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

[wannasmash]

Paul has told him he looks good before, an affirmation one friend should give to another. This is different. The longer one pair of green eyes stares at another, the more Midoriya is convinced Paul is not simply very fascinated by eyeliner. Midoriya can't turn away from a sincere, bare look from someone he cares about. Paul, who wields words as skillfully as swords, now drops them like stones.

Attracted to the warmth of the spot, and because Midoriya knows it's close, his fingers curl and find Paul's pulse. It's something to hold onto while his own can't decide what it wants to do.

Paul's drawing failed to capture rosy flushes like the one creeping across his nose and freckles under the scintillating touch of pale fingers. Midoriya looks at Kaworu, but his eyes--the color of luck, passion, and human blood--travel down. This affords Midoriya a similar steady view, unbroken by being known, of lashes and dark strokes lining pale, sharp angles.

It's a relief when Kaworu sits back, now a little less close than inexorably so. It's also a relief to shyly smile away people staring at him. He'd have squirmed under such scrutiny, except he realizes he'd be a hypocrite, so he lets the camaraderie of being embarrassing condense around them in a spice cloud.

"Nagisa-kun's hard work--I wouldn't know, I can't see... Oh, wait--" It hadn't occurred to him at first, having spent so many years with no reason to use it, no friends to send things to. He fumbles for his Omni and its front camera. It's a poor, flattened facsimile of what his eyes can see, but he grins down at himself anyway. (Still, he likes looking at the other two better, and it reminds him of what people usually do with front cameras.)

"Here. Get in." He sticks out his arm and scrunches into the back of the couch and his friends, trying to fit them all into frame. He's poor at this.

[terriblepurpose]

Paul laughs lightly at Kaworu's correction, inclining his head in concession. Midoriya looks excellent. They all do, and it softens the amber-warm stretch of the moments between them, contextualizes the press of Midoriya's fingers against his skin and the weight of Kaworu sinking into his lap.

Ebb and flow. They're all playing with a kind of power none of them are sure what to do with yet, and there's no one he can think of he trusts more to do that with. It's like sparring in a different arena. It's like leaping off a roof and knowing he'll be caught mid-air, but by kind hands instead of humming power.

So when Midoriya hits on the idea of memorializing their matching looks, he doesn't think twice about shifting closer. He keeps his arm locked around Kaworu's waist, the other boy not so difficult to move as long as he keeps the support of the couch, and readily settles against Midoriya's outstretched arm. He flings his own around Midoriya's well-muscled shoulders and tucks Kaworu's head under his chin as he smiles winsomely at the camera.