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

[necrolord]

[ The skeletons are unyielding. They stare and him and wail, loud and horrible; then, when the Togepi begins to shriek, they shift their attention and wail at it. The hallway is a nightmare of skeletons and noise. It is, incredibly, even more stressful than being downstairs with all the space drugs.

(Downstairs, someone catches the sound. He feels the phantom vibration through senses humans aren't meant to have, and keeps half an eye on that situation, eyebrows quirked. If the alarm system isn't enough to keep someone from the bedrooms...)

There are three paths before Falco: back down the stairs to the gentler chaos of the party, or down the hall to the bedrooms. Left to Paul-and-Kaworu's, or right to God's grand master at the end of the hall. ]

[grice]

[ oh, dear. confetti might know some basic attacks, but . . . it's still a baby. it's still a little thing that needs to grow, and all these skeletons honing their screaming right at him gets the fairy egg's big wide eyes to widen further, tear up, and cry his heart out in a chirping wail. falco does his best to shield the togepi against his chest and drown out the siren screaming with his arms.

his best chance was making a run for it, and so he did. he knew there was paul's and kaworu's room, kaworu had just earlier offered it to him for this very occasion. but which door was it—? in a rush, falco turns right, flinging the door wide open and slamming it shut, holding an arm against it and then his back, to keep his weight.

in the meantime, confetti still cried, and only after the door didn't rattle or anything alarming, did falco push his back against the wall and cradle the egg, trying to soothe him with shhhs and, what was it that rose showed him? rocking, like babies tended to soothe to. ]

[necrolord]

[ The door doesn't rattle; the skeletons don't pursue. Falco is left alone in a bedroom with his sad egg.

The moment he looks up, though, he might realize it's the wrong bedroom.

The master bedroom is, frankly, ridiculous. It's nearly the size of the entire great room downstairs. The bed is huge; the windows are draped in musty black velvet; everything is decorated in dark, stately old woods and cool tones. On the shelves are eerie pieces of bone which might be human. The whole place is cozily cluttered with notebooks and loose papers and abandoned mugs of tea. The bathroom, glimpsed through a doorway, is expansive: two sinks, massive tub, some kind of walk-in closet. This room could belong to a goth millionaire or a vampire.

(John, meanwhile, decides it'll be a laugh to see who let themselves into God's own bedroom... and he maybe ought to keep an eye on the space before anyone finds the things he keeps in his closet. Down that same hallway, he hushes the skeletons and mounts the stairs.) ]

[grice]

[ confetti calms with falco's tender cooing and bouncing, wiping away the dampness at the corner of his eyes with the cloth wrapped around him, and ultimately getting his attention. hey, hey, that's it, i'm here, he whispers with a light smile, and by the time he feels at ease enough to look up—

ah . . . oh—? did kaworu and paul sleep in this room? it looks so. macabre, to be their's? bringing the egg close to his chest and rising to his feet, falco keeps close to the wall, ebbing away from the door and whispering to his companion: ]

I think— This is the wrong room . . . [ maybe he could send paul a message? kaworu? no, he can't. they're balls off the walls drunk and whatever else. confetti chirps with a question, and falco decides the floor might be alright to lay on. he's had to sleep on worse. ] I'll just wait a little bit. Until they're gone.

[ once he's confident enough in the silence, he'll try for the room next door. in the meantime, he'll keep an eye on the lighting coming from the bottom of the door's frame. ]

[necrolord]

[ Good that he keeps an eye on the strip of light below the door, because quite suddenly a shadow shifts across it. There are footsteps— the real sort, not all bones— and whoever it is must be taller and less light of foot than Paul or Kaworu. With the shadow of a man at the door, the doorknob turns.

It's Falco's only chance to make his choice: bolt for the vast bathroom and its walk-in closet, bolt for the bed or the dark floor-length drapes, or let himself be caught in the world's spookiest master bedroom uninvited. ]

[grice]

[ the minute he sees movement stop in front of the door, his heart leaps. it had to be the skeletons, or worse— and something was urging him to hide. falco was never one to ignore a gut instinct.

the closet and bathroom would corner him, for certain. if he remained somewhere he could dash out of while it went elsewhere, then . . .

the boy chooses to hide himself and his egg underneath the bed, sliding himself into the space and huddling confetti close. an attempt to steady and hold his breath in three, two— ]

[necrolord]

[ The door opens. Weight shifts in the doorway, and it isn't the click of bones. It's the party's black-eyed host, the nameless man who commands the dead, and he stops in silence at the threshold.

(He bites his lip against a laugh. Under the bed, mate? Really?)

He weighs the cruelty of fucking with this kid against how funny it would be, and of course the bit wins out. It'd be a waste to pass up, right? Steal into God's own private quarters and there will be consequences, even if the consequences feel like something out of a corny old horror film.

