Ida’s eyes followed to where Mister Greengrass’s hand gestured, and her smile edged a little closer to a grin. “A little less,” she agreed, soundly. “I couldn’t ever imagine throwing a party so ostentatious.” This was the primary reason Ida definitively refused to marry a firstborn; their wives always had to take the brunt of home-making and party-throwing. It would matter less if they were of similar position to her, at least. But some of these upper class men her friends occasionally tried to set her up with were likely to have some of the most unbearable expectations.
Anyhow, she was glad to have met someone to talk to who seemed cut of the same cloth. The young woman listened intently as he went on about cocktail adventures, supposing he might know a thing or two more about what mattered when it came to a fancy drink. “What would you look for, if the cocktails were labeled?” Ida asked with genuine curiosity; she wouldn’t know where to even start. It’s not as though there were proper manuals for drinks and drinking (though to be fair, she never looked this up— perhaps it could be the subject of a rainy day foray in the library). “I can’t imagine the hosts would wish to serve anything that didn’t taste delicious. If it’s nothing like firewhiskey I’ll be pleased, anyhow,” she mused.
This was an adventure, though. The host set up an elaborate maze-like walk about the room among the towering candies and toys. The end of which she supposed the libations were, gauging from the number of people holding glasses walking in the opposite direction. “You were wise to grab that champagne flute when you saw it,” Ida noted with a hint of exasperation. These hosts must be awfully bored, to have conjured such a superfluous scene. She wondered why they would have set things up this way, with so many odd dead ends and odd nooks.
Now they’d come to a bit of a fork in their path, with one candy cane signpost that read: left for drinks, right for merriment. “Oh,” she paused here to glance at Mister Greengrass. “That must be the way to the performance later. Have you seen the Nutcracker ballet?”
Anyhow, she was glad to have met someone to talk to who seemed cut of the same cloth. The young woman listened intently as he went on about cocktail adventures, supposing he might know a thing or two more about what mattered when it came to a fancy drink. “What would you look for, if the cocktails were labeled?” Ida asked with genuine curiosity; she wouldn’t know where to even start. It’s not as though there were proper manuals for drinks and drinking (though to be fair, she never looked this up— perhaps it could be the subject of a rainy day foray in the library). “I can’t imagine the hosts would wish to serve anything that didn’t taste delicious. If it’s nothing like firewhiskey I’ll be pleased, anyhow,” she mused.
This was an adventure, though. The host set up an elaborate maze-like walk about the room among the towering candies and toys. The end of which she supposed the libations were, gauging from the number of people holding glasses walking in the opposite direction. “You were wise to grab that champagne flute when you saw it,” Ida noted with a hint of exasperation. These hosts must be awfully bored, to have conjured such a superfluous scene. She wondered why they would have set things up this way, with so many odd dead ends and odd nooks.
Now they’d come to a bit of a fork in their path, with one candy cane signpost that read: left for drinks, right for merriment. “Oh,” she paused here to glance at Mister Greengrass. “That must be the way to the performance later. Have you seen the Nutcracker ballet?”
![[Image: 5jMCu3I.png]](https://i.imgur.com/5jMCu3I.png)
stefanie made this beautiful set <3