voidtreckerexpress | it's halloween, lo-ween, everybody!

Entry tags:

it's halloween, lo-ween, everybody!

Who: Everyone's Invited!
Where: Various decorated carriages!
When: Horseshoe 31.
What: Della is hosting a Halloween party! Come for treats, tricks, and trouble!
Warnings: N/A, will update it needed.

The room is dark…why aren’t the lights on? But as the doors fully open, a voice begins laughing darkly…

… although if you’ve ever heard the voice of Della Duck, you’ll recognize her immediately.

“Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”

Suddenly there’s a big THUD as someone drops from the ceiling, the lights flash on, and Della herself, dressed as a zombie – ripped apart clothes, fake blood here and there, drawn on scars - wiggles her fingers before laughing joyfully. “Happy Halloween, everybody! Let’s party!”

Tasty Treats

A big buffet table of candy and punch has been laid out! Mini chocolate bars and multi-colored lollipops, gummy worms and candy corn, all sorts of sweet and sour shenanigans, ghost-shaped cookies and mummy-looking muffins! There’s plenty to eat, with absolutely no healthy alternatives.

There are also small wrapped bags of candy with the letters “T.o.T” written on them. If someone tells you, “Trick or Treat!” you have to share your candy! Or keep it to yourself, you monster.

Haunted House

Thanks to Seto Kaiba’s projections, a neighboring carriage has been converted into a Haunted House! While it’s all a trick on the eyes, it gives the illusion that there are several floors of spookiness. Each floor has a different theme –

#1 Serial Seriousness – Every so often, a masked intruder pops out at you, with long claws or chainsaw, ready to give chase! Be careful, or you’ll be the next victim!

#2 Zombie Zaniness – Moans and groans of the undead can’t be unheard. Rotting arms will try to swipe at you through the floorboards!

#3 Ghostly Games – You can see through them, and they can see you too! Each mirror reflects a different dastardly demon!

#4 Deadly Doctors – In this hospital, it’s not the awful health insurance that’ll kill you! Beware the bloody nurses and their extra big needles!\

#5 Fishy Fears - … Wait, what? … Okay, this last floor was clearly designed by Della. It’s like Under the Sea, but with sharks and octopi and kraken - and Della insists this is the worst floor.

Feel free to have your characters braving the house, or trying to scare people within!

Dance Floor

If being haunted isn’t your thing, nothing wrong with getting your groove on! Ask DJ Della what kind of song you’d like to play, and she’s happy to put on the list, from a classic Monster Mash to something more somber and soulful for you slow-dancing-romantic-vampire-types.

Turnip Carving
… Look, they didn’t have pumpkins. Anyway, you’re encouraged to carve scary and silly faces in these veggies! There is a contest, but everyone will be a winner, from “Most Realistic” to “Most Depressing” !

Movie Mania
Kick back and relax – and be horrified – at the otherworldly horror films! Like the horrific monster mime, “That”, the relentless umpire-mask wearing killer, “Monday the 20th”, and the endless array of the undead, “Midmorning Of The Not Wholly Alive”!

Some of you awful people might be thinking of popping up and scaring the theater-goers and this is /winkwinknudgenudge/ totally not approved. /plausible deniability/

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
In one secluded, quiet, and verrry dark carriage, lit only by candles, here you are encouraged to tell the scariest stories you can think of! What eerie legends will you share from your world, or do you dare to make it up as you go along?

Make your own top-level, and happy haunting!

Also, if your character would like to dress up, costumes are available for this night only!

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Aziraphale looks down at his horrid works of art for a moment, before he pieces together her conclusions. Perhaps he would have been a bit more put off with the question a little over a year ago, and if his connection to Crowley hadn't been specified. That reaction does threaten to make its way up for just a second, but quickly batted away.

"Oh! Oh, oh no, no, I'm most certainly not a demon. These are just- they're just keeping up with tradition, is all." He offers her another polite smile, awkward as it might be, in an attempt to recover composure.

"No. But, well..." He trails off for a moment. "You could say we're of the same stock."

"The same.."

She repeats the words as if trying them out while she's thinking about it. Really, it could mean a lot of things. But thankfully Alice - despite all of her mental issues - is not dumb. Certainly not. Somewhere between his insistence that he's not a demon and that remark, she does manage to land on the truth.

"An angel, then?" The girl doesn't sound too surprised by the idea. He wouldn't even be the first angel she has met, after all. And even if he was, the ideas of angels just casually walking around here wouldn't be as odd anymore after getting to know an actual demon. "And yet the two of you are.."

That close, she means to say, though the way she lets that sentence trail off meaningfully could be interpreted as many things, huh.

Aziraphale's only a little bit surprised when she arrives at the logical conclusion, mostly only due to her very human nature (as far as he can tell). But it really wouldn't be the strangest thing, where they are, so he's mostly just glad that the conversation doesn't require too much explanation.

(Which works in Alice's favor, as Aziraphale's explanations tend to lean on the long side.)

He doesn't seem to sure of what exactly she means by that last part, however, whether she's aware they are close, or if she's aware they are Close.

"Right, well, yes. We've known each other for a rather long time." And are, in fact, romantically engaged, but he figures it might be a bit much to lead with that.

