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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ after his near startled pause, falco can’t help a breathy chuckle behind his smile that stands. he won’t even cook it, as if it’s a bad thing? falco hands the bowls that need beating to paul, and he says, with the utmost certainty. ]

You are going to cook things! Because I’m going to teach you.

[ that is, of course, gift number three. ]

So much for my clever plan to get out of my chores.

[Paul heaves a sigh, accepting his defeat and the mixing bowls with equally exaggerated resignation.

It's still odd, doing anything as mundane as a chore. He sets to beating the cake mixture with vigor anyway, because at least he's confident that can't go particularly wrong.

(He has no idea.)]

What are you going to teach me to cook, besides cake? You should know my family has a bad reputation in the kitchen.

[ a chuckle sounds, but it seems more like a suppressed snort. a reputation? falco can't help a snerk, and with a smile that's all playful, teasing, and no offense meant: ]

I heard. [ the rice incident was fairly recent. nothing can convince falco of an "accident". no escape, and no rest for paul! in the meantime, falco prepares the pans the cake should be eventually poured into, oiled, and floured. ] The first thing I tried to make alone was pasta, so that's one thing I want to teach. It's fast and feeds a lot of mouths. I'll find dishes with fish to learn, and you won't burn them or have to feed them to gulls.

[ he hopes. it's all about timing! ]

Your family was a noble family, right? Did people cook for them?

[ it's more an innocent question with an innocent, chatting finality. he doesn't seem bothered in the least if that was true. ]

I trust you to watch over my progress, oh sage of the sage.

[It's still challenging not to ruffle Falco's hair as a matter of course. He is eminently rufflable, and Paul has so often been on the other side of the ruffling equation it sometimes feels like striving for equilibrium when he passes the gesture on to Falco. Maybe that's how hair ruffling is learned, like cooking - one person to another over the millennia.

Maybe he's thinking of that to distract himself from other kitchens, ones he was scolded from whenever he snuck into them, full of the thrumming heart of a House that no longer beats.]

We did have cooks. But I meant our reputation as - have you ever heard of Tantalus? Supposedly, he's one of my ancestors.

[ oh hoh, he’s a sage, now. falco is positively elated despite the pleasant prods they give each other (and wherever the ruffles were and came, falco welcomes them with plush cheeks a dark greenish hue, but only because of his blood)— maybe he should continue to keep his focus on cooking, when it isn’t something medical in nature taking his time. he enjoys it, and he enjoys being on the end of “youngest” and “teacher”, a surprising package one would never usually be gifted at once. ]

Tantalus— [ he repeats the word, foreign to his tongue but eyes ever inspired to learn. ] A warrior?

[ it sounded like a warrior’s name. ]

A king.

[It occurs to him that the story as he knows it may need a measure of editing, out of consideration for certain facts now known to Paul about other talents Falco has beyond cooking.]

He was a man who thought he was more clever than the ancient gods. He set out to prove that they weren't all knowing by convincing them to partake of a feast with a forbidden ingredient. Most of the gods recognized what he'd done at once, of course, but one of them - the god of the harvest - was distracted, and ate from the feast.

[That the forbidden ingredient was Tantalus' son can be elided, even with the fact of his resurrection afterward.]

The gods punished him by condemning him to the underworld, where he stands in a pool of pure water under a tree laden with fruit. Every time he reaches for the fruit, it recedes above him, and every time he bends to the water, it retreats. They say that's where the word tantalizing comes from - but I don't want to end up in the underworld for what I serve people, so let's make sure these turn out well, hm? No forbidden ingredients - like Confetti, for example.

[ falco listens the same way any child would when presented with a good story; he enjoyed them, reminded of the times he’d sit with erwin by the kitchen of their odd little home in santa rosita, as he recovered from the ugly modification that was forced upon his jaw (that now holds no physical scars, all thanks to his biology). childish curiosity compels falco to question to himself what that forbidden ingredient was, but he refrains. and a good choice that was, for he’d have his doubt answered quite quickly if he simply continued as he did— oh, said his fallen features immediately. it didn’t take much more puzzle-fixing to understand that the secret wasn’t simply an animal, that’d be too easy and acceptable. it was something special. someone special. a person, he could guess as much. ]

Of course. You wouldn’t— and I’ll teach you how to start off better than that.

[ as much as paul has decided to make the story more appropriate, it still hits close to home, regardless. ]

Your family’s not, [ how would he word it, ] disfavored because of that, right?

[ he’s mildly concerned, but it doesn’t show entirely in how he still smiles and keeps serene— because he was disfavored for an ancestor’s sin. greatly so. ]

[So much for censorship. Paul does reach out this time, heedless of the powdery residue on his hand, and clasps the back of Falco's neck in a reassuring squeeze. He can make up for this, he's fairly sure - and he'll pick his next stories more wisely.]

Don't worry. It's one of the good stories, where everyone who got hurt was all right in the end. They put the ingredient back where it belonged.

[The next story, and the answer to Falco's question, is a better one, so long as he leaves out the first half.]

We were disfavored for a while after that, or so the stories go, until one of Tantalus' descendants, Orestes, was told by the god of the sun how to lift the stain on their House. He was sent to retrieve a statue of the sun god's sister, a great huntress, that had fallen from the heavens.

He traveled a great distance to arrive at the city where the statue had fallen, and was being worshiped by the people there, but once he arrived, he was captured - [Paul tosses in a grabbing gesture at the air, as if snatching up the hapless man] - and bound to be sacrificed, as was their custom with strangers. But do you know what happened? It turned out that his own lost sister was one of the priestesses, and she helped him to escape with the statue, winning back the gods' favor.

Or so they say. [He smiles at the smaller boy, setting down the last of his thoroughly mixed bowls.] All of that was a very long time ago.

[ success to both stories and mix-mixing (and a free powdery clap, he’ll be a mess after this is over— there must by a way to retaliate), falco brings over the floured pans read for pouring. the story has left a smile on his face, for sure, and what keeps it there is the prospect of an empty bowl to lick. yes, he’s giving paul his utmost attention as always, but not without a straying glance to said bowls to try and gauge out how much of it would be leftovers.

meanwhile, during all of that, it seems like confetti has woken up and quietly scouted anything within reach. a big bag of remaining flour? rummaged right through and leaving a trail of little paws and stubs everywhere he walked. he’s on his way to join the fun . . . but falco’s oblivious with his back turned. ]

They’re good stories— I’d read the books. [ if they were more stories than they were engraved history. the happiest of them was that neither really affected paul’s current place in the word that’s his, so to speak! ] Would they have stories of you, Paul?

[ it’d be . . . exciting, as the boy’s eyes say with a twinkle of fondness.

and maybe a gentle press of both floury hands on the older boy’s back. they’re even, he thinks. for now. ]

[Falco's interest in the bowls is noted. So, too, is the emergence of the round little creature from the bag, which Paul catches sight of and quickly averts his attention from in a moment of uncharacteristic gentle mischievousness. It's very...cute, he thinks, which isn't a word he uses often.

Instead of calling attention to Confetti, Paul turns back to the work, pouring the pans to partial fullness while perhaps reserving just a touch more of the batter than he needs. Falco's question and pressing hands are first answered with a contemplative hum, a light shake of his head.]

No. Not yet.

[Any other day, he might be troubled by the thought. Today, in this sunlit kitchen, slipping cake pans into the preheated oven, Paul can imagine stories better than the ones he fears.]

What sort of stories would do you think they might tell about me? And, of course, my faithful friend.

[A pointed and fond glance at Falco, in case he doesn't catch on immediately.]

