Birthday Party

[peripheries]

Who: Paul Atreides and all his CR
What: Throwing everyone’s favorite Duke a surprise birthday party
When: Forwarded dated to April 1st
Where: Bone House in Gaze

Content Warnings: Drinking, underage drinking, drugs (both fictional and not), drawings of space worms, skeletons, will add further warnings if necessary



When you arrive at the house in Gaze, (affectionately known as Bone House), a skeleton will open the door and offer to take your coat if you have one. No need to take your shoes off or anything!

The large house has been decorated with black streamers and confetti. In the entryway and hung on the railing to the second floor that overlooks the entrance to the great room are large banners that say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL” (though one looks like it used to say “Jaune” but was just painted over? Whatever).

In the Living Room, there is a large board and various colored markers for people to write messages to the birthday boy. There is also a table full of bottled water and various couches, chairs, and beanbags to collapse into if the party gets to be too much and one needs a quiet place to rest or a place to chill if you’ve imbibed too much… well, whatever you had.

It is also where all the food and drinks are.

There’s an extremely large charcuterie board with the usual meats, cheeses, and olives as well as an extremely eccentric collection of snacks ranging from individual sized Cheez-it bags, to humungous bags of Doritos and salty chips, as well as nearly every kind of Oreo one can imagine.

There are also various cakes, all angel food. Some are misshapen, some have an attempt at being frosted with whipped cream and fruit, one even says “Happy Birthday Ka-” before that was hastily covered with a bunch of strawberries jammed really close together.

At the island, a skeleton is playing bartender. Surprisingly, it can seem to take and understand individual orders, but there’s always a constant flow of tequila shots being made and sent out to the great hall to be served by another skeleton.

And, no, of course it’s not going to check your age to see if you’re legal. It’s a skeleton. Why would it care?

The Great Hall is the center of activity and where everyone is encouraged to mingle and have fun. There is a skeleton on the grand piano in the corner gleefully playing piano covers of the hits from the Shrek Soundtrack with the occasional cover of “DaRude’s Sandstorm” when it has another one to help out.

In another corner, on huge piece of paper that spans nearly 6ft wide and 8ft tall is drawing of an Arrakis sandworm and it’s giant maw. The game is Pin the Tooth on the Sandworm and it’s… very easy… because the worm maw is most of the board. Even if the skeleton spins you as you’re blindfolded, it’s pretty hard to lose. If you manage to do it, which is likely, the skeleton running the game will award you a tequila shot! If you lose, the skeletons will award you a tequila shot (but it’s rail).

(It’s a drinking game, isn’t the point to drink?)

There’s also a table that has many candelabras on it, numbering up to seventeen. They’re still lit and burning even though there is a sign that says “make a wish!” even though it almost looks like a shrine for the dead.

…It’s maybe clear that the concept of “birthday candles” was greatly misunderstood.

There is also a skeleton dealing out small doses of “Spice”, a psychoactive drug straight outta the Duneverse. However, you must check in with this Skeleton to get a dose. There will be no “permanently melting your brain with ancestral memories” at this party!

Teacher’s/God’s/Jod’s/The Emperor Undying’s study, adjacent to the main hall, is closed and locked. Though, the lock is fairly easy to break if someone really wanted to get in. There’s not even skeletons guarding.

That said, many things are warded with eerie runes of blood and bone.

So, fuck around and find out.

The upstairs is generally off limits. Party goers can climb up the stairs, and it’s encouraged if they want to look over the Great Room from above, but all of the bedrooms are carefully guarded by more skeletons who will SCREAM VERY LOUDLY if you try to enter and will become hostile if done by force.

Of course, this won’t happen if you are with someone who lives in the house.

Enjoy the party! Mingle away!

((ooc: if you have any questions or anything, please hit me up at worldtype)) or via PM.))

Birthday Board | At the Party | The Morning After | IC Party Games | Spice Dealer

Comments

bone head;

[laniidae]

[Contrary to...pretty much every other formal engagement she's attended since her arrival in Trench, Renfri does not turn up to the Birthday Rager™ wearing her spangled crimson gown from Madam Generosity. She'd been given ample warning about this little affair, and based on what Kaworu had described, she'd been able to make a reasonably fair guess about what type of tone the get-together was going to strike, and so when she does turn up, it proves to be a surprisingly rare moment where she actually comes off comfortable in her own skin.

