ph_logs | OUR HOUSE

CHARACTERS: Phil, Dimitri, Darcy, Ruby, the Venom Symbiote, and you!
DATE: June
LOCATION: The farmhouse on 499 Winter's Avenue
SITUATION: Home-making and housewarming
WARNINGS: Usual warnings for all characters involved but otherwise n/a

I'll light the fire, you place the flowers in the vase (Closed to phil/dimitri/ruby/venom)

Moving out of the Oak and Iron has been on Darcy’s mind- well. Virtually since she got to Pumpkin Hollow. But with Phil back and all, they started making plans for it in earnest. A combination of saving up and mysterious brass from some old dude fairy (??? she isn’t asking too many questions) means that they have the means. All they have to do is do it.

The week prior to the housewarming is spent working in and around the construction of a couple of new rooms, subdivided up from the old floor plan. Paint, wallpaper, fresh fabric to reupholster some of the furniture, a lot of cleaning. Plus there’s the logistics of moving all their stuff, which is significantly harder without cars and on an island that’s bigger than one ship. Darcy doesn’t even have that much shit, it just all stacks up somehow.

She spends her time mostly between generally assisting the move, setting up the kitchen, and putting her room together once they’ve finished building it. Darcy can be found doing any of those three things.

Rest your head for just five minutes, everything is done (Open)

It’s not going to be the shindig to end all shindigs, but once the dust has settled and everyone’s recovered from moving everything around, friends and family will get a call inviting them over. All the windows are open for the mild Summer night air, the curtains drift a little in the breeze, and the song of crickets can be heard from anywhere in the house. The lights inside the house are warm and cheery, and seem to beckon you in, the shadows around them seeming… darker, somehow.

There’s lemonade with some Phil-made ice cubes in it, and Darcy hasn’t moved from the kitchen in service of making canapes to feed anyone who shows up. Cold cuts on bread, sandwiches with cucumbers left over from the carnival, small fish cakes. It’s a good way to break the kitchen in. When the food has been made, Darcy sets up out the front on the porch, curled up with some lemonade on one of the chairs, looking out into the night and making some small greeting to anyone who approaches.

Life used to be so hard, now everything is easy cause of you

[wildcard!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dimitri freezes, staring at Darcy's lamplit silhouette. His eyes shine red out of the black. For a moment, he's a beast, a wild thing of the dark woods, skulking at the edges of the firelight.

The moment breaks. The line of his shoulders buckles. He rubs his face, and drags himself up the steps of the porch (there's a grouchy croak from underneath). "Thank you," he rasps.

Yeah yeah, his brother the feral cryptid. The wood stove is still going, burning low but still on as Darcy retrieves the things to make tea.

Quietly, "Claude brought us some chamomile. It's meant to help you sleep, I think."

Faerghus favors stone hearths over metal stoves, Fódlan not yet having industrialized iron production. After two years on the Serena Eterna, though, it's strange and familiar to once more be staving off cold nights with simple fuel and radiant heat. An alien relief, to once again know how their shelter is warmed, and the limits of its fuel.

"Chamomile," Dimitri echoes in the same hush. He settles into one of their armchairs, and pulls his legs up with no regard for decorum. "It's my favorite. I wonder how he knew."

There's no doubt in Dimitri's mind that Claude did know, and the choice was deliberate.

"He seems really observant," Darcy notes. In the dim candlelight of the kitchen, steam from the kettle billows visibly, and Darcy sets about preparing their cups.

"If you're still not up to sleeping after this, do you want to go spar out in the field or something?"

"Please." Dimitri hesitates. "Actually ... I thought I might begin making plans for the garden, if you'd be interested in helping?"

Darcy visibly winces at the idea of dirt, but it's Dimitri and they do kind of need to get the farm up and running. So much of the last two years has been doing things they don't want to do for the sake of others.

"Sure. Do we have gloves yet?"

If he touches a worm with bare hands he's going back in the house and not leaving until they re-invent concrete.

"You're fine with blood, but not dirt?" Dimitri asks, mostly teasing. "The gloves we used for construction should serve, but I was thinking of drafting more than labor. It's too dark to begin hauling rocks even for me."

"If God wanted me to be covered in dirt and not blood then I'd leak dirt every month."

Well, used to, anyway. He nods, passes Dimitri his tea, takes his cup and the candle in either hand.

"Drafting I can do. Just. Don't expect me to know anything," he warns, "you want to grab some of the leftover snacks from the ice box?"

"You -- what?"

Leaking dirt? What on Earth is Darcy talking about. They were just talking about blood, so -- hang on --

"You what? Every month?"

" ... oh."

He's never going to live this down, is he.

Darcy puts aside the tea and candle to shove his fist directly into his mouth, so that his laughing doesn't wake the whole fucking house. He gestures for Dimitri to pass him a pillow to muffle himself further. This is going in the file with eating bouillon. He is never being allowed to forget it.

Dimitri hands over the pillow with a resigned sigh.

Darcy swaps his fist for the pillow, pressing it as hard against his face as he can until the giggles die down.

"Sorry, Phil," he whispers, because there's basically no way he didn't hear some of that.

"Okay- okay. Drafting the garden. Let's go."

Moving on. Dimitri leans forward, tracing a rectangle on the low table with his fingers. "I've been thinking a part of the property can be a wild garden -- leave it as-is, more or less, but cared for rather than left fallow. The spot between the house and the chicken coop can be a subsistence garden, fruits and vegetables for the house. I think it was originally; there are remnants of a perimeter wall buried under the weeds." Dimitri traces a smaller rectangle within his original one, then taps the approximate location of the chicken coop. "There may be some overgrown fruit trees amidst the brush, as well, but I'll have to check to be certain. If there are, they'll need heavy pruning before they're ready to bear fruit."

That was a lot all at once; he pauses to let Darcy catch up.

Having retained basically none of it-

"Right, I get it."

...

"What's the point of it being wild? Doesn't that make that part just kinda useless?"

It's more of a meditative exercise than anything, giving Dimitri something to occupy himself that isn't chasing the same thoughts around his head. Hopefully, giving Darcy enough of a distraction to take the edge off whatever haunts him, as well.

"'Wild' may be the wrong word. What do they call it ... coppice! A tended woodland, for firewood and construction, and the fruits and herbs which need woodland shade to grow. I'm certain I saw some overgrown stools, but the area will need some tending to serve as healthy coppice again."

Dimitri frowns. "Though ... that will be a preparatory process. We won't be here long enough to see a fresh crop of timber. At least, I hope not."

"Isn't that like the dick thing that goes on armour?"

Darcy grunts a little, "I hope not either. If I have to go like, five years without electricity I might actually regress into one of my peasant ancestors. I'll forget what death metal is."

He sips on his chamomile, "whatever you need help with with it, just ask."

OUR HOUSE

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