Tweak

InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I believe in you"

Bellum Anon (bellum_anon) wrote in bellumlogs,
@ 2010-03-12 23:02:00

Entry tags:

Fables Plot Public Post!
Who: Public
What: The Open Post for Public Threading for the Epic Fable Plot
Where: Throughout the building.
When: 12:01
Warnings: Any number of crazy things could end up in here.
Notes: Alright! This post is for public threads only, and will be run party style. Anyone can jump into a thread at any time--just use your judgment! Feel free to hop around, go to different parts of the building, and mingle through the madness.

12:01. The beginning of a new day, just broken in, still fresh. Most of the building was sleeping, as decent people ought to be at such an hour.

The building, down at its foundations, was restless. A storm had been gathering for the past week, in its joints and its doorways, in its windows and its keyholes. 12:01, the storm broke over Bellum.

It was as if the building stretched, yawned, shook itself. There was a shudder in reality, as if the air itself was nothing more than a funhouse mirror. Faster than you could snap your fingers and the thing was done, set into motion before the darkest hours of the morning had yet come around.

A twitch, a snap, a static shock.

And then the changes started.

((OOC: Alright guys, go crazy! Feel free to post your location in the header of your comment so people can do a quick visual scan for the right comment and the right location. Mingle! Chat! Fight! Tackle one another!))

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 06:06 pm UTC (link)

"You smell like roses," he said, as if agreeing. He lifted his head off her lap when she shifted, and rose slowly to his feet when she stood up. He was absolutely huge, even when he seemed thoroughly willing to trot alongside her like an overgrown puppy. "Yes, they are on the balcony. But it is very cold out there. I will go with you," he decided, even as he tipped his head affectionately for more scratches. You have no idea how hard it is to scratch the top of your head when you only have paws. That much mane is itchy.

He padded on silent velvet toward the door and looked over his shoulder at the room. "You are right about the castle. But I like it here. It is very familiar and safe." He sounded fond. Safety was the primary concern in most of the Beast's ongoing conversation.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-18 06:33 pm UTC (link)

"You shouldn't move around so very much," she told him, still worried about his injuries, while completely ignoring her own. When he tipped his head, she laughed quietly, the sound lilting and carrying through the living room, and she scratched a moment, before stopping to roll the sweatpants up so she didn't trip over them, tying the waist for the same reason.

She pulled open the curtains, and she looked out onto the balcony once they were pulled wide. Then sun wasn't yet up, but the sky had lightened in a way that said a new day was coming, and she ran her fingers through his mane, untangling it gently as she looked outside.

The balcony was huge, which she somehow remembered, and as dead as it was big. When he mentioned safety, she looked over at him. "You are afraid of something?" she asked, sounding upset that something would threaten him. She realized the concept was ludicrous, with him being as big as he was. But he was soft and kind, and she expected his feelings might be very easy to hurt. She didn't like that thought.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 07:17 pm UTC (link)

"The wounds are not very deep," he assured her. "If you want to fuss more, you may in the kitchen, but not on the balcony." His breath steamed on the glass before she pulled it aside, and he followed her out onto the balcony, so close on her heels that his cold nose bumped her ankle before they were entirely outside. He stood still, looking as she looked, and of course there was no expression on his face, but his eyes seemed tired.

"There is a witch that does not like me," he told her, a little reluctantly. "I have enemies like any man might." He opened his mouth a little, tongue to one side, in what might have been a smirk. "Do you like my garden?" He had been right about the mess and the silent, dead tangle of it.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-18 07:43 pm UTC (link)

"Your garden needs... attention," she said, finally deciding on the correct word.

It was no longer cold enough to snow, but the air was still too cold for roses and flowers; or it should have been; still, she touched a dead tangle of brambles beside the door as she stepped out, and it straightened beneath her hand. It was a battle for the brambles to disentangle themselves, but they did, in the end, straightening and swaying in the cool air before they began to bud.

She smiled at him. "You'll remember you said I could fuss in the kitchen?" she asked him fondly, then looked back over the garden, her fingers lightly touching one of the closed buds. There was piled glass in one corner, strewn from its neatly collected spot. In the center, broken statues and mirror frames dominated, and a mass of dead growing things. "Do you know what they were?" she asked, not yet risking the cold floor with her bare feet.

Then, after a moment's silence, she looked at him and asked: "Did your witch lock you here?"