Everything about her reads as "bandit queen", and it's all there in a single glance — comfortably fitted trousers, supportive leather that gives the suggestion of armor without outright being so, her dagger worn openly on her thigh instead of coyly hidden beneath a hacked-up skirt. There is a drape of cloth that wraps around one hip and gives at least a pretense of the sort, but it also has the distinct look of something that could be removed to allow the wearer to fight — or use it as an accessory to combat in and of itself — on a moment's notice.

Also, she genuinely seems something in alignment with happy. Or if not happy, then at least confident. Sure in her own skin. The sort of person who hunts, rather than is hunted, and better yet can choose not to engage in a hunt at all, if she doesn't want to.

Of course, that's got nothing on kohl eyeliner and ears double-pierced with bone studs, now does it.]

Look at you, fishing for all the attention you can get.

[SHE SEES YOU TOSSING YOUR HEAD AROUND LIKE THAT, MR. ATREIDES.]

Now I wish I'd gotten here sooner, just to see who it was that managed to talk you into all that. I'll have to track them down and shake their hand before the night is out.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul rakes his eyes over Renfri head to toe in the way of someone admiring a fine work of armor, even though is as far from armored as he's ever seen her, oft-shredded red dress included. It's a very important gesture of respect to look suitably impressed.

Then he extends his hand with a certain regal dignity only lightly undercut by the smeared black ink on his knuckles that suggests a word that once started with the letter S.]

I'll hold you to that. [He says, with great gravitas.] And if I'm fishing, what does it say about you that you took the bait?

[laniidae]

If I answer that, are you going to tell me something fascinating about the little-known peculiarities of fishing?

[She's learned by now, of course, that Paul is a creature of kaleidoscope moods; this one is new and fascinating. There are bits and pieces of others she's familiar with — a little feckless, a little unpolished, a little charismatic — but all with an undercurrent of something she's harangued him about before, and assuredly will again: he's about the polar opposite of buried down deep in his own head right now.

It lends an extra touch of humor to the sight of the shine of his shirt, she muses as she takes the hand he offers, shakes it, and then presses a small box into it before he can pull it away again. If he tried to carry the world on his shoulders wearing that, it'd probably slide right off again.]

Here, I brought you something. Some better bait, for the next time you go fishing in gambling halls.

[It's a small shallow box, about a few inches square, and set inside it are a pair of pins about the same size as his silver falcons. These, however, are in the shape of crescent moons, black, and set with four tiny cut stones each: two red and two green.]

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul curls his fingers readily around the box, and just as readily opens it with unfiltered anticipatory delight. He goes so far as to laugh aloud when he discovers what's inside, eagerly pulling them free to offer them back to her with a gleam in his eye that he's come closest to when they've sparred.

But this look lacks the challenge of the other. It lacks the edge that's always somewhere underneath everything else, the wary poise.]

No. No fishing facts - and these are amazing, thank you - would you put them on me, please? I'd like to wear them. On the vest.

[His words have a faintly run together quality when he's not attentive to his enunciation.]

Unless - do you want the fishing facts? I can tell you some, if you want them.

[laniidae]

[Well, whether he's drunk as a skunk or high as a kite, the fact still remains that "festive" is a refreshing change on Paul, and that the worst trouble he or anyone else is likeliest to get up to at an occasion like this is maybe all getting together and jumping off the roof — which, frankly, sounds like a pretty good time regardless.

While his hand is occupied with holding the pins, she takes advantage of the distraction and reaches over them to ruffle his hair with one of hers before plucking them out of his palm and starting to undo the fastenings.]

Any facts you like, fishing or not. You have until I'm finished putting these on to regale me, so choose good ones.

[Freeing one, she steps in and hooks a finger into the underside of the vest, pulling it out a touch so that she can set the pin in place without sticking him.]

And when you're done, I'll tell you a secret.

[terriblepurpose]

Renfri.

[Despite the truly terrible affront in Paul's voice, he smiles as he submits to the hair ruffling with only lightly rolled eyes. She did give him those pins and is kind enough to put them on him. It's the least he can do, really.]

Fine, you harpy. It'd better be a good secret.

[As if being asked to provide 'good facts' of choosing isn't another gift, one that he appreciates fully for what it is. He screws up his face slightly, considering.]

