(2109) Party Animals

[Rlyeh]

Continued from (2109) Autumn Equinox...

Then! Roshon! The mechanic with the beast of a car that was shiny and black and who brought her a towel. So she wouldn't get the shiny-black-beast-car dirty. Instead of not getting R'lyeh the towel and getting mad when the shiny-and-black-pretty-leather-insides got icky and gross and stained and wrecked.

"It's new!" she chirps, smiling without teeth. "So I only wear it when I have to be nicer looking. Like now!"

Staring at the boots-and-tux-and-necklace-shinnies, "You are also nice looking. Maybe even very nice looking." she says to her fellow mix-and-match-grab-bag-of-animal-parts friend...? Friend! Maybe.

Wondering over to the food, "It's been a while since I've had good-not-mold-or-pre-bitten-food. Do you think hedge bacon is from hedge pigs, or Pigs that came into the Hedge?" she asks, a certain spark in her eye.



Cayce Roshon

[Roshon]

"Maybe it's like Canadian Bacon? Except for the Hedge. Like, it's not really bacon, but it's called bacon," Roshon mused as they walked over to the table piled high with strange fruits and meats.

There was quite the assortment of tasty looking munchables on offer. All sorts of strange textures and colors that you'd never find in the real world, and, Roshon suspected, probably full of flavors you'd never find in the real world, too.

Which, was when she got it.

Pig. Long Pig. Uniformed Pigs wandering into the hedge.

And that was when she started cackling, the laughter shaking her whole body as she clutched at her satchel and tried to collect herself.

"Hahaha, oooh, R'lyeh, you're gonna kill me, and I'm not even high, yet," Roshon finally managed, barely beginning to collect herself.

[Rlyeh]

She waits for Roshon to get it, her eyes eagerly roving over the buffet, even as a part of her is forcing her attention to stay, not to drift to the People In Charge and wail out isthisokayi'malowedi'malowewd.

The conflict comes to head as Roshon laughs, causing something like a hysterical giggle to spill passed her own lips, as R'lyeh forces the fear of lash and a youcan'tyou'renotBeGoNeThInG away and reaches for a pair of tongs, her hands still shaking as she loads up a plate.

"So. No to dark?" she asks instead of the gasping can't get these words out fast enough, the tone is snapping and sharp and reminding Roshon of her changed cadence when they went out for burgers.

[Roshon]

It took a few more moments of smothered laughter for Roshon to collect herself, a terribly inappropriate joke crossing her mind, but eventually she managed to regain her former too-cool-for-school bearing, setting the satchel down and taking a moment to straighten her tuxedo jacket.

"Well, unlike you, I won't eat anything," Roshon explained, reaching over to give R'lyeh a friendly pat on the back, "but I'm not such a priss that I'm gonna discriminate when it comes to tasty meats. Load me up, girl! Let's see what the Hedge has to offer and then maybe we can light up. You don't use, do you?"

Very specifically, Roshon made sure not to fidget or try to clean her hand off after patting the oily, fox-owl-woman's shirt.

[Rlyeh]

She waits as Roshon gathers herself, because what she asked wont be answered before then. But when the Chimera answers, it's R'lyeh's turn to fail and swallow laughter.

She thinks, as she shaking her head, denial plain, (because while she's forgotten most things, about being a person, she remembers this. Eating people is wrong) that they've both probably had long pig, once or twice or more. In the depth of terror and the heart of I don't belong to myself. She misses it, she thinks, in that fuzzy nostalgic way covered by rose coloured glass. Hunting down prey, tearing strips off their bones and swallowing their secrets along with their marrow. Things were easy and simple. Even if they were hard and harsh and full of idon'twannabethingherepleasehelp

In the middle of her thoughts she hands Roshon the plate she'd been loading up for herself, but shrugs, because there is another plate and still more meat on the table. She pulls that new plate close, and starts the process again.

"Loaded." she says, sometime between the realization of handing the plate over and getting a second one for herself. "...I don't know. I think I did. Before. But I haven't really tried anything - I don't think - since. Other things are more important. But I don't think I wont. But. Maybe not in front of people." scanning the crowd and how everyone else seems fit and fine and fancy. "But it's the Autumn Equinox. Maybe I should. Because it would be appropriate to the theme." she stops hand on a spoon and considers. Completely oblivious to the nice gesture Roshon made of not wiping her hand off right away.

[Roshon]

Roshon grabbed the plate with her R'lyeh touched hand, thus leaving her clean hand free to pick up the juicy looking meats and fruits her friend had loaded up for her.

