[PRP] It's a beautiful day (Twins & Moms)

[Melancholies]

There was something about almost dying in a magical man fire that made you realize 'Hey, maybe we should hang out some more and get over our issues'. Shiloh and Oliver were close by proxy of being identical twins, but they'd had their tiffs lately, and now that things were starting to slow down... it was time for a break. It was time to relax, chill out, do things together.

Cue icees, a walk through the park, and a good deal of catching up. It was kinda fun in; they got looks, because despite their differences they still looked so similar, and it made Shiloh laugh and Oliver roll his eyes. It was like the old days though, and that was nice.

"Your hair is longer." Oliver noted duly. They'd started pointing out each other's differences like they were just so obvious. "Plus you got that thing on your eyebrow."

"My piercing?" Shiloh raised an eyebrow, "Hey, it's cool. You should get one."

"Maybe my ears..." The way Oliver said it made it sound like he'd been thinking about it already. "Hey, isn't that--?"

Both twins turned to the side, the two of them standing the same way, their weight shifted to the same foot, their mouths occupied by icee straws as they observed the scene in front of them. Two familiar faces were in the distance, apparently enjoying the good weather all on their own. "Should we say hi?" Shiloh blinked.

"Might be rude." Oliver shrugged.

"Might be rude to say nothin'." Shiloh shrugged back, "'Lo ladies." He waved to the mom duo as Oliver elbowed him.

"Be polite, geeze."

"Hi miss..es..." Shiloh said instead.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

It was a picnic. Leila and Eve were having an honest-to-goodness picnic. The blanket was pastel chevron patterned and they had a cooler instead of the basket, but that didn't stop the scene from looking idyllic. They had sat down on the blanket, Clover serving as a makeshift cushion for Eve to lean back against, and they were unpacking chips and cookies and hummus sandwiches.

The pair brightened at the arrival of the twins, and happily waved them over. "Hey there, what's up?" Leila greeted. "You're looking... colorful..."

This was the first time Leila had seen Shiloh in the sun since before she got the new eyes, and her ultraviolet sight made the small number of flowers on his person distractingly dazzling. Also, she had accumulated a small menagerie of insects: fat, fuzzy bees and small sulphur butterflies kept flying in lazy loops around her and landing in her hair. Upon spotting Shiloh, a couple of them lifted off from her person and began drifting towards him.

Eve rolled her eyes at her wife. "Don't stare at him like that, love, it's rude." She shook her head in an affectionate way before turning to greet the twins. "Nice to see some familiar faces out here. If you're hungry, we have enough in here to share."

melanchlies

 

[Melancholies]

When you were someone like Shiloh Beaumont, that is, someone who grew plants out of their skin, you got used to the insect swarms. It sort of bothered Shiloh at first, but then he realized the things that landed on him never had any real intention of stinging or biting him, he just smelled good and had tasty magical flower things to offer. In this instance he was still a little startled, if only because he hadn't noticed he was blooming, but thankfully the flowers were small and otherwise innocuous; some behind the ear, some tucked around his beanie, some finding homes in his pockets and his sleeves. He was a bounty of clovers and small purple blooms of henbit.

He was laughing a little when the fat bees congregated to him. Oliver gave him a look like that hadn't happened in a while, but it made him soften too with the smallest of smiles. Twins that ride together die together; it was obvious they really cared for each other, despite the differences.

"That sounds lovely." Oliver said agreeably, if only because Shiloh was... distracted. "We were just walking around. It'd been a while since... we hung out, I guess. The charter stuff ate into a lot of our time." His brow furrowed slightly, "But it's over and done with now."

"I'm not going to dwell on it too much." Said Shiloh, who had one of the butterflies on his fingertips. There was a sudden barrage of squeaking from his beanie as Bean came out to investigate the commotion, his triangular snoot poking out as his wide eyes scanned the area. Hey! Hummus! That was a thing he could roll in, surely. "And I ain't never gonna turn down free food."

"It's actually been a while since we were able to sit down and talk ourselves." Oliver spoke to directly to Eve there, "And I've never formally met your wife either," In passing of course, and he'd visited with Eve enough times that he knew exactly who Leila was, but still, "I'm Oliver, but I'm sure you knew that already. I've never actually had a hummus sandwich..."

