At The Gates

Who: Everyone at Haven and incomers
What: Backdated -- Days Two and Three (February 10 & 11) at Haven: all people using it as a refuge in the plot, all resolutions and wrap-ups can go here!
Where: Haven

When it turns to the second day of the madness, when the night has long since fled and left Haven still wreathed in nightmare and shadow and demons are the stench of sulphur and the flicker of flame beyond the graveyard -- Haven girds itself for all its lack of wards, for all its failure to hold together and endure. They have a healer -- one broken, one who does not go willingly but in dazed, dragged-to-heel need, they have the clarity of two or three (far beyond nightmares, these folk, too abjured by all they’ve seen to find the vivid imaginings a scope too far) to link them together. The church herself holds fast, is steadfast stone bones for all the disease and calamity that wreaks itself out within her until she is shattered glass and blind eyes, the wreckage of a structure built so solidly, it seems impossible to take her down completely.

And within? As the day elides into the next, as the hallowed madness shrieks itself on, inside is triage and emergency only, the war-wounded alongside those locked inside themselves, unable to bear what has been fear and fancy only made flesh.

Who. Balthazar
What. It's a great day to be a demon
Where. Yours truly ends up in Haven
When. As the party gets going and chaos extends throughout London. A short while after this exchange.
Notes. Uhm, I didn't know how people wanted to go about doing this, SO if anyone looking to join in Nina's Bohemian Rhapsody of Doom wants, perhaps we can thread it here? idk idk

( It wouldn’t matter if he had been bowled over by the magic, because he’s going to live it up as though this really were his greatest, wettest fantasy. )

Who: Vaughn Wagner playingdoctor)
What: Fantasyland.
Where: Haven
When: The first night things go bad.
Warnings: None.

( ‘If we get through tonight, we’re home-free.’ )

Who: Vaughn Wagner playingdoctor) [Narrative]
What: Man made magic.
Where: London, Haven, here and there.
When: The past nine years, give or take.
Warnings: An unpleasant man prone to self-harm. Please skip on by if this would be triggery for you.

( Why magic? )

The Market was not a creature of blood and of salt today, not a slinking, shadowy thing that kept itself carefully to the demarked edges of where it ought be with wards and signs and sigils spilling along its skirts to tell people where they could and could not be (with the sly smile, the wink, the glint of gold almost-hidden that was the Merchants and the Market itself forever). It had thrown wide its doors (beyond of course, the careful delineation between London and this Other London, this parasitic presence deep below the innocent preparations going on above, the tired trudging of Christmas shoppers and the artificial buzz and hum and florescent glow of lights strung on wires across the streets). This place, sketched out across bared Market grounds was a delight, a poetry-in-motion of silks swung from erected arch to arch, of paper lanterns strung seemingly from nothing until they sent soft glow across the path with the delicate tinge and blush of soft jewels.

A vast tent (such as it could be called - such a thing was an artifice and construction beyond the notion of words and language) was main event; soft light and swelling music and the laughter and low-voiced flirtation of masked men and women circling one another within its depths. To the left, a staircase that wound up above to a platform cordoned off into sections more suited for intimacy, for quiet conversation amongst the numerous silk cushions, the low tables thoughtfully placed of a height to lean a glass on and gossamer-thin curtains to keep privacy at utmost. To the right and below, a table of all good things to eat spread out for all, clusters of tables and spindly chairs for diners to seat themselves at and still admire the whole. A bar (for all who came to these events in formal dress a little too unfamiliar to be comfortable sought out such places, such things) took up the back, a obtrusive but elegant creation served attentively by low-voiced, dark clad whisking things that were too quietly efficient to be anything but those low down on Market pecking order.

But of course, a Market is not a Market without a little magic. Those who stepped across the threshold, those hidden from clarity by the dominoes and masks of anonymity for the night had fresh flush of confidence. Those that did not identify themselves to their companions could not be identified - strangers within a party, mysterious and interesting both. For a night, all who attended were given ability to move as though they were unknown -- be the end result a flirtation heartily enjoyed but set aside by morning, or a flash of an argument forgotten by the time they left the dance.


[Open to all characters - Market is open to everyone for this. There will be areas in subject lines and comments below, so hop in and leave no one untagged!]

Who: Vaughn Wagner [OPEN]
What: At the Market.
Where: London's Market.
When: Saturday morning.
Warnings: None.

( This was not a buyer. Not this one. )

WHO: Anyone neutral or good!
WHAT: Dominic Munroe demands merriment and good food to celebrate some birthdays.
WHEN: Sunday, June 12th, during the day.
WHERE: Haven, the rundown old church in Westminster.

For all that their home is known as a sanctuary, Haven runs the risk of becoming too austere and monk-like at times. Its quiet risks being too quiet and sacred; its innate churchness sometimes seems inextricable and inescapable.

But today is a day for celebration and socialisation, in whatever form they can make it. Voices are raised in laughter, cracking what normally stands as silence around a sacrosanct churchyard. The makings of a summer party have been installed in Haven's overgrown garden; it was evidently well-tended in the past, but the plantlife has now grown shoddy, trailing rampant over its boundaries. A beaten, slightly-rusty barbeque grill has taken up residence at the corner of the garden -- the grill's seen better days, but by the beaming expression of the man tending it (bright-red 'KISS THE CHEF' apron and all), it seems to be doing its job well enough. The sound and smell of sizzling meat fills the air, and food has been laid out on a long wooden table. Chairs are scattered throughout the flattened grass. The organisation is a little makeshift and a little second-hand -- but that's only fitting for the venue, isn't it?

[Feel free to tag in below and start your own sub-threads with each other!]

Who: Joss Makepeace & Vaughn Wagner
What: Architecture, churches and sanctuaries. Also a love-letter to London-in-the-summer.
Where: A long-forgotten church somewhere in the city.
When: Monday

( They spilled out through London seeking out those quiet places in that magic hour, the one where London sighed out tired hearts-breath, expanded herself, stretched and spread and allowed the locust-plague of office-folk to settle on all the parched green grass, small squares and hemmed in places that were tiny oases in a desert of glass, iron and stone )

Who: Vaughn Wagner (playingdoctor) & Domni Ambrozyak (clockwrksoldier)
What: Tempting fate and kicking tires.
When: Last Market, mid-April.
Where: The Market.
Warnings: None.

( Blood and bone and bile sat out for sale only a stone’s throw from golem dust and powdered dreams. )

Who: OPEN to all, barring demons and angels that have not negotiated entrance.
What: The Market.
When: Spanning 30 April to 7 May.
Where: See 'what'.
Warnings: TBA.

( There are more Librarians walking the boundaries this time. )