abraxaslogs | [open] may flowers

Entry tags:

[open] may flowers

Who: OTA
When: May
Where: Horizon
What: How about a party that doesn't involve being watched by Abraxan authorities?

As always, Julie sends invitations around the Horizon, delivered by a parade of very small fantastical creatures. She'd had the idea weeks ago, in Nocwich, after noticing how frustrated everyone seemed to be by being put under constant "observation". There was a hitch in the plan after the various factions decided on their own parties, but it was still not the same as actually feeling free to relax.

They all need space. From the natives, from the drama, from the constant and unending monitoring they all seem to be under just by virtue of being "a Summoned". They need to tune it out for a bit.

And luckily, tuning it out is Julie's raison d'etre.

The morning of, a rainbow of flowers seems to sprout from and climb the walls of the building that houses Julie's club. The pink carpet and velvet ropes, normally the same hot pink as her hair, fade to a muted rose. The big double doors, with their handles shaped like clouds of butterflies, are propped open; the music that escapes from them isn't the thumping bass-heavy dance music that usually surrounds the place. Instead, it's gentle, quiet, but still upbeat. Music she pulled from somewhere deep in her memories, music that gave her a specific feeling. That's what she aims to recreate for others.

Through the doors, the lobby has been turned into a tunnel of wisteria, hanging down like curtains of white and pink and lilac and blue overhead. The floor is soft grass, the walkway lined in tall blooms of every imaginable shade. Between the vines above, spring sunshine peeks through, letting sunbeams naturally fall on old marble statues hidden in the flowers along the walls.

When the path opens into the main space, the first thing that greets guests is an enormous peacock sculpture, made of white flowers. It slowly turns its head to and fro, blinking and making soft cooing noises. Beside it, the bar has been made over, and is now anchored by a large cherry blossom tree in full bloom, the branches hanging over the seating. Steven, as always, is posted behind the bar, dressed in white as he passes out drinks from a gold tray. The rest of the club has been swapped into an open pavilion for tables (x, x), seating areas (x, x) and dancing. Where there is normally an empty, foreboding warehouse, now there is lush grass and a small pond.

The pavilion ceiling overhead is glass, showing a clear, picturesque blue sky. Wooden beams are wrapped in ivy and more wisteria; mismatched chandeliers hang down from the rafters. The floor is cobblestone, arranged with mosaics of butterflies flitting through it as if it were the sky. The smooth section, meant for dancing, is floral parquet, in a large bush shape to attract the butterflies. Over the dance floor is a replica of an art piece she once saw in Las Vegas. The light shining through the glass casts colorful circles on the ground, shifting and moving as the clouds pass by the sun.

Long antique tables bear a wide array of finger foods and little pastries and tea sandwiches on fine china and sterling silver platters, all of them seemingly from different tea sets. Between dishes are intricate floral arrangements, many with living butterflies in jewel tones resting on them. The butterflies seem to be encased within invisible globes atop the flowers; while they do occasionally take flight, they always seem to hover within a few inches of the petals before settling back down and slowly fluttering their wings open and closed. Scattered amongst the various dishes are random bowls of fancy pre-rolled joints (Vegas Botanicals blends, of course), cannabis hard candies (also Vegas Botanicals)... and a sugar bowl or two filled with cocaine.

Past the covered area, enormous, creative topiary pieces seem to rise from the ground, including two at the edges of the pond. One is a huge woman, water flowing from her hand like a waterfall. The other is giant cat lapping at the surface of the water. A path has been provided for lazy strolls around the pond. There are more places to sit here, out in the sun, some more formal than others. Some chairs appear to have been crafted from the earth itself. Big bushes dot the lawn, all surrounded by butterflies and gentle bumblebees and hummingbirds. Blankets are laid out in the shade of a few of the bushes, practically begging to laid out upon.