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 08:14 pm UTC (link)

He smiled at her opinion, which was not a criticism as it should have been, and wisely did not go back on his word about fussing in general. He was a large, silent presence at her side as she moved over the mess, and he stopped when she did to look at the faintly glowing shards in the rapidly brightening light. He stood there so long without looking back at her that for a moment it seemed as if he would not answer. It was then that he said, "Old mirrors were here." He turned his head to look up at her with his own reflective gaze, but he said no more about the witch. He felt as if he should not talk about her; it seemed as if it was against the rules in some way. A bad idea. Something to avoid. He was more willing to acquiesce to those impulses than she, part of an animal's nature was to listen to instincts and not question their existence.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-18 08:25 pm UTC (link)

She scratched his head as he spoke, rubbed his nose; it was a instinctual thing, the touch, something soft and warm amidst all the death and destruction. "Will you wait here for me a moment? I need a broom and pan," she explained, even as she looked up at the wall, at what was growing there. Ivy, she realized, grown wild from the balcony ledge, underfoot, even into the gutters and up the roof. It was pretty, somehow, in its wildness, even though she wasn't sure she'd be able to explain it if she had to.

She reached out a hand to touch the greenery, and she smiled as the ivy lining the wall edged back, back, back, rolling down toward the balcony edge, as if it was a giant blanket of green moving away from them. She lowered her hand more, to the height of a hedge, and when the ivy reached it, she pulled her hand back, and she smiled at him.

"Better?" she asked with a smile.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 08:46 pm UTC (link)

He was, as always, receptive to the physical attention (though touching his nose tended to make him sneeze), but said no more specific. When she looked down at him again, he was staring at the pieces of the mirror, and jerked his head back around to see what she spoke of. He looked for a moment, head tilting from side to side again, before he nodded, sending leonine dust motes up into the growing shafts of bright morning sunshine. "It is more in order. I am glad it likes you." It was one thing if she liked the garden, but another thing again if the garden liked her. He put his head down and nudged her toward the apartment. "You don't need to clean right now. It is late--early--and you have not slept." Nudge.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-18 08:59 pm UTC (link)

She had followed his gaze to the mirrors, and she was about to ask about them when he began to nudge her inside. She dug her heels in a little, but her voice was soft when she protested. "Wait one moment? I'll leave the cleaning, but the flowers, they'll only take a second," she said, the plea evident in her voice and mixed with a touch of determination, much like the fussing earlier. She rubbed his ear. "I'll sleep once I'm done, if you'll allow me this one thing?" she asked, knowing she couldn't physically stop him if he wanted to nudge her indoors. Still, she didn't fear the asking or the request, she found, as she did not fear him any longer.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 09:17 pm UTC (link)

Swayed, undoubtedly, by the soft voice and the ear rub, he stopped trying to muscle her into the apartment and looked doubtfully back over a thick shoulder at the garden. "If you insist," he sighed, finally, pretending that it was all his idea to appease his pride and backing up again so she had the room she liked to move about. "But not too long." The sun was growing higher, and observing that there would soon be a nice warm spot by one of the parapets, he moved to one side under the newly tamed ivy and turned around in a circle to sprawl comfortably on the ground where he could see what she was doing. From a very--very--great ways away, he would look like a sunning house cat.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-18 09:37 pm UTC (link)

She hid her smile when he agreed, and she took just one step out onto the cold stone. The garden truly was a mess of slimy, frozen over leaves and ferns, layers upon layers of sweet-dead greenery under foot. She crinkled her toes, and she watched him sprawl out. He would look pretty out there when the sun rose, she thought in passing, and she smiled at the utter silliness of that thought.

She knelt first, touching her hand to the carpet of dead things on the stone. She couldn't make them grow, having already fallen from their stems and branches as they had, but the blanket thinned and thinned and thinned, until there was nothing where the greenery and leaves had been. She had no control over stone, glass, mirror frames or remnants of terracotta pots, but most of that had been pushed into a corner, so she didn't concern herself with it at present.

With the ivy and the floor cleared away, she could see what was actually planted. The ivy lined the balcony edge, but there were just as many roses dotting its greenery, and she tipped her head and they bloomed, the scent of roses touching the dawn air. By the door, thin trees proved to be flowering plums, and their pink and white blooms were soon joining the scent of ivy and roses. She stepped a little further out, careful of the stone underfoot, and she coaxed the arborvitae bushes and crabapple to life in the same way, then she added more roses here and there. By the time she was done, the predominant scent on the air was rose, and the balcony had warmed considerably to keep the plants alive. The sun had just started to rise, and she yawned sleepily as she smiled at him, tired from the effort.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 10:22 pm UTC (link)

He watched her for a long while, thinking the same thing about her that she thought about him, but with his alien face, found it much easier to hide. It was, however, not as astonishing to him that she could make the flowers grown where she would; he was not human, after all, and to him, that was what plants did: grow. Beauty smelled like flowers all the time, and it made perfect sense that she could coax the garden into doing what she liked. He watched, meditating on the existence of the mirror shards and trying to catch pieces of memory from what he had been before, but it was a tiring process. Somewhere between the clearing process and the rose bushes, he fell asleep, chin on his paws and eyes sleepy slits.

