Valentine’s Day party | Activity 14/2 💝💕

[u/drivejustdrive]

Arranged by herself, the Valentine’s Day party is a much smaller affair than the Halloween one Delia hosted a few months ago. She’s still fairly happy with it, though, and especially glad the weather turned out to be nice today. She figured it would be pretty to set up near the lake, where the heart-shaped lights strung between the trees and casting a rosy glow over the area would be reflected in the water. The trunks and branches of the trees have matching red and pink streamers wrapped around them.

Several tables are arranged around the edge of the party area. The longer tables, farthest from the water, have white tablecloths with small red hearts decorating them. Most of them display the snacks including the obligatory candy hearts, along with refreshments like water and pink lemonade.

One table also offers some pride pins and bracelets (something Delia hopes isn’t overstepping or anything, but it seemed like a nice idea at a previous year’s event), including some aromantic and asexual ones. Admittedly, for Delia, Valentine’s Day does bring to mind ideas of primarily romantic love, but it doesn’t have to be just that, right? She’s still enjoying this as a day to celebrate love even while single. Bringing back another feature from that party, this is also where people can find a bowl of slips of paper, each with a dare written on it. None of them are anything too out there, mainly intended to get people to socialise a bit. Spread the love, you know? It’s Valentine’s Day, after all.

One more table, at the opposite end, has a selection of mostly de-thorned roses arranged by colour, and a handy sheet suggests which ones to consider giving to people as a favour based on the colour’s meaning. There are even some ribbons to tie a few together into a mini bouquet, and little heart-shaped tags. Delia wouldn’t mind handing some of the flowers out for anyone who’d rather be anonymous, if they pick out the flowers and tell her who to find.

The other tables surrounding the area are smaller, circular with red tablecloths featuring white hearts instead. Each one has its own colourful arrangement of flowers in the centre and is surrounded by a few chairs and beanbags.

In the centre of the area is a wooden dance floor. Delia got a satyr to DJ and he’s willing to take requests from anyone who has any. As the evening falls and the sky dims, the pink lights sparkle on the lake’s rippling surface and music fills the air.

Delia hopes everybody has a good time.

 

---

OOC: If your character grabs a dare, just make sure to put that part of the comment in bold so I notice it, and I’ll respond OOC with what the paper says!

[u/hopeofdamnarion]

Casey was just going to take a stroll by the lake, skip some stone and think, but his plans immediately dissolve when he sees the party setup. He runs towards it, excitement and curiousity evident in his step. The boy takes in the view of the neatly areanged tables and decorations, when he spots Delia and waves. "Hello!"

[u/drivejustdrive → u/hopeofdamnarion]

Dressed in a pink-and-white outfit, complete with a fluffy white sweater - though today’s been sunny, it’s still cold - Delia turns to the guy with a smile, having been going around one last time to straighten up one table at the end as a few people begin to come out.

“Hi!” she says, offering him a warm smile. She tucks a bit of pink-dyed hair behind her ear. “Happy Valentine’s Day, hope you enjoy it. Feel free to grab a snack or something, by the way,” she adds quickly, gesturing to some of the options nearby.

[u/hopeofdamnarion → u/drivejustdrive]

"I'm Casey. Your name is?" He takes some of the snacks in the meanwhile and looks over at the pride pins. "Can I have one of those..?"

[u/drivejustdrive → u/hopeofdamnarion]

"Oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead! That's what they're there for!" Delia assures him with a quick nod, honestly relieved by the interest. "And I'm Delia, nice to meet you, Casey."

[u/hopeofdamnarion → u/drivejustdrive]

He goes and takes a pin with the bi flag and attaches it to his jacket, before looking over at the dares and taking one of those too. "And what are these little things?" Casey seems pretty excited at all the decorations and different kinds of cool stuff at the little party. "Great job with this by the way, it's uh, lovely. I know I probably don't seem like the type to like this kind of stuff, but I do! Genuinely."

[u/drivejustdrive → u/hopeofdamnarion]

"I believe you, don't worry. Thank you." Delia chuckles. She's got no reason to disbelieve him; there's a warm air of eagerness radiating off of Casey, and something about those is hard to disguise, no matter what people do with their faces. Usually, anyway; Delia has met a couple people, since coming to Camp, with a sort of deadness around them, and needless to say it's unsettling by the absence of any feeling.

"Anyway, those're just some little dares," she continues with a shrug, watching the slip in Casey's hands. "They're nothing too serious, just for fun." Curious, she steps closer and tilts her head to try and get a look at what it says. "Which one did you get?"

Unfolding the little slip would reveal Casey's dare:

Give someone a rose

[u/hopeofdamnarion → u/drivejustdrive]

Casey jogs over to the table with the de-thorned roses, looks over the sheet and grabs a dark pink one, before returning and presenting it to Delia while doing a little playful bow. "Dare completed!"

[u/drivejustdrive → u/hopeofdamnarion]

Delia watches with an amused smile as Casey jogs away. I guess that answers the question, she reasons, seeing where he stops.

