#rygfinne

[rove-bogge]

A Terra sized remodel?

Thread for @rygfinne

___

Today was a shopping day. He had decided over the week he would redo some of his older Terrariums that were looking a bit dull now. He had started relayering his active bio for his python Snake eyes only to realise he was out of active charcoal.

That was bad...If he didn't want his poor striped snake to sit in a swamp, letting the snake sit round his neck while he headed to Sam's store he was currently filling his basket with some packs of activated charcoal and some drainage stones. It always was weird how Sam's store literally had anything you could want.

He was currently browsing some of the decorative items unaware he wasn't the only person in the store. As he mumbled to himself about what else he would need he was lost to the world and his surroundings. Like a lone bird on the water's surface vulnerable to a predator's sneak attack.

[hyaina]

blue ocean.

@rygfinne continue from here.

"Indeed," Jade answers with humor in his voice. "It's quite peaceful here."

Though most days it was hard to notice the tranquility beyond the glass walls. The nights spent in Mostro Lounge were often hectic, crowded, and noisy, especially as they rolled out the Halloween menu items. Exhilarating, Jade would even call the work. There was hardly ever any time to spend admiring the tranquil reef and all of its colors. Even the host's counter was busy greeting guests and scheduling reservations.

But there were always lulls. The middle of the week, and the early afternoon in particular. However, the Lounge today had been staffed for Halloween business, but the half-dozen students who murmured quietly amongst themselves across a scattering of scalloped booths meant half the staff went underutilized. Jade glances at his watch. Another hour and he'd have to start making cuts.

"When it comes to disasters, the land certainly has the sea beat. In fact, I had heard that just the other day, a lightning storm rolled in over the university suddenly." Eyes flicker downward toward Ruggie's leg, then back up to meet his eyes with a smile that is nothing but courteous.

"Speaking of disasters, that injury must be torment for one as active as yourself."

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. He can’t be the one blamed if Octavinelle goes burrowing their nose in Savanaclaw’s business now; everyone knows that they’re the first to flock upon the initial whiff of blood. Ruggie’s nose scrunches. The fishbone quill taps the stand at a quicker pace.

“It wasn’t the entire campus,” Ruggie mumbles and his words are drowned in the ambience of clinking glass and indistinct conversation. “It was just Savanaclaw.” 

A cough perks the beastman’s attention up from the logbook. He gazes down towards one of the booths, at a pack of Heartslabyul students chattering among each other. There’s a noticeable lack of beastmen patrons. (Even more than before, should one dare to surmise; the meager portions of the Lounge’s ‘fine dining’ could never satiate the appetite of a hunter.) 

Ruggie’s shoulders relax.  Then, he looks back at Jade. 

“A sprain ain’t nothin butta scratch,” He speaks again, louder. An impish look resumes upon his features, though he makes sure to his tongue. There’s no rhyme nor reason to the idiosyncrasies of a Leech. A heedless sentence could snare one’s curiosity; the last thing he needs is for Jade to make his ankle worse. “‘s comin’ to your second year on land, riiight? Bet’cha never even got an ouchie on ya little land-dwellin’ legs before.” A snicker leaves Ruggie’s lips, a questioning brow raised. “And if ya did, Azul’s probably got some crazy potion to just… magic it away, yeah? You guys don’t seem t’be the type to suffer.” 

[mostrum]

Jade had took notice of Azul quickly enough. His housewarden likely believed that height - especially someone else's - could offer him protection. Jade, much more suited for the shadows, rather disliked the idea of being someone's shield, so he decided to yield to Abigail's fierce struggling.

"Oh, Azul!" Surprise was easy enough to feign, so was the act of bumping into another. In that split second, Jade unleashed the goose into Azul's arms, and she exploded with furious wingbeats and fervent bites, the glittering bell and the gold shine of Jade's eye both forgotten in an instant.

It takes only but a second of distraction to fell even the fiercest of titans. A brief moment of negligence, paired with deceitful veil of camaraderie, brews the most heinous concoction for a young sea witch. 

Ivory fingers dance across the screen of a smartphone in rapid tempo, the third article of ‘geese attack protection & strategy’ splayed across the screen. Hunched behind a member of Octavinelle— 184cm, a first-year, eager to leave an outstanding impression on his charitable housewarden— Azul is ignorant to his own Leech-induced doom. Poor merman is in the midst of switching to a new article (“How to Catch and Tame a Wild Goose”, to be specific) when a familiar voice reaches him amidst the crowd’s chaos. The housewarden tilts his head upwards and, teetering upon his tongue is a stratagem to boost Octavinelle’s credibility and incur favors from staff. He does not expect, as his body turns to face Jade, the blade that will hypothetically plunge itself into his back. 