Some noise she made, or perhaps the ever-strengthening perfume on the balcony woke him as she turned his way. He'd rolled over partway onto his back to take advantage of the sun, and there were vaguely tigerish stripes that blended deceptively into the fur at the edge of his stomach, otherwise invisible. He was right about the scratches being minor, though they were very long, yet he looked utterly content lying in the sun at the edge of the blooming garden.

He rolled upright and blinked repeatedly at the garden, which had metamorphosed into a temperate paradise while he slept. "Very pretty," he said, looking at her rather than the garden. "Better than I imagined it might be."

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-18 11:31 pm UTC (link)

She took his praise to be completely related to the flowers, and she smiled proudly. "They are pretty, aren't they?" she asked, leaning down to smell a new rosebud, her fingers cupping the underside of the flower delicately.

She'd noticed the lines before he'd rolled over, and she considered fussing, as he called it, but another sleepy yawn kept her from it. "After I sleep, I'm taking a look at those scratches," she told him, and she carefully tiptoed out to where he was in the newly risen sun. It was warm in this corner of the balcony, and she liked it out here with everything blooming like it was. She rubbed the scruff of his neck, fingers sliding into the soft, warm fur, and she sighed happily. "This would be a lovely spot for a nap, as you already know," she said with a playful smile.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 11:37 pm UTC (link)

"They're not leaving," he said, about the scratches, with a touch of temper, "You may look all you like." He started purring again the moment she started scratching again, eyes closing blissfully. It was a good bet that he hadn't the slightest idea he was making the noise at all. He sprawled out again almost immediately. He hardly realized the chill, and he had already warmed the ground up to a comfortable degree, so he saw no reason why a nap was not immediately in order. He shut his eyes again with a slight huff of contentment.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-18 11:44 pm UTC (link)

The touch of temper didn't frighten her, but she was a little tentative with her response. "I will look," she said. She could be stubborn too, after all. When he sprawled back out, she smiled fondly at him, doing her best to hide a small giggle. She glanced inside, then back at him. "Should I go?" she asked reluctantly. After all, she had not been invited to stay (and was not required to, since he could not recall her father). She crinkled her bare toes on the warm stone, and figured he would make a lovely pillow.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-18 11:53 pm UTC (link)

He shed sleep with startling immediacy, eyes coming openfeet coming underneath him to support his weight as he heaved himself upright to turn around and face her. "Go?" he said, with honest alarm, eyes wide. He took the two short paces between her and the door, curling around her in another distinctly feline gesture. "You can't go. You have to stay." Halting in front of her and tipping his chin up so the short hairs tickled her face, eyes inches apart. "Stay," he repeated.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-19 12:04 am UTC (link)

She didn't shy back; in fact, she held her ground admirably with only the slightest tilt of her chin. She ran her hand along his side when he curled around her, and she stifled a small yawn, because that wouldn't appear very forceful, would it?

"I'll stay, but because I want to," she said with complete honestly, her voice still soft as she said the words. It never occurred to her to have to hide the fact that she liked it here, that she liked his company, and she rubbed under his chin as she waited for his response.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

labete
2010-03-19 01:13 am UTC (link)

"Yes," he said, ignoring any appearance of defiance since he was too caught up in hearing what he wanted to hear, "you stay. Come now, it will be even warmer inside." He started nosing her into the apartment the way he had before she had begun with the garden, but it was far more serious now, and he would not take no for an answer. Not even ear-scritches were going to interrupt him this time.

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Re: Rooftop floor/R1: 3:00 a.m.

bookshelved
2010-03-19 01:23 am UTC (link)

She could tell he was more determined, and she didn't consider asserting herself or arguing with him, because it seemed important to him for her to go inside. She didn't really feel the need to be stubborn just to save face, so there was no reason to oppose him. She let him usher her in, and she only lingered long enough to grab one rosebud to make something for his scratches in the morning.

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