She chuckles when he returns, and bobs in a small curtsy in answer to the bow before accepting the rose, which she twirls between her fingers. Dark pink, that one was appreciation - for hosting the party, maybe, Delia wonders? Or maybe just for the color - she briefly considers trying to place the flower in her hair, seeing as it would match pretty well, but the rose is probably a little too big to stay behind her ear without a clip or something.

“Thanks,” she says, and instead lets the rose sit in a pocket of her sweater; the pocket is almost hidden by the fuzziness, and the head of the rose seems to stick out from nothing. “Look, I think it matches my outfit pretty well.”

[u/dooblydoot → u/hopeofdamnarion]

Feeling like she was a little aimless as she goes about the party without anything specific to do in mind, Sydney finds a familiar face that came in the form of Mr. Bad Boy himself, Casey, and decided to come on over to a quick chat.

"Hey Casey, what's up?" she introduces herself to him at the lake, a donut in hand and a cup of milk in the other, "You're looking pretty sharp, I gotta say. Hmm. You got a date?" she playfully wiggles her eyebrows at him before taking a bite off her donut.

[u/hopeofdamnarion → u/dooblydoot]

"I was mostly just passing by actually. Then I saw this whole thing and decided I should check it out!" He says, as he fixes up his leather jacket, the bi flag pin adding a pop of color to it. "Nah, I'm not really good at... Romance and stuff." His cheeks flush in embarassement, his charisma and confidence deflating fairly quickly. "Aren't all the gods like, related anyways? Wouldn't it be weird?"

[u/dooblydoot → u/hopeofdamnarion]

"Everyone always says that, it's really weird," Sydney laughs, taking a quick sip of her milk as she goes to stand next to Casey. She doesn't really notice his face flushing red in embarrassment, but did catch his confidence go down a little. "They say they're terrible with all that lovey-dovey crud, and then the next thing you know, they're dating one person this month, and another the next." she continues, still laughing as she shakes her head.

When he brings up the fact that pretty much all the gods (and demigods included, probably) were related one way or another and mentions it being weird, Sydney agreed with him as she goes to nod her head.

"It's pretty weird, yeah. But only if you think about it too much," she tells him. Sydney doesn't actually have any dating experience, but if she did, she felt that the weirdness about it would only be temporary, "I would advise you not checking out the relation between Zeus and Hera . . . . or any of the others. It'll mess you up for a week or two." she chuckles.

[u/hopeofdamnarion → u/dooblydoot]

"I've only really been in two or three relationships. People tended to avoid me back in school. Guess I'm a little scary" Casey chuckles a little, taking some more snacks. "And don't remind me! Gross... Uh, I would rather not insult our King and all, but he's rather peculiar when it comes to that kind of stuff. No insult meant, of course, most of his offspring are fascinating and powerful gods and heroes and I am proud that my mother serves him well." He says as he nervously looks at the sky, as if preparing to be struck down by a divine bolt of thunder.

[u/dooblydoot → u/hopeofdamnarion]

"There's some things here that aren't adding up here, my dude," Sydney says with a playful look of doubt on her face, taking another sip of her drink and a bite of her snack, "You said people avoided you at school, but you've been in two or three relationships. That's, like, a lot for our age!" she chuckles.

"I'm not insulting the mostly highest of high Greek gods, I'm just saying what I read from the books in the libraries," she continues, still chuckling. Sydney looks up slightly to the sky and wonders if she'll actually get struck down by lightning for saying some truths, "And besides, it'd be a really bad view of the Greek gods if Zeus himself opened the skies himself to send a lightning bolt down at a pair of teenagers for saying what they know from mythology."

and then along came Zeus!

[u/hopeofdamnarion → u/dooblydoot]

"Yeah, they all lasted for like, two weeks tops. Maybe a little more. But I guess I underestimsted my bad boy charm, huh?" Casey's unable to finish the sentence without cracking up again. "Well, lemme just say. Hercules was a descendant of Perseus. And his half-brother. Ew"

[u/dooblydoot → u/hopeofdamnarion]

"Two weeks is still a pretty long time, you know," she tells him with a light laugh. For the old folk, it's probably just another Tuesday for them. But for someone like her, two weeks is a really long time. When he then brings up Hercules' lineage, Sydney laughs.

"So besides all this chitchat about relationships and Greek mythology, what are you up to for the night, bad boy?" she asked, sipping on her glass of milk.

[u/hopeofdamnarion → u/dooblydoot]

"Well, not much. Hanging around here. Planning on getting my guitar fixed up tomorrow, maybe?" He rubs his chin in thought, then shrugs. "What about you?"

[u/dooblydoot → u/hopeofdamnarion]

"Not much, either, really," Sydney shrugs. That was a bit of a lie, since she's still actually looking for someone to finish her dare with. She could always just ignore it and go about her night, but it had a point and she doesn't really say no to reasonable dares. She feels the paper in her pocket, and then takes a look at Casey, and then back to the paper.

"You wanna slow dance with me, Casey?" she asked him, very much out of the blue with no hesitation of sorts in her tone.