A grove of extremely tall flowers near the end of the pavilion is somewhat conspicuously placed; it hides the legs of Julie's lofted apartment. Still, the boxy little structure is nowhere near as obvious as it ordinarily might be, thanks to a liberally applied rainbow of more blooms all over it. Even the enclosed staircase, hidden behind a wooden door with ironwork, is decked out for the occasion.

Some of the Horizon creation people who live in Julie's domain have been turned into servers; they're all in pastel tuxedos, circulating through the space, never too obtrusively. The remaining several dozen partiers are seated at tables and in the grass, all in their tea party finest. They provide a soothing background of chatter and laughter. And everyone should watch their feet -- there are several very small beasts running around, each the size of a teacup chihuahua. Each one is wearing a pastel bowtie, and the T-Rex wears a tiny pink tuxedo vest. All of them have the comically sassy attitude of pampered lap dogs, running around (well, flying, in the dragon's case) as if they own the place.

Gentle breezes blow through the entire space, carrying an indeterminate array of floral scents with them. The music is constantly at the perfect volume to keep conversations private, but still easy. The resident partiers are cheerful and happy to interact when approached, but they don't ever bother the Summoned on their own. All them are startlingly realistic, for Horizon creations, with distinct features and quirks. None of them, however, can offer much more than basic small talk, and if pushed to act outside of their "enthusiastic partygoer" mold, they will simply begin to revert to the same things they've already said. Julie generally thinks of them as Sims with free will, though she is capable of controlling them as she pleases. The servers stick to a more prescribed set of actions, circling with trays of crudités and refreshing drinks. For anything more complicated, Steven will swoop in to intervene. He is the sole one of them who seems to be able to actively think. He knows your name and your favorite drink, by the way. Even if you've never met.

Don't think about it too hard -- it will start to feel incredibly upsetting if unraveled. And don't ask Julie about him, either. She has no real answers as to what, exactly, Steven is, or why he's part of her domain. He's always been here. All of the people have, all connected to her. Everything in the entire place, every blade of grass and fluttering insect wing, actively being controlled by some part of her brain that she never knew existed before the Horizon. (But it's not without drain; she will probably sleep for two days after this.)

Doors open at 11AM.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Kell doesn't really feel at ease at parties so it's only natural that he is pulled to people he already knows. Most of the time, when he's not glued to Rhy, Kell just wanders around aimlessly. He approaches Kyle when he spots him. So consciously noticing how the grey suit manages to look so damn good on him, that he fails to say hello, and a bit too startled for words, and by the sudden question.]

Seen where?

[ Kell is one of the very few people who know the extent of his powers, of his former ability to travel through the Great Gate. There's a comfort with being able to speak freely, which he does now: ]

A museum on Earth. I'd forgotten about it.

[ Like so many things about his past. But this time he's trying to summon a memory, not suppress it.

He turns to Kell and smiles. ]

There was a garden filled with them too, like eels springing from the ground. [ He makes a squiggly motion with his hand as if to illustrate. ]

[A garden filled with moving glass art. Kell have never seen anything like that. He's own home's idea of opulence usually consisted of heaps of flowers dripping red and gold. Not unlike his own outfit right now. But he also has a very vivid imagination.]

It sounds like a beautiful place. It must have looked incredible in good weather.

[Even better after light rain.]

Did you visit it often?

It did.

[ His smile becomes wistful. It was sunny that day in his memory.

At the question he looks surprised for a moment, then he shakes his head. ]

I only went because the person I was meant to watch over had gone. [ A pause. ] That was my mission, in that world. To guard over someone.

I'm sorry.

[Kell knows a thing or two about guarding someone.]

Did it help?

[Sometimes you need to stare at beauty to cope with the loss. It doesn't heal anything, but at least gives a temporary distraction.]

[ He looks confused for a second, then clarifies quickly - ]

Oh no, not gone. I mean he went there, so I followed along.

[ No loss. Not that time, anyway. ]

It was a school trip, I think.

