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

[possessum]

( Peter's dopey smile remains in place for those few initial seconds in which he's taking in the younger boy's glossy stare, his slow movements.... Oh man, yeah, he's totally blitzed, isn't he?

But it's when the words come that something feels... different. A little wrong. The older teen blinks, that smile slowly shifting into a frown, willing against his own lethargy to sit up just a bit straighter.

It's more the way Oscar's speaking that's alarming, at least at first. Like he can't quite make his mouth move the right way. Has he been drinking? Does he know how to drink, yet? Peter's concern spreads wider; maybe he should keep him talking for a bit more, get his brain going a little. He doesn't want the poor kid to pass out or something. )

She? ( He gives a slow, heavy-eyed glance around the room. ) Is there someone here after you?

[justoscar]

Not here. No.

[With his limbs and head feeling like leaden weights, it was hard to sit up-- nonetheless shift to his side to stare more directly at Peter with eyes that were far too glassy and wide for anyone to be in decent condition. The dimmed light revealed a truth he had been keeping under wraps: his eyes gleamed like a nocturnal creature's whenever ambient light in the dimmed room hit them, and in that moment they all but glowed like some shy creature slinking back into the shadows... not unlike the jackalopes that had flocked through Deerington a couple of autumns ago.]

We took care of her in the dream, killed her over and over until she couldn't hurt us anymore.

... She found peace before we entered the sea, I think.

But, on Remnant? The fight is still on.

[possessum]

( When Oscar sits up like that, meets his eyes, the older teen freezes. Even in his lulled state, a spike of alarm pierces through him with an unpleasant jolt, an anxiety that blossoms in his stomach.

Oscar's eyes are— wrong. And maybe Peter should be used to such things by now: after seeing what Corruption can do (Luna's here with him, and her own eyes shine with an eerie iridescent glaze), and his own were turning fully black just a couple months ago.... but it's not something he'll ever get used to. Changes like that. Little hints of something that's not quite human.

He swallows, staring into those glowing eyes, and as he listens to Oscar speak... something within Peter stirs, too. Something ancient and knowing, but lost in its ways. Something that latches on to what the boy says and how — us, we.

Peter's eyes don't quite glow, but something sparks within them, brightening and clearing their glossy haze. Something curious and Other. It isn't only Peter who asks the question. )

...Who are you?

[justoscar]

Just me.

... I think.

[He frowned, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to remember the boundaries of his sense of self. The person before before him seemed to all but vibrate with worry that washed over Oscar through his spice-enhanced Paleblood senses in waves. It felt bizarre, as if he were being held under water--

He let his head drop deeper into the pillow with a groan]

There's too many faces and voices.... She is the only thing in common between everyone.

[possessum]

( Peter — and not-Peter, and somewhere in them both are more ghosts of their own, all the little lost spirits that the demon's been forced to inhabit over time — look back, wide-eyed. Opened up. For a moment, Peter's breath is too slow; he's absorbing whatever, whomever, sits before him. Or, trying to. On some level, he's aware this is Oscar; on another, he's aware it's more complicated than that.

Then he blinks as the younger boy's head drops like that, stirred out of his own strange mixture of ancient things coated in dust, and once more wearing a human concern more than an alien confusion. She.

He tilts his head just slightly, drops his voice almost to a whisper. There's no one listening in; everyone else that happens to be in the room is doing their own thing, but he still keeps the conversation with Oscar a private one. Quiet. What's haunting him...? )

Who.... is she?

[justoscar]

[Recognition warmed Oscar's wearied expression for a moment while he stared at Peter with wide eyes-- recognizing the shadows of multitudes if only on an unconscious level. The ghosts between Peter and whomever else lurked in there cast a familiar pall that was not unlike the ghosts of Trench.

Or, the ghosts of multitudes that lurked in the dark places he couldn't touch in his own soul.

Brows furrowing, he really focused on Peter from the ether. Even if for the moment he couldn't place the face, he recognized two facts:

1) This was someone who was okay to trust.
2) This was not Ozma.

Struggling for words and voice, he finally managed to get his thoughts and tongue in enough of an alignment to explain:]

She is the witch cursed with immortality who destroyed humanity thousands of years ago, the one who creates the Grimm beasts who hunt down our people daily, and who is the reason why people my age and younger enter combat academies to learn how to fight.

She wants to destroy Remnant-- because that's the only way she can destroy herself and find release from her own eternal suffering.

She cannot die. Nothing I can do can stop her. Nothing is going to end.

