The Dining Hall

[alexis]

((ok sorry, chase, isabelle, i had no idea where to put this. i guess the dining hall is the best place for a feast, though! (: mainly for us there, but open i guess! and i had a lot of muse xD dont expect that much very often xD))

Lexi could smell the feast a mile away. She hadn't eaten all that day - she had been so busy tending to the half-frozen plants that time had just flown. But now the smell of food taunted her. She was sitting on a stairway, trying to warm herself after the cold of the outdoors had sunk into her bones. The smell... No, she wasn't going to think about it! Standing, she started to walk away from the whole castle, but stopped. Oh, her weakness for food would get her in serious trouble someday, if not today. Her mind set only on one thing, she trotted to the Dining Hall. The guards outside the door stopped her.

"State you business," said one. Lexi knew that getting past these guards would be impossible. "Oh, nothing..." she said hazily, and simply walked away, looking distant. She turned her head ever so slightly and saw one guard shrug at the other, then return to their slouched watches. She was glad her reputation for being odd and random was getting around. It was about time - she had been working at the castle for about three weeks now.

Knowing where to go, Lexi strolled casually back outside the castle. She headed left, following her nose and the sounds of laughter and talk. She found what she was looking for. An open window. Though the Dining Hall was on the second floor, Lexi knew how to climb a wall. In a minute or two, she was right beside it. Poking her head around slightly, she saw that people were everywhere in the room. Good. There were also a few extra tables set up around the place with small, snack dishes set on them. One was right below her. Perfect.

Sliding around the door, the blond easily jumped down and landed noiselessly in a crouch behind the table. The tablecloth hardly rustled. She ducked quickly under it and hid for several seconds, waiting to see if she had been spotted. She didn't believe she had. Slowly, her hand slid up and grabbed the first piece of food it found, then swiftly jerked back down under the table. It was some sort of berry, foreign by the look of it. She nibble it, and liked it.

And so she continued for a bit, the thought that she would get in serious trouble if she was caught never crossing her mind.

[Chase Caldera]

Chase sat at the banquet trying to ignore the people around him. Most of them were drunk idiots who had no respect for their dignity. Not to mention the wine at this so called feast was awful. True the food wasn't bad but it wasn't that great either. Chase wished he hadn't had to come but he did have to represent his father at important events or else his servants got annoying. What a waste of time though. He could be training to reach the next level at the guild. Instead he was stuck here with these idiots.

He leaned back and looked out the window only to see a form jump through the window and land behind the table. Well that was interesting. Who could be trying to get into a banquet? Chase headed over to where the girl had landed. Maybe someone interesting had arrived. At the very least talking to her would get him away from the drunks sitting next to him.

He walked over and spoke to the girl who was helping herself to some food "Interesting trick young lady. Dare I ask how you managed it and why?"

[alexis]

Lexi was so surprised that she tried to stand while still under the table - her head banged against the bottom of it and she sat back down on her bottom with a huff. This was just great. Now she was probably going to... Nah, she wouldn't think on it. Pulling the tablecloth up, she stood, wiping a little bit of juice from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve as she did so. She didn't pay any attention to the people, only to the kid in front of her. He seemed only a couple of years younger than herself, but who knew what kind of power he had in the way of nobles? Lexi pretty much didn't like nobles. But a lot of her beliefs were constantly proved wrong, over and over.

At least he wasn't calling the guards on her.

"It was easy, really," she began, running a hand through her tangled, dirty hair. Hopefully, anyone would, at a glance, think her a servant come to refill some party tray. At a glance. Normal servants wouldn't be as dirty as herself. "The window was open, I climbed in. It was simple. You might oughtta suggest to someone that a murderer could sneak in the same way I did, and that would be bad, would it not?" She giggled at the idea. "And I was hungry. Food is my downfall." She stated it almost proudly, grinning from ear to ear.

[Isabelle Langley]

Banquets were a vastly over rated excuse for the knights and noble men of the court to get drunk. Honestly, Isabelle didn't understand the reasoning behind holding banquets like these . If the court wanted to socialize meetings were always an option. It may have been the fact she liked being alone while she ate her evening meal and normally she tried avoiding the loud hullabaloo but her parents would surely be cursing at her from above. Isabelle had avoided countless amounts of these things and as a voice of reason public appearances were needed.

She sat at the large oak table sighing heavily, pretending to listen to the man next to her who was so generously describing what kind of a horse he owned. Isabelle could care less but infuriating a noble wasn't a wise thing to do. No, it was the polar opposite. So instead of being bored to death she pretended to listen, but that in the end became quite monotonous as well. It was when the man started to describe what food his horse ate Isabelle prayed for something out of the ordinary to occur.

It was almost as if God himself answered her prayers. She barely caught it. At first she believed it to be a minor trick of the light maybe she was just delusional...no it certainly had happened. A young woman had jumped through the window. She coughed trying not to look amused by something other than Henry the horse or Bill the Pony. Certainly the young woman wasn't to be here no one would be ignorant enough to jump through a window unless they were desperate.

She nodded to no end making her pretend listening a bit more believable. She wasn't going to do anything about the circumstance after all why ruin someone else's fun? It was when the another apparently discovered the woman. Isabelle wasn't really worried. The boy looked harmless but still something told her to find out what was going on. She turned and smiled to the man and excused herself politely from the table. Gracefully she walked over to the two. "This young man isn't bothering you is he?"

[Chase Caldera]

Chase almost laughed as the woman stood up and banged her head on the table. She didn't even try to pretend she hadn't climbed in the window. Instead she blatantly admitted to climbing in and even joked about how an assassin could enter the same way. Which Chase actually agreed with. Security wasn't half bad here at Camelot but he had seen better too. Although why anyone would attempt an assassination during a banquet escaped him but he could see it happening.

He was just about to ask the girl why she hadn't just snuck into the kitchens to grab some food instead of the well protected feast when another woman walked up and asked the girl if he was bothering her. Whoever this new woman was he didn't recognize her. Probably someone like him who didn't attend many court functions. "I don't think so, I was just about to ask this young lady how I am supposed to know that she isn't a assassin sent to kill the king. " His tone was joking but he was interested to see how the two women would respond.

"Who are you two anyways? I don't recall seeing you around before." Chase thought he might as well take advantage of this opportunity to see who these people were. After all information was just another form of power.

[alexis]

This was just great. Lexi was drawing way too much attention to herself and it needed to stop before anything really got started. But there probably wasn't anything she could do - aside from jumping right back out that window. It was a tempting thought, but she would probably break something important. That would be just her luck. The cold that was almost not felt, for the heat of warm food and all the people in the room, but it chilled the few drops of sweat at the back of her neck that started to form. If Lexi took anything seriously, which was almost nothing, it was her job. It was a good job, doing something she liked, and with fair pay for the amount of work. She had to try her best to keep it.

"Me? Kill the king?" She laughed with amusement at the idea. Indeed, she did have her ever-present knife on her (but she always kept it tucked away while working, so it was not visible when she was in the castle and grounds), but kill the king? "That's just mouse-brained, there! But, to answer your question, no, he isn't, m'lady." She was still grinning, giving the boy a almost challenging look, before clasping her hands behind her back and swaying side to side in a bored fashion. She considered lying about her identity; it was second nature from when she was caught red-handed. But she would probably be seen by one of these two again sometime, and the lie would blow up right in her face.

"The name's Alexis Gadia, call me Lexi, if you would. Palace gardener." Lexi hadn't even thought to let the noblewoman answer first, and she glanced at her uncertainly to see if she would react harshly to the lack of respect. It had been an automatic answer, and she wished only slightly wished she had held her tongue. Ah well, it was over now.