It's Five O'Clock Somewhere [Varde]

[Harpsdesire]

"Oh, chemistry. That must be fascinating." Dania suddenly wished she had a craft, or a hobby, which was not something she had every particularly thought to wish for before. Well, she had a job, and she supposed that was close enough, and her constant reading was sort of a hobby. "I work in a bookstore. I suppose you could say my hobby is reading. And-and writing." As soon as she had said that last part, she wished she hadn't. This was usually the point where whoever she was clumsily trying to converse with asked her to recite something she had written, and she, crippled by shyness, found her mind totally blank and her mouth too dry to speak. In other words, this was generally the point in the conversation when she commenced to look like a total idiot.

She was glad that something else interesting had come up which would probably circumvent any questions about her own, less interesting hobbies. "A dancing champion!" Dania, taking the Porcupine's words more or less literally, looked quite impressed. Even without her binding, her self consciousness would have been enough to prevent the Rat from ever setting paw on a dance floor. She had considerable admiration for those who could move with the grace and style she could never manage. "I'm not much of a dancer, myself." She said, a little regretfully.

Dania always felt a tiny prickle of jealousy when she thought too much about the ease and freedom with which most cards got around. It was a feeling so often repeated and so deeply repressed that she herself was not even conscious of it. The prickle added itself to the growing heap of things in the bin marked 'Do Not Think About', which was stored in the darker areas of Dania's mind.

"Do you... dance on stage?" She asked Felix, innocently.

[Varde]

At Dania's comment about chemistry, Fenzik almost launched into a long, rambling monologue about just how very fascinating the subject could be. Almost. He barely managed to restrain himself, since he really didn't desire to monopolize the conversation, and he didn't want to risk boring his newfound friends. Instead, he simply grinned and nodded in affirmation. His eyes lit up when the other rat mentioned books and reading. "Oh! Neat," he remarked. "Me too! The reading, that is, not the writing -- I'm not nearly creative enough for that," he clarified. "But there's nothing quite like a good book to stimulate the mind."

Upon hearing Felix's outlandish claim, Fenzik couldn't help but laugh heartily. Once he had mostly recovered, he took a unintentionally large drink, which, to his pleasant surprise, went down much more easily this time. He felt a little bit of bemused pride in making progress on his first drink. However, his eyes went wide and he shook his head in astonishment as he saw Felix grabbing a third. "Don't worry, Dania, I can't dance, either," he reassured her. "...Well, not that I've ever really tried. It just... looks quite difficult for one as uncoordinated as myself," he confessed, allowing himself a self-derisive chuckle before imbibing more of his beverage.

[Lucca]

Felix was always one to stumble unwittingly into whatever hornet's nest a particular social situation had. "Oh, you write? That's awesome! What do you write? Stories, poetry, song lyrics?" He looked at her curiously, but then they were talking about dancing and he loved talking about that, as it really was one of the few things he could do well. His claim wasn't quite as outlandish as Fenzik assumed, since he won the local weekly dancing competitions in Selkie fairly often. "Ah, it's okay. I'm not much of a reader," he reassured Dania, leaning close to her and smiling widely. "We can't all be good at everything! And yep, I dance on stage every week."

He turned to Fenzik and laughed. "Dancing's not all that hard!" He glanced at Dania. "Well, it might be harder for some than others but...it's really just moving gracefully to a beat! Grooving, you know?" He took a large swig of his drink and then laughed. "And it's even easier if you're drunk! Though...some of the grace is obviously lost..." Another laugh.

[Harpsdesire]

"I agree. I like to read just about anything." Books were at least a subject she felt comfortable discussing. She was bit more hesitant to discuss her writing, so she answered Felix a bit vaguely, "Stories, poems, sometime non-fiction if there's an interesting topic worth researching." It felt strange to be talking about herself to two males she didn't know, but at least they both seemed nice.

She joined in the laughter and listened attentively as Felix explained dancing. He was really rather close, wasn't he? For the sake of manners, she resisted the instinct to learn back away from him. She smiled back, a little more relaxed now despite the porcupine's proximity. "I'd never have the courage to dance on stage in front of a crowd." She admitted, "I'm not sure moving gracefully is really, ah, something I would be good at." Being drunk might make it easier, but the sheltered rat really had no experience with drinking. Luckily it seemed that her natural tolerance for alcohol was reasonably good, since she was just beginning to feel the fuzzy warmth from the glass of wine she had nearly finished.

((Ticket contest has consumed the muse for all other threads, sorry...))