A Revolutionary Thanksgiving

[Erin Morgan]

OOC: Bex is drunk and Beanie encouraged me also fyi Bex knows shit about Thanksgiving in 1884.

With her father gone for the day on a rather pressing work assignment Erin had been left in charge of their London house - which was rather fortunate, given she had announced, rather brightly, at the previous meeting, that she would quite like to host a Thanksgiving dinner for her closest friends! Several had accepted, much to her pleasure, and others had said they would let her know, but Erin would be happy enough if even one of her friends made an appearance (though one in particular she was rather partial to!). Especially because she (or rather, Papa's cook) had prepared so much food!

With the finishing touches applied to the table and herself laced into a particularly festive dress in an appropriate shade of burnt orange, Erin busied herself straightening a fork as she waited for her guests to arrive.

@Elsie Beauregard
@Cassius Lestrange
@Helena MacMillan
@Oliver Trask
@Abraham Aesalon
@Louisa Rogers
@Esteban Zavala
AND OTHER PEOPLE OH GOD SO MANY OF US PEOPLE SHARE THE LINK WITH EVERYONE I MISSED <3

  

[Opaline Trask]

Opal knew very little about the holiday of Thanksgiving. Growing up in a thoroughly British middle class home, she didn't have much need for American holidays. But what she did know of the festivities - how apparently the first Thanksgiving dinner was shared with the Native Americans - did not leave a good taste in her mouth considering how those natives had their land stolen from them. It was an injustice, of course, and that this holiday rode on the coattails of said injustice did not in the least endear her to it. But still, Erin was a friend (if in a vaguer sense) and she had graciously invited the group to share in the feast with her in her home. While Opal had tried to distance herself from the upbringing of her childhood, she still had enough good graces to know that she ought to accept her invitation if only because she was a friend. So she had, even if she was content to be entirely scornful over the foundation of the holiday.

So the day found her dressed in the nicest dress she could make herself wear (a very flattering dress of muted green, perhaps less extravagant than her money permitted but still lovely), and waiting outside the door to be invited in by either Erin or servants. She would figure the latter but truth be told she couldn't be sure. And when a man opened the door to lead her in, she put on her most sincere smile - after all, she did have manners - and followed him in ready to greet Erin. She could have laughed at how very domestic the girl looked, straightening out the silverware around the table and looking utterly beautiful in her nicely colored dress.

"It's a bit odd to be the first to the party," she announced her arrival with amusement. Opal was near always late, showing up with bruises, but at that moment she was just on time looking every bit the lady her parents had raised her to be. She could almost scoff at the idea!

  

[Esteban Zavala]

Esteban had a vague sense of what Thanksgiving was but he wasn't terribly well versed in it. Well, he was getting free food, that was all he needed to know at the moment. His team had lost their last game but after a day of being devastated he was relatively over it. Especially after he had designed a more efficient training regiment. It was still smarting the smallest bit so a gathering with his favorite people was more than ideal.

Esteban dressed in manner that could be called casual-formal. Dressed up enough to please his mother since it was apparently bad form to go to a social gathering dressed in his usual way of dressing, Esteban had at least made sure to keep it on the low side.

Showing up at Erins, he smiled genially as the butler led him to the dining room. "Hello, Erin," he greeted before turning his attention to the other person in the room. At first he didn't recognize the lovely blonde in green and his senses went all: hellooooo, how you doin'? a la Joey Tribbiani. Then he recognized her and he couldn't help looking confused.

Esteban had never seen Opal dressed up so ladylike so he didn't know what to make of it. It was so not the way he was used to seeing her but he doubted her personality would suddenly change due to her being all dressed up proper so he got over it enough to slip into the seat next to her. "You look lovely, Opal," he complimented genuinely. But I prefer the real you, went unsaid. He was sure she would punch him if he said that out loud.

  

[Kieran Abernathy]

Kieran's forays into Hogsmeade were usually liquor, errand, or Fallon based, which made this a bit of an outlier. But he was willing to go along with it, because he adored Erin, he liked dinner parties, (though he supposed that his definition of 'dinner party' differed from the middle class definition,) and it was not as though he had anything better to do on a Thursday night.

