And my destination makes it worth the while... [OPEN]

[demonicbeauty]

Who: Ariadne and pretty much anyone she knows
What: New Years Eve
When: December 31, going into January 1
Where: Around and about Serenity Garden
Note: If you've spoken to Ariadne more than once, assume you're invited. Her guests are also welcome to bring a +1 or two. Party crashers also welcome, just let me know if you cause any property damage so Ariadne can brow beat you. PM me, if you have any questions or need me to add any warnings.

Content Warnings: Backstory trauma likely to come up for some folks, will update as needed.

Ariadne wasn't much of a party planner, but she couldn't ignore Ezra's suggestion that she find some way to celebrate one of the most important holidays from back home. She'd enjoyed learning about the celebrations of others. New Years Eve was a time of renewal, of hope, of strength. She wanted to share that with the people of Trench. So she did her best. Was it glamorous? Certainly not by some of the standards she'd seen in Deerington and Trench. But it was something. And, really, it was the people there who mattered the most. The people were what made the multiverse worth exploring.

Still, that wasn't to say it was without any frills. Serenity Gardens were elegant on an ordinary night. Tonight, there was a little extra something.

The main great room of the shop had been cleared, all of the counters and shelves pushed to the walls, so there was a broad, open space in the middle. Thanks to Wesker, Ariadne knew how to play music with her Omni now, so she had all sorts of dances being played, in case anyone wanted to celebrate the old-fashioned way, in the arms of someone they cared for.

Against one wall, she'd actually lit her fireplace, something she rarely permitted. There were a couple of smaller tables, with dried fruit, nuts, and whatever other small treats Ariadne had managed to scrounge together. And thanks to a deal she'd made with a merchant in town, she had a few barrels of pear cider, warming in the glow of the fire.

Outside, in the garden proper, Ariadne had set up some strings of fairy lights. She trusted electricity far more than fire, especially around her precious trees. There were a lot of corners and shadows to hide away with a lover. Ariadne was no fool. She knew that part of the appeal of attending a party was sneaking away from it.

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[demonicbeauty]

When Ariadne caught sight of Maul in the garden, she immediately marched over. She was angry with him, but what pass for anger with Ariadne was more like an incredibly mild irritation. If that, even.

She just didn't have it in her to rage and bellow.

Instead, she planted her hands on her hips, giving him a wry smile. "Why is it that I had to find out from Usagi that you're married?" she asked. She tried to thump her foot, but it really just looked silly.

[survivalthroughhate]

Really, Maul wasn't even sure that Ariadne could do the emotion of mad, so seeing her in a state of even mild irritation really was all that he thought she was capable of muster. He almost started laughing when Ariadne demanded to know when he and Reaper had gotten hitched.

"We eloped!" Maul said, trying hard to keep from laughing and not succeeding very well. "Neither of us just flat-out announced it. Reaper and I can be a bit private like that." He'd just allowed the information to trickle out naturally by word-of-mouth.

[demonicbeauty]

She tried to look annoyed that he was laughing at her. But she was Ariadne. So, really, it was just taking everything in her power not to laugh as well. Of all the secrets he could keep, this was definitely one of the best kinds. Even if she was a little irritated that she was only finding out now.

For a second, she considered giving him one of those arm punches that was supposed to be companionable and friendly.

But she couldn't really pull that off.

"Maul, that may be the best thing I've ever heard in Trench or Deerington. Possibly ever."

[survivalthroughhate]

It was like watching a kitten try to puff itself up and hiss. Sure, she could try, but she'd end up looking adorable no matter what she did. Her reaction only made him laugh all the harder.

Her words, while kind, did surprise him just a little bit. "Really?"

[demonicbeauty]

"Of course," she said.

Maybe that was the problem with being such a well-known liar. Even now, when she was constantly telling the truth, people didn't seem to believe her.

Or maybe she wasn't putting it the right way.

"Maul, you fell in love with and married someone you were never supposed to meet. Ever. We've broken all the bonds of probability just by being here. But to fall in love? That's nothing short of a beautiful miracle." Ariadne shrugged. She couldn't help it. She was Alastrian. Through-and-through. She was built to believe that there was nothing more powerful--or more sacred--than finding love.

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul paused, thinking over what she'd just told him. One hand slotted under the elbow of his other arm as his hand, curled into a fist, came to rest underneath his chin. "That is....an interesting way of looking at things. A point-of-view I certainly never thought of before." It sounded so optimistic and sunny, so naturally Maul's pessimistic nature wouldn't have seen it that way.

"There is a saying where I am from. 'All will be as the Force wills it.' It is comforting to think that in some way we were destined to meet from the moment we both ended up in Deerington, that all the time spent together eventually led us down this one path."

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne wasn't sure how she felt about the Force. On any given day, it seemed to be five different things all at once. She'd listened to the philosophies of both the Jedi and Sith and...honestly...found them both lacking.