[ A fair amount of travel time on a yellow bus, though he took the shorter route. ]

[There are few instances when one needs to be very careful what to wish for. Horizon is such a place. Kell has to be very careful not to think too hard how much he just wants bury himself under ten feet of rock for this blunder. At least he can stop his face from turning full beetroot and ears from burning. He only shifts in his place uncomfortably.]

I'm so sorry. I didnt mean to imply... I just thought... Ehh... Sorry?

[Somehow he was able to turn this perfectly fine conversation very, very awkward. And it has to be with Kyle, one of the very few people he cares enough about that it makes a difference if looks stupid in front of him or not. He most certainly looks stupid right now.]

[ It's hard to miss the awkwardness of Kell's shuffling along with the apology. Kahlil looks surprised for a second, then smiles, letting out a light laugh - completely unbothered by the mistake. ]

It's alright. [ A beat, and he cocks his head to one side. ] You know, English is the second language I learned. The language of my home world is Basawar. [ Same name for the world and language, confusingly enough. ] The way speech works here is... strange. I usually try not to think about it too hard.

[ Sometimes he hears English, sometimes he hears Basawar. Everything translates either way. ]

Edited 2023-05-27 18:58 (UTC)

[It's a relief, a very obvious one, that Kyle doesn't make a big deal out of his blunder. Kell does not realize how much of it he's letting out. It's for the better he'd feel even more self-conscious, and then feel bad for feeling self-conscious. It's an endless circle. One that Kyle is able to break with his laughter. By just being supportive and unbothered.]

English is mine, I had to learn Arnesian - the language the common folk of my country speak, but that's the extent of my ability. Rhy was always better with it. I don't know if there's any language of our neighbors that he does not speak. [He furrows his brows for a bit, as if only now he has made the realization, because Kyle has pointed it out.] You're right. It's odd. I just assumed everyone here speaks English, but it's not possible. Not with everyone coming from so many different places.

I'm not surprised. [ He grins at this reveal about Rhy's language skills, then looks thoughtful again. ]

It must be the Singularity's blessing that allows us to understand each other. [ Those who don't speak the same language, including the native Abraxans themselves. His brow furrows for a second, concentrating, and the next word that comes from his mouth is distinctly not English. ]

Vunan. That is the word for a man who isn't a priest, scholar, or noble. [ So, a common man. ]

[The foreign word makes a memory surface in Kell's mind. One that would seen completely unrelated if not for a surprise commonality: a foreign word. It was a swear word on his part. One of his that Jayden did not understand, one of Jayden's that he didn't. Kell holds this memory front and center when he speaks a word of his own.]

Aven

[He blinks. Did it pass through? He can't tell.]

It means blessed, or cursed, or just different. Or marked by magic like I am. Aven Vares, blessed prince. That's how they called me, because of my eye.

But you would call a priest Aven too.

[Kell hated when people called him that. When they singled him out. That's why he chose to wear his hair so it would cover his black eye. He realizes, he doesn't do that anymore. More people here has seen his mismatched eyes than he'd ever let to back home.]

They feel the same, sometimes.

[ To be blessed or cursed - or different. He gives a knowing, wistful smile. ]

There were never others?

[ Kell had mentioned months ago that he'd been the only antari in his world, the only one alive. Kahlil grew up with other acolytes, trained with them. Now there is only him and Fikiri. ]

From my home? None.

[It always shocked him how thorough the destruction was. Not only of knowledge, books or artifacts, but of language, of people.]

People like me got a very bad reputation after one event hundreds years ago, but it turns out we can never really be eradicated completely. No matter how much people have tried, and try they did. We're not a bloodline. Just a curse... or a blessing. Whichever you choose to believe what I have is.

[A boon. A tool. A cult object. A weapon. All too rarely a person.]

[ He gives Kell a sympathetic glance before looking up at the dancing colors across the glass on the ceiling again. ]

The priests said my mother was a witch. [ This was considered a bloodline in his world, though not always. ]

My blood was cursed, and my bones were blessed. I never was accepted amongst the priests, but I never cared about it much.

[ He had a single goal. And being alone didn't matter much to him back then, at least he never thought about it like he does now.

