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 Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2010 10:55 am
Where: The upper floors of Vermillion Bakery
When: Midmorning [PRP will take place BEFORE the Zave's storm/summer orp metaplot]
Who: Vivi and Eiry (maybe Isi?)
Weather: Outside, scorchingly hot and humid. Inside, deliciously air-conditioned.
It was, Vivi thought, an excellent day to stay indoors. 11 o'clock and already the heat was beyond oppressive, cloaking the air with a sticky, unshakeable dampness that made it hard to walk and harder to breathe. She had been looking forward to a few nice hours lounging on the beach on her day off, but, alas, the weather'd had other plans.
So instead, Vivi enjoyed the sun through closed windows, standing on the landing of Vermillion's second floor. Vermillion Bakery was situated in a slim three-story building, where the bakery and business took up the first floor, and the two top floors made up oddly-arranged living spaces that she and Shepard divided roughly and shared. The second floor, with its wide landing area that was used as a living room, had functioned mainly as a recreational floor: it had in it Shepard's makeshift shop, and Vivi's small exercise area, and another room that had, until now, served as a storage area for their very few storable belongings.
It was with these belongings that Vivi was now engaged, shifting the few boxes to the landing and peering within them for any items of interest. It was perhaps early to plan, but Vivi had earmarked that former storage room to be her Raevan's, and she meant to make it look comfortable long before the Frei's arrival. There was plenty to do! These boxes needed to be sorted and condensed; a bed needed to be purchased and set up; a touch of decorating needed to be done, just to make the space feel homey and loved...
Already she had found a few lovely items to decorate with -- all Shepard's old set-pieces that had been tucked away and summarily forgotten when they had moved. A carved wooden hatrack whose pegs looked to Vivi rather like antlers was the first thing she'd found and set aside, along with a beautiful bolt of blue and golden cloth that Vivi'd decided to make into a bedspread. And now she dove with cheery zest into their old belongings, ready to find more.
"Oh, mon amour~" she sang to herself as she pried open the top of one cardboard box. "Ton grain de voix fait mon bonheur a chaque pas..."
Ah, such beautiful fabrics lay inside this one, such beautiful old costumes; she reached in a hand to touch one fondly and draw it out. It was a long velvet cloak with hidden pockets sewn into the lining and rough silver paint in sweeping designs along the borders: Michel the jester's, and it looked just as she remembered him, dark and devilish and twinkling with mischief.
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Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:22 pm
And it was in that cloak that a sudden set of blood red eyes appeared, bright and wide as if they were about to bulge out of the pale face their resided in. Giving a devilish grin that stretched from one zygomatic bone to the other, Eirdirsceol Etul Delaran pushed himself into the form of the cloak, filling it with a form that, as of that moment, was as tangible as light and shadow itself.
"Mon ami," he croaked back, turning a cheeky smile into a patient quirk of the mouth, "What song is it that you sing?"
Out on a shopping excursion, Eiry found himself ducking underneath the canopy of the welcoming looking pastry shop. He had already a jade colored kind of day, after meandering purposefully into an instrument shop, only to discover that the instrument he was looking for was, not only unavailable for purchase, but also too much for the meager pocket change he managed to scrounge from begging from Isi. Dejected, he had started wandering back towards home when he passed by a cute little bakery, aptly named "Vermillion Bakery". Amused by the shop's name, Eiry had paused long enough to catch the slightest whisper of song, a voice, not too far away, that was more beautiful than even Ariel's from the Tempest.
Struck with a desperate need to find the maker of the song, Eiry searched and meandered around the general area, only to discover that, with the twitch of his pointed ear, the song was coming from above at the top of the very building he was stationed at. From that point on it was only a matter of spreading his flaming wings and lifting up along the length of the building to get to the source of the song. In most cases, he might have just peered through the window and refrained from interaction but, so woven into this siren song was he, that he forgot about his manners. Instead, he pushed into the wall, up another floor and, before he knew it, he was in a cardboard box full of clothes.
Grinning still up at the lovely woman he had come to accost, Eiry asked again, "Such music, it must employ an equally entrancing title. Sing it more to me? Tell me what it is?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 01, 2010 9:26 pm
Vivi was a lucky woman. Nature had seen fit to endow her with, among other things, the golden gift of grace. And it was that gift which now kept her from very shortly becoming the Pale Corpse of What Had Once Been Viviette LaCelle -- or, more reasonably and realistically, the slightly-injured and rather rattled Vivi LaCelle. That is to say, when faced with a floating, intangible body in the cloak of her friend, Vivi catapulted backwards with a strangled cry, tripped over another cardboard box, and went sailing into her loveseat's arm. The hatrack she had only recently been admiring wobbled on its base and came down, its sharp antler-like arms making their way straight for her unfortunate head.
Seeing the thing fall, Vivi gasped and made use of her ease of movement, immediately ducking to roll out of the way, somersaulting cleanly over the loveseat and back onto her feet, her posture reminiscent of an embarrassed and somewhat ruffled cat. She dashed forward to re-right the hatrack, her heart pounding, and then whirled to face the ghostly intruder. It was all quick work, and had the acrobat Vivi of Cirque Augustine been watching herself on tape, she might have decided to make it an addition to her act.
Not so much did she think of it now, however, her wide eyes taking in the sight before her.
CLIVE KENSINGTON! was the first terrified thought to come cleanly through the deafening heart-pounding echoing round her head. The thought got as far as he's haunting me! before Vivi sternly uprooted it with the cold logic that Clive was neither green nor young nor RAEVAN -- a thought which immediately burst into a thousand others.
A Raevan! HER Raevan!? was the next of her jumbled thoughts as she took in a gulp of air, now dimly aware of the fact that the viridescent ghost had addressed her. No -- no, he was most certainly neither Dawn nor Stag, and a Sigel at that, and how on earth did he get in and was he really a ghost?
Vivi numbly straightened herself to a more presentable appearance, smoothing out her shirt and her hair, and mustered a somewhat flustered smile. Was there a Guardian nearby? Or... or...?
"Pardon," she heard herself saying, her voice steady but clearly baffled. "I'm afraid I missed what it was that you said."
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Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:48 pm
For all his tricks and pranks over the years, Eiry had never gotten a reaction as physically comedic as that of this woman. He had made his familiar members jump, gasp, stumble, and flinch, but he had never made any of them fall back upon themselves. She was flailing all over the place, a wild tangle of arms and a fumbling with the cramped space and environment around them that involved a cast of hapless pieces of furniture, a perfect act of dexterity that swept Eiry off his metaphorical feet. The amusement on his face exploded into place, throwing his brows up and spreading his eyes wide while stretching his mischievous grin into a happy gape of disbelief. When all was said and done, the woman spun on her heel to stare back at him with equal shock, Eiry couldn't help but burst into unrestrained laughter, a dry and hoarse kind of laugh that resembled that of a child laughing with all the strength of his gut. With a gut to actually laugh with, Eiry doubled over, curling up into a ball in the box of costumes as he happily squeezed his jumping stomach.
"Oh! Oh!" he moaned in between gales of giggles, blinking moisture from his eyes, "Oh! Whither be the air that's escaped from my lungs? Help me! For breath escapes me! Help, help! Oh! I can't breathe!"
For a long time he cackled, his face colored with a rosy tint, until he very well had tears of mirth rolling down his pale cheeks. He hadn't ever laughed himself to tears before, and he looked up at the rattled and flustered woman, his red eyes happy and wet. He wrestled his breath back into control and it was with a furious wipe at his eyes that the gleeful Sigel attempted to speak.
"What song you sang, I wished to know, to grow my knowledge with the nimble name of that melodious song. Your voice I heard and I clung to it like a sailor to a siren's serenade. Such information is irrelevant now, for other pressing questions are pressing me to ask these pressing pines and pleads!" Eiry twisted himself in the box, his hands adjusting the costume he had accidentally donned with a casual flip and pat of the cloth, "Good woman," he said, "What is your name and how is it that you move like a feline in peril?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:45 am
Well, the ghost-Raevan was laughing!
