The Old Fashioned Is Commonly Held To Have Been Invented In 1880

[crushed_pearls]

Who: Erin Peters and YOU
What: Settling in, dealing with things, making friends
When: Late March
Where: Oak & Iron, the woods, around
Warnings: Discussion of death & the ethics of suicide, trauma, whatever you bring with you




Gallery Style | Oak & Iron

Oak & Iron undergoes a few renovations, just a couple days' worth, to expand the bar area and add labels in Braille (thanks Gerry). When they're done, Pumpkin Hollow has a new bartender, a winged lass in a blindfold wreathed in the scents of sex and gunpowder. She quickly picks up a reputation for almost prescient service; good suggestions for drinks, never leaving a glass empty long, and a firm hand for when you're cut off. Though every now and again there's an odd dance where someone isn't cut off and instead drinks enough to, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking die - except they don't die, and instead just get normal drunk.

A rather extensive cocktail menu manifests too (thanks Magne, with your working eyes). It's cut up into various flavors, with the ingredients clearly laid out (thanks Max Maximum, with your knowledge of food allergies), but at the tail end of the menu is a change in theme; two sections labeled by nation instead of flavor. The countries in question are Gallery, and Japan.

Gangster Style | The Woods

Here's the needle Erin has to thread: she can't overload herself socially, but she also can't listen to the urge to isolate. So one day she goes out into the woods just at the edge of town and digs a pair of graves in the soft soil, leaving the dirt in a huge pile off to the side. You might find her out here, just laying in one, trying to listen to the sounds of the forest, but if she knows you, well, you might have been invited. "Six feet deep, best rest you'll get."

Tourist Style | Wildcard

Come get your bird lady.

Comments

The Woods

[hereticofthewilds]

A face suddenly dangles over Erin's, head cocked slightly to one side while moss-green hair shades some of the young woman's features from view. She looks on silently for a moment, before she cocks her head in the other direction with an expression of concern.

"Trying to die?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Catching up on grave time for some extent deaths," comes the answer. "Didn't exactly expect it to lure in a cute girl but probably should have - but if we're gonna talk, respect the setup, yeah? Get in a grave."

[hereticofthewilds]

"Cute?" Elsie giggles but it's a nervous sound.

Still, she climbs into the grave and lays down on the cool damp dirt. The ritual must be respected.

"Talk."

The woods

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis walks over to the two holes Erin has dug into the forest floor, tipping her head as she leans over the one her former lover occupies.

Instead of accepting the invitation, she settles on the edge of the would-be grave, feet tucked to the side.

“you know the reason they dug graves six feet deep was to prevent predators from digging up the bodies.”

Re: The woods

[crushed_pearls]

"Afternoon to you too love -" Erin winces, and turns over onto her side. "...There was a fox earlier. Gonna be cherishing that for weeks."

[redlightgreenlight]

To her credit, Valdis doesn’t react to the pet name, though she notes Erin’s wince and feels a twinge of guilt that she quickly sweeps away.

“There are many animals here. Many green things. A living world.” She replies. “So why are you six feet in the ground?”

The Woods

[astrogator]

Tayrey's not up for laying down in the dirt, but that big pile of it did draw her attention while she was walking. She stands over one of the holes in the ground, casting a shadow over Erin.

'Is that actually restful?' It looks like it'd be cramped and you'd probably get strange bugs crawling on you, but if that's how Erin wants to relax, she's not judging.

[crushed_pearls]

"You'd be shocked how restful it is. Earth's psychologists sure were, nobody expected the results of the 'get stressed people to lie in graves' studies."

[astrogator]

No, she doesn't know enough about Earth to tell if that's serious or not, but Tayrey decides that isn't the point. She sits down on the edge, legs dangling.

'I never liked that idea of burying the dead anyway,' she says, 'but what is it that's getting you stressed?'

Gallery Style :) HI

[pineapplesalmon]

César might be bad at gossip, but he's also the boyfriend of a certain Magne Hikiishi, so he's actually aware of the reason behind the renovations.

After a good day of work at his farm, he drops in to talk to Magne briefly (she's working, after all) before going over to say hello to the newest staff member, whom has a very distinct look and smells like... huh.

"Good evening! Welcome to Pumpkin Hollow. I'm César Salazar." He's curious about the new menu, but introductions first.

[crushed_pearls]

"Yeah, Johnny's boy, we've met -" Erin's face falls, and her voice goes lower. "...We haven't, have we? Sorry."

[pineapplesalmon]

"... I'm sorry, I'm not that César." César's only mildly surprised and quickly sympathetic. "But I'm doing well in the love department, here. Magne scooped me up almost immediately."

oak and iron.

[abhorrently]

"I lay a challenge before you. A little one, but a challenge all the same."

She's fiddling with a menu, but not really reading it.

"Two drinks. One to be taken in your honor as celebration of you figuring out a job. The other being you taking no mercy on me."

