smartass_captain | A Very Nexus Reception

Entry tags:

A Very Nexus Reception

To all the friends of the happy grooms, PINpoint messages have already been sent weeks ago inviting them to expect quite the street party arranged in the commons of the Nexus. Guests have been invited to bring an appetite--both for food and for a social adventure. Nirnish weddings are public affairs, after all. While the ceremony has had to be somewhat sequestered for the sake of keeping the existence of Other Worlds a secret, neither Felix nor Jim would want to leave out their interdimensional friends entirely. Having a reception party arranged in the Nexus became the natural plan of action.

Overnight large sections of the Commons are transformed via diligent craftsmanship and quite a lot of magic from those who’ve volunteered. Lanterns representing the Divines are hung along every lamp post, bringing at least the idea of warmth even if the flames are too small to heat their surroundings alone. Bardic tunes carry in the air as readily as the scent of food and drink. Past banners of red and black, blue and white the people gather.

For both grooms this is nearly a continuation of the day before. They’ve had the chance to sleep off the nerves of their ceremony. Today is entirely for celebration--uninhibited celebration at that. No more minding what is said and isn’t. No more pretending to be anything other than who they are. Jim’s traded out his Nirnish finery for a suit and tie, garments he’s much more familiar with. Felix is staying with his native clothing; though he may have dressed down a little from his wedding clothes, the conjurer’s dressed in fitted breeches and his best fur-trimmed coat and boots, the soft hide dyed blue to match his tunic. By their side sits the conjurer’s spectral wolf familiar, ears pricked at the gathering.

As the guests find their ways over it will be easy to spot their friends amidst all the decor along with many other avenues with which to enjoy themselves….

Greetings
Food and Drink
Music and Dancing
Bonfire Entertainment
Party Games

((Links to all relevent wedding Prose can be found Here!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Still. I grabbed Han a drink. Seems only fair I get you one. Wait just a second, okay?" The groom gets right back up on his feet and wanders off toward the bar where a Very Ordinary barkeep seems to be struggling to get his hands on some fresh glasses. It won't take him but a minute--time enough for Leia and Han to exchange looks-- before he's back with a bright blue drink to hand over to her. "Moonlily wine. If you don't like it I won't be offended. I let the bartender recommend me something fit for royalty."

Jim gives both of them a long look as each speaks their piece about the other. At Leia's insistence he relax a bit the military posture does abscond from Jim's posture almost entirely. He's been on his toes for the last several days dealing with all the procedures in Felix's world. A chance to relax is one he'll take gratefully. Though he's stifling a grin at Han's remark. How often does anyone get the Corelian pilot to listen when he's of a mind not to?

"And yet here both of you are. Even from what little I know about your galaxy, that's not nothing." He's glad to see you, Han. Glader still to think you Might be in the process of making a friend. The smile he offers the princess is much more diplomatic.

"We didn't get along at first either. Guess we maybe had too much in common."

“Thank you.” She accepted the wine graciously and sipped, it was unusual but not unpleasant, in fact it had a faintly honeysuckle taste that played sweetly over her tongue. It made her smile in pleased surprise. “No, this is quite nice actually, thank you again.” And she leaned a bit to raise her glass to the bartender in acknowledgement of a drink well chosen.

Han’s comment earned a single dark brow arching upward, was she pleased or insulted or vaguely amuse, hard to tell as she hid her expression before the rim of her glass and a well-timed slow sip. “Credit where it’s due, Han is an extraordinarily skilled pilot. I’m not sure we’d be here, or at least in one piece if not for him.”

Granted her urge to throttle him was always pushed to the edge when he got cocky in the pilots chair. But she’d had to learn to trust him. When she’d first laid eyes on the Falcon she’d been unsure it would fly, let alone out maneuver anything but the most busted of the imperial fleet. The cocky pilot had made her eat those words and she found herself unable to disparage at least that skill. “That’s made him invaluable to the Rebellion, if he was able to focus more on it we might have made more progress already.” And there’s the backhand to her compliment.

Han was listening to what the Princess said, but not entirely hearing the message. Instead of picking up that she wished he was even more committed and that his skills were valuable, all he heard was the complaint. What he had done and what he had been doing, wasn’t satisfactory to General Organa.

“You’d think the entire success and failure of the entire effort rested on me, the way she says it.”

It irked him that she was so dismissive of him sometimes. Stars above, she was so difficult to get along with and it had only been made worse being cramped into a tiny base with Leia on Hoth. There had definitely been an uptick in arguments lately and he, at least partially, blamed it on the location.

“How was the ceremony?” He says, trying to be diplomatic by changing the subject. “Everything you hoped it would be or just happy to have all the planning behind you?”

"Rebellion...?"

Han Solo was a businessman the last Jim spoke with him. Politics was not a subject either captain cared overmuch to dwell on. Han was a pilot, a mechanic, a deft hand with that strange card game Jim can't remember the name of...but a soldier? A resistance fighter, even? It's so far away from what Jim's heard of the guy that he forgets the drink in his hands while he looks between them.

"Did your co-pilot end up joining and that's where you found him?" Jim turns to Leia quickly. "I'm sorry, Princess, it's just that I wasn't aware things were quite so dangerous back home or I wouldn't have pried on what may not be a pleasant topic."

Seriously, Han wasn't gone for that long. Just what did he miss? The subject change claps him across the face and Jim has to quickly rouse himself from his thoughts. His smile is polite and automatic but ready to be deployed at a moment's notice.

"This was mostly for Felix's family. I'm not...well. I don't regret it, but I"m glad to see it done. Plus, when else am I going to have the chance to see a mage family's wedding traditions?"

