SMASH YOUR TELEVISION.

jinu smelled the wine again before taking another small sip. he winced and then turned to mandy. "i don't know." he handed it over to her, wondering if she'd take a sip. she probably knew better than he would if it tasted strange. "i'm not a big drinker, so maybe it's all in my head."

her gaze fell to the glass as jinu attempted to hand it over, a stone sized lump dropping to her throat at the gesture. ever since christmas, mandy had been wary of anything she didn't know the direct source of. she stopped eating at new places, stopped trusting pop-ups or bake sales or anything marketed as hand crafted and exciting. she shook her head, holding a hand up. "i'll stick with what i have," she said - gesturing to the beverage she was babysitting, clearly from a can. "and i'd be careful with that."

mandy took the moment then to look around the ballroom in way of observation, watching as the city laughed and danced, ate and drank to their hearts content. it seemed so easy to please these people, yet the girl was wary. still - she was there with the rest of them. what did that say about her?

"do you think the council ever gets sick of planning this shit?"

"yeah," he muttered. "not gonna turn down a free beer." before he started his interrogation he allowed her to get him a beer. he twisted the cap off against the edge of the table without much effort, taking a long drink before letting out a quiet exhale. the tension in his shoulders eased just enough to be noticeable, though the permanent scowl never really left his face.

he leaned back against his chair, bottle hanging loosely from his fingers as his gaze settled on the other. "so..." he said after a beat of silence. "wanna tell me why you were job hunting at inferno?" his tone wasn't accusing, just direct.

the beer was strategic, the only thing in this damn place that came with a cap. she stuck with those she could retrieve in a can despite how out of place it looked here - there was just something about this whole thing, about most things now, that made her wary of consumption. she flipped the tab of a coors light and took a sip.

his question threw her off - both because she wasn't sure why it mattered or why he cared. it wasn't like it was abnormal for people to have multiple jobs ... and what other skills could she use if not the ones she recently learned behind the bar? she frowned.

"isn't asking about my financial situation some sort of HR violation?" she asked, eyebrow raised. of course - the club didn't have a human resources department, but he had to know this line of questioning was not within his realm of business. she leaned forward anyway, signing as she relented. "i'm looking for a new apartment and need a second job. so unless you wanna offer me like a 50% raise right now, i'm shopping around."

she took another sip of her beer then, letting a beat pass between them. "why?" she paused again, a realization hitting. "and also , how do you know about that? what - are you having me fucking followed now?"

"pretty long winded name," she pointed out simply with a drag of her cigarette, taking the silent beat between them to take in what he was wearing. she made a mental note to compliment the shirt - maybe.

mandy didn't necessarily know what to make of this guy - strange and interesting in ways she only met with intrigue. eyes met his as he rattled off a truly thought out data set on an event she found frivolous until that point - the confidence thing did ring true, after all.

maybe it was the dress.

"you've found value in the quiet outskirts of the chaos, then?" she asked with a smirk, discarding the cigarette as it burned to the filter. "don't tell my secrets, now. all the good people watching is over here." at his words, her gaze followed his to the shoes.

"what data is that?" mandy asked with a rare laugh. "women will perform through pain for the sake of beauty?"

closed event starter feat. @mandyfellwyn

the ballroom seemed to glow beneath the soft lights, every laugh and note of music blending together into something that felt almost dreamlike. mavis stood beside mandy, watching couples drift across the dance floor, a fond smile lingering on her face as she took it all in. there was something about nights like this that made old stories feel a little more real.

she bumped mandy's shoulder lightly. "i wonder if this is what it looked like when my parents met?" she asked, her eyes still fixed on the dancers. "father used to tell the story like it was straight out of a fairytale." a quiet laugh escaped her. "i can't decide if it actually felt this magical... or if we've all just made it that way because i know how it ended."

there was something about hanging out with mavis that made mandy start to look at things with a bit of a softer lens. maybe it was the sudden female influence or maybe it was just the magic of mavis, but mandy now found herself considering a sentiment she would once scoff at. she didn't necessarily care how her own parents met, miserable as they were - but she thought to billy's parents as she allowed her friend to sit in the thought.

"you must know a little," she said with a smirk, eyes scanning the room for her incredibly tall boyfriend without much thought behind it. "i don't know much about love, but..." she shrugged, taking a sip of her drink. "all the songs make it sound the same. you know? sunshine and rainbows or whatever."

closed event starter feat. @mandyfellwyn

hopper wasn't exactly thrilled about being at the solstice ball, but he couldn't deny that mandy had managed to look surprisingly put together. his gaze lingered for a moment before he caught himself and immediately looked away, arms crossing over his chest.