He walks... slowly... past the bed, to inspect something on the dresser against the wall. His worn black leather shoes pass inches from Falco's hiding spot, egg and all. ]

[grice]

[ confetti just doesn't stop squirming once he sees that the foot at the edge of the bed is simply a shoe (shoes), what it's come to know as people. people are kind! falco was kind— surely there's no reason why they should hide. try as falco might to hold the kicking (and now chirping) eggthing, but his hold is eventually relinquished, if not their entire hiding spot completely giving way with the shuffling underneath the bedframe. that, and peeping.

right by god's leather shoe, and now what touches it with a feathery stub is a togepi. falco's vileblood runs cold. ]

[necrolord]

[ The Togepi pokes him on the shoe. There is a beat of ringing silence as John stops and simply stands there, in the seemingly-empty room, necromantically aware of the kid crouched breathless under his bed and the Pokemon trying to make friends. For a long moment, nothing happens.

Then he bends down and reaches one warm brown hand under the bed to scoop the little creature up. ]

Well, hello, there.

[grice]

[ well, this is. this has gotten extremely awkward. confetti slipped through his fingers and ended up in someone else’s (who is very happy about saying hello, by the way!! chirp!). now it’s just kind of— stupid, to be hanging around down here. for one, it wasn’t a skeleton, but . . .

with a sigh, from under the bed crawls out a very young boy with his face flaring a deep green hue— a vileblood. he’s younger than any of the boys with their festivities downstairs. he cooked some of the food, actually. he guided paul to bake the cake. he’s played pin the tooth on the worm, and for the most part has only been watching until it got too rowdy for his age range.

plus, it was tiring to keep mothering and nagging every single drunk teen he came across. ]

. . . Sorry, um— [ he raises his eyes to meet the man’s gaze briefly, trying to gauge how much trouble he’s in, if this is the gentleman’s room. it’s hard to tell. ] I was— looking for Paul’s room.

[necrolord]

[ Someone he loves— someone he recently murdered— would say You've been trespassed upon by an infant. There's a toddler under the bed. The burglar is all of two years old.

She isn't here. But John cannot help but look pitying, and perhaps a touch amused, when this astonishingly young boy crawls out from under his bed and stands shamefaced in God's own bedroom.

He tucks the Togepi to his chest— it makes an incredible noise, genuinely amazing, he'd still be cooing hellos if he didn't have this situation to sort out— and regards the boy with his very best expression of benevolent patience. It's one he's good at. Only a little undermined by the stubby little arms trying to poke him in the jaw. ]

You've taken something of a wrong turn, if that's the case. I take it the skeletons didn't give very helpful directions.

[grice]

Th—that was my fault, I chose the closest one instead of the right one. Sir.

[ the skeletons screaming and confetti screaming right back and then the skeletons just proving themselves louder was quite panic inducing! even more for a child, still a child, taking up the responsibility to care for another child.

falco bows his head, and part of his torso to repent, all while confetti continues to poke, prod and pull at the man’s collar much like a curious baby would. it’s too bad he’s not close to his ears, or hair, because he’s stroke and grab those, too.

the man seems kind— but that doesn’t deter the boy’s apologies of breaking an entering. ]

We just wanted to rest.

[ no stealing, no vandalism; he just wants to nap with his egg, at an hour that is mighty past their bedtime. ]

[necrolord]

[ The Sir is very polite. So's the bow. He's very nearly impressed, what with the ruin all the other kids are making of his living room at the moment.

(It should be My lord, frantically prostrated before divinity, et cetera, but again the dissonance is funny to him. He feels like a neighborhood dad playing chaperone. Incredible.) ]

Reasonable mistake. Paul sent you up here, eh?

[ He turns away, Togepi still in his arms, and then he beckons Falco after him. The distant wailing has cut off, and now all they have between them is the thud of music from downstairs. ]

This room's not up for grabs, sorry to say. [ He spreads a hand absentmindedly towards the king bed, the books, the pressure of a very spooky and important room. ] But I can walk you there. Gives me another minute to bond with this little guy.

[grice]

[ paul, always, and kaworu too, most recently— he nods to that. but just having the man offer him a walk to the correct door and living space (and hopefully, not so eerie) was far more than enough. falco had, at the very least, expected to be dismissed with his egg. for the most part, togepi is happy, and after staring down at the boy who cares for him with a happy shrill in the man’s arms— he bows his head, one more time, trying to hold down a smile directed at his friend. ]

If it isn’t any trouble for you, Sir— A-and, I can take him back, if he’s bothering you?

[ the boy only gestures lightly with his hands held out; confetti had practically thrown himself at the man. not everyone enjoyed or felt truly comfortable holding an egg. ]