'Treasures of Iolani Palace' is one of the highlights of the Honolulu Historical Society's season, and all the creme de la creme have come out to see the artifacts of the last royal family of Hawaii. The hallways and passages have been thrown open to the public, and literati and glitterati alike have come to admire the many antique treasures, or be admired themselves. The evening gala has even drawn some guests who couldn't care less about art or history, but are willing to get dressed up for free drinks and gourmet nosh on silver platters. Ah, yes. The event of the season.
This sort of event calls for at least a modicum of staff. Yes, that's what I said. So that's what Lio is doing, because let's be real, he probably wouldn't get dressed up for much else. He is currently in a black suit, though, because at the moment he's working security. Who knows how he got the gig, but he did. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his eyes scan the room, though he honestly just looks a little bored. He's not expecting much action tonight. The gaze does follow a woman in a low cut dress for as long as she's in his eyeline, though. Because, well...why not?
Once in a while, Lio manages to get Nick to agree to a job that's above-the-table money. Mostly Nick does it because it's good for tax purposes, but it's not like he can't produce paperwork to make the IRS happy. Still, a few above-board jobs are good and so Nick's in the penguin suit associated with the wait staff -- white jacket, black pants, black bow tie that he's managed to untie already. He walks around with one of those trays with glasses of champagne on it. "Dangerous, yes, but probably not what they're paying you to look at, pal," he says with a smirk as he passes by Lio.
Haruka isn't terribly fond of formalwear - unless she's up to some sort of cosplay prank, like dressing up in an Admiral's uniform from Space Battleship Yamato to go wandering down by the Navy base - but the opportunity to get a look about the palace is one she can't pass up. It took a little work to scrounge an invitation, but it turned out in the end that several had been sent to the Admiral's staff and were going unused while he and his wife enjoyed the show. Having acquired one of these, and suitable attire - a sleeveless qipao in soft sky blue and white, with a nice set of appropriate shoes and a few small bits of jewelry to accent the subtle sapphire tint to her hair - she's found her way inside. As for danger, well, who is she to taunt Professor Murphy? She spends as much time people-watching as she does admiring the artifacts, though she does take the time to take a few photographs (unless someone turns up to ask her not to, of course, which would deeply disappoint her.)
The head of the historical society was known for his dry speeches, and somehow this year's had gone from boring to sleep-inducing. The only thing keeping people awake was trying to dodge the small army of volunteers soliciting donations and pledges. Fortunately for a very select few staff and guests, they were able to sneak into the music room before it was cordoned off by donation-seekers.
The elegantly appointed music room had been turned into the Royal Children's Exhibit, and it was full of gilded toys that nowadays no sticky-fingered child would ever be allowed to touch: velvet and hardwood rocking horses, toy soldiers in traditional Hawaiian garb, and an exact dollhouse replica of Iolani Palace filled with lifelike dolls next to a billowing blue curtain.
The donations team must've gotten wise to people hiding out in the music room and cranked up the AC, because there's a sudden, shocking drop in temperature.
Lio is one of those who has gotten into the other room. Hey, there are things to secure in there, right? Probably. He may not be the best employee but at least he actually is watching things, and not just the women in tight dresses. His eyes sweep this room, too, and they pass the window...then stop. Then look back to the window again. He squints, the frown that before had just been bored deepening a little bit. He starts over there after a moment, likely to go take a closer look at whatever it is that's bothering him about it.
Nick also looks at in the direction of the moving curtain... and then moves quickly across the room and grabs one of the dolls that happens to be dressed all in black much like Lio. "Why the fuck do these dolls look like us?" he says, not trying to drop his voice or hide what he's doing. He grabs the other doll, too, the one that is dressed just like him, and turns to Lio with a scowl on his face. Sorry, Haruka, he hasn't seen you to rescue your doll-pelganger. If he did, he would. Probably.
Seeing the dolls in their little not-quite-a-cage is definitely going to disturb anyone, really, with the uncanny resemblance. And why single out those particular three? It's not like she's anyone special, after all! So when she sees the one man reaching to yank a doll free of the cage, she can't see any reason not to follow suit. (Though she does stumble for a moment as she approaches, and again as she picks the doll up. That's /weird/, really.) It all ends up with her tumbling to the (fortunately clean) floor, twisting into a slight roll to keep her dress from flipping the wrong way and leaving her exposed.
The curtains abruptly stop billowing and fling themselves open wide. There is no glass in the panes, now, and any bars are gone. Only the gold-painted porcelain window frame remains. Outside the window, there's no evening sky - only incandescent light. Otherwise, the room looks the same.
The entire palace shakes as it's assaulted by thundering booms that are both deafening and shrill - a child's laughter.
"Huh?" Lio's attention is drawn away from the window and toward Nick when he speaks, and one eyebrow raises. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he asks, and he takes a step over that way, instead...only to nearly lose his footing like Haruka did. "Shit!" He throws out his arms to keep his balance, and just manages it. Now he's //really// not looking happy. "What the fuck!" Eloquent as ever. His head jerks toward the window as the curtains open, just in time for him to wince and brace himself against the most horrible sound in the world. To him, anyway. Hey, we're all different.