He and Leeny had ridden the Knight Bus into Hogsmeade. The purple monstrosity dropped them off at the curb and he was sorely tempted to offer his housemate an arm on their way up to the house, just because it felt like the sort of thing people did at dinner parties.

The butler let them into the house.

"Hello hello," Kieran said, smiling brightly at the assorted company, "I come bearing our favorite - um - Eileen. Erin, your home is lovely."

Most homes were lovely compared to his and Eileen's and the shithole his mother owned, but that was neither here nor there, and it really was nice.

Opal's dress was weirding him out but he didn't want to get decked and besides that, it wasn't as though he hadn't dressed up either. He was wearing one of his patchless jackets but that was not particularly remarkable - what was noteworthy was that Kieran was mostly sober, a decision that he was already regretting to some extent.

  

[Idun Caird]

Nerves were tingling and excitement thrilled Idun as she made her way up the stairs to enter the home of Erin. She brushed her dress to rid the thing of wrinkles before pushing her spectacles onto their rightful place. The dress was one of her old ones, before her decision to enter a premature state of blue-stockingness. She felt that muted colors were not the thing to wear to a dinner party.

She had wanted to look good, for Erin's sake, since the girl always had such style. She had tried to walk about her home without the glasses, since the fashion dictated that girls with such monstrosities were not worthy dinner companions. She had knocked over two vases and a small photo before she had decided that her friends just had to deal with her bad eyesight.

She came in just as Kieran had spoken and smiled dilighted,
"And I come bearing jams and some preserves for our lovely hostess." She handed the basket she had been hurling on her way. Noticing Opaline she nodded to her. "Opaline, you look lovely! That green suits you tremendously!"

  

[Finn Rowe]

Finn wasn't really sure what 'thanksgiving' dinner was but he definitely was not one to turn down an invitation to a group meal with his friends. He was assuming they were going to eat the dinner but the name sounded like there was at least a small chance that this was actually a symbolic sacrificial dinner to 'give thanks' for... something.

As he arrived, decked out in his best attire, the well dressed table seemed to support the theory that this would be an actual dinner but only time would tell for certain. His best attire was of course modest, something he was more aware of when they were let in by a butler, but it was clean, well made, and quite presentable for the occasion. Everyone seemed to be going through 'hellos' and other formalities so he dove right in, holding aloft the two wine bottles he was carrying by way of announcing his arrival.

"Cairde*! Let's give thanks!" he was in a jovial mood, happy for the excuse to gather outside of their meetings.


*Gaelic- 'Friends!'

  

[Jude Wright]

Jude had never much enjoyed social occasions growing up. Of course, that had mostly because they had tended to consist of his parents and his parents' friends or acquaintances, a great deal of formality, small-talk, and insincere smiling at people who had given themselves little enough reason to be liked. He was much better these days, because his friends, as large and as varied a group as they were, were much less intimidating and much more interesting to be around. If there was still a little reluctance, it had little validity, and he liked Erin enough not to want to disappoint her by dismissing the inviation. [Combeferre], unfortunately, had been working - and he wasn't sure until when - so Jude had dragged himself out of the house and made his way to Erin's alone.

The butler had just led someone else inside, so Jude waited, shrugging off his coat until he was shown in a moment later. Quite a few of them had already arrived, everyone in varying states of looking more put-together than they usually did, which disconcerted Jude a little, but also nearly saw him with a surprised smile. (His smartest clothes - the few he'd deemed necessary to keep - were remnants of his teenage years, though plain, and now old and worn enough that he wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb.)

"Not for the circumstances surrounding the origin of this holiday, I hope," Jude tacked on, deadpan, to Finn's exclamation of giving thanks, though by a shake of his head and a dismissive hand wave, he gestured that - for once! - he wasn't really being serious, and that that was all they would hear from him on the matter. After all, if they had any knowledge of the unfamiliar holiday themselves, they would all be able see the horror of it all for themselves without a sermon on it; a deceptively sunny picture of more fraught relations. And as they were mostly not Americans (not that the British had ever been any better, when it came to their history of colonisation, but) in any case, this dinner was merely an adaptation, and did not necessarily have to subscribe to the not-entirely-happy basis upon which it was founded.

