(semi-open) just keep following the heart lines on your hand

[searingbond]

Who: sciel, everyone in her contact list, their plus-ones, and people who happen to be walking by
Where: the wally-mart parking lot
When: friday, april 3
What: sciel's turning 33, which is particularly exciting when you didn't expect to live past 32

Warnings: n/a, will update if needed




prompts are for inspiration — feel free to bring your own!

[ It isn't particularly glamorous or highbrow, but it is a party. For her birthday, Sciel has set up a bunch of long folding tables and chairs in the Wally-Mart parking lot. The seating is the centerpiece, with enough space for two dozen people, plus a smattering of other stools and things strewn about that could be pulled over if needed. The overall effect is probably more like a tailgate than a birthday party, for those who'd know about such things.

Beyond the tables, there are several features of note:

• A food table with dumplings from Xiao Xue's as well as a fruit platter, hummus platter, and cake that almost certainly came from within Wally-Mart


• A drink table that has bottled water, soda, canned beer, a few boxes (boxes!) of wine, a pitcher of whiskey sour, a small cooler with a sign that reads For Cloud! Do not take!, and a different sign elsewhere that reads Ask me for the special!


• A single, unexplained foam cowboy hat


• A (battered) game of Twister, set out on top of an equally-battered quilt in the hopes that nobody will break anything by falling face-first onto concrete


• A deck of cards (or two)


• A worn boom box playing one one of the following CDs and occasionally needing to be swapped over: "Spice" by the Spice Girls, "Don’t Stop Believin': The Best of Journey" by Journey, a "Away from the Sun" by 3 Doors Down, and "American Idiot" by Green Day.


• A stack of party favors, all of which are unmarked, wrapped, mysterious lumps of varying sizes and shapes.

Sciel will also, at the end of the night, call for everyone to get in frame for an attempted group photo, courtesy of a disposable camera and a stranger passing by! ]

Comments

☼ sciel (ota)

[searingbond]

[ Interact with the birthday girl! Sciel (featuring grown-out bangs and a new outfit) can be found doing all of the above at various points: eating, drinking, dancing, playing games, abusing the disposable camera, and talking to everyone who shows up, including those she hasn't met before and any potential passers-by. She's also, of course, the go-to for anyone asking about the "special" advertised on the drink table. ]

🎉🎉🎉

[recreatable]

It takes a moment to find an opening wherein Sciel isn't busy talking to what seems like every person in Panorama, but finally, Verso manages to sidle up to her when she isn't otherwise occupied. He's got a small box—painstakingly wrapped by someone with no talent in wrapping gifts, but who tried really hard to make it look good anyway—in one hand, the foam cowboy hat in another. For a second, anyway, before he playfully perches it atop her head.

A small adjustment, and then: "C'est parfait."

If there's anyone in the world who can pull off a foam cowboy hat, it's the birthday girl. He opens his mouth to wish her a happy birthday—

YO, I'LL TELL YOU WHAT I WANT, WHAT I REALLY, REALLY WANT. SO TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT.

—and grimaces instead. "This is, uh." His eye twitches. "Very interesting music."

it's the best day of the yeeeear

[sharranselunite]

[ Shadowheart makes a beeline for Sciel the moment she arrives with her people, because the entire purpose of being here was for this. It seems silly to wait. It is early on in the party because she does not love being late, and Sciel seems to be having a drink when she comes up. Shadowheart is in a new outfit courtesy of a strategic looting, and her long silver hair is as always braided against her back. She only lets it loose in private. It's too much to manage otherwise. Sciel will notice she has the black makeup on now that she referenced before, with dark eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara.]

Sciel.

[ She sounds a little too serious at first, which is typical of her, as learning to exist as a normal person is a work in progress. She tries to soften it with a faint smile, and she hands over a box. There is no wrapping paper on it because she had no idea where to find that, and it isn't really something she knows much about. Birthdays were not celebrated in her sect. That would be appreciating someone more than Shar, which was not allowed. She does know gifts are expected for other people though.

Inside the box is a small makeup kit that she found recently. Not the looting kind, at a store. She's managed to loot enough coin and sell things enough for it, so one way or the other, she was able to afford a gift. ]

Happy birthday. I like the new look. Maybe some of this will add to it.

