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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Cooking terminology is confusing. Which is how we got into this - how was Kaworu supposed to know what you'd all think he meant?

[Paul laughs. It's something he hasn't done like this, or this often, in a while. There's fun in being teased. He had forgotten that, for a while.]

I do want to learn. I am learning. I made rice yesterday!

But - do people really think that? That being 'food stupid' is hot?

[He thinks he's getting better at using the slang right, too.]

Listen, Kainé does—but I think she just does because it's me. She's what the internet calls a morosexual, and I'm her moron.

[she can tease herself, too. see, she even almost sounds proud of it.]

You find the right person and they'll think every last dumb thing you do is the best thing in the world. And you won't even have to convince them to do it. They'll just... feel that way about you. [all right, anna, chill the fuck out, did you just discover the concept of love?]

It really helps them get through it when you fuck up the stew for the third time in a week.

[As Anna speaks, Paul's expression grows increasingly solemn and wide-eyed. He nods along to her explanation as if she's imparting the most crucial, delicate secrets of the world to him, a student at the foot of a great sage.]

Anna.

[Paul reaches for her hand, reverently, and gestures briefly across the room at a particular out of earshot someone.]

Do you see that boy over there? Grey hair, red eyes? Not very tall?

I will give you absolutely anything you want from my birthday presents if you promise me that you will never, ever tell him that word, or what it means.

[don't worry. anna is very good at not saying names out loud, but she knows exactly who he means. and though she knows kaworu far better than she knows paul, she is not surprised.]

I will do my absolute best. No payment required. [she says it like an oath, because it is. and then she looks back at paul with a smile that can only be reserved for the hottest of goss.] So are you two...?

Edited 2022-03-30 02:47 (UTC)

[This isn't the first knowing look Paul has been on the other end of in his life. It cuts through his intoxication like pruning shears, and he drops her hand from his loose hold.

He knows a dozen ways to feint his way out of this, if he wanted to. He could look surprised, or indulgent, or amused. He could offer flat denial or a joke. They're all just within his reach, as long as he acts quickly.

Paul tilts his head, thoughtfully. He lets the moments of action flow over and past him.]

I don't know.

[And he smiles, small and slanted and easy.]

Is this how you're avoiding talking about the stew?

[she snickers.]

I have no idea what you're talking about. [but as she lets it go on, she's pretty sure that paul is not going to let her get away without explaining the stew story. and she rolls her eye and sighs in exasperation, but she's in good humor the whole time.]

All right, fine. So the first one, I burned. The second one, I put way too much spice into it and neither of us could eat it, and that's how I learned you shouldn't cook anything with a cold. And the third one... [sigh.] Listen, I was serving it up and the spoon got caught on the pot and the whole thing crashed to the ground and spilled everywhere.

[she is not pleased with herself and still hasn't heard the end of it, but eventually it's just gonna fade to a funny memory from when anna was trying to learn how to cook for kainé.]

Anyway, like. You for real don't know? Feel like that's enough of a confirmation for me.

You have my deepest stew-pathies.

[And it's true, however unsettling the concept of her is in the abstract. The potential of threat is a degree different from actual threat, and besides - it's hard to picture a soulless AI failing to make stew three times in such entertainingly distinct ways, or for it to have anyone to make stew for.

He can't help but think of the series of increasingly less misshapen angel food cakes in the kitchen. He can't help but make comparisons, and from them, inferences.]

No. It's not like that. It's that I don't know.

[It's not a harsh denial, but a thoughtful correction, almost more directed at himself than her.]

He threw me a birthday party.

He did.

[she nods thoughtfully, glad that she's able to obfuscate (at least for the moment) how legitimately angry kainé had gotten with her for those food mishaps. the stew-pathies are appreciated.]

Made a big deal out of it on the network and everything. One of the biggest posts I've seen since I had my breakdown last winter. [which is, incidentally, where she'd first met kaworu. she sips her drink.] And, all due respect, he doesn't exactly seem like the social butterfly type to me. So organizing it was probably as big a deal to him as it was to the rest of us. Lots of things to think about there, you know?

Mm.

[Across the room, Kaworu stands at a slight remove from a cluster of people, and in the gentle fractal blurring of intoxication the light seems to glow in his colorless hair.]

It's not that he's not social. He's selective.

[And Paul has been included in that selection, in spite of everything he's done, and everything he's allowed to happen. He looks back to Anna with hooded eyes, a small, crooked smile.]

It's a good party. I told him that already, but if you could tell him that, too... [He shrugs. He's been doing that a lot tonight.] I think it would mean a lot to him, even if he acts like it doesn't.

[That none of this has to do with the things Paul has to think about is the point. (That doesn't mean he's not thinking about them.)]

