OT: A Day For Lovers
Alexandra Erin on February 14, 2012 in In The Gap, Other TalesTimeline: 2/13/223, evening, Polyantha, Saturday, winter, Year 223 M.E.
Note: This story takes place during the leap forward from Volume 1 to Volume 2.
The common area in the basement of Harlowe Hall filled most of the entire footprint of the building, save for the space behind the counter, the office, and the rather cramped laundry room. As it was the only shared social space in a dorm where the boys’ and girls’ sides were physically divided by walls, it perhaps saw more use than a lot of similar lounges in other dorms, but even during the recently ended era of dining segregation where most of the residents’ meals were taken in said lounge, it was rarely full to capacity.
The year that it hosted the Amala’s Day Dance, though, it ended up being so crowded that the the music had to be piped up the stairs to the nexus hallway, which served as an overflow area. This likely only increased the attendance further, by making the dance visible to people passing by and impossible to ignore for people in the adjoining two dorms… and of course, by allowing people to attend without going into Harlowe itself. No prejudice could disappear overnight.
Harlowe Hall hosting a major campus dance would have seemed an impossibility at the start of the semester before, but a lot of the official and unofficial barriers that separated the non-human students from the rest of the campus had been weakening or coming down, and a group of senior girls had rallied to get their dorm in the running. The lovers’ festival dance was sponsored by the activity council, and the honor of hosting it went to the residence hall that raised the most money in a copper war.
The Harlowites had gotten a boost first from the nominal political angle of their cause. People who didn’t care about lovers’ feasts or dances might throw a couple of coppers into a pot to feel like they were being subversive or in some way sticking it to the social order.
A few of the residents themselves had added substantially to the total or delivered a “silver blast” to the competing halls… Harlowe housed some of the poorest students on campus, but it also had some of the wealthiest.
The decision of the most consistently available nymph on campus to go campaigning for change door to door in every hall on campus also helped, as did the initially grudging support of the dwarves in Underhall. At first it had just been a few of them who had been cajoled by a friend who was involved with a Harlowe woman. Then a rumor had started that the elves were supporting Pelinor Hall, and though no such organized campaign ever materialized, that was enough to pry open a few more dwarven coffers.
In the end, Harlowe had won the competition, but despite the way it would be talked about for years to come, it had not won not by such an exceptional margin as to require overmuch in the way of explanation. It was historic that it happened at all.
At any given moment, Harlowe residents made up about half of the attendants, though convenience might have played a part in that. If somebody from a more distant dormitory decided and their date decided to go back to a room, they were probably gone for the night. If they decided to step outside to get away from the noise and the crowd, they didn’t have to go back through the party to get back to their dorm afterwards. Those who lived in Harlowe were, as the old signs said, already home, or near enough to it.
Besides, the Harlowites had fought for the dance. They’d worked for it. They were invested in it. Even those who’d had little to do with the fundraising drive still felt proud to be connected to it. Those who’d had a lot to do with it were determined to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
Hazel Willikins, the shireling who’d been responsible for the dwarven drive, probably led the pack in both enjoyment and fruits, as she’d lobbied to have a buffet table with shortened legs. The refreshments for the dance included a chocolate fountain and piles of things like strawberries and apple slices. She favored the apples, though not to the exclusion of the other fruits, or the marshmallows, cookies, or crackers.
Behind her a short ways stood Andreas, son of Andreas. He and his clanmates were sipping from flasks.
The campus was dry, by law, but dwarves were not.
Dwarven common lore… the version of their culture that they maintained and presented for the benefit of other races… often maintained that a constant stream of alcohol was needed to keep their livers from breaking loose of their bodies and running wild. That was a modern version, which tended to be tongue-in-cheek. A more traditional explanation was that a dwarf’s heart burned with the fires of a forge, and they needed fuel in their blood to keep it pumping.
Whether dwarves actually needed alcohol or just enjoyed it was not a subject that human authorities deemed worth prying into. They simply accepted the behavior, and excepted it in their rules and laws.
