iterumrp | Arrival Mingle

Entry tags:

Arrival Mingle

Who: Everyone.
What: The Chosen return or arrival in the City.
When: July 1st.
Where: The Districts of the City.
Anything Else? Feel free to make your own arrivals, or throw an arrival starter here! The party is open to all. As a reminder, language barriers are not an issue in the Tower.

The City hadn't changed at all in its time without the chosen. If anything, The City seemed a little dusty. The Chosen would find themselves waking in their assigned homes. Even if they were returning and had other homes. They would wake in their chosen home. For the most part, anyway, a few chosen had special ways of arriving.

The assigned housing varied depending on the district they were assigned according to their sin. However, everyone had a box, a welcome package awaiting them upon waking. Inside the box was an extra invitation inviting them to the tower if they so decided to come visit upon arrival.

The city was once again bustling with life. Cars, demons, and the people of the City moving as if time had never stopped. Business as usual for the returning Chosen.

The Tower

While it was not Aiden's district, he had talked the Duchess into opening up the ballroom, and Skiffell to provide food, that just didn't seem to end. The grand ballroom was filled with many delectable dishes, and a small band of demons playing big band music in the corner.

The doors were propped open with the music drifting out to help lull the chosen who decided to attend. A handwritten poster board outside the open doors displaying 'Welcome Chosen!' with about 10 smiley faces drawn on it. While normally parties at the tower demanded fancy dress, Aiden throwing a party meant that rule would not be abided. He didn't dig out the fancy threads for anyone. This was a different kind of party, put together by the lord of Leisurebrook.

While Aiden didn't plan to reveal himself as a magistrate, he did love to mingle with people and hear their stories. So he was there. He was napping at a round table off in a corner, his messy brown hair spilled over his crossed arms as he napped as if he didn't have a care in the world.

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Let a man relax a bit, feel out a situation, step past knee-jerk prejudicial reactions.

"Oh," he said. Very unsure about all of this.

All his life, he was taught that muggles were the monsters, lower than scum, parasites ready to take everything away from him if he didn't guard himself. The Purist justification that let Lord Voldemort rise to power. He had taken a few steps away from those extremist views, but a step wasn't a mile.

He wasn't prepared for enthusiasm.

"It is... useful... You don't have a kind of teleportation where you're from?"

"Fuck no! It's virtually impossible, given our current understanding of science. The closest we can come is theoretically being able to shift molecules to another dimension, but even that is still decades away from being scientific reality. If ever."

The Rain of Fire had kind of brought most science to a screeching halt. Yet one more reason to fucking hate the Predators.

Sam, however, wasn't actually thinking about them at the moment. Her eyes were shining with possibility.

"Does it involve a wholesale movement from one point to another?" she asked. "Or do you have to break something down to atoms, then reassemble it somewhere else?"

Regulus did not know a few of what those words meant. And it probably showed on his face.

"It's not science or whatever it is muggles do. It's magic. You start in one place and then you're in another, no matter how it's done."

She thought it mattered very much how it was done. Mostly because the idea of reducing herself to atoms, then trusting something to reassemble them was a little...well, it required a certain level of faith that she definitely didn't possess.

However, the real needle scratch in the conversation was the word 'muggles.'

Sam wrinkled her nose. "Muggles? Do I want to know what that means?" She was already prepared to be offended.

"Non-magical people- they do the science," Regulus explained. "Wizards and witches use magic."

You can tell he has no idea how 'the science' is done from that sentence alone.

Do the science. He almost reminded her of Avery. Except Avery had a better grasp on grammar. He still referred to 'the youth' and 'the rock and roll.' Never 'the science,' though. No self-respecting Dragon would ever say 'the science.'

As for the word 'Muggles.' Well, she didn't exactly love it. But she didn't exactly love 'Kindred' either. Euphemisms were all bullshit.

Could have been worse, though. Fuck, she'd been called worse in high school. And Lake Forest been a fairly liberal place, socially.

"I see," she said evenly. "Maybe we should stick with names. I'm Sam." She thrust her hand forward, the lights of the room shining off of her chipped, black nail polish.

Edited 2023-07-06 02:01 (UTC)

Regulus remembered his last time in the City and how he just never knew who had powers greater than his, so he should be careful not to offend anyone. He didn't know Sam from Merlin and it was quite possible that offending her might lead to a bad situation for him.

He kept the interaction as short as possible. Hands touched, the bearest squeeze to make it an actual shake and then he was done and out there like a cat shying away from overtures of affection.

"Regulus Black."

And then there was another moment of awkwardness as Regulus decided if he wanted to continue talking.

"What part of the City are you in?"

Considering the fact that Sam was always getting scolded for offering handshakes ("You never know if there's a hunter after you!" Karen always squawked), she was fine with short and brief. But it was a little amazing that she might have possibly found the one person in the multiverse more socially inept than she was. She was awkward.

He was like...awkward-awkward.

At least he had the benefit of being pretty. Sam didn't have that to fall back on.

She hooked her thumbs right through her beltloops, giving a slight shrug. "Uh, the Tower, I guess? It's...nice. You know, for an interdimensional kidnapping and whatever."

"Oh," Regulus said. "I'm here, too."

Maybe they'll run into each other? Regulus wasn't going to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing right now.

He went back to loading up his plate.

"Does that happen to you often?" This was probably the most relaxed question he'd asked or statement made this whole conversation. It wasn't about him, and he was pretty sure it wasn't rude.

Funny thing was, Sam had been kidnapped before. Twice. Once when she was a baby. And then again when she was seventeen. She'd pretty much figured she'd been through some of the worst shit that a person could go through.

Her calculus hadn't taken the multiverse into account.

Go figure.

She shrugged. "Where I come from, Einstein-Rosen bridges are purely theoretical. A part of me is still waiting to wake back up in my own bed. Or see Ashton Kutcher telling me I've been punked."

"What are Einstein-Rosen bridges?" He glanced up over a toppling tower of cakes.

"Wormholes."

Okay, there was no need to be a snarky bitch, just because she was the one who did the science. Or whatever.

Sam reached for a plate from the end of the buffet table and started to load up, copying whatever Regulus was taking, piece for piece. "Doorways to other timelines, realities, universes. While we've known they probably exist, we've never been able to build any kind of machine with energy powerful enough to open up the space between, allowing us to slip through. That's...next level."

Regulus noticed what Sam was doing and to test his theory of what was going on, he picked up a pickle and two olives and stuck them into his top piece of chocolate cake. Just to see what Sam would do.

"So... this is an Einstine-Rosen Bridge situation?" He was trying to make an attempt to understand now that he understood the footing between them - copy-cat-ing aside. "Shouldn't mess with time. Some things are meant to be one-directional."

Dude had weirder cravings than a pregnant woman. But fine, whatever. Everything he grabbed, she picked up as well.

Not like it was for her.

"Time is...a whole different sort of fuckery," she said. "I mean, theoretically speaking, different universes could run on different timelines. I'm not exactly an expert, I just took an elective about it when I was in school." A pause. "And I read a lot of comic books."

Honestly, the comic books had taught her more.

Regulus stopped picking up food.

"What are you doing?" Rather direct for a man who'd been trying hard to be slippery with his answers before.

Both of her eyebrows shot up, underneath the plastic fringe of her wig. Obviously, he wasn't talking about her oh-so-sophisticated explanation of the multiverse and Einstein-Rosen bridges.

She set the plate down on the table, in front of him. "Doubling up your hoard," she replied. She flicked her fingers at the plate, as if to say 'have at it.'

Wasn't like she could eat any of this shit.

"You're..." And you can see that realization dawning on him. "Helping me?"

"Is...that a problem? Cause I can stop." She could also smash the fucking cake in his face, if he was going to be a pill about it.

...it was entirely possible that Sam had some anger issues.

And more than possible that she'd been spending too much time around vampires.

And Regulus had spent way too much time around his trust-destroying family.

"But... why?" he asked, with a searching look, as if he couldn't see the obvious: a nice gesture being extended to him.

She opened her mouth. Then shut it. If their roles were reversed, she'd be asking the same shit, wouldn't she? She'd be getting defensive and hissy like a cat. She'd be puffing herself up.

And why was she doing it?

Maybe there was some subconscious shit happening. Her defying everything that she was expected to be. And defying the damn poison in her DNA.

Or maybe Anne and Bob just raised her right. All Midwestern kindness. Even dead.

"I don't know," she said, shrugging. "Seemed like the right thing to do?"

"Oh." And Regulus needs a moment to process that.

They'd just met, and this person already wanted to help him with what he was doing merely because it was the right thing to do?

Unsolicited kindness was more outside of his life's experiences than dealing with muggles.

"You don't... want anything from me for this?"

"What the hell would I want from you?" she asked. They'd just met. And if she had her way, she wouldn't be hanging around long. She had a life to return to, a world that she needed to be part of. And a brother who needed a swift kick in the ass. Possibly a punch to the face too.

She was working on that rage. Beginning to slowly grasp that maybe there was some love behind the bullshit he'd tried to pull with her.

But as for the here and now...

"Look, don't make it weird, I was just helping you steal some food."

But everything Regulus understood about life informed him that this was weird on its face.

Who was just... kind? To strangers?

And this was different from the last time he was in the City, it took him while after arriving to find someone willing to help him.

He had to chew over that before returning to picking over the table.

"It's not stealing. The invitation didn't say anything about a limit per guest."

If that was the way he wanted to make it un-weird, that was fine. Sam continued to copy his picks, although sometimes she took two when he took one or vice versa. Just to make it a little less freaky or whatever.

"I guess," she said. "Although normally, hosts expect food to be eaten at the event. Fortunately for you, my Bubbe used to travel everywhere she went with a purse lined with saran wrap, just in case there was extra food someone needed to take care of. I come from a line of experts."

Sam had never actually met her grandmother, but the woman loomed large in all of Bob's stories. It was almost like knowing her. Almost.

"I'm also eating," he said and popped the chocolate-cake-dipped olive in his mouth.

"And I plan to eat here, too."

He could suss out what 'Bubbe' meant but he didn't know what muggleness saran wrap was. He figured he could just ignore that and still put the picture together. Sam's grandmother smuggled food in her purse.

He paused for a moment, clearly working up the courage to ask something.

"Do you... know how to cook?"

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