hadriel | [Text] (With Pictures!)

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So it's day 2 of Ikea madness,
and I figured we should set up some kind of cragslist situation,
so that people can get rid of things they really don't want.
Or if you for some reason feel like filling your house with this stuff
follow your dreams?

Anyway I found this yesterday:

[Attached is a photo of a very odd table, the front half of it, anyway. It's sticking out of an apartment wall at an odd angle, legs mostly horizontal. There's a second photo of the back half, which appears to be in another room.

A jacket is hanging off of one of the hooves. Looks like someone has found a use for it, at least.]

If anyone knows how to get this out of the wall
without like, destroying said wall
they're welcome to it.
But to be honest I'm kind of getting used to it.
Might call it "Dave".
This I'm not too keen on:

[Another image, this one of a kind of unsettling chair.]

Frankly you can just have it.
Please.

[Everyone is welcome to post their new furniture they don't want, or offers to acquire more. Michael is not going to moderate, but it's a platform at least!]

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Seems like a lot of us left behind some bad situations back home. Let's hope we all stay lucky, huh?

[Not that he would know if the killer he was hunting showed up here. What a comforting thought.]

Yes. Let us hope.

[Thinking of home seems to rattle him, as well. There isn't much that doesn't rattle Carlisle.]

Well, I believe I'm good to help get this downstairs now, if you don't mind. I'll, ah. Give my partner a call and see if he can't bring it home from there.

[Michael is for some reason surprised that this guy has a partner, but then he chides himself because that's clearly a mean thing to think. And maybe he means the other kind of partner? Like the work kind? Probably not, though.]

Right, sure.

[He opens the apartment door, thankful he thought to do that instead of just humiliate himself by forgetting until they're both encumbered with table, and lifts Dave's back half.]

Do you guys live far? If it's easier, I could just help you get it there.

[Definitely not the work kind of partner, but Carlisle doesn't elaborate. He sidles over to one half of Dave and gives it a lift. Boy, does he hate stairs, but this table is worth it in his mind.]

We're in Spire 2, down near the river. It's quite a walk, but if you don't mind helping walk it that far, it'd save him a trip. He's probably patrolling at the moment, or busy with paperwork. Guardsman, you see.

[Michael hates stairs, too, but they've become a part of life now, so he might as well get used to them. He starts toward the hall-slash-stairwell with his half of the table.]

I don't really know my way around yet, but yeah, it's fine.

[Is it really fine? It's not not fine, at least. So that means it's... probably fine.]

The guards here do paperwork? I thought they were just like, a volunteer kinda thing.

Well, they are, but they turn in reports and what have you, as I understand it.

[Carlisle adjusts his arms, hoping to keep the legs from scraping the stairs as they descend.]

One of their leaders, Miss Tua, is quite fond of notes, so it doesn't surprise me she'd have her subordinates keep records of the goings-on in town.

[God, why are these stairs so narrow? Going backwards doesn't help. Michael decides that if he falls and dies and becomes a ghost, he's going to haunt that creepy spider chair. Seems only fitting.]

Okay so we've got... a clinic and guards. What other jobs are there around here?

[Even he's going to get bored eventually. Besides, sitting around isn't good for the whole monster situation.]

There's a Speakeasy. Miss Rey runs that establishment. She's an acquired taste.

[He'd say nicer things about people who might be his friends, but he banged his elbow on the wall two seconds prior and is still hissing from the sting.]

There are some, ah. Smaller places around. Individual proprietorship. We used to have a sewing shop, but I know not if it remains open now that the owner has vanished.

[Michael raises his eyebrows.]

A speakeasy? Like from the 20s? Is alcohol illegal here?

[He was under the impression there weren't actually any laws. The part about Rey kind of sails over his head; most people are an acquired taste for him, but then he just kind of deals with them regardless.]

I don't think I'd be too useful in a sewing shop, though. Actually, wait. If it's anything like stitching up people, maybe.

[So either he doesn't realize he's talking out loud right now, or he doesn't realize he forgot to say out loud earlier that he was thinking about potential jobs. Either way, enjoy this in medias res, Carlisle.]

It's not.

