#dominicusstart

[secondswords]

who: open when: a few days after arrival where: the pool room

it's early, too early for her to be awake, and yet, here she is. sleep did not come easy to her, but regardless, she enjoyed the early morning hours. the air is colder, crisper at this hour, and canaan house is even more still than it usually seems. after quietly slipping out of the second's quarters, rapier and daggers in tow, romilly made her way to the pool room. she'd visited this room once or twice now, but had not yet had the space to herself.

the training space brought her an odd sense of comfort. being a part of the cohort was never what she dreamed of, but it was all she knew, and running through some of her rapier drills brought familiarity to an unfamiliar place. the motions were performed by rote, purely muscle memory - the passing lunge, the squaring of her shoulders with her hips, the swipe of the blade against the air. it allowed her to clear her head, to ignore what she swore was her brother's lifeless gaze against her back.

when she finally did turn to repeat the drill on the opposite side, she stumbled, caught off-guard by a visitor that was notably not an undead apparition. "oh!" romilly couldn't help but gasp, her shoulders tensing as she regained her footing. she nearly let the rapier slip from her grasp. "i'm sorry - i didn't hear you come in."

[altha6a]

“All of the water on the Sixth House is brought from cargo ships,” Althaea's voice cuts through the lapping of the waves, where the tide draws to the rocks. Unprompted, only dragged from their throat as they feel the presence of another. A terrible us of their time, staring into the abyss, and not attempting to unravel the strangeness of Canaan House. S shells of sea urchin's lingering along the shorelines, a blue crab scampering along and into the salty depths— all merely existing on this uninhabited planet. Unaware of what surrounded them. The ocean stretches beyond the horizon, vanishing into the cerulean of the sky, mixing into one endless stain of blue. Only interrupted by the grey divots of buildings that have fallen to even greater rot then Canaan House. How open... How refreshing. The entirety of the Sixth lived buried underground, sealed away to save them from the raging heat of Dominicus, starving them of any light. And of the sea. “I've read about it but seeing it... it's very different. A planet, almost entirely covered in water. And the ruins— do you think the previous Lyctor's explored them?”

[bellemaledictions]

Where: Dinning Hall Tag: Open

The fourth necromancer whistled as she gazed upwards. More greenery than she'd ever seen trying desperately to claw its way through the dinning room roof, leaves drifting lazily into the nets as birds flitted from branch to branch… Birds were new, well newish. It wasn't like the concept of them was totally new, but few enough of the planets she'd been stationed on had much wild life to speak of. And frankly she'd never had the time to really stop and pick up ornithology… Maybe she ought to…

Or maybe she should have been exploring the rest of Canaan house, some of the others had already split off to do so. Philly was pretty used to things being go go go. Would it really hurt to just take in the scenery?

Yes, yes it would. Only a moment after she'd had that thought she felt herself growing restless so the necromancer picked herself up and glanced around. Her cav was off... Somewhere, and the last thing she wanted was to explore the house completely by herself. So she'd grab the nearest person and drag them along. Not literally. Instead uttering a cheeky "C'mon" before, not waiting for a response, picking a door and walking through it. It wasn't like any of them knew what they were looking for anyways… Right?

[fuligxn]

who: open. when: shortly after arrival. where: the shore.

the fifth was a planet of storms. eternal storms, broiling across the planet, catching the inhabitants in wind, in red skies, in constant upheaval.

bedivere called that place his home, had learned how to stay solid under constant upheaveal, under the mercurial nature of the elements. he had learned how to exist in the fluidity of his home too, the way he had been told to be the perfect bureaucrat, and had found some comfort in the way that he could shift his face to fit the whims of the conversation. a slight bit of change could grease a conversation this way or that, provide the best outcome for any part involved.

so perhaps that's why he feels so out of sorts on this planet. this planet, with weather that is more stoic than not, this planet kept austere and unchanging. he wonders how old this building it, how long it has been since it felt the weight of so many within it.

with all this solidity, all this permanence, is it any wonder that he turns towards the water?

so find him here, on the beach, in the crisp light of early day, hands tugging at his shirt, unaware of anyone else on the land besides the sea. he's so caught up in the fantasy of pushing his body through wave, of pulling a body into a point of ache, that he doesn't notice another person approaching. in retrospect, he suppose he should have paid more attention. with a faint tip of his head, he tries not belay a sense of being off kilter-- "i hope you haven't been standing there long?"

[fuligxn]

who: open. when: shortly after arrival. where: the library.

there had been books on the ninth. certainly, there had been whole troves of them. but they were primarily religious tomes, the odd thing of poetry, all the annals and records of the past ages. they were her friends, these psalms, these hymns, these bound things of bone work. and iphigenia, as the heir of the house, the ever hungry collector of knowledge, had read her way clean through all of them.

and now-- there was a whole new library. effy couldn't help but run her hands along the spines of the books, feeling the crumbling bindings of them through lace thin gloves. there were so many to read; so many to revel in the existence of. she wanted to hoard them all for herself, stack them up and pile them in her rooming, hiding away from the rest of the crowds. maybe there would be a clue hidden in one of them.

of course, clues weren't the only things to be found. there's one that catches her eye (or rather, her hand, the flimsy paperback binding a radical shift from the rest of the flaking tomes). she pulls it loose, her face going a peculiar shade of red upon seeing the cover. the winds of the heart the cover loudly announced, featuring a woman in nothing but a slip of fabric, another person caressing her face, in a similar state of unrest. the book nearly slips from her fingers, and she glances around, hoping that none saw the debacle.

of course, prayers in the hands of a woman of little faith have almost no hope in succeeding.