It's been. A Few Fucking Days. At least when you know the bartender, she knows you're not saying it to be a big tough girl and instead just want the dull ache behind your eyes to lay off.

[crushed_pearls]

"Lass, you're gonna die in front of all these people," Erin promises. "But we'll start with a personal favorite, yeah? Classic cocktail from my perspective, and about like, a hundred years ahead of this world's relative development - whiskey sour." She whistles at a barmaid and asks the lass to bring her an egg and some cheesecloth from the kitchen, quickly please.

This done, her attention goes back to Fever: "How's Town Hall treating you?"

[abhorrently]

"It's fine. More sedate than I'm used to, but the number of us that decided to wash up on these shores means there's a lot to do. But I seem to have a knack for it. Maybe I was an accountant somewhere in all those missing memories. "

That, and buying mysterious weird food that somehow made her better as a clerk. One does not pass up on opportunities.

"And you? I can't imagine it's been slow here."

She can see the alterations to the place - clearly, Erin was far too valuable to let go.

Wildcard: Temple

[graveling]

Surprise, bitch! There's a large central building that smells like candle wax and anointing oil and wine! It's quite possibly even more visible than most buildings in town for Some Reason.

And inside, there's a dead body sweeping the floor.

[crushed_pearls]

Well. Erin's not gonna put her chips on 'the local church is really into necromancy', so instead she waves. "Blessings on this house," she calls out, tucking her hand back into her pocket, "and good afternoon."

[graveling]

"Come and be welcome. You were at the potluck, weren't you?"

Her entrance was noticed. The carriage was very much noticed. But he didn't approach at the time, because...reasons.

the woods

[decohere]

A couple handfuls of dirt from the pile find their way back into the hole, though closer to Erin's feet than by her face. Because it's meant to be playful, not mean.

[crushed_pearls]

"...Angel of death is that you...?"

[decohere]

A small, familiar giggle. Sad and light as always.

"Is that who you're waiting for?" Ava pokes her face over the edge, laying splayed out next to the grave.

Gangster Style

[onyssius]

Jarod wasn't invited--but he loves to be outside, so he stumbles across the strange setting anyway.

He's quiet, but not silent, until he stops walking to stare at the scene of two open graves--one occupied, given that he's close enough to see a pair of feet near the bottom. It's very strange, very confusing...and some deep-seated part of him is wildly fascinated.

I come to the forest to dig two graves. That's all. The reason?...

...it feels dark. Not in the grave, but elsewhere. Inside.

I'm teetering on the edge. I need something, something I can't have. The scales are imbalanced, but there's no peace this side of...

Understanding fills him as he moves closer, this time with certainty. He crouches at the edge of the occupied hole with a bright, gentle smile.

"Hello. Would it be all right if I joined you? Or is the other grave reserved for someone else?"

Damn OCs And Their One Liners

[crushed_pearls]

"Given that you're the first motherfucker to grasp the point of this experience, it'd be a bit rude to say no. Grab a plot, meet some earthworms."

CW: medical torture/abuse, sibling death, non-graphic discussion of corpses in educational use

[onyssius]

Jarod's smile is pure sunshine as he eagerly climbs into the other grave, stretches out, and folds his arms across his stomach so he can shut his eyes.

For a very long time, he engages in the exercise absolutely. Longer than he thought he could after the memories of Mr. Lyle had started coming back--stopping his heart and restarting it, killing him like he was some kind of machine they could tinker with. Longer than he thought he could after losing Kyle because of the Centre--longer than he was even able to slide into that mortuary drawer among the bodies in the dissection lab where he was teaching.

He spends about an hour in the earth--in the grave he couldn't give to his little brother, the grave that held too many people he'd come across far too soon. He breathes the earth, he listens to the way it dampens distant sound--at one point he even does open his eyes and smile at the sight of one such earthworm wriggling in the dirt beside his head, alongside a pillbug that had fallen in.

This is where I will be one day. His own thought, for a change. Not someone else's. Just like Kyle, and Miss Parker's mother...just like I thought my own parents were in for so long.

...but like most things that were his, he doesn't get to keep it. He can't help it, and the worst part is he doesn't regret it in moments like these. When he's needed.

So he can't just be himself for long...whoever that may be.

It's so much. It's too much. I want to run away, and I want to hold on.

...I want to sink into this. Specifically this. The cool dirt and the warm sun and the fresh smell of green, the musky smell of animals. It's so much, it's too much, and maybe a grave is big enough to hold all of it so I don't have to.

"It's enough to make you question if it's worth the trouble, sometimes--but you understand that if you're digging graves in the forest." Jarod observes aloud. "No matter the things you've done, it pays to get through the overwhelm. There is peace this side of the grave. You just have to find the familiar."

He pauses, smiling sadly to himself.

"Outside of the hole, I mean."

The Woods

[misbegottendreamer]

The stranger's approach is announced long before her arrival at the graveside by the jingling of little brass bells. When she stops, she doesn't look down.

"Is this a full laying of yourself to rest, muthsera, or just setting yourself aside for a time?"