September Event - Guest Appearances

[pumpkinhollow]

GUEST APPEARANCES

Ignition

September 20th is the Autumnal Equinox. Many places across the world of Concorde celebrate the first day of fall. While various nations and regions have their own cultural practices surrounding it, nature is god everywhere. And so the inception of Mother Autumn’s domain is universally recognized, even if the names change from place to place. But on a little island named Marrow, in a little town called Pumpkin Hollow, there is another reason to celebrate.

The birth of Dahlia Leeds is not so important an event that it supersedes Celestine herself, and neither Dahlia nor anyone in town is foolhardy enough to claim as much. In fact, after the events on this very same day last year, one might argue that perhaps her birth at least started out as a bad thing. But she is certainly the wealthiest person in town. It is through the combination of substantial wealth and a generous heart, two things that are very seldom found in the same place, that we end up with a soiree where the birthday girl would rather spoil everyone else on her day than herself.

The doors to Leeds Estate, which presides proudly over the town upon its throne at the crest of Founder’s Hill, are flung wide open. Large sums of Brass are paid to caterers, florists, and seamstresses to make sure this place is decorated to the nines. Some businesses labor all year, just to prepare for the handsome payoff they’ll get from this event alone. And you, dear neighbor, are invited. Not only are you invited, but you are dressed for the event in whatever your heart desires, completely at the birthday girl’s expense. Dahlia ensures no cost nor conflict stands in between anyone in town and a much-needed break. She is determined for this birthday of hers to be a good night.

Or else.

Incipience

{ The timeframe between ignition and the peak of burning, where a small, contained fire spreads and grows gradually into an established flame. All it takes is a spark. }

The whole town is abuzz as preparations for the gala begin. From the moment people begin to wake up for the day, the air throughout Pumpkin Hollow just feels electric with excitement. After August, people have been needing this lift in morale, and after how last year’s gala went… well, there’s a lot riding on this one. And Dahlia seems much more in control now.

Speaking of being in control, the whole lead-up process has been incredibly organized. You wake up to a delivery--- your outfit, perfectly tailored and completely paid for. Accessories are included. She truly thought of everything.

It’s noteworthy that Dahlia’s invitations this time included another name beneath her own. “Suzanne Marie Dyneax,” it said. Most people don’t know the name, but gossip gets around in a small town like this. It’s not hard to pick up on the fact that this probably refers to Susie, one of the teenagers that Dahlia recently moved into her home, whose own birthday was ruined by Seemingly’s attack. Gift baskets have been delivered to others whose days were in proximity to the disaster--- Zivia, Capochin, even CT. Wine, fruit, and sweets, along with a birthday card. Dahlia has said in the past, “my birthday is your birthday,” but never has that felt more true.

With businesses mostly closed for the celebration, you are left with the majority of the day to prepare in relative peace. For many of the women in Dahlia’s inner circle, there is even a pre-party group dressing room set up on the third floor of her home. Only those who received her special invitation (Susie, Noelle, Fever, Cassandra, Anya, Alice, Patty, Melanie, Basira, Elsie) are permitted to join, but any friends or partners are gladly invited to wait at the bottom of the stairs for the girls to make their grand entrance.

The food is laid out, flowers placed, dresses laced and buttoned. The clock strikes 6pm, and the fun begins.

FLASHOVER

{ The moment when a blaze reaches its maximum size and heat, and the radiant heat in the space is such that all combustible materials ignite at once, allowing the flame to steadily and freely burn for the rest of the night. }

By the time it reaches 6:15, the ballroom is already flooded with eager dancers and hungry dinner guests. After all, the whole town is invited, and everyone’s excited to see Dahlia’s beautiful new ballroom and take a load off.

The music is elegant, played by a rotating cast of musicians who join the party when their act is over. The food is extravagant--- Dahlia and two of her partners are some of the biggest foodies in town, so this is expected. There is talking and laughing and the swirling of ballgowns, and all is well.