When she’d had enough of the apple slices for the time being, Hazel handed him a towering sticky stack of cookies and marshmallows. Andreas looked at it dubiously, but he said, “Thank you, dear.”
He held it well out away from his body, and more particularly, away from his beard.
“No, thank you,” Hazel said. “You’re holding it for me.”
“Why am I holding it for you?” he asked.
“Because it takes both hands for me to make another one,” she said. “I heard some of those snooty girls with the heraldic blouses complaining about someone hogging all the best snacks, so I have to make sure I get my fair share early.”
Andreas shook his head and chuckled as Hazel went back to work.
“That’s a girl who could eat like a dwarf,” one of his friends said.
“A dwarf with a sweet tooth, anyway.”
“You’re telling me!” the third said. “Say, Andreas-son, you didn’t strike another lode in her, did you?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Andreas said. “I tell you, men, I thought she was all shored up, but apparently her education had a few weak points. All cleared up now… well mostly.”
“What do you mean, ‘mostly’?”
“After our last close call, she won’t believe anyone who tells her she can’t get pregnant any other way,” Andreas said. The other dwarves laughed at this and he added, “I’m not talking about sinking another shaft, either. I mean, I try telling her she doesn’t need some daft ring on to kiss me, and she says, ‘You must think I was born yesterday!'”
“You’re joking!”
“I’m not!” Andreas said. “I don’t know what they teach girls in the shires.”
“How to swallow a sausage without chewing,” one of the other dwarves said. “You’re a lucky dwarf, Andreas.”
Elsewhere in the room, the nymph Amaranth had taken advantage of the observed holiday by draping herself by wrapping herself in pink streamers. While Amala was an Annankhite martyr in the Khersian religion, it was traditional for nymphs to adorn themselves for fertility rites… though usually it was with something less removed from nature than crepe paper, they were technically plant matter, and she was reasonably sure that was what counted.
She had with her something like a dance card, though it wasn’t for dancing and the first time slot on it was immediately after the dance ended. She also had a lot of requests for dances, which she tried her best to fulfill. She felt very pleased to be serving so many people on a day given over to love.
Sometimes she worried about the balance she struck between her private devotion to the young woman who’d given herself to Amaranth, and her duties to the world. On this occasion, there was no conflict… her primary lover had opted to spend the weekend in town with her boyfriend, something they’d never managed to do without some sort of crisis preceding or following or necessitating the trip, if not all of the above.
Amaranth couldn’t resent that. Ian and Mackenzie had both grown up in a culture where the annual celebration of Amala’s Day as a day for lovers was beaten into the heads of people who would otherwise have little knowledge or concern for feast days of otherwise-obscure saints. While Amaranth approved of both the spirit of the holiday and the historical personage it nominally referenced, the observance of it hadn’t been part of her upbringing… and Mack and Ian had been so excited at the idea of a romantic getaway.
Upstairs, Sara and Tara Leighton nearly came to comically ineffectual blows after an argument over which of them would get to use their shared body to dance with their boyfriend first. This might have been slightly less funny and slightly less sad if they’d each had a separate date.
Jamie Bowman watched the scene between them with mixed mirth and pity, as well as the small, deeply-buried touch of horror that the sight of a girl with two heads… or two girls with one body… often provoked in humans. He’d initially planned on skipping the dance entirely, as he was in the middle of a hiatus from love brought about by circumstances… but he had to go out through it every time he wanted to smoke. Now he was considering the pros and cons of staying and mingling.
He wasn’t really sure how one “mingled”, at least not on purpose. But he was pretty sure he’d mastered the subtle difference between standing up apart from the crowd looking awkward and standing apart from the crowd looking cool.
It was mostly in the face… and if you had some elven blood, a little bit in the ears.