"You'll like it. Probably." Shiloh consoled him, "Anyway, how've you two been holding up?" Bean was waving from his hat hut. Shiloh didn't seem to even notice.

cibarium

just an FYI note for leila's paper's please power that obv ollie has burning man geas and shiloh was geased by temperance! if u wanna pick up on that at all.

 

[cibarium]

Bean had little splashes of extra color too, to Leila's eyes -- and so she grinned intriguedly at him for a moment. A small white butterfly drifted over to land on the sprout's snout.

"The hummus is homemade. I'm pretty good at that sort of thing," she was saying, offering a pair of sandwiches over. Her attention returned to the cooler for a moment as she pulled out more foodstuffs. "There's also some pasta salad in here... shortbread..." Then she squinted into the basket. "Eve, did you sneak Cheetos in here again? You know what those do to you..."

The former fox rolled her eyes. "It's fine, dear. If I need to I can just un-eat them." She stretched out a hand in a silent request to have them passed over.

"That's not a responsible use of time magic," Leila protested. Nonetheless, she complied. "Anyway, yeah... good to meet you," she nodded at Oliver. "I'm glad we can meet up in a non-apocalyptic scenario for once. We're holding up, I guess. Trying to still have a life and all."

"I never had a chance to thank you and Jamie for helping with that spell," Eve said to Shiloh while pulling open her Cheeto bag. "He's out of the woods now, though there was some memory loss."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Bean looked absolutely delighted at the butterfly, like he'd been chosen of all things. Unfortunately his wriggling made the insect flutter away again, but Bean was determined when he jumped after it... and consequently rolled down Shiloh's face, down his chest, right into his lap. Thank god the twins had taken a seat.

"What the heck even is that?" Oliver watched the little sprout go.

"He's my son, don't be an a*****e." Shiloh didn't seem too bothered with Bean's tumble; there was something unmistakably deadpan about the entire thing, actually, like this hadn't been the first or second or even tenth time that something like that had happened. "Anyway, it's no problem. I'm glad everything worked out alright," Shiloh grimaced, "It looked pretty bad when we separated him. I guess part of that was my fault... I should've taken into account that there'd be repercussions and stuff..."

Bean squeaked.

"Not you bud." He patted the sprout before taking one of the offered sandwiches (Oliver had taken both—what the ******** Ollie fork it over!).

"Utilizing time magic to... un-eat things. That's different, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it's possible." Oliver bit into the sandwich, his blue eyes brightly trained on Leila in turn. He couldn't see bright whimsical colors like she could, but he could see magic, and while that was typically limited to magic in the process of being cast, passive things had a tendency to catch his attention too. Like her eyes. He couldn't really put them into any sort of literal description, because the color he was perceiving them as was... unreal. There wasn't a word for it—somewhere between purple and red and blue and green and—well, everything.

Magic was weird.

"So then, that would be the Ezra from this world, right? I really wonder why..." Shiloh paused, chewed over his thoughts (and his sandwich), "Why like, people like Ezra and Melany—it was like the 'our world' counterparts of them just sort of... took over. Or hitched a ride with them. But then people like us seem to have just replaced them all together..." He furrowed his brow, "It's weird."

"Very." Ollie agreed, "This is a really good sandwich by the way." He was on his smiley-amicable-pleasant behavior mode, where he was polite and agreeable. Though in this instance, he was legitimately enjoying himself. Shiloh looked far more lackadaisical as he scooped off a smudge of hummus from the edge of his sandwich to smear on Bean's snout. Funnily enough, it seemed like the sprout wanted it, even though it looked incapable of consumption. Instead he took his hands to play with the substance as he rolled wildly in the grass.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"It wasn't a good idea to cast such a spell in the spur of the moment like that," Eve admitted, a little bitterly. "That was my mistake. It could have been much worse if it had only worked halfway." She broke a Cheeto in half with her teeth and patted Leila's shoulder some. It was a difficult topic for them both.

"The Burning Man didn't have his own body, so..." Leila trailed off instead of continuing the sentence. She remembered how he'd been as surprised to end up in the younger Ezra's body as everyone else must have been to see him in it. So much of what had happened between them since that moment had seemed so benign at the time, but knowing what they did now had left all those memories poisoned.

They had been so selfish.

