Ten Minutes To Go

listen i know the Aegaeon/Brighid tag is incredibly suspect but just trust me it's funny and ignore the fact that i put Nia in here but not Pyra or Mòrag shhh

Hugo stands firm. He always has, even countable for his modest age of twenty-one, and so he watches Aegaeon and Brighid stumble around the room as makeshift plus-ones (a half from each, most nearly) with perfect comportment; he's long learned how to hide and, if necessary, stifle his giggles. He'll never admit, of course, that very often the object of risibility is his constantly-shielding retainer.

"Perhaps we should...reconsider," Aegaeon grumbles out, and in response Brighid bats his arm lightly with the hand that isn't already hooked through his elbow's crook. "I don't see why. After all, revelry aside, if you can't keep your balance with a lady on your arm...well. What kind of gentleman does that make you?"

Aegaeon doesn't blush. Aegaeon has never blushed in his life, and if he's ever cried, Brighid's the only one who's seen it. So he doesn't blush now, only grimaces and grits out, "A lacking one." Tack on to the revelry a touch of indifference to conventional romance, and maybe it doesn't, but it's not as if his pride would stand that.

"Fair enough," says Brighid, placidly. "The new year is always an excellent opportunity to resolve to learn new things."

"What do you think?"

Tyrea runs her hands, ungloved but with an imperceptible ring about each middle finger facilitating the cover of the backs with the ends of her sleeves, over the plum velvet of her dress, trying to balance the twin goals of keeping her neckline up and smoothing out the inevitable wrinkles that have come with the territory.

Patroka nods appraisingly and clicks her tongue with a fairly obnoxious pop, in sync with the shuffle of her nicest geta on the rug. "I think you look amazing. And I am so not going to match with you."

Distracted from her fussing for the moment, Tyrea wrinkles her nose. "As if I would expect you to change at this hour of the night - this minute, really."

"Oh, Tyrea...you underestimate me."

"You?" Perfectly shaped eyebrow quirks up.

"How fast I can change." Her outfit, as usual, is somewhat stratified in its construction, after all.

"I'm...not sure I wanted to know that."

"Eh. You would've found out eventually."

Tyrea gives a strained smile, but it is in fact a smile, and she offers Patroka her arm. "I suppose I'll just have to look forward to everything else to come."

"My lady! I can't find my wedding ring!"

"Don't worry, Haze, I'm sure it'll turn up. Come on - we'll be late, I don't think we can reschedule the winds of time!" Lora jokes, voice warm.

"But Lora..." Haze's face wobbles with conviction as it passes into view. "I can't ring in the new year without you! It wouldn't be right!"

Lora frowns. "I'm right here, Haze. Obviously I'm going to stand with you - we'll hold hands, right? I don't see how much more together we could get than that...?" Arms crossed, she cocks her head to the side and lets her ponytail, carefully curled and tamed, sway to one side.

"No, no..." It's not like Haze to get this worried about losing a memento, at least not lately. Even though Lora's more frequently on the penchant of casting aside reliance upon material things as a way of carrying forth sentimentality, she's also more apt to get frustrated when one of them goes missing.

"It's like we'll be going into the new year without being married," Haze explains at last, bowing her head.

"Silly," says Lora. "It's like I said: I'm right here. We can always get married again next year."

"Odd that people kiss, to mark the beginning of the new year," Dunban muses, sat at a table across from Kallian with the chess set abandoned some fractions of an hour before (he'd been losing, and hadn't quite been in the mood to joke about secret assassin strategies that allow the knight to alter his traditional pattern of movement). "Why don't they just...shake hands?"

"Some people do," Kallian counters. "In fact, I think that's what most people who aren't romantically involved do. A handshake, or a hug, or something. I'm not sure I take your point."

Quiet for the moment, Dunban rearranges his right arm where it's resting in his lap. "That's true enough. But what about the people who aren't together? You can't expect it to mean anything if you don't even know the other person."

Probably, it relates back to the bread logic, but that's a philosophical journey for quite another time. "Dunban, I think we know each other well enough for that - or anything else you might prefer better."

"Oh, is that so?" Now there's a flicker of light in Dunban's eyes, one that Kallian is...hesitant to gauge. "What do you say about arm wrestling?"

"You sure about this, Jin?"

The silk (or maybe it's just polyester rayon, and maybe that would be better) of Malos's tuxedo rustles uncomfortably underneath the fidget of his palm; he wants to lay his hand on his hip, whether that actually means his waist, nipped in, or the bony, jutting edge of his pelvis made only doubly bulky by the addition of belt and cummerbund, but he's afraid of wrinkling the fabric.

"Sure about what?" Jin asks calmly as he rounds the corner into the kitchen where Malos is waiting. His jacket, white and definitely silk if not pure satin, flows twice as long as any normal person's would behind his legs, and it's incredibly fitting. The delicate silver chain hung around his neck, resting on top of his mock-neck undershirt, is doubly so, and doubly squared more so than Malos's crunchy bow tie that has refused to lay flat.

"I mean...this." Flat as can be, Malos gestures at his peaked lapels. "It's not me."

"It looks like you to me," Jin hums. "And, really, it doesn't have to be perfect. It's just the one night."

"But..." But you already are. Of course you are. You always are.

Still others also fiddle with clothes. It's not quite tending towards the venerated tradition of entering the new year with head clear and house clean, but it'll do, won't it? It'll have to.

"I thought we agreed you were going to wear the pink tie, Minoth!"

