[Zakera Ward] Weekend Film Festival (open)

Early evening in Zakera Ward, the local theatre's marquee blinked bright colors, streams of movie titles flashing fast across the screens as the film festival got underway. There was a promising lineup of films premiering throughout the day and all through the weekend; documentaries, adventure and action and thrillers, mystery and romance, even a comedy or two for people who needed a good laugh. Excited lines of festival-goers waited in line at the box office for their passes, but a sizable crowd of people who had already purchased theirs were making their way through the large doors inside to the various rooms for screenings, and many were already inside the huge theatre from screenings that had already ended earlier.

Inside, the large center room branched off to different sections of the theatre, chatter echoing off the walls. An odd pair of film-goers stood in the long concessions line, a turian father standing close to his human stepson to make sure the boy didn't get separated in the crowd. It had been a while since he'd had free time to spend doing things together, and the film festival seemed like a fun day, despite being expensive (even with child rates!). The little boy tugged his stepfather's hand and pointed to a movie poster on the wall, showing a salarian adventurer making his way through a thick jungle on a search for old ruins. "Oh, look at that, look at that! Dante, can we see that one?" Adrian asks.

Dante laughed, shaking his head in amusement. "Sure, maybe next. That one's not for another 3 hours, though, so you'll have a bit of a wait."

His son frowned, small faced scrunched up in displeasure. "Well, all right… Are we seeing something else, first?"

"It's definitely possible! I think I may have a friend or two coming as well if they'd like to join us, too."

"Oh okay! Did you meet them at work?"

"One or two of them, yeah. They should be around, maybe we'll see them soon."

Already in, Kiara smiled as she waited in the non-consession line. Luckily, the Asari had arrived relatively early- unfortunately, however, it was still taking a while... still, Kiara waited patiently, although she kept making notes on her Omni-tool.

Sarah unzipped her jacket and fidgeted. An old, faded action movie shirt and the usual go-to pants that were now uncomfortable.
She adjusted her sunglasses and fished a pack of energy gum from her inner pocket, unwrapping a few sticks and throwing them between her molars.

"Okay.. I am good to go.." She muttered to herself. "Good to go.." Her thoughts were distracted- The recent baby news, the lack of response from Chris- Then again, a message across the known galaxy was probably slow to arrive. Sebastian's response- Gideon, as in 'destroyer'? Why would I name a baby that? I - The woman pushed her hands through her hair and waited for the line to move.

"Some crowd. Lucky there's reserved seating on the Dark Harvest one- I got 'Concession Staff' tickets." She spoke to the Asari in front of her.

Kiara blinked slightly as she heard the woman behind her speak, before turning... and if Sarah had a good eye for faces, she'd probably almost immediately recognise the one in front of her.

Kiara certainly did. "Yeah, it- oh, do you go on CDN as well? I saw your profile picture... VigilantVanguard? Ah, sorry, I'm Kiara Delanna. Or Blue_Baker on the forums."

Oh crap. Who was this?

"I .. Hi there! It's always good to meet people from CDN." That damned forum and it's probability issues. "I'm here with a plus-one. What movies are you excited about?" The woman raised a brow over the gold and blue lenses of her sunglasses. She chewed her gum, stowing her hands into her pocket, trying to hide her anxiety.

Kiara smiled. "Most of them? There's a pretty quality selection on offer, it's actually a bit hard to decide. How about you?"

Arina exited the cab a bit away from the cinema complex so she could walk and have a look around the area a bit. She was wearing a short dark gray dress with slightly brighter floral decor, together with a pair of cream colored boots. The outer rim of her scalp crest was decorated with some delicate brass jewelry.

It was already visible from a distance that quite a crowd had assembled and the line for the tickets was fairly long. Arina had been able to obtain one of the tickets from the embassy pool so she was already covered.

While she was studying the holo-promos and announcments for the movies, she also scanned the line for familiar faces. She was amused about a turian with a human kid, an odd but sweet couple. She suddenly realized that she only would recognize very few faces as she only know so few... well, there was a familiar blue on, Kiara talking to a platin blond human. A good way to start, so she strolled over, waving one hand.

"Hello, Kiara, nice to see you - and hello to you too, Ma'am." she greeted the human... vaguely familiar but the sunglasses didn't help.

