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

[cyansoldier]

"Yeah. I liked dancing, a lot actually, but that didn't seem like a viable career path. I always planned to enlist. It was my dream. Everything else became secondary, so I didn't think about it or consider alternatives or make a ten year plan or whatever. Maybe I should have."

Dream and expectation are somewhat synonymous here. She hasn't caught on.

"I have no idea what I'm gonna do after everything. I don't know what 'everything' is going to look like. Connie and I haven't exactly hashed out a solid plan. We can't get more than five minutes into a conversation without arguing."

A beat.

"...Kids are definitely off the table."

[dropshockandroll]

Virginia huffs, a sound in her damaged throat that's not quite a laugh and, at the very least, definitely not a happy one. 'They're off the table for me too, at this point. Wasn't actually part of the plan back then and, well, I haven't seen my son since I handed him to a stranger on a full evac ship. Early days of the war... it was chaos.'

Evacuation protocols had barely begun to be put in place, the Covenant attacks were even harder to predict than they became with time and knowledge, the colonial army wasn't big enough to make a dent... everyone was scrambling, and getting her son onto a ship was more important than getting herself on with him. Even then, she didn't realise how easy it was for the ships to get split up, go different places.

'I think you and Connie can figure it out. Neither of you are idiots, you've just been pushed to your limits and pitted against each other. But you're on the same side. You've just got to figure out how to act like it again. Which, I know, easy for me to say, but...'

Another shrug. She flexes her fingers.

'I don't think you're going to be able to think about the future until you not just know, but accept you have one.' She eyes her, for a moment. 'Military brat, yeah?'

[cyansoldier]

"I remember the bomb drills we'd do in grade school. Once every four weeks. Alarm, climb under your desk, be quiet or get thrown in detention. Sometimes it felt like we were being brought up with a special sibling that was planning to kill us later. You grow up with— in something, and it becomes... totally normal. Like waking up in the morning. I think that's why it's so hard to fathom living any longer than I already have. They slapped an expiration date on all our foreheads after we left school. Not to say they didn't do it for everyone, but..."

It's different, she thinks, when you know you'll drop your graduation gown and step straight into a suit of armor.

"Yeah, military brat. That was always what it was gonna be. No one forced me to enlist or anything, but after— well— I lost my mom, and the expectation was to pick up where she left off. I wanted that. I'm not blaming anyone. I made that choice. I just wonder how much of me actually wanted that and how much of me was trained to enjoy it."

She wants a future, she does. The outline of it is caked in smoke, and when that goes away, maybe she'll have it all figured out. Maybe.

[dropshockandroll]

A grunt that might once have been a thoughtful hum. 'It's hard. Hell, I sure never thought I'd make it to being as old as I am, practically fucking geriatric by military standards. And I got my whole childhood before the glassings begun.'

(She hopes whoever took her son in went to the Inners. Hopes that the worst of the trauma he got is the trauma everyone got. Hopes that he never even looked at a goddamn enlistment poster.)

'You made your choice, yeah. But I don't think folks should be looking at a kid and expecting them to follow their dead parent into the military, especially one fighting a war with a death toll like this. If things had been different and someone had done that to my kid, I reckon I'd have come back from the damn grave to haunt them. Or—'

She doesn't even sign this part, she just mimes punching someone.

[cyansoldier]

She snorts at the mock punch, wears a far-away sort of expression. It is something Mom would do, isn't it? If she were alive to see what the Director has done and the extent to which he's burned his bridges, she'd beat his face into his ass and vice versa. Carolina has considered it plenty herself. If she were braver, she'd do it right now. Drag him outside, clobber him bloody. But she can't. She can't.

How is she supposed to kill him if she can't even look him in the face? Pathetic.

"I get it. At the time it felt selfish to do anything else. It still does. There's always something to fight. The expectation of enlisting was just... extra pizzazz."

Carolina exhales.

"Do you ever get worried you won't like being a civilian? Like it'll drive you crazy to not be doing anything? Or— not doing what you're used to."

[dropshockandroll]

'On and off. Don't think that's just a soldier thing, though. Maybe it's worse for us. But people dedicated their whole lives to other things, then— retire, or move onto other things, I bet they get pretty lost too.'

There's something Carolina's not saying, Virginia's relatively sure of that, but trying to find out what it is won't do any good. It was the same with CT, back in the later days. Always the feeling of something held back, if you could even catch her in conversation at all. But pushing, that'd just scare her off.

'Feeling a bit stir crazy?'

[cyansoldier]

Huh... She had never thought of it like that. Hard to remember the grander scheme of things when you've existed in one quadrant of it for so long— your entire life, in fact. War, war and more war. Soldier's problems, which might actually just be people's problems.

Carolina meets her eye, apprehensive. As if, by giving a little, she'll split right down the center and it'll all come pouring out.

"A little. It's just— different here. There isn't a lot to do between whatever weird new thing is going on. I hunt, sometimes. Technically for work." She shrugs. "It's the closest thing I could think of to what I was doing before. What I'm good at. I don't know if I actually like it."

I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here.

"I'm talking to a guy," she says impulsively, huffing what could be a laugh. "So there's that."

[dropshockandroll]

Virginia lets out what must be a laugh—fluctuating breath with what little real sound involved being more of an almost painful sounding grunting. 'Yeah? He cute?'

It's both genuine and gently teasing, something between military ribbing and an older family member making you squirm. She bumps Carolina with a shoulder and shrugs.

'Maybe you need to try something else, explore your options a bit. There must be other work.'

[cyansoldier]

It's the closest she's ever looked to truly embarrassed— aside from being dragged away from the fistfight in the first place, of course. This particular embarrassment plays out like teen's— all red and pursed-lipped, like a cousin to anger. She looks away, then looks back again.

"He's goth and an asshole— so, ah, yeah. Cute." (He really is.)

"There's a group of enforcers here— it's less intense than it sounds— and I've considered that, but... I don't know. Being part of a squad again seems..." she tosses her head left and right, can't find the words. "...Like a recipe for disaster."

There we go.

"I live near a farm. A big one, with animals and stuff. Sometimes I help the guys there and that's actually been really nice."

[dropshockandroll]

Virginia knows better than to bring up one Agent York and all the rumours about their relationship, but the thought ah, so someone you can fondly call an asshole is your type passes through her mind regardless.

Idly, she glances back into the party behind them, and catches the eyes of a certain lanky goth who must have some very keen burning ears to be looking out at them almost smugly and waving. Virginia blinks, snorts, and shakes her head.

'Well, I can't say you don't have good taste,' she jokes, letting Carolina decide whether to follow her gaze back toward him before she herself just gives him a knowing look and addresses the rest of Carolina's points:

'CT did mention her work,' she signs. 'It sounds like she has her own reasons for it that are very her. And I'm guessing her involvement is at least some of the hesitation, too, right? But hey, if the farm work's fulfilling, you keep doing that on the side no matter what else you do. It's worth having something that feels good like that.'