But this evening was one for friendship, and he could certainly be thankful for that. "It was good of you to invite us all," Jude addressed Erin, with a wry grin, sure that it was destined to be as lively as dinners possibly could.

  

[Eileen Buchanan]

Eileen loved her cousin, probably more than anybody would ever know- but she hated dinner parties. Kieran would not let her wear pants and she didn't have any truly nice dresses, so she was stuck in a deep blue one she'd had for eons, faded fabric, mended seams and everything. Needless to say, the only thing keeping her going right now was that of course, all of her favorite people would be at this little gathering.

Had Key offered her his arm, she would have shoved him into the mud as they ascended the steps to Erin's home; she was still a little indignant and being told to dress nice. Why attempt the impossible anyway!? . Barely holding her contempt in, she was again slapped with the fact that her cousin was much more well off than she and though that rarely bothered Leeny, it was hard to ignore when she was already in a sour mood.

As the door opened though, she pushed all of that below the surface, a lot of practice in masking her emotions evident in the smile that replaced the murderous look in her eye. They were shown in and Eileen nodded in agreement to Kieran's compliment on the house. Of course out of everybody, Leeny was probably the only one who had already been here, but she figured she would just roll with it. "Thanks for the invitation." She added, just to be polite.

  

[Erin Morgan]

Oh this was marvellous! Practically everyone was here - with the notable exception of Mr. Crouch, of course, and Erin fought the urge to ask after him - and she utterly beamed as she gestured towards the table, remembering somewhat belatedly she was the hostess.

“Please - everybody sit down,” she invited brightly, hesitant to take a seat herself with the reporter absent. “I’m so pleased to see everyone - oh thank you, Idun - and oh no, let’s give thanks for friends, of course!”

She was babbling now, but she so was so glad to see so many of them!

  

[Ethan Crouch]

Late again!

Ethan thrice cursed himself and the pocket watch that had been broken only a month after he'd moved out of the family house and he had not yet remembered to have fixed. He could have left with Esteban, should have left with his friend as apparently he was absolutely bally useless when it came to keeping time! And today of all days, when Erin was hosting a gathering and might take offence at his being such a dolt.

He had been ready. He had been dressed in one of the leftover suits from his previous life and groomed rather more than he had been in years and had been ready to apparate to London with time to spare; but then it had occurred to him quite how rude it would be to turn up to a young lady's gathering without some kind of offering. But then what did one get for a Thanksgiving celebration? Five days ago he had known nothing of the festival but knowing that he would be coming here today he had entrenched himself in the library for two nights in a row to learn everything he could of it in the hope that he could be informed when he spoke to Erin about it.

But what gift was appropriate? He had stood in Hogsmeade for what felt like an age, staring at the various shop fronts at quite a loss and wondering why Hogsmeade did not have a florists. Honeydukes had nearly been his port of call but aware of the time suddenly and aware that he was at the wrong end of the street he had ran into the nearest shop and panic bought the first thing he saw that made him smile.

He rapped on the door and was shown in by the servant and realised, unsurprisingly, that everyone was already here.

"Hello everyone," he said pleasantly, offering a wave whilst aware that he was probably garnering strange looks because of his cargo. "Erin, I... I bought you this," and he held out a cage containing a turtle dove.

  

[Kieran Abernathy]

Key sat down as bidden with little hesitation; he would genuinely be comfortable around anyone here, though he generally fully anticipated that he would end up next to his roommate.

Sometimes Kieran wondered how Ethan Crouch had survived childhood. He would have professed this thought more frequently if he thought that Leeny would refrain from punching him; as it was, he even resisted the desire to elbow her sympathetically for her romantic disasters.

Not that he had any romantic successes to speak of, but at least his (admittedly slightly half-assed) pining had the occasional side-effect of a one night stand.

"Did you catch that?" Kieran blurted at the bird, not quite able to suppress all his instincts, tilting his head sideways. For some reason catching the thing seemed more reasonable than buying it; not that Kieran could come up with a good excuse for catching one, either.