Laughter was, Vivi thought, a decided improvement to ... haunting, or whatever it was that she had expected to happen next. She herself, upon hearing the trickster's rather spirited bout of laughter, couldn't help but to chortle a bit helplessly. It was all a little ridiculous, and the Sigel -- now that she got a good look at him -- looked rather pleasant in a boyish sort of way, all unruly hair and silliness and fun. Certainly not the terror she thought she'd seen before. Certainly not the dead face of Clive Kensington come back from the dead, or Michel somehow leaving one last trick within his old cloak.
Vivi waited for the Raevan to speak before she gave any attempt to do so again, curious. What an interesting pattern of speech he had! It was not foreign, like her own, nor forced. There was no pausing, no searching for adequate synonyms. It was an eloquent spill of words, easy and charming, like another dialect of the language she'd learned. It brought a faint smile to the Frenchwoman's lips.
"Hello, bonjour, mon petit chou," said Vivi, her voice returning to its low, pleasant lilt. Her heart slowly returned to its normal tempo as she studied her guest: he was still wearing Michel's cloak, and it wasn't as jarring as she might have expected. She remembered her old friend's face, all made up in white, smiling eerily from beneath the folds of the hood... yes, it was fitting, actually, fitting. "I am Vivette, called Vivi. I have not moved quite in such a way for some time! You gave me quite a fright. But it is no matter." She waved her hand airily. "It is good for me to stay in form. I am an acrobat, most recently for the Cirque Augustine." She paused, brief. "And your name, monsieur? Who is this who sneaks into costume boxes to hear songs?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:19 pm
For once in his life, he wasn't immediately scolded for a prank. Eiry was reeling with that joy, and he admittedly gave a trained flinch when she waved her hand. Usually, Eiry was chased away from the scene of the crime by the wave of a pan, a pair of crutches, or threatening brace of twin scorpion wings. This time, however, he was greeted upon by a nice individual who shared in the laughter rather that reprimand Eiry for the thoughtless deed. His grin widened at the lady as she introduced herself and she, obviously, deserved nothing less than a courteous introduction as well! Eiry floated up out of the box, the cape still round his shoulders, and he gave a carefully executed bow, as graceful as his wispy self could manage.
"Vivette, what joys there are in this meeting are entirely mine own," he oozed, and then he politely yanked himself back up from the deep, legless bow, cocking his head in a happy self-furfilled manner, "You are standing before a meager one, myself, by the name of Eirdirsceol Etul Delaran, though many tongues trip and tumble over those words, it's easier to quote 'Eiry', as in 'eerie' like a dark fog filled valley. Again, the pleasure is entirely mine."
With the shrug of his shoulders, he momentarily faded from sight, long enough to drop the cloak from his shoulders and back into the box beneath him. Coming back into tangibility, he tugged his ribbon out of the costume box and floated off to the side, stretching his flaming wings out before nestling them close to his back with a comfortable wiggle. Now he was able to move more freely, and more more freely he did! He leaned in close to Vivi and gushed again with questions.
"A Cirque, Vivette? Dear me! Tell me of your Cirque! Such plays and abstractions of art and form are wondrous to me and I appreciate it with great joy. Shakespeare is dear to my heart and I would love to hear tell of your fantastic show!" He clapped his hands together, practically begging for a story, his red eyes wide and eager.
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Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 8:23 pm
All things considered, Vivi supposed she might have been more incredulous or bewildered by this intrusion, but somehow, looking at the Sigel's eager expression and adorable gestures, there just didn't seem to be any room for those emotions. Instead, she smiled, and curtseyed a little curtsey when he bowed, and was only pleased when he asked to be told more about her cirque. What a strange and fascinating creature! Like a pixie; her very own visiting Puck.