Speaking of sunglasses.
A rather sharp dressed man walked towards the theatre, and checked his Omni-tool.
Dressed in a rather sharp suit, with a set of rather expensive set of Sunglasses adorned to his face, Alexander confirmed that this was the place.
So glad I packed this thing. This makes a great Dirk Black costume.
Alexander had been a huge fan of Dirk Black ever since he saw his first one 16 years ago. He never forgot the first time he sat and watched "From Rakhana with love". He was a massive Thomas Reilly fan.
Alex spotted two people he had met before, and began to walk towards them.
"Arina and Burke huh? Cavallius got to you too I see?" Alex.
He turned to the other asari.
"Ah. Hello. The name's Adolrikson. Alexander Adolrikson." Said Alex jokingly.

Getting out of line, a giant container of candy and popcorn appeasing Adrian, Dante took a glance at his omni-tool to check when their first movie was going to be, when he spotted a familiar face from the corner of his eye. 'Is that Alex? He's looking fancy today,' he thought to himself as he saw Alex walking over to another group of people. Even though he doubted he'd noticed him, he gave a small wave in hello anyway.

"Is that someone you know?" Adrian asked him, looking over to where he'd been waving. "The guy in the sunglasses?"

"Yeah, I've worked with him before."

"Oh, let's go say hi!" the little boy said, tugging his father toward them.

"Woah hey, they're having a conversation, do you really want to interrupt them?" Dante asked, but Adrian just shrugged and kept walking over. Despite his mild protests, Dante laughed and went along with it, slightly embarrassed to be pulled into their group. "Hey, Alex, good to see you came," he said in greeting as the two came a little closer. The three women looked pretty familiar, like he'd perhaps seen their faces before. "Hello there! Ah, I hope we're not interrupting you at all...?"

Kiara turned to Arina, smiling. "Hey there, Arina. Nice to meet you here, too..."

Then, another person arrived, the asari turning to the newcomer. "I'm Kiara Delanna. Blue_Baker on the forums, I recognise your profile pic."

She paused for a moment. "...huh. Guess I didn't lose that. Anyway-"

And then, a final pair for now introduced themselves. "Ah, it's fine! We're all just introducing ourselves."

And.. Oh, there was a surprisingly sharp Alex. A human male in a suit like that had a certain something.
She saw from the corner of her eye now the turan and the human kid approaching... or rather the kid tugging the turian.

"Hello-ho Alex," Kiara said, admiring his attire.
Facing all the other people, she introduced herself.

"I'm Arina, or 'stardust' on CDN."

"Cavallius? Hello again. Nice to get a weekend off sometimes isn't it? Can't be detectives all day, every single day." Said Alex, greeting Cavallius.
He turned to the human child.
Why is he dragging around a human kid?
Alex wasn't sure how to respond. He had no idea someone might bring a kid to this.
"Hello kid. I'm Alexander. Mombasan Cop, and today, Alliance intelligence Agent." Said Alex to Adrian.
He then turned to Kiara.
"All right. That's the fifth time I've been identified by profile picture alone. Clearly it's either doing it's job really well, or really poorly." Said Alex.
And then, Finally, he turned to the entire group. He clasped his hands together and spoke up.
"What film is everyone thinking of watching? There's I think the second Blasto is on at the moment. The Third Infiltrator movie too. In about three hours there's "Shium Bain, and the ruins of Ilos.". That looked pretty good too."

"Dark Harvest. I want to see the supposed footage from the Batarian homeworld. Also, nothing really else in particular, I'm here all weekend. Need to get out of the house." She turned to face Alex before speaking. She took her sunglasses off, folding them and stowing them away in her pocket. "Getting stir-crazy.."

"It's nice to meet you all," Dante said once everyone had introduced themselves. Sounded like these were the folks who'd mentioned coming before, so it seemed pretty lucky he'd found them so quickly. "I'm Dante, Cavallius on CDN. This is my son Adrian," he introduced, the little boy waving. "Didn't want to leave him at home alone all day, so… hope you don't mind that I brought him along."

The boy's eyes widened in awe at meeting another cop. "Wow, are you a secret agent? Like Dirk Black?" he asked excitedly.

Dante agreed with Alex and Sarah, nodding. "I know how you feel about stir-crazy... it's been pretty busy lately. Haven't had a lot of free time, so it's gonna be nice to set back and relax, have some fun for a while. Always up for a good adventure movie, so Shium Bain's pretty high on the list right now. Blasto never really gets old, so probably that too."