"you look... decent," he muttered, the closest thing to a compliment he was willing to give. after a beat, he added with a slight frown, "don't make a big deal out of it."

mandy almost didn't show up - wouldn't have if she hadn't found a dress she actually loved in consignment. there she stood in blood red lace like it belonged on her, draped in ways she hadn't expected when she threw it on. still, she felt out of place. like riff raff crashing a royal affair. it was strange how the whole town seemed to slow down just for these things.

that was what she was thinking about as she stood now in front of her boss, neither of them standing in the building one of them was usually always standing in. his words felt clunky, foreign, like the two of them couldn't interact outside of the locust fight club as easily as they could inside it. "thanks," she said simply, the sound sinking like a stone.

eyes scanned up and down, but her opinions stayed close to her chest. who knew exactly what the man considered a big deal, anyway? she blinked once before her gaze shifted to the drink station, away from the detailing on his sleeve.

"you want a beer?"

the second they'd gotten to the ball, the rest of the saja boys scattered, but jinu knew where they were. scattered among the rest of the people, they were clear with their brightly, almost neon colored outfits. he was the one that stood out from them, his all black outfit all dramatic flare. he didn't really care about attending an event like this, not because he hated balls or dances, but because half the time it reminded him of where he came from. of course back then jinu was attending them as someone working them, not a guest. he vaguely wondered if the regular people of elias attending would annoy him for autographs.

"this champagne tastes weird. do you think i'm going to be able to leave at the end of the night or did the fae steal my soul?" nevermind that he didn't have a soul.

mandy had been skeptical when she showed up to the ball, unsure if she even wanted to be here or why. any adventures she went on in the past (and any adventures she'd choose to embark on now) didn't exactly include stuffy ballrooms and orchestral music, but here they were. this city had a weird idea about what it was its citizens wanted to participate in.

she was about half a second away from taking a sip of her own glass when jinu stood there next to her and questioned his. she immediately set it down on a nearby table and looked to where she could find something in a can. "tastes weird how?"

this type of event wasn't mandy's scene normally - even when she found a decent enough outfit to convince the masses that it was. certified vintage only in the sense that it was from a thrift store, the girl stood outside in dark red lace with a cigarette in her hand and heels tossed aside haphazardly. the first to go barefoot at any dance - that was mandy.

it wasn't that she was looking for a distraction, a loophole, a new way to enjoy this god forsaken ball - but her ears did perk up to a familiar voice. a call to action, really, when she thought about it. she turned to king and arched a brow, deciding not to ask about the bird. yet.

"research at the royal ... whatever the fuck this is?" she asked curiously. "what kind of research?"

Logan wasn't entirely sure how long it had been since he'd seen Mandy. A few weeks, maybe. Long enough for him to notice. Not because they were the sort of friends who talked every day. They weren't. Logan wasn't sure he had anyone he talked to every day besides Mavis. Still, Mandy had a habit of appearing unexpectedly. A comment here. A complaint there. Usually accompanied by a level of annoyance directed at the universe that Logan had always found strangely reassuring.

The absence had been noticeable. Which was how he found himself standing outside one of the coffee shops in Elias, debating whether checking on someone counted as bothering them. Unfortunately, he had already committed. So when he spotted her through the window, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. There was a coffee in his hand, not because he thought she wanted one but ....because showing up empty-handed felt weird. "Mandy." His greeting was simple as he approached her table. "Glad to see you're still breathing." Logan slid into the empty chair across from her before setting the spare coffee down on the table.

"I haven't seen you around." He said after a moment, then immediately looked mildly uncomfortable with how direct that sounded. Just enough to make it obvious that checking on people wasn't exactly second nature to him. "I figured it was either something terrible, something annoying, or you finally got tired of all of us and moved to another city." The corner of his mouth twitched faintly, not quite a smile. "Honestly, I'd have put money on the second one." His gaze drifted briefly toward the window before returning to her. "Everything okay?" The question came quieter this time. Less teasing. More genuine. "You don't have to tell me if it's none of my business. Just... figured I'd ask."

mandy had been spending less and less time in elias these days, old or new. she was looking to solidify herself in the underland just a little more, a second job and new apartment on the horizon. despite her goals falling right in line with a girl who needed to gain control, she had been isolating. internalizing. writing in a fucking journal.

that was what she was doing now. lunch hour on a sunday and mandy was detailing a pros and cons list for the last few apartments she had seen. what brought her back to elias, this time, was a diamond-in-the-rough type of place that seemed both cheaper and higher quality that the one she was in now.

it was a scam, obviously. so back to the underland she would go.

she was detailing everything - the reasons she hated the place being at the top of the list - as a bottle of water (read: liquid iv) and a seasonal raspberry danish sat untouched in front of her. logan popped up just as she wrote a giant 'fuck no' at the bottom of the page.