But there is a guest you do not recognize in the corner of the ballroom. An older man with white hair, strong features, and a dour expression. You can see Dahlia eyeing him, then flitting over to him, then talking to him. Her expression shifts from anxious, to annoyed, to resigned, before at last she sighs heavily and leaves him to it. Whatever it is that’s going on, clearly it’s something Dahlia is willing to begrudgingly tolerate in order to get back to having fun.

The reason for the disturbance becomes clear in short order, but by the grace of Celestine (and perhaps Eligos), it isn’t a reality bending nightmare or an attack by some monstrous beings. It is simply more guests.

A lot more, in fact.

Those who were on the island in September of the previous year will recall the Visitor’s Center, which appeared briefly just past the beach and served as temporary living and meeting quarters for visitors from the homeworlds of current residents. It would seem that this is a repeat incident. For the night of the gala, one to two “plus ones” have been invited for the vast majority of offworld residents. Most of them are friends or family who are happy to see their guests--- but this is ultimately a working of Eligos, so naturally, this is not always the case.

At the very least, Eligos seems to have been generous with his own granddaughter. As she turns away from him, she very nearly runs into someone much shorter than her. A dark haired human man with dwarfism. He laughs at the accident, grinning up at her as she stares back at him, utterly baffled. Then, petticoats billowing out, Dahlia sinks to the floor and embraces him as tight as she can, head pressed to his chest with little regard for her carefully-styled hair. Even those across the room can hear her shout his name. ”Jonah!”

Within the hour, the ballroom is packed with nearly double the people originally expected, turning the party livelier than it’s ever been. Tearful reunions, laughter, dancing, mischief, romance, sparring, cruelty, and even proper, righteous violence. Truly, this Leeds Gala will be one for the books!

--------
[ OOC reminders: each apped-in player character is entitled to one or two guests from their homeworld. This can be former selves, family, friends, enemies, and they do not have to be from the character’s exact canonpoint. They can be from the past or the future. You may play them yourself, ask another member player to do it, or recruit a non-member player to do so with moderator approval. Non-member players are permitted to join the Discord server while they’re active in this event! Threads you write for your own guests are eligible for AC for the character they’re there with, and threads you write for someone else’s guest can be used on the AC of a character of your choice. Just make sure to mark them as guest threads. After the gala, guests will be allowed to move freely about town, stay the night on Saturday and go home Sunday, or leave right after the gala if preferred. And last but not least, characters played in the gala can be apped directly from this event, rather than going through the normal arrival process. Let a mod know if you have questions, and have fun! ]

Smoldering

{ The decay of a flame as available heat, oxygen, and burning material gradually diminish. Eventually, the flames will recede entirely into glowing embers, glittering like orange starlight amid the ashes of what once was. }

The party rages well into the night. It’s not typical for residents of Pumpkin Hollow to stay out this late, with everything around here that goes bump in the night, but eventually party-goers begin to find their way out. They move in small groups, huddled around lanterns, may they ever stay lit. Perhaps the surprising bit is that their guests can go with them. There are even reservations made for board overnight at the Oak & Iron, all under the name “E. Rex”.

But alas, these reservations are only booked for one night. And by the time the sun begins to set on the darker half of the year for the first time, an unfamiliar black boat is moored at Jack's Marina. One that the guests will recognize as the vessel on which they arrived. They must leave by the time it becomes dark.

Or must they? Perhaps for a select few, they will fail to feel the call which draws them home. It is unclear why. There are many that Mortanne would have allowed residency for, if she could. But for some reason, all but a small few feel the pull. Perhaps Eligos has simply abandoned them here. (Or maybe none at all end up marooned and everyone goes home? That all depends on you, dear reader.)

When the sky goes dark, the aptly named Heavy Heart shoves off, with only her crimson sails hanging suspended seemingly in midair in the moonlight. The black ship is otherwise consumed by the night. And soon, even those flashes of red vanish into the distance.

