I just came here to drink all your liquor.

Tamsin had drinks.

A lot of drinks.

"I can't believe we sent a guy who looks like Kid Rock this year," she muttered, settling down on the sofa. "And of course the Swedes beamed their act in from the Let's Get Physical video. Ugh. They are the worst."

It was Eurovision Final day, y'all. And while Tamsin hadn't set up for a party, party, she may have casually mentioned a viewing partner at her place on the message board.

She didn't think anyone would come, though, which was why she had her phone out and her Twitter account primed.

[[ open! ]]

"AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Sorry, Didi. But that loud scream was completely necessary.

"I am having the worst hair day ever!"

Tamsin had woken up that morning with a truly ungodly amount of curly blonde hair cascading off of her head. It was terrible. She stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom, tugging on it. "Whyyyyyy? Gah!"

[[ open! ]]

Okay, so sue Tamsin, sometimes she liked to be reminded of home. Specifically, to be reminded of the Dal, with that wonderful vibe of a-bar-fight-could-break-out-at-any-minute coupled with our-drinks-can-probably-kill-you-if-you're-not-careful.

This place fit the bill. More or less.

She'd gotten sucked in here for dinner, wound up in an arm-wrestling match with someone shortly thereafter, and somewhere in between, she'd texted Jessica to meet her here.

At least beating that big burly dude at arm-wrestling had done wonders for her mood.

[[ for jessica! ]]

Tamsin's morning ritual was more or less set in stone: she rolled out of bed, she stumbled downstairs, she put some food in her mouth, then she headed back upstairs to find less comfortable but more flattering clothes. This ritual proceeded more or less apace, as she squinted in the mirror once, yanked on a t-shirt, and then headed downstairs.

... where she found a blonde teenager waiting for her.

"How did you get in my house?" Tamsin said sharply.

The girl shrugged. "It's not locked," she said.

"Please tell me we're not having a weekend," Tamsin said. "We just had a weekend recently."

"It was prom yesterday," the girl pointed out. Her eyes were a little big. Or maybe she was just doing that on purpose. "I'm Dagny."

"I'm going back to bed," Tamsin announced.

[[ open! but slowish. it has been a looong day. ]]

Okay, this party had been born out of actual need (for alcohol and getting laid) last year; this year, those factors weren't as urgent for Tamsin, who figured she could always drop in on Jessica or Mike if the night was a spectacular failure.

But hell, it'd been fun last time. Why the hell not?

There were black sheets hanging in front of the windows again, and pillows and sheets scattered all over the floor to make for little makeshift sitting spaces and nooks. There was an empty bottle (in case someone decided to play Spin the Bottle) sitting somewhere in the middle of the room, and in a fit of generosity Tamsin had thoughtfully supplied a bunch of bags of chips in case people wanted to eat stuff.

The glitter clinging to the sheets and the walls and whatnot: not her fault. Who'd ever heard of impromptu localized glitter storms before? At least the winds had died down well before the party actually started, but there was no way in hell she was vacuuming all that stuff up.

There. Party time.

[[ OPEN! ]]

"Ugh."

Tamsin hadn't used her powers in years. At this stage in her life cycle, they chopped months off of the few years she had left until she had to go do the whole kid thing all over again. Not a lot of fun.

But when the burly brainless morons showed up and started picking a fight, she'd been driven into a corner. One bout of doubt, coming up, no trouble getting out of it after that, but...

"Ugh," she repeated, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She reached up and touched her hair gingerly. Not that it mattered; that clump of strands was coming loose whether she liked it or not. The blonde lock clung to her fingers as she brushed across her head, checking to see if anything else was trying to make a run for it.

No, just this. Too much of it. She'd have to be creative to cover up the gap.

She had to wriggle her fingers to get rid of the hair. The lock tumbled down into the trash, draped right over an old bottle of shampoo and an empty pack of tampons. "I hate this phase," Tamsin muttered, glancing over her worried expression in the mirror. "Stupid invasion."

[[ establishy. ]]

Someone was banging on Tamsin's door.

Violently banging on it. On a Monday morning.

No one could blame her if she killed that guy, right?

Unfortunately, ignoring him for fifteen minutes straight didn't seem to work, so eventually she tipped out of bed (well... mattress on the floor), kicked over an old beer bottle, and stumbled towards the stairs. She put on her most professional glower as she ripped open the door and fixed her eyes on...

...the Mayor's assistant.

"What do you want?" she snapped.

The assistant smiled brightly. Too brightly. Kind of like a deer in headlights. She held up a large folder. "Can we talk?" she said.

"It's eight AM on a Monday morning," Tamsin muttered, "No, we can't talk, but you're going to anyway."

"Soooo," the assistant said, yoinking up that smile a few more watts in case it'd help. "The Mayor's gone."

... Tamsin squinted at her. "What?" she said. Beat. "Well, file a missing person's at the station, I'm going back to bed."

She shut her door. Except now there was a foot lodged in it. "Oh, for the love of crap, what?"

"We know where he's gone," the assistant said. "Back to Pawnee. He left a note. It said 'I didn't sign up for this. Please learn democracy.' I know it was his because he didn't sign it and he wrote it on a log with a knife." Beat. "I haven't been in the office for several weeks, I was on vacation, it might have been there for a while."

Tamsin rubbed at her face. "I'm still failing to see what this has got to do with me, bright eyes," she said. "Can I go sleep off my hangover now?"

Bright Eyes - she was going to keep calling the girl that from now on in - hopped. She actually hopped. "I ran a quick informal poll," she said, "It turns out that 75% of the island's Enn Pee Cee population already believes you're an authority figure on the island, in charge of... well, there were a lot of write-ins."

Tamsin groaned. "Will you please just get to the point?"

"Mayor Swanson's last wish was for us to practice democracy," Bright Eyes said excitedly. "I thought the poll would do!"

"You're... not really from this era, are you?" Tamsin muttered. "...Wait, what?"

"You're the Mayor!" Bright Eyes squealed.

Tamsin stared. "No, I'm not."

"I already filed the paperwork."

"You what?"

"Happy holidays!" Bright Eyes said, shoved the folder at Tamsin, and ran.

There was some more staring. This time, after her. The news took a couple of seconds to sink in, you see, and-- "OH, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"

The Morrigan was never hearing about this.

[[ establishy. ]]

There were a couple of bottles of vodka sitting on Tamsin's booze shelf now, a few pillows on the ground she could sit on, and she'd managed to block out the glare of the sun coming through the former storefront area by putting up some blankets.

She was alone, she had drinks, she could wallow for a while.

Then her phone rang. She groaned as she reached for it. "Whatever it is, Tiny," she said, "You can fix it yours-- in your mailbox? Really? Well, that changes everything."

Beat.

"That was sarcasm. Beat it, loser."

She threw her phone into the next room, then reached for the vodka. Ugh.

[[ can be open if you want! ]]

Hello, everyone! Meet Tamsin. Like many among you, she is a werewolf and-- okay, that's a lie. She's not a werewolf. But she's very very good at punching them in the face.



( Ride of the Valkyries! This info post is 75% GIF. )