The Host looked on at the revelry as the last few grains of sand fell into the bottom of the hourglass, rotating it without needing to examine the display.

He made a few adjustments to his mental list, and seemed to grow still for a moment. Another signal went out, and had the agents been watching, they would have noticed their cards grow a little longer as the name of the person they had just met with appeared at the top.

As the agents shifted, new tables became apparent, as if they had always been there. Interestingly, there was just enough additional room to seat the newcomers.

Regardless of whether the guests were paying attention or not, they would feel something from their placecard as another set of instructions appeared below the names of their current dates, guiding them to their next partners, who are as follows: Harris and Apecian; Chris and Shamrock; Mia and Kei; Lou and Naergondir; Randa and Kaatah; Cat and Lu; Finch and Thorn; Alleb and Steele; Miguel and C; Michael Tanner and Michael Green; Jesse and the Mysterious Host; Ami and Sonia; and Bingle and Apollo.

The newcomers would find their names elegantly written on namecards at their appropriate tables, and the attached directions were enough for those already in attendance to find their respective partners, even if they had never encountered one another before.

As the evening moved onward, the Mysterious Host smiled at Jesse, beckoning him toward the open seat across from him.

((First things first: This is not the end of the first round. This is me attempting to open up the door for our later arrivals, and giving people a bit more to do every day. I was thinking that each conversation should have about ten posts for player, but that is not a hard and fast rule. Secondly, please post your agents interactions for this round as replies to this post, to keep this thread from becoming impossible to navigate. Finally, these pairings are, ultimately, random. I rolled dice, I did not decide who anybody would be seeing. Thank you. That is all.))

The voice was deep and rich, with a slight accent to its masculine tones. It carried across the room, but did not disturb the conversation, and a tall figure could be seen rising from his chair to raise his glass once more in greeting.

He took a few steps to his left, and was then standing by the door, as if he had always been there. He offered cat a warm arm clad in black and escorted her to a small, comfortable, and, above all, convenient chair, just near the door and outside the ring.

"I'm glad you could make it," he said. "I was worried you all would not be joining us." His grin was just visible in the shadows.

"I believe the couples have just finished talking. I think the new round will be beginning shortly."

He felt ill at ease, despite Gurnirel's encouragement. He was an Elf of the First Age, one who had seen the light of Laurelin and Telperion in the days before the sun and moon. He had fought in too many bloody wars. His name he had chosen for himself: Man of Lament. It had seemed only too fitting.

And here he was, entering a room full of...'speed daters'.

"You need not find love here," Gurnirel had pointed out the day before. "We are both aware that tragedy follows the pairing of one of the Eldar with a mortal, and there are few of us in Headquarters."

"Then what reason could I possibly have to attend?" Naergondir had asked her.

His sworn sister had smiled. "You might find friendship there, Meldaner. On that, the Valar have so far smiled."

He could not argue with that, even with the Doom of Mandos ringing in his ears (To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well...), and so he had consented to attend.

He had dressed well, as one did for first impressions. His robes were long and blue, in overlapping layers and varying shades. His hair had even more small braids than usual, and bore a shimmering array of tiny gems at the clasps. He bore no weapons save a short dagger at his waist under the outermost robe, and that only in case of unexpected trouble. He had learned not to underestimate any place's capacity for unexpected trouble.

Unfortunately, he had no idea where he was meant to go, and so he stood just inside the doorway and looked around for direction.

"C. Forwards. Now." The first speaker was a decidedly feminine individual in frame, but somewhat less so in manner. Even before she'd opened her mouth, her eyepatch advertised to any who glanced at her face that this woman hadn't had a cushy life, and the set of her features advertised that she was not wanting to convert to such a life. In contrast to her eyepatch, and her somewhat battered-looking horns (if one cared to look at them), she was dressed in a fine red gown, exposing a pair of armored arms but hiding almost everything else.

"Relax, Lu, she's not one for attention." The creature at the back of the group spoke in a fair voice, but... well, she was very much not human. Her torso and face were, yes - though they were quite a bit higher than the average human female's was - and they were rather pretty for human features, at that. Below her torso, though... well. Cervitaurs weren't exactly common in HQ, but this girl had managed to get her hands on the mods to make it happen. Clearly, she held her human and deer halves to quite different standards; she had worn a stunning blue blouse to cover her human half, and though she technically wore a skirt below it, it primarily served to complete the outfit as opposed to covering anything.