He turns to Kell again. ]

One event? [ What had happened to make the people turn on them? ]

Kell furrows his brows when hears Kyle talk about treatment of his mother, of himself.

"That's awful."

Did they fear you for it? It's what he wants to ask but can't bring himself to. To be branded, persecuted for things beyond your control. It cuts too close. And Kell knows he was lucky. He had Rhy. He had Tieren to shield him from other students. From other people. If only from their actions, and not their judgement, or looks, their disdain, their fear. Sometimes even jealousy and hatred.

"It was more of a series of events, but it ended in one particular. A fall of a city. Death and destruction to its home world. You see, my home once was a series of connected worlds. People, regular people, not only Antari like me, were able to move freely between them. They differed, those worlds, mainly with the amount of magic and people's reliance on it. My mentor always told me it was a tragedy waiting to happen. The one city that relied on the magic the most, had fallen to it. Their mages, my people, lost control over the force and it consumed them. Them, everyone and everything else. Living creatures, people, life, light, everything. It sucked them dry leaving nothing but an empty shell behind. The other worlds, mine included, sealed off in attempt to prevent it from spreading. I might have not been there, but I am Antari, and Antari are still blamed for it."

Kell barely spoke about it with Rhy. He never told anyone else. It's nigh unbelievable that he was able just let the words flow now. But it's not without significance who is asking. He always feels safe with Kyle. Safer than with anyone else. There's one more crucial detail. Of all people Kell knows here, Kyle alone would understand.

Kahlil shrugs again. His treatment by the priests is a fact of the past, something he tries not to dwell on. Thirty years passed in the White Space when he forced his way through worlds, and the Payshmura are no more now. Not even Dayyid.

He's a grown man now, not a child. He shouldn't let his long dead master have any sway over him anymore.

(it's always easier said than done)

What Kell describes of his own people's past has echoes of the Payshmura, their control over the Rifter and how they lost it. It echoes Kahlil's fears of this world, of what might happen if Thorne were to gain control of the Singularity. Men shouldn't have such power. They can never fully control it, not forever.

"I'm sorry. It's not fair that you have to carry their sins." For something that happened before he was born.

Here, at least, they both have something like a new start. Alidas had offered it to Kahlil once, almost a year ago now. He hadn't been able to take it. He couldn't imagine living the life of a farmer. It isn't his way. He wonders if Kell is the same.

"Maybe I don't" Kell agrees reluctantly. There was time when he would have protested more vividly. A lot have happened from those innocent times.
His shoulders drop without him noticing.

"I have enough of my own."

He argued, when his parents tried to pin the full responsibility of the black stone disaster solely on him. As if Rhy was innocent, as he was allowed mistakes and Kell wasn't. Because that's how it was. Both of their blunders were preventable. Different reasons, same wish to maybe get away with something shady one more time.

"I cannot claim full innocence either. I've held piece of Black City, I felt its call. Heard the sweet voice that promised me everything I might wish. Even things I didn't know I wanted, but it did. And it terrified me."

This is Horizon, thought turns substance easier here. Kell doesn't realize that his right hand turns black just as he speaks. The inky shadow creeps up from his wrist, coiling around his forearm all the way up to his elbow. Even his blue eye slowly darkens.

"I was only able to stop because I knew what happened to them...and I had someone to wake me up."

Kahlil does notice the shadow coiling out from Kell's hand, wrapping up his arm - the way his eyes shift. A flicker of surprise crosses his expression, mixed with concern. He can't tell if Kell's doing it on purpose.

"Kell - your arm..."

This is Horizon, yes. Julie's domain, and she holds great power over it. Kahlil shouldn't fear anything happening in this space, but he remembers summoning the yasi'halaun in the maze, the bone creature that spawned from it.

Kell's gaze flicks from some undefined distance to Kyle, then down to his hand.

