[hr][center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/b3RmLjEwNi43NjY3NjcuVTJ4dllXNWxJRVpoY21sei4w/bachelorette.regular.webp[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/r7scdkh.png[/img][/center]
 [right][b]Interactions:[/b]  Anya [@Fernstone] & Jack [@Blizz]
[code]Resort Bar. The Halloween Festival[/code][/right][hr]

Sloane was ever thankful for Anya: there was no whinging over the change of plans and no unnecessary asking of what’s wrong, just a decisive agreement and a quick call to action. Sloane followed her and Jack to a shady spot and then, steeling herself for the nauseating jump, placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Rain began to fall on them as the silhouette of an international thief, a southern gothic swamp witch, and a shade huddled together behind a stall. There was a passing gaggle of teenage girls, one complaining loudly about the rain, and after they passed the area behind the stall was completely empty. The three popped into existence on the other side of the island, about a hundred feet away from the resort, with Sloane massaging her temple as the shadows unwrapped themselves from her. 

The large resort was dark and closed for the season, the orange and red leaves of the large trees nearby making the entire tropical island aesthetic of the resort feel extremely out of place. The beach looked like a husk of itself. In the summer large umbrellas, beach chairs, and volleyball nets would line the shores, but they had all been stored away for the winter leaving it barren except for the volleyball net posts and a couple of lifeguard stands. The beautiful sandy shores of Cracker Island, as they were referred to in the brochure, had been washed away by the tide, returning the beach to its naturally rocky self until the owners called for sand to be shipped in again before it reopened in May. Its reopening always shocked Sloane, who assumed people would rather summer in the Caribbeans or the Mediterranean than in temperate, always cloudy St. Portwell, but every year it opened back up without fail. 

The majority of the resort might’ve appeared dead, but the bar itself was still very much alive as the trio made their way up the drive. The resort’s  bar was split between two parts with the circular bar itself being the center. One part was a large, roofed patio right along the beach that could be closed off from the elements if needed and where the majority of partygoers in and out of costume appeared to be gathered. The other half of the bar was inside the resort and hidden behind a series of thick, velvety curtains. Nobody but staff, dressed in typical serving attire except for the addition of a mardi gras mask, seemed to move into the curtained off section. 

Sloane led Anya and Jack up to the check-in station outside of the bar, getting them in with no trouble. The gaudy halloween decorations that hung around the rest of the festival were replaced in favor for more tasteful autumnal decor, uncarved pumpkins and gourds displayed with elaborate arrangement of corn husks. Thick, artificial wax candles hung from the ceiling, giving the bar a warm glow as the gathering storm clouds blocked out what could’ve been a beautiful sunset. A four piece string band was playing quietly at one end of the bar, largely ignored, their music drowned out by conversations from the movers and shakers of St. Portwell. They got their drinks, Sloane sticking true to her word, and found a high-top table to crowd around that overlooked the dreary beach. 

[color=silver]“Well we made it a week,”[/color] said Sloane. [color=silver]“Cheers to the PRA, I guess.”[/color]

She raised her glass in a half-hearted salut and then took a sip of her old fashioned. It was an excellent drink wasted on someone who did not particularly drink or enjoy the taste of alcohol, often stating how she failed to see how anybody could enjoy losing control of their faculties. However, tonight was Halloween, and for Halloween she was going as somebody who actually enjoyed letting their hair down. As Linqian had eloquently put it, [i][color=CD5C5C]”Nobody needs your protection. Nobody's making you worry about the city when you could live a great fucking life, sad and alone.”[/color][/i] It was funny to Sloane. As it turned out, in the life she currently chose to live she also often felt sad and alone, she just hadn’t realized that was what she had been feeling until Linqian said it. She took another sip and actually winced as the second taste was more difficult to stomach than the first. 

[color=silver]“But whatever. I don’t want to talk about any of that stuff tonight. Tonight I want to just pretend like I am living a normal life where I can enjoy some drinks with a couple of friends and chat about nothing,”[/color] said Sloane. Even when she was around friends she felt sad and alone. She didn’t feel like anyone actually knew her, not even Anya. They just knew a handful of Sloane facts like the ones on cards they put up next to the display of zoo animals in cages: did you know that the average Sloane can drink up to three cups of tea a day, buys approximately eight books a month yet only actually reads about half, and is a Capricorn?  She looked down at her drink, speared the cherry with a cocktail straw, and pulled it off the straw with her teeth. She felt her stomach knot. 

[color=silver]“Um,”[/color] was about as far as she got for conversation starters. It was easier to talk to people when there was a goal, a solvable crisis that at the end of the conversation she could look and go: there, we did it. She kept thinking about Linqian, and how Linqian had family that she cared about, and how that family cared about Linqian, whereas Sloane had only abstracts: the people, the city, the right thing. None of those things, as Linqian had pointed out, needed her. Goddamnit, did she even ask to pay for Jinhai’s funeral because she wanted to or because she simply liked the idea of someone tangible relying on her?[i]The former, remember, you don’t care what others think, right?[/i] She finished her drink and waved over a cocktail server, ordering another old fashioned. 

[color=silver]“So,"[/color] Sloane shifted her weight, looking tired. [color=silver]"What do you want to talk about?”[/color]