[elsecall]

[ Jasnah nearly doesn't come. The invitation had sat, unanswered, for longer than was polite. One-on-one interactions in this city have proven taxing enough; the thought of submitting herself to a crowded space, to noise and expectation and faces she does not care to know? Feels unnecessary.

But she tries not to be careless with milestones. Jasnah sits, eventually, with the idea of what it means to be another year older. Not in the abstract, but specifically for Sciel. And what it means that the woman clearly doesn't want to account for that time in quiet.

And then there's the book. A second-hand thing, discovered by accident. She had noticed the colour first — a deep, saturated blue, near enough to Kholin blue to stir something inconvenient in her chest. She might have left it there, untouched, had that not been the case. But she had opened it. And she scanned the first few pages. It had reminded her not of Sciel herself but of a conversation they'd had. So Jasnah paid the small fee to own the book and it followed her home. And so, inevitably, it has followed her here.

She arrives late — deliberately so — and moves through the room with unhurried certainty. Rather than a shy wallflower, she's a mortar shell carving her path through the crowd. Rather than wait for an opportunity, she creates one. Sciel is caught mid-conversation and Jasnah steps cleanly into the space, claiming her attention with quiet, unapologetic precision. ]

Sciel. Congratulations on thirty-three.

[ In her freehand, she offers the book. It's unwrapped and worn and softened at its edges. Used and lived in and probably cheaper for it. But if Sciel opens it, the truth of it reveals itself immediately: every page is marked, deliberately. Margins filled with a stranger's thoughts, cramped into any blank space as though they're racing the story itself. A second voice layered over the first. On one page, beside the heroine's careful self-restraint, a note reads: She calls it reason, but isn't it more like fear dressed respectably? On another, beneath a passage of isolation: To be unseen is not the same as being free; don't confuse the two. And, later still, cramped into the gutter of the binding: If she will not claim her own ambitions, the world will go on pretending she has none.

Sciel doesn't know Jasnah well enough to know that it's not her handwriting. Oh, she feels friendly towards Sciel but doesn't like her near, near enough to gift her her own annotations. Not yet, at any rate. But the book remains something precious — a dialogue across time and a conversation that refuses to die simply because one participant has vanished.

Jasnah does not believe in the sacred. But there's something in a woman's undertext that comes uncomfortably close.

Besides, the plot felt perfect after Sciel's description of her reading preferences once upon a time. ]

[savante]

[ Lune had shown up early to help Sciel set up for the party, because of course she did: transporting some of the supplies in her sensible van (Sciel’s motorcycle is not built for this), and unfolding tables together (at one point clambering under one to tweak and adjust a wobbly leg, so it won’t collapse under the weight of all the drinks). Once everyone else starts showing up, however, then she drifts to the outskirts.

A quiet wallflower, nursing her drink, mostly people-watching rather than engaging much in it herself. At first it’s a surprise how many people Sciel already knows, but then it’s not a surprise at all: out of the three of them, Sciel is the biggest social butterfly, the easiest to love. Lune finds herself watching the other woman mingle, warm and fond.

She lets Sciel take her time with the other guests, in pride of place as hostess, before finally intercepting the other woman a bit later in the party. Lune’s brought a wrapped box, about sixteen inches tall, with her to the parking lot; it’s been sitting on the ground behind one of the folding chairs, waiting for the right time to deliver the gift. But for now, as she slinks up to her friend: ]

I have to ask. What’s the special?

[diametrically]

[ The invitation had come as a surprise. Was it common to invite the damsel that you saved to your birthday party? And if you did, was that a pity invitation? He isn't sure he would if the situations were reversed but then again, he isn't the type to host a birthday party let alone want one thrown on his behalf so he isn't the best judge. That and it isn't hard to see that he and Sciel have very different dispositions.

Regardless of their differences, Cassian isn't one not to repay kindness. Which is why he's shown up to the Wall-Mart parking lot with a shockingly well-wrapped gift in hand. (It was also an excellent excuse to stock up on whatever supplies he and his roommates might need but the birthday party is obviously the priority.)

Not wanting to interrupt her and her social butterfly ways however he says a brief hello to wish her a happy birthday, before posting up at a table dealing cards and playing low stake games with her other guests until she wanders over herself. ]

Can I interest you in a game?

