Repose

Who: Carver, Claire, and Ella
What: Inquisition gonna inquisite. (TOTALLY A WORD!)
Where: Claire's to nearby the abandoned train station.
When: Uh, fuzzy-ish? I think?
Warnings/Rating: Violence, Grumpy Carver, Use of Latin.

( Carver honestly just wanted to crawl in a hole and die, but no one in town was going to let that happen. )

[Locked to Janus A, Etain S]
[After this, and after a fair bit of poking about belowstairs.]

I believe Rory's been taken by some entity within the facility, and we've no notion where he is now. Do be careful. We're dwindling. Bossman has no interest in assisting us, but we're not to leave this place. Remain far from the flower shop. The demon hunters lurk there yet, and I'm of a mind to give them a grand explosion before they circle me and cast me out.

[Locked to Hellish peoples]
[Once this goes up on the flower shop, after this.]

We've trouble only slightly. Is the bossman gone entirely?
[If not, he can see this, of course.]

[When the sun rises, every single one of the invading flowers has been struck down. All that is left in place are singed piles of salt, sulfur, and pure white ash which will disappear by the time the midday sun hits the town. UNFORTUNATELY, the respite doesn't last long, and by afternoon the flowers have already started to pop back up, infernal little weeds that they are. A different solution will need to be found.

Some people say they saw a figure in a red cloak skulking in the shadows the night before and cutting through the plants with a spear. A spear? It couldn't have been a spear. Who uses a spear? It had to be a hoe or a shovel. Probably a visual side effect of the flowers. Little Red Riding Hood has turned rogue gardener.

Completely and totally unrelated~ That same night, the grounds of the Catholic Church had been cleansed and sanctified, bestowed with an aura of safety for the next two weeks. Demons and other Hell creatures may not be so keen on it, but hey, there's always the Protestant church. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ]

[She was trying to be nice, spreading a little comfort around a little town devoid of it. But when this happens, she gets a little cranky. The Star of Bethlehem keeps popping up around town, but now it has friends. Silene Capensis, the dream root, and coming into contact with it causes vivid, vivid nightmares. The little white flower's effect goes on for hours and hours, and it must be a very special blend. But there has to be some color in the garden that is claiming the town, and Desfontania joins the little white bulbs. The bushes pop up like weeds, and inhaling the spores is said to cause visions. And the visions this strain causes, they seem to be very real. Luckily, not all residents are susceptible.]

[It's much too late in the year for the little white flowers that bloom overnight in Repose. Spring flowers, or early Summer at the latest, and not local to this part of the world at all, the Star of Bethlehem belongs to the annals of old wives and their tales. "For those who have troubles, for those who are unhappy, for those who have received bad news, a loss, or an accident, the Snowdrop gives them comfort," the saying goes, but keep the pets and children far, far away.

These little flowers show up in clusters throughout the town. As far as Hookerville, as far as the Carnival, and they do bring comfort, yes, but perhaps too much comfort and comfort to too many. But they're just little flowers. They'll bloom, and they'll spread, and they'll be dead before the week is out. In the meantime, the town is coated in comfort and, if you're one of the affected (and not everyone is), the comfort is very comforting indeed. Can being overly comforted be a bad thing, you ask? Oh, you'd be surprised.]

[A potted Angel's Trumpet is delivered to the Catholic Church. The colors are unexpectedly vibrant, as if the leaves were made out slivers of stained glass. They aren't made of glass at all, of course. Now, Angel's Trumpets are known to cause terrible and dark hallucinations if ingested, so there's a nice little note included: Don't eat the flowers. And it's a complete chance that the little spores are especially floaty in this plant. It's almost impossible to be around it and not ingest a little something. It just so happens that a little something goes a long, long (and very sinful) way.]

[Delayed, but after his chat with Claire.]
[Group lock]

There's a hunter here. It [...] could be an issue.

[By the light of Tuesday's full moon, she does a walk-around of town as the sun sets (mostly unnoticed - those who see her soon forget her), basket handle tucked in the crook of her elbow. It's not her largest basket, but neither is it her smallest.

Her first stop is the cemetery, where she places:
-Snowdrops tied together with a sprig of rosemary at the entrance gate
-A bundle of asphodelus laid between the graves of a once-married couple (one fresh, one older)
-Another couple, on their shared headstone by their two fairly recent graves, a curl of ivy

Tucked in the handle of the door to the trailer behind the Protestant church, a bundle of thornapple flowers. By morning, they are wilted, with the edges starting to blacken badly and rot. The flower shop has no such gift, but there's a lingering scent of them around the door that lasts all day. There's no remaining trace of who may have left them, not even for people good at figuring out that sort of thing, like they appeared out of nowhere. The flowers and the scents keep their own secrets - for now.

The shelves of her things at the town's metaphysical shop are restocked: teas, lotions, sachets. She comes and goes from the back door (outside of business hours), which opens for her without need of a key. Set to the side in the back room, she leaves a different selection of herbs, teas, and one spidery puff of witch-hazel laid on top. She takes in return the small jar of honey waiting there for her. No note is needed.

An unbleached muslin bag is left hooked on the handle of Eddie's caravan office at the circus. For all their usual mischief, the clowns don't even think about touching it. Inside:
-an unwilting (for now) bouquet with a note: Odin's grace. Happy Wednesday.
-a dark, airtight jar of loose-leaf tea. It smells like spearmint and anise and green things. Another note: For hot afternoons: 3 spoons into a large jar, fill with clean water, let on your window ledge the morning before - full-day+ brew. Strain and pour over ice. Best plain but 1 spoon of raw sugar/jar in with the tea before brewing if you're appeasing an extra-sweet tooth. No more or you'll ruin it.