Anyway, it wasn’t like he didn’t know anyone. The upper level of the dance had a lot of Pelinor kids, and since the roof was flat while the floor sloped down, the front end of it boasted a high enough ceiling that Pala the storm giantess was able to wave her hands in the air as if she didn’t care more than was absolutely necessary to not dislodge a light globe.
As the first officially sanctioned dance to happen even partially within the confines of Harlowe Hall, the rumors that followed it would be more epic than anything that actually happened at it. Some of them were true. The story about the nymph taking on all comers during the “after party”, for instance, though there actually wasn’t anything special about that, except that a lot more single guys than normal felt like they had an excuse to take advantage.
The story about the necromancy student who presented his girlfriend with a still-beating heart as a gag Amala’s Day gift was also true, as was the part where she ate it before he could explain the joke and he had to redo the assignment… but it actually happened in the skirmish barracks. The rumor mill just relocated the story to the dance because that allowed people to claim to have witnessed it instead of just hearing about it from one of the participants.
It wasn’t just a dance… it was a historic first, and it was a pretty good dance, with decent music, great food, and an impressive turn-out. But in some ways, it really was just a dance… like in some ways, the feast of Saint Amala was just another day.
People who had lovers might cling to them a little harder or take more pains to tell them how they felt. These could be expressions of obligation, or affection, or respect, or any combination of those and more.
For some the day was a requirement they dreaded. Others saw it as an excuse or opportunity. Others still saw it really as just one more day. Any of the people in any of those categories might have been as cynical and jaded or as starry-eyed and romantic as you’d like.
Amala’s Day was a day for lovers… but what any lovers did with it was up to them.
“Amala’s Day was a day for lovers… but what any lovers did with it was up to them.”
True words.
The story about the necromancy student who presented his girlfriend with a still-beating heart as a gag Amala’s Day gift was also true, as was the part where she ate it before he could explain the joke and he had to redo the assignment…
Maybe this wasn’t Steff but if not I bet she’ll try to take credit for pulling this one off. Or pulling something, anyway. Now as too whomever actually consumed the reanimated kardia, anyone else wonder if Steff would be low-balling Feejee by now?
Steff would have declaimed:
“Oh my darling Feejee,
accept my eternally dying love
with this small token
of my affections
for your sharp barbs.
Go on my darling sharkcat.
Have a heart!
I will never forget
that sometimes I eat the pussy
and
sometimes the pussy eats me!”
That is very unlikely but you get a “like” for the verse.
I’m pretty sure it was the human/harpie couple that have appeared in a few other OTs.
Jamie! God I miss Jamie. Will we ever know the aforesaid “circumstances?” Yes please.
I must know what happened to Jamie! Do tell all… Please?
But really, I do miss More Tales of Mu.
“As it was the only shared social space in a dorm where the boys’ and girls’ sides were physically divided by walls,” – weren’t physically divided by walls?
“The year that it hosted the Amala’s Day Dance, though, it ended up being so crowded that the the music had to be piped up the stairs to the nexus hallway” – that the music?
“it had not won not by such an exceptional margin as to require overmuch in the way of explanation” – it had not won by such an exceptional margin?
“Elsewhere in the room, the nymph Amaranth had taken advantage of the observed holiday by draping herself by wrapping herself in pink streamers.” – draping or wrapping, not both; or maybe draping and wrapping?
***
“it was a historic first” – some might say this should be ‘an’, but I like it as ‘a’ as we pronounce the ‘h’.
It’s the only shared space, not divided by walls, in a dorm where the boys and girls sides were divided by walls.
‘draping herself with a wrapping of pink streamers.’ perhaps?
Nah, Steff has no reason to be in the skirmish barracks. I’m betting it was the Harpy’s boyfriend. I can’t remember either of their names right now though.
Agreed, almost certainly the Necromancer and his Harpy girlfriend.
Nice to hear they are still together and going strong, and i bet that the still living heart is the most romantic (with possiboly exception of a still living, screaming victim) gift one could give to a Harpy your dating.
Am i the only one who wishes that ToMU was about those two instead of the current cast?