Nick suddenly rises up in the air, his body angled a bit awkwardly -- much like the body of the doll he's holding. A little to the left, one leg slightly higher than the other. "The fuck," he growls, grabbing for something to hold on to before he goes all the way to the ceiling. He glances at the dolls, and tries to straighten his out, lowering it a little to see what effect that has on, well, him. He looks up and squints at that terrible shrill laughter. "That's not ominous at all. Lio! Help me the fuck down." He probably won't be asked to serve at the next soiree.
"Okay, tell me that doesn't disturb you as much as me," she mutters to anyone who might happen to be there to hear. "Because that's just wrong. Really really wrong." She tries to get to her feet, moving back to the table with the doll-cage. "I hate creepy laughter. Don't you?" She squats down to peer into it from the side, to see if she can see anything with a closer look - or if she suddenly becomes visible through the room's own windows.
The door to the music room opens, and the eerily still, painted porcelain face of a little boy in a sailor suit appears in the sliver of incandescent light between him and the porcelain door frame. He waves a tiny hand with non-separated digits, then slams the door behind him. The ting-ting of porcelain on porcelain echoes through the palace, and then falls silent. Outside the window, the gigantic face of a young boy in a sailor suit appears, and he wiggles his perfectly mobile fingers in another little wave. "Mahalo! I go play now." And the gigantic child laughs again, shaking the very foundations of the dollhouse palace, and bounds out the real music room door and into the soiree. When the child leaves, so does the unnatural chill.
"What did you do, asshole?!" Lio does, however, go to help Nick down -- if he can. At least he can stand under him so that if he falls, he can catch him. How romantic. "Drop the doll!" He's slightly distracted by the weird-ass doll boy, though. Because yes, that's creepy. "Go fuck yourself!" he calls in reply, before he gets Nick down in whatever manner possible. "They didn't pay us enough to hang out with a dead kid!"
"Shit," says Nick, because... if he drops the doll, does he crash to the floor too? "Catch..." He gently drops the Nick Doll-pelganger down to Lio, and continues to hold Lio's, since he doesn't know what that'll do. Well, he doesn't know what anything will do. And, yes, he drops too -- with Lio's assistance, he manages to be not crash to the floor in a pile of broken bones but awkwardly drop a few feet from where he's clinging to the wall like a squirrel monkey. "Ghost?" he asks, glancing at Lio, then to where the kid was, and running a nervous hand through his hair. "Yeah, I'm done with this gig. Legit's for suckers. Have your doll," he says, pushing Lio doll into real Lio chest. "I'm not leaving that fucking thing here for whatever that child is going to do to it. This is some voodoo fucked up shit."
"They aren't paying me at -all-," snaps Haruka, "which I think is a crying shame, really. If I'm going to babysit some yuurei gaki that's going to run off and leave me in the dollhouse while he harasses the paying guests he's got another think coming." She takes a moment to examine the dollhouse itself, muttering under her breath all the while, but eventually straightens with a sigh. "This is going to be incredibly annoying, I can already tell." With a soft hmmm, and a pause with one hand rubbing her chin while she ponders it, she finally reaches down to carefully place her doll back into the dollhouse, right at the door the ghost-boy exited from.
An elderly Hawaiian woman with a kindly smile and a clipboard in the crook of her arm peeks into the larger music room. "Aloha...hello? I thought I heard someone in here. Oh, what precious dolls!" She smiles warmly as she peeks into the open wall of the dollhouse, picking up a little doll with sapphire-tinged hair in a qipao, a dark haired waiter doll in a white coat, and a large doll dressed in all black. "What strange expressions they give these dolls...they look almost...frightened? Annoyed? Now, this is just realism gone too far..."
The royal blue curtains billow, and the dollhouse palace fills with electric tingles in the air, just before everything goes black. When the lights reignite, the curtains are gently blowing in the music room, and the dull plodding sounds of the historical director's speech hang like a blanket in the air. The door is open to the palace at large, and men in suits and women in slinky dresses glide by. Inside the dollhouse, there is a porcelain doll of a smiling, elderly woman, holding three tiny dolls in her arms.
"Yeah," Lio replies with a nod as he sets Nick down, and he grabs the doll that has been shoved at him, sticking it into the pocket of his coat. It's too big to really fit, and so he takes it out and puts it on the inside of his jacket instead. He mutters something under his breath that sounds like it's in Hawaiian, though it's quiet enough that it isn't meant to be heard. "Fuck this shit. Let's bounce." And with that, he starts toward the door without a backward glance at the house, or anything else.
"Who?" Nick says to Haruka, but he frowns when he sees her put her own doll in a new place. "I'm too old to be playing with fucking dolls," he says, turning to follow Lio. He walks by the elderly lady, turning on his way out and frowning. "What... you know what? I don't fucking want to know. And now I'm afraid to burn or bury or break this one..." he says, shoving it in his jacket as well. He heads out the door, tearing off the stupid tie and dropping it on his way out. "Never again, Lio. That's the last time." Probably for legitimate work. And with that, he's out of the house.
Finding circumstances changing just as she starts to put the doll down, Haruka blinks and pauses. "Well," she muses, unwilling to just leave the doll there. Something tells her it would definitely not be safe. No, it'd be better off somewhere well-protected... and well away from mischevious ghosts. It's time to leave. "Yeah, I'd take good care of that," she offers to the departing Nick. "You never know..." And it's time for her to be off, as well.
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