[pse]

[ Despite arriving with a guest, Kimiko leaves him somewhere by the drinks table (he's happier that way, probably) and is comfortably by herself when she approaches Sciel with her phone in one hand and a newspaper-encased gift tucked under her arm. And a smile. ]

You look nice

[ This... probably isn't flirting. Sciel does look nice! And she should know it. ]

Happy birthday :)

[ The gift is handed over so Kimiko isn't juggling too many objects and too few hands. Newspaper aside, it is not wrapped well: it's clunky, with too much tape and poor attention paid to spatial necessity that outs by patches of extra newspaper cut out and taped over any holes. She hasn't quite put two and two together vis-a-vis Verso's cow-loving paramour with the encroaching birthday; if she had, the gift would likely be a cow print purse or something. Instead, it is a sun buddy. ]

[godjr]

[ Jack has never met Sciel before, but Rowena has brought him as her plus one, and he's absolutely delighted to be at a birthday party. Like a normal person! He doesn't think he knows anyone here, but he's not a shy person. He's a young man, seeming around eighteen, with dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and a very bright smile. He was barely raised by his fathers, truthfully, and they didn't teach him as much as they roughly should have, but he knows enough to be polite and friendly, and to bring a gift.

He has an envelope, and it's decorated with stickers. He offers it to her.]

Hello Miss Sciel, I'm Jack, Rowena's adopted son. Thank you for letting her bring me!

[ Rowena and him are a little more complicated than mother and son, but since all of his family is adopted, it's close enough, and it's how the two of them feel. He offers the envelope.]

I brought you this. It's a gift certificate to the Nashville Bowling Center. I thought maybe you would like to bring your friends for a night of bowling!

[ Jack works there so it was easy for him to obtain.]

[winscenario]

[ At some point during the party, when Sciel isn't busy talking to other people or doing an activity or other, Jim will come over, small bag in hand and all. ]

Hey. You're Sciel, right? [ Before she worries who this weird random guy is or how he knows who she is, he adds. ] I'm a friend of Shadowheart's, she invited me. Jim Kirk.

[ In lieu of handshakes, he gives her the bag with a smile. It's really just a little trinket, a small box decorated with a bird, but he didn't really have much of a frame of reference to know what she might like, so. ] Happy birthday.

[churnback]

[ Generally speaking, for most of his life, birthdays have held little to no value for Amos. Might as well be any other day. He's also — up until recently — rarely been connected enough to anyone to take notice of their birthday, either. That holds true in this particular situation, given that he's never met Sciel, but. Kimiko dragged invited him along, so. He's here.

And while he's not a social butterfly, wishing the birthday girl well is a thing you do. So at some point, he approaches. He's holding a beer he's been nursing in one hand, and he's got a bottle of something that passes for tequila here. It's decent. Good enough to give to someone. He didn't know what else to bring, but wasn't gonna show up empty-handed. So when he catches her eye, he'll hold the bottle up. ]

Happy Birthday. [ He tips his head a little. ] What's the special?

[coraza]

( with some help, cloud has been able to pick out a humble gift. it's... strange, though, to be invited to someone's birthday party. cloud wasn't exactly popular growing up, and he can count the amount of times he's been invited to a party on one hand (it didn't count when his mom would be asked to bring cloud over to lockhart's, so they could have a modest dinner as neighbors for the birthday of the most popular girl in nibelheim; that charitable gesture was shut down after what had happened in mt. nibel). his own birthdays were a quiet affair, just him and his mom, shut in inside his home and not wanting to be acknowledged by the villagers; it sucked that his mom would force him out to the shop because she had 'forgotten' to get sugar or some other ingredient for the cake that she'd bake for him, to be had after dinner.

there's a lot about his mind that cloud isn't... sure about, but the pang of loneliness and nostalgia hits him as he thinks on these memories. he misses his mom, and thoughts of her only make him feel like a failure, unable to save her from sephiroth.

wrapped in a small paper bag, he keeps the gift close to his chest, dressed casually. he's made an effort! some might think that he should have left his buster sword back in the apartment, but— it's like a security blanket.

