[WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

[spellbindmods]

Who: Participating coven members
Where: The Palai marketplace
When: Day 49
Open/Closed: OTA

[ Any and all who are in the marketplace will find that there is suddenly a mysterious barrier around the marketplace (that may be eerily familiar to some) -- specifically one large portion of the marketplace with a large number of tables and chairs, perhaps purposefully set out for nefarious reasons.

A few Palai are ushering coven members to chairs, and everything seems about normal. As normal as the Palai can be when they're putting on a show anyway. It's not until a sizable portion of the coven members are seated (and also supplied with breadsticks and small shrimp), that things get a bit more bizarre.

Thanks to the power of the Eltos, a small band of energy keeps coven members stuck to the chair (magic can interfere, of course), but that's not the end of it. On each table, next to those delicious smelling breadsticks and shrimp, is a bowl of scraps of papers. Every five minutes, a strip of paper will pop out from the bowl.

If you ask the Palai, they'll be inclined to explain speed dating to you. Asking questions, getting to know a person, then being shimmied off to the next potential mate -- this is made possible by Elto magic yet again, through flying chairs that transport their holder to a new table at standard intervals.

The Palai are extremely invested in this exercise? Will you let them down? ]

[ OOC: In the spirit of speed dating, each character will have a top level. All who want to respond to this top level can with questions from this post, but the threads have to end at 10 comments from each character. After this last tag, the characters can be assumed to have been whisked to a different potential match. You're free to have characters make up their own questions, interact with Palai serving food, etc. ]

Comments

[splinten]

You damn well don't win. What do you think you don't understand?

[fight him]

[potentite]

I don't know. Everything? Like... what you need and things like that.

[splinten]

[He's frowning a little, and now he's rising up fromt his hands.] What do you think I misunderstood about you?

[potentite]

[Ah. Fuck. Jake rubs the back of his neck, looking down at the table.] I... I think you just... misunderstood how I felt. You took it in the opposite direction. Not that I blame you, that was on me at least 90% of the time. But... I guess that's it? Aside from, you know, thinking the world of me when a dried up slug has more worth but yep.

[splinten]

A dried-up slug has jack-shit on you.

[He pauses, looking at Jake. Nervous, but not ready to give up. Incapable of giving up, when he knows how it would hurt Jake.]

Speed dating maybe isn't the best time to discuss how you really feel about things.

Do you, uh... think there might be a better time. For discussing it.

[potentite]

Umm, later? [Wait, shit, that sounds noncommittal and vague even though he meant it in a sincere way.] Tomorrow, I mean? Um, assuming there isn't some new crisis to occupy us. But, I would... I'd like us to keep trying to talk. Um, if you want to.

[splinten]

I would. A lot. Tomorrow is good. Yeah.

[a pause]

Some of these questions are forward even for our idea of a first date.

[potentite]

[Jake giggles a little.] I know. I couldn't even ask you these. Though, um, I guess I'm on the shier side but...

[splinten]

So you aren't ready to ask me which of us is fastest or strongest.

[potentite]

I'm stronger but you're faster. [Easy.] But it barely amounts to a hill of beans, since it evens out between our strengths and weaknesses and makes us fit together—

[Wait. Fuck. Was that too much? Fuck. He wasn't even thinking. It's just that he always thought he and Dirk made pretty good partners but maybe considering everything saying that isn't right.]

—in strifes.

[Perfect.]

[splinten]

[Dirk's reply is ruined by CHAIRS ZOOMING ONWARDS]

[potentite]

[JAKE IS BOTH RELIEVED AND DEEPLY UPSET he's going to be so awkward when he sees Dirk again.]