Moments recede into memories, like a dying fire settles gently into glowing embers at the bottom of a hearth. The festivities are over, and the guests are gone. Life in Pumpkin Hollow resumes as before. But maybe just a little warmer and brighter.

“My birthday is your birthday,” as Dahlia often says.

Happy birthday.

References to the appearance of Leeds Estate can be found here!

Comments

Celia Ripley | The Magnus Protocol | Guest for Samama Khalid

[duaprima]

The tall, dark-haired woman in the dark green suit that looks like she hasn't slept in a week is a familiar face to a number of the more permanent residents of Pumpkin Hollow and some of the other guests besides. More of them than she'd like, quite frankly! Bad enough that she knows Sam and Alice are here, worse that she's spotted a Georgie (which Georgie, Babysitter Georgie, or the Fearless One?), Melanie and Gwen—hell, even the Archivist and his boyfriend. There are few places she wouldn't rather be right now than here, in yet another universe, facing down the reality of her secrets coming undone.

The only thing keeping her from unravelling entirely is Jack.

The one-year-old isn't on her all the time; mostly, he's with the other youngest kids in a special area just for them, but Celia spends a lot of time there. Everything she's done has been for his sake, and remembering that helps.

To anyone who she doesn't know that might talk to her, she's a little jittery but otherwise perfectly personable. Commenting on what a fancy party this is, nothing like she ever remembers going to ('remembers' being rather a key word, actually). Eating finger foods and drinking just on the side of too little to actually get her tipsy, even if it's tempting.

Either way. This is going to be a long night.

[huntingtruths]

It takes Sam a lot longer than he'd like to admit before he finally has gathered up enough liquid courage to walk up to Celia. He has another drink in his hand, this time something harder than champagne. He doesn't even know how to address her, hell he isn't even completely sure he wants to do it. However once they make eye contact he knows there's no going back.

"Celia." Is all he can get out when he finally get close enough. Face schooled into an expression he hopes is neutral.

It is unfortunately too cold to be his normal 'neutral' face.

[duaprima]

God, his face. Has she ever seen him look like that at anyone? Sure, she's seen him... frustrated, with Alice, exhausted with her even, but this is something else. Colder.

"...Sam," she says, her own voice tight. Maybe she should've drank more, but—god, no, she still has to be clear-headed for Jack. "You... You look well."

(Skin and bones, that's what the portal does to you. Part of her expected him to still look that way. She wonders if the fact he looks just fine was this place or... something else.)

[huntingtruths]

"Pretty good for a guy you pushed into a hellscape, huh?" Short and to the point, good. "Yeah well, I was lucky I got found."

He can't hold the neutral face for long and he sighs, irritated. Irritated he could do, hell she's seen him man before with Alice. It was just rarely if ever directed at her, of course...he had liked her.

"How are things back at the office?" For all he already knew the answer, he wanted to give her the chance to tell the truth.

[duaprima]

She flinches (doesn't feel like she's earned the right to react like that, but it happens anyway). "Sam, I-I—"

Bite her tongue. Breathe. Answer the actual question and go from there.

"They're— pretty bad. Colin's dead, Gwen's an incompetent tyrant and Alice has been..." She sighs. "I'm sure you've heard how she's been about getting you back. No matter how much I tried to tell her it was hopeless. I guess I was wrong. I'm— I'm glad I was wrong."

That's not a lie, exactly. Not now. It's not like her discouragements being right would change that it didn't help her situation at all.

[huntingtruths]

"Don't, don't say you're sorry. You're not. You just feel guilty. If you were sorry you would have told Alice the truth." Yeah, he knows.

He let out another frustrated sigh, raking a hand through his curly hair. Hair that he really needed to get cut. It was growing out so long these days. "But yeah, Alice told me about stuff. She's here too...if you haven't already seen her. I'd be careful, she's pissed."

[duaprima]

Her mouth opens and closes, words aborting in the back of her throat before she finds new ones. "I tried to tell her. I swear, I did, but she just— she had her own ideas and wouldn't let me get a word in."