Minoth groans and flicks another piece of lint off the front of Addam's waistcoat. "No, we agreed that the blue tie brings out my eyes, since you insisted on it."

"Well, that's right." Addam's frown is nearly comical even as it manages to stray past being pathetic, and he worries at the loose lock of hair dangling over his right cheek. "It does. That's why it would make more sense for me to wear it."

"I give up. A whole year since this happened the last time, and we're still arguing about it. Unbelievable."

"That's fair," Addam concedes. "Here, I'll fix it. Flora!"

Amid the clacking of heels in the foyer downstairs, her reply is all too immediate. "I don't care who wears which tie, just as long as you both look nice!"

"Great," Minoth sighs, and purses his lips and eyes shut as Addam triumphantly moves closer to fasten on the red-tinted vestment.

"Come on, Mik, we're taking pictures!"

And just who is we? I have to allow, of course, for Akhos, who's himself dateless but is all too eager to play various and sundry unfulfilled roles on this most auspicious evening wherein half the fun is everything going not so perfectly according to plan. So right now, of course of course, he's the photographer.

"So? What if I don't want in?"

Milton is a willing and able subject, but Mikhail, confoundingly enough, is slightly moody, this evening. It wouldn't do to make a joke of it, to say that he was remembering some miscellaneous caretaker from his youth, but Milton hates the frown that crosses his own face as he can't seem to puzzle his way around any other ply at the problem.

"Are you feeling okay?" he prods gently at last, conceding to Mik's place of repose in an off corner. "Remembering old folks, or something?"

"Yeah..." The response is blithe, but it's enough. Milton pokes at the corners of Mikhail's lips, to recall a smile, but only once.

"Okay. Just tell me when - or if - you're ready to make some new memories."

The smile returns, wide and crafty, soon enough.

"You ready?"

Nia's voice is tentative, and she watches with bitten lips as Mythra emerges in the driveway, pantsuit flowing. It's not like them to walk without a sheer overabundance of confidence - of liquid awesomeness, they'd probably say - so that's whereto most of Nia's trepidation is owed. As they get accustomed to the specific texture of the asphalt underneath their boots, however, their walk develops a stride.

"Bloody hell..." And on holidays, we allow clichés. It's only fair. "I've never seen you look so tidy."

The sidewalk achieved, their hand goes straight to their hip. "Yeah, well. It's...you know. The first big event where I haven't gone as a...girl."

"So you're nervous, but you're also, like, the opposite," Nia feels through the emotional hoopla; it's of the sort that she's well used to for herself, but now's no time to quaffle.

"Sure," allows Mythra. "And I know it's stupid to define yourself by what other people call you, and see you as, and whatever, but having you here with me...it really helps."

"Hey, hey." Nia gives a swish of her own skirt and begins to lead the way oh-so-confidently to their ultimate destination. "I ain't goin' anywhere!"

"It's alright, Alvis. Don't worry about it too much."

"Is it?" Alvis's tone has uncharacteristic bite. "A new year is a new epoch. I do not see why we should continue to entertain his memory."

Interruption addressed, he goes back to meticulously picking over the miniature picture frames propped upon the lid of the piano and mechanically flattening down all those which contain either a picture of a Shulk in need of a haircut or one of his own father - the visages, I needn't overstate, bear peculiarly considerable resemblance to each other.

"I'm not--" Shulk stops, sighs. Almost runs a hand over and through the central portion of his bangs, then stops because even that may be a residual vestige. "I'm not saying we have to keep them, I'm just saying we don't have to deal with that now."

Turning on smoothest heel, Alvis abandons the portrait gallery and faces Shulk. "Can we burn them?"

Burn them? Shulk can barely stifle his laugh. "They're not effigies, Alvis, they're just--" Again he catches himself.

"Of course we can, love." Next year, with grand calculation, circumstance, and plenty of fire-retardant tarps to hand. "And we can make our peace with that now."

"Fiora! You're going to miss the ball drop!"

Regardless of any accidental innuendo, Fiora pokes no fun as she comes careening back down the stairs with a very much lit sparkler in hand.

"Fiora!" The second repetition of the cadence promises to deliver much of the same, with just the slightest additional dash of panic: "You're going to burn the house down!"

"Oh, shush," Fiora pronounces with a wave of her free hand and a wild roll of her shoulders. "You can always count on me, right?"

Melia smiles, slightly shamefaced, and nods along. "Of course." Then, more earnestly, she continues, "There isn't anyone I'd rather spend this moment with. Did you know that?"

"I don't think I did," Fiora admits, the sparkler flirting irritatingly with the edge of their line of sight, "but I do think I agree."

They clasp hands and rush out to the patio to join everyone else gathered there (this house, of their friends' collective many, offers the best view to the town's display of festivities), and as the night sky lights up with the calamity of all things old meeting all things anew, they know that there's no one else they'd rather rely on.

Quite the scintillating extravaganza, isn't it? Because of course that's what it is.

We are nothing if we do not go together.

you know what they say...it's mandatory

yes, that link is was broken, because we haven't hadn't reached the appointed time yet (i'm afraid to be quite that synchronized, if you can believe it), so while you're here i'll say instead: thank you all so much for your support of me and my peculiar taste in characters, relationships, themes, etc. as i showed up and kinda sorta absolutely trashed the fandom tag(s) this year - i don't hear from very many of you very often but that doesn't mean i'm any less happy that my work could bring smiles to your faces or put tears in your eyes (or if it just made you annoyed...cope. as in me i'm coping. but anyway :)