fandomtownies | The boardwalk, Friday evening

Blair didn't have ice to work with this time, but she tried to do what she could with the location she had. Luckily the beach was pretty. Besides, too much gold in the decorations tended to cross the line into tacky.

So she kept the decorations to twinkling gold lights and candles. Most of the linens were a crisp white, with golden napkins and table runners to provide pops of color.

The bulk of the gold went into the food. There were brandied apricots, lemon and chocolate cheesecakes, mango sorbets, small cups of saffron vanilla pudding, miniature stuffed yellow peppers, and any number of foods that followed the theme, along with the pies that Ned had made.

Drinks were mixed, but naturally included Goldschläger, as well as coffee and cocoa decorated with tiny gold letters which said things like "Fandom" or "Goodbye Summer."

Blair had staked out a prime table with a view of the water. She sipped at a passionfruit martini, listened to the music coming out of the various speakers she'd had set up, and looked forward to a night of ~~judging~~ watching the crowd.

She was also going to make sure nobody served those skunks. Clearly they didn't know how to hold their liquor.

[ooc: OCD up! Party down!]

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Molly snickered. "I should tell my dad that of all the things he's waiting for me to grow out of, at least he doesn't have to worry about me and danger. I'm sure he'll be thrilled."

"No doubt he thinks what else you've got to grow out of is quite bad enough," she said dryly, but grinning. "Dads are never happy 'bout what their kids get up to, I think."

"My dad's generally okay, but my mom?" Molly eyerolled so strongly she thought she might have seen the side of her head. "My mom thinks everything I do is wrong."

"That's even worse," Ino agreed. "When that happens? I mean, at least with Dads it's easier to wheedle out of things, but Moms? Ha, not a chance if it matters."

Molly considered Ino. "Is there a non-ninja side of your family? With maybe some knights in it?"

"Mom's a civilian," Ino said, thinking about it. "But knights don't really exist in our world? Why?"

"Just wondering if we were related. No reason."

She grinned. "I don't think I'd object if we were, honestly."

"That's so nice! I'd totally be the spazzy black sheep cousin who, like, owns a flower shop or something."

Ino blinked.

Then laughed. "That's just creepy now!" she said. "We own a flower shop, actually. Mom runs it."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously!" She was giggling now. "Yamanaka Flowers."

"Okaaaaay, so what do the black sheep in your family do?" Hers apparently dyed themselves pink and went to private school in Maryland.

Ino wrinkled her nose up in thought. "I don't think we've got any right now," she said slowly. "Mom's relatives died when I was just a baby, and Dad was an only child."

"Holy cow, want some of mine? I have spares." Not that she could really imaging giving any of them away, but maybe she could share them? "I'm sorry, by the way."

"I don't think they'd care to be given away," Ino noted wryly, but smiled. "I don't even remember them, honestly. A demon attacked the village when I wasn't even a month old. A lot of people died before Hokage-sama managed to get rid of it."

"You never know," she said, thinking of two of her sisters in particular. Daniel probably wouldn't mind going off with a pretty girl, either. "Does anybody here have a good story?"

"Most people do," she said easily. "The problem is getting people to talk 'bout them--especially if they're bad, you know? A lot of people just want to forget here."

"That's what I meant. It seems like everyone's had such a hard life before coming here. Isn't anybody, y'know, happy?"

Ino tilted her head. "I'm happy, most of the time," she said. "And so are a lot of people. Bad things happening don't mean we've got to be always depressing, or that we think our lives are bad. Sometimes it's just a fact."