RP Time? You betcha!

[shipwreck_light]

"Lucien? What did I tell you about running off on your own?"

Somewhat unsurprisingly, his son didn't answer him with more than a grin. And a splash, once Claude had drawn closer.

Leave it to any child of his to throw off his nice new boots just to stick his feet in the first likely looking stream that came along.

It wasn't even as if they'd gone that far out of town, but away from the roads, from the other sorcer-sorts and Aethies, even the breeze felt calmer, though it had hardly caught to much all the while they'd been walking. Claude being glad they had any at all, as hot as it had been the past few days.

The storm the night before had left lacy scatters of twigs and leaves and knocked down spider webs. Clean and still damp, the leaves overhead and tangled in the grass, they looked pieces of stained glass. And the trees, when they nodded, they sounded clear as harp strings with nothing else to cut the sound.

Out of farmland use and the whiles of any humans at all, the stream had been left so clear, so delicious looking. Just begging for some little blond imp of a boy to come along and kick his heels in it.

Well, one already had. Claude didn't bother with another sigh. He pulled his shoes off and laid them in the stones at his side, stretching lazy as he reached his own toes towards the glittering surface.

And promptly jerked back with a yelp. "Child of mine? That's /cold/."

"I know," said Lucien. "I think it feels nice."

"Maybe if you're part bear. I've always halfway figured, you know."

They had some teasing hums between them and Claude crossed his legs, feet now on the warm pebbles along the bank where they damnwell belonged.

"I think I got that from your side of the family," his son suggested after a while. "Anyway, why do you think it's like that? I don't hear anybody around."

"That wasn't tagging along?"

"Well..." The boy knitted his fingers in his hair, tugging himself a wingtip curl along his temple. "I think I'd only notice Nene if she was /gone/."

"And as for our new friends?"

"They couldn't have gone far. They know we have candy." To which, he nodded. Ever so sure of himself.

Ah, children. Children had gotten him this far with their self-assured beings. And children had found him what was really a rather strange clearing on closer inspection. The stream wore deeper through some places in the grass than others, showing shifts of rock, glints of moss and tree roots sneaking by. It divided the clearing just about cleanly in half.

Besides, on the edge of the forest easing back into being, a great, old ash stood.

Covered in tiny flowers. Pink and violet and hints of white. All of them, growing in streaks as if the bark had long ago turned to soil, though the tree seemed healthy and strong otherwise.

Besides.

"Papa," said Lucian, voice hushed. "There aren't any birds here, are there?"

"No," Claude answered after a moment. "It's just you and I and /a bunch of stinkers who ran off from us/."

"Oh, so that doesn't include me?"

"Child of mine."

They had a few more hums, there in the quiet of the clearing.

There, before something very strange and very faint began to creep along Claude's Aether lines.

It felt like being tickled almost. Anyway, it made him smile. Lucien too.

And next, there his son darted off again, racing over the grass and into the middle of the clearing, where he stood staring into the sky and whistling. Expecting a giant Gust to come sailing down in the form of a giant bird? It might just be that.



Welcome!

Note that anything your characters do in the clearing may result in posts back of things happening around them, even if these aren't exactly invited. Something's lurking around here, and it wants a snack!

Feel free to bring your own fairies, ghosts, mages and seriously confused regular people.

Comments

Re: Taz and Dallu

[shadowsong26]

"A good name for all little sisters," Taz said, as solemnly as she could manage.

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

[bookblather]

"Still lost," Jack admitted. "You'd be better off with my sister, Charlotte. She's the one who actually thinks about things. My sister Miranda makes all the ruthless choices and I just go off and have fun." He grinned. "It's quite a nice setup, actually."

Re: Taz and Dallu

[bookblather]

"See, you get it," Andy said, and gave Dallu a pitying look. "You'll never understand unless you have a sister, man."

[sarcasticsra]

"This is my third time in roughly the equivalent of six Earth months," he said thoughtfully. "From what I understand, appearing here once increases the likelihood you will continue to appear other places in the future."

Re: Jack, Spirit of Darkness

[bookblather]

Okay, that had sounded a touch... hysterical. Jack let the grin drop and blinked at him.

"Er, actually, I can think of at least three other gods with angels, off the top of my head. Human gods, at any rate."


ooc: awwwwwwwesome. He can go have a meltdown and then Summer will make him feel better. If you like. :D

Re: Jack, Spirit of Darkness

[sarcasticsra]

"Yes, of course the humans worship other gods," Gabriel said, briskly, dismissively. "They're humans. It's to be expected. It doesn't mean they all exist."

God had not shared His Plan with Gabriel, and that was fine. He might not be allowed to know some things, but there were certainties. There were.

[janet_mohren]

Janet used a thin book to fan herself. Of all the times for the air conditioning to go out, it had to choose now? It couldn't wait until they wouldn't need it? "I think I'm melting," she muttered to Alyce.

"Oh, honey." Alyce stood. "Do you want ice? Something cold to eat?"