Ollie steering the conversation back to innocuous present things was a relief. "Glad you like it," Leila said, and she looked to Bean again. He was making the kind of mess a very small child might make. "When'd you start being a parent, anyhow?" she asked Shiloh. "I remember seeing him around a few times before."

melanchols

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh seemed to take the hint. His entire life in the past year was nothing but serious magic bullshit, and even though he tried not to talk about it or think about it much, it sort of consumed him. He didn't mean to. Hell, he didn't want to, but it still happened. His filter was hardly a filter at all anymore; but the topic had shifted to Bean and he seemed okay with that.

"It was an accident." He explained, "Sometime... around.... um..." He was counting on his fingers, "Maaaarch? Early march. The first, actually." He blinked, surprised that he remembered the date off hand, "I have plant magic right? So I use it to help plants grow and stay healthy, except I guess when they're exposed to my magic in large doses, they..."

Both twins (Oliver had been listening intently, curious himself) looked to Bean as he rolled around. He was playing with one of the butterflies—going still, and then wiggling, and then going still again, squeaking and chirping all the while—"They become. That. Jamie 'n I have been calling them sprouts."

"So you probably have a lot of them running around...?" Oliver looked dubious.

"I mean." Shiloh took a deep breath, "Yeah, kind of... Um, I mean Rabbit has one, and Shun has one. My Court was ******** crawling with them." But that part made sense, anyway, "I hope they're all okay. I haven't been able to reach my demesne at all..." He shook his head, "But anyway, Bean's the only one that really lives with me. I mean, the ones at Court like me too, but not like him. Huh Beanie?" He reached over to poke his stomach; the sprout squealed with delight. "I haven't made any more since then though, since I know I'm the one that causes it..."

Ollie quietly chomped on his sandwich.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Like little fae," Eve mused appreciatively. Not that the squeaking childlike creature smearing hummus on itself and chasing a butterfly fit her image of what a plant spirit might've been like, but still. "By the way, how's the moonwalking been going, Oliver? It's been a while since we first talked about it."

melanchols

 

[Melancholies]

"He's um. He's usually not so crazy. He just likes food even though he doesn't really... eat." Bean was still rolling, "But he's really smart. He understands speech— Beanie, beanie, hey."

Bean lifted his snoot.

"Who's the best little guy around?" Shiloh smiled. Bean immediately motioned to himself in a grand gesticulation before squeaking proudly.

Oliver was amused by this too. "It's not so bad. I mean, I dunno, I guess I'm still on the fence about a lot of it." He seemed a little troubled, "Being a raccoon is weird. I guess it's kind of neat to be in tune with an entirely different side of magic, but sometimes I find that it's more trouble than it's worth, especially with the Charter..."

"But we changed that." Shiloh interjected. He was wiping the hummus off of Bean's face with a napkin.

"Right." Ollie nodded, "Whenever the new magic settles in anyway. I've found I've been unable to shift for the moment. I'm wondering what of our changes will come to fruition... and the matter with the restoration of the Spiritbond as well."

"Are you interested in that Ollie? I know Jamie was."

Oliver offered a shrug. "I'm not sure. It'd require more... research."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"It'll be on my to-do list when I've unlocked my powers again," Eve said confidently. She was still depressed and angry to be powerless, had been for months, but her progress over the past five months had given her momentum. "Which I'm hoping will be soon. Maybe we could help each other look into it."

Leila smiled a little and broke off a tiny piece of shortbread, handing it down to Bean to inspect. Plants were more complex than they were often given credit for, so the eccentricities of a sapient one weren't much of a surprise. "I think warging is as far as I'll go, to be honest," she said. "Among other things, I don't want to risk messing up my bond with the Multitude again."

Friend seemed pleased with that decision. He was currently chilling out on a cinnamon stick near his charge.

"I should probably go visit them soon, now that I think about it... they're hard to communicate with, but they might know some important stuff."

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh perked at that, "I mean, I know it didn't work before, but..." And then he settled back down like he'd just discouraged himself out of it. "I think I just needed more power. And you're doing magic on your own too, and with the charter recreated, I think there's a lot of factors working in our favor. I might be able to give the block the last push to help your magic out." Shiloh made said push motion with his hands, woosh...

"There's nothing wrong with that," Ollie told Leila with a smile, "I sort of envy wargs to be honest. The companionship is such an important part of your magic. It seems... nice. Fulfilling. Being a Moonwalker is too, just in vastly different ways." He nodded.