[possessum]

( Peter listens with wide eyes that grow wider still, huge and round and strangely wet, like something that's been unearthed from the bottom of a rock: dark and moist.

Through all of the strangeness, he recognises pieces of this. Remnant. Grimm beasts. Things from Ruby's world. Of course he's known Oscar comes from the same land, but he's only glimpsed the surface of what Remnant was like. He knows it was.... a difficult place. Ruby's a testament to that: someone Peter's age who knows how to fight in ways a young person shouldn't. This witch... is the one responsible for that?

She wants to destroy everything to end her own suffering.

Peter swallows, and very, very tentatively, reaches a hand out. It's so slow that the movement feels like it takes forever, but finally his fingertips find Oscar's hand, brush gently against his knuckles. Just to find him. To keep him there. )

It's okay. You aren't... there. You're here, and she isn't. You're safe.

[justoscar]

We're... safe.

[It was hard to imagine, not when the host of this party had eyes that seemed like lights gleaming from the endless abyss of Grimm ichor in which Salem had tried to drown herself--and from which she gained the bulk of her fell power. A part of Oscar held fast to a singular thread of doubt... and yet, it was so easy to wrap his shaking fingers around the other boy's.

He frowned. With his world spinning, all he knew for certain was that he too wanted to be released from this strange existence. Such a boon, however, was not an option.]

Are we really? We're surrounded by blood and death. It... doesn't seem that safe.

[His glassy gaze flickered to one of the nearby skeletons that moved about the party, serving up drinks and other confections. Death was still death, no matter how much paint and glitter it was gilded in.]

[possessum]

( Whatever's haunting the younger boy has clearly shaken him. Peter's frown deepens as Oscar's fingers grasp onto his own, those little tremours passing through. It's most often he's on the other end of it — so quietly trembling, needing a hand to reach out and take hold of his, keep him connected to something.

Now it's his turn, and it comes strangely naturally for him now. He doesn't even have to think about the way his hand tightens against Oscar's, warm and secure. Protective, even. He wants to protect him from whatever's upsetting him. He's not even sure Oscar knows who he is; it doesn't matter. Things are strange and dreamlike, and he holds onto the younger's hand through it.

And he understands the reply. Peter's dark eyes slowly travel around the room, following that hazy stare. )

No... you're right. I don't think this place is safe.

( There's... something wrong here. Peter may not have seen it for himself the way Oscar has, but the Thing inside him knows. Senses it. If Luna weren't here, Peter wouldn't be able to stay. )

But... right now, on this sofa. This moment. You're safe. I won't let anything hurt you.

[justoscar]

[Oscar didn't recognize this person as anyone beyond a familiar face that he had passed by multiple times over the last couple of years-- and the undercurrent of knowing that this face was someone worth reaching out to was enough to have him visibly relaxing. Nothing was real; yet, the hand that held his was absolutely real.

Heaving a sigh, Oscar willed his eyes closed and squeezed those reassuring fingers.]

Yeah... okay.

[He breathed, focusing on the mechanics of the inhale and exhale for a moment that felt like eternity. Holding onto the other boy's hand as an anchor, he finally felt safe to just...

let go.

Perhaps it was his instinct to cling to consciousness that had caused him to get lost between spice-induced euphoria and the existential terror of those eyes that gleamed like a light within a void. Until he had found someplace safe, he couldn't take a risk and leave his body untethered and unguarded. However, like this...

He could at least allow the grasp of the vivid dreams of sleep to take him.

Thickly, he found his tongue and his words once more to utter one last thing to the other person whom he hoped to find again.]

...

Thanks.

[possessum]

( Peter keeps looking over at Oscar, still concerned by what might be affecting him, and still unsure how to describe it at all. The Thing in him, that Being of Knowledge, will continue wondering, wanting to seek it out, to understand, but Peter... doesn't have to. His role is to watch over.

The younger boy's lids close, and Peter keeps watching. He won't leave him. )

It's no problem. ( He says, with a quiet smile to his voice, something softer against the slightly hoarse edges of his throat (from all the weed....) And he means it. Peter shirked from this sort of thing, once. Sometimes, still. Being the one to watch over, to protect, because something happened once that he can never undo. If he closes his own eyes, he can still see Charlie standing in the doorframe that night, calling his name. His little sister was frightened; she'd come to him to protect her.

He'd failed.

But his fingers won't flinch from the smaller ones grasped against his; he won't hide away from it.

He'll stay there while Oscar falls asleep, gently holding onto his hand and making sure that, for the next few hours at least, nothing bad can find him. )