The goose gets Azul before he has a chance to strike Jade, for bringing that merciless beast directly to him! Entranced by the shimmer of the merman’s phone, Abigail launches at his hand. Mouth of razors lacerate the meaty flesh right below Azul’s little finger, knocking the housewarden’s phone from him and evoking a pained hiss as he jerks his arm away. 

“I’ll protect you, Housewarden Ashengrotto!” He hears his human shield— No, Octavinelle’s first-year say before the man practically launches himself at the goose. Pathetic boy misses the aerial menace by a long shot and flops onto the ground, shoving Azul’s smartphone further away in the process. Abigail, on the other hand, does not relent. She flutters her wings and hurls herself forth again with unparalleled vigor… towards Azul’s glasses. 

“You bastard—!” Profanity falls from the merman’s lips quicker than he can catch as he snaps his head to the side, narrowly missing a face full of beak. Abigail’s teeth dig into the side of his glasses, wingbeat pounding his shoulders as a new technique formulates in Azul’s mind. Through clenched teeth, he loses his glasses to the clutches of the goose as he undoes the belt of his robe. Abigail throws his glasses to the side, not enough bloodshed to satisfy her, as she begins her onslaught against Azul’s hair— When he suddenly lunges forward.

He startles the goose, who yields upon instinct. With a newfound mass of his open ceremonial robes, Azul raises his arms to allow the drapery of his sleeves to billow. He charges at Abigail again, staring dead into her soulless, beady eyes as he lets out a vicious hiss. Abigail looks affronted at Azul’s sheer audacity, his hold on animal linguistics cutting a wound into her pride, and takes a moment to reconsider the victim of her wrath. She turns before Azul has a chance to charge at her once more, thus deciding to act upon weaker prey. 

When Azul watches the goose’s retreating silhouette with triumph, a new idea surfaces as he sees exactly who her next victim shall be. He takes a hold of his magical pen (reminding himself to take back his glasses and smartphone later) and smoothly slips into the next scene with a chuckle.

[halefinne]

The quiet at the end of a busy night at Mostro Lounge had become one of Jade's favorite times of day. When his feet ached a little from the work, but putting the tables, chairs, condiments, and dishes back in order yielded a sort of mindless satisfaction. When the clinking of glassware and the leisured steps of only two pairs of shoes echoed what had been, not what wasn't there now. Beneath the glow of jellyfish lamps, surrounded by glass that held back the sea, and alone with his brother, it was also where he could enjoy a momentary taste of home.

As he mopped closer to where Floyd was working, he stole a glance toward the doorway to Azul's VIP lounge, where he was busy - for now - counting the tills.

"Azul told me that you called him a bitch," Jade said, matter-of-fact voice low enough not to echo in the restaurant's emptiness and disturb the precious quiet. "He seemed quite upset by it."

Cleaning up at the end of the day was one of the worst parts of working at Mostro Lounge. Floyd liked when it was busy. When getting orders out was a battle of you versus the customers, when you had to dart this way and that way and every way to get plates on tables (and to the right ones, he remembered, Azul yelled so much that first month when he just dropped orders wherever Floyd ended up).

Cleaning by comparison was boring. Dull. Floyd liked it better when Azul pulled in a bunch of suckers and got them to do it, even if Jade complained later about things not being perfect.

Speaking of Jade. Floyd looks up from the glass he's been cleaning behind the bar (the same glass he's been cleaning for ten minutes now) and hums questioningly. Oh...Azul told Jade about that? Floyd pouts. What did he think Jade was, Floyd's babysitter?

"It was a joke!" Floyd whined, slamming the glass down on the bar table. It was rougher than he should have done it, but it survived with only a little crack on the bottom. "Azul takes things too seriously. He's had a major stick up his ass ever since he started getting more and more contracts."

Floyd huffed and leaned down, resting his head on the bar counter. He didn't wanna clean anymore. He was tired and bored, but if he left Azul would yell and Jade would get that dumb, pitying look on his face that he got whenever he tried to tell Floyd he was having the wrong kind of fun. Floyd huffed again.

"Azul's a crybaby who gets upset about everything. He even threatened to make me the bitch prize." Floyd scoffed at that and shifted so his brother could see his face. "Isn't that stupid? Anybody who needs to do Azul's jobs would be some boring small fry. No fun at all."

Floyd glared. He hung around Azul cause he was fun. Not cause Azul was his boss or employer or whatever stupid title he put on it. "And Azul already knows what we'd do if he stopped being fun."

