Unexpected

To Attend a Gala

Arm and arm we ascended the stairs into the building, followed the people through the halls and came into a huge, white marble room with a strange altar laid in gold in the center. The room was already filling up with people of importance walking around and chatting with each other as a small symphony played in a corner of the room. Entering the gala room it was all I could do to keep from gaping at all the splendor and, suddenly, even though I was just as dressed up as the rest of them, I felt very small and out of place. Passing the altar I looked around the room in awe, trying to take in the whole event until my eyes landed on Loki who was smirking at my wonder. Chuckling soundlessly at me he turned his head and saw a wide flight of stairs.

"We have some time now before we have to take action, most of the party actually, but I'm afraid that I will have to leave you for a short time, Penelope." He said, scanning the room and its inhabitants as he spoke, "I have some business to attend to. Try to enjoy yourself while I'm away, this is certainly an interesting place to while away a few hours."

With that he left me, disappearing into the crowd of fancy dresses and expensive tuxedos. Without Loki beside me amidst the grandeur and foreignness, I found myself feeling even smaller. Who was I amongst these people? Fingering my new necklace I let out a shaky breathe before turning on the spot. I was at a huge party, one that never in a million years would I have thought I would ever attend, and I was going to enjoy it! Just act like you belong here and have fun! Choosing a direction to walk, I started off to explore this magnificent building.

The gala seemed to be some sort of scientific, historical thing and in the side rooms were displays of all sorts of artifacts, mostly labeled in German, and there were speeches and lectures being held in other large rooms and being held on a smaller scale in the main, marble room. I wandered through a set of rooms that seemed to be showing the progression of some sort of exotic looking bird species, another that showcased glittering, gem incrusted jewelry, and then there was a whole room lined with ancient copies of books kept safe in long glass boxes. All around me were men and women dressed to the nines strolling about, chatting, and sipping from champagne and wine glasses and nibbling on delicate treats that the servers were carrying about on round, silver trays. I shook my head at a young man who offered me champagne as I looked at an odd art piece that looked like a melting glob of metal stretched over thin air in the basic shape of a cube, a few dribbles of the metal serving as legs to hold itself up

Opening the door to yet another room, finding at a lecture was already underway and unable to explain to the German speaking butlers, I found myself stuck sitting in on an excitable man giving a speech, even though I couldn't understand a word he was saying. I wasn't sure if he was trying to explain something about a picture that was hanging up behind him looked like TV static, or if it was supposed to be about something exploding from the way his arms flapped about and how loudly he spoke. At the end of the speech, after being held up at the door by the lecturer who seemed to compliment me, though I can't be one hundred percent sure, I escaped back into the main room.

Just as I bit into a delectable asparagus and cheese treat a minute after reentering the main room attention was called to the top of the staircase where a man of medium built in a sharp suit stood with a microphone in his hands. He smiled jovially at the crowd and gave a short speech, which of course was in German, then raised a champagne glass and called out something. The crowd around me did the same, then the music started up again. It seemed that the man at the top of the stairs had said that it was time to dance, for the people who'd simply been chatting and wandering around now gathered together and started to dance to the lovely music of the symphony. I moved to the edge of the dancers, staying nearer to the walls where the people who weren't dancing stood and watched. I had to stifle a laugh when I saw an elderly, Middle Eastern looking couple shuffle through the steps, the man trying to dance faster while his wife kept forcing him to actually dance to the music's beat.