Once her basket is empty (other than the honey), she stops at the grocery store to pick up a few necessities before walking home again.]

[Go here for plant meanings.]

[Locked to Mason J]

I've news, Bossman.

Who: Ella and Will
When: Recent
What: Window-shopping at the antique-store.
Warnings: Doubtful.

It was a bad day, in so much as Will could quantify any day in particular as such. There were scales, of course. Ways of cataloging days with tags, much like the little paper ones associated with objects under glass in the window in front of him. One might tack 'bland, middling grey' on a particular day and 'sunshine and optimism' to another. It was not a bad day on the other side because Will knew those kind perfectly well. The bookstore, being his measurement in all things, had gone shadowy and blurry in the corners and sleep had been something desperate and hard to dig oneself out of and the taste of metal on his tongue numbed anything appetite-shaped to the inconsequential. Those bad days were familiar. He counted the spaces in between. Five was the worst, but five had been almost nothing at all to convert the bad into ordinary. Five had been his own blood and he had a scar along the flat of his left thumb that suggested five hadn't gone anywhere at all.

He'd held out for twenty before. Twenty was good, except he'd started seeing the world in copper shimmers, waves that rippled out from behind people. He'd heard things, birds mostly and Will had stopped hoping twenty would come back again ordinary because he thought twenty was now long past. Fifteen was ordinary now. Fifteen was manageable on a small scale, but he was thinking as he looked at what must have been a blessing-cup, ornate wrought silver and beautiful in a heavy, mad kind of way, that fifteen might be pushed at the corners if you could do something big enough. The problem was how big, and with Carver in town Will felt guilty even speculating on big.

But it was a bad day the other side of fifteen, which meant he knew without looking at his own reflection that today his eyes were all inked-pupil, and he was the color of rubbed paper. He was thinner today because of the thick taste of pennies on his tongue for the week and he wore a sweater dragged over a shirt because he was cold, immeasurably so. But the thing about bad days this side, when the world wore a little bit of what it could possibly be if you reached out and pushed at it with a little bit of what you had with you, Will thought dreamily, was that you could undo the bad all at once, if you wished.

Of course, that way madness lay. The very predictament the bad day was all about. But there were things to look at. Will liked the new owner of the antique store because the display changed often enough to be interesting. So he leaned, peripherally with his elbow braced against the wall, and he looked because just then he'd felt last night reach up and grab him by the back of the neck in an all too unfriendly fashion.

[To: The Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Hell, and Lord of Darkness.

And also his flower lady.]

I thought we were trying to be avoid attention.

Who: Carver, Ella
Where: Flowershop
When: During this
What: Carver is suspicious it's a hobby of his
Warnings: TBA

( The to-do list of an Inquisitor is always long. )

[Public]

The carnival has singing flowers and no one calls that a holy miracle.

[Melody B.]

Did Tethys lock you back up?

[The fact that they're delivered midweek, when there's no special service scheduled, makes them all the more gossip worthy.

Midday, four large arrangements of Middlemist's Red Camellias are delivered to the Protestant church. The flower, which is all but extinct, shouldn't be in Repose at all. Two blooms exist in all the world, and they're both safely guarded in conservatories. And yet here they are, bright and just from bud, ready for worship. They'll bloom brilliantly through the weekend, without any droop for Sunday services and the visitors that come from all around the county to look upon them.

Word travels fast. The new preacher is largely credited with this miracle, and it seems it's a good week to find religion in Repose.]

[MJ, Flash, Harry]

There should be a buffet at this reunion.

[Felicity]

I think we probably need to talk.

[Guinevere]

Are you okay?

[Ella G.]

Any deliveries today or tomorrow?

[After meeting with Mason.]

[Locked to Janus A]
You're still the darb.

[Locked to Rory B]
Don't take any wooden nickles.

[Meredith's fate is old news, but he's out of the loop.]

There is a lot of blood in the road.

[Ella was quite delighted to find Helena in town. The world, Ella knew, was small enough to fit itself within a thimble, and yet she was always surprised when things pleased her. Perhaps it was a life built upon hunger that did that. She was never one to expect the gifts beneath the tree, but she could always be counted upon to smile brightest when said gifts appeared. Ella never did question the appearance of crinkling paper and bright silver bows, and perhaps that, too, was upbringing. But, simply, she thought it was the bee's knees that Helena was here. She'd always liked the other woman, who was so elegant and proper. Ella had never been prim nor proper, and a gilded cage hadn't taught her to sing any better songs. Helena was quality, and Ella was a handout on a dirt road, and yet they understood each other.

This night, Ella dressed like frumpery, and she arrived at Lux every inch the lady of the flower shop. The role of spinster, she'd learned decades earlier, made it easier to learn things about a place. Vacuous smiles and freckles bright against alabaster, and no one suspected a thing. So long as her curves were hid beneath loose fabric, and so long as she laughed and smiled and sang, as a proper canary should.

But Helena knew better. In Helena, Ella had a confidant who knew her to be more than this frumpy seller of carnations. Helena knew, if only in the telling, that Ella had tippled her way through the roaring twenties with gin juice in her belly, and with the echoing woods of speakeasies beneath her feet. Tonight, however, Ella walked in and looked around before approaching the bar with all its shine and luster. Uncertain, and deliberately so, she asked the bartender to choose for her, and she fully expected him to return with something featuring an umbrella. Music played, and her pump wanted to dance, but she needed to be tipsy first. Or, so was the expectation of a spinster flower-marm upon the town.]

Who: Mason and Ella
What: Flower delivery to the church.
Where: The protestant church
When: Evening
Warnings/Rating: N/A

( Having flesh meant sensation in all its exquisiteness. His hand on the broom handle, smoke in his lungs, corrupting the tissue. All real, all corporeal, all a part of this world. )