deathsmajesty | Halloween Party, Creepy But Nowhere Near Abandoned Mansion, Tuesday Night

Halloween Party, Creepy But Nowhere Near Abandoned Mansion, Tuesday Night

After basically being dared to do it by Tony Stark (and putting in six weeks of renovations, bless Hannibal for the contractor), Liliana, dressed as an empress, hair pulled back in a profusion of curls by her angelic headpiece, was ready to throw her first Fandom party. Sure, it was for a holiday she didn't really understand, but she'd heard enough about it to make due: there was supposed to be candy and people were supposed to be in costume. Done. Everything else was just the same as a regular party, right?

Granted, the last party she'd hosted had actually been for a bunch of vampires and that had been seventy years ago on a completely different plane, but bah, details. You had food to eat, music to dance to, dark corners to sneak off to, and either enough witty people or enough alcohol to keep the conversation flowing. Liliana was hoping that there would be plenty of the former showing up, but just in case, she'd made sure to stock plenty of the latter.

Though her newly refurbished ballroom was actually very light and airy, she had done her best to recreate some of the spookiest elements she'd seen in her travels. The dancefloor was covered in about a foot of heavy fog that swirled and eddied with every movement. While most of the chandeliers were shrouded in fabric and false webbing, she personally found the main chandelier was decorated in something she much more unnerving. Black and red candles flickered about the room held by ghostly hands, dripping skulls, and the occasional elegant standing candelabra. One of the few concessions to magic she'd used tonight was to have the candles lit with tongues of false fire, which provided light but no heat. And they glowed blues and greens and purples, which was a nice effect. Red roses were placed upside down in vases, while more questionable arrangements sat in decorative vases. Out of deference to her guests' ~~squeamishness~~ sensibilities, all creepy critters, skeletons, and dead bodies were all cunningly crafted fakes, not a single real bone or drop of blood in the place.

Other than, of course, what her guests brought in with them. And should they leave with fewer of either than they'd come in with, well, that was hardly her fault. Probably.

Arrive and Mingle / Photos / Dark Corners [NFB] / Refreshments / Dance / Gardens / OOC

[~~Please hold for~~ OCD up! Do the thing!]

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"Recognizing the costumes," Stark clarified. "I've been here long enough, now, that I can figure out most of them. I think." Not all.

"And Rygel is the dominar of the Hynerian Empire. Over 600 billion subjects, across many planets. He liked to remind of this. Often."

"Ah," Liliana said, curling her lip. "One of those. I haven't the time nor the patience for most kings."

Eliot was an exception. He was clever and generous with his alcohol.

"He pretends to be much worse than he is," Stark said. "He's a good friend. When he isn't being insufferable."

"And how often was he not being insufferable?" Liliana asked, still skeptical.

"That," Stark said with a slight snort, "depends on the day. But he's a friend and was one of my shipmates."

"How did you end up on a ship with a dominar anyway?" Liliana couldn't help but ask. Especially since one usually wouldn't refer to sailing in state with a ruler as being 'shipmates.'

"He was on Moya as a prisoner," Stark said. "After his cousin deposed him a very long time ago. He got his throne back last year after we were all imprisoned. Again."

That was how they rolled on Moya.

"When I was freed from where I was being held it was by my friends on Moya. They weren't friends yet. And they let me come aboard and then come back later and then I stayed."

"After you were enslaved by the via--" right, no, they weren't viashino. "The lizard people who saw you as a trophy," she confirmed.

Look at her, putting Stark's rambling thoughts into a cohesive narrative! It might not be correct, but it was coherent!

"I was in a cell on a Peacekeeper Gammak research base then," Stark clarified even though it didn't make things any clearer.

"Being used as a science experiment, mostly. Then Crichton was thrown in my cell with me and then I was free."

Liliana just stared at him. "Delivering narratives was never focused on in your education, was it?"

"Crichton infiltrated the base to get medical help for Aeryn because she'd been stabbed but he was found out by the Peacekeepers and captured. That's how he ended up in my cell and then they were torturing him for information and I tried to comfort him and when Aeryn and the others came to rescue him they took me with them. Is that better? There's more to it but most of it won't make any sense without knowing even more."

