Xerxes Break (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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deercountry2021-11-05 03:47 pm
payingfordeliverance) wrote in deercountry2021-11-05 03:47 pm
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.
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.
no subject
It's easy to love a prince.
no subject
Vyng holds onto that ugly sentiment for a moment. It never makes it past his lips.]
Because they have money?
[That's not it. He knows that's not it. But that's the thought that clumsily replaces the first.]
no subject
[The longer this drags on without Vyng catching his meaning, the heavier a weight seems to settle on his chest. Abruptly, he finds the thought of needing a drink flicker into his awareness, and that's where he realizes it's time to just rip off the bandaid and get it over with.]
She loved him, even though he was cursed. And then the curse goes away, like a reward. Happily ever after.
no subject
Was his beast form really the curse, though? It felt more metaphorical to me. Like it was this...I don't know, manifestation of his own self-hatred.
no subject
[Qrow has always loved people despite his curse, after all. Fully aware that there is a deep selfishness in wanting not to be alone.]
I mean, I get the point. The whole, outside matching the inside thing is what the witch was going for or whatever, so it breaks once he gets over himself.
[He rolls around an unpopped kernel between his fingers. This is stupid, getting all worked up over a children's movie. Embarrassing.]
But it's real convenient, huh? She falls in love with this person even though it's complicated and hard, and suddenly all the hard parts are sorted out. No reason for anyone to come at them with torches and pitchforks again. Everything becomes perfect for her, because she's so selfless to love someone unlovable.
no subject
She didn't fall for the Beast until he started working on his own shit...and we both agree he was hotter with fur anyway. Which is just a hornier way of saying the Beast's problem wasn't that he was unloveable. The problem was that he didn't love himself. Fuck the villagers with their torches and pitchforks — they're just freaked out by somebody they don't understand.
[But okay, yeah, he sees where Qrow is coming from in all this. In a children's story, all the loose ends are tied into neat little bows. Some happy, some sad, some bittersweet. But still definitive, either way. Life, on the other hand, is far messier than that.]
Let's say the Beast doesn't change back, though. What do you think happens next?
no subject
But Vyng has posed the question, and after a moment, Qrow rolls a shoulder in a mild shrug.]
It's not as flashy as a big wedding, but I dunno, seems like it'd be kinda nice if their happy ending was just...theirs. Staying together because they found something that worked, just the two of them and maybe her dad, too.
[He scowls a tiny bit.]
Tell you one thing, I sure as hell wouldn't invite the people who tried to murder my fiancé to the wedding.
[There's several things that are funny about this statement, but let's pretend for the sake of argument that Qrow is someone who would be down for a Wholeass Wedding in the first place.]
no subject
[But since they're kicking around hypothetical Beauty and the Beast fanfic, why stop there? Vyng scratches his chin in thought.]
You think there might be other Beasts out in their world? Maybe they could make a support group. Carve out their own little community. Safety in numbers, you know?
no subject
[He'd still hold the grudge, though, he thinks. As much as Qrow has always wished he could stop being cursed, he doesn't know if he could feel okay with anyone changing their mind about him only because he stopped being a problem. But that's why he's not a Disney Princess, he supposes.]
I dunno about other Beasts, though. He doesn't need to meet people like him to have people.
[This metaphor is growing thinner by the moment, good lord.]
no subject
No? What do you think he needs, then?
no subject
[The only way he is able to say this at all is through this layer of fiction; Qrow would rather pretend he doesn't have needs at all.]
Who don't care what he is, or if he's worth knowing, or how hard he makes it, and just do it anyway.
[He flinches almost imperceptibly once it's out of his mouth. That's a little more telling than Qrow would've liked, even with this sort of double conversation they're having. Ironically, for all alcohol is supposed to lower your inhibitions, Qrow actually finds it harder to hide all his vulnerable places, now that he's consistently sober.
Feeling uncomfortably exposed but not wanting to admit it and back off this line of conversation, he grabs the popcorn bowl and starts munching, perhaps a little too intensely. This is fine. He just wants popcorn, okay.]
no subject
[At the end of the day, that's all his own rag-tag family of misfits wanted. No grand aspirations of saving the world or making a name for themselves. Just a safe place to eat and bed down...and somebody who will accept them with open arms. For Billie and Tuck, those things are worth more than all the gold in the world. (Which is usually why Vyng ends up managing the money, even if he's only really stingy about it with Perell.)
He's not really sure what Qrow has to be embarrassed about. Not in front of the people at this party, anyway.]
We're social creatures. I think most people want that, deep down.
[As somebody who eats his feelings, Vyng recognizes the aggressive popcorn munching for what it is. Gently, he offers some water to help wash it down.]
no subject
...Yes, he will take that water, thank you, now let us pretend that did not just happen. Honestly, he's always embarrassed about acknowledging his desire to be needed and loved, especially around the people who love him. It feels a little too much like tempting fate, to make the universe aware of everything he still has to lose in this life.]
Most people don't inspire torches and pitchforks.
[In case Vyng was wondering if he was still hung up on that: he is.]
no subject
Maybe not. But those mobber-fuckers can go to hell. Because family — real family — sticks by you. Through thick and thin, torches and pitchforks, no matter what.
[An unwavering conviction bolsters his words. This isn't just cheap talk for him. Perell was one of the world's most-wanted men back home. His darker tendencies resulted in Vyng's death. But they would all risk everything to keep him safe.]
no subject
No matter what.
It's an unspoken thing, even in his own home. Raven's name is even more infrequently uttered than Summer's. For a not-insignificant part of Yang's life, there was a concerted effort to act as though she had never existed in the first place. Family should stick by you, no matter what, but sometimes they left. Sometimes they had different definitions of family to begin with.
Months ago, Break had said to him, if it's for the kids, a guy ends up doing most anything, right? Qrow would lay down his life a thousand times over for his family, kill anyone who would dare to bring them harm. He does not disbelieve they would do the same for him, but the scars of Raven's departure have never quite faded, either--not when he's been left behind so many times since. So to hear it like this when he's feeling vulnerable after this silly kid's movie is kind of a lot. He takes a moment to breathe through it, then tries for a tired smile.]
Yeah, you're right. No matter what.
[He sets down the popcorn bowl, then, and gets to his feet.]
Y'know...think I'm all movied out, for now. Catch you later?
no subject
When he finally stands, Vyng pulls the abandoned bowl into his lap.]
Sure. [Said while scooping a handful of popcorn into his mouth.] This was fun. We should do it again sometime.