For maybe the twentieth time since she had left her apartment, Leeta checked the location of the film festival on her omni-tool. She hadn't forgotten where it was, but she just had to check to make sure she was going to the right place at the right time. She had spent the day before waffling back and forth on whether or not she would even attend. It had taken her a while to convince herself to spend that many credits on something frivolous, but it was rare for her to spend her money like this and it definitely seemed worth it, so she allowed herself the luxury. She had gotten her pass the previous day to avoid lines, and was walking through the ward with a skip in her step.

When she got to the venue, she squinted, studying the groups of people for familiar faces. She smiled when she spotted Dante and Arina, and walked over to the group with a skip in her step. "Dante! Arina!" She greeted them cheerfully, raising a hand to wiggle her fingers in that weird way humans said hello when she saw there was a decent ratio of human to other. She nodded politely to the people she didn't know when her eyes fell on Alex. She leaned back in surprise. "...Stubble?" He was dressed as Dirk Black, and for a moment Leeta panicked and wondered if they were all supposed to dress up as someone. Everyone did look pretty well-dressed, but she didn't recognize their looks. Her shoulders relaxed a little and when her eyes fell on the child that was talking to Alex she decided to wiggle her fingers at him too for good measure.

Kiara grinned slightly. "I am pretty good at identifying people from photos. Pleased to meet you all in person. Like I said before you guys came in, I'm Kiara- Blue_Baker on the forums.

I suppose I'm interested in Dark Harvest too... apart from that, some of the lighter movies on offer, probably."

Sarah looked down to her wrist, checking the time. She stared ahead, grabbing her elbow with her right hand.
"So... three hours early. I - uh. I think I remember TripleTipToe." She pointed at the Quarian. "You're not Pariah. And.." She pointed at Mombasa. "Mr. High-Note.."

When looking around after the introduction, Arina asked herself how she could have missed to ID Sarah. For a human she had a very distinguishable hairdo. But all hair looked so equal to her, asari scalp crests were so much more easy to distinguish in her opinion.

"Hello, Leeta!" she first greeted the quarian to their group.
"Nice to meet you all. Some new faces to put to names on CDN! That was a great suggestion, Cavallius." she had noted him saying 'my son'... obviusly there was some story behind it but it would have been rude to ask just like that.
She bent down to greet the boy as well. "Hello Adrian! Nice choice of a movie, I'd like to see that too!"

"I was also thinking about Dark Harvest... I don't know, maybe it's better so watch that first and then something like Shium Bain afterwards? Is that even possible from the schedule?" She was checking the announcement monitors overhead. It was, since the vids were shown in various timeslots. The organizers obviously were taking into account possible timing conflicts.

"And there is a small scale production I'd like to see as well, 'Coral'. It's about a group of divers divers discovering a sunken treasure. It was praised for it's underwater filming."

Alex looked at Burke completely shocked.
She removed a pair of sunglasses? What kind of sick...
Then Alex turned to Adrian. He wondered how best to answer.
"Dirk Black's by far the better agent. He's great at parties too. But yeah, I'm a Alliance secret agent. Don't tell anyone though." Said Alex, whispering the last part.
"All right. That's several for Dark Harvest. So I guess we could all try and see that. But first, I think we need some refreshments." Said Alex.
"Now. The stand outside the Theatre is likely to be really expensive. I might be tempted to make a run for a supermarket nearby. So, everyone tell me what you might like to eat or drink, and I'll see if they have anything. I'll pay." Asked Alex.
"I can use this pass to get back in right?" He asked again.

Leeta chuckled at Sarah and nodded. "No, definitely not Pariah. Leeta'Varo vas Tayseri." Usually a full introduction was something she dreaded, but her name tumbled quickly from her lips and she hoped no one would care to notice what came after 'vas.' Having people who already knew her name around helped take some of the pressure off. Everyone seemed to be in agreement about what they wanted to see first. Her eyes widened with interest when Arina mentioned Coral. Her fingers gave a twitch at the talk of treasure and she clasped her hands together. "That sounds wonderful," She chimed in with a smile.

When Alex offered to go get refreshments, Leeta hesitated. She couldn't be sure he would find her something good or even edible unless she went along. "Oh--I am fine," she replied, shaking her head. "Do not trouble yourself."