deercountry | 11 . clockhouse rebuilding!

Entry tags:

11 . clockhouse rebuilding!

Who: Those who have offered to help rebuild the Clockhouse, and anyone else who'd like to pitch in!
What: An open mingle log to repair after fires and floods.
When: Throughout September, precise dates not specified.
Where: In Gaze, at the forest's edge.

[ When the weather and chaos dies down, work on the Clockhouse picks up. The building was once an old Deerington mansion, luridly green and eccentric; age faded it into half a ruin, and July's fire did the rest. August's flooding came fast and hard, and now there's very little left to salvage.

The first step has been a damage assessment, with volunteers picking through the structurally unstable ruins, finding singed fiction novels, crisped houseplants, and a weird number of melted grandfather clocks. Demolition goes quickly, while Ozpin stands by and does not even try to control the situation.

Volunteers are needed to design the new structure, carry in materials, and build... and then to decorate and enchant what they've created. The few Sleepers with genuine construction experience provide direction, Ozpin sometimes among them, but things are largely chaotic. A few Sleepers provide snacks and cheerleading.

This is a mingle log. Please feel free to make a toplevel, and comment with your character's contributions below! ]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

( He can feel sharp little nips at the tips of his fingers. Demons, they must be. Poking and prodding at him while he's on the way to some worse torture...

The nightmarish haze continues, thick and heavy. Peter thinks he smells burning (this would actually be a fire going nearby where people are burning some rubble from the house). There's a flash of concern in him — how badly will it hurt? To be cast into Hell's flames — but it's numbed down, he's still too out of it. Even when his limp body is coaxed into a sitting-up position in a chair, his head's lolling, drool trailing out of the side of his mouth.

But he thinks he hears... a familiar name. )

Ange...? ( He mumbles, his mind forming some scenario that maybe Ange's here, too. ) No... let her go... She doesn't deserve this...

Knowledge.

Something in the demon stirs, something that lives way down deep in him. Where his True Self is: he hasn't quite been able to reach it, but it's there, it waits.

Slowly, Paimon's hazy eyes move to stare at the person's face. He hadn't seen who was on the other end of the feed during that conversation, but there is only one person he's so specifically given the word "Knowledge" to like a name.

"....Duty. You are... here."

( Usually he'd probably be able to sense Ange approaching him — aware of it on some level, as attuned to her energy as he is. But the demon's so focused on what he's doing that he doesn't notice a single thing, not until the young witch is standing beside him and speaks. He looks up, wide-eyed and immediately excited to see her, his own spirit thrumming with a flare of static. )

Golden Witch. ( Paimon's broken out of his fixated spell, looking down to the little creatures he's been so meticulously placing alongside the edge of the house for a moment. ) Yes. I brought... many. Nice things.

( He's proud of them and coaxed by that warm tone she uses, reaching for one that hasn't been set in place yet, holding it up for her to examine if she likes. It's a gesture of trust; he wouldn't hand his projects to just anyone. )

They will watch over your new home. With their eyes. Many eyes.

( It's some kind of juice that Peter's reaching for to hand over to the younger boy — nice and sweet, a balm against the thirst that comes from hours of hard work. It's with an accompanying smile of his own, and the prospect of getting a little breather to catch up with Falco for a few moments, when something happens.

By now, he knows that blood doesn't look like blood anymore. Not the kind he's used to. In this place, blood is pale and luminescent, or something that glitters impossibly, or— green, a sickly green.

Peter startles, wide-eyed and with a jolt of his heart. )

Falco— ( His hands have flown up instinctively but they hover there in the air for a moment, frozen as he witnesses more green come dripping down from the boy's nostrils, right down onto his shirt, which is where Peter is now staring in horror. )

You— you're bleeding! ( It's a soft gasp of realisation, hands moving closer, but not touching just yet. )

There's a quick look up at the youthful voice, and Peter's smiling on instinct at the younger boy, but there isn't quite recognition. Not at first, at least. The voice does sound a bit familiar, but he can't quite place it, and Peter's painfully used to bumping into people who seem to know him while he's lost on his own memory. It happens too often; he knows he loses himself.

"Hey." His smile warms, even if he doesn't quite remember the boy, and he's looking him over a bit, searching. "Sorry, I have a really bad memory.. We met before?"

1) Demo
Neopolitan was around most during the deconstruction of what remained. She made an appearance very early on with a wheelbarrow and spent a lot of her time just hauling the stone away and clearing debris and rubble. This was the easiest job for her to do, after all. She knew there were going to be people who didn't really want her to see anything that might be considered security in the new house, and she wasn't going to push back. She just wanted to help a little bit.

At times, though, she almost seemed to be in a fugue. There was a wheelbarrow in front of her, full of stuff and she was rubbing her left hand, staring at the glove in confusion and then looking around. It was almost like something wasn't adding up in her head. Other times, she was busily at work and would pause after dumping another batch to type one-handed on her omni, if someone wanted to chat. Either way? She was around.

