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[baedalites]

Who: EVERYONE.
What: Swap meet.
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Sukkardi the 14th of Haneden
Notes:

• Swap Meet Spreadsheet: Pre-chosen swaps are green. Assigned are blue. There were a few characters that were selected more than once, so objects were assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. If you have any issues or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the mod team.
• For objects that might not be immediately apparent as belonging to their owners, there may be a picture or name attached, or players are welcome to have their characters ~just know~ it's for them. Drr drr drr, bb.
• Party post nights are a great time to come join the chatroom.
• The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread.

Warnings: None yet. Please put warnings up on individual threads.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap.

Comments

[cestrumnocturnum]

Benji glances, and then glances once again as if snagged on both recognition as well as the look she's being given. Shoulders curl in as if her way of being startled is to-- make herself look smaller, even if a flicker of a nervous smile crosses her face. "Hm," is sort of an acceptance of the situation presenting itself, rather than reeling out an explanation immediately. Involuntary reaction and quizzical response at least confirm that she is the dreamwalker he is looking for, and indeed, she recognises him, sans wings and all.

She does, though, take a sip of wine. The memory of where she had left him had been one she'd carried with her upon waking.

"How nice to meet you under better circumstances."

[wingwalker]

Xas doesn't wear accusation well, by nature, but he puts in the necessary effort: when he starts to nod, tempted by comity, he catches himself and leaves his chin raised instead. He thinks about it - the smile, however nervous, and the good manners - while he inhales the last of the cigarette and pulls it away from his mouth. Then, dropping it and crushing it under his heel, he asks, "Is this something that happens to you a lot?" Because it isn't something that happens to him. He'd never had a nightmare before, and his ability to be alone in his head, only recently reacquired, isn't something he'll ever part with lightly.

[cestrumnocturnum]

Benji thinks people should be offended. She'd been a little flustered, in fact, with the Mermaid's good intentioned enthusiasm, Steph's easy forgiveness, and though she might not like being in the wrong, while it is a more difficult terrain to navigate, it also makes sense. She rakes dark hair out of the way of her face, somewhat unnecessarily.

"No. It's rare that it happens to me. Usually there's a decision involved." She flicks a glance to him. "I'm sorry about the dream. It's a gift I have, to do that, but that first week I was here, I was having difficulty controlling-- I mean, I don't want to make excuses, it's just how it was."

[wingwalker]

Xas hums and - without moving or changing expression - deflates, until he's no less unhappy, but maybe less haughty. He can't be too angry about an accident. And it sounds like the danger of another one is past, even though the idea of her being able to decide isn't exactly comforting, itself, except in that Xas doesn't know why anyone would want to spy on his dreams on purpose.

"No harm done," he says, turning back to look at her. He doesn't sound convinced that that's true, tone more don't do it again than forgiving, but it's what people say. Then, "It felt real," out of both reproach (real and horrifying) and curiosity.

[cestrumnocturnum]

She can take that. The implied don't do it again. She would like not to do it again, as her gift presents a danger when in perfect control of it, never mind when she's failing to keep it in line, but she accepts 'no harm done' as honest enough sentiment. She sets her hands against the edge of the bench in a relaxed lean, and hesitates at this next part.

"I know," she says, because she's already apologised. She is maybe staring, just a little, in distracted examination when she goes on to explain; "It does that. I can't create anything very fantastic, sadly, just real, things that have happened or gone seen or known."

The wings weren't hers, for instance. Neither was that last place. "What's your name?"

[wingwalker]

So he isn't off the hook for the wings or the garden, unless he and Benji have some very unlikely things in common. He hasn't been hiding it here, anyway, but he would prefer to address it on his own terms. He bites his lip but otherwise remains impassive - then smiles, suddenly, when some of the more mischievous lies he could tell cross his mind.

But, "Xas," he says honestly, and twists toward her to offer a hand and inquisitive look.

[cestrumnocturnum]

It's different to meeting Hellboy, who was already fantastic enough on his own that running into him in the waking world is about as alarming as conjuring him in their own shared dreamscape. Xas is someone she might have walked by without a second glance. She takes the hand, though, a firm if brief shake following before the touch slithers away again.