"hey." she closed the notebook and shoved it in her bag, promptly making a face when he decided to be weird. "ew, worry. don't make me puke." taking the coffee from him, she held it up in a mock 'cheer's motion before taking a sip, a move of thanks. she could talk about her health, the obvious tell being the flannel on her arms in june, or the fact that her physical appearance had an overall darker appeal now, not stopping at the hair dye. mandy decided to deflect, instead. "save it, beanpole. where have you been? i got a whole matching tattoo with your girlfriend and yet ... where is yours? where are you hiding?" the look was a little pointed, like they both had been in the shadows. "you don't have to tell me, either," she replied, finally genuine.

he had been staring into his drink as if it might eventually offer answers..clearly it hadn’t.it was all disappointing, because answers would've been useful right about now..like how he got here in the first place.. he had taken a turn...no..thats not right. he was home..in bed?...well..enough about that..his attention shifted away from the swirling ice and neon reflections dancing across the glass.  "vibe?" he echoed back while his nose scrunched.

"hmmm." king leaned back slightly, gaze drifting across the room. the place was buzzing around them like a beehive someone had kicked for fun. there was music thumping through the floorboards, laughter erupting from random every corner, conversations colliding into one another until they became little more than background static. "i think…" he started slowly, "if a fever dream and a house party had a baby, it'd probably look something like this." the corner of his mouth twitched. "which isn't necessarily a bad thing." as he spoke, his fingers drummed against the condensation gathering on his glass. “admittedly, i'm still trying to figure out how i ended up here. “  he frowned thoughtfully. "i was somewhere else. then i was here?"

the clientele here in inferno was quite varied compared to those in the club - turned out people were way more prone to dancing than they were beating the shit out of each other. at least, at the club, intention was clear - people either fought or they drank, watched, and bet their hard earned money away. this place didn't seem as clear cut to the naked eye - this was verified to mandy simply by king's response.

"yes, king cassian, the vibe." it came out deadpan, not huffy, as she held out a hand to guide her thought. "how does it make you feel?"

as she continued to listen to him, however, a simple question turned over into a wave of concern. she knew that feeling - the one where you're standing in one place one moment and the next? across town with the wind knocked out of you. mandy's blood ran cold as she looked to him with narrowed eyes, worried. "where were you before?" the question came out as a demand before she cleared her throat. her voice was softer with the follow up. "when do you remember being there?"

he was stood just slightly to the side of mandy, scanning the tables for something he might be able to begin his new collection with, when his opinion was asked for.

milo looks both ways to the side of him, assuming the question was for someone who might actually stand a chance of answering it. “you’re asking me? i mean, i can try and help but i should warn you that no one’s ever asked my advice in jewellery before, and probably with good reason.”

“well, what’s the worst that can happen?” he shrugs and leans down slightly to look closer. “what exactly are you looking for? is it for a special occasion?”

it wasn't normally like mandy to slow down and help a person reframe, usually finding it much easier to wave a person off than coach them into a different line of thinking - but she shook her head, not taking any uncertainty with this question that ultimately had no stakes. "you have eyes, don't you?" she asked, "vision better than mine with the glasses on, i'd guess..." she looked to her hands again, gaze bouncing from left to right hand. "which one looks more visually interesting? simple or stacked?" just because a man was never asked his opinion in this way before didn't mean his opinion wasn't valuable.

ugh, mandy. careful where you assign value with a man.

"no occasion," she clarified with a shake of her head. "just, trying something new." the truth was, mandy was sort of guilty of following trends here as she stacked rings on top of rings - at least five on each hand. the closer she looked, the closer she was to deciding maybe she wasn't a ring girl after all.

"eh, nevermind," she said as she began to take them off one by one, tossing each ring back into the box. maybe the girl wasn't ready for every aspect of new just yet - the hand makeover would have to wait. "what are you looking for in here? i'm mandy, by the way."