come_sailaway | The Law Of Nature Is Named Wasp [OPEN + Closed]

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The Law Of Nature Is Named Wasp [OPEN + Closed]

Who: Erin Peters and YOU, plus some closed threads
What: Erin tries to settle back into life as December starts
When: First like, ten days of December?
Where: Various
Warnings: CW Lost shit, possibly Erin's general deal, use of a hurdy-gurdy

1. The world is beautiful [Tauva and/or Drunken Sailor]

Erin's nightly drink routines have changed subtly. Find her in Tauva or the Drunken Sailor of an evening, nursing a drink very slowly with a slate and stylus to hand, practicing her braille. If it's in Tauva, the scents of her cigars have changed! The smoke has a variety of alluring fruity scents, and she retrieves them from a wooden box stamped with a stylized map of Cuba ringed by thorny vines; at the Drunken Sailor, she nurses a beer with pretzels. Either way, the televisions in the bars are playing the Muppets if no one stops her, and Erin sings along to every.

Single.

Musical number.

Under her breath, at least until she spots you and waves you over.

2. The flower that never fades [Fight Club]

Since returning to fight club Erin's mostly kept her head down; she's most active in tactics class, though she's still taken a bit of a step back (this week's theme is Don't Stand In Front Of The Fucking Gunline), but otherwise she's been doing a lot of drilling, and a lot of observing how other people fight. Maybe she's approached you to ask about a technique unfamiliar to her, or you've noticed her imitating your style and incorporating it into her own. She's also taken to bringing, though not wearing, her armor. Every now and again when she's taking a break she sits on the ice mail, her ass slowly going numb, and just watches the way everyone moves, looking thoughtful.

Of note as well is the second sword, sheathed above her saber on the small of her back. For almost all of December's first fight club that blade stays in its sheath, the only visible part of it being a pommel made of kaleidoscopic glass. As class starts to wind down though, Erin steps back into the area set aside for sword drills and pulls it free, revealing a blade of stained glass that depicts mighty battles between gods and giants.

She's stanced up to run drills, but Erin can't quite seem to start. She's lost in her own head, staring at the blade.

3. Midnight at noon [Bellona Theater]

Erin's late-night theater visitations have moved into the afternoons; find her there with a hurdy-gurdy connected to an amp, trying to shake the rust off. There's a lot of false notes and good-natured swearing. It's been a hot fucking minute, after all, but when Erin can let herself drop into the zone pirate shanties and ominous music float from the theater for quite a distance. She's oddly happy to get walked in on, even to take requests.

The first person to ask for Wonderwall is getting a nickel thrown at them, though.

4. A study in scarlet [Spas]

She's finally biting the bullet, going 'fuck it, we ball' on seeing if her hair will take dye, but Erin needs a friend to help with that one. If that friend is you, she's looking to turn it a deep red color and has given you a stern warning not to wear clothing you don't want to get stained. She intends to try it without making her hair more human, at first, and that means the front seats might just be a splash zone. Have fun explaining those scarlet stains to everyone on your way back to your room to change your clothes.

5. Cave paintings [Closed to April]

Hey so I forgot in all the you know everything from the back half of last month but I have a portrait of myself thoughtfully provided by Peter Smith. He even knows I intend to use it for a bit of an experiment though I did not of course name any names or provide any details. You ready to do dark science?

6. There is only one stage of the life cycle, and it is... [Closed to Crabb]

Torturing Crichton with the knowledge that he missed out on the Peter Jackson adaptations of The Lord of the Rings has Erin on a bit of a fantasy kick, and she's decided to continue introducing Crabb to the genre by skipping all of its foundational authors and going directly from Stardust (a feature of previous reading dates when it was Erin's turn) to Howl's Moving Castle. Sat on Erin's bed, there on the pillow, is a little wooden box with a hinged lid. It's been there for the entire date, and Erin's not said a word about it. It'll keep.

7. Chaos reigns [Wildcard]

Have a different idea, a missed connection, something to slip in later in the month? I'm available on Discord!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The invitation seems vaguely like a trap. Especially since she's sure Crabb told Erin at least something about their conversation. But she feels she owes Erin for...well...her treatment of her while she'd been riding the high off of killing Siffleur. So she shows up at the spa, wearing clothes she doesn't care about, ones that already had paint stains from when Regina had painted an accent wall in her home. Strange to have been someone else, but then Erin had some idea of what that felt like.

"You texted?"