"Wha..." he starts, drops midsentence drawing the unfinished word into a frustrated growl. He blinks, shakes off the darkness from his skin in few angry movements. It leakes off like wet ink from paper disappearing into puffs of black smoke that disperse in the air the moment they leave his fingers.

"This is what I meant."

Kell sighs. There's no anger in his voice, only concern.

"I fear some of it stayed with me. Tainted me forever, even if I can't see it now. I'm afraid it crossed with me here."

It comes out when he's angry, tired, agitated or sad. It destroyed two Acolytes in the mountains. Only Dante had seen it. Kell didn't tell anyone, not even Rhy, about the dark tendrils of smoke he rose from the ground to incapacitate the two men. It was his magic that eventually killed them, but he used something else to hold them in place.

Kahlil waits quietly, taking cues from the way Kell reacts as he dismisses the strange, inky darkness from his hand. He watches them fade into the air, thoughtful as the tension from his shoulders relaxes a bit.

"All the priests in my sect - the ushiri, carry cursed blades," he starts to explain slowly, and a knife appears in his hand. A proper one, not the shiv he made to carry secretly within the castle. The handle is simple, the blade itself the deepest black carved from animal bone.

"Even a simple cut from the blade can kill, the curse entering the body and spirit like an infection." The effects could be the same. Fever, coma, then death.

"That darkness in you might not be the same, but - a curse is intention. It's will power, and emotion. Anger, pain, fear - they can all be fuel for a curse, but they're reactionary. Unstable." He pauses, then brings his thumb up to the blade, pressing down but not hard enough to cut himself.

"Say I never learn to use my blade properly, but maybe one day I reach for it in fear. I'm just as likely to hurt myself as another."

The curse doesn't care who it infects. It's up to the wielder to be in control.

Edited 2023-06-14 21:21 (UTC)

Kell watches the blade slowly materialize in Kyle's hand, listens to the explanation Kyle gives him, his words an eerie echo of Kell's own words about curses and how they work that he spoke not that long ago to Wilhelm. He knows, on a conscious level, that the blade is not really there. That they are here in their minds only. It's still a deeply unsettling thing to observe.

But Kyle says something more. Something that strikes just right into the core of the reason Kell fears his connection to that primordial, hungry darkness that he knows his magic can become. He can offer only a weak smile in response.

"It's not really a curse, but you make a good point. My mentor always complained that I'm too volatile, and that's not a safe mental state for someone with my level of magic. But they raised me in a cage. I was given everything a person could possibly want, apart from the things I really wanted. I was always supposed to be, to behave a certain way. They had a purpose and use for me, and what I thought about it never mattered."

So yeah, he tended to react badly to that. He had a place and a purpose, when all he wanted was to just be a person. In all his life before Abraxas, only one person looked at him and saw that. He could only ever fulfil his purpose as Rhy's shield, because Rhy looked at him and saw human.

"It only ever mattered to Rhy. If I'm ever even a little stable, it's only because of him."

It's difficult to read Kell's reaction at first. After the weak smile he dismisses the blade from his hand, gone without even a wisp of smoke like it was never there. He listens again, though, continuing to feel for the younger man. A gilded cage is still a cage. To always be reminded that you live only because you serve a purpose - that was his own upbringing, even if it wasn't as pretty.

At least Kell had Rhy with him.

"What would you have done if you were given your freedom back then?"

"I don't know. I can't know, because it didn't happen."

But it's a non-answer and Kell hates non-answers.

"I did imagine though, how it could have been if I had parents that cared for me. Or simply more people who valued me for my skill and talent, but still were able to see I'm not only that. And less people who thought I can end the world by merely existing. It might have prevented my most outrageous mistakes. Most likely, I would have been a completely different person."

Here's the thing. Before getting summoned, a lot of what he thought was his character, his likes and dislikes, were just his attempts to carve out some pockets of freedom. How much of it was truly his, how much was just being a contrarian. A reaction to who he was supposed to be, how he was supposed to behave.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open] may flowers

here for the glass art discussion and maybe a dance?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I lost this, very sorry!

it's fine, it happens

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject