o5 . bone house mingle!

[necrolord]

Who: necrolord and CR!
What: Several teens move into the horrible necromancy mansion, and sometimes they bring their friends.
When: Early March.
Where: Bone House in Gaze.

Content Warnings: Skeletons, discussions of death and grief, violence where marked, vomit where marked. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

Comments

[justoscar]

[Oh. He was being treated like a kid.

This was new, and Oscar momentarily had no idea what to do with this. Few had bothered treating him like a kid since he left his Aunt's farm-- and the normalcy of it was almost enough to distract from the eyes that seemed darker than eternity.

Almost.]

I've been here since the dream collapsed, sir.

[He said-- with 'Sir' being used as a coldly neutral honorific until he could get a proper read on this man.]

In total, I've been away from the world I called 'home' for almost two years.

[necrolord]

[ He takes the 'sir' with a nod of acknowledgment, apparently content with it. ]

You're one of our veterans of the dream, then. Do you think it's given you a leg up here in Trench?

[ (He sees the prosthetic beneath the clothes, and doesn't mean it as an unkind joke. Maybe as the set-up for one, if Oscar wants to take it. Regardless, he adds:) ]

I've heard it said the dream was even more chaotic than this.

[justoscar]

[The comment had him making more note of his gait and pacing. Although it had been just about a year and he had adapted enough to compensate for general matters, he still found the extra work tiresome after a while and the effects of it tended to show in a certain unsteadiness in his movements. Straightening his posture and tugging at his shirt compulsively, Oscar tried to school himself into a state of apparent confidence before replying.]

I arrived there when it was just starting to fall apart. Toward the end, it was constant chaos.

[He sighed, glancing briefly towards the window. The fractures in the sky that hinted at places beyond their ken was hard to forget, even after so many months had passed.]

Saying it gave me an advantage is kinda stupid. Does living in a warzone give you an advantage for a quieter life in squid land?

[necrolord]

[ Kinda stupid, says the boy, which would be taken as grave insult by anyone within earshot. Good news they're alone, then: God just quirks an eyebrow at Oscar over his shoulder. ]

Well, consider me impressed anyone can take Trench as a quieter life. It's been an adjustment. Two years must be a long time, under these conditions.

[ Two years is the span of a breath. But he can respect two weird years. ]

[justoscar]

[Even if they were insulted, somehow Oscar probably wouldn't care. Unfortunately, being shot and left for dead by someone whose opinions you were trying to manipulate change for the better tended to make it harder to care about the opinions of complete and utter strangers.

He was a teenager, and Trench was his last chance to enjoy that time.]

Well. It's not like we've gotta look over our shoulders for monsters everytime someone gets upset. Sure, the squid thing is weird and the mushrooms get a little boring, but we're next to the ocean.

I didn't grow up near the ocean. It's pretty cool for me.

[necrolord]

[ To this he tips a head in agreement, good-natured. ]

It's been a long time since I lived by the sea. [ There is something there beneath his tone, some deeper meaning to a long time. ] I even have the luck to keep a ship in harbor. From what I hear, you may have met her under the good Captain Amarande.

[ Always a good topic, the boat. He's glad to chat about the boat. That can carry them to the kitchen, where he can trade the boy off to Paul. The skeletons make themselves visible, now, as they attend to dinner: the table, the cooking, the arrangement. Insofar as Paul, having issued the invitation, permits assistance in his solemnly-undertaken task of providing social niceties.

God sits down to dinner with them, of course. It's nice to have one without Kaworu heaving up saltwater and Paul still miserably aglow with radiation. Nice to make small talk and hand plates around with comparably little tension as before.

Comparably. ]

[justoscar]

Ah. So you're the guy who owns the spooky ship we rammed.

[He grinned-- a youthful, wholesome, even cheesy expression that didn't wholly hide his unease. The ship had indeed been spooky, in mild terms. A simple farm lad, he had always believed that the dead should stay dead...

They got to the table and started with the meal, the unspoken tension distracting enough for Oscar that it felt strange to try to crack jokes. Even with Paul and Gideon there... Something just didn't feel right.]

So. Uh. Why skeletons, anyway?

[He asked, hoping to start conversation. Anything to get people talking-- and distract him from the buzzing he had to actively block from overwhelming his Paleblood senses. ]

[necrolord]

[ He returns the grin with his own little smile. It doesn't quite reach his black eyes; those remain somehow faintly tired, faintly distant. ]

It's the magic of home. I take it some folks here are accustomed to power of all kinds... where we come from is a little simpler. Everything boils down to life, death, and soul. Necromancy isn't a school of magic, it's the umbrella category for schools of magic.

A little spooky if you're not used to it, maybe. But it grows on you.

[justoscar]

[Cold, black eyes that were the same sheen as the ichor that flowed through the veins of all of the Grimm of Remnant; Darkness incarnate.

Oscar swallowed and looked away, playing with the food on his plate.]

I... see. That's interesting.

[A shrug.]

Magic isn't a thing where I'm from-- [That was a bold-faced lie, but it was also the common belief throughout Remnant.] So, I'm still learning about it. We've got powers connected to our souls, though? With training, anyone can shield or support healing themselves. Some people even unlock their own special powers.

[necrolord]

Shielding and healing. [ He echoes this softly to himself, and it's hard to say whether he sounds wistful in the sense of a man amazed, or in the sense of a man wryly amused. ] I'll guess the special powers don't usually wind up bone-themed.

[ So many worlds with magic, and so few worlds with necromancy. ]

[justoscar]

That depends on the person. Everyone's got a different personality, and no one really gets the same version of any kind of power.

[He shrugged. Auras and Semblances were ordinary concepts in Remnant, but they were just one part of the equation.]

One of the most famous warriors still alive back home calls herself the Grimm Reaper, and when she was active in the field she wore a mask that looked like a skull.

[necrolord]

[ He nods in open appreciation. ]

Fantastic choice. Great style. With us it's about the same, but with more real skulls.

[justoscar]

[hm. Oscar frowned over his dinner, nervous about what to ask but knowing he needed to keep the conversation going. It was only polite...]

Um. Sure, animal skulls are fine. I've heard of people deep in the woods who like to collect them-- and that they actually bury the parts that they want cleaned for months and months before digging it up. All that's left by that point is dirt and bone, so they polish it from there for their shelves.