because, ultimately, cloud feels so many different ways about this. does sciel really want him here...? cloud stands awkwardly by the entrance of the parking lot, watching the crowd that someone with sciel's bright personality brings close. everyone's having fun; he doesn't belong here. )

☾ disaster trio (closed)

[searingbond]

[ At the very end of the night, once everyone else has filtered out, Sciel makes sure there's time just for the three of them. So she corrals the other two to one of the now-messy tables, shifting some of the empty cans and half-eaten places to make room for whatever they're currently sipping on as well as a handful of tea candles. ]

It's not quite the same as camp, [ She says lightly, igniting the tiny wicks. ] but it's good enough for me.

[ A little taste of home in the midst of a place that is so...alien, still. Sciel folds her arms over the table and leans forward, resting her head atop them and sighing contentedly. ]

...I still can't believe it. [ The Expeditioner murmurs, watching the taper flicker. It isn't exactly dark around them, given the overwhelming illumination of the city (not to mention the Wally-Mart building and security lights), but it's only the warmth of the flame that dances in her eyes. ] Maybe one of you had better pinch me.

[ "I might actually make it to 33," she'd said to Sylus. And here she is. Sciel doesn't have to drive her point home to these two, of all people, how much of a miracle this is, though. She just...breathes in the sweet reality, trying to soak it all up as much as possible. ]

[savante]

[ In a way, it’s a relief that Sciel hit the milestone first: if Lune’s birthday were earlier in the year, would she even have marked it like this?

Likely not. It certainly wouldn’t have been a party: she wouldn’t have brought so many people together, wouldn’t have created so much warmth and camaraderie and infectious merriment like Sciel’s done.

On sheer restless pragmatic instinct, Lune’s started gathering the empty cans into a trashbag, but she sets it aside after they all sit down together. On the tail end of— well, quite a bit of drinking— she’s more mellow. Less tightly-wound. The context is so, so different from the last party she’d been to: the Expedition’s send-off, their last hurrah on a dwindling budget, when everyone had still been scraped-raw from the day’s grief and their own likely impending violent deaths.

This? This is better.

And once upon a time, Lune had taken Verso too literally and pinched him at the sight of a strange manor out in the fringes. So, to complete the set, she reaches over and cheekily pinches Sciel’s arm; a light nip, a little playful. ]

Congratulations, mon amie, you’re now positively ancient.

[ To anyone else, it might sound like teasing. To Lumièrans, it’s a fucking miracle. ]

☼☾ party favors

[searingbond]

[ Before you go: RNG a number between 1-100 to get your super-serious, definitely-not-random-shit-from-the-thrift-store parting gift :) ]

[recreatable]

[ steals 33 before lune can tbh ]

[pse]

[ Google RNG gave me 42, I can provide receipts ]

[sharranselunite]

[ rng gave me 68]

[elsecall]

[ 10, but probably only because Sciel insists before she leaves. ]

[diametrically]

[ rng gods say 18 ]

[savante]

[ 8 pour lune!! ]

[magike]

( 32 por favor )

Shadowheart | Baldur's Gate 3 | OTA

[sharranselunite]

Shadowheart arrives with her comrades in a newly acquired outfit that was strategically looted during the shutdown. It suits her and matches well enough her long white braid. She goes straight to Sciel to hand over a gift and offer birthday wishes, before awkwardly milling about for a few moments.

Birthdays are not celebrated by Sharrans. That would be paying more attention to one person rather than Shar. And they are not supposed to be individuals, they are one of a sect. Still, this looks like a casual enough party, but the problem is, she doesn't really go to those either. She does look very lost and ends up with a glass of boxed wine, a plate of cake she hasn't touched, and no real skill with talking to new people. So she'll just be a wallflower unless approached.

A few prompt ideas:

∞ Put the cowboy hat on her head! (She likely won't appreciate it.)
∞ Notice her tapping a foot to a song on the boom box.
∞ Find her looking curiously through the party favors.
∞ She opens one, and looks at said party favor.
∞ Convince her to eat the cake.
∞ Or just come say hi!

