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

Oh, Worm?

[foulhussy]

[ Kainé is already, to put it politely, vibing at a higher level from that spice. It goes great on cheese and crackers, by the way. That's why she finds herself listening very intently to something she may not ordinarily pay the least amount of attention to: namely, some poshy nerd talking about giant worms.

Okay. She doesn't question it. She's only taken this much and she can already feel the cosmos. ]

Wait, you're telling me that the shit I've been putting in me comes from their babies?

[terriblepurpose]

That's one theory.

[Paul isn't laughing at Kainé. He's not laughing at anything in particular as he sets down his shot glass and rubs at the corner of his eye, incidentally smudging his eyeliner further. It's just a soft, pleasant sound that tapers off as he draws himself a bit more wholly together, focusing on what's important:

Ecological conjecture.]

If we knew what their young looked like, it would be a start. Or the spice may be the residue of their prey, or - well, their residue, in one way or another. They're connected, the spice and the worms. I still wish I knew exactly how.

I wish we had them here. Did you know that they can be ridden?

[As if there is even the slightest chance that Kainé would know that.]

[foulhussy]

Huh. Sure. So we have no idea what we've been putting in our bodies. Cool.

[ Snark aside, making reckless decisions with no regard for her safety is sort of her bread and better, as can be attested by her role in the battle against the Leviathan. It's only because of Anna that she's started to consider a bit more caution. Settling in for the long haul of nerd ramblings, she flops into an armchair, sitting in it sideways with her legs dangling over one arm. ]

Well, shit. If you wanna ride a worm that bad, there's a club down by the docks for that.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul's eyes go wide, he chokes on an invisible bit of nothing - and he laughs, a wide, delighted sound that bubbles out of him like a hot spring from a cracked stone. He throws a hand across his mouth to muffle himself, shaking his head.]

I should have known better.

[He really should have. There are some associations of form so obvious that they should be assumed to be cross-cultural in all cases. The doubled meaning of anything even vaguely tube-like - well.]

Those worms don't have teeth. [A small, thoughtful pause.] Or I hope they don't. It is by the docks, and you know how the sailors here get.

[foulhussy]

[ Kainé grins and snickers, low and understated. She liked getting a rise out of him, bringing him down to a more human level. And really, is there anything more universal than crude sexual jokes? ]

Yup. That's what you get for rapping so much about big thick worms.

But hey, who knows, some people are into the wild stuff.

[ She says, as though she hasn't been having sex with an android for the last month and a half. As though she can think of her own body as "normal." ]

[terriblepurpose]

[As Paul once told Gideon, he was raised by soldiers. He chooses not to joke like this not because he has a distaste for it, but because he usually doesn't think he'd find a receptive ear - and, admittedly, he's also typically more stiff than this.

Which is also a funny thought, once he has it, speaking of big, thick worms.]

I don't doubt it. Perhaps my sand worms might find exciting new professional opportunities here, if they ever turn up.

[Paul has heard a few local rumors about some of the things people get up around here. He wouldn't be at all surprised if it were true.]

I mean, have you seen the drawing on the board? There's a market.

[foulhussy]

Maybe that's how they make this stuff. Y'ever thought maybe you were huffing jizz?

[ Kainé glances at the board and she immediately knows who is responsible for it. That's what love is, isn't it? Being able to pick your significant other's worm pic out from a line-up. ]

I see you're well acquainted with Anna, huh? Hell, I never knew she was so interested in drawing gross alien bugs.

[terriblepurpose]

If we are, what's the difference between that and all the pollen there's been in the air? Life is a marvel of fecundity.

[Or, in less poetic terms, nature is nasty. He follows the path of Kainé's attention, notes the soft and immediate recognition.]

Not well acquainted. But I do like her - and I think that the gross alien bug was meant as a present. Do tell her it's appreciated.

[foulhussy]

Hah. That's fucking disgusting.

[ She says that appreciatively. Her manner carefully hedged, but pleasant in her acerbic way, with the topic of Anna broached. ]

Well. She's a giving soul, whether you ask for it or not.

[terriblepurpose]

It is also fucking disgusting.

[The curse is voiced with crisp formality in his agreement, very obviously delivered by someone who still doesn't quite have the spirit of the thing figured out but is earnestly making the attempt anyway.]

She is, isn't she? She had all kinds of advice about my personal life, and then...

[The lovingly depicted erotic worm.]

[foulhussy]

[ She chuckles at hearing his novice cursing. It's always fun to be a bad influence.

She glances across the room, not managing to find Anna by eye, but knowing that she's there. And that knowledge feels good. ]

Yeah. It's... good she has people to talk with like that.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul is quiet as she scans the room, not wanting to distract her. It's not hard to guess who she's looking for.]

She hasn't always had an easy life, has she? Not that any of us have one here, but before this.

Not that it's anything I need to know. But she seems like someone who's happier than she used to be.

[The look Paul gives Kainé suggests that there may be a connection between that statement and her. (He can't help himself, sometimes; he's too much the romantic.)]

[foulhussy]

[ She appreciates the discretion. She's slow to open up like this. ]

...No. She hasn't.

[ She's even in a good enough mood that she doesn't say something snappy at his observation of her happiness, offering only an affirming mm sound. They're both happier. She's not sure how she did it, bloody and rough-hewn as she is, but her feelings are no less deliriously romantic about the whole thing. ]

[terriblepurpose]

[They're what his father would have called a 'charming couple', Paul thinks, and now he really is in danger of becoming sentimental.]

It's strange how that works. You wouldn't think of this place as a refuge, but for so many people, it is.

[They've veered far from worms and their proclivities. Paul brushes an imaginary bit of lint from the hem of his shirt, idly.]

I shouldn't keep you, on that note. I'm sure she's wondering who's whisked you away, and we can't have that.

[foulhussy]

[ She's becoming positively domesticated compared to her previous feral existence, and there's some part of that that is comforting. There's another part of it that sets her nerves suddenly on edge from time to time, knowing that danger could catch her when her guard is down.

But it balances out. She's even more scared of being alone these days. ]

Think she'll come rushing in to save her damsel in distress? Almost wanna see that.

[terriblepurpose]

[If Paul only knew about the shared sharp-edged guardedness of their nerves, he'd be able to assure her that this place is (for the time being) a safe one. He knows it in his marrow, in a way he can only recognize because it used to be how he always felt, until he didn't.

So he can laugh at the suggestion of Anna coming to Kainé, instead of running through the threat models that might be otherwise be implied.]

If you call for her, do you think she'd come running with a marker, or that lightning sword of hers?