"Ahh, you wish to know about the acts, yes? You have not been taken to a beautiful circus before? It is not quite the same as the Shakespeare... other than our storyteller and jester, there is almost not a single spoken word in the cirque. Only songs, much like the one you just heard that I sang." Vivi paused, contemplating her options. He seemed ... not dangerous, just mischievous, this one, and perhaps she could give him a little miniature tour of her old circus belongings. "Mm, well, if you are curious enough, petit chou..."
Leaning, Vivi pulled out from the box a faded tophat, all velvet black and gold brocade. Against the base of the hat was a wide golden sash, folded on either side like two sharp devil's horns. This, she placed with ceremonious care atop Eiry's head, and then took a step back, nodding. She lifted out Michel's cloak again, and with a swift swooping motion, placed it on his shoulders. "Now that you are dressed appropriately, I can take you into the world of the Cirque Augustine~. Do you wish so?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 5:04 pm
"Never have I seen the bright lights and heard the lilting music of a carnival or circus of delights," Eiry reaffirmed as the woman stepped close to him and pulled the heavy fabric of the costume cloak about his shoulders. His smile widened once he anticipated what wonders were about to happen. He was going to be involved, joined in and made to see the circus through Vivi's eyes instead of his own! He bit his lip with eagerness, thinking on the memories he treasured of his first trip to the theater with the lovely Vyn. He was electrified with excitement at the time, trembling and wild with happiness, but, at the same time, touched with a kind of awe that only saints could experience.
"My family has little to spend on such extremities if they are not involved in the mortal hurt of another." he informed her as she tied the knot about his neck with a quick flex of her fingers. Then, at the fact of the wordless procedure of the circuses, Eiry gasped, "No words, madam, not even one? What is there that needs no narration?"
He ducked his head for the hat and looked up at it from where it forced his bangs and hair out in mischievous swoops and waves. He felt his grin stretching wider, "Such mortal am I to be blessed with an opportunity to see a circus from that of a true circus troop! If curiosity is what it takes to be whisked away on an adventure of the mind such as this, then I am the most curious, growing curiouser and curiouser with each moment that you fail to reveal to me the wonders of your Cirque world, sweet Vivette!" With a languid bow done as best as he could with only a torso to work with, Eiry leaned back and nearly lost his hat. He caught it just in time and guided it back onto his cranium, grinning at her with eagerness, his red eyes bright with happiness.
"Take me with you, take me with you!" he crowed, "I wish to see Cirque Augustine!"
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Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 7:04 pm
"Ah, not even once at a cirque...? Quel tragique..." Vivi murmured, tapping a finger against her lips in thought. Her narrowed, musing gaze flitted around the room, alighting on various pieces of furniture and available props... and an idea slowly formed itself in her mind. The figure of her ordinary flat warped and changed in her mind's eye, some things disappearing and others coming together, and the wavering image of a stage unfolded before her. Yes, yes... she could be not Vivette LaCelle of Vermillion Bakery, but Vivette LaCelle of Cirque Augustine, a year and a half ago, pitching to her company an idea for a new show, using just what she had at hand...
Why give a tour of the mere props and objects when she could give a tour of the circus's soul?
"Yes, Mssr. Eirdirsceol, we shall remedy this unfortunate reality and bring you the ghosts of circuses past," said Vivi decisively, looking with a pleased sort of encouragement into her visitor's eyes. "I must ask that you close your eyes for just a moment -- it is such that I may get into character -- and for you to as well, my friend. A cirque is not just for one, after all." Vivi's voice dropped to a tone that was both hushed and thrilled, as though sharing a dangerous secret. She waited until she had the Sigel's compliance before she began to move, quick, pulling shut the flat's curtains and snatching her props from the room's corners. She spoke steadily as she went, her voice near and far away.
"Let us leave our present selves behind, Mssr. Eirdirsceol. Instead, your eyes closed, I want that you imagine yourself to be far away, floating along the streets alone. It is late, later perhaps than you had meant to be out. The lamplights are flickering, and the roads are empty and shining with wetness." The room darkened behind the Sigel's eyelids as Vivi silently pulled shut the last of the thick curtains. "And such a night! The Night, mon Dieu! -- she is a cruel mistress to you this evening; she hurls insults at you through the cold wind and the harsh rain, and you hurry along to keep yourself save from her fury. Home, it is far away, and your skin prickles from the cold. You search, my friend, for anywhere that you may rest a moment and warm yourself..."