Some sharks have to swim to breathe. They filter the - you could call it the vital component, or oxygen - from the water over their gills by the force of their speed, not the apparatus most gill-breathers have to do the work for them.

[laniidae]

[From the way her eyes light up at the sound of the word harpy, it quickly becomes apparent that she's decided to treat that as a badge of personal. Why shouldn't she? It's funny, and it's not as though it's inaccurate in the slightest.]

I suppose it must work for them, to be that way? If they're already going to be swimming regardless, then they might as well just let the swimming do that work for them, too.

[She sets the pin carefully, adjusting it so the tips of the crescent moon are pointed up, then gauges a spot about parallel to the first on the other side of his vest and moves over to take care of that one as well.]

...There we are. And now for your secret.

[Her fingers find the second of the pins, positioning it just as she did the first.]

Or, in chief four jewels gules and vert, at base a crescent sable. That's the coat of arms of House Vellga of Creyden.

[terriblepurpose]

[It takes him a little longer than it should. That amounts to a length of time that he doesn't have to falsely stretch, a faint line of concentration between his eyebrows before they rise in understanding.]

That is a good secret.

[He brushes his fingers across one of the pins as he looks down, House symbols and House colors. He takes a slightly deeper breath than the one that came before, or the ones that come after, and looks back up at her with eyes a shade closer to vert than they were before.]

Thank you for giving it to me. I'll keep it for you.

[laniidae]

Borrow it, if you ever need it.

[Once, it might have left a bitter taste in her mouth to even remember her own coat of arms, much less to talk about it with anyone — or to see anyone wearing it. But now, there's a sort of catharsis in it, somehow. If she's given it away, even in some small capacity, then it must have been hers to give in the first place.

It's a small step. But small steps pave the way for larger ones.]

Though if you do, I expect to hear all the stories after of how and why, and the antics you got up to. Try to make it something my father would have fits about.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul thinks of the woman he met who shoved bread into her mouth as an act of defiance, her eyes blazing dark and fierce and hungry above it. That was a woman who wouldn't part with anything of hers, however she came to claim it, a woman like a sharp, bloody-knuckled fist.

He reaches out and curls his hands around the crooks of her elbows, clasps them together forearm to forearm, and smiles at her with open, soft affection.]

I'm good at giving people fits.

[Then, as if in reminder, he brings his head forward to briefly touch their foreheads together, in the place where she once rightly drew his blood.]

So are you, but you know that. [And quietly, between only them:] Thank you for everything else, too.

[laniidae]

[Physical contact lands differently, depending on who's initiating. Someone who wasn't paying very close attention might come away from an encounter with Renfri and take her for a person of expansive gestures and casual contact — which she is, when she's the one invading someone else's boundaries and leaving her fingerprints there. It's different when it's someone else's hands. There are times when she'd sooner bite an encroaching finger than let it come to rest anywhere near her.

This isn't one of those times. His hands find her arms and she stills without freezing, waits without suspicion. Lingers to see what he's doing to do.

Affection still feels strange. It's something she lavishes on others, without expecting any in return.]

You'll lose your knack for it in your old age, likely.

[It's a remark mostly for the purposes of buying herself another second. She'll let herself have one more, just to savor the gift he's offering up in return.]

I'm already looking forward to watching you lament those holes in your head tomorrow. Along with every other decision you make tonight.

[She smiles, faint; it's impossible to see at this angle, but it's there in her voice. Dull, commonplace, ridiculous problems.]

Good for you.

[terriblepurpose]

[Renfri's approval is like a thick woolen blanket draped around his shoulders on a briskly chilled day of rain, or the mug of tea he might warm his hands with underneath it. Paul squeezes her elbows and lets her go, stepping back for breathing room. There's no need to smother.]

I regret nothing, tonight or tomorrow.

[Something else he can put down to a lack of foresight later. Paul straightens his already straight vest (still not as comfortable in this kind of skin as she is) and grins, with softness lingering in his eyes just a little. He's done the right thing - he's managed to make her happy, and all it took was trying to be so himself.

It's easy, when he thinks about it like that.]

And I'm still young tonight, and so are you - we should have a drink. Have you ever heard of tequila?

[Has a bandit-bartender ever heard of tequila?]