[closed] alcohol is a misunderstood vitamin

[heiroglyphs]

WHO: Vera, Dante, Ari, Alison, Yin, Arlene, Pen, Freya, Minako, & Lucy (also being crashed by Prompto and Terra)
WHERE: Pen's place
WHEN: Afternoon/Evening of 7/1
WHAT: 4th of July Weekend Party!
WARNINGS: Underage drinking, recreational drug use and potential PG13 acts

It's Saturday afternoon in the dead of Summer, where the grey grass burns under the bright sun, and you can never quite be sure if it's going to rain or not because the sky is always grey too. This whole colors situation can be pretty depressing if you let it get to you, so a group of college buddies decided to get together and throw a big ole bash to bring everyone's spirits up. Better yet, with the holiday around the corner, they can make it into a cookout to celebrate the old Red, White, and... Grey.

I. - Afternoon
There's plenty of ways to keep cool in the summer heat. The fridge is stocked with beer and spirits, along with tea, soda, and lemonade. Outside, the group work in shifts to cook up a mountain of burgers and dogs. Pen's big back yard offers all the room you need to stretch out and relax, either at the table, or on a blanket on the lawn. Someone brought some Cornhole to play, and eventually someone has the good idea to set up some Beer Pong tables.

So come mix yourself (or someone you like) a drink, grab some grub, and come play some games while the sun is still up!

II. - Evening
The sun goes down and the bugs come out, meaning the party has moved indoors. Not that things have slowed down at all. In fact, with the buzz setting in, things are just starting to warm up. Leftover food is sitting in the kitchen, and the booze still flows.

Everyone's gathered in the common room, telling stories and catching up. A game of Never Have I Ever breaks out, leading into Truth or Dare. Time to show the others just how confident you really are.

III. - Night
Things are starting to wind down, but before everyone conks out for the night (or heads home in an Uber-- Vera's not letting her friends drive home drunk), there's one last surprise. It took a bit of effort setting up, and an ample amount of drunken fumbling, but a display full of imported fireworks has been diligently assembled in the back yard. Though guests are welcome to do more than watch! There's also firecrackers and sparklers for anyone who wants to have some explosive fun of their own. Just don't aim them at anyone else, okay?

After the show, everyone is more than welcome to stick around. Some citronella candles burn outside, keeping most of the bugs at bay. Now might be the perfect opportunity to get close with that special someone, maybe watch the dark clouds roll by, or stare at the big bright moon in the sky. It's amazing how beautiful life can be when you stop long enough to notice it.

Comments

[long_live_the_queen]

[There wasn't any resistance this time, or any stubborn objections that Lucy wasn't crazy.]

Yes.

[The translucent fingers wiggle, dislodging the firefly again.]

I'm a magician.

[...Lucy]

[seeker]

I'm just drunk enough to believe that, so sure.

[She takes a cautious step closer.] You're making it solid. Giving light a weight. That's fascinating.

[long_live_the_queen]

[Lucy snorts, looking up at the shimmer in the air.]

I've never thought about how heavy they are.

[She leaves the poor firefly alone, and she thinks...downwards? Was it even a thought? Or like moving her body around? She wasn't sure.]

I can do this, too.

[The spectral hand shimmers downwards, connected to a jointless and similarly near-invisible arm. Careful investigation will find it disappears somewhere between her...shoulder blades? Gross.

The hand picks up a discarded plastic cup on the ground, though it applies a bit too much pressure at the rim and crumples the plastic. Lucy lifts it the rest of the way up to eye level anyway with a frown.]

[seeker]

[Every party needs a vaguely unsettling loner, is an uncharitable thought that Alison has and doesn't give a voice. She tilts her head, curious, at this display, and it's with fascination and not revulsion that she notes where the strange, incorporeal arm begins and ends. Maybe it wasn't light and something else, instead, but it's the closest approximation she has.]

That's some party trick. [...] One of the Retrospec gifts?

[long_live_the_queen]

Yes. Along with the migraines.

[Lucy threw the crumpled cup towards the nearest trash can. It missed. She muttered about it, but no matter how far the hand reached after it, she couldn't reach too much beyond two meters.

They were as limited as real hands were, sometimes.]

[seeker]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[The apology is immediate and sincere. She frowns afterward though, troubled. Dangerous weapons were one thing, and the physical alterations she's heard about seemed to be painless, if jarring. This is the first she's heard of anything directly harmful.] ...They gave you something that hurts you?

[long_live_the_queen]

[Lucy shrugged, abandoning her attempt to not litter; she'd have to get up to reach the cup. Someone else could get it. The vector returned to float off her shoulder again.]

If I overdo it.

[It was unpleasant. But part of her mind made it not seem so bad, the part that kept insisting she deserved it.

...that wasn't very pleasant either.]

[seeker]

The light show? [Hm. She puts a finger to her chin.] So it's a variant of ESP.

[Which isn't real, says the cynical part of her, but she's stopped listening to that side of her, lately. Most of what had happened over the past couple of months shouldn't be real either, strictly speaking. It was hard to deny something when it was right in front of her face.]

How...does it work?

[long_live_the_queen]

[That made Lucy pause. She looked at the vector, as if it held answers. The spectral hand said all of nothing.]

...I don't know. It hums sometimes.

[She passed a physical hand through it, experimentally. It was...cold, and made her fingers prickle like they'd fallen asleep for a moment. The shimmer thrummed softly, an inorganic resonance that didn't fit with anything else.

It wasn't quite a sound to Lucy, and it wasn't quite a feeling. An itch in her teeth, a tension in her shoulders that wasn't there.

But it was hers. She was sure of it.]

[seeker]

[Some part of her — the questioning part, the side that always wants an answer — is curious. She wonders how deep the physical presence of these attachments go. Do they have a real weight, if touched?

The other, and louder part of her, is wary. Even learning about everyone's new and fantastical gifts doesn't take away from the fact that, until recently, her life was fairly grounded. Away from the realm of fantasy and here in reality, magical powers (or extrasensory ones), were less fascinating and more troubling.]

Have you gotten anything else? [A memory of using it, perhaps.]

[long_live_the_queen]

[Lucy's expression creased into an unamused frown again. She missed the nuance in that question, and responded literally.]

A hundred pound grandfather clock in a dumpster. It rings when it's not supposed to.

[Like when she walks by it, but only sometimes and usually at exactly the moment the cat was being a tripping hazard.]

[seeker]

Not...exactly what I meant. [A sheepish laugh.] But, wow, that's — that's really strange.

I meant, um, flashes of memory, maybe. A recollection of using your ability.

[long_live_the_queen]

[She fell quiet for a moment, thinking. It didn't take long to recall this time.]

I called out a lot of them once. To keep something from hitting me.

[Rocks? Boxes? ...bullets?]