Nothing wrong (well, plenty of wrong, especially in the head, but not what i meant) with the current cast, but somehow the necromancer and his harpy girlfriend, and their respective families (both of which disapprove of their relationship), sounds lot more interesting.
I liked hearing something on how things were resolved with Andreas, Hazel, and their “close call”. Seeing Jamie again was great too. ^_^ I hope we’ll get more of them in future OT entrees.
The Horizontal
Bop is a highlight of the
Amala’s Day Dance
… strictly speaking.
Om nom nom :).
Yes, I think the necromancer who was part of the squad as “community service” for draining part of a soul is the other half of the harpy pairing. Rather sweet, too.
A bit puzzled by the repeated references to “boys” and “girls”, rather than “men” and “women”. I know MU differs from the real world in many ways, but surely they’re all adults, if only just, and think of themselves as adults (even if to an older viewpoint, they’re wrong)?
My experience in university was that the official nomenclature was “men” and “women” but a lot of students were still on “boys” and “girls”. Probably the internal switch flips at different points for different people, with far more seniors having made the changeover than freshmen, but I can’t recall a single time I heard our RAs (who were upperclassmen) saying anything but “boys” and “girls” when referring to the men and women’s sides of the dorm.
Of course, you’re absolutely right in saying they’re all adults and think of themselves as such, and most of them would argue with anyone who said otherwise. And they might refer to themselves (individually) as “a man” or “a grown woman” or whatever.
But it takes more than a piece of paper, a single birthday, or the space of a summer for the internal habit of thinking of collectives of their peer group using grown-up nomenclature to take root, especially when they live in a culture where it never becomes wholly inappropriate to do so. (Cf. “girls’ night out”, “boys’ club”, etc.)
“Guys” and “Girls” was pretty common.
Heck, when and where I went to college a lot of the guys and girls would probably have given you an “Oh please, I’m not that old!” or something of the likes, since that was something you called old people. Like, in their thirties, you know? 🙂
Also, chalk up one more person who is happy to hear something about Jamie again. I kinda miss the guy.
22-year-old finishing up college, here- “Boys” and “girls” is pretty common, as is “guys” and “chicks”. The professors will occasionally refer to us as “young men and women”, and all of the official communication does so as well, but even if we acknowledge our “adult” status a lot of us don’t feel like adults yet.
What, no “He needs alcohol to get through the working day”?
Typo Report
Only one of those “decided”s is really necessary. Of course there’s nothing technically wrong with the sentence the way it reads, and maybe it is even meant to read this way, but it just reads a little awkwardly to me. I’d suggest taking out the first “decided”, but if you worded it this way to make a point about the two individuals mentioned just happening to separately make the same decision then by all means pay me no mind.
Already mentioned above, but it seems “by draping herself” and “by wrapping herself” are both fighting over the same spot in the sentence and the result is an uneasy armed truce that doesn’t satisfy anybody.
EDIT: Upon rereading the sentence it occurs to me that it actually kind of makes sense as written, if you take it as stating that her chosen method of draping herself is wrapping herself in streamers, but it still reads awkwardly.
Again, the sentence works from a technical standpoint but it just feels like that “up” doesn’t belong there.
After re-reading the last few chapters i wonder what happened to
Nicki? I hope she spent some time with someone congenial. I guess it would be to much to hope for a 3-way with Our Mack & Ian & Nicki
This story is set over 6 months before Nikki is introduced to the group (and the readers).
Yay, Jamie!
The editing on this chapter is in need of serious work, though =
These do get a second pass before being added to the dead-tree oeuvre?
(I think I got all the vowels in “oeuvre” this time, I usually forget one).
I am glad to see Jamie is still kicking around!
“While Amala was an Annankhite martyr in the Khersian religion…”
Isn’t is spelled “Anankhite”? Also, doesn’t the Khersion religion hold that Anankha was only a demigoddess? Or is that just one of Martha Blaise’s quirks?