deercountry | Birthday Party

Birthday Party

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

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[that's a bit of a weird... well, she doesn't understand the start of it, at least. but it sounds like this kid is just. totally over her head. this trip is gonna be really wild. she might as well engage big sister mode now so she can turn it off later if she needs to. she shakes her head gently.]

Weed's not actually a weed. It's just a nickname for marijuana. [she sounds like a cop saying the full name of it.] But this is bigger than weed. Listen, I just came down myself. You're probably gonna feel really good for a while. Gonna start feeling connected to other people in ways that don't make a lot of sense.

[she's about to ask a question that she doesn't know she probably won't like the answer to, but she doesn't really care.]

Is there anyone around here you don't wanna be connected with? That way we can get you away from them so this trip stays as good as it can get.

[Sayo giggles, but their laugh has a cracking, jagged edge to it that makes it clear that it's a reflexive cackle rather than finding anything truly funny at the situation. Then Sayo winces, feeling every inch of their skeleton shaking ever so slightly from the vibrations. (They can tell they're at the threshold to a hall of mirrors, and the witch's laugh echoes through its corridors until it reaches their ears and spews from their mouth.)

At least they're still cogent enough to properly respond to Anna's words.]

I- [They squint, shaking their head.] I can't imagine why anyone would enjoy being so burdensomely aware of their entire body like this. It's... bizarre.

On the other hand, I've written three new chapters for my new mystery in the past twenty seconds and forgotten all of them, so maybe it has its-

Right. Right. I... Ruby Rose. Wouldn't want to talk to her normally, but- this. This would make it even more difficult.

[Sayo squints again, looking closer.]

And...

Who's your sister?

[though anna's first impulse is to say "why ruby, ruby's great", no, like. she gets it. she wouldn't want ruby rose to be her bad trip buddy either. it's the follow-up that gives her pause; her hand comes to her chest, curls slightly—it's a gesture for a different person, but her brain doesn't know what else to do.]

My sister isn't... here. [there's a glimmer of hope behind her eye, but it disappears fast.] No, I would've found her by now. Um. I don't know who you're talking about.

[god. maybe her sister is here. anna already knows beth wouldn't recognize her. why can't that go both ways?]

[Sayo also caused the deaths of Ruby's girlfriend's family, so the two of them bumping into one another here would put a damper on the atmosphere.

Especially while Sayo's high as balls.

The guilt from that stray idea is like pouring gas on the coal fire of Sayo's trainwreck of thought, visibly dazing them... before they claps their cheeks, forcing themself to concentrate on Anna. Any part of her. Except her chests. Staring there was probably unacceptable, after all she was taken-

Fuck

Right, right, right, she asked a question a few hours ago. Or a few minutes ago. Or a few seconds ago. That last one was right. Probably.]

Not a... physical sibling. An outline around you. An... idea? It's familiar to me, at least. That's how I thought of it.

[is this girl okay? man. anna can start seeing it take effect, and that's the only thing stopping her from saying something about the staring, however brief it was. she's back in reality, it looks like, and that's fine. for the moment. there's recognition once it's phrased like that, and anna's expression fades to a smile.]

Oh, yeah. That's just A2. She lives inside me, and a little bit outside me, too. [she raps her chest to give off a somewhat metallic thumping noise.] I always love when other people can see her. Makes me seem less crazy. The word you're looking for might be "soul".

You recognize this kind of thing?

[Sayo waggles their hand, pauses, then waggles their hand again to make sure they're actually waggling their hand in the present moment.]

I suppose she- no, we're not there yet. [Furrowed brow. Deep breaths.] Fuck. When is this going to wear off? Having to constantly double-check whether I'm thinking now or thinking a few moments ahead is giving me a headache.

[They get why Forneus was so short with them during their initial flight from where they'd landed now. Sayo would also be scattered and more than a little bit grumpy if they had to deal with this on an active battlefield instead of a birthday party.]