[ his prayers have been answered for batter—! falco gradually begins wetting his lips as they pull wider in his smile, innocently cherished to be having the best part of any baking escapade. paul can have the other bowl, this one, he’ll have to be greedy with. with an entire spatula at the ready to scoop up a line of sweet (and probably unhealthy but who hasn’t done this—) batter, falco has flushed a slight tone of green around the cheeks. ]

—Me? I don’t think . . . [ he chuckles under his breath and ducks his head, meekly. he wasn’t the type to want any story about him, heroic or otherwise. ] I don’t think there’d be something about me. But I can imagine you— “The one who saves strangers, the stabber of the sea terror . . . ”

[ that spatula is going into his mouth, yes, so good. meanwhile, confetti has made it over to his human friend’s legs. all four of them. he has a little death grip on the cuff of paul’s pants, and seems insistent about being held. the way small infant things do, with the reaching and the doe eyes. ]

—He’s awake.

[Food safety is a concept Paul is still working to get his head around based on the dire warnings in his food preservation books. Raw eggs and flour have not yet been covered in the chapters he's read - and the day Paul Atreides learns about edible cookie dough will be a dangerous one for Falcos, wizards, and angels everywhere.]

You're sure? Nothing about the mighty winged savior? The bravest medic? I'd think-

[Whatever else he thinks is diverted by the tug on his pants, and Paul smiles delightedly down at the little creature. Of course he'll bend to scoop him up, supporting him like a human baby with a hand beneath his bottom and one curved around his spiky little head.]

Hello there. Aren't you something?

[The shell seems meant to be still on him, which is already a fascinating physiological quirk.]

"The roundest little creature". That should go in the story as well.

[ if cake batter wasn’t actually made of eggs, falco would give his little buddy some, right in the arms of his larger buddy— nearly dribbling the remaining spoonful down his chin from smiling too widely, falco quickly covers up (just a hand over his mouth) to clean up.

falco is quite convinced confetti could understand the meaning behind talk, at times, or had it maybe just been the energy of a given moment? he’s happily shrilling these chirping chuckles and giggles when roosted in the arms of the older boy, and seems to even celebrate his new title. ]

I’d get embarrassed— [ not because of the titles, per se, and more the attention it gathered. he almost could handle praise sung by a friend on his shoulders because of one single test. he could imagine stories passed down for ages. even now, at the singular praise from paul, the boy is flushing green. ] But he seems to like it?

[ what’s even better and gets the most attention: paul happens to know how to hold baby.

major points. major props. he is carefully eying the moment in hopes that not only would it burn into his memory, but rub off on his own baby-sitting skills. ]

[The way Paul holds Confetti is based on some of his earliest memories, clearer and more vivid than most people's recollection of their infancies. Months ago, Paul had though his lack of experience with children would make him inept with them.

He knows better now. He was a child once, well-loved and well-cared for. All he has to do is think about how he was treated, and proceed from there. It's not perfect - all he has to do is remember the story of Tantalus from minutes ago to be reminded of that - but it's a good place to start.]

You know - in a lot of stories, they put different people together. We could combine the two of you, save you any embarrassment?

[Would Confetti like to be rocked, a little? Paul hopes so.]

Or maybe we make the story about him completely. What kind of adventures does he get into? Besides bags of flour.

Well . . . He does this thing, I don’t know what it is. But every time he does it, it makes people really happy.

[ confetti could probably already do that without bestowing any type of spell on anyone— he just had that gift. or the looks. the rock left and right is fun, and all that positivity born from it is stored into his speckled eggshell. he is a creature of happiness, and hope, and generally doesn’t show himself to those who lacked that— to prove falco’s point, the togepi shrills high and opens his beak high, stubby little wing-hands waving about: to have fun and to share his happiness, to which paul would feel an explosive burst of something tickling in his chest, melting— and being given joy. ]

I’ll get him some snacks, real quick— [ the boy clatters any chairs out of the way to make it to his bag, where he pulls a jar of apple sauce and a spoon he’s prepared for the little guy. and— what he’s prepared for paul, too, tucked carefully from his sights.

