stares at it. What had Imelda always asked? Try it without to see if it needs?

He shrugged and popped a plain one into his mouth. It was a strange bread, nothing like he'd expected. "It doesn't taste like bread." He picks up another, peering at the sauce before dipping into one of the sweet ones. The pot stickers were tasty and he's still munching as he eyes to hors d'oeuvres.

"Squid? how is that weird?" He lives only a few miles from the ocean, and squid tended to be seen as the poor man's food. "One of the Sister's where I grew up at knew how to make a great pozole with this stuff!"

Re: Aperitivo

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea nodded. "Yeah," he said. "They're called that because when you cook them, they stick to the sides of the pot. That's why one side is a lot browner than the other."

He munched a second one contentedly as Hector tried one. "It's not really bread," he said. "Just a simple dough rolled out really thin and cut into what's called won-ton wrappers. They're used to make all kinds of little filled dumplings like this."

"Not so much weird, just uncommon in a lot of places," he said. "Though I guess some people could be turned off by the tentacles. I know it took me awhile to try it for the first time because of that."

Lea paused there for a moment, observing the other man. The longer he talked to this guy, the more familiar he seemed. "This might sound like a weird question, but have we met before?", he asked. "You just seem really familiar to me, but I can't quite put my finger on it."