It's... not quite like you and her. There weren't any calls coming from outside the house. I just took a hammer to my sense of identity and it all started falling apart from there.

I told myself that I had it under control, that it was a way to escape how wretched my own life felt, but... well. It turned out that magic was real, although on a plane higher than the one I was living on.

That made things significantly more complicated when I came to Trench.

[that's a hell of a way to describe it. but she doesn't know this person's journey, doesn't know what she's been through. all anna knows is that her companion's getting extremely high right now, and increasingly quick. anna makes a quick estimate based on how much she'd just seen her eat.]

You might have to deal with this for a couple hours? [it's not like she knows, though. she lost all sense of time when she was out of her mind on the stuff, and she probably ended up doing way more of it.]

But hey, we can sit here and talk about that stuff, if you want. Wait it out. If it's not, like, too heavy. 'Cause that's kind of how it happened with me, you know? Except it was more like the world taking a hammer to it all and someone else coming in to hold it all back together. From a layer of reality below my own, brimming with magic soul bullshit.

[if she's gonna go too deep into this, like, it seems polite to introduce herself at the bare minimum.]

Name's Anna, by the way.

...do you think you could do me a favor and knock me unconscious for the duration, then?

[The wry smile shows that they're joking. Probably. Hopefully.

If worst comes to worst, Sayo will have another out of body experience and get to meet Lambdadelta again. Or Beatrice. Now that would be ideal, Sayo has words for the two of them.

(And to ask Lambdadelta specifically why such an all-powerful witch couldn't give their physical body huge bahonkadonkeroos instead of just Beatrice. The sheer injustice of it all!)]

It's... nothing that I haven't talked about with your girlfriend before. It's just much more personal now that I can FEEL them pressing on me... Shannon. Kanon. Beatrice. Even Ronove and Virgilia and Gaap and all the stakes...

[Sayo is half-in and half-out of reality. One foot in a birthday party, one foot as a spectator in a wondrous, devilish tea party.

They laugh when Anna tells them their name.] An unhinged, Beatrice-like cackle.]

Oh, I am one yet many... and yes, I already know your name, Anna Amarande.

Mine is Sayo Yasuda. Congratulations on getting to smash Kainé before I got to make my move. Truly. She's quite the catch.

[well, she's glad that she has the clarity afforded to her by not being high on spice right now, because she can feel the air getting sucked out of the room and her blood running cold. the laugh is what starts it, though she's certainly already confused by that list of people living within her. more souls than one body, anna thinks, should be built to handle. and maybe it's just because of the spice. or maybe it's sayo's reality.]

[either way, she no longer feels completely comfortable here. but it wouldn't be the first time tonight. for a moment, just a flash, she's angry—like what exactly is anna supposed to do? deprive herself of things that make her happy because someone she doesn't know saw her first? sayo probably doesn't even have any of kainé's memories stored within her soul. but it's gone, because the anger hurts her if she feels it too sharply, too much, and even right now she knows she only feels it because she's afraid. she lets the anger disappear into the air around her before she actually lets herself speak.]

I... wasn't trying to steal her from you or anything, Sayo. I didn't even know you were interested in her. I don't know if you want me to apologize for it.

Even I...

[The derision falls from Sayo's face, the illusion of the witch dispersing at such frightful honesty from Anna. They hang their head, scrabbling to find a silence to think in within the hurricane of the party and the more private typhoon of their own mind.

A novel's worth of emotions scratch at their throat, and Sayo wishes that they could conjure a message bottle, hand it to Anna, and vanish like Beatrice herself so that they wouldn't have to mortify themself with their clumsy, stumbling human words. But alas, Sayo Yasuda is not a witch, but a human. And if they want to stay that way as they've been so desperately struggling for, they need to communicate on the human plane.

Feet on the ground. Water in her hands. Focusing on these sensations, Sayo crawls their way toward making sense.]

It's not... like that. I'm not angry at you. I just... [Their free hand clenches and quakes.]