There was a vague sound of things being shifted, and then the ancient scratch of a record player creakily beginning its job. Soft sounds filled the darkened apartment like a soft and distant breeze, beckoning the listener to a sepia-toned past. The song was slow, haunting, demanding silence and endorsing reverie, nostalgia.
"Ah yes -- do you see it? There, so close beside you that you cannot believe you missed it, is a little tent -- yes, a tent, striped red against the deepest and truest blue you have ever seen. You have barely the time to look before a gust of wind demands that you take your luck and dash inside, quickly inside!"
Vivi's hands took to Eiry's shoulders, turning him quickly in one direction. Then, a match struck, rough over the notes of music. A soft puff of smoke wafted into the air and into Eiry's nose.
"Inside, a man stands smoking a cigar. He is in a top hat not unlike your own, and he is so impossibly tall you cannot believe for a moment that he is real! He smells of autumn, of cider and pumpkin." The smells, as if summoned, began to slowly play along the air. Vivi's voice became close, hushed again, near the Sigel's ear. "He notices you, and he smiles and bids you forward. He is waiting for something, watching for something, and he invites you, my cold and weary traveller, to look as well..."
She paused, and her presence slowly slipped away, leaving only the music behind.
"I wonder, I wonder..." When her voice returned, it floated on the music's back, quite nearly part of the continuing song. "What is it that you see?"
When Eiry opened his eyes, before him in the relative darkness was a makeshift sort of stage -- a tall hatrack clothed in a tophat and cloak, with a cravat at its 'neck', and a smoking cigar laying carelessly on a small table nearby. A long, thick bolt of black cloth (which, although it had been there before, seemed to look so much more mysterious in such company) hung beside this character, and not far beyond the record player, still humming its mournful, luring song. Somehow, the bare bones all played together to look like some sort of gentleman's smoking room; some masculine relic from days long past.
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Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 12:00 pm
As he was told, the minty raevan closed his eyes, holding his breath as a sort of coupled reaction to the crescendo of suspense that was slowly growing in the small packed room. Such displays of wonder and magic were beginning to take hold of him and he freely offered himself to the spun web of stories and images that the French woman was weaving. He was dictated to get into character, a task that he was familiar with when he played and recited poetry with Isi in his home, pulling his face into all manners of expressions to echo the feelings displayed in the words he would read, so it was with an easy shrug of his shoulders that he noticed the weight of the costume upon his shoulders. The cape fell into place and the hat became an item he was familiar with, something that he had donned that morning before he ventured out to the dreary streets of grey to float in aimless direction, into the night to wander under flickering street lamps, and, to his surprise, the room got darker. He could tell beneath his eyelids and he felt the edges of his smile pull up in a smile, it was nighttime and there was a storm fast approaching, pushing and screaming at him as he tried to hurry into shelter, a shelter of any kind, anything. His shoulders shook as if prickled with cold and he felt his teeth chatter when he sucked in desperate breaths.
Then...
Music? Music, it beckoned to him, whispers of promises of dry safety and warmth. Eiry made an involuntary move forward, hunching his shoulders and pulling his cape about him. But the moment he did so, he felt her hands upon his shoulders and he was spun to face elsewhere, a new smell invading his senses. Smoke. He almost opened his eyes, but he didn't hear that he was allowed to yet, so he forced them to remain shut with the pinch of his muscles. Before him, he was told, no, before him he could SEE a tall willowy man, smelling so sweet like a forgotten harvest. Eiry, with his heart fluttering, moved forward with the beckoning, her hands leaving him, and he was lost again, but strangely grounded in this woven fantasy.
A question.