And she hasn't tried again since. So, maybe he's right. Probably he's right. She'd like to think it's just about not wanting to hurt Alice, but... well she's always known Alice isn't going to react well. Her eyes flick out over the party, looking for that colourful hair amongst the crowd, before she forces herself to focus back on Sam.

She is sorry. But she doesn't say it. "If she'd had her way she'd have thrown herself in after you. We both know that's a bad idea."

[huntingtruths]

Well, at least she's not lying. He can believe that Alice would be a whirlwind knowing Sam was gone, hell he'd seen how she reacted when they saw one another again.

"You're not wrong there, knowing Alice." Yeah, she's right. Doesn't mean he has to say it in those words and really right now he doesn't even want to think about saying 'thank you'. It's the least she could have done after tossing him to the metaphorical, and possibly literal, wolves.

"I'd ask if you've seen her yet, Alice I mean, but seeing as you're still standing I'm gonna guess that you haven't."

[duaprima]

"Not yet. I mean, I've spotted her around, but..." She's no more eager to approach Alice than she was to approach Sam. All that grace and care Alice has been giving her for weeks is out of the window, now, and it's not like she can say she hasn't earned it. "I'm sure she'll confront me eventually."

And she'll try to explain herself, because it's all she can think to do even if it feels hopeless—because it is, hopeless, isn't it? Not just explaining to Alice, or to Sam, but the reality of it in and of itself.

It comes out of her mouth without her really thinking about it: "...it didn't work."

[huntingtruths]

"Yeah, pretty sure she will. Might be scarier if she doesn't honestly." He can't help the little grin thinking about Alice just glaring from a corner. Staring Celia down because "she knows what she did" or "I just wanna let her stew". Of course the moment is stolen away from him when he hears the rushed words.

His brow furrows before he sighs through his nose and shakes his head.

"Good to know throwing me into some monster infested world was worth absolutely jack shit."

[duaprima]

Celia's jaw clenches. "I didn't— you tackled the Archivist, I didn't even get chance to make up my mind to do it. If that thing hadn't followed us—"

Would anything have changed? Or would she have followed through, all on her own. She did have that knife, Sam was right. It would've been easy to overpower him, to throw him through and finish the job without the help.

"—I don't know what I'd have done, alright? I really don't. But when you asked to go up there, I couldn't ignore the opportunity. Not with Jack depending on me." God, she wishes she was back with him in the childcare zone right now. "I can't go back there. If I ended up back in my domain there'd be nothing left of me."

Excuses, excuses, excuses—she knows that even as they spill out, can't seem to help it. Even though it didn't work. It didn't work and she's teleporting again and Jack is still at risk of being left alone—

(What happens if she can't call Georgie? What if it takes her, and he's left alone, and there's no one who knows and—)

[huntingtruths]

"You thought about it, you intended to. Me. The idiot who actually thought you liked him." And then she brings up Jack and part of him wants to argue that he's not even hers technically but he knows that could hurt and while part of him is petty and wants to be cruel...it's hard when there's a kid involved.

"Look, I get it with Jack but also...it's hard. Have you ever thought that maybe you should give him to someone from that world? Someone who, I don't know, isn't getting pulled back to another fucking dimension?"

[duaprima]

Celia snorts, a sound both angry and horribly defeated all at once. "If I didn't already know you'd never been a parent, saying that would have said it all on it's own. He's my son. He needs me, not some— some uncaring care system. How would that be better for him than me being able to stay?"

It's not as if a part of her hasn't thought about it, even if more about who she'd leave him to if she ran out of options, ran out of time. But she doesn't want it to come to that. She wants her son. She wants her life.

"When I got pregnant with him, I wasn't being pulled back yet. I didn't— I had no idea—" Deep breath, she drags her hand over her face and tries to calm down. "There has to be a way. Even if this wasn't it. And I am sorry, that I hurt you. But I was desperate. Wouldn't you be?"

