deercountry | closedish to cool guys having chill day

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closedish to cool guys having chill day

Who: a bunch of funky friends invited by Viktor and Palamedes*
What: Having a Party in a field with Fireworks
When: the second week-ish in May
Where: (the field outside of) Pal and Viktor's bunker in Gaze

Content Warnings: alcohol and teens drinking it, irresponsible use of explosives, see threads for anything else that comes up

*If you have friendly CR with Palamedes please feel free to handwave that he mentioned this happening, also if your character has CR with a Pal Friend (a pal^2) who would invite them along, he's broadly allowing this. It's not a formal affair in the slightest lmaooo

--

afternoon/evening.

Earlier in the morning on the day of The Fireworks Field Party (tm), Palamedes makes sure to send a quick location ping to anyone who's never been to the Sixth bunker (also tm) before, because it is, indeed, just in a field somewhere in Gaze. The treeline is comfortably distant from the door to said bunker, which is the only real indication anything is out here besides a few "big rocks" that he names, in his message, as landmarks.

As an afterthought, he has set up a little trail of mason jars containing glowing mushrooms to lead the way to The Field, helpfully. The Field is what it sounds like: a dang field, just slightly ominous in the Gaze fashion, although besides the usual somebody's-watching feeling, it's grassy and spacious for kitschy lawn games. Among the things Palamedes has provided (upon recommendation of a shopkeeper, so like, do not perceive his choices, they were made for him) include:

1. Just a load of blankets, big cozy ones dutifully spread out for chilling on, on the ground.

2. Throwing game Crossbones, definitely chosen because of the bones (they are wooden sticks), and just kind of left sitting there waiting because your host does not know how to play physical games.

3. beanbag horseshoes because it rocks

4. Just, like, a specific blanket that has pencils and blank paper sitting on it... This is a free station, no one will question what art happens here.

Harrow has also provided bone chairs for alternate seating, which are precisely what they sound like.

Eventually, the field will also feature a snack table, which is a community effort, and a booze table, which is slightly supervised in the way that your esteemed host(s) will not permit booze and cherry bombs at the same time.

And, because it's an open field in Trench, there is also a table where emergency incense is waiting. Wandering too far from the space immediately around the bunker (which, it's a big space, you'd have to go far) will eventually lead you to blood wards on the ground, on the trunks of a few trees, etc. Don't touch these. Don't be gross.

the fucken fireworks.

It's fireworks. Once it's dark, there are even more glowing mushroom jars and homemade alchemy glowsticks from Waver to be passed around, somehow, and at least some of the little beanbags glow in the dark, ooh!! Viktor has provided cherry bombs to be used with at least a little caution, for god's sake. There are also some slightly larger fireworks in much shorter supply, from a shop, that will be closely guarded until someone with pyrotechnics talent convinces Palamedes they deserve one. Godspeed.

Broadly: this is a fireworks party (tm) for individual wee ones you can throw around on your own, with only a brief smattering of the big ones that light up the whole sky above the field. It's a chill time for cool buds, fire safety is encouraged, so is vibing on the blankets and enjoying a nice evening.

At various times, local dope musician Anna Amarande will be providing some light musical entertainment, for vibes.

the bunker i guess.

The party is not in here, but for reference:
-it's locked via numpad and neither of these stickbug nerds are giving out the code but they'll open the door if asked... you don't have to leave the place to go to the bathroom lmf
-it's a bunker. it's one room and a bathroom in the back. it's full of disorganized nerd stuff and an oversized moon orb and pal's mean omen, rocky the cool rat (harpy eagle), who will aggressively flap at anyone with sticky fingers until they leave
-the code is 69420 so if you're super funny like gideon you COULD guess it

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[is she afraid? well, she's not stupid and knows that when she answers, she won't be answering the little part that he tacked on at the end. she knows what question she's being asked, really. so: is she? afraid of letting the distance grow? afraid of what might happen when the distance does grow? afraid that no amount of distance will ever be enough?]

[well. yes. yes to everything. she doesn't know how to pull back from a friendship with a god. especially not a god who's done the kinds of things that she suspects this god has done.]

I think so. [she admits it slowly, casting a knowing eye his way.] I think there's a lot of ways this situation could get misjudged even from where I'm sitting now. I think there's a lot to be afraid about. [she's talking quietly, as though the person in question will overhear them. she thinks she's figured out where lazarus stands, but that says very little for the rest of the party.]

But that's the problem, you know? [she probes out a little more, just to confirm.] When you get close to someone from your own world, but you only find out later what makes his world different from yours. But I bet I didn't need to say that, huh? Bet you already know exactly what makes this situation so worrying.

[L is asking those questions, the ones she suspects, and perhaps some that she doesn't. He's just like that, and his motives, while noble, are probably not directly in line with what she may be hoping to accomplish.

There is, in his experience, no true compromise or best of both worlds.]