Eiry, almost reluctantly, opened his eyes and with the opening of his lungs, he took in a deep breath. Wondrous and without words was the spectacle before him, a slap dash construction of a makeshift stage and a hat rack transformed into the tall gentleman that welcomed him into the circus tent. Winding its way on a never ending song was the record player, an atmospheric reminder to the mysterious circus that Eiry had magically entered. Slowly inhaling, his shoulders and face growing more and more excited the more he breathed, Eiry floated forward and inspected the hat rack turned man, floating about him and through him before he gave a long bow and a shivering display of thanks. He spun around, imagining and very well seeing the circus about him and he slowed his whirling spin to stare, oggle-eyed at Vivi, who was no longer Vivi, but a member of the circus.
"What wonders here amaze me, I have no words with which to describe these majesties I see! Good lady, tell me, I am but a shivering and lonely kind of fellow, who wishes to while away the time of the storm, can you tell me when this grand performance starts so that I may observe its splendor and forget the screaming winds outside?" he said, turning while he spoke to the tall circus man, as if begging him entrance, "I see a wonder I wish to be lost in, I see the inside walls of the beast's belly and a bud of something grand that has yet to unfurl and bloom!"
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:06 pm
The music continued, distant and creaking, and the hatrack swayed gently as if listening. Silently, Vivi approached it, her steps slow and graceful, as though it were more work for her to put pressure on the floor than to float above it. Upon her own head was a black felt fedora, slanted to shade one of her eyes. She pressed a finger to her lips and twisted behind the hatrack like a woman finding shelter behind a man, her fingers traveling up the 'shoulders' of the cloak that hung there. She peered a heavily-lidded look behind the hatrack's tophat, and nodded, a silent conversation in her motions.
"Shall we let him in?" she whispered to the man. "Shall we not?"
The hatrack seemed to move on its own, possessed -- it twisted to face Vivi, then twirled back at Eiry, considering. The tophat bobbled as it whirled back to Vivi again -- and then, inexplicably, it seemed to lift her into a dance. They went around and around Eiry, the hatrack gentleman and the dame, a flourish of cloth and graceful movement. Who was moving whom? Vivi seemed to be the one caught in the other, her shoulders moving with a feline grace as she held her partner. The gentleman paused and dipped his lady, and as the lovers seemed to look deep into each other's eyes, his hat fell off, exposing his wooden head.
Vivi's lips formed an 'o' of surprise at seeing him exposed, and, with a wink to Eiry, she flipped her own tophat from her own head, down her arm, and onto her former lover's head. She pushed him away -- he was another spectator now.
She swooped down to take the tophat from the floor, and, plunking it on her own head, she became a Ringleader. She strode, every step full of confidence, to the black bolt of cloth that lay waiting. She watched Eiry carefully, her eyes dark and lidded, until she disappeared entirely behind it, the surface of the silk rippling with her unseen motions.
Then, all at once, the cloth snapped open, an impatient curtain -- two long streams of fabric twisted around either of her arms. She bowed, solemn, and then broke the facade, smiling dazzlingly at her audience. She beckoned at Eiry with wide, sweeping motions, both of her arms gathering, gathering, gathering silk, like an inescapable tide. She spread her arms wide, and her whole body lifted from the ground. The cloth had given her wings!
Vivi's body was taut as she swung closer to Eiry. She floated as he did, a ghost -- one, two steps on the ground and then she glided all around him, the whipping of the cloth mixing with the tempo of the music. The wind it created was cool but comforting, a soft, caring brush that left tingles on the skin. Vivi's legs did not touch the ground as she continued to run, her stride wide and her toes pointed.
When she had gathered enough motion, she dove in middair -- and paused, her legs gathering up the silk as her arms had just done. The motion made her climb higher toward the ceiling and slowed her movement, and she let the weight of the cloth hang from her arms as her legs sustained her. She hung upside down from the ceiling just above Eiry, her legs split and straight, her arms hanging down to create a cocoon between herself and Eiry. The cloth made a barrier between them and the world: there was only silk and music and warm darkness. Her hair hung low to tickle his cheek and she peered at him the wrong way up.
"Bienvenue dans la cirque, monsieur," she whispered into the space between them. "Welcome to our circus."
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