"Steele, thank you for defending me. Lu, I will move as soon as I decide where I would like to go. Besides, standing in doorways makes for a nice picture, if you ask me!" The final girl - or the first, if you were going by who was where in the cluster, as this was the one actually in the doorway - was most certainly the most 'ordinary' of the three. Light skin, brown hair, and completely human. She hadn't worn anything particularly fine, either - a darkly-colored top and a somewhat more lightly-colored skirt, which was nicer than any of her usual attire, but looked extraordinarily ordinary amongst the finery of the room.

Shamrock Alsike came running through the door, tripping over her floor-length emerald green evening gown. A large, bushy squirrel tail poked out of the back of her skirt, and her hair had been done up in elegant braids that fell to her waist. She righted herself and looked around, skin darkening with a blush when she realized most of the tables' occupants were already, well, occupied.

"Shamrock, relax," Randa said, coming in behind her. She pushed her glasses up her nose and looked around, smoothing down her knee-length, sky blue skirt. "I guess we'll take a table and wait for the host to tell us to switch."

"Aw man!" Shamrock wrinkled her nose. "I gotta date you?"

"I feel your pain," Randa said dryly, and sat down at the nearest empty table.

Or, well, some of them did. Others had a bit of difficulty finding theirs. This wouldn't do. They couldn't enjoy themselves if they spent the night wandering about aimlessly. He reached out and tapped on one of the armrests of his chair. Immediately, the cards in the Agents' hands fizzed a bit. Were they to turn them over, they would find instructions guiding them to their first partner of the night. It had been arranged as follows: Harris was to see Lou, Sonia was to see Michael Green, Jesse was to see Ami, Mia was to see Apollo, Chris was to see Kaatah, and Alleb was to see Bingle. He smiled and sipped his glass once more. This should keep things interesting.

((Note: The RP is not closed. Feel free to join if you want, and even if nobody takes you up on it, just mark your agent's entrance, and we can work you in on the next round.))

He had done his best to clean up— three showers and a full bottle of shampoo and body wash still hadn't been enough to remove all of the smell of dragon drool from his person— and he was seriously starting to wonder if anyone was going to come to his table. He had found his place and sat down all right, but aside from that nothing seemed to be happening.

Typical.

He sighed and scanned the menu for the umpteenth time before rolling his eyes and tossing the card back onto his plate. Boring, boring bo– wait. Was that Sonia?

He craned his head to get a better view. It was her! And she was wearing that beautiful long red dress and her silky, wavy brown hair was down and cascading over her shoulders and...

Harris caught himself staring and tore his eyes off of her. He kept on forgetting that he had no chance with her— best to stay in his metaphorical lane. He picked up his menu again and scanned it again.

---

Sonia rose an eyebrow as she watched Harris bury his face back into the menu again. She had been quite surprised to see him here— the Pegasus Knight was convinced that he had been planning to stay in the RC for tonight and binge-watch RWBY. She felt the urge to go over to his table and talk to him— he was always a surprisingly good conversationalist and quite funny— but remained seated at her table. Harris did as Harris does—sure, she was placed with him to make sure he didn't get into too much trouble, but she didn't need to shadow him at all times.

Even if he was charming and actually quite handsome and...

Sonia caught herself staring and tore his eyes off him. One of his best qualities was how forward he was— and she was convinced that if he had any feelings for her, he'd have said something by now. She picked up her menu and listlessly read through it.

And Apollo really hoped that this event wouldn't become a basis for, or an actual, one. Still it was an opportunity to get out of the RC and try and get to know others who he could become friends, or even more with. He hadn't really had much of a chance to do that back in his home continuum, mostly because of his real occupation and the savviness that most of the inhabitants of the continuum had, he'd known several people who'd lost loved ones due to other people's schemes.

Still, it was a new chance, and so Apollo had decided to dress as well as he could, or at least as well as he could without alerting the attention of Kelly, who would otherwise tease him for going for a long time. And so he was dressed in some semi-formal black chinos and a simple black t-shirt, his normal boots being the only pair of shoes he owned, even if they did make him look more casual than smart.

Beside him, Kaatah shifted nervously as the two walked towards the room where this event was meant to take place, Kaatah had expressed interest in it to Apollo when they'd met up to talk at Rudi's one day in the last week, the inhabitants of RC 9.81 and 1692 often met up as Kaatah had worked with Apollo and Kelly before she'd been assigned to Theo and DOGA. Now that the day of the event had come, Kaatah was nervous, even beneath her normal Colussus suit of armour that she always wore (although Apollo could tell that it'd been cleaned up somewhat), and Apollo could tell.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine, we already went through what speed dating is, right?" He said, hoping it'd calm her down, at least a little bit,

"I know." Kaatah replied, her voice really on edge, "I just don't know what I'm going to do if a Geth or another AI sits down next to me, I kinda wish I hadn't asked Theo to lock all of my normal combat functions on my Omni Tool now."

