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
"...is -- is that how one prevents injury when falling in Remnant? One shoots the ground first to show it what's what? Ground can't kill you if you've killed it first -- hey!"
This last is aimed at Baltus, who has apparently concluded that Break deserves Qrow-flavored bullshit in particular and smoked himself elegantly down to the ground in a waft. Break is now abandoned upon the roof. There is now limited time before he decides to just jump out of spite, and the clock is ticking.
no subject
"It's not about shooting the ground, it's about slowing down your fall so you don't--"
Ah. There's Baltus. And Break, looking like he might jump anyway. Qrow could catch him, but he's feeling stubborn about this. So he flies back up as a bird, lightly touching down beside Break, and a mischief in his expression that Break can't see but can probably feel radiating off him at this point.
"Come on, hop on my back. It'll be fun."
(It might be lowkey a disaster; but that's fine, if it goes wrong, he has a backup plan)
no subject
"This is not the circumstance in which I usually hear that sentiment," he snipes instead, a rough equivalent. He can absolutely tell he is now being pranked, but he is Xerxes Break, and if he decides he did not enjoy the experience of said prank he will simply pay it back tenfold later on. It is the Xerxes Break way. To that end, he reaches out until the back of his hand find Qrow's arm, and then turns his hand to pat-pat-pat up to the other's shoulder and --
...the hand pauses.
"Are. Are you not wearing a coat?" Break asks, thoroughly diverted. "Have you been up here this whole time without a coat? Aren't you freezing?"
no subject
It is at this point that Break's question registers, and Qrow looks legitimately, genuinely confused for a moment, before he remembers that of course, Break isn't from Remnant.
"Nah, my Aura's got it."
And with how relatively peaceful Trench tends to be, he could probably last days before he ever even felt a nip.
no subject
Now that he has Qrow in hand, Break pauses to toss his cane down to the ground, so Baltus can keep it for him.
"So what, winter arrives and you needn't bother with getting all bundled up and wearing squishy scarves and having a reason to look forward to a fire?" he continues, honestly more offended about this than the idea of aiding one's falls with a shotgun. "That sounds terrible. How does one appreciate coming in out of the cold if one doesn't bother being cold in the first place?"
The first time they met -- properly, at least -- Break patted around to sort out where Qrow was in the blackness that he lives in and wound up grabbing his entire face. It goes better this time as Break latches on, moves behind him, and then slides up against him with an easy thump, arms carefully wrapping around Qrow's shoulders and not his neck, even though Break would guess his
If Qrow is thinking perhaps that Break has experience in draping himself on people obnoxiously, he is correct. He is not shy about his personal space and in this case he has been invited, so despite his ranting, it's almost companionable, the way he barnacles right on. Probably this isn't really a surprise, given how openly cuddly Baltus is.
no subject
Which is to say that yes, he doesn't bother with scarves or bundling up, because that's also less aerodynamic than he needs to be for his fighting style. Not to even mention Clover "Guns Out Regardless Of The Sun's Status" Ebi. Here in Trench, though? He doesn't really need his Aura for much, on most days. It's strange, after a lifetime of being on his guard to defend himself. Maybe not unwelcome? He's not sure yet.
Break climbs up on his back, and Qrow makes sure he's secure before he hops off the roof. The fall is faster with the added weight, but Harbinger is out moments later, shotgun blasts slowing them down while also changing their trajectory in the direction of the tree. He hooks the branch just as well this time as before, but ah -- Misfortune strikes, and after a truly awful cracking noise, the branch snaps under their weight.
Qrow swears loudly, but he did have a backup plan in case anything went sideways, so this is the moment where he turns into a bird -- and Break may be forgiven for thinking in the moment that Qrow has left him to fall alone, but instead he flies under Break, close enough to the ground that he can shift back into a man and neatly catch the other man in his arms.
...Or at least, that was the plan. But Break is somewhat heavier than a teenage girl and the force with which Break slams into him ends up bowling him over and instead they end up in a pile on the ground. Dammit, that was almost cool.
"....Not quite how I pictured that going down."
no subject
It's in the way his whole body goes tense against Qrow's as he finds himself spinning over and over with no way to orient himself, because he can't see; the closest recent sensation was being thoroughly beaten up by the ocean when he first arrived. The way he sucks in a sharp breath as Qrow literally vanishes out of his arms, leaving him scrambling frantically at air. Baltus launches into action to cushion him then, only to shift back into transparent smoke as Qrow returns and let him be the one to break the fall, because he deserves to about as much as Break deserves Qrow honestly. And then, once they've made their deeply unfortunate landing, it's in the way his hands get the closest part of Qrow in a vice grip and he clings, trying to sort out just where he is in the world.
Baltus sticks his snoot right in Break's face immediately, which helps. Slowly, little by little, he relaxes. But he does not bother to get up from Qrow as he buries his fingers in the fur at his omen's ears, and his heart is thundering against his ribs.
"...that could have gone very badly for you," he says, once he can trust his voice. "Young Oscar dropped 'Uncle Break' on me this evening, as I predicted. If you'd killed me I bet he'd have made a sad face at you."
Truly, there is little Break can think of that is a better threat than sad sparklechild faces.
no subject
Still, he isn't particularly in a rush to shove Break off of him, especially since he feels a little bad when Break clings onto his arm like he's the last piece of driftwood for a thousand miles. It's a little bit awkward, but he rests on hand on Break's back, in quiet reassurance that he is not in fact falling anymore.
It's when the other man speaks that he shifts slightly, and his voice is surprisingly soft. He does not tease Break in return, nor does he groan exaggeratedly at Oscar having adopted Break already--though it does pose a mild Concern as to just how deep Oscar thinks their relationship goes, at this point. Instead:
"I wouldn't have let anything happen to you. Kinda messed it up at the end, but I did have a backup plan before I ever jumped."
He'd had a few, in fact. If it had come down to it, he would've taken the impact on his own Aura, though he does not admit that out loud. It's a little too embarrassing. Even saying this much is kind of a lot for him. A beat passes, and then, the confidence he has in that remark kind of crumples a bit, and there's the tiniest note of insecurity when he adds, just to be sure--
"...You're not hurt anywhere, right?"
no subject
He hesitates, having very nearly spoken without thinking. Break isn't actually sure he wants to admit to it, how much it helps to have that hand on his back, filling the world out for him. It's decidedly a weakness, and so of course he hates it, doesn't really want anybody to know.
But at the same time, if anybody's going to know, Qrow feels like the one person who could. Maybe he's just got Reim on the mind still, from their talk earlier. Or maybe it's because the sorts of conversations he has with Qrow are the kind he really only could have with Reim at home, and in that way he's filling one of Break's most horrid empty spots. He did admit it to Reim once, after a nightmare about drowning, go figure.
Maybe it's better. Because maybe they will fight together again? No. That's true, but...because it should have been fun for Break too. He should be up and prattling and he isn't and he didn't expect this instead. That's a little sad.
"...I used to do such things, you know? Flipping about, propelling myself off of walls and the like," unable to keep the note of wistfulness from creeping into his tone. "Since losing my sight, I forget where I am sometimes just sitting still, you know? Even so, I'd forgotten that...such things aren't fun, anymore. They once were."
If he'd been on top of things enough to think that jumping off of a roof with Qrow would cause him to remember those long, horrible moments of panic as the ocean turned him this way and that, he never would have allowed it. Maybe that's part of why it feels better to admit it, too. It's not Qrow's fault.
no subject
It makes sense. Qrow has gotten so used to the fact that Break is able to keep pace with him in things that sometimes he forgets entirely that Break is blind. It just seemed to make sense, after these past few months, that of all the things Break was able to do alongside him, this wouldn't be any different. But then -- this is something he needed to rely solely on Qrow's ability for, wasn't it? It is not as though he could perform a landing strategy of his own without being able to see where to go, even if he could fight and maneuver as well as anyone else. There's a slight flicker of guilt for disappearing under him at that moment too, even though he knows that it was the least dangerous approach to breaking the other man's fall.
"...Sorry," he says finally, with a sigh. "For all the trouble."
Break may not see it as Qrow's fault, but it's easy to get down on himself about it. It's because of his stupid baby tantrum that Break ended up climbing his own roof to find him, and then jumping off of it with him. They were having a good time talking, too, until he had to go and ruin it with his stupid bright idea.
He doesn't take his hand off Break's back, much as he kind of wants to run off right now. That's how this whole situation started in the first place. So Qrow simply just lies there on the ground and waits for Break to be comfortable getting up from him, but he's also gone ... somewhat noticeably quiet.
no subject
At length, once he's feeling a little less shaky, Break sits up. Baltus remains under his hands, his anchor as always.
"I miss trouble," he says. "Did I tell you? I got a hold of these -- weird goggle things that let me see, just for a night, and so I was able to go to the big October festival after all. They gave me far too terrible a headache to be anything I'd use for real and they had creepy blood magic on them besides, but...it was fun. I had fun."
Leaning forward, he presses his forehead against his omen's. Probably it makes a lot more sense now, just why these two are so cuddly.
"If ever I figure out some other way to see, even for a little while -- we should try this again."
no subject
Instead, he sits up as well, silently beside him for a minute before pushing himself up onto his knees and to his feet from there.
"...Yeah. Absolutely. It's a promise."
Maybe it's not much, for something that isn't guaranteed to ever happen, but--Qrow Branwen keeps his promises. At the very, very least.
He reaches down, then, to offer Break a hand, brushing against his wrist to signal its presence. They really should get back in soon, after all.
Shall we wrap?
With a grateful sigh, Break accepts Qrow's hand and pulls himself up. Baltus lopes off and comes back with Break's cane, which he puts into Break's hand for him. A few pats to get stray leaves and grass off his bum, and he's ready to go.
"Then, I'll look forward to it." Fools can't help but hope. "In the meantime, I've a warm drink waiting in the kitchen."