"Let's go out for dinner," Janet suggested.

"At least it's not the power. Walking the stairs in this heat would suck."

"This heat already sucks," Janet corrected her.

"I think more for you than for me. It should start cooling down in a month or so, though."

Janet smiled wryly. "I think I'll be a human furnace by then. This kid better be worth it."

"Are you going to guilt-trip the poor thing every summer?" Alyce found her keys and stepped into her sandals, then returned to the couch to offer Janet her hand.

"Not every summer." Janet used her as leverage to get to her feet after sliding on her own sandals. "Starting in about thirteen years, though..."

Alyce laughed. "That's fair. Where do you want to eat?" She opened the door and followed her wife out.

Janet stopped dead two steps out the door. "Are you seeing this?"

Alyce stared around them. "If you're seeing a forest and a stream, then yes, I am."

"Well, at least I'm not crazy."

[sarcasticsra]

"I have never heard of either place," she said, and tilted her head slightly again as a thought occurred to her. "What year is it, where you're from?"

Re: Jack, Spirit of Darkness

[bookblather]

"Well," Jack said, and shrugged. "Some of them are quite active, as far as I can tell. The Hindi gods in particular."

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

[shadowsong26]

He wasn't sure how else to explain it, so he nodded. "It...does seem to be a nice division you have going there." He also hoped very much he would never meet this Miranda.

Re: Taz and Dallu

[shadowsong26]

"Sadly true," Dallu agreed. "I can't even share Kes."

"Not for this, anyway," Taz said. "You're lucky, you only get the good parts of sisters."

[johnny_corlioni]

That would definitely count as an unexpected answer. "Why not with P--" He cut himself off, suddenly knowing the answer. "Tore wouldn' let ya stay with Melissa after Pop died?" He barely needed to ask the question; he knew that, if Torey could get Maria away from Melissa in his present day, Torey would, and that was with Pop there to take care of Maria.

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

[bookblather]

Jack let his face soften, thinking about his sisters. "Oh, yes. Miranda is our protector, Charlotte is our heart and I am our... hmm. How to put this politely." He winked as he said it.

Re: Taz and Dallu

[bookblather]

Andy made an exaggerated face of shock. "You mean there are good parts to sisters?"

[martina_corlioni]

"And you have no idea why it happens." It made sense that God had His secrets, but this seemed like such a petty one to keep.

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

[shadowsong26]

He flushed. "I...I'm sure I can imagine," he said.

Re: Taz and Dallu

[shadowsong26]

"Sometimes," Taz said, laughing. "Rare's that might seem."

[one_eyed_nemo]

Nemo took a moment to think about that. He knew the Veni year easily, as well as the standard year; remember the Old Earth year took a bit longer. "2621 CE," he said at last. "Maybe a few earlier or later."

[sarcasticsra]

"You're actually going to try to bribe me with dinner?" Mark gave Richard an unimpressed look as Richard pulled up to the valet station. "Dinner? That's the best you can come up with?"

"I was thinking that plus what comes after dinner might help make it up to you."

"Oh? Did you also manage tickets to the opera?"

Richard laughed, nodding at the valet as they got out of his car. He tipped him generously and they headed off toward the restaurant's doors--Mark's favorite, of course. Leaning in close, a hand at the small of his back, he murmured in his ear, "You know exactly what I mean."

He smirked as Mark shivered, completely undercutting the faux-glare he shot him. "You've got quite the debt to work off, if you'll recall. Mrs. Gregson is the most insufferable woman you've ever forced me to interact with for an extended period of time."

A door man smiled at them and opened the doors as soon as they reached them, gesturing them inside. "It was not my idea that she stay that long, you know--"

Richard stopped as he acknowledged his surroundings. This was not the restaurant. This was a forest.

"...again?" Mark asked, after a moment.

"Evidently," agreed Richard. "Not a school this time, apparently."

[sarcasticsra]

Maria nodded. "Precisely," she said. "Melissa was only too glad to be rid of me, of course." She got her money, after all. It was such a shame she stuck so well to her rules, sometimes. Melissa would have been fun to kill.

Re: Jack, Spirit of Darkness

[sarcasticsra]

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. "I don't believe you. You're not trustworthy," he said.

Beings of darkness were not to be taken seriously, especially unknown beings of darkness.

[sarcasticsra]

"None whatsoever," he said. That shouldn't trouble him as much as it did.

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

[bookblather]

Blush. Nice.

"Cute," Jack said, and batted at the man's nose. "We get along, anyway." He hesitated. Asking about this guy's family would not end well. Topic, topic. "You would like Charlotte, I think."

[sarcasticsra]

"Roughly six hundred years into the future, from my point of view," Maria said. It did make a certain amount of sense, given Nemo himself. "Do you currently live on--Veni?"

Re: Taz and Dallu

[bookblather]

"Leah's okay sometimes," Andy allowed, thoughtfully. "And, you know, I'd beat up anybody who said something bad about her. Except my cousins, but they don't say anything bad about her, they save it all for each other."