rainbowlounge | Spring RP: The Hennessy Home

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roleplay: open

Spring RP: The Hennessy Home

The house sits on a bluff above the sea, with a winding path down to a sandy beach leading away from the yard. It is three stories high, stucco and terracotta, and would look forbiddingly expensive were it not for the worn tire swing hanging from a tree and the flip-flops left strewn around the outdoor pool.

Inside, the house looks much the same--expensive but lived-in. A grand piano, clearly used, dominates one room. Another room has couches and chairs neatly arranged like a museum, with beat-up books and magazines filling its shelves and cupboards. It is light and airy, with huge windows, a well-stocked kitchen, and first-rate entertainment systems.

The first and second floors seem to be generalized living spaces, with the bedrooms on the third floor. The master bedroom is the only exception, and the only one that still seems in use. Multiple other rooms, especially on the third floor, look dusty and unused.

((welcome to the RP, writers! Let the games begin.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Other way around," Lux said. "I failed the people I was trying to protect. And then--" Damn. She kept coming right to the edge here. If she hadn't caught herself, she might have let Michaela's name slip.

"Hmm." Something to keep in mind. She refused to fail her sister, or her brother, refused to let either of them become what she was. "Thank you for telling me. It's... good to know."

She nodded. "Of course. And I...appreciate your not asking for further details." Couldn't hurt to let the human know that.

"I thought there was something you would rather not discuss," Miranda said, a little dry. "I don't particularly mind, just... may I ask who, precisely, you are?"

"My name is Lux," she said. "I apologize, I thought I'd already mentioned." She knew full well she hadn't, but it was, she thought, a reasonable courtesy sort of lie. "And yourself?"

"Miranda," she said, and left it at that. Either this person would know who she was, or they would not, and either way Miranda was fine with it. "I have a cousin named Luz. Quite similar, I believe."

She nodded. "Yes, fairly similar, I think." Of course, Lux was only an abbreviated, human-like rendering of her true name, but there was no need for Miranda to know that. "I don't know anyone else named Miranda--were you named after the Shakespeare play, or is it a family name, or...?"

"Do you know, I'm not sure," Miranda said. "I know that my mother is quite conversant with Shakespeare, but it's possible they just liked the name." She shrugged. "I had rather not be named for the character in the Tempest, though."

"Because of her relative passivity?" Lux guessed. The human's personality certainly made that particular comparison less than apt.

"Yes, that." Miranda shrugged. "And her father never really seemed to... my father loves me, and I am my mother's apt pupil."

Lux nodded slowly. "I think I understand what you mean. She represented something important to him, but he didn't necessarily love her. Perhaps?"

"Yes, I think that's it." It did sound right. Her parents loved her, both of them, and she was not a Shakespearian heroine. "I always had more sympathy with Caliban and Ariel."

Lux laughed a little. "Caliban was always my favorite. He at least knew he was trapped for reasons bred into him, beyond his control, and he tried to free himself--even if he didn't go about it in the best way and did horrible things for poor reasons, or no reason at all. Ariel.." She shook her head. "Ariel couldn't let go of Ariel's perception of Prospero, which had little or nothing to do with the truth."

Miranda blinked. "Ariel acted for precisely the same motivations as Caliban. He wanted to be free. They both did. Ariel just... was more obedient."

"Yes, of course Ariel wanted to be free, it's more..." Lux shook her head. "I don't think I'm explaining myself very well. It's the way Ariel goes about it, and seems to worship the ground Prospero walks on--Ariel desires Prospero's affection as much as freedom, and can't seem to realize that...well, it's a little bit impossible to have both, at least from Prospero."

She tilted her head. "And is that so difficult to understand? People love impossible people all the time. Sometimes you... sometimes it only happens."

"It's not that I don't understand it," she said. "It's that it makes it harder for me to like Ariel as much as I like Caliban. Caliban is more aware of what's going on. I like perceptive people, even when they do terrible things, especially when their cause is just."

"Ah." And Miranda could understand that, she supposed, but perception, real, clear-eyed perception could be as much a curse as it was a gift. "I prefer those with some hope left."

"Above all, I think I prefer those whose hope doesn't require blind affection to keep it going," Lux replied quietly. "Those who are neither crushed and bitter, nor utterly oblivious. But those are rare, and I lean towards those who know." She shrugged. "Less chance I might accidentally be the one to crush them."

Ah, an interesting point. Miranda was beginning to enjoy this. "All hope depends on selective blindness," she replied. "If everyone saw the world as it really was, then there would be no hope. You cannot have one without the other."

"Hm," Lux said, tilting her head consideringly. "A fair point. But there is a difference between selective blindness and total willful ignorance. The first is a defense mechanism, as you said. The other..." She shrugged. "Rather the opposite, I think."

"And not at all what Ariel had," Miranda said. "He defended himself and his sanity, and then when he had his freedom, he took it and he left." She paused, looking at the ceiling. "I would have done the same, were I given to that sort of thing."

"Perhaps, and that is a worthy goal," she acknowledged. "But at the same time, Ariel remained so focused on Prospero's affection--I believe the line is, "Do you love me, master? No?" Lux shook her head. "That's the part that stays with me, that makes Ariel so...I'm not sure of the word. But that leans into the second category, at least as I see it."

Miranda raised an eyebrow. "And Prospero lies. He says he does. It's a figure of speech, not a Freudian slip."

"But at the same time, if Ariel's eyes would just open, just for a moment--" Lux cut herself off, realizing she was drifting a little too close to her own history, to the war she had lost, which had little or nothing to do with a magical island from a human poet's imagination. "On second thought, you may be right, Miranda, and I'm reading too much into this," she said. "I apologize."

Spring RP: The Hennessy Home

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