Broken Space

Robb is a Stark. He is his father's son, a good man, an honourable man. Doing the right thing is all but a genetic, biological imperative; it does not always come naturally and it does not always end well, but at least it is a constant. So Robb, knowing that the right thing has been done, both by himself and his brother (no longer lover, now), thinks he at least ought to feel better about having done it.

Instead, he finds he just feels raw and empty, and wishes like anything he could turn time back, even if just a day. A matter of a handful of hours.

But even good men do not have that power, and the young man who was once a rebel king sits still and silent on the beach with a grey wolf's head in his lap, thinking about everything and nothing, gazing out at the sea.

It's an annual tradition, and this year Johnny is feeling particularly celebratory. The island seemed to have gone easy on them this year, for some reason. A few people coming, a few people leaving, and mostly not craziness. In fact, it was so incredibly mundane that Johnny was going stir-crazy. He wouldn't even have minded if the dinosaurs came back, so long as something interesting happened. So this year he'd decided to ring in the next year with a particularly exceptional party in the hopes that something would happen--even if it was just another baby in nine months. With any luck it wouldn't be his.

There was alcohol. Lots of alcohol. And a feast of barbecued boar, roasted fish, fresh vegetables and fruits. There were torches lighting the path from the Compound to Summerfell, and on the beach a large bonfire burned. Best of all, he'd spoken with the sciency types and they'd managed a very special countdown for midnight.

Fireworks. Raw, experimental--but still big explosions of sparks and light. It was going to be awesome.

Sansa vaguely remembers what it was like to not be tired - it seems a distant long ago thing now. Brynden is sweet baby but he's still demanding. And Dara has more energy than Sansa ever remembers any of her younger siblings having. They are both asleep at the same time now and it seems like a minor miracle - certainly a rarity in any case.

She should probably sleep herself but instead she finds herself wanting to enjoy the moment. She sits on the porch of Summerfell with a book and a cup of juice and bit of sewing she's been meaning to find time for - she ignores all of it though and just enjoys the quiet. She can feel the breeze off the ocean a little and she doesn't think there is anyway she could be more content.

For a variety of reasons, Amelie is throwing a masquerade ball. It had not occurred to her until the later stages that this meant that she would be attending a party. Thankfully, she had found a suitable dress in the basement. Elizabethan, by the look (and feel) of it, but it had a matching mask. Both were light green and embroidered with gold. The mask also had golden feathers.

Of course, there were too few people here for her to be truly anonymous, but that hadn't actually occurred to her until just now.

She tries not to panic - breathing too quickly might make her faint - as she surveys the room. Food, music, and she had found flowers as well. Now all she had to do was hope everything went all right. And play matchmaker. And hope no one talked to her.

She took the biggest breath she dared to take. Should be easy.

It had seemed like fate that a large (Johnny estimated at least 15 foot) fir tree had appeared near Summerfell in early December.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Johnny had said to Robb.

His goodbrother, in atypical good humour, had replied, "Vodka distilled from fir needles?"

Which had only made Johnny cross. "No, medieval boy king, it means that Christmas is coming. And this baby is going to be a Christmas tree," Johnny corrected, patting the fir's branches fondly. "It's the perfect tree for the perfect feast."

Which is why, Christmas Eve, the fir tree is now decorated with garlands made from strung beads, and all sorts of ribbon, and homemade ornaments made from grass and sticks and stones, and small clap lamps lit with oil.

There's a large table with benches to one side, covered with partially eaten plates of food and drink, and torches and lamps strung around the area. There's a large fire, upon which sweetmeats are being roasted, and corn popped.

The only thing missing, Johnny would say, is music, but there's family, and friends, and plenty of Christmas spirit.


[Tag in! Carolers, I expect a thread of your own! Everyone else can come and go as they please.]

"You are so gorgeous," Johnny murmurs, and drops a kiss lightly on his object of affection's forehead. "Seriously gorgeous. The softest skin, the bluest eyes..." He caresses said skin, a small, intimate smile on his lips. "Without a doubt you are...absolutely perfect," he sighs, as if to a lover.

There's no doubt. Johnny Storm is in love.

He's sitting on a couch in the lobby, holding the object of his desire in his arms, both of them freshly bathed and dressed.

Curiously, Sansa and Dara aren't there, as Dara is being looked after by her grandmother and Sansa is still showering.

Three guesses to whom Johnny is speaking, and the first two don't count.

What do you get when you combine one already creepy compound and two party addicts with way too much time on their hands?

One amazing party.

The entrance to the Compound has been lined with black and fake cobwebs, and an old tape recorder playing a casette of scary sound effects on a loop. All lights have been covered up, and the only lights one can see are at the end of the hallway.

The end of the hallway is the Lobby, and it's been turned into one hell of a party room (no pun intended). The walls are also covered in black, with the harsh fluorescent lights covered with sheer fabric and mounted squares of colored glass. There's a bar, a non-alcoholic fruit punch for the kiddies, a table full of appetizers and bowls of sugar cane sticks and other sweet things. There's not much left in the basement anymore--Bright and Johnny scoured the shelves and hijacked everything that could be used for a speaker system and begged Alec and the Doctor to help.

Well, Johnny begged. Because he's not above begging a Timelord to play the Professor from Gilligan's Island when it comes to wanting a kickass sound system.

Music from someone's forgotten ipod is now blaring, the bass so loud it makes Johnny's chest vibrate--the perfect volume, in his opinion.

And what would be Halloween without costumes? Because otherwise Johnny Storm wouldn't be the devil his sister always accused him of being and just be a man in a red catsuit, carrying a pitchfork with sparkly red horns on his head--and that would just be silly.


[Set to Halloween Night, naturally, but as we're all going to be gone...pre-play to your heart's content!]

The morning dawns with Johnny Storm lying comfortably next to his very pregnant wife. He doesn't know how she does it--why she would want to be in a constant state of breeding. He never thought that he'd be one of those guys with a litter of kids--but maybe he did. Maybe there's some kind of sense in the fact that a man who'd grown up with only a sister now has more sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts and fathers and mothers than he can shake a stick at.

He slips away from her side and kisses her face before moving to check on Dara, asleep in her trundle bed, curled around a stuffed wolf he'd found in the Compound. Another kiss to his favorite girl and then he's slipping into a t-shirt that's practically see through it's been washed and worn so often. Then there's the obligatory khaki cargo shorts, with room for wolf treats among other things, and flip flops, and of course--shades.

It's become something of a ritual for him. When he gets up, he makes his way down to the west beach and watches the horizon turn from blue to grey to gold. Then it'll be on to Sue's hut, a short walk to the east. He's been going to visit her more often, as it gets closer to Sansa's delivery date, and sometimes he doesn't do much more than curl up with her and Franklin and pretend for a short time that he's a little boy too.

But for now, he's here, watching as the island slowly wakes up.


[Open to all! Johnny is in a somber mood, but he'll lighten up given the right motivation ;)]

The island was very, very frustrating. Or, rather, Tony was very, very frustrated in many, many ways. The only people propositioning him were women with kids or teenagers. The worst of the stuff with Sue is now she'd probably avoid him and he had actually liked talking with her.

To avoid dealing with how incredibly ticked off he was at himself and other people, he tried to concentrate on larger projects, but after awhile, he'd go for a walk wishing he had a segway or a golfcart. Anything that could move faster than he could.

Eventually he dug up his suit from where he'd hidden it, taking time to deal with the sand and everything else. Only a few stray grains here and there, but he didn't want the stupid thing to rust. He wanted to put it on, but it wasn't going to work. The newer suit was different than the first one he'd made back in that cave. Sure, it ran on his arc reactor, but it also really needed Jarvis. It needed a computer monitoring its systems and various functions. Getting bugs in his mouth or crashing into the ocean lacked a certain appeal.

Instead, he made a travoy out of some cloth and bamboo. Then he set all the pieces on it, dragging it behind him as he headed to the Hub. He could change things around or he'd try to come up with a way to make a suit a little less advanced so he could fly again.

Franklin had been asleep for a good while, fussing all through the afternoon and evening until he'd finally fallen into a fitful sleep and leaving Mommy to pick up the pieces of his tantrum. The tantrums had been worse lately; she finally must have reached the terrible twos.

She'd head back to the hut she shared with Franklin soon, but since he slept through the night, she'd have a little while to herself for once.

She decided on a stretch of the beach, laying back against the sand and watching the sunset turn into nightfall.

Sansa could scarcely believe that Eddara was a year old already. Though to see her toddling about on unsteady legs she sometimes seemed a little older. Getting her ready for a party was another level of difficulty now she was mobile and impatient and Sansa resorted to waving something shiny at her to get her attention. "Don't you want to wear your pretty dress," Sansa coaxed. Dara let her slip the blue sun dress on and did a small twirl before sitting down hard on her bottom and giggling.

"That was almost a curtsey," Sansa said with a smile, "shall we try a again," she dipped a curtsey to her daughter and Dara stared at her before wobbling to her feet and hitching her skirt above her head and dipping her little knees. Sansa giggled and applauded. "Close enough," she said scooping Dara up and heading downstairs.

There has been an idea that this would be a small family gathering but they were not a small family and there was food and drink and cake for near anyone who might come to call on the occasion. And Dara was a friendly child who liked new faces.

Sansa put her down on the porch and held out the small dolly that was her nameday present. Dara ignored it completely and pulled her skirt over her head nearly to practice the sort of curtsey. She stuck the hem of her skirt in her mouth and chewed and then spat it out before Sansa could try and rescue it. "Happy Nameday Sweetlng," said Sansa kissing her and crouching down to sit beside her.

[ooc: This is dated the seventeenth as Kirsty fails at playing on weekdays, new folks also welcome]

According to Lilly (which is where Zelda got most of her ideas), modern women wore minute scraps of clothing when swimming. It did not seem entirely practical to swim in a dress, nor her shorts and shirt, so the bikini was likely the best option. Zelda was not used to exposing so much skin and hoped that nobody she knew would show up while she wore it. Lilly, perhaps, would be all right, but Alec...that would be embarrassing.

She swam along the shore, shivering in the breeze a little each time she surfaced. She would nap on the beach afterwards to warm up, but for now, she was content.

Since the announcement that he was, in fact, Iron Man, Tony Stark had been the recipient of a wide variety of reactions, looks, letters and assorted packages. He fielded the looks well enough and tolerated the disbelief because, in some ways, he probably should have just shut up about it and pretended he had a bodyguard. Thing was, he couldn't understand why anyone would believe he had a bodyguard who was never around when he was around. Then again, people seemed only to notice what they needed to and believed whatever they were told. He knew that because he had been guilty of it once upon a time.

A few weeks into the superhero gig, and he'd met plenty of the tried and true stick-in-the-mud heroes and heroines that seemed to have been in the game way longer than he had. They were the genuine article whereas he was more of a smart-ass poser. They were a clueless and dorky bunch, but that was all right. Tony was pretty sure he'd end up hanging out with Hank and Janet for the most part. He liked Reed, but the guy was sort of off in his own little Richards world. Thor was all right except for the part where he was really bossy and out of his mind. Spider-man was kinda thick, but in a good and noble way. Still, after the umpteenth pointless meeting about dedication, loyalty, commitment, and a bunch of other things he wasn't interested in, Tony wasn't sure about the Avengers nonsense though. He wasn't a team player, really. He was the lone wolf that runs with scissors type.

Figured that the flight home would be a bumpy one that wouldn't allow him time to really think about anything. Lots of turbulence and then he was pretty sure Jarvis was the world's worst navigator and backseat driver since Tony ended up hovering over some island in the middle of nowhere.

"Terrific," he drawled, spreading his hands and slowly lowering himself to the beach. He scratched his metal head and sighed as he glanced around. "Because this is a much better use of my time than listening to Thor deduct points from Gryffindor."

[OOC: The title of this entry is from the '60s Iron Man theme song, and Tony comes from some point in time not too long after the Iron Man movie, so he'll recognize other heroes from the Marvel 'verse.]

Bright was actually pretty familiar with how Ephram's brain worked, and that when he said he didn't want a bachelor party, what he actually meant was that he didn't want Bright's kind of party.

And Bright knew that already. Because every time he'd ever known Ephram to go to a party, he hovered in the back and left early, or else just spent the whole time drunkenly playing Ms. Pac-Man and totally failing to realize that there were hot girls there totally trying to score with him. Ephram was kind of a loser when it came to noticing the scoring potential directly under his nose.