"I did!" Erin is also in clothes she doesn't care about, which means Valdis is seeing her at some of her least dressed; tank top, extremely torn-up jeans, and not a lot else. A little crab pin, red in color, sits right over her heart. "I've been wanting to try this for awhile now but even if I could read the labels I need to have my blindfold off to try dyeing my hair, god forbid bleaching it first. You up for the few uh, fucking hours it's gonna take to make this -" she flicks her fingers through her black hair, "blonde enough to turn red?"

Erin's genuinely happy to see Valdis but tangled in with that is a sense of both irritation and self-directed guilt. A trap? Well, maybe not, but this definitely isn't just a hair care trip.

Ok, so, she knew Erin was not bad looking, but those arms.

"I suppose that would be a problem," she replies, grabbing the instructions and beginning to read them.

Erin has a mixture of feelings. Happiness, irritation, guilt...it really makes Valdis wonder exactly what Crabb told her. She moves away from Erin to begin gathering supplies.

"I can't say I've ever done this. Being trapped in a moment of time means I return to whatever form I had. I always used wigs more that actual dye. I'm sure we can figure it out though."

She's helped 'friends' in the past, but never with this level of bleach.

"The fun part will be figuring out if the hair will cooperate. Once it leaves water it'll violently flick itself dry, so..."

Erin gets herself settled in the chair near the hair washing sink and, with a deep breath, undoes her blindfold and tucks it carefully into her pocket.

"So. There a particular reason you made my girl feel like a fool?" It's an attempt at being casual but there's the irritation rising to the fore, demanding Erin's attention.

The hair being somewhat alive should not be a surprise, but it certainly makes things more difficult. Valdis begins mixing the bleach.

"You hair needs to be dry in order to take in the bleach, so that's a few hours away at least. Dark hair takes forever."

She doesn't answer Erin's question right away, but sets the bleach aside, grabs a brush and begins to gently begins to untangle the woman's hair.

"Any particular reason you didn't tell her I was an empath?" She countered. Then she sighed, gritted her teeth and continued, "She saw me, got nervous, and certain sexual emotions started to rise in her aura. I poked a little, not realizing that it would go that far."

Ohhh that brushing. There's a spike of tension that almost immediately becomes relief; Erin's body relaxes a little more with every stroke of the brush.

"...That's your business," she murmurs, at last. "...Which is also why I don't give you the third degree about your past or your powers or your nature. I do want to know you. I do. I haven't missed the hint that the story you told is at least a little about you...but I'm not gonna interrogate you or spread your life everywhere."

Valdis rolls her eyes, but continues to brush, occasionally using her fingers to work out the worst knots. Not that Erin's hair is bad, but tiny knots snarl the brush and pull at the scalp.

"I supposed I appreciate your discretion, but it's not an invasion of my privacy to tell someone you so clearly love something in order to protect her, and you don't need to interrogate me about my past in order to get to know me."

Not that Valdis would have harmed Crabb. The teasing was considered harmless, but apparently Crabb felt differently.

"For example, what is your favorite color?"

"...Red," Erin murmurs, lost not in thought but in that gentle and insistent feeling of being cared for. She hadn't thought about this part and it's such a surprise; Erin had been ready for this to be a trial, but it's so nice. "The lush red of the spreading strawberries in high summer. I say, with my hummingbird ass."

"...Valdis, do I need to protect people from you?"

She finshes the last few strands of hair and moves to the comb to finish out, clipping hair out of the way so she can do layer by layer with the bleach. Red. The color of blood and war. She wasn't wrong about Erin seeking peace. Valdis can also sense that Erin is enjoying the care, and there's a small amount of uncertainty, like the woman wasn't expecting it.

"You may have to at some point." It's honest. Not quite dodging the question, as it is a truth of being on the Serena Eterna, if not the whole truth. "I won't lie, killing Siffleur made me feel powerful. I wanted to continue killing, to put my life on the line in order to taste more blood. It's not hard to imagine it happening again."

As to whether or not she wants to hurt people, the answer is probably 'no'. She sets the comb down and picks up the thickened bleach mixture.

"This is going to be cold."

"...You could have gone for it, with your knife at my throat. Just like you could have told me to leave, or not come here."

Erin grips the chair at the warning, bracing. Cold sucks.

"I almost did." She shrugs, "But I didn't want to get blood on my blouse."

And bloodthirst hadn't even been what she had felt in that moment. Valdis sticks the special brush for dye into the bleach and begins applying it, bit by bit into Erin's dark hair.

"This will take awhile."

Erin winces at the cold but stays still; she's had worse, some of it for fun (ah, the Snowskin gals of Denmark...good times).

"It was a good outfit," she says with a little smile. "...Hey. You got a favorite season? And am I profiling if I guess autumn?"