[rove-bogge]

OBSERVE

Of course there was a class where he was sat next to Jade…. Tall and frightening... possibly more so than his brother...Floyd was unpredictable in one way but Jade he was unpredictably conniving... you never knew if what was said would come back to haunt you in one way when he was part of the conversation... Especially with Azul not far behind.

It didn't help that smile could be oddly charming until the teeth peeked through behind Jade's lips and you realised where the male mantis and Jade was about to devour you.

He suddenly choked on air as he realised that was a rather intimate metaphor he used for Jade. Glancing over he felt his flush grow as the other caught him staring. He quickly raised his book to hide his face as he screamed internally.

"D-don't look at me!" He murmured hoping the other would leave him alone but he knew his body language screamed target me. He whimpered slightly, feeling frazzled cursing that somehow the Octovillie trio always made his head implode on itself...

Critical emotional damage as Idia would say.

[troisfleur]

4. A memory of a sibling

TRIPP DOESN’T LOOK NEARLY AS ENTHUSIASTIC as Trey remembers being, the first time he’d been given free rein over the kitchen (with some supervision required). In some ways, he can relate: the weather is terrible, the kind of snow that’s more muddy slush than anything worth wandering around in, the last weekend of winter break looms too long and too short, and his options are shadowing his other brother or prodding at his baby sister, neither of which are particularly thrilling prospects.

Trey has homework from over the break he still hasn’t done. Textbooks are technically resting on the dining room table, one of them with his handwritten notes from the last day of class still shoved between the pages. He has readings to do, and yet his time is split, keeping an eye on Tressa lost in her own world and the deadset furrow of a five-year old with crayons, and watching Tripp meander half-heartedly around the kitchen. Their dad’s at work; mom’s visiting a sick sister.

He could predict the groan out of Tripp’s mouth before Trey had even suggested baking something. Too young to help out in the shop, too old to be content to sit with Tressa. Trey had given him a printout, because he doesn’t quite trust his younger brother not to stain any of their recipe cards—maybe not the best form, but the least amount of headache for everyone involved.

He looks at his phone for just a second—Chenya’s somewhere in the Shaftlands over break, visiting distant relatives and sending Trey back constant blurry snaps once he’s gotten bored of family—and it’s all it takes to raise an eyebrow.

He considers, for a moment, telling Tripp in his half-hearted efforts that he’s grabbed salt instead of sugar. He rises, he crosses the room—

—The no is pointed, a long, exaggerated whine with all the force of a seven-year-old brushing his arm away the second he tries to correct anything.

“Sure, sure,” Trey concedes. Tripp doesn’t bother looking back to notice the expression on his older brother’s face, halfway between a grimace and a smirk.

♣️♣️♣️

THE OVEN RACK IS ALL BUT INDISTINGUISHABLE, covered as it is in a mixture of batter that is half-hardened and immortalized in flames as the dripping, overflowing mess the cake was always destined to be. The oven is off, now, and Trey considers it a small miracle that no smoke comes to greet Tressa’s face.

There is something to watching the self-assured twinkle in his poor sister’s eyes fade to bewilderment, and then an indignant anger. She’d followed everything to the letter, at her own insistence. And, for what it’s worth, Trey does believe her, the designated supervisor after gentle assurance to his father he’d keep an eye out. Tomorrow is their parents’ anniversary, and Trey didn’t have anywhere in particular to be today.

Tressa has always moved about the world with a confidence that’s beyond Trey. He remembers being a rather carefree kid, but those days are long behind him, even if he wouldn’t call anything in his life a particular struggle. Tressa is unmatched: she is seven, and she knows the way of the world, and having watched four family members flit around the kitchen, it comes to her that all the contained culinary knowledge she needs to make a cake has been delivered through observation.

She’s not too good with numbers, though. Trey spends more time trying to parse elementary math lessons that end up vexing him more than he’d care to admit with her than doing his own homework as a senior. He’s trying, but he’s learning the hard way he’s not be the best teacher the second he steps outside of the kitchen, but he can pretend she appreciates the effort.

He can’t help but laugh, both at the carnage of their oven, and to her livid face as soon as he does. She kicks his shin, and it barely registers.

(He’s already made a cake for their parents’ anniversary, anyway—his treat—but he remembers what it’s like to feel thrilled to contribute something. Who has the heart to say no?)

[halefinne]

[Mysterious Risotto] An oddly purple-colored risotto decorated with an array of mushrooms. If asked about the dish, none of the ghosts in the kitchen seem to know where it came from; only that it is there. While it seems mostly untouched and cold, it appears the students that dared to give it a try have come away with odd visions.