Not that he was going to need to score with girls at his bachelor party the night before he tied the knot with a guy, but it was the principle of the thing. And the fact that Bright actually did know how to make his best friend have a good time, and unlike every other red-blooded American guy in existence, it wasn't with booze and loud music and chicks.

He drafted Alec into helping him clear out one of the spare rooms, found a deck of cards and a couple of board games, and bribed Dairine for the use of her iPod and a couple of speakers. The fridge was full of leftover Japanese food--God, he was glad Ukyo was back--and he figured once he invited Johnny he could get him to bring some hard cider (which was, all things considered, better than beer. At least better than cheap-ass Coors he was used to drinking back in Everwood).

He stood back to admire his handiwork and flipped the iPod onto 'shuffle'. The speakers crackled and some old Journey song started playing.

Let Ephram never say he didn't get a good party.

[In theory guys only, but Bright has never been too fussed about party crashers. *g* May be top-levels at varying points to determine when stuff goes on, and there's to be a debut here later, but other than that, total freestyle.]

It was humid, sweaty, and Johnny had been working most of the day on preparing supper for 10 (which he did in conjunction with Catelyn, Sue, and Arya, when she could be grudgingly forced to). On tonight's menu was island modified chili, and it was simmering in the enormous cauldron that had washed on shore, with Catelyn making sure it wasn't going to burn or boil over.

Which mean he can finally take a break. Which means--surfing. He grabs his board and strips off his shirt, running joyously into the surf. The water feels cool against his skin, which still has a tendency to burn and freckle even after years of the sun, and he rides the first wave in to shore with a barbaric yawp.

It had not felt like death, yet Edmund knew it for what it was. He'd been standing on the platform next to Peter, waiting for the train, when it had come around the bend far too fast. Something - it must have been the train itself - hit him with a bang and he was thrown, he thought, into the air. There had been no pain, but he had found himself in a dark place. He was not alone: Peter and Lucy were there as well. While it had felt like Narnia, it was nothing like the other times he had been pulled out of his own world by Magic.

Eventually, a door opened, and Edmund had stepped through after his brother.

He found himself in a jungle, alone, wearing the full compliment of ceremonial mail he'd worn as a King of Narnia, his silver circlet crowning his dark hair, his sword Magereaver at his side. There were only two problems with this: One, there were no jungles in Narnia, and two, Aslan had said that he would never return.

However, Edmund remembered the lion saying that the door to Aslan's Country lay in his own world. Perhaps it was there he now found himself.

Either way, the jungle was very real, and very hot, and Edmund was eager to be rid of it. He caught the sound of waves in the distance and began walking in that direction.

Jon's counsel had been well taken, at the very least. Zelda was determined to get out and meet new people, so much so that she had taken to making lists of who she knew and who she did not. Sadly, the did not outweighed the did.

She liked to think she could call Jon friend, as she had Lilly. Bright was still someone who made her fluttery and tongue tied, but she loved his company all the same. Robb was regal and handsome and reminded her very much of Link at times and she was fond of Grey Wind.

Lady Sansa was sweet and beautiful--but Zelda had not seen much of her as of late. Likely she was busy with her lord husband.

Today, she had decided to walk the beaches of their island home, dragonglass dagger in hand. It was such a fine blade and not nearly as unwieldy as her longsword.

[She's walking toward Summerfell, but you can find her anywhere between the jungle and there.]

Regardless of what Johnny and Sansa (and the rest of his family, for all he knows) seem to believe, Robb is actually fairly content on the island. Yes, all right, he's a bit lonely, but he's actually happy enough, for the moment, to focus on other people's lives rather than his own. He's to be an uncle again, whenever that happens, and Sansa seems happier than he remembers seeing her, and even his dour father has trouble not smiling with Eddara around.

And while Johnny likes big parties, Robb is happy without them--like right now, when he's celebrating the occasion of having unexpectedly survived a full turn more around the sun by lying out on the beach under it, sprawled on the sand with his head resting against Grey Wind's prone sleeping form, a coconut shell filled with something fruity and faintly fermented nested into the sand next to him.

[Robb turns 19, come say hi! ST for a bit very soon, but will be back tonight!]