"Benji," she says, the corner of her mouth turning up as she picks up her wine glass again, lifting it to drink from. "I'm trying to decide if 'are you really an angel' is a rude question, all things considered."

[wingwalker]

"You're the dreamwalker," Xas says with a faint twitch of a shrug, millenia-old muscle memories trying to gesture with wings instead of shoulders. He doesn't know the social protocol for this. If he did he would likely ignore it.

But he decides he likes her. Doesn't entirely forgive her, yet, but likes her. So, "I really am, yes," he says, and, "Sorry about that last part."

[cestrumnocturnum]

She is, and she thinks Xas has a point, relent in the tip of her head. Personal shit is personal shit, even if, now, it can be impossible or particularly alarming, but it doesn't change the fundamentals. Benji is close to dismissing it entirely but then he's answering anyway. Maybe it's not any more different than running into an elf, or a fairy, or a witch.

Maybe it is, though. "It was very strange," she notes. That last part.

[wingwalker]

"The first part was stranger," Xas says, "to me. Is that what it's like where you're from?"

He hopes not, for her sake, even though she said she couldn't invent things. Maybe it was pieced together out of several less alarming scenarios. Maybe she saw it in a film. Maybe she hasn't actually been pursued through a devastated New York City by enormous robotic monsters.

Anyway, at least his bit had flowers.

[cestrumnocturnum]

There's a waver of uncertainty, at this assertion, that the place they wound up in, briefly in her case, was not stranger than the New York she watched fall, already half-collapsed as it was. Even if Hell had flowers. But that's subjectivity for you. "Yes," she says. "The city, anyway, there are parts if you go north, up the river, it gets green and nice." 'Nice' being code for lacking monstrous killing machines.

Most of the time, anyway. "But there was a lot of fighting, and an explosion, a long time ago. I should have known it was a dream when I saw you," she adds, tone become more facetious, "because angels haven't taken residence in New York City for a long time."

[wingwalker]

Xas thinks that's probably a joke - or something, it sounds like a joke - but his smile, already tempered by the idea of an explosion and destruction and menacing robots, is uncertain. "You're being metaphorical," he says, just to make sure.

[cestrumnocturnum]

"I am," she admits, head ducking a little in concession, and bringing up her wine to drink from, which makes her quiet voice echo hollow into the glass as she adds, in a just-audible mumble, "Or being romantic." Drink sipped, she shrugs. "I don't think our world has any. It would look different."

A pause, and deciding it's her turn to ask, Benji adds; "Is it all like that? The place I saw."

[wingwalker]

"Hell? No. Most of it is close to what people imagine," Xas says. He's staring at Benji's wine and thinking of demons and fire and the only person he ever knew in life who must be there now, and who was never given a real choice - just born fiercely, furiously sad, beyond anyone's reach.

Xas doesn't believe she deserves it. He isn't sure what that means for the millions of souls that arrived before her or the millions coming after.

"The garden was mine," he goes on, focus sharpening. "I needed something to do. And Earth is - not like yours." He shrugs again, apologetic this time; it's probably more likely, however uncomfortable it makes him, that his kind doesn't exist in Benji's world, but he can't completely discount the possibility that they do. "I can't say we would interfere, if it were."

[cestrumnocturnum]

"I guess that's true," Benji says, for all that she too thinks it more than likely that Xas and his kind do not exist where she exists, except the thought fails to make her uncomfortable. It's out of an understated bewildering that she can talk to someone who speaks of the human race as Xas does, even if it's mild and understated as well; apart from it, with the power and decision to be so.

She stretches out her legs in front of her. Practical theology seems like the kind of thing she needs more wine for. "I liked gardening too. You must be very good at it."

[wingwalker]

Xas shrugs, but he can't help looking pleased: Benji is the first human who's ever seen it, even indirectly, and as for angels - Xas went back to Turkey, once, and found a pipeline from a nearby lake disappearing into the entrance to Hell. He can take that as a compliment. But no one ever said anything nice about it while he was there.

"I had a lot of time to learn," he says, and inclines his head. Benji's New York City didn't look like it had much in the way of gardens. "Did you live in one of the nicer places? Why would you go to the city?" Why would anyone, he means, when it was like that.