"Nah, keep your wits about you," Roshon countered, picking up a piece of something that looked like a shrimp crossed with a pickle.

"I've been blazing so much bush it doesn't really impair me that much. Or, at least I don't think it does, but whatever. This weird-ass hedge meat might fuck us up more, anyways."

With that said, the meat went down the hatch, and Roshon began to munch.

"By the way," she added a moment later, speaking with her mouth full, "what do you think about His Lord Dreadness' offer? You up for a lil hunt?"

[Rlyeh]

R'lyeh seems to frown, before putting her plate down. Perhaps ignoring Roshon's words, or not even hearing them. Mind focused and lost, and spinning.

R'lyeh knew she should have does this before Dread-Lord-Rhodes-King appeared in a flurry of leaves with all the gravitas of. Well. The Autumn King. With his contest and his words and his....everything.

The Drowned Fox tries to avoid notice as she slinks over to the Wyrdstone to feed it the Glamour needed so keep her safe-and-sound-I-belong-don't-kick-me-out.

"Sorry for the quick come and go. I just. I. Don't. I." she swallows. She doesn't belong to anyone or anything not even herself. Not really not any more. So, the fake-real-magic-echoing-heartbeat-of-home is like a See-through-Sera-Queen singing.

She swallows more words, and grabs some of the meat with her fingers, frowning as black streak dye the meat as she pulls and tears it a past to press into her maw.

"Yes." she says, some food bits spraying out and back onto her plate. "I want. I'm good. I need. I ." she swallows again. This is what she's good at. Why she was Taken and made and fashioned. If she does this....if she wins. She can prover her worth and she wont. She wont...


She wont.

"Yes. It'll be." another swallow, dry and rough and - "Fun."

[Roshon]

So, Roshon wasn't the best at doing the whole people thing.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She could convince someone to cut a deal if she needed to, sure, but that wasn't the same as actually understanding someone, and it definitely didn't count as picking up what they were putting down.

But R'lyeh?

Well, she was putting down a whole hell of a lot, enough that even someone like Roshon could pick up on it. And, really, it should have been obvious that R'lyeh really wasn't doing ok, she was living in a goddamn alley for fuck's sake, but the Lost could be weird.

This, though? This was pretty clear. R'lyeh was not doing ok.

It took Roshon a moment to figure out what to do with that information, a moment where she chewed and swallowed, though she barely registered the flavor. Her mind was more occupied with the fact that she was wearing white and looked dope as fuck, but, at the end of the night, would that matter?

"M'kay, you know what?" Roshon said, tossing her plate down and turning towards the oil-fox-owl-woman. "This is happening. Resistance is futile. Bring it in, come on."

And then Roshon stepped forward to try and wrap R'lyeh in a nice hug, ready to accept whatever might come of it, ruined tux or worse.

Emotions, 1 success!!!!!

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-09-30 23:23:28	Roshon rolls 1 to Emotions? (wits-1) (10 Again)	9	1 success

[Rlyeh]

What's happening? Echoes in her head, the two words bouncing around her skull, as R'lyeh freezes. Not inhumanly still, no. Her heart keeps thundering in her chest. It's loud, so loud she's sure everyone can hear it. She afraid that the pounding is strong enough to move her limbs. She thinks she's shaking, trembling, falling to pieces.

R'lyeh feels acid crawl it's way up her throat, she can imagine the sludge pooling and bulging and the oil stilling up and up and up - ! Needing to get outgetoutgetout! She can taste it on her tongue. Her lips pull up in a soundless snarl, pupils blown and mind elsewhere, she can feel the Glamour humming and just at her fingertips, someone is close. someone is close and that will hurt. it only ever hurts.

But.
But it doesn't.

And R'lyeh doesn't.
....she swallows.

"....wh-what are you doing?" comes a small voice. Ramrod straight, tense, arms flat against her sides, fingers splayed out and grasping at the air.

3 successes

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-10-03 13:21:09	Rlyeh rolls 4 to WP! On Sux will not use Blighbent Blessing (10 Again)	2, 10, 8, 8, 6	3 successes

[Roshon]

"I believe this is what the normies call a hug. Gesture of comfort and affection. You put your arms around the other person. Go on, try it. Then, if we want to get really advanced, we just kinda rock gently together," Roshon replied, turning her face slightly so she wasn't speaking into R'lyeh's oil soaked feather-fur.