I know some things, but I'd hate to misjudge anything before I have a sufficiently full understanding. Whether or not you get close to someone from your own world, there are bound to be differences... I suppose the true question is what you'd consider irreconcilable.

[she can't give an easy or clear answer to that. she doesn't know how to, not while she's still feeling things out. not while she doesn't have a clear answer herself. so she draws in a slow breath and considers what to say. and, well. she's not totally devoid of that kind of answer.]

There's a story I know. From back home. It's about this little girl who was scared to death of a Butzemann. A boogeyman. [might as well make it clear who she's talking about.] She only ever heard one story about her, but her mind kept inventing bigger and bigger things just from that one little story. The only thing she knew for sure was that the boogeyman was strong—stronger than her, and probably very deadly.

She kept spinning these stories over and over in her head, building up the boogeyman to be even worse, even more dangerous. Ruthless, murderous, terrifying. [there are parts of this story, born from her own history, that she hasn't told anyone about. now's as good a time as any.] Thoughts of her kept the girl up at night, shaking in her bed and begging for the sunlight so she could pretend everything was okay again.

And then one day, out of nowhere... she met the boogeyman. And she started talking to her instead of running. And she learned just how much of what she'd built up was just exaggeration. How many things she'd assumed from just the tiniest little bit of information, and how much of it was totally wrong.

[she leans back, crosses her arms over her chest. lets her cigarette dangle.]

And that's kind of the end of the story, or at least the part of it that matters here. But it's a story about how one girl can let her imagination get the better of her, and how sometimes, it's just the result of trying to find answers when you don't have any. And it's a cautionary tale, too. Imagine if she'd been right. Imagine what would've happened to her if the Butzemann was exactly as murderous and vengeful as she thought.

[He doesn't expect to hear a tale fully laid-out in the fashion of a bedtime story, but he has to hear a whole lot of nonsense before he's willing to write something off as likely to be completely meaningless.

So, he listens, horned head slightly canted, with silent attention and respect, until she has reached the story's conclusion. And he was right; it was not, in fact, completely meaningless.]

I imagine that often, because when it comes to monsters, that's the more common tale.

[A benevolent one would be the outlier, he thinks. The lucky escape, the day a murderer just didn't feel like killing.

What he says next is spoken in very correct Hochdeutsch, not native but studied in meticulous detail.]

I'd say that any Butzemann deserves caution until it's proven that it's undeserving of suspicion. To be called a Butzemann at all means that there's a reason, however tiny. If an enemy is simply maliciously lying about their nature... there's a reason one has enemies, too.

[as the words come out in german, anna visibly relaxes. it feels like adding another layer of security to the conversation. and, given lazarus' response, it feels like they are finally on close enough pages that anna can drop the pretense. and thank god for that.]

[she replies, the conversation continuing in Hochdeutsch, or at least as close enough to it as anna can recall.]

He doesn't even know that I could be his enemy yet. I wouldn't be a good one, since he's stronger than me by a mile, but I could still be one in a way that would be really inconvenient for him. [she could make it hurt, she leaves unsaid. no matter how right she thinks she is.]

[That change doesn't go unnoticed. L won't shift his dialect back, knowing as much.]

There are different kinds of strength, especially in numbers. Especially where cleverness counts. You should use what he doesn't know... and hold off until you know it's a shot worth taking. Just my opinion, for what it's worth.

It's a good opinion.

[god help her, it really feels like a burden has been lifted. saying it straight like this to somebody, no bedtime stories, no metaphors, no lies.]

I don't know how many times I'll get lucky with the Butzemann in my life. But I don't want to play these cards or make him pay for anything if he really hasn't done anything wrong. That's not justice, that's slaughter.

There is, in fact, nothing just about slaughter.

[And his eyes linger on her for a moment, as if pondering how to say what he's considering, and then decides not to.]

Your instincts are there for a reason. We have a sense for whether or not these things are right, innately, so... don't let that atrophy because you've been charmed. Butzemänner are very good at that, you know.

[without saying anything else quite yet, she takes a final drag, ashes her cigarette, and shoves the butt against the bark of the tree. despite the force in her actions, she speaks calmly.]

Und Sie? [the question shouldn't be a surprise to someone like lazarus, or at least she doesn't think it would come off that way. not with the way he's been talking. not with the words he's been choosing. the only thing that might be a surprise is how she's speaking formally as she continues, still in the language that she expects only the two of them to understand.]

What are your instincts telling you about our friendly neighborhood Butzemann, exactly? Would you have started running already?

Und ich.

[He answers quietly, deeply pensive, caution lacing both syllables. He speaks like this too, generally, defaulting to the less familiar forms.

Others might say wir können "du" doch sagen, but he assumes this presonal distance is normal, even as the conversation grows increasingly more intimate and perilous.]

Running relies on two things: being fast enough, and knowing that you won't be followed. My instincts tell me that it's not the correct course to take.

[maybe this is a little much for someone she hasn't gotten to du terms with yet, but that's a chance she'll have to take.]