it’s a wrapped gift, and within the gift is the model of a mouse, with circular ears and deep green eyes. falco’s sewing wasn’t exactly the best, but his effort is adorned in every stitch and craft put into making it. it smells like flowers, and keeps beasts at bay. the eyes of the plush mouse, as well as the pieces within it are hardened fractures of his blood, not at all beautiful to begin with, but . . . definitely functional.

he has the jar in front of him, and the gift behind his back, left at the far end of the counter for future realizations. ]

[So forewarned about the feeling, Paul expects something to happen, but the fizzing bubbles of joy surpass his expectations. They work their way from his chest to his throat and burst out of him in a clear, bell-like ring of laughter.]

Oh [softly delighted] thank you, Confetti.

[The kitchen is beginning to fill with the smell of baking as the cake mix warms in the oven. The sun casts everything in a soft glow, and the residual happiness of whatever Confetti did sings inside of him. Paul doesn't pay too much mind to whatever else Falco is doing as he sinks to sit cross-legged on the floor for ease of feeding, setting Confetti in his lap.]

So...Confetti, the wandering bestower of cheer? Going from town to town distributing smiles? [He looks to Falco, and perhaps it's a shadow, or the change in the light, but the unshaded blue of his eyes seems to have developed a green undertone.] A muse of happiness, on a quest to bring joy wherever he goes, in exchange for treats.

I like that. It's a better story. What do you think?

[ perhaps much better than cannibalism to set a light mood— though not more important! stories were stories after all, and there was a moment for all of them. taste was also a factor, and falco just so happened to enjoy any lick of lighthearted adventure— or dramatic romance that he never talks about.

with his apron out of the way and pulled right over his head to hang by one of the kitchen chairs, falco walks over with the mushy snack to sit with paul and a good egg who probably didn’t want to leave these arms. with the top of the jar popped open, confetti looks overjoyed over a little teaspoon being carefully prepared and guided to his beak in a playful little nyoom— ]

The kind I’d tell him every night. [ so, yes. absolutely. great. and all the wider does falco’s beaming get, a little surprised around the edges as he points out, after much observation in between spoonfuls of apple: ] Your eyes—!

[ he remembers the day they reunited, when they were so icy, sharp blue, and falco had been mucky and dripping slime.

now, they’re the way he remembers when they looked each other in the eye and prepared to run across a battle field. ]

[So there's another universal, Paul thinks, as Falco guides the applesauce into Confetti's avidly waiting mouth. The gesture is like he remembers, but the sound that comes with it is different, and Paul is caught on thw realization that every place must have some variation on the noise that means flight.

Then Falco interjects into his reverie, and Paul touches just below his left eye, startled.]

My - ?

[There's no pale residue of color, silver or blue, over his skin. The way that Falco called out wasn't alarmed. Paul feels fine. He feels better than fine. It all adds up to one conclusion, which breaks over him like a bright wave.]

Thank you.

[He says it to both of them, but mostly to Falco, tenderness filling eyes that shade another faint wash of green with it.]

You're a good friend. For all of this, and everything else. I'm lucky to know you.

[ he still has a spoon in one hand, a jar in the other, but that doesn't stop falco from feeling a warmth so immense growing in his chest to hear, and to see— his eyes have thinned from how his smile gradually widens too much, and he pushes himself to his knees to prop upright and throw his arms around the elder boy's neck, squeezing him into a hug on the opposite side of where paul held confetti (who seems to want to imitate and rolls his front to paul's). ]

I'm glad to have you.

[Paul folds them both into a hug (careful not to press too tight, lest Confetti end up cracked after all) that comes naturally to him now. Falco is one of the only people Paul knows besides himself who appreciates physical affirmation as much as he does.]

Always.

[Of all the promises he made, he was able to keep the one about coming back. He'll keep it still, whatever happens, even if the dangers of the world all seem very distant from this kitchen floor at the moment.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Birthday Party

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