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
Just being happy and no longer being alone. .. This girl is right, isn't she? Isn't that what Ange has always found the important part of her decision to go to Trench, rather than return to her own world? Because here she is happy. Exactly because she is not alone.
It shouldn't be too surprising that there are other people who apparently have similar circumstances, like this girl here.
Slowly the paper Ange is folding is starting to take shape under her folds, starting to look like a butterfly.
"I think we must have a pretty low bar when it comes to happiness, that we'd find it so easily in a place filled with crappy, dangerous things."
no subject
The shade of blue Alice used made the golden cracks pop out all the more, each swirl and line slowly turning in to some floral pattern. Repeating them in circles, an even spirals while trying to not let them run in to each other in a way that muddied it.
"Means one must at times make themselves more dangerous to keep that bit of happiness, I think," a will to fight and make those choices, to stay and keep what was found. "Perhaps it is a low bar, but it doesn't make it any less meaningful. To have something after wanting it for however long."
no subject
Perhaps it's the agreement that makes her silent for a moment. Still just folding her paper, until it's fully in the shape of a butterfly, and then silently setting it down on the table. Ange's gaze instead flutters up to look at the work Alice is doing on the skull, silently observing the almost hypnotic patterns being painted.
"Can you do that?" Ange finally asks, before clarifying: "Make yourself dangerous, that is."
On one hand, Alice seems really young. On the other hand, Ange has definitely seen people who looked younger like this and who were more powerful than her. So she's willing to believe any answer she would be given here.
But the safety of
kidspeople younger than her will always be near and dear to Ange's heart, even if she won't admit to it so easily. So she can't help but ask, while she's thinking about it now.no subject
She allowed the skull to float then, hands still held below it as it bobbed a little in place. "I can, even if I do not wish to hurt anyone anymore-" If it came down to it, became necessary, she could be the cause of pain, "-to protect this newfound freedom, and those I care for. I'll learn to be dangerous in the ways I lack, to better prepare to fight."
Here there was no Abyss, not sentience that wanted to keep and protect her in it's terrible lonely ways. She was fully in control of herself, but even then this place could possibly change that for a time- if anything she heard held true for here at least.
Eyes lifted then, even if there was still a smile, that skull hovering inches above her hands.
"I don't want to be alone again."
no subject
After all, nothing about what the other says is really unreasonable. She's pretty sure that everyone in this place wants to protect the people they care for. Even if that means having to fight sometimes, or having to hurt someone or something else.
And the fact that the other seems to display at least some powers means that there's a start - though Ange isn't too sure how much that would work out for Alice in a real fight.
But...
"I don't think you'll be alone in making sure of that anyway. That old man," Break, she's talking about Break, "seems pretty fond of all of you here. I'm sure he'll do his best to make sure nothing happens to you guys either."
no subject
There was something far older to her eyes as well for that moment, no less of a glow, as pupils narrowed to slits before rounding out to normal again.
That was Break's business of course- "He is the one I trust the most here, outside of my sister and Oz, because I know so well how hard he can and will fight. He has so much trouble in letting others help shoulder what he takes up.
"He needs people, and I think he's finding good ones even here."
no subject
Ange stares at the other when she spots that look in Alice's eyes, her gaze lingering even as the eyes seem to go completely back to normal. Her brain is racing at a million thoughts a minute over here, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together.
Except she has so few pieces that she can't quite complete the puzzle of the odd, odd world all of them must come from. It's clear to Ange that the girl sitting here at the table with her isn't just any ordinary girl, and that's even aside from the skull painting habit. Something about the way the girl speaks and that look in her eyes remind Ange just a little bit of the witches from her own world. And her sister - that's got to be the other Alice, considering how they look alike, and how they share a name. Except that girl did seem genuinely young when Alice talked to her before.
So many questions and mysteries.
Ange picks up the paper butterfly she folded, seeming to focus on it for a moment, before it shifts into a being of pure light and magic, a butterfly made up out of golden light that starts to flutter and then fly around on its own.
"You sound very fond of him," Ange notes, still watching the butterfly. "It must be nice for you guys to all be here together." Since they can rely on each other, despite being relatively new to this place. They knew right away that there were people around they could trust.
no subject
"More fond than he may let himself believe," and not as twisted as it had once been. "He is one of the only people to ever keep their promise to me," and what that promise was? Well, let him give that if he so wishes. "And though he may doubt himself, he is by far one of the most noble and kind of people that I'm glad to know I can trust."
Alice knew he still carried fear of her, and she couldn't blame him, but she still could coax a real smile out of him on days it was needed. That was enough. "Kindness amongst all the cruelty and horror is something to keep hold of."
no subject
At the very least Ange is very much tactful enough to not ask what the promise was. If it was something the other wanted to share, she would have - and it's not really an important enough detail here to Ange in the first place, anyway. No need to dig into that and be all rude about it.
"Be careful with saying so much nice stuff about him. Before you know it, he might barge in here just because he sensed it in the air and had to deny all of it."
Because even if Ange might not know the man nearly as well as Alice does, this sure is a habit she has caught onto at this point. It doesn't take much.
no subject
Oh, it was funny on the surface level and she had seen to and through his very core as a person. Knew why, but sometimes you had to focus and poke just a little to distract from that carried self-loathing that Xerxes Break wore as a cloak, as dark and tattered as any of the black clothing he moped around in and favored at times. Wounds and thoughts carried as much of a shield as it was a weight; a burden.
"Have to be sneaky about it at times- like letting him think he's allowing you to drag him around for your sake," and it partially was. Something Alice so very much enjoyed, but- "While sneaking treats and things he enjoys his way."
no subject
It's an easy observation. It's something Ange could have logically already known, considering they're from the same world, and considering the way they talk about each other.. but what Alice is saying here only drives the point home further, she thinks.
This isn't just the sort of thing anyone would say about another person. It's like Alice can see through him entirely.
And that's not easy, considering the fact that Break - in Ange's opinion - sure seems like a guy who likes playing his cards very close to his chest, despite outward appearances.
"Maybe I should start taking a few of your tips. Cute girls like us can't let old men get the overhand, after all."
no subject
This was important.
"He gets so terribly gloat-y when he has the upper-hand, after all." All part of a game in his mind, and in some ways getting him to that point was- "It's the best when you know he's playing right in to your hand when he starts doing it, however. Delighted by himself, oh yes he's going to get himself a nice treat. Look at how cute and darling you are, oh ho ho ho ho~" Laughing a little to herself because near the end she'd attempted a little impression and, well.
It was a little ridiculous, but attempt and point was placed up all the same.
"One day, maybe, we won't have to be so sneaky about it."