Arcadian Forest Party

[askmenosecrets]

This was more work that he usually bothered to put in, Pan thought, especially here, at home, but everything was set.




At first glance, it appeared to be a forest clearing, beautiful and wild but nothing different than a hundred other clearings spread throughout the woods of the Arcadian mountains. But when you looked again, Pan thought, you saw something quite different. Hidden in the trees were a series of structures suspended in air, hung with ivy and dew, and through the mist-shrouded branches you could see the faint glow of light, and you could smell the scent of fire and food. There was the fire pit, a circle suspended in the arms of a large oak with a crackling golden fire, a roast, and bowls of marshmallows, chocolate and crackers waiting. There was the bar, stocked with a rich variety of wines and alcohols and staffed by two of the satyrs. And then there was the forest floor itself, bare now, but waiting for the dancing. On all sides of the floor, there were cushions on the low branches and benches of fallen logs, each accompanied with wooden buckets full of wine and beer bottles and glassed suspended with vine.

"Well," he said to Zaffre, currently wrapped around his neck, "I think we're ready." Pan flicked a leaf off his forest green turtleneck and looked around with approval before pausing. "We're almost ready," he corrected, and pulled his pan flute up to his lips.

The forest filled with music as he played, music that began as the mystical songs of the flute, but transformed as he let the instrument fall to his side - transformed into thrumming, sensual rhythms and intricate guitars that would encourage the party-goers to...well, Pan thought with a sharp grin, to be bad. Very bad.

"Let the games begin," Pan said.

[Notes: Everyone in fortuna_invicta is invited, the more the merrier in Pan's opinion. If anyone needs directions to the right section of the forest, let Pan know on the SWS post. Mingle! Get drunk! Stuff your face! Find a secluded tree and do naughty things! Pan approves highly of all these pursuits. Format = narrative third person, if you please!]

Comments

[laurales.livejournal.com]

However she may feel about those who contributed to her long-suffered self-imprisonment, Daphne knows she is simply an immortal who walks among gods. She bows her head in kind as greeting, hands now folded neatly (and perhaps a bit coldly) in her lap.

"I am no lady, Lord Eros," she retorts. A technicality, perhaps, but to Daphne an important one. "But I will not send you away."

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Eros dips his head in apology. "Simply Daphne, then," he replies. "And please: Eros."

He perches lightly on the bench beside her, watching the festivities. He has no desire to darken the mood by talking of heavy matters, but he cannot help but wonder if she has given thought to his offer to undo what, in his hotheaded youth, he had wrought and strip the lead from her heart.

[laurales.livejournal.com]

She sits behind him silently, hands still folded, her entire body still. It is a bit unnatural for a young woman to move so little, but in Daphne's case old habits (and in this case, tree habits) die hard. "Eros, then," she eventually says, her attention turned towards towards the throngs of people.

At length, she asks him: "Is the party enjoyable? I cannot tell." Weakness, maybe, to admit it but Daphne knows very few would understand the sentiment. He, however, had been the one to bind her heart in the chains that still held it. If there was love to be had for the festivities and the party, Daphne could no feel it. And though she would not admit it, she still mourned the loss.

[lovessweetbait.livejournal.com]

Eros turns to study her, a quiet sadness in his clear blue eyes at the cool question. "It is," he answers slowly, "but I would it were more so. Daphne-" He cuts off, taking a quiet breath. He's already asked her to allow him to undo what he'd done, but the decision was her own. He would not press, no matter how much he wished to see her smile again.

[laurales.livejournal.com]

Daphne would not presume to know the mind of a god, though she is smart enough to hazard a guess at the words cut off from speech. When she looks at him, it is with long-accepted resignation; all that she had become, so far from all that Eros embodied and was.

"Speak your mind. I will not ask you to hold your tongue."

[lovessweetbait.livejournal.com]

Eros looks at her in surprise, but he shouldn't be surprised Daphne is observant. He sighs, glancing down, and he doesn't look at her as he speaks with reluctance. "I wish to undo what's been wrongfully done to you," he says quietly. "I will not press, but my heart aches to see yours so silent."

[laurales.livejournal.com]

"Your offer has not been forgotten, Eros," she says softly, her voice almost lost to the sounds of the party. "It has given me hope, though I fear it to be false. For I fear my heart has long forgotten what it means to beat."

[lovessweetbait.livejournal.com]

Eros turns to face her completely at that and tosses caution to the winds as he reaches for her hand, pressing it between his. "Never," he says, quiet but fervent. "Your heart only sleeps, beneath its leaden coat. Though much may have been forgotten, it would learn again. You could love again."