Every time, I've made this mistake. I've always waited too long. Sabotaged myself.

You're not to blame. And... besides. You make her happy. [A wan smile.] So I'm glad for that, at least. For you.

[this is a surprisingly civil way of bringing it up, even if anna's eye flits between sayo's face and her actions. it's difficult to determine the right way forward, but that's not anything new, is it? she doesn't have the slightest idea what to say next. no clue whether it's going to be good at all. but it's the only thing coming to mind.]

Would it make it better or worse if you got to know me, too? [it's a small branch that she's extending. and there are almost definitely better times and places to bring this up than on the verge of the worst trip of sayo's life. but, well, too bad.] So instead of this person you vaguely know about, you know me.

[this won't work. she already knows it won't. but she has something good with kainé, and there's desperation in what she's offering, underneath everything else. she just doesn't know which of the three of them it's directed at.]

[The witch snaps at her to reject Sayo's offer, to laugh in her face because neither of them deserve it. The furniture yearns both ways, seeing fragments of the ones they love in Kainé's eyes. The demons cackle and guffaw, bringing the twisted argument to a mental cacophony, five seconds ahead and five seconds behind and five seconds to the left and-

Sayo bites down. Hard. They cough, darkblood glimmering from the wound their canine carved into their tongue and out into the air.]

...needed something to anchor. For a few moments. Too... abstract otherwise. Don't fear for me. [They're already gone, but they can at least pretend they're here to hear.]

I think... better. I've always had a problem with, um... seeing people as ideas. Not people. You too.

And... being stuck in someone else's story might keep me from losing myself in my own, even if it's just for a moment.

[oh, so sayo is. a lot. okay. that's good to know. anna pretends not to see the darkblood, but she doesn't do a very good job of it. she'll just take this as it comes, and she nods quietly, listening to sayo just say, apparently, that this is okay and she'll be okay and she just has to anchor herself. pain and blood sure is one way to do that.]

So you like stories, too. [it's a line of discussion she's not totally sure about wanting to continue, but she wants to at least say it.] Can't say I've got much of a story compared to most of the people around here. I'm definitely the least interesting person at this party. You know, robot body and soul timeshare notwithstanding.

[she tries a weak grin. this could be something. this could be something useful, if sayo doesn't start doing some serious tripping in the middle of it.] We can start with anything you might have already heard or guessed [or invented] about me, and I can just, like, explain from there.

[They're friends with Kainé, Anna, did you expect them to be normal?

Sayo leans back, drilling down on the pain until they can see faces, distinguish seconds. The next few hours were going to be agonizing in a different way, they could already tell even though some of it had already passed in the future.

...they're going to get migraines even thinking about this trip after the party, aren't they?]

I'm a writer. Of course I do.

...your body. You don't... carry yourself like someone who's been furniture her entire life. [Sayo isn't going to explain themself on that one, at least not yet.] How did that... happen to you?

[she doesn't know what she expected. or does expect, or will expect. all she knows is that the "furniture" euphemism is fucking weird, but she won't call sayo on it because strangely it does... kind of make sense. for the parts of her life that she's ashamed of, the ones she doesn't want to talk about but that she can't prevent thoughts of from bubbling up. the soul riding alongside her has no reaction to alcohol, to marijuana, to depression so deep that nothing will pull her from it (maybe not that last part), but the main part of anna's soul sure does feel awash in it sometimes.]

You know apps? Like on our phones? ...Few years ago, I ended up with one that I didn't install. It was called Retrospec, and it turns out just having it on my phone meant I was being chosen for this... big soul-merging free-for-all that turned into a massive fight for our reality. Always does, right? [she tries a smirk, but it comes out weaker than she wanted.]

To be honest, I didn't really care at first, but then my city started getting threatened. The people I loved started getting hurt, or disappearing, or forgetting. And I started changing, getting swords in the mail and waking up with robot legs. Kinda figured that it was time to start taking it seriously and fighting back.