[Said in all seriousness. He's still a little sore about the sewing shop, specifically about the disappearance of its proprietor. He'd rather not have someone sewing up bodies in there, in the unlikely event Emily should return.]

Alcohol is perfectly legal here, and used to be around in abundance. The first bar that was here burned to the ground, and so another was opened.

[Oh. He's not sure if Carlisle is offended or just serious about sewing. Either way, dropping that subject. And trying not to drop the table along with it.

Do these staircases get narrower at the bottom?]

Right, someone mentioned that. Not sure why people would burn it down, that seems like it hurts us more than the gods.

[They do just a bit. Nothing in the building was made for humans, it seems.]

The first bar belonged to one of the false gods, to be fair.

[False gods? Michael guesses that's a fair thing to call them, but he's just been going with the default. He's not especially religious, so it didn't matter.]

Well, yeah, but a bar seems like one of the few nice things they've done. Unless all the alcohol was poisoned or something.

Nice or not, it was meant to encourage emotions from us. And it did. With parties.

[And that's said with all the venom he can muster.]

At least they were nice emotions?

[He's going to regret asking this, but:]

What's wrong with parties?

[Yes, he just might regret asking that, as Carlisle manages to find a lot of words for such a short inquiry.]

Those held by and near the bar were always dreadfully noisy affairs, with blinking lights and awful music that could drive a person mad from any distance, as it just echoed off the walls of this place. And the drinks made people ill, or violent, or violently ill, or a myriad of terrible effects no drink should have, yet the people here drank them anyway, as though the gods would provide them with ambrosia rather than arsenic. And even with curtains, the lights seeped into my room, keeping me awake at all hours, as did the music -- no sleeping at all with a constant cacophony just beyond my bedroom window. Oh, and then came the animals that one time, surely sent to make our lives better in some way, but you know what they sent me? A bear. My neighbor gets a kitten, and I get a fully grown monster right outside my apartment door, and there was no keeping him out! So I sat in a closet for days with a bear right outside, his back to the door, and I STILL couldn't sleep because just past the bear was that awful ruckus the gods assumed was music. People say, "Ah, it's all in good fun, Carlisle," and, "I'm sure a bear isn't so bad, Carlisle," but it was a bear. And the bear wasn't even just it. Regardless of how they make it seem, we're still being used by the gods here as food, at best, so how anyone can want to 'party' in such a place is beyond me.

[Gosh.]

[Yep. He has regrets. Boy howdy does he have regrets. By the time Carlisle's finished his tirade, they've actually reached the bottom of the steps, and Michael has stopped moving entirely.

He just stands there, awkwardly holding half of a deer table, not sure what to do with himself. That... was a lot. But he can't say nothing.]

I, uh. I think people probably want to party because they're scared? It's nice not to think about stuff for a while.

... But I definitely feel you on the bear thing.

Perhaps they can alleviate their fear by finding more productive uses of their time that don't keep the rest of us awake.

[And this is one of the many reasons no one invites Carlisle to parties.

Once they're out the door to the Spire, Carlisle sets his end of the table down for a moment, rubbing at his forearms as he cycles a breath through his lungs, in and out.]

We can leave this here for now if you'd rather not haul it all the way to the riverside. I can call Glacius and have him pick it up.

[Is this guy like a Puritan? He uses magic, so probably not. Probably.]

Yeah, I guess that might work better. I mean, it's up to you.

[But maybe walking the table all the way to Carlisle's house is a bad idea if Michael wants to stay on good terms with him. Who knows what other subjects might be the same kind of landmine as "parties".]

[Spoiler: many other subjects are the same kind of landmine as "parties" when it comes to Carlisle.]

Frankly, I'd prefer not to haul it across town. I'll leave it to him.

[This is what muscle-bound icy aliens are for, clearly. He does offer Michael a polite nod, at least.]

Thank you again for your assistance, and for the table.

[Michael therefore assumes that Carlisle's partner must be someone much more suited to table-carrying than either of them. Which would be... a lot of people, honestly.]

Yeah, any time. Thanks for getting it out of my wall.

[He thinks about adding "hope it doesn't turn out to be haunted", but decides against that, and gives Carlisle an awkward little wave before heading back inside.]

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