Event Finished On Halloween Night

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/BbxEgns.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">In his home, Halloween had not been a thing. Instead, there had been All Soul's day. For all it's similar connection to the dead, there were no garish costumes or pumpkins on every street corner. The whole atmosphere could not have been more different. This was not solemn. This was festive. This was happy.

But the most jarring thing for him was the people in costumes, and the lack of costumes. He'd seen several people go by with costumes that could not possibly have been replicated normally. People who were transparent. People with moving, whirling tendrils that were entirely under their control. Most of the people around him weren't human at all, and their costumes were only half costumes at the best of times.

He weaved through the crowd, trying not to gawk too openly. His costume seemed suddenly bland and uninteresting. He was a pirate - a shabby pirate, with a shabby pirate hat and a loose shirt. The shorts left him feeling a bit cold, and the eyepatch left him feeling half blind. For once, his missing arm was actually visible, the arm of his shirt tied off not far below the shoulder. He thought it added to the outfit, but it was only making him more self aware, surrounded by things that somehow managed to pass for human in the daylight.
</div>[/thoth] @open </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/BbxEgns.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">Nicolas barely noticed when someone bumped into him, and he almost didn't stop. It was the parrot that made him.

Another pirate? Nicolas was of the opinion that the difference between a sea captain costume and a pirate costume was the number of body parts one was missing, but the parrot and blunderbuss meant there wasn't much room for that mistake in the guy's costume. He doubted the parrot was a new addition, but the rest of it probably was.

"Two of a kind, apparently." There were probably more pirates lurking through the festival. Pirate was one of those supposedly standard costumes, just like knights and princesses. They also had no particular supernatural connection, so no one was going to get offended if you pretended to be a fairy and weren't doing it right.

His costume was so obviously store bought, but the other pirates was so obviously homemade. "Blunderbuss was a nice touch... so's the parrot." A parrot. He should have gotten a stuffed parrot toy to stick on his shoulder - would have made it a hell of a lot more obvious that he was supposed to be a pirate, just in case the eyepatch didn't make it obvious.
</div>[/thoth] @"king" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/BbxEgns.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">Rose was the bird, which made... 'Old Smokey' the blunderbuss? Between the heavy accent and the fact that he'd named his gun, Nicolas was very quickly getting a good idea that the costume in front of him was not much of a costume at all, just like a fairy dressing up like a different kind of fairy.

"Yeah, I'm gettin' the impression you're not dressed up for the parade." Which made him an actual sea captain, if not an actual pirate. Most pirates in this day and age didn't look like that kind of pirate. They looked more like an angry militia.

The birds sudden reaction made him twitch back, but he laughed it off after a moment. "I'm not a friend of birds, apparently."
</div>[/thoth] @"king" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/BbxEgns.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">He eyed the... the whatever the man was drinking. He didn't actually know what he was drinking, but he had a solid guess.

He did not have a solid guess about the parrot. It seemed to have it out for him, and he ducked back, still grinning as he did so. He was a pretty easygoing guy, even if the bird had it out for him.

"Hmm, probably thinks I smell like sea monster." He mused. If it was really an ocean going parrot, maybe it could smell Ulrich on him. Maybe it knew he'd been literally riding on a monster of the deep just to get to the island not all that long ago.

He was really only half kidding.
</div>[/thoth] @"king" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​

<table><tbody><tr><td><div style="padding:15px;"><div><div><div style="border:8px solid #ffffff;width:125px;height:125px;margin:0px 10px 0px 0px;float:left;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/BbxEgns.png" style="height:125px;"></div></div><div style="text-align:justify;">So it probably was Ulrich that was setting the parrot off. God only knew how it knew about Ulrich at all (Did he smell like Ulrich or something?), but that seemed the most likely way. It wasn't as if he usually attracted screeching birds to his side.

"Spent half a decade on Mayotte. Was mostly sea duty, even as part of the army. Keeping Somali pirates away from Mayotte and Comoros." He was proud of the whole thing, as silly as it sounded. "Spent a lot of time on the water." Mayotte was surprisingly peaceful compared to it's neighbour islands, but they had no true power there and spent most of their time on the water. "Not a true seaman, but enough experience to pass as one."

And it was little mystery why he wasn't with the legion anymore, with his missing arm so clearly obvious in the costume.
</div>[/thoth] @"King" </div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>​