2) Construction/Security
Hey, she could help with pounding a few nails. It wasn't really that big of a deal, and she hadn't caused any trouble, so she kept it up once they started to build. Smoothing out concrete for the foundation or nailing boards together, she kept at it when she was free.

Eventually, though, she set down the hammer and just kept an eye from a distance. Her gaze, though, was more out and about, not on what was going on. She kept up a quiet patrol and eyes on the nearest portion of the woods. It was the Hunter in her, watching for trouble. There were enough in this place that any monster foolish enough to show was in for it, but this was still an easy job to do, and an easier time to chat with her.

3) Lunch Break
When she wasn't working, Neo did occasionally take a little picnic lunch break. She opened up a satchel with a meal. Eggs, mushrooms, something dark and leafy, and a bit of fish jerky. Yum. She had learned a long time ago that she wasn't going to really get the most tasty of dishes, so she was starting to get used to finding ways to make the whole mushroom obsession in this town at least palatable.

When someone approached, though, she gestured to the other side of the blanket she was sitting on. Care to join her?

[ What if she makes the chickens really light so they fly up in the air that ought to hold them still... NO IT DOESN'T THEY HAVE WINGS ]

Balls! Drat! Hold still!

There he is, more alert and responsive with that name. The confirmation the name was for him, for Duty, for those whose names are titles and identity is good. He may not be Knowledge, but knowledge informs so duty can better be done.

"I am," Duty agrees, "I build things." He motions around them. As a team, generally. Much construction work would be near impossible if not impossible without it.

"By the docks. We swam together. And then you switched out and the demon swam with me."

He's hoping that will jog his memory enough to put two and two together and realize who Luca is. If not, he might have to be clearer on the subject.

[Please. Seriously. Don't eat him. He's a growing teenager and probably is all crunchy and chewy and gross!]

...What kinda parties do you think we're having? The last one involved everyone crowding into Ozpin's bathroom and dying our hair in the bathtub!

[Of course Break was always right. He was a sparkly adult with halfway decent sensibilities. Food and warm drinks did always make everything better, and sometimes a singing princess movie really was necessary to make sense of the world.]

That makes sense. I still just worry about Ruby getting excited because of everything finally being official and doing something really dangerous or silly.

Or both. A lot of times, it's both.

[ It wouldn't be the weirdest thing Ruby has ever said.

Which is why Ange is instantly willing to believe it when it comes out of Michael's mouth. ]

I was thinking more about something a little more elegant like a ward spell.. [ Even if Ange may not be good at those. But she's got witch friends to ask for help! ] How is anyone supposed to get all the way up there to the sniper spot though? Are you just going to make a set of really tall stairs or something?

[ Hey, Michael's the architect.

Ange knows nothing about designing houses. She will gladly let the expert speak. ]

[ She slowly nods. ]

That shouldn't be impossible.

[ Sure, Ange can't even imagine lifting those huge pieces of rubble by herself. She's definitely not a very physically strong person, after all. But even she can dig out the smaller rubble.

She doesn't even seem too fazed by Penny needing a moment to look at it - though Ange doesn't know the other's mental calculations are a little more literal mental calculations than they'd be for most people. She just figures Penny was trying to figure out a game plan here. ]

I should stay out of your way at first, right?

[ Easier for Penny to avoid accidentally hitting her with the bigger pieces.. Ange is a big supporter of workplace safety here on the building grounds!! ]

Once I need to hop in to help with the smaller stuff, you can call me. Though.. [ Pause.

Hm. Considering this is Penny they're talking about-- ]

I'm not sure how much time you'd need for the bigger pieces. [ Maybe she'll be done in no time at all. ]

"Okay, mister Superman."

There's a bit of an eyeroll-like sentiment in the way she's saying it, but not in a way that's genuinely sarcastic - especially not by Ange terms. Instead she seems to be trying to keep it light enough on her own end as well. It's not like she knows how Shiro got that arm, but.. well, with what she's seen from his past, there are a number of not-too-pleasant possibilities for it.

Getting a metal arm probably isn't a great thing under any circumstances in the first place, honestly.

So it's easier to treat it with a bit of levity, rather than overly fussing over him here.

"You're really making girls with tiny twig arms like me look bad here."

She won't even say tiny girls in general, since Ruby is about the same size as her and has way more muscle.

Ange just doesn't like exercise. But that's why she's just joking about what she's saying here either way.

...I mean, yeah. That's usually how people get up towers. Unless you want an elevator...?

[He wasn't going to make it tall to the point that you couldn't climb it! Though, he supposes, shit happens. Maybe elevators are a good idea nonetheless.]

[ D-Don't call her out like this, Break! Just because they've seen the movie enough times by now to perfectly know all of it and each other's reactions to it..!!