Oh, trust me, that's on my list of stuff to do tonight.

[which isn't especially long right now, but only because she doesn't know what exactly is going to happen tonight to expand that list.]

I really haven't been at a party like this in about ten years. I think I'm gonna need some ramp up time to get really into it. I should probably take care of that sooner rather than later, you know?

[she's not going to press or pry. she knows, right now, that there are things paul is deliberately avoiding talking about. if he's not ready to talk about something that's so obvious the rest of the party can see it so clearly, she won't force him. but she can offer to do something stupid.]

I could run some recon if you want some help figuring it out.

[The slightly dreamy, abstracted calm contemplation of Paul's expression dissolves into a much more age-appropriate stricken fall when Anna offers him assistance. He doesn't hide his face in his hands, but the urge to do so shines through.]

No!

[Slightly too loud and emphatic, so his next words end up overly quiet in unbalanced correction.]

No, thank you, that's - it's not necessary. [Paul raises his hands, shaking his head.] Please. It's fine. I know what I'm doing.

[Does he?]

[oh, she is certain he has no idea. but she's also certain that it'll be really funny to see where this goes next. she doesn't laugh on the outside, but she's bursting with it inside.]

All right, I trust you. I won't interfere between young whatever-this-is. [she puts her hands up as defensively as she can.] But in return, I want the deets. The hot goss. What is it you kids say these days?

[she knows she sounds like a mom trying way too hard to be cool. she hopes it's funny.]

[The thing about Anna sounding like a mom trying too hard to be cool is this: Paul's grasp of what is cool can be described, at best, as idiosyncratic.]

The...rumors? [Paul offers, tentatively.] The chill roums?

[That definitely can't be right. He should rehydrate, possibly by walking into the sea.]

I'm sure if anything happens, you'll hear about it.

[no, she likes it, she likes chill roums. see, he can pick up on her cool slang.]

Oh, dude, you would be surprised. I'm oblivious as shit a lot of the time. Like, I know everyone here has rich lives going on that I should probably find some way to get involved in, you know, but like. I'm over here just doing my own thing all the time. Hell, this is the biggest party I've been to in a couple years—shit's weird back home, don't ask.

[she shakes her head. really not something she wants to think about.] So yeah, this is like my first chance to actually meet a bunch of people outside of the battlefield. And we're not trading roums of any temperature when we're out there fighting, so who knows if that's my reputation, you know?

[Anna's heart may be some unholy mechanical construct, but when she sets it on her sleeve like this it's impossible to tell the difference between it and a wholly human one. Paul can't help but see it, and he thinks he's beginning to better understand why Teacher makes such allowances for her. There's something disarming about her blunt realness, unfiltered and brash.

She reminds him of someone. He doesn't think about it.]

Weren't you one of the ones suggesting...what was it, 'kissy faces'? For battlefield morale? Intimidation of the enemy? I can't quite remember.

What I mean is - I'm certain you could work a little gossip in, if you're already doing all of that.

[He feels like he has a bit of a right to tease her back, if only for a moment.]

You seem to manage with people. You've gotten me talking, for one.

Hey, hey, hey. You can't hold me accountable for stuff I said when I had a crush I was too chickenshit to act on.

[but she's smiling no matter how rude the reminder is that she is seen and people remember her for her shitposts as much as her broader actions. it's something good for her to keep in mind for later. that she's visible.]

I don't like spreading people's secrets around. Anyone trusts me enough to tell me something, it stays inside here [she raps on her chest with a metallic thud] until they're ready to bring it out to the world. Like a vault. Maybe it's one of the things that makes me easy to talk to—but it really doesn't seem like you're having a lot of problems, you know? You seem pretty open to me.

[Paul always assumes he's being observed. It's not because he assumes that he is always observed, but because it's impossible to be sure of when he is or isn't. That's part of why it surprises him to be called open, even if a swift mental review of the conversation proves that here, at least, he was right.

It's an odd feeling, realizing that he felt had nothing to hide.]

Is that the case with crushes and accountability? I didn't know, and I apologize for the error.

[It's a joking admission of fault, for the most part, but not wholly insincere either.]

I appreciate your continued discretion all the same. I think more people could stand to follow your example.

Yeah, I think so, too. Probably a big reason why I ended up working with Zee and them back home. [she shakes her head and waves her hand in front of her a little. the specifics aren't important.] Sorry, that was my old job before I came here. Working with the people in charge of the thing that was changing the city. Not that we kept many secrets by the end of it, but Zee trusted me to go on secret missions and shit 'cause he knew I wouldn't tell anyone about it.

[unspoken is how dangerous those missions could've been. unspoken is how she lost her eye, and how angry everyone she cared about was at her for refusing to tell them she was going when she walked back missing a body part. but the implications aren't hard to draw, or won't be once the drugs wear off and everyone's lucid again.]