[huntingtruths]

"No, I wouldn't. Not to get away. I'd be desperate to go home." He's only getting more angry but also, good to realize that she is actually Jack's mom. If he was honest he wasn't completely sure if it was her or the 'other' Celia....wherever she was.

"For fucks sake, Celia, while I was there I was desperate to get home. To get home to the people I care about." To get back to Alice.

[duaprima]

Of course he was. She doesn't doubt that and yet it still doesn't feel like he understands. (And maybe it's wrong to expect him to, and yet what can she do but try and make someone understand? There's no one else that gets it, either. No one else who ever can.)

"You're not getting it. That place, the place you ended up, is no more my home than it is yours. Not anymore. I don't remember anything about my life before our world, Sam. Not a single thing! The domain I was in stripped my life, my name— everything from me. Even if the world hadn't changed there'd be nothing to go back to! I have more of a life in our world than I'll ever have there."

[exactlythesameasthisone]

Celia's been spotted back.

Georgie's brow crumples as she approaches. "Celia? Is that you? What the hell are you doing here?"

Uh-oh. Nothing about that gives any tip-off as to which Georgie this is.

[duaprima]

Oh, boy. Here we go. Celia adjusts her cravat a little nervously, like she feels like she's being strangled.

"Uh— well, the same thing as you, I'd imagine? To visit someone. Apparently."

[exactlythesameasthisone]

Someone. Not Melanie? Who else would she even know here? Why is she being vague? Immediately, Georgie is suspicious, which she makes no effort to hide. "Who are you here for?"

[duaprima]

Even the suspicion barely helps narrow it down—Babysitter Georgie has a hell of a paranoid streak, after all—but she's starting to get more of a feeling.

Well, if it is the Fearless One, then— she wouldn't know who she's talking about if she's honest, and if it's Babysitter Georgie, she wouldn't have any reason to be suspicious about her visiting the guy she clocked her dating. Don't act suspicious and it's not suspicious.

(Yeah, failed step one.)

"...Sam, I think." No, she knows. She knows damn well it's him. Alice is just... a bonus problem. "Who are you here for?"

[exactlythesameasthisone]

Honestly Georgie doesn't question who the random guy is. She's too perplexed about the question she was asked in return.

"Melanie. You didn't see her?" Whatever. "Celia, where the hell have you been? Why are you being so dodgy with me?"

[duaprima]

"...it is you, then." The other Georgie never knew Melanie. She thought— well, she thought she'd find them together, the Prophets the same across universes, connected somehow. Instead, it was just Georgie. Paranoid Georgie. Conspiracy theorist Georgie. A good friend, reliable, always there for her—but scared in a way that never lined up with the first. "Don't you remember? Those— those things came down into the tunnels and they took us— me— away."

[exactlythesameasthisone]

"Right. But after Towerfall, everyone else either came back or... was found." Melanie's poor therapist didn't make it. It was a shame, but hardly unexpected. "But you never turned up. What happened?"

[duaprima]

Towerfall? What the hell does that mean? Was that what...

Celia shrugs, tightly. "I don't know. It's all— it's all kind of a blur, after they got me out of the tunnels. Next thing I actually remember is waking up in the hospital, in Oxford, being treated for malnourishment. And the world was... okay. Intact. But it wasn't the same world."

[exactlythesameasthisone]

There's a beat of confusion, before a whooole bunch of pieces start clicking into place. Georgie's eyes widen.

"You sent Sam to us."

[duaprima]

Celia winces, starts tugging at her sleeve uneasily. "No— yes— I mean— I was going to. Then the Archivist found us and... he tackled the thing and fell before I even had chance to follow through. But I didn't know what else to do. I found you, the other you, but she's so— she's so different, and she didn't know anything, and the Institute burned to the ground a quarter century ago, and Sam was just so interested in the place and its history and I— I thought it would fix it. I thought it just needed— someone else to balance the scales."