It's not that part that gets Ange to pause, though. No, of course it's the mention of that witch.

It renders Ange quiet. Quiet enough that one may wonder if she's actually offended by even the idea of this joke, due to the sheer nature of said 'weird truce.'

But then the girl squints, and the thing she actually says out loud sounds much less severe than that. ]

Are you going to tell her that?

[ A beat. ]

To her face?

[ That may just make it worth it. ]

[ Ange instantly lowers herself to take a better look at it - moving until she's squatting down right besides the other, and then taking the trinket from his hands very, very gently.

She's not sure how sturdy they are, after all, and the last thing Ange would want to do right here and now is accidentally break one of them right in front of Paimon. She might be able to pinpoint the moment his heart would break in two just watching his reaction to that sort of thing - and she can't have that. So Ange is gentle, even once she is actually holding it in her own cupped hands now. ]

I like them. They're cute.

[ .. she's not even lying about that. Sure, they're.. a little crudely made, but they have their own charm.

It helps that Ange likes kids, so she can see these in the same way a parent might view their kid's macaroni painting.

The girl tears her gaze away from the tiny thing, instead looking over at Paimon. ]

Did you give them names? Names hold power, you know.

[ Still got that baby fat in the cheeks tho? Thinking about it, chomp chomp chomp... ]

If you had a ballroom you would have better parties. You could have a fountain and dye your hair in that.

[Break drums his fingers on his own arm, considering the matter very seriously for...much the same reasons. He honestly isn't sure how the witch would take it. Possibly she'd agree with great enthusiasm, complain that Rasputin loses, and Battler would have to deal with her going around singing In the Dark of the Night over every little thing which is very pleasing because why is Battler even here if Break does not get to make his life difficult.

On the other hand, well.]

...can you undo it if she turns me into something yucky?

[Ruby sees this. And despite how dire the situation is she can't help but laugh.]

Oh no, oh no! They've flown the coop!

We might need to get nets now.

[The chickens circle around the chair at varying speeds. They continue to sort of nip at his fingers but now there is more of an interest in his shoe laces.

Ruby looks to Peter and gives a little laugh.]

Gosh. She's just been making me out to be the absolute worst again, huh? She's lucky I know she's doing it with all the love.

[She knows so well that Ange does not have a rude thought about her in her head.]

Do you need some water? Or like a snack? Will that help you get a spring back in your shoe?

[Ruby rushes off to get a water bottle. ...And regardless of Peter's current state of consciousness starts to just pour some water in his mouth.]

"Better Superman than Buttman."

If Ange remembers that whole username change thing, he'd be hilarious. So either that or she's going to give him that Ange Look. This is a good vein of conversation, far as he's concerned. He'd much rather joke about the stupid thing than discuss it in any seriousness. He's still cracking a smile, actually.

Shiro glances around for a second, then picks up a long, flat board. He holds it out to Ange, still grinning.

"Here, try this." Hard to tell how much it weighs, when Shiro scoops it up like that. But, if Ange does accept it, it's a lot lighter than it looks. Thanks, plywood! "You can show off if anyone walks by."

[ falco’s skin takes on the look of parchment paper at this point, paper white against the stark contrast of green and red streaks. he sweats cold, looks absolutely clammy by the time he reacts accordingly. he looks to his hand, his clothes, now stained and horribly painted with the overwhelming smell of flowers— it betrays the danger in his blood, one of which falco holds his hand up and takes a step back. ]

I— I just need to sit, [ he parses, his extended fingers to keep peter where he was trembling in the air. he does what he could, starting to move, tipping his head back and thinking fast on what he could use. it’s a lot this time. a stray stream rolls down his mouth and drips off the curve of his jaw— he swallows what he can, sits himself down, leaves his cup on the ground and waits for it to stop. ] Sorry . . . Peter.

[ the voice is quiet, nasally— he tries to avoid eye contact, because his eyelids are burning. it’s as if he wants to cry, but sucks it back in favor of silence. it’s not what’s happening that quietly frightens him, it’s the sudden prospect that now was the time to say something. he hadn’t planned for this one. it was scary. ]

[Ruby scritches behind Baltus's ear and makes an elongated "awww." sound when he admits to that.]

We've all been torn away from something- I'm just glad he, them, well all of us aren't letting that stop us from getting connected to something or someone else.

[Look- There is a brief moment where any sort of understanding and thoughtfulness drops from her expression. Replaced by a little bit of drool coming down her cheek.]

Oh... man... I could really go for a donut right now-

I mean- Yeah- Yeah. Your secret is safe with me. Don't you worry.

[Ruby only stops in her chase to look and glare at Neo as she's laughing at her plight.]

This isn't funny, Neo! They're getting away!

You can't do this to me!

[It's totally funny.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 6 of 27

11 . clockhouse rebuilding!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Neopolitan Sustrai | Wide Open

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject