deercountry | House Log 002: Be our guest

Entry tags:

House Log 002: Be our guest

Who: A pile of Pandoras and a pile of RWBYs and perhaps some assorted close attachments
What: A mingle log in which two houses alike in dignity have a slumber party for great CR kickstart justice
When: End of the first week in November, before the month becomes established as a horrifying shitshow
Where: Pandora House, which still needs a cooler name

Content Warnings: Nothing in the log prompts; mushroom monsters are present if we feel like being rude.

Somewhere around the end of September, Xerxes Break made a joke about slumber parties explicitly because he knew it would make Qrow Branwen's life difficult and that struck him as very funny. Now, he has to make good on this and throw a proper one. You'd think this would count as the joke backfiring on him but no, no, it most certainly does not -- Break and his pack of feral Victorian teenagers all thrive on a good party in their own way, and having come from an old-fashioned world they are already quite busy preparing to hunker down inside for the wintertime. Unused to being able to pass long, harsh nights with things like television and video games, they have many activities at hand to indulge in, and Break has already been hard at work stockpiling food like some sort of rabid hobbit.

The house itself is warm and pleasantly haunted and cozy in a way that only happens in homes that aren't accustomed to things like electric heat -- there are piles of quilts and blankets scattered around most rooms, free for the taking if someone wants to wrap themselves up, and all the communal rooms have fires going in their fireplaces. The heat that radiates from those spots is the kind that can thaw out frozen bones in a way that nothing else can. And the feel of the house itself is...well, despite the various struggles of its inhabitants, it just feels like the house is daring to hope that it can be happy. After all, it sat abandoned and empty for a long time, the more terrible of the ghosts that haunted it always inevitably chasing away anyone who dared try to settle down here. Those ghosts are gone as of last month, and the fact that every single person living here is now getting a second chance at simply being someone has already begun seeping into the walls themselves. Although it's still early enough in the month that the intense danger November brings with it hasn't yet become widely known, the house feels decidedly safer than the outside all the same, with a faint sense of benevolent sentience hitting as soon as one walks through the door.

That's what you get in a house full of darkbloods (and Oz).

Food: Probably it's no surprise to anyone who knows Break that the kitchen is where that sense of protectiveness is strongest; this is the room he's taken over as his personal territory. Feeling much better with last month's homesickness finally easing up, he spends the day of the party cooking enough to feed the whole crew -- he's been learning to cook mostly in restaurants, so this is no problem. Having been warned that beef in particular is about to become scarce for the season, he's gotten a hold of a good chunk of it and has put together a big cauldron of beef stew, with potatoes and leeks and many, many mushrooms and things to round it all out. This is one of exactly two proper meals that Break has mastered already, given that the basis of a stew is to chop up exactly the right things and then put them in a pot, and the house smells more and more exquisite the closer you get to the kitchen. There's fresh bread, too, and though the loaves are still a little misshapen they taste just fine, and he's recruited Lysithea to help out with her wonderful baked sweets. Break will sneak away for further baking when he's in want of a bit of quiet, too, so expect further treats all night. Of particular note, in the wee hours when the house is getting properly chilly, he produces a wonderful warm drink: A big pot of (non-alcoholic) spiced berry juice, rich and red and warmed up with cloves and cinnamon sticks and slices of the last fresh oranges he was able to snatch up at the docks floating about inside. Victorians know how to do winter food, and why wait for the snow to really get going?

Movies: This is something new and exciting for the Pandoras. Bereft of any kind of proper screen, they've been taught to pin up white bedsheets against the wall in the parlor, and someone's omni has been recruited to project things onto it. Given the recent spooky season and some of the kids learning about Halloween, many of the movies of choice tonight are themed thus, such as Hocus Pocus and The Others. But someone having figured out how to search the omni has resulted in Beauty and the Beast, too, for something a little less creepy. This whole thing is super great. Who knew you could go to the theater without having to get dressed and leave the house?

Arts and Crafts: The other thing happening in the parlor is the coffee table being taken over by art supplies. The Alices like to make things, and have been amusing themselves lately putting together decorations for the house. We have paints, fancy papers with pretty patterns on, scissors, glue, glitter, the works. The sorts of art supplies you'd expect from a couple of girls who spent the bulk of their early lives locked, in some capacity, in a tower. It's something fun to play with while the movies are running. It is possible that White Alice may be working on painting swirly bits on an animal skull of some sort. Don't worry about it, it's fine.

Game Room: The house does have an actual dining room, nice and long and with high ceilings. Given that the kitchen with its huge wooden table is plenty big enough to eat in, they haven't bothered to use it as such. Instead, there's a table set up off to the side for board games and jigsaw puzzles -- and, more importantly, the bulk of the room is totally clear for things like indoor badminton and a ball made for kicking about. Possibly this is because Break spent all of September trying to convince himself it was silly to worry that the Alices had been eaten by something only to have them turn up in October and tell him of having been eaten by a giant fish, and he freaked out and decided he doesn't want the kids playing outside where the beasts are unless they have to. He is not telling.

Training: That said, weapons training simply needs to happen outside, and it's entirely possible that sooner or later it will come up that this slumber party is full of weapons enthusiasts and at least four of them, inexplicably, are scythe users. If that happens, there's a clear space outside in the backyard that Break has been using for his own drills, grass already trampled flat and a few nice sturdy posts that a blade has clearly been whacking away at. There's a nice stone wall around the property that will keep a great many of the unsavory creatures out, as some of the back used to be a garden which has long since grown wild, and Break has taken a hint from Gaze and set up several tall incense burners, too. If anyone is feeling in want of a midnight spar for some reason, this is where they can go -- but keep in mind that the wall won't keep the poisonous floating mushroom creatures out, and given that said garden has proven to be a mushroom oasis, the horrible little shuffling ones that induce hellscape hallucinations may be about, too.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"...you know, that doesn't actually tell me which of the Alices it was."

The pale one is a solid guess but on the other hand, gods know what the darker of the two thinks of herself as these days. She was proud enough thinking of herself as a Chain, in the past. She's not prone to telling Break what she's thinking, so he really has no idea how she feels about her own relative humanity these days, except that she's intensely pleased to have her sister at hand.

"My power was to disrupt others. My Contract with it was broken when I arrived, and I've not messed much with the blood nonsense here." Deeming the dough worthy enough, Break goes to drop it in a bowl to rise for later -- only to forget whether he greased that bowl, feel around in it to discover he has not, and huff off to root around for the butter. "Anyway, it's not as though I could be everywhere at once. And, if I simply obliterated this or that, we couldn't capture it for study, you know? The Mad Hatter wasn't exactly made for restraint."

Lysithea vaguely despairs of making sense of Break's compatriots if this is how they are categorized. She attempts to clarify.

"The one who was formerly a part of the Abyss. People made promises for her. Something along those lines."

It had not been entirely clear, though Lysithea had managed to understood a great deal from context clues. She feels, without knowing why, that this is a matter that ought to be discussed as little as possible. She will move on to the safer topic of conversation.

"I fear we've honed in on something very specific - like a puzzle piece without looking at the broader image. Allow me to extrapolate from what you've said. Your job was... a monster hunter. To protect the world from these 'Chains.' To do so, you had to make a bond with a specific monster who was willing to work with you. And... from our first conversation several months ago, I gather you've succeeded in your aims. Does that entail destroying all monsters such that the world is at ease?"

"Aaaaaah. Well, if she's already speaking about it..."

These two things are linked together, incidentally. Finishing up with the dough at last, Break drapes a cloth over it, pats his hands off, and slides into the chair across from Lysithea.

"Hm, hm. How to explain it simply...well. The Abyss is the place the Chains come from, but, more importantly -- it's the dimension in which all realities are written, all timelines in their infinite possibilities. If one holds its power, one can bring true, sentient life to objects, rewrite the past, that sort of scary business. Once upon a time, someone saw to it that the Alices would be born in the Abyss itself, so that the 'core' of that dimension could have a physical vessel. That person did not expect twins. The core and all its power took up residence in the paler of the two and spat her sister back out into the real world, and the Abyss itself was broken because of it. And, later, an entirely different madman who wished to throw the whole world into the Abyss to destroy it...attempted to use her, the Will of the Abyss, to do it. He wormed his way into her good graces and fed her a great many lies, and nearly succeeded."

There is a lot to the story Break is leaving out, of course, but if Lysithea has been talking to the former Will, these are the important bits.

"He was defeated the first time, but not soundly, and some while later had all the pieces in place to try again. I hunted Chains in the meantime, yes, but -- our real aim was to get rid of that guy once and for all, remove Alice as the Will, and restore the Abyss to its unbroken state. We succeeded, and now she's here, allowed to be nothing more than a little girl for the first time. All that's rather wilder than simply hunting monsters, isn't it?"

Nobody ever comes from a normal world where there are no supernatural events and nothing interesting has ever happened. Lysithea, despite being one of the shaper knives in the drawer, finds this explanation to be less enlightening and more disconcerting. She struggles to understand the idea of a birthplace of dimensions and realities and timelines.

"The existence of such a thing is horrifying."

This response comes in a fairly matter-of-fact tone, after deciding this was the one conclusion she could definitely voice.

"A birthplace of all possibilities that can be harnessed and abused..."

It is alarming enough that she decides she needs to settle her mind with a cookie. She brings over a tray still half-filled and places it between herself and Break, then slowly gnaws on a strawberry frosted concoction as she thinks.

"I can't begin to voice the questions I have. What did you mean by 'broken'? The only thing more frightening than an intact birthplace of reality is a broken one, I expect. I do congratulate you on succeeding in all your aims, though. It sounds as if it were... difficult."

"The reality of its existence was meant to be a secret from most. By and large, it's known only as a fairy tale, nothing real. You're right, however. For such a thing to be available for anyone to mess with, it's much too dangerous."

Break himself learned this the hard way, which he conveniently leaves out. He hums a little instead, a hand wandering over to investigate the tray once he hears her crunching.

"I've heard it said that 'Deerington' was really the dream of a young girl. I think, perhaps, it wouldn't be wrong to say the Abyss was corrupted into much the same. I was never able to witness it properly, but -- it's supposed to be a beautiful place, an endless span of golden lights. Once it had become linked to Miss Alice, it became riddled with little pocket dimensions that looked like fanciful bedrooms full of flowers and dolls, and the rooms in their entirety might shatter along with her moods. The worst bits of it looked like a broken toybox, with rejected things strewn about willy-nilly."

He bows his head a little at her praise, as he often does with the compliments he's taking most seriously.

"Anyway, there's no need to worry about it further. The vast majority of weird business you'll see around my household is darkblood nonsense caused by excitable children. Whatever connection we all had to that place is cut off, now that we're here."

"You really have fulfilled the correct prerequisites to be here, somehow."

Lysithea shakes her head in wonderment at the thought that any world might share even a passing similarity to Deerington. The reality-manipulating dreams of a young girl in need of salvation who was somehow in control of the monsters that spawned from her nightmares. At least... this particular girl had been saved.

"I do still wonder why it is that Trench is bringing people to this place. Or the Pthumerians. Surely there must be some criteria they're looking for - something they hope that the Sleepers here can do. The only real conjecture I have is that in some way, the people here will be... helpful." This comment ends on a perhaps unsatisfying note, for the sole reason that Lysithea can't find the right word to describe what she's looking for. 'Supernaturally inclined to play a role in the betterment of the city.'

"But you're right. The focus ought to be on the creation of the life here."

"It's comforting, to think someone is directly responsible for my being here."

The idea gives Break a sense that there's some control in the universe, rather than life amounting to a deeply alarming set of random happenstances --

"It would mean there is something I could punch over all this."

Also that.

"The place does have a penchant for hero types and veterans of various sorts, though, doesn't it? The kinds of people who could 'help' better than civilians might...or perhaps it's only that we're the ones hardy enough to stand up to the trials of the place. Mm -- speaking os such things, what is Miss Lysithea's world like, for you to have been learning to sling fireballs so young?"

Break carefully asks about the world itself, rather than Lysithea's past. He has no reason to believe there was anything more terrible in her life than a push to be good at her life's purpose at a very young age, which is the sort of childhood Break himself experienced. Still, as he susses out the etiquette of interacting with people from other dimensions entirely, he's concluded that the polite thing is to give everyone an out on their personal details, just in case.

Lysithea finishes chewing thoughtfully on her cookie before she begins to formulate a response. Break is wise to frame the question on a broader scale, though Lysithea would not have shared the details of her childhood regardless - less because of any distress it might cause her and more because she found that the conversation inevitably foundered and became excruciatingly awkward for all parties involved once themes of familicide were introduced. She reserved those conversations for when Trench inevitably found a way to display her past for the world to see.

"That's very reasonable, you know." A pause. "The punching comment. I frequently fought the urge to resolve my issues with fireballs back in Deerington, though in hindsight, I shouldn't have been so restrained."

A second cookie is chosen carefully.

"My world is called Fódlan. I am told it bears a resemblance to the 'medieval times' of people who come from Earth. We have three countries, and we're perpetually on the brink of war. I hail from the Leicester Alliance, which is a loose coalition of noble families who govern the land we occupy through a ruling council. There's an enormous amount of inequality across the entire continent, and the power structure revolves around a Goddess who hasn't been seen in hundreds of years and the boons she bestowed upon specific bloodlines that only crop up in one or two individuals a generation. The Church holds enormous influence. It's all very archaic and leaves a lot to be desired.

"Up until four years ago, we were managing peace well enough - actually, the scions of all three of the ruling families were attending the same academy together, run by the acolytes of the unseen Goddess. Regrettably, Edelgard of the Adrestian Empire overthrew her father, crowned herself Emperor, and immediately engaged the Church of Seiros, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance in all-out war. She aims to conquer the continent such that she can restructure it according to her vision.

"I also attended that academy. Incidentally, the purpose was to teach promising young nobles and commoners alike the art of war. I am, if I might say, very good."

Lysithea is not humble. As far as battle goes, she finds she generally does not need to be.

Edited 2021-11-27 03:53 (UTC)

This adds some additional context as to why Break is so instinctively comfortable around Lysithea. While he's not from "Earth", his own world had medieval times of its own, and Break has noticed he feels most at ease around those who came from behind him rather than those who came after. That's not to say that he's uncomfortable around the more modern people he's befriended, but there's a great many things thoughtlessly familiar to those people that he can scarcely imagine, and one can't help but feel out of one's depth when someone else's mundane is one's own incredible.

Lysithea's summary sounds like it could very well have come out of his own world. Although, nobody of his personal acquaintance has a penchant for fireballs.

"Stunning, how easily just one person can make a mess of things for everyone." He, too, takes a cookie. This is the sort of conversation where you just have to crunch on something. "Then, I take it this Edelgard's 'vision' is either not an improvement in the slightest, or something she'll sacrifice as many innocent lives as she likes for, claiming it's for the best?"

Lysithea exhales slowly, in a manner that suggests this topic is one she has allowed to percolate through her mind over countless sleepless nights.

"To be generous to Edelgard... it is transparent to most who care to take a look that the structures serving as the foundations of our society are rotten. Fódlan truly creates needless suffering."

A few distressingly harsh chomps of the cookie follow.

"But war is war. Thousands have already died in the name of progress and revolution. And to what end? We are currently at a stalemate. All of us have too much to lose to not fight - only the powerful care for lofty ideals. The rest of us only care about our families - our friends. But truth be told..." She allows this phrase to hang for a few moments as she seeks the right words. "This will end in total conquest, one way or the other. There has been four years of all-out war. Either Edelgard succeeds - or the Holy Kingdom crushes her and annexes us, installing the might of the Church of Seiros for decades to come, or... we... somehow, miraculously win."

She laughs incredulously.

"I don't even know what we're after. We don't go much in for emperors or kings. The Alliance represents something difficult to find on Fódlan: an attempt at communication and understanding across different peoples. Not that we aren't deeply flawed in many regards."

Edited 2021-11-29 03:20 (UTC)

"War is war," Break agrees. "Of course there are times when violence is necessary for the greater good; I wouldn't wield a sword if I didn't believe such. However, to go so far as challenging three other parties straight away makes me think this woman's 'vision' is just her own quest for power with a shiny veneer painted on. At least be elegant enough to assassinate people and replace them with your pawns for a while first, you know? To go around saying 'if things are to improve, I must rule everything', what a complex she must have."

Break is intensely unimpressed by these kinds of people. It's his own servant nature, probably. Deeply devoted to those he follows if and only if he has deemed them worth following, just the barest description of Edelgard's life choices here has him half convinced he'd be out with some resistance or other, engaged in obnoxious guerrilla warfare.

"Mm."

Lysithea does not comment immediately, choosing instead to pensively polish off the cookie. She is reaching for a third when she decides that she is probably going to give herself some sort of disorder if she eats this much sugar in one go.

"I've thought about it a great deal, of course. I think I can understand how she feels. You see, we both suffer from the same... ailment." This portion is difficult to explain without growing maudlin, but Lysithea had always spoken honestly of her condition in the past. There is no reason to hide it now, after it has been resolved. "Edelgard is going to die very young. So she wants to... revolutionize the world while she still has time. It's the sort of stupid, foolhardy thing one thinks of in those circumstances."

...Why is she defending Edelgard? Stupid, really. It's almost as if she needs this war to have meaning - for it to be more than just the megalomaniacal desires of a foolish young woman that has destroyed so many lives already.

"Not that I approve of what she's doing in the slightest. You can never really understand somebody, in the end."

Ah.

That explains a few things about Lysithea, too, and Break logs this tidbit away to chew on more thoroughly later. It's also...hm, hm. It's one of those situations where this -- young woman's motive may be understandable, but it just makes him all the more determined not to excuse her.

"It was an ailment that took yours truly out as well, more or less," Break says candidly. "I suppose we should all be grateful I didn't develop it until the last year or so of my life. I was impossibly stupid all the way up until twenty-five or so."

And so it is that Break considers a young empress attempting to leave her mark on the world and thinks "well, I am much too old for this shit in paritcular." He is ascending in this moment.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Lysithea's words are gentle, though she does not waste anyone's time with empty reassurances. That had generally been her least favorite part of being chronically ill. She pauses before glancing at his sightless eyes. "Is it related to your vision at all?"

In the end, she had been transported to Trench before she could succumb to her own fate. It didn't make much difference, though - she had, perhaps, a scant five years remaining, and it was surely possible that her doom would have taken her before the war even resolved. Trench was her home now. There was no other option to consider.

"It is all impossibly stupid, isn't it? And yet the world dances at the impossibly stupid whims of the powerful. That is the irony in what Edelgard desires - a world where no one can do exactly what she has done."

Perhaps it was a sort of hypocrisy, too.

"Well. Does that satisfy your curiosity about my world, Mr. Xerxes Break?"

"Yes, just so. My whole body was withering, by the end. In this place, any lingering symptoms are more like old scars than anything else. My health is much improved, and doesn't really trouble me. However, I imagine certain things will never go away."

As usual, Break isn't actually telling the whole truth here. He was deeply wounded in the end, and died right after his last fight. It's entirely possible that injury in particular would have killed him even if he had been in fine health. Given the circumstances, though, he feels a lot better granting the kill to something he himself chose rather than a grand idiot not much better than he himself was.

"It does, it does. You have my thanks for indulging me, Miss Lysithea."

"Old scars..."

That made sense. If he had a new body, then naturally the illness would not have carried over and any degeneracy suffered by his previous body was no longer applicable. But she frowns, suddenly - she has realized something.

"But you're still blind..."

Perhaps it wasn't worth investigating. Break was still blind, and she... she was still silver-haired and rosy-eyed and frail and frequently short of breath. Somehow, it felt as if there were a contradiction here.

"Well, no thanks needed. It's nice to talk about the past sometimes - even if you know that's where it must stay. There are some things I miss about my world. Some things I'll always miss."

"Well, yes. I've the scars from my wounds, too, so -- it's not that weird, right?"

There's only so much healing you can do from something like this, or so he thinks. Honestly, he's grateful to feel as well as he does, even if he is very much past his prime. But Lysithea's words will plant a seed of doubt later, when one of the weeper mushrooms restores his sight for a few days. That won't make any sense at all, once Break settles down to think about it.

"...mm. That's true anytime one moves from one phase of life to the next, I think. If we're permitted to grow old here, no doubt we'll be reminiscing about how different the Boardwalk was in 'the old days', and this or that particular October festival, and little shops come and gone."

"Hrm."

If these are truly newly synthesized bodies (and she has seen the squids - they certainly are), then they must find their shape through the memories or expectations of the mind. That being the case... Deprived of her Crests and of the foul magic that had stunted her life, there was no reason other than her own expectations that her hair and eyes remain depigmented.

She will reflect on it further at a later date.

"Very philosophical. We should probably learn how to actually live in this town before we start growing nostalgic for it." She pauses. "On the subject of little shops, though..."

She genuinely does need to do some prep work for tomorrow's orders.

"Thank you for inviting me over, Xerxes. It was a pleasure to meet some of your friends."

"I'm pleased that you came."

He means that, and the smile he summons up for her is an honest and gentle one. Break has no reason to have her over for his own sake when he's at her place several times a week. But Lysithea is closer to his kids in age than she is to him, and he'd been hoping they might get on well. Learning that the pale Alice in particular is talking freely with strangers is all it takes to make him feel justified in that wish.

"You're certain you need to leave?" he asks, knowing full well that she does and why, but manners are manners. "We've guest rooms, if you'd rather."

"I'm afraid I have orders bright and early tomorrow. No rest for the weary, you understand."

Lysithea smiles as well, and though these occasions are more frequent than they were in Deerington, they are still rare enough to be a surprising sight. She had enjoyed herself here more than she had expected.

Making friends was not one of her talents, but... there was perhaps room to practice.

"Thanks for the offer, though. Perhaps another time. Have a good rest of the night - you have a lot of lively companions."

And with that, Lysithea takes her leave.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

House Log 002: Be our guest

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

no subject