Read My Mind

[Malcolm Macfusty]

Mac wasn't sure why he had come to this thing.

He could have been at home, playing with Izzie or humoring Fanny or whatever else, but instead he was here. At the Minister's ball. In a suit, and not a kilt. Drinking champagne from a flute.

At least he was not the only MacFusty who was coming to this thing for some reason, (he was sure that he had had a good reason earlier, but it had been lost in the reality of the ball,) and at least he was fairly good at masking how uncomfortable he was with the whole thing.

He had not been trying to find his brother, just standing next to a wall and looking mildly uncomfortable. Really, Ninny's presence was an improvement - maybe between them, they could actually find a way to make this entire thing less awkward?

He doubted that fireworks and scotch were going to make an appearance, but this was, at least, something.

"So, Ninny," Mac said, giving his brother his best 'WELP' expression, "Have you been enjoying your time here so far?"

  

[Ninian MacFusty1]

Why?

Ninian's New Years resolutions definitely included getting out more, and having more reasons to go out more, but a ball had never really been his scene. And so, naturally, once he'd happened upon Mac, he'd latched on to him with the intention of socializing as little as possible - a drinking the free liquor - until it was close enough to the end of the evening that he could leave without being rude. A good enough plan if he ever had one, he thought.

He felt like he was slowly suffocating in the crowd of people. He hadn't asked anyone to dance yet, either; then again, he had no idea how to do those stately dances, anyways. Where were the fiddles? Why did everyone look so stiff?

Instead of answering his brother, he downed the last tiny champagne thing - what were those called again? - and made a noise of dissent in the back of his throat. "About as much as ye are."

Ninny sighed and placed his champagne cup on the tray of a waiter walking past them. "Y'know, I think that this is the first time I've been out to somethin' like this since that whole curse thing on Halloween. Is tha' pathetic or what?"

  

[Malcolm Macfusty]

"Ah," Mac said with a knowing nod. He didn't really know how to deal with any of this finery and frippery and other assorted fanciness - if they were good upper-class people they would have, but instead they spent all their time playing with dragons and drinking whiskey.

So basically, they had far superior hobbies compared to these hobbies. And bagpipes were way better than fiddles, what sort of gathering didn't even have any?

"Eh," Mac said, "Minimally. This sort of social thing is-" he gulped his champagne "-not our usual pace."

"You do need to get out of th' Hebrides more often though, you hermit," he said lazily, grinning rather mischievously at his (barely) older brother.