I was rinsing rice. I know you don't strain cooked rice, and doing it with your bare hands? That's ridiculous. It was also once. One time!

[Paul's hands flutter illustratively through the air as he offers up this smiling explanation...or elaborate cover-up of his rice-related crimes.]

[When Paul first put together what was going on in a burst of sound, light, and projectiles, a person might have been able to capture a glimpse of an unusual sight: the young Duke Atreides blinking and flat-footed, entirely disarmed.

But Paul is nothing if not adaptable. It doesn't take long before he has evaluated the altered environmental conditions, identified new key strategic objectives, and formulated a revised plan of attack for the evening's festivities.

This is why he is currently accepting a shot of tequila from a skeleton with a blindfold pulled down around his neck and the first buttons of his carefully pressed black formal shirt undone. It's not his first, but he trusts in the calibrated metabolic efficiency of his liver. He raises the shot glass in a toast to the next person he makes eye contact with, then gestures with it to the illustration of the sandworm he's sunk another tooth into.]

They're called Shai-Hulud, on Arrakis. They're fascinating lifeforms.

[His blue eyes blaze with the relentless enthusiasm of someone bearing great and terrible trivia, a myriad of factoids unfolding out endlessly into the dark oceans of the evening yet-to-come. Then his face breaks into a grin, and he downs the shot.]

Your turn. Pin the great beast of the desert, if you dare!

[The resident solemn arboreal memorials (Paul Atreides and Harrowhark Nonagesimus, respectively) quiet consultation and brief adjournment to the upstairs takes place mid-evening, and may be missed by most party-goers. Uniform black is functionally camouflage in the house that necromancy built, after all.

Paul's return about half an hour later is harder to miss. It's not that he's departed from the monochrome, but how he's rearranged it. Paul comes down the stairs with his blue-green eyes lined lightly in night, his formal button-down exchanged for a t-shirt sized to fit loosely on someone shorter and slighter than he is and composed of some slightly shiny dark fabric that had slipped over Paul's fingers like water as he rifled shamelessly through his bunkmate's belongings. Under his silver-buttoned black vest, it fits Paul less loosely.

These cosmetic differences are slight compared to the object of his original departure. Paul smiles at a tilted, dreamy slant as he slips back into the party with his four new bone studs, two to an earlobe, still red and aching in their newness.

His ultimate destination is the impromptu dance floor, but he takes his time getting there, and he may or may not be angling his head with a certain attention-seeking precision.]

[As the evening winds down, Paul is gauzily intrigued to discover the limits of his body's processing capacity. This is to say that he finds himself sprawled loosely on a couch with his eyeliner smudged, his hair hopelessly tousled, and a gentle warmth perfused through his blood.

In spice-heightened empathetic awareness, his breath slows to the rhythms of the tidal whispers of feeling in the house. He looks at the ceiling through half-closed green eyes full of drifting contemplation.]

Do you feel that?

[He doesn't turn his head to ask. He knows who's there, an individual presence close enough to gleam even in a sea of soft light.]

[Please feel free to reach out to me at terriblepurpose or via DM to come up with alternative starters if you would like to!]