"Ah, I wonder who might have brought this dish." The pleasant, unchanging smile of Jade's public mask hides whatever visible curiosity might have matched the question, and he holds a small bowl of the odd risotto up in front of his brother's face. Though cold, it still carries the tantalizing scent of roasted garlic, which overtakes a subtler, earthy smell.

"And these don't appear to be shiitake mushrooms either. Why, it's almost as if the donor knew your preferences."

"Ah? It wasn't you? Look it's got mushrooms and everything."

Floyd leaned his weight into his twin's stiff posture. His chin hooked comfortably over Jade's shoulder as he slumped his weight against him. Where Jade was curious, Floyd frowned at the dish with blatant suspicions. Jade wouldn't lie to him. That meant someone else had started getting into mushrooms. The last thing they needed was two f them running around...

"You can make risotto purple by adding things like red cabbage or red carrots." Floyd informed him flatly. His brother didn't spend nearly as much time in the lounge's kitchen as him, but he hoped someone as smart as Jade was would have a lot more creativity. "It's not that weird...not like if it was blue or bright pink."

Floyd wondered if he could do that next time someone ordered it. He wondered if the customer would complain or be too scared to say anything about it. Floyd snickered to himself at the thought.

"It doesn't look to- uuuugh." Floyd pulls away from his twin with a grimace. It was a trap! He knew it was a trap. Floyd's glare turns to Jade now as he pouts. "We said no more mushrooms for another month!" He whined, crossing his arms. Absolutely not. Floyd would not be the one to crumble on this.

"If you're so curious about it, you should eat it first." As peculiar as it was, Floyd definitely did wanna know if it was good. He had the feeling Jade would comment in that Nice But Slightly Disappointed Way if Floyd started plucking the mushrooms out of it.

"Jaaaaaaaade. Eat it. Come on. Try it." He reaches out and nudges the plate towards his brother's face instead. "If it's no good we can go feed it to Azul, or scare some minnow with it."

[magniku]

[Meat] It’s just a slab of meat of unknown origin. Uncooked, but oddly warm.

The unusual dish was anything but inconspicuous, and had this been a spread catered by Mostro Lounge (a suggestion that had certainly been made - and swiftly rejected), Jade would have been appalled to find it among the careful plating of their most Magicam-worthy menu items. But that was not the case, so Jade's curiosity held full reign.

"If you would spare me a moment of your time," he began, catching Rook in passing. "How well has hunting trained you to recognize cuts of meat? I have been puzzling over what kind of animal this once had been."

EACH DISH PROVIDES A MARVELOUS SIGHT, and although rook has yet to fully trace back his route around the hall of tables and company, he can admire the culture upon each platter of silver.  a voice brings him from his concentration and with subtle surprise worn over his expression, rook turns to the sound, clearly with the intent of addressing him and no one else.  he’s greatly amused to see that the owner of the voice and question belongs to none other than jade.   (   he wonders if, under initial politeness, there is more of a hunter in the leech twin than there is the instinct of prey.   )

rook raises an eyebrow and steps closer to the table, where jade’s attention is focused on a single dish.   “   anything for a fellow companion.   ”   is what rook offers as a greeting before putting all of his concentration on the slab of meat, where cuts of it are offered on a smaller, side plate.  by appearance, alone, he can cross a few animals from the list; color deeming some a factor over most.

but it is still unusual.  by the color, the same factor, the meat looks uncooked.  pressing his middle finger against it proves that yes, it is uncooked, but no, in theory since it is still warm.  odd, rook thinks that maybe its cause is magic.  maybe it is simply the temperature of staying outside of a container for too long   —   confusion towards the origin of who brought this to the gathering.

no matter the answer, jade had asked for the animal that this meat came from, not if it was uncooked or not, which is clearly is.   “   excuse me for a moment,   ”   rook says after a bit of silence, reaching for a fork and stabs a cut of the meat.  oddly, when he brings it up to his face, its smell is faint.  it does not smell as uncooked as it obviously is.  so, rook puts the cut of meat in his mouth and takes his time chewing.  the teeth of the fork tap absentmindedly against his bottom lip as he stands in silence.

the meat is swallowed and all rook can do is hum,   “   magnifique!  my guess would be that this is beef, but the texture is a bit too rough.  oya, i do love a challenge~!   ”   he offers jade a charmed smile,   “   it will take some time for your answer but i swear to give you one, monsieur mastermind.  remember, even patience has the beauty of refinement.   ”   and with that, rook turns his attention back to the dish; only staring with a tilt of his head.