But if there was a great and powerful lifeforce out there, it made sense to her, that it would bring people to love.

Love was the foundation of all life.

"Sometimes, at night, I would hear my parents whispering to each other in the caverns of Deleo," she said thoughtfully. Ariadne almost never spoke about her parents, but Maul had seen one of her memories, knew about her mother and her first flight. It felt all right, somehow. "'And I'd choose you;' he would say to her. 'In a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you.' I never realized that there could be a hundred worlds or more than one version of reality until I came here. But...it makes sense now. To see two people from other worlds fall in love...it all makes sense."

[survivalthroughhate]

"That is a very beautiful way to look at the matter of love." It made complete sense to Maul. Though they might have never met otherwise, Maul now knew he'd search world after world to find Reaper again if the two were parted. That was just how much he loved his husband.

"For me, love was always painful before I came to Deerington. Whenever I experienced it, there was the inevitable pain that came with it once I lost those people, an ache in my hearts that would never go away after that." Just another thing he could thank Sidious for.

"It was only after I began to experience the sort of unconditional love that people could show that I finally got to see it in a way that wasn't meant to just hurt me. Reaper has always loved me just as I am, no matter all the terrible things I've done in my past or will do in my future. And I do the same for him. That acceptance of who I am without wanting me to change is something I've found in precious few people. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with him." One among so many. "Would you like to hear the story of how we met?"

[demonicbeauty]

It was all she could do not to throw her tiny body at him and give him the biggest hug. She knew--regardless of how he acted, sometimes--that Maul was someone in tremendous amounts of pain. To hear it laid out bare like that was...well.

She wanted to hug him.

But she didn't.

Instead, Ariadne nodded just slightly. "Yes, please."

[survivalthroughhate]

One of these days, he was going to accept a hug from Ariadne and enjoy it immensely. She understood a great deal of what made him up, how he was a deeply-damaged person. Despite all that, there was still some goodness buried deep within him.

He lit up upon telling the story of the first meeting he and Reaper had. "It was my first month in Deerington. I'd been warned the locals were duplicitous but ignored what I heard because they were being so kind to me. It lured me into a false sense of security. I was drugged and woke up having been sewn to a dead deer inside a small building they had set on fire. I tried to escape but felt too weak to properly move. Reaper phased into the fire, freed me, and dragged me out of the flames after he kicked down the door. I thought I was hallucinating when I first saw him until he actually grabbed hold of me. When the locals tried to push me back in as a sacrifice, he grabbed one of them and threw them into the flames before shooting another while I took out my lightsaber and killed another as well.

That caused them to scatter in fear. Afterwards, he walked with me a ways while I recovered. I flirted with him a little, having become a bit taken with him after such a dramatic and romantic rescue. After that, we simply kept encountering each other until I learned he felt about me much the same way I felt about him." Was it a traditional romantic story? No. But did it fit Maul and Reaper's personalities entirely.

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne needed no reminders about why Trench was so vastly superior to Deerington. But this story certainly illuminated some of the differences. She missed some of the people from Deerington.

Not the place itself. Or its locals.

As for the rest? Well, a daring rescue was known to be romantic. That's why the bards sang so many songs and told so many tales about damsels being saved by knight errant types. At the very least, Deerington certainly provided ample opportunities for such. It actually kind of amused her that Maul--snarly as he was--would not only accept rescue, but fall for his rescuer.

She smiled up at him. "That's wonderful, Maul."

[survivalthroughhate]

It really had been one chance in a ten-thousand that Maul of all people would have fallen in love after playing damsel in distress. But there had just been something about Reaper right from the start that seemed to attract Maul to the old soldier.

"I proposed in July when there was that compulsion going around that affected couples. I don't know if he would have agreed to otherwise, but after we'd done it and the haze lifted from our minds, we still agreed it was the right course of action."

[demonicbeauty]

"Almost like the city wanted you together," she said.

Whether or not that was good. Well. Ariadne had a hard time believing that love could ever be anything else.

Even if there was some supernatural manipulation involved.

[survivalthroughhate]

"I don't regret it happening one bit. Being with him has made me happier then I ever thought could be possible." Maul hadn't believed he was allowed to be happy, not until he'd ended up in Deerington, finding love of both the familial and romantic kinds.

"So now all we need to do is find you a special someone," he said with a mischievous look on his face. Hopefully Ariadne wouldn't let him play matchmaker given how easily he overstepped people's boundaries in such matters. Maul could be awfully nosy that way.

[demonicbeauty]

Normally, that might have made Ariadne laugh. After all, who could possibly fall for an Alastrian? She had nothing to offer any sort of humanoid mate.

Or so she'd been led to believe.

Deerington and Trench had her thinking in a new way. Especially after enjoying her first kiss.

Instead, she shrugged thoughtfully. "That would be...very complicated," she said. She didn't object to the idea. Not at all. But she was also extremely cautious about it. For so, so many reasons.