Valdis paused in applying the bleach for a moment. Wondering if that was a loaded question of some kind or not.

"Spring, the season of renewal and rebirth." Is this like asking what your zodiac sign is? "Do the seasons mean something particular in your world?"

"Welllll...yes?" Ah, the uncertain tones of How Much Do I Explain. "People, mortal or otherwise, are still part of the living world. Maybe someone likes fall because they think the leaves are beautiful, or they're really into apple cider, or they just hate how hot summer is. My people swear friendship to the seasons."

Erin's gunpowder crackles and she laughs indulgently. "I'm getting there, I'm getting there. Spring is my friend, and with it all the glory of the waking land. What you see and smell around me all the time is the mark of her favor...but I meant the question as, y'know, a what's your favorite color situation."

Valdis falls silent again, but doesn't pause in continuing to part and treat Erin's hair. It smells bad, too sharp and toxic to really be a pleasant experience.

"I wouldn't exactly call Spring my friend. I am its opposite, but I do like the things that come with the end of winter."

She pulls away, turning to rinse the now empty dish in the sink and clean her hands off as well.

"It will take a few hours for that to soak in."

"I'm not so sure they're all that opposite. The sons of December say: the snows protect the sleeping Spring."

Erin sighs and does her best to get comfortable. That little knot of guilt rises, and Erin rubs at her neck to keep from touching her hair.

"...I meant my offer, back at the club. I don't want to force my company on you if you're not into it. Especially knowing you're catching every little flare of lust and rage. I'm a wild thing, my emotions run hot."

"Fall is the death of the earth, not winter."

The water splashes in the sink. She knows Erin cannot see without the blindfold, which makes conversation a little harder, but the bleach might ruin it, so they'll have to go without.

"The ship is rather small in the grand scheme of things. Seems silly to try to actively avoid each other."

"...Did Hellhounds bequeath the frustrating non-answer answer to the matriarchs of the South or are you worried I'll be upset if you just say what you're thinking?"

Don't touch the hair. Erin wraps her arms around herself instead, feeling so...unsure.

"Fucksake I'm not even sure if you want a fight or not. Look. I avoid Nobunaga just fine. I'm a big girl, you're not gonna break my heart."

Valdis laughs, "No. That was probably the demons. Hellhounds don't think enough of humans to bequeath them anything. It's similar to how the Captain views us I'm sure."

She's not sure, but she did dump a mangled body on his doorstep to inform him she would play his game.

"I do want to fight. You seem to think we are both monsters and I want to see what kind you are."

"And then?" The question is pointed, but not angry. "...I'm fond of monsters. A monster is a perfectly fine thing to be, but why do you want to see me at my most feral? Hell, that's not even the kind of monster I was remade into; I had to learn it."

"I don't want to see you at your most feral. I want to see if you can come back from it."

Perhaps not a fair game to play, but an important one.

"I told Crabb you were War and she didn't seem to understand what I was saying. You told me yourself that you cannot go all out and then hold back, seemed to be excited about it too. So, Erin, can you go all out and then, in the heat of the moment...stop."

"...Alright. I can respect that, but I also think I communicated my warning poorly. It's not..." Deep breath. "There are tricks I don't pull out unless lives are on the line because I can't make them smaller, Valdis. Nothing to do with who or what I am, that's just how they work. When I'm serious I don't fight people, I just kill them. Everything else is me putting in the effort not to. If that's clearer?"

"And yet you jumped at the chance to play with those powers. In an enclosed space."

She crosses her arms and leans against the sink, her breathing quiet,

"Do you know what Cassandra told me when I spoke to her? She said if it came down to it, I would have to be the one to back down because you never would. Crabb too said this isn't the first time you've offered to fight someone to the death. So who are you, Erin Peters? War seeking Peace. Or War seeking more War."

"...She must mean the fight with Siffleur." Erin grins, fondly. "I held back a lot for that. I wanted to encourage his move towards harmony with the others, and, yeah, I wanted to run wild. But I didn't go all out. I...know that I like to kill. It feels safe, and powerful. I know that's a lie too, but here where I'm not safe..."

Something unknots inside Erin as she finishes the confession: "Sometimes, if everyone involved is really okay with it, going wild seems like a good idea. Like drinking. And I'm hoping one of these times it'll stop feeling good."

"It will never stop feeling good."

The conflict Erin feels isn't unlike her own in some ways, with perhaps several exceptions.

"I do wonder though, what you didn't understand about earthquakes and eruptions and killing archangels that made a genuinely all out fight seem like a good idea on a cruise ship."

A Study in Scarlet

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