Ellie Alperton

November 14, 2021 5:51 PM

Purely patrolling (tag Dathan) by Ellie Alperton

It was sort of hard to forget about the ball, standing in the prefect lounge, staring at the voting box. Even when not staring at it, even when facing very specifically in the opposite direction so as not to seem like she was staring at it when her patrol partner walked in, it was hard to forget about it. Ellie was in two minds about the group dance idea. On the one hand, it solved a lot of her problems, and meant she didn't even need a date. On the other, it wasn't what she wanted. She liked the idea of a paired dance, and it felt like giving up on that dream to tick the opposing box. Of course, that most likely was just a dream. She suspected Anya was right, and that she could "borrow" Freddie for the oepning dance. Doing the group dance took away any excuse for her asking him to spend time with her. But then, even if she did that, she'd be spending the rest of the night alone. Her better bet was to ask Dathan to go with her, though if the paired dance element was removed that made it seem less like asking out of necessity and more like asking him on a real date. It was all very complicated, and always had been, and she wasn't sure that more variables was what the situation needed.

She supposed she could wait and see how the vote went before trying to decide. But her options also directly influenced how she might choose to vote. It was kind of a chicken and egg problem.

One which was emphasised by the fact that her patrolling partner for the evening was her only viable date option. Was this the sign she'd been hoping the universe would give her?

"Hi," she smiled at Dathan when he came in. "Ready to go bust some trouble makers?" she grinned, striking a fierce fighting pose. "How was your break?" she added.
13 Ellie Alperton Purely patrolling (tag Dathan) 1456 1 5

Dathan Fischer

November 24, 2021 9:33 PM

Yep. Sure. Definitely that. by Dathan Fischer

The Ball situation had gotten more complicated, in a way. Sort of. Maybe.

Thinking through complicated situations had never been one of Dathan's better-developed skills, but this one was particularly knotty. Technically, he guessed that the theories he was trying to shove into his head in his classes were more complicated than this whole thing, but that was all...technical stuff. It didn't get people and feelings and stuff that could make next year way, way worse than a bad grade in Charms could. Or better. Or just the same. On the surface of it, he guessed Mab had made things easier by challenging the system, but on the other hand....

He should deal with the question presented to him by the other hand, but it was so much easier to just keep doing things like making his rounds as a prefect, looking for troublemakers who were...surprisingly rare, really. He laughed when Ellie acted as though they might have to engage in some hand-to-hand combat with the miscreants. "Born ready," he said, trying for a deeper, more serious voice than he usually had. It was a pretty poor attempt, he had to admit. "It was cool," he said when asked about his holidays. He decided to leave out the part where his mother had figured out he'd bought a present for a girl and teased him a lot about that. "Mostly just hanging out with my parents. You?"
16 Dathan Fischer Yep. Sure. Definitely that. 1457 0 5

Ellie Alperton

November 25, 2021 4:09 AM

Well, and chatting by Ellie Alperton

"Mine was pretty wild. We hung shiny things on trees, wrapped objects in pretty patterned paper only for people to rip it off again, wached corny old movies... Strange, strange times," she grinned. Of course, to some of her classmates, her holiday customs might be strange or at least unfamiliar. "It's nice not having to explain what a movie is," she added to Dathan with a smile. She didn't want to be cliquey, and she didn't mind explaining things to her peers, but sometimes it was just easier not to have to. Like finding someone who spoke your own language.

"I also went to visit Jasmine. That was really cool," she added, because it was actually something big and newsworthy that she had done over break. Though that led them right back around to what she'd been wondering whether to bring up. She could just leave the story there, or... "We went shopping for ball dresses," she said, deciding to test the water. "How are your plans for that going?" she asked. That could totally be about just outfits and stuff. Or it could be about more. She had done her best to sound casual. 'Her best' was probably, for once, not an O, and the sidelong look she was given Dathan in order to check his reaction was definitely less subtle than she thought it was.
13 Ellie Alperton Well, and chatting 1456 0 5

Dathan Fischer

December 01, 2021 6:10 PM

Casual, casual chatter. by Dathan Fischer

Dathan chuckled at Ellie's description of the mysterious, wild rites of her holidays. "Sounds like a heck of a time," he agreed, and then nodded further agreement when she mentioned that it was nice to not have to explain things like movies. "I know, right? I have this joke with Sadie, uh, that people like us, we'd totally be like a secret society to everybody else here, except that we don't always know who each other are, either." It occurred to him that this didn't really sound very clever, the way he'd just described it. "It's...funnier if you were there when we both found out the other knows about movies and stuff," he added apologetically.

He decided to stop trying to explain, because he wasn't great at explaining things and he didn't...it wasn't like he thought Ellie was a super-judgy person or anything, but it seemed like the kind of thing an Aladren would probably think was lame and kid-like, and he thought it would upset Sadie if she heard about it, and he...didn't like that idea. Or like the idea of them both sounding like idiots because they had something fun but he wasn't good at explaining things.

"But yeah. It's definitely cool when I don't have to try to explain the plot of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to people," he concluded instead. "Or just explain the idea that some pictures move the same way forever and keep saying the same things and you can make them do that whenever you want."

Her holidays had also involved visiting Jasmine. "Jasmine Delachene?" he checked, though he was guessing it was unlikely she'd have mentioned just 'Jasmine' if it wasn't the person they had both gone to school with. "That's cool," he added politely. "She's doing okay?"

They had gone shopping for ballgowns. The first thing that came to mind was Cinderella (which was kinda funny when one of them was named Jasmine). The second was...yeah.

"I just brought what I'd wear to, like, church or a funeral or something at home," he admitted when asked how the Ball thing was going for him. "And one of my dad's ties from the bottom of the drawer, one of the ones he doesn't wear much. Wish me luck figuring out how to tie it," he joked. He almost had joked about how much easier going to dances and stuff was for dudes, but couldn't figure out how to get there without either saying something stupid and accidentally kinda insulting or trying to say something about how that wasn't fair and not ending up sounding even worse. "With great power comes great responsibility, I guess," he said instead.
16 Dathan Fischer Casual, casual chatter. 1457 0 5

Ellie Alperton

December 02, 2021 7:41 AM

Ever so casual by Ellie Alperton

“No, that sounds great. I get it,” Ellie said, her voice and her smile brittle. Had she gone too silent? Had she stopped giving polite non-verbal indicators that she was listening. Admittedly, ‘here’s all the cute in jokes I have with Sadie’ wasn’t her favourite subject to hear about from Dathan, but she hadn’t meant to let his words fall into a void.

“And that they used to be kept on shiny, shiny discs back in the Times of Yore, and sometimes we still get out these antiques, for ‘tis the season, though nowadays most of them are just stored inside the magic picture box,” she supplied, picking up where he left off, and hopefully proving that she could be just as fun as Sadie.

Dathan stuck to outfit chat, which was fine. He hadn’t shut things down completely. And this seemed friendly. With a terrifying undercurrent of ‘oh gosh, what if I don’t keep this going and then there is nothing else to say?’ Was that how it was normal to feel when you liked someone? Movies always talked about getting flustered around your crush, so maybe this was a sign that she really liked Dathan and wasn’t just desperate because of the ball. Though he did bring up an interesting point. Or a point that let her go down one of the side tangents that kind of related to things she’d been worrying about and wanting to find subtle ways to probe.

“What’s your church like?”
13 Ellie Alperton Ever so casual 1456 0 5