What would you have done? To get him to follow you, if you tried to run away. What reason would he have to hunt you down like that? [she's speaking in german, still. they're on similar pages, she thinks. she'll offer her own answer, then.] Because for me, I'm a living encyclopedia of every lie he's ever told his people.

You're not asking what I would have done; you're asking what I did.

[He cants his head, weighing, again, how much he wants to say.]

Ego comes with the capacity to be offended. The bigger the ego... the less likely it is to let such matters rest.

Do you really know every lie he's told his people? And by "his people", do you mean the ones of his house, or the ones of his world?

[that's an important distinction. she considers her answer for longer than she should. because lazarus raises a very good point, and one that lets on that he may already know what anna knows, as well. ah, but terminology is fleeting, isn't it?]

I don't know every last lie he's told. [she starts it slowly, like she's dancing around a point that both of them are too polite to acknowledge they already know.] But he probably knows that I won't need to hunt very hard for the truth behind them if I ever find out what they are. After all. [she looks lazarus up and down. he may not look very human, but she has strong suspicions. maybe it's time to talk about the elephant.] Anyone else from the First would recognize it immediately.

The First.

[He raises a brow. It doesn't sound like she's referring to the first thing he said; there's a significance and a stress to it.]

Are any such individuals here?

If you can speak Hochdeutsch, you have pretty good odds of being one of them.

[she hadn't meant to reveal this. mark it as a secret she wasn't able to keep and blacken whatever part of her soul cares about that. she talks plainly after giving herself a moment to see if lazarus had already caught on.]

The First isn't what you or I would call it. But if you're in the business of preserving creation myths like our Butzemann might be, then "The First" would be a good name to hide his home behind.

Even pretty good odds aren't always foolproof.

[A wry smile at that. In L's world, where everyone is a normal human being, a supergenius stands out even if his physical constitution is spindly and frail. Here, he has to work a little harder, even when he looks, temporarily, like a demon.

He thinks he catches her implication, though. The crossover; the parallels.]

You think that all humans are people and deserve a fair shot at living... that no one deserves to kill many of them. Is that true?

she could say something sarcastic here, something about how the german isn't just something she picked up for fun, but the mood doesn't call for it. she pulls herself back, bites her Zunge.]

Yeah, of course. I think the people who don't think that are pretty fucking monstrous, if you ask me. [this is leading to something, and there's a pit in her gut about it. there's only two types of people in this world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete sets of data.]

You're about to hit me with something real grim, Herr Lazarus.

Do you think so?

[He cants his head, still weighing whether it's a good idea or not.]

The subject at hand is "something real grim", is it not?

[ah. she's being afforded the grace to back out. unfortunately, it's too late for that; even if she stops now, she's pretty sure she knows what lazarus is implying, and besides, if she stops now then that calls into question what everything else was for.]

I think [she's cautious] that I already get what you're saying, and I'd love if you could say it outright. Just so I don't have to guess.

[Saying things outright is always a risk; saying things outright is always scary, unambiguously showing an entire hand to someone who might have a better one. It's only presenting them with the confidence to bet higher if it's so, or the prudence to fold if it's not.

Games with teams are different, but not, themselves, without different and equally pressing risks.]

Do you believe that if an outcome is unchangeable by an individual, ignorance is a sort bliss? We know this Bogeyman; billions of people didn't. So I wonder if they were lucky... to not meet the author of their fate. Maybe it was an act of God, to them; they didn't know better.

[anna tries not to give anything away, but takes this as more or less complete confirmation of what she suspected the whole time. he knows, and she doesn't know how he knows, but he's speaking with such confidence around the truth—like speaking it into existence is something to worry about, like collapsing the waveform will doom them all.]

[she mutters, then:] It was an act of God whether they knew or not. [and switches back to english. she's gotten what she needs.]

It's been great talking about this stuff with you, Lazarus. If you ever wanna hang out and talk about stuff that's less grim, I usually chill in Cellar Door playing music. Come on by, tell 'em you know the bitch on stage, they won't hassle you.

A Bogeyman can never be a god.

[He says this with just as much confidence, a little additional dash of disdain, before English resumes between them.]

I've been told before that I won't be hassled in situations like that, but I am very hassle-able.

[Though he's got a quiet and even gentle manner about him, he looks incurably like riff-raff.]

[anna just laughs.]

Nah, trust me. I've got a reputation at this place and I've taken in people way more easily hassed than you. [that's a word now.] You ever seen Paul Atreides try to maneuver his way through a bar? Kid looks lost. It's super funny, actually.

I can't say I've seen as much... I don't go to bars often with people.

[He's not a big drinker; though he's given it an effort at this party, eventually the taste just gets to him, and the dullness it instills in his sharp mind makes him deeply uneasy.]

I hope I can reach a point someday where I can laugh about his lostness. In the meantime I'll take your word for it, I suppose, and just do my best to get past the doorman.

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closedish to cool guys having chill day

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cw: genocide

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