Han had told her this was a safe place to discuss things because, somehow, they didn't cross over. Leia tended to also suffer from bouts of wordy retorts when in the pilots presence so she may have said too much. It was out now and not much she could do about it now.

"Han has recently come into the effort as he calls it, you haven't pried. Han explained some of the nature of this place and it seems safe enough to discuss." Clearly there was more she could say on the matter but that would be directed to Han later.

It was a pretty safe place to go into specifics. Hell, for the few people Han felt comfortable enough to open up to — and that was only a couple — he didn’t talk about the Rebel Alliance much to them either. It could be that he retreated into the nexus to not about this stuff for a while, usually.

Leave it to Leia to not be able to switch off warrior princess mode. She’s more singularly focused that a GNK droid sometimes.

“Yeah, it would take a long time to really fill you in.” Han said, shrugging. Maybe some day they would. “Are you comfortable with all the ... magic? I feel like it would put me on edge.”

In fact, he’s positive it would put him on edge.

Unsurprisingly it was not something Han wanted to discuss so she would honor that, they were after all at a celebration. Leia turned and looked around at the rest of the party, she saw people gather and dancing in one area, some other drinking or playing games elsewhere it seemed.

"Well, I'll leave you two to talk, if you'll excuse me." Leia inclined her head to Kirk and glanced at Solo. "It sounds like music over there and I would like to listen."

Once she'd been able to politely disengage she would venture out into the rest of the party.

"It's been a pleasure to meet you." For what it's worth, Jim's entirely genuine about it. "Please, enjoy yourself as much as you like. We really wanted to share a bit of levity and cheer with the Nexus."

His smile doesn't even drop from his face even after Leia is gone and out of earshot, though he is raising both eyebrows So High when he turns back to Han. This was about the last thing Jim expected to see tonight. A pleasant surprise, but still a shock.

"Okay we'll get to the whole magic thing, but..." Jim isn't going to just pretend this didn't just happen, either. "You're helping out a Princess now?"

“Yeah, I inadvertently found myself busting her out of jail, if you can believe that.”

Han said. He had also watched the Princess stride away with her head held high. Though it had nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to make sure she was out of earshot and everything to do with the fact that he admired the view. When she turned away, of course, is when Han is most often caught staring at Leia. Because he didn’t mind so much that other people could catch him admiring her as long as her Highness didn’t notice.

“She’s been acting like she’s the boss of me ever since.”

Busting a princess out of jail. That's a hell of a story in and of itself but if there's one thing Jim's learned in the years he's known the pilot it's that Han Solo only offers up details on his terms. If he's dismissed the idea of filling Jim in already there's not a whole lot of point to pry about the affair.

"Sounds like a pretty risky job." Jim comments instead, smiling over his drink to see Han watching Leia leave with what honestly looks like quite a bit of appreciation. 'Acting like' she's the boss of him, indeed.

"Well, the party can keep her company for a bit. Give you a bit of room to breathe." Whether Han wants it or not is another matter entirely. The plausible deniability is there though. "Is she gonna freak out if she meets a mage? There's more than a few of them in attendance."

It’s a frustrating time to be Han Solo. He still feels a little resentment about being dragged into the fighting, but he’s been more or less committed to the Rebels since the battle of Yavin IV. It was to keep an eye on Luke (who obviously needed help), he’d convinced himself of early on, but he always ended up in proximity to the Princess. Or the Princess ending up in proximity to him and there seemed to be a certain tension in the air when they were together.

Too bad their personalities seemed to be antagonistic. She definitely was attractive and smart, even fun to talk to on occasion, but he didn’t see them as being anything but uneasy allies at best.

“No, I don’t think so.” Han says with a shrug. “She believes in the force as far as I can tell.”

In the force. Right, that's what they call magic in Han's neck of the multiverse. Jim hums thoughtfully into his drink for a moment. It's definitely good to not have to worry about Leia accidentally running into Felix's familiar or the like and panicking over it.

On the other hand, it probably makes the Pilot here less than comfortable. Especially given his line of questioning earlier.

"I've gotten used to it, more or less." Jim offers after Han's stopped watching and turned his attention back to the bonfire and to their own conversation. "The magic, I mean. Figured I might as well try to study it, figure out what makes it work." Something must. Jim's still convinced of that much.

"Just because I don't understand it yet doesn't mean it'd be impossible to comprehend."

He’s not. He’s more or less accepted the fact that magic exists here, that some people have a talent for it and some people don’t, but he certainly doesn’t like the idea. He doesn’t find it whimsical as much as he views it as unknown and things that are that profoundly unknown by him are hazardous.

“I suppose that’s a tack you’d want to take, if you were gonna marry someone who did magic.”

He says with a shrug. Han, at least, can take solace in the fact that Jim had found it perplexing to him as well. He takes a long sip from his drink and hedges, “it’s a good fire.”

The thing of it is, Han isn't wrong. There's Power in these magic wielders, more Power still in the supernatural beings that may as well be gods, angels, and demons roaming around the Nexus. This place is becoming full of potential threats. With very real danger. Keeping a sharp eye out and a wary gaze is not only good thinking but downright necessary for the mere mortals that also call this place their stomping grounds.

Jim never quite shook the urge to know Why and How it works though.

"Feels like there's always more of it every time I come back." Jim comments with a glance around them. "Starting to think 'Ordinary folks' are the minority in the multiverse." He's not sure he likes that thought, either. He glances over at the bonfire and decides thoroughly Against explaining who started it and how.

Smiles instead.

"It is. Too cold not to look after folks somehow, you know? Especially for an outdoor engagement. I bet we could find some stuff to roast over it if you wanted to." A conspiratorial eyebrow waggle never hurt anyone surely.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A Very Nexus Reception

no subject

no subject

no subject

Jim should have paid more attention at ANH Movie Night

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject