paradisa | Entries tagged with will stanton

You're viewing

paradisa
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: light

may day!

[ The castle grounds holding the gardens have been transformed into a spring party sensation. Tall banners carrying the Tudor rose have been arranged in a representation of a border surrounding the celebration and events, but there are no real walls or barriers. It might make guarding difficult for the few in her employ, but that's hardly Queen Anne's problem. Nobody will be kept away unless they arrive with no mask (or representation of a mask), and although it might be hard to tell considering it's a masquerade, there will be some people (not many) from the city who have decided tentatively to accept Anne's invitation, helping fill in the crowd.

The theater stage has been covered in flowers of all sorts, as are the four wooden thrones arranged in the center. Each seat is taken, a tie for both King and Queen making for double the fun! Robb and Lucrezia have dressed as Orion and Diana, while Zelos and Galadriel have chosen Odysseus and Penelope (with a little help). The tops of their heads have been left bare, at least for the opening ceremony.

In front of them stands Anne in her costume, and she waits for the crowd to quiet before she speaks. ]

Good citizens of Cair Paradisa and City Royale, you come here today to seek pleasure and company, and I have never seen a finer or more unique looking peoples. I know you may find it difficult to smile in the wake of such recent tragedy. All here have known loss, but we have not let it conquer us, have we? God is with us. Brave souls here risked the unknown to discover the cause, while other remained to help rebuild. I am fiercely proud to see such dedication to one another, and I can only hope such unity continues to blossom! The work on the city will continue, as will the rehabilitation of the survivors most affected by calamity.

But today we spread our arms wide and heartily welcome summer. Today we make merry and keep our loves close. Today we celebrate an unprecedented event, two Queens and Kings!

[ She turns and walks over to the thrones, where the ladies hold crowns of roses in their laps and the men crowns of wooden antlers. She names each as she settles the crowns atop their heads. ]

Queen Galadriel. King Zelos. Queen Lucrezia. King Robb.

[ In playful deference, Anne will lift her skirts and curtsy to the four of them when they stand to announce that the festivities begin! ]

{ Maypole Dance || Dance Floor || The Feast || Music & Donations || Maze & Wine Fountain || Bonfire }

lightbranded

[Will woke to the bitterness of ashes on his lips and the stain of blood on his sleeve. Blood which had soaked through from the scar on his arm in the very familiar shape of a perfect circle quartered with a cross. The same shape that had been marked on his arm like a brand during his first encounter with the Dark.

It had been a burn, long ago. One that had been healed by the Lady herself.

This wasn't possible. Will knew that. Nor was the faint powdering of white ash on his hands that left a trail of white dust on everything he touched,

But Will doesn't panic or cry out. He very sensibly wraps a towel around his arm and presses on it in an attempt to stop the bleeding. And then he reaches for his journal, not caring in this moment that he was leaving fingerprints of white ash on the page.]

I am wondering if anyone has any spare bandages and some time? I'm afraid this might be a little difficult to handle, myself.

[But with these tasks done, Will curled in on himself with grief. He suspected what these signs might mean. White ashes for regret, wasn't it? Blood from a wound that would forever mark him. It did not take the wisdom of an Old One to read the meaning here.]

lightbranded

[After a lot of thought Will had decided that he needed a hobby. It was all very well being the Watchman, but one could not simply watch the world pass by for months on end. Even Old Ones had other projects they worked on. John Wayland Smith had had his smithy. Farmer Dawson had had his farm. Even Merriman had had his life as an Oxford Professor.

And when Will had started thinking of what he could do, his thoughts had gone inevitably to his father's jewelry shop. To the delicate wirework and engraved precious metals. And to the few lessons in engraving his father had given him.

And Will thought this this was something he would like to continue learning.

And so he had begun by going to the library. He had selected a stack of books on beginning metalwork and curled up in a chair as he patiently read them. Eventually the boy reaches for his journal and dictates into it.]

I don't suppose anyone here knows anything about engraving or jewelry making?

lightbranded

[Will had been thinking about a lot of things recently. Merriman. Bran. His own world. But most of all his family.

Will was homesick.

He stares down at the journal as he thinks, and rests one hand on the Belt. The Belt of Signs was all he had from home. And as troubling as it was to have it here, he couldn't help but be glad of it. In its familiar weight he found a kind of comfort. That even here, he was himself.

Eventually he begins to write.]

I wonder how everyone is doing at home? I know that no time passes at home while we are here. but all the same I think I would give a great deal to see my brothers and sisters again.

[He pauses for a long time.]

Does anyone here know anything about making jewelry? Dad taught me a little about engraving last year, and I think that I would like to keep learning.

lightbranded

[Will had left the castle early in the morning, long before the sun was up. It was nearly Spring. And that meant one thing to him. That it was time to watch the flowers grow.

He heads out to the garden and finds a comfortable patch of grass. And then he lies down on his stomach, and he watches. He watches as the sun rises and the morning frost vanishes. He watches the dirt and the plants all around him. And eventually he pulls out his journal and dictates into it in a dream-like tone of voice.]

This time of year is marvelous, isn't it? That time in between winter and spring, when it is neither and both.

lightbranded

[Will didn't understand anything of what was happening. He'd just been walking with James to get hay for the rabbits. How could he have ended up in a place like this? It looked like a castle out of a story or an old drawing. He'd never been anywhere that looked like this before.

The boy hastily stands up and picks up the small journal book that had been lying beside him. He tucks it under his arm, not notiving it was partially open. And the he starts slowly making his way down the hallway, calling out for his brothers and sisters as he goes.]

Hello! Is anyone here? James? Paul? Robin? Mary? Anyone?

lightbranded

[Will's tone is quiet and a little sad today.]

It seems that many people have been leaving the castle recently. I wonder how many us will be gone before the end, leaving no hope of ever meeting again.

( Filtered to self )

lightbranded

[Will had had a great deal to think about recently. It was not just the arrival of the belt of signs and his responsibility for its protection. Not just his usual worries about what his purpose was here in Paradisa and the homesickness that had come with the holidays.

It was the fact that he had met two persons named Merlin here who were both very similar and not similar at all to Merriman. It was the fact that he had met the people that might have been Bran's family in another world and time.

And Will was lost. He did not know what to do about all this new knowledge.

At long last he picks up his journal and dictates a single quiet question into it.]

If you ever met someone who was like a close friend you knew from home, but who was not them, is it too strange to wish to know them better? Or is it better to hold yourself back and not try to learn of the differences in their worlds?

lightbranded

[The last week had been difficult with so many new revelations. Eventually Will had decided to distract himself with one of his favorite pastimes. Gently teasing his acquaintances with his favorite reading material. And that is why today you will hear a boy reading aloud into the journals with an air of great solemnity.]

The black graines (that is the seed) to the number of fifteene taken in wine or mead is a speciall remedie for those that are troubled in the night with the disease called the Night Mare, which is as though a heavy burthen were laid upon them and they oppressed therewith, as if they were overcome with their enemies, or overprest with some great weight or burthen, and they are also good against melancholie dreames.

lightbranded

[Will begins speaking into the journal in a troubled voice.,]

I'm sorry to bother anyone, but something just happened. I found something in my room.

I can't say I'm not happy to see it. I thought it lost months ago in my own world. I just don't understand how it can be possible for it to be here. Is it the castle's work, do you think?

[With his question posted, Will goes back to sitting crosslegged on his bed and reverently tracing the edges of a gleaming golden belt and the six signs strung along its length. Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone. For all he could tell, the belt of signs seemed exactly the same as the last time he had touched it.]

lightbranded

[Will is laughing as he turns around in circles in the courtyard and watches the snow come down. Eventually he pulls out his journal and opens it long enough to share the good news, just in case someone in the castle hadn't noticed yet.]

It's snowing! Isn't it marvelous? This is exactly what I wanted for my birthday.

...Does anyone want to go sledding?

lightbranded

It is hard to believe that it is December already. Soon it will be Christmas. My birthday, too. [And it would be two years since he had woken up on a snowy winter morning to discover that he was not nearly as human as he had always thought. Two years since he had first come into his heritage as an Old One. Will wasn't sure what he thought about that.]

I wonder... Does anyone else here like to go caroling? It wouldn't seem quite like December without it.

[He pauses thoughtfully.]

I wonder if there will be snow this year?

lightbranded

There are some people here who know something of medicine and healing, right? I am wondering if anyone might be willing to teach me a little of it.

[Because Will might have had all the knowledge of the Old Ones inside his mind, but such things as basic first aid and healing had never been included in that. He could walk the hidden paths that lay behind the stars and ride the wind as an eagle, but Will had not even the vaguest idea of where to start when people around him were hurt.

...It had been rather upsetting having to help his new roommate with his injuries without having any idea of what he should be doing.]

lightbranded

[It had taken Will a very long time to figure out why he kept feeling so weak. To understand the pattern. But at long last he thought he had figured it out.

The castle had taken away his ability to be alone. And he could not bear this alone any longer. It was time to seek out a solution.]

Hullo? This is a bit of an odd question, but I am wondering if anyone would be willing to take on a roommate.

lightbranded

[Ever since his return to Paradisa, Will had been kept too busy to think much about the odd feeling of weakness he had sometimes. And if he had noticed that he often felt tired when alone, he easily attributed it to the stress f being brought back to this place.

But it had been over a month now, and he could not ignore this any longer. Hesitantly, he opens his journal and begins to dictate into it.]

I think that something is not quite right with me. Is there a doctor I could speak to?

lightbranded

[Will stares at the open journal for a long time as he debates what to say.]

I remember myself, now. I remember who I am, and I remember when I was taken to the castle before.

Has it been long, here?

[He doesn't say anything about the strange weakness he had noticed in himself.]

lightbranded

[A few of you might recognize this voice as that of a boy who has recently been present in the town, although he had claimed to have no memory of anywhere else. But today...

Today there is something very different about him. His voice is strained and distracted, as if nearly all of his focus was needed somewhere else.]

Please, can any doctors hear this? Or even someone who knows what to do about bad injuries, There is a man here who needs help, and I do not know what to do for him.

[Will had remembered what he was, but he could find it in himself to be happy about it in this moment. Not when the same event had lead to someone being so badly hurt.

And not in all the wisdom of the Old Ones had Will ever learned to heal. The best he could do was hold Duke Pantarei outside of time until help could arrive.]

lightbranded

Goodness! How very strange.

[The boy's mild exclamation is muffled by the large case he was kneeling to inspect and the tumble of the journal falling out of his backpack. Will always made a point of checking out the new deliveries each week after school let out. This shop always had the most fascinating pieces of metalwork.

He's always found something comfortingly familiar in the look and feel of this craft.]

Was this done by engraving, do you think? The pattern is so very odd,

caligulas_aquarium

[Well, oh dear, it appears Mr.Ampora just found out about all of this valentine's day loss nonsense. He's pretty pissed off by everything he sees, y'know the room itself and it's generally unpleasant decor GOD SO MUCH RED EVERYWHERE, but most of all is the fact he's stuck here with some dude he probably hates already.

So he'll just flip a table, cause that is totally the most sensible course of action in a time like this.]

This is fuckin' stupid. Wwhere the shit did the door go!?

beyondimagining

I am wondering if anyone here knows anything about engraving.

Profile

Paradisa

January 2015

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Links