"You'll be fine" Apollo reassured her. "Besides, if things get really bad, I still have a knife in my boot, and you can borrow that."

Kaatah nodded, noticing they had reached the mahogany door. "Keelah, what is you say? Break a leg?"

Apollo smiled in reply, "Something like that."

With that, he opened the door, gesturing for the Quarian to walk inside before following himself. Noticing Kaatah heading off for her table he scanned the room, looking to see if someone there interested him.

((For reference to appearances etc. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KV3Dx10WJFrUNjqeOvHVeRsrTTUQrjykDFLVtNV3cjw/edit?usp=sharing ))

'You look absolutely brilliant, Finch!' Bingle said, patting the upper chassis of his absolutely brilliant-looking friend. 'Oh, you'll be like Alexander the Great out there, Finch! The most famous conqueror of hearts of all time, you know.'

An actuator unfolded from Finch's side and fiddled with the bow tie attached to his front, below his ocular, where a neck would be on a being that used necks. 'Alexander the Great-s the most famous world-conqueror, Bingle. Not hearts, the world.'

Bingle shrugged. The suit wasn't designed to shrug. The suit probably wasn't designed to go on Bingle. It looked like it had been stretched and pulled and slapped onto Bingle's body before it could reform into its own shape. 'Surely, Finch, the world would involve the hearts of charming young women?'

'Bingle, don-t do this to me. Don-t bloody do this to me. Not now.' his ocular flicked here, flicked there. It fell on a lit candle, it fell on a very flammable looking tablecloth. It fell on various other people, all of whom did not look as silly as Finch. He was painted black, all the way up, all the way down. His display chamber had been emptied. A bottle of wine had been placed inside to fit the mood. Finch had to keep himself from yelping every time he heard it clink or slosh.

'Finch, you look fantastic. Like kangaroo, the second most famous conqueror of hearts of all time!'

'Kangaroos are Australian marsupials, Bingle. They don-t bloody conquer anything except for grassy fields.'

'Historical bias, Finch. Historical bias...'

---

Lou stepped in, shuffling by the old, rather stretched-looking man and his hovering vending machine friend. Duane didn't step in, because Lou was holding him under an arm. Lou hadn't looked so fancy in years. She still wore her hoodie, still wore her pajama pants. But, for once, she was wearing proper shoes. Black ones. Shiny. And a waistcoat, too, which would have probably looked even more fancy if it wasn't over her hoodie. Duane wasn't wearing anything, because Duane was an igneous, volcanic rock of felsic composition. Geologists liked to call him 'rhyolite.' Lou called him 'Duane.' If you asked Lou what Duane would have called himself, it would have been 'The only worthwhile entity within this horrid mess we call Headquarters.'

'Gosh, Duane. Maybe you're not overdressed,' Lou said, leaning into the rock. 'Look at them all, Duane. That woman looks like an umbrella!' Lou wished she was an umbrella. People loved umbrellas. Lou knew she did, anyhow.

Agent Alleb was certainly uncomfortable. If she wasn't touching her hair--as if it were in some special configuration and not falling to her shoulders like normal--she was fidgeting with her dress, or wringing her hands, or biting her lip. However, even if she had been still as a statue, it would have been easy to see that she was uncomfortable, because her paper-white face was nearly covered in an embarrassed flush.

"Really, Sir Jesse," she said, tugging at the shoulder of her gown as they walked, "are you sure this is... fashionable?"

"Yep!" Jesse answered. He practically skipped through the Generic Halls, looking dapper in a black three-piece suit and starched white undershirt. She found the cut of his jacket odd; its front edge ended at his waist while the back went nearly to his knees in two long tails. He'd tamed his mop of golden hair and hidden it beneath a brimmed cylindrical hat--a "top hat" he'd called it--and had even shaved. He grinned at her, eyes twinkling. Alleb managed to smile back, though she was still tugging at her gown.

Well, Alleb thought, biting her lip and peering down the corridor, that's rather easy for him to say. He does not look ridiculous. She looked down at her own clothing, and felt the knots in her stomach tighten. The color was alright--a deep blue--but some madman had designed the shoulders to not be on her shoulders. She kept trying to tug them up; she was sure the whole thing would fall at any moment. Not to mention the fact that the cut revealed two stab wounds and the edge of a long cut on her shoulder, all long healed, but red and ugly nonetheless. And, as if that weren't bad enough, she had a train dragging along behind her, rustling over the Generic Floor and making a nuisance of itself.

Alleb sighed. At least she'd resisted the shopkeeper's attempt to stuff her into one of those "corset" things. She wouldn't have breathed for fear of breaking the laces.

