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

[grice]

[ 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. ]

[terriblepurpose]

[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.

[grice]

[ 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.

[terriblepurpose]

[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.]