...the more I learn about other worlds, the more it seems improbable that mine was so mundane. [A pause. A sigh. The all two/three-real people tugging at the edges of their consciousness, curious at feeling a presence that hasn't lurked in the Golden Land since before the new Endless Sorceror's time, were proof that wasn't really the case. (Why were they, the reality, the author, the only one unlucky enough to never find a happy ending?)] Although that was simply bad luck on my part, given what's apparently been happening one layer of the story above mine.

It appears that the call to adventure didn't leave either of us alone, though. I can... sympathize.

My entire life, I felt as though I never had a say in anything.

No, trust me, I understand. It's all about degrees of it, right...? Like, I've met people here who have been through so many things way above my own pay grade that I don't even know how to relate to them.

[kainé is one of those people. she's handling this part first because she doesn't really know how to bring up the next part without bringing down the mood. maybe, she considers, the mood is already down.]

So all I can do is think about how I spent most of my life being tugged in one direction or the other, and when the time came and I could finally start writing my own story... [sigh. people like protagonists with flaws, girl.] I just sat there getting wasted. For five years. It took almost literal divine intervention to snap me out of that shit.

But it's real, you know? [it feels like she's missing something important about all of this, but she doesn't know sayo nearly well enough to put her finger on it.] It's this feeling like you're trapped in whatever the world has planned for you. And I can't even say that at least we're getting a fresh start here because we were all just swept up in the current and dumped into the ocean anyway.

...I wish I could say something it was abstract as coincidence, or God, or destiny, that left me trapped in my own birdcage.

[How many times had they almost convinced themself to leave, but hesitated at the last moment because what if Battler came back or what if George proposed or what if Jessica realized? How many times had they sat down in the VIP room like Kinzo surely must've done, staring down the ticking hands of the clock and the gold both and knowing there was nothing truly keeping them on Rokkenjima?]

But even after the people who appointed themselves my guardians had me fulfill my "purpose..." It was me who built the bars.

I mean, yeah. Same.

[she's lucid enough to have these thoughts, torturous though they are, and still just buzzed enough to be okay with sharing. she's just not sure if it's going to be useful, if digging up her own trauma in an attempt to be relatable will ingratiate her with sayo or if it'll just drive her away. she just knows that right now, she wants to be friends with her. it feels like the best outcome after being, in anna's eyes, the reason that sayo's in what must be some kind of pain.]

I still think I could've stopped whenever I wanted and gotten my life back together on my own. I just didn't want to. I thought that it was easier to go through life like... well, like how you're gonna feel once this stuff finishes kicking in. Instead of facing reality and owning up to my own mistakes. Left the door wide open for myself and just didn't want to walk through it.

...ha. That's also too familiar. I wonder if people like us attract each other like flies to honey. First you and Kainé, then me and her, and now you and me.

Broken birds of a feather waddle together, I suppose. [She lets out a witchy cackle, sounding distinctly unlike herself for a few moments, eyes burning, blazing blue, cruel and distant and longing in equal measure... until Sayo winces, and the bright blue fades, leaving behind what looks like a piercing headache.]

S- Sorry. Looks like she popped in to have her own say. I wonder, is it really Beatrice, or the fragment of her that lurks within me, or just... me?

Fuck, this spice stuff is weird.

[the cackle's offputting, but sayo's also getting high, so it's probably not as weird as it could be. it does sound like she's talking to somebody else for a moment, and—did her eyes change? it's gone before anna can say anything about it, and by the time it is gone she's reluctant to bring it back up again.]

Yeah it is. I spent... I don't know how long out there just talking to A2. It was nice. First chance I had to talk to her since, like, I came here. [or something like that.] Kind of sounds like you're not gonna have as good an experience if Beatrice comes out to play? But, like, hey. I have no problem being your trip buddy.

[she nudges sayo's shoulder playfully with the flats of her knuckles.]

Broken beasts like us gotta stick together, you know? Nobody else is gonna do it for us now that we're finally coming out of our cages.

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Birthday Party

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