  

[Eileen Buchanan]

Of course Ethan was running behind, it was an endearing habit of his that Leeny would forever forgive. She smiled upon his arrival and only let it falter briefly when she saw what he'd brought Erin. She was not envious of the present itself, a bird was a bit of a ridiculous gift, but the fact that he'd brought her one to begin with. Jealousy was not a pretty color on anyone and Leeny had gotten very good at hiding it, still now she felt even more miffed about putting in an effort to look nice.

Leeny couldn't help but to chuckle at Key's question, though she probably oughtn't have. It was funny though. Still, she swatted him because he was in reach and she felt like it. Hitting Kieran always sorted her mood out quickly. Things were right with the world when she could smack him easily.

As they were ushered to sit, Leeny sat next to Key, just so she could keep him within easy hitting distance. If anything would keep her in a pleasant mood, that would. "This is quite the event, Erin." It suited her cousin, out of everybody, to be the one to host something like this, so Leeny could't really begrudge Erin that, at least. It was nice to get a real meal every now and then too so Leeny really wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  

[Jude Wright]

Ethan had arrived late, in a twist of fate. Jude suspected he was ordinarily one of the less forgiving of lateness - particularly when there were things to do - but tonight was not of urgency, and it was probably an achievement to begin with that their friend had shown up before any eating or real thanks-giving had been done.

From his seat, Jude did his best to stifle a snort at Kieran's comment as he peered over to look at the birdcage by which Ethan was accompanied. It was rare enough that he was tempted to laugh at Kieran's jokes, but even so, although he didn't know exactly why Eileen had hit him - had never quite entirely understood the pair's relationship - he wouldn't deny that it was a comfort to know someone wasn't afraid to thwack Kieran once every so often. She might deserve a medal.

Though trying to keep a straight face, Jude couldn't hold back from muttering the next question on his list (though under his breath enough that it was more for the table's ears than Ethan's or Erin's, and less malicious than genuinely baffled.) “What is she supposed to do with that?”

Eat it, he supposed. Turtle doves... Was she expected to make a game pie of it? It felt like an odd choice to bring a meal-to-be to a meal already, and it was hardly pheasant-sized, so there seemed little point in one alone. The alternative was as a pet, Jude imagined. Did people do that? It was a glorified pigeon, was it not? And unless it had been trained to carry messages like homing pigeons or owls, then he didn't know what use it had. (Jude did not understand the concept of pets.)

Well, as they said, it was Ethan's thought in the gift that counted, and who knew? Erin would probably be able to appreciate it properly. And on appreciation, for that matter... was there a set time for this thanking? Or was this a less literal occasion, and all they had to do was enjoy the food?

  

[Esteban Zavala]

Oh, gods no. Ethan didn't? Oh, but he did. Esteban practically cackled at the sight of the turtle dove though he managed to quickly stifle it. "Keep it as a pet, I reckon," Esteban replied to Judes question which had started off his sorta-cackling once more.

  

[Finn Rowe]

"Birds carry diseases," Finn said in a light, informative tone as he took a seat at the table next to Jim. He reached out to play with the decorations on the table. It seemed to be a.... vegetable theme? There were also doilies and autumn leaves. It was very pretty, he'd admit that but it was just... strange.

A pause in the conversation around him made him look up. "But I'm sure it makes for a great pet." he added, trying to be nice. He would just have to mention to Erin to never actually touch it. Seriously. Birds were dirty.

  

[Erin Morgan]

Idly, Erin registered the continued chatter of conversation—of exclamations, of laughter, of their friends teasing Ethan—but oh, none of it mattered, because Ethan had brought her a dove. She spared a thought for her father, who would no doubt raise an eyebrow when he saw the bird but she would cross that bridge when she came to it, smiling brightly as she tentatively reached out for the cage. It was a very pretty cage, not at all like a prison (which it effectively was) but immediately Erin began to imagine the space outdoors that she would create for her new companion—a magnificent aviary, where the turtle dove could be happy and free.

"It's perfect!" she beamed, balancing the cage very perfectly as she sat it down on a nearby table—one that was at an acceptable distance from the food, of course. "Does it have a name?"