Anyway, like. Yeah. Think it'd be pretty cool if more people were like me. In that respect and no other. [she says that like she could be winking, but that gesture lost its meaning a while back.] I'm perfectly fine monopolizing the android market, thank you very much.

[Paul can never help himself when it comes to inferences. Anna keeps other people's secrets better than her own, he thinks, and has to remind himself that perhaps she doesn't think of her nature as someone who helps other as something to hide.]

I might ask you to tell me about those missions some other day. The ones that aren't still secrets.

[Or too difficult to talk about.]

And I don't think you have much to worry about there. You're the most augmented human I've ever met. [What makes a person human is in their head, or so he keeps telling himself, because the alternative is not so pleasant.] You're unique.

Hey, I know a bar downtown that's a great place for serious conversations about the past. We can grab some drinks and talk through it. [she's talking about it like a joke, like a casual little thing, but she's not wrong. doesn't quite know how right she is yet.]

But yeah, like. I'm definitely feeling the uniqueness around here, you know. Back home, people like me were a dime a dozen. Not always androids, but. [she waves her hand idly, like the specifics don't matter.] Anyway, you haven't met anyone as far along as me? Do you have robots back where you're from, or is it just giant worms and space drugs?

You know, I've never been to a bar to drink? To gamble, once, but I don't think they'll want to see me again there any time soon.

[From the glint in Paul's eyes, it's not because he owes them money. He keeps his tone light as well, but he can tell it's a seed of thought planted in him already. Particularly in the context of what he's about to tell her, as he averts his eyes towards an interesting point in the middle distance.]

We don't have any robots. No AI. All of our thinking work is done by human minds. The Ixians - those are people from a world called Ix, just the one planet - have a handful of augmented humans, but it's not...orthodox.

'S not orthodox? [she repeats it like she hasn't heard that word in about 15 years, but she's not mad about it. it's just not the word she thought he'd use, but how many times has that happened so far, right?]

I mean, I guess I get it. Asimov and Dick and everyone talking about the horrors of artificial intelligence or whatever. [she has not read much of either.] The whole... not wanting to play god thing. But you know what I think's interesting? [she leans in a little like she's about to make a point that's not quite as big as how it feels in her head.] Nobody ever thinks to ask the AIs about it. No one ever asks us [which she says like she is one] about how it feels to get born and then immediately thrown right into the middle of a debate about whether we should even exist. You know?

[she tilts her drink towards him.] Imagine if people did that to you. Would fuck you up pretty fast.

[Paul does imagine it, at her prompting. It slots neatly alongside questions he's already asked himself about just that, although she can't know that. Not even Teacher knows that, even if Paul thinks he has enough pieces to suspect.

The look on his face must be something to see, a slip of control over a bloom of empathy that he should stop short, only does a little too late.]

I've never thought about it that way.

[He says, quietly, his gaze flickering back to her and then away in uncustomary skittishness. The back of his neck feels tight and uncomfortable.

He's never thought about it that was because there is no debate, where he comes from. The question of whether or not AI should exist has been settled, and the answer is 'no'. But that's exactly the kind of debate Anna is telling him she wants no part of being in, and this time, sensitivity beats out orthodoxy.]

I suppose that's the human way, isn't it? Being afraid of anything that's greater than ourselves. We want to control it, shape it, and if we can't...

[A slight, lopsided shrug, paired with a joyless quirk on one side of his mouth. She knows what follows that ellipses.]

This isn't good conversation. I apologize. I may have had one too many of - a few things, now that I think about it.

[anna does not notice, or does not understand, or gives him the grace of his own emotions. it's hard to tell which one it is and she's not about to give it up. it probably doesn't matter, in the end, because she's drunk and will have problems remembering this in the morning. instead, she shakes her head and fixes him with a smile, keeping her tone casual.]

Don't worry about it. I'm the one who brought it up. Could talk about something a little lower impact, like makeouts again. I'm definitely planning on being gross in public a little later tonight. [no shame in admitting that, huh, anna? there's the urge to look behind her to see where kainé ended up, but paul's just got too much of her attention right now.] Sorry, can't hold back once my girlfriend gets involved.

[Returned to safer territory, Paul relaxes once more, though not to the degree he was before. She's given him plenty to think about, some of it during the thin, quiet hours after midnight, when he can't sleep, and the future stretches out mercilessly before him.

But for now, he pulls a face at grossness, with a distinctly teenaged suggestion of an eye roll even as his smile returns to its former brightness.]

I should let you get to all of that [he says, in blissful ignorance of his near future] after all, who am I to stand in the way of romance?

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Birthday Party

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