And Stark just kind of assumed Liliana didn't really want to know that much about him.

Mostly, Liliana just didn't like having questions.

"I see like every other group ever in the history of sapience, people calling themselves 'the Peacekeepers' use torture to extract the information they wanted," Liliana drawled. "Good to know that everything remains to be expected no matter where you go."

"They killed most of my people," Stark said. "Those that are left are enslaved, as I told you before."

Well, he'd said he had been kept not that everyone had. Details!

"Though we've freed some. Rygel did help with that." A little begrudgingly but he had helped. Eventually.

"There was a war, before I came back here, between the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans. It nearly destroyed everything."

He'd felt so many people die, Liliana. So many.

"This tracks even further with everything that I have cone to expect from groups that call themselves things like 'peacekeepers,'" Liliana said, looking unmoved at the concept of a war that had destroyed everything.

No reason, probably. Just who she was as a person, most likely.

"Was there a reason for this war?"

But had Liliana's war involved a weapon that would have destroyed the entire universe left unchecked? Had it?

"There are always reasons," Stark said. "They both wanted knowledge that only my friend Crichton had. They were willing to sacrifice everything for it. For a weapon they didn't even understand the capabilities of. But it's over. We ended it."

Hey whoa whoa, I thought we'd all agreed that it was because she was a jerk and no other reasons! And also, yes. Starting with the destruction of her home plane and then expanding from there throughout the Multiverse. Because of course.

"Ah, the willingness to sacrifice everything for the right to stand on the smoking crater of while declaring yourself the victor to the bones around you," she said a little bitterly. "Are any of them at least necromancers to make that victory even the slightest bit less hollow?"

Edited 2023-11-02 01:16 (UTC)

"They didn't realize there would have been nothing left. Everything would have been gone. The universe itself. And...no. I don't think any of them have magic. It's not so common where I'm from as it is for many others here."

Sure, he was a glowy plot device of an alien who could do some mystical shit but that totally wasn't magic!

"The dead stay dead, there. Except in very, very rare instances." Like say, Stark and Zhaan engaged in time shenanigans. Or Zhaan used Stark as a battery to bring Aeryn back from the very edge of death.

That's some 'Sure, Jan' levels of not magic there, Stark.

"Dead and undead are different," Liliana said absently. "Though we also do have proper resurrection, though it's very rare and very expensive, magically."

Look, just because Stark's dead lady love could essentially join souls with someone didn't mean she had magic either. So there.

"We brought Aeryn back. Zhaan and I. Although I was unconscious at the time. I had no say in it."

No, Lili, you hadn't brought up any memories or anything when you tried to eat Stark for your health. Not at all.

"But she lived. She's still living."

Sure, Jan.

Liliana's face sure did go on a journey at Stark talking about how he had helped bring someone back, though settled somewhat when he clarified that he'd actually been unconscious. "It sounds like Zhaan brought Aeryn back," she noted mildly.

"She needed me," Stark said simply. "She just didn't ask first."

Good thing Stark had so much energy to spare?

"She knew what to do but she didn't have...she said she needed my strength. But Aeryn is fine, now."

Zhaan was very dead though, except for those priceless weekends when she wasn't.

Oh, Liliana was not going to react well during those terrible weekends. Very much not.

"Is there no one on the island who could work with you in that same way?" Liliana asked. "Use your strength to bring people back from dying?"

You know, rather than the opposite?

Those weekends were a gift. And a time for your gorgeous dead not-quite-betrothed to make things real awkward with your don't-call-her-a-girlfriend.

"Not that I know of. It isn't usually needed here. Deaths are thankfully very rare. It's one reason I like it here."

There were just so many snide comments she could make right here. But she wasn't! Because she was playing nice. You're welcome, Stark.

"True," Liliana said. "Especially compared with its environs. Still, very rich in swamps and black mana."

Edited 2023-11-02 03:31 (UTC)

Snide comments wouldn't be needed if someone hadn't fallen out of the sky mostly dead and then gone right upstairs where someone else could feel them DYING.

"Mana is... your magic?"

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