"Either way, we've open the door for it." Shiloh said. Bean had slowly inched over to Leila to accept the shortbread, his tiny but deft hands looking over the piece of food wondrously. Then, despite being gentle with it, he gracelessly shoved it into his snout.

"The multitude... those are the little termites from before, right?" Oliver remembered Leila having them at the casting, right before they all split up to try and hunt down Ezra and the deer triplets. That being said, "It's neat to have those sorts of connections I guess. I haven't run into anything quite like that on the other side..."

Bean chirped.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Bean's behavior illicited a small chuckle from Leila. He was just so gosh darn cute, almost like a little kid -- and she adored young children.

"Yeah, I met them around a year ago," she said to Oliver. "They had me carry Sunny over to this other person, but it was, like... a baby version of her? It was weird." While she spoke she psychically offered a few snapshots of the experience: the termite Queen, the baby 'Princess,' the sky full of foreign stars, the woman she encountered. "They keep watch in the otherworld and have a hive mind to share information. And they were something else before they were insects, maybe even human."

Yeah, she really needed to visit again. She'd seen weird constellations during the scrying, too, and had wondered if it was the same thing.

"It's good to know you'd like to help with my project," Eve said to Shiloh with a smirk. She'd finished her Cheetos and was now opening up the pasta salad. "I was about to ask. When I don't have cheese fingers I can show you the schematics so far... if all goes according to plan, unlocking my abilities won't be the only thing we can get out of it."

"Or you could use a napkin," Leila cheekily suggested.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"That sounds... weird." Oliver said, "But I suppose most magic is—" Suddenly he cut off at the mental snapshots, his eyes going wide as he absorbed the images in vivid detail. Even if they were just memories, he was experiencing like they were his own.

"Oh really?" Shiloh had long finished his sandwich by this point, and now he was cross legged with his elbows on his knees, his head propped up on a sealed fist, "But yeah, I mean it's the least I can do. Nobles are supposed to help out and I'm a principal on top of it. Might as well put all that magic to good use."

"Might as well stop using that as justifications to help everyone, is more like it." Oliver elbowed his brother, "You can chose to help someone as Shiloh too, not Shiloh the Noble or Shiloh the Principal or Shiloh the Noble Principal or whatever. Anyway—" He turned to Leila before Shiloh could protest, "How'd you do that? The memory share thing? Is that an ability you have?" He seemed very interested. Shiloh, who hadn't received the same glimpses, was utterly lost on Ollie's rambling. "Sorry, it's just—I mean, I'm a moonwalker, but a lot of my magic has been developing as... I dunno, more mental. It's fascinating that you can do things like that."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Leila didn't seem to mind the questions. "I can share pretty much anything from my mind, yeah. The Multitude can do similar stuff, so I figured it's probably their influence," she answered, though she couldn't say for certain that was the reason. "It took a lot of practice to get it under control, though. Lots of meditation, those ESP cards..."

"She's always playing Jenga at home," Eve added.

"Yes," Leila sighed, "I play Jenga. But you're always glued to your work at home."

"We're drifting apart." Eve finally wiped her fingers. "It's the lesbian bed death, dear." Then she had a bite of pasta salad.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"Jenga... like with yourself?" Shiloh blinked, "I think Bean would like jenga. He's smart."

Bean had smashed the bread into a tiny little ball of densely packed goodness. He looked over at the sound of his name with a tiny squeeeak?, like he was saying what, meeeee?

Ollie was clearly more interested in more serious conversation though. "I definitely understand the meditation part. I have to work really hard to keep my clairvoyance abilities in check."

"Oh yeah, the death thing..." Shiloh added unhelpfully.

"Yes, the 'death thing'." Oliver went to clarify, "I can... sense when living things pass I guess. Mr. Leroux called it thanatophillic clairvoyance. I can tell what exactly dies and when, so long as it's within proximity to me. Anything from people to..." His eyes landed on one of the bright yellow butterflies, "Insects. I've found it in my favor to avoid hospitals and the like. But it's a good ability to have. I can bring people back from the dead if I desire, but it's kinda dangerous..." He looked at his half eaten meal. "Even just sitting here though, that robin over there's been going nuts."

Said robin in the distance was having itself a worm. From what Ollie was saying, it likely wasn't the first this hour.

"But I guess you learn to live with it." His eyes drifted shut. "Sometimes I want to learn to deepen it. Other times I wish it'd go away. But I think the uses far outweigh the setbacks."

cibarium