[recreatable]

Shadowheart may objectively be a wallflower, but she certainly isn't in Verso's eyes—she catches his attention very quickly upon walking in, and it doesn't take him long to slide up beside her. There's also a glass of boxed wine in his hand, although it's almost entirely full. He may have subsisted on poisonous mushrooms out in the wilderness, but he's still a bit of a wine snob. Besides, he's hesitant to let himself get more than 'slightly tipsy' around Sciel and Lune. So many secrets that he's afraid of blurting out.

He raises his glass in Shadowheart's direction, mouth quirking up as he leans against one of the cars in the parking lot. (Rude? Maybe.)

"I have to warn you," he teases, "I'm putting my foot down about stealing from here. We're going to have to find something else to bond over."

jasnah kholin — closedish.

[elsecall]

[ Closed only on a technicality. Considering how indifferent Jasnah is to socializing and how quickly she's likely to slip out of the party, there will be no broadly open prompts. However...

—PLEASE PM or hmu @ novelties to plot out a bespoke starter for our characters so I can avoid falling into 'tetchy loner stands in the corner being tetchy and loner-like' prompt territory. New & returning CR loved. ]

[diametrically]

[ It would have been impossible not to see Jasnah here given the following: all the power had been restored meaning that it was well lit even as the sun began to set, Jasnah's height, and well, the fact that they're in a parking lot.

And thanks to all of those factors, it would have also been impossible for Cassian to notice that she was very obviously a wallflower who didn't want to be here nor was she willing to interact with anyone who wasn't the birthday woman in question.

...Which is all fair and understandable given he felt largely the same way. That being said, he'd still socialized. Made a show that he knew how to behave at a party. He'd even played a couple rounds of cards and even taught sabacc to some willing souls - all while keeping an eye on the looming woman skirting the fringes of the party.

He leaves her to her own devices though. The extent of their partnership and temporary trust had started and ended at the hospital and neither of them care for small talk unless it served them. Still he isn't about to ignore her - especially when she ends up around the drink table around the same time he is. Notably, his cup is empty as he tries to decide what he's going to have next. His gaze flits up towards her before back down towards the sign. ]

Any idea what the special is?

lune | clair obscur: expedition 33 | closedish.

[savante]

[ Same as the above, Yet Another Wallflower reporting in: closed to planned threads, but absolutely hmu @ quadrille or quadrille on discord if you’d like something!! I’m happy to write custom starters for folks. ♥

Lune is the birthday gal’s roommate, but she remains relatively quiet and aloof, probably haunting the outskirts of the party nursing a drink alone or with people she recognises. She warms up a little more as time goes on and she gets more wine in her. ]

[recreatable]

Are they huggers now, or was that a fluke? He's not sure. The days since running into Lune at the hospital and falling asleep next to her have been a return to baseline, but it's hard not to remember your first embrace with another human being in decades. The first semi-restful sleep in as much time, too. It wasn't bad. Remarkably not-bad, in fact. He has perhaps thought of it a few times since then.

But despite how not-bad it was, he only has the courage to knock his elbow against hers as he settles beside her, his own drink in hand. Only enough to relax some of the ever-present tension in his body, not enough to really be loose in any sense of the word. There's still so much he needs to keep inside.

"Ça va, party animal?"

Tongue-in-cheek, obviously. He wouldn't expect Lune to enjoy parties overmuch. Even he feels a little awkward, a little self-conscious. It's been a long time since he's been to something like this. And maybe, he considers, Lune has never been to a birthday party like this.

"I guess birthdays must have been a more solemn affair back in Lumière," he says, as Don't Stop Believin' plays in the background.

verso | closed

[recreatable]

[ closed prompts below!! hmu at birdlaw or ~casualmillionaire on discord for a starter! ]

kimiko.

[recreatable]

[ Despite the semi-traumatic experience of killing-slash-maiming those raiders together, Verso is pleased to see Kimiko at the party. She's nice. Gave him a ride in her SUV. Knows her way around a bat. Plus, she's pretty hardy—being unlikely to die on him is a good quality in a person, he thinks.

And she's responsible for his gift to Sciel, so he kind of owes her. When he catches her alone—without her plus one, who he casually notes—Verso insinuates himself into the empty space beside her, greeting her with a tip of his chin. ]

Hey.

[ How does one talk to a person at a party? God, it's been so long. ]

The cow was a hit. Thanks.