"Hey, I think this is it," Jesse said, stopping in front of a wooden door. His grin returned. He opened the door and swept his top hat off in a bow, ushering her in. "After you, Lady Alleb," he said, his grin never faltering.

Alleb raised an eyebrow and bowed in return. "My thanks," she said, "Sir Jesse." She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and marched into the dimly-lit room. It was going to be an interesting night.

---

Michael Green was tired of a lot of things. He was tired of missions, he was tired of Sues twisting the canon, he was tired of the unrelenting grey of the Generic Hallways. More than anything, though, he was tired of his partner.

They both stopped outside of the mahogany door. Michael was in a slightly-rumpled suit, and had traded in his white ceramic coffee mug for a sleek black travel cup. Mia was in her customary leather jacket, black tank top, and black ripped jeans, her ever-present black sunglasses... present. Michael suppressed a sigh (he had a lot of experience doing that). She might have been original in her method of expressing rage at life in general. She might have opted for an orange jumper, indicating her lack of respect for society's rules of fashion. She might have chosen a red hat, symbolizing her anger for the world. She might have worn a pair of green pants, showing off her disgust for everyone.

But, no, she'd chosen black, as if it hadn't been done a thousand times before. Michael suppressed another sigh. This was going to be interesting.

"Why're we here, Greenie?" Mia growled. Well, she tried to growl. Her voice was too high and feminine for growling, but he had to give it to her, she really did try. "Wouldn't counting loose threads in your suit be a better waste of time for both of us?"

Probably, he thought. "We're here so one or both of us can get married and move into another RC," he reminded her. "Then you won't have to deal with me, and I won't have to deal with you." He took a sip of coffee, blinking tiredly at the mahogany door. Why weren't they going in? "Oh," he said, reaching for the handle. Mia scoffed as he opened it, brushing past him into a darkened room. Michael took another fortifying gulp before following her. He hoped she was wrong about this being a waste of time; he really wanted a different RC.

A girlfriend would be nice too, he supposed.

((Alleb and Jesse are in standard 1870s formal wear, as Jesse is from that time period and Alleb unwisely let him shop for her. I couldn't resist stuffing Alleb into the stuff; she's a muscle-bound warrior woman in a sleeveless, shoulder-less dress, from a time period that loved slim waists and the like. Poor girl. I thought about giving her a corset, but she's built like a slightly-feminine bull, so I didn't think that would go well.

Here are links for Alleb, Jesse, Michael, and Mia's wiki pages, in case anyone wants visual reference.

Thanks for putting this soiree on Aegis Mysterious Host!

-Alleb))

Chris was wearing a clearly rented but still nice black suit. He didn't have a tie, but he did have a yellow violet corsage pinned to the jacket.

"I can't believe they had something for a pony," said Ami. She had a simple pastel-purple dress and a blue ribbon holding her mane out of her face. They'd offered fancy horseshoes, too, but she declined.

Miguel, meanwhile, had simply dug out the suit he'd wanted to use for a Bond costume the previous year. "It's a shame Violet didn't want to come. I really love that pheasant dress from last year."

"Yeah, me too." Ami looked around for the table with her name. "Remind me again what the signal for 'Let's go home' is?"

"One of us finding the other and saying it," Chris deadpanned. "Ami, we're not undercover agents or going into a risky neighborhood, we don't need a safeword."

"I'm ready to split up if you two are," Miguel commented.

Chris nodded. "All right. Have fun, guys!"

Miguel wandered off towards the back, and Ami headed for the left wing. For his part, Chris found his table relatively quickly.

Both were in formal wear, although Apecian's was more an approximation of such adapted from his usual outfit, the most notable changes being that his shirt had long sleeves and he was wearing a vest in a deeper shade of red than his eyes. Michael, on the other hand, was wearing a traditional tuxedo, with a green neck tie tied in a knot whose name Apecian couldn't remember. Apecian grinned at his partner, who had seemed to relax a bit after seeing the modicum of privacy afforded by the low lighting.

"Alright, you ready?" he asked. His clothes may have been more formal, but his speech most definitely wasn't.

"I believe so, yes," Michael replied quietly. Apecian had been around him long enough to pick up that he was nervous, and scoffed.

"Come on, you'll do just fine," he said. "Go on, find your table." Michael hesitated, but then nodded.

"Good luck," he said, and went in search of his name. Apecian waved to his partner, then started walking around the tables. He managed to find his name rather quickly, and he considered taking a peak at his first date's name. He grinned at the thought of this as a date, and decided against it. No need to ruin the surprise. He slid into his seat, and waited for the other to arrive.