Alice has a faint idea of just how long 'a rather long time' may be, despite Aziraphale saying it so casually. This definitely isn't going by human standards, is it? If they're an angel and a demon, they're probably ancient. It's pretty likely that they have known each other for that long as well.

"Yes, but.."

She starts, then stops. Explaining what she saw in Crowley's memories would be the easiest way to say just what she means here, but it doesn't feel right to just talk about them out loud. Even if it's probably already something Aziraphale knows about. Crowley wouldn't tell others about her memories either, she's certain.

Let's try this another way. Alice puts her hands on her hips.

"I can feel his emotions." Look, that probably requires a bit more context than what she's giving, but deal with it. "And he warned me about potential.. odd feelings."

At least Alice is just as ?!?! over romantic feelings as Crowley himself is that she's just fine using the exact same wording the demon did for it.

"Those wouldn't have anything to do with you, would they?"

Aziraphale, for his part, expected her to ask questions more along the lines of how exactly they have met, as he has that particularly long story cocked and ready to go when the rare opportunity arises - and they are most definitely veryhis own bond with the demon.

Being so, he stares at her for a moment, a bit dumbfounded.

"I'm sorry?" He asks once again. "I'm not sure what you mean by, er...odd feelings?"

"That's what he called it," she says. Perhaps a bit too quickly, defensively. Not that Alice is a stranger to offending people - certainly not - but she isn't going to put herself on the line for something someone else said, okay. Even when that person is Crowley. It's the demon's fault for being so dumb about the odd feelings thing in the first place! "So blame him, not me."

She crosses her arms across her chest, perhaps even huffing slightly. (Though she'll deny that last part forever, thanks.)

"Though if you two are so close, you must certainly know which sort of feelings he would consider odd."

Odd feelings. The angel takes a moment or two to think about it, unsure if he wants to land on the easiest guess - if just for the fact that he doesn't know how to feel about the usage of "odd".

Still, he flushes just faintly, clearing his throat primly as to badly mask away the embarrassment.

"Yes. Right. Well." If only his pained turnips could save him now. "I'm, er, not entirely/i> sure what he meant by that. But you--you two can...feel what each other is feeling at any moment?"

Alice gestures with one hand.

"I'm not sure if it's any moment." Since there are definitely times she doesn't pick anything up. Thankfully. She's pretty sure that her own mind is already messed up enough without needing a constant emotional flow from someone else on top of it.

"But I have felt things out of nowhere multiple times, yes. Even when they didn't suit my own mood in the slightest at that time."

Well, that would certainly explain some things.

"I see..." There's a curious furrow of Aziraphale's brow as he tries to recollect any time where Crowley's emotions seemed to not have matched whatever was happening at the time. He does recall a period, not long after their stop in that dreadful island, where passengers found themselves forcefully privy to each other's personal memories, where Crowley has definitely had a rough go of it for reasons the angel didn't understand - and, at the time, neither did Crowley, seemingly.

There's something rather awkwardly uncomfortable about the concept. Whether that's spawned from the sheer idea of sharing an emotional link with someone where neither of you had any choice in the matter, or the fact that specifically Crowley has such a bond with specifically someone else, is anyone's guess.

"Well, hum, I'm afraid I don't have much of a choice in the matter of how Crowley does or does not feel," Which is not entirely true, all things considered, but not a subject he wants to delve into right now. " But I will...do my best to avoid triggering any, er, odd feelings in the future."

Edited 2020-12-22 19:01 (UTC)

While the angel seems to be contemplating it, Alice thinks about it a bit herself too. She supposes it must be an odd thing to hear - someone that close to you having an emotional bond with someone else. How would she feel if that sort of thing happened?

.. well, probably just concerned for the other party, considering that'd most likely mean they would be having an emotional bond with a cat..

Just as that thought comes to her though, Aziraphale answers, drawing her attention back to him. At first Alice just stares, but then a hint of surprise enters her eyes as she processes what he's saying.

"That's surprisingly reasonable of you." Not that she has such a low opinion of Aziraphale in particular - she has no reason to, after all. No, it's just that the bar of expectations for other people is very, very low after the standard of what Alice is used to.

"I'd say I will do my best to not send him any odd emotions either, but I don't seem to have much of a choice in that matter either."

She does pull a bit of a face at that. A near eye roll, mostly. Thanks for nothing, weird island.

None of these are really his promises to make, but there's only so much he can say in this exchange while sounding polite, if insurmountably awkward. He has no actual choice on how Crowley feels about things or his emotions, but he also doesn't know how to respond to someone's request to stop giving his partner...odd feelings, whatever those actually imply.

So, he offers her a strange smile and nods.

"I suppose it's all a bit...strange." Which is one way to put it. "Apparently anyone's choice was never really an option, which is how these things tend to go." He adds, with a slightly sour note to it, the kind one gains after a couple of unfortunate experiences.

That tone to his voice is something Alice recognizes very well. It sounds similar to how she often feels, and she can't help but wonder if it's mostly aimed at their experiences here on the train so far - since they didn't really have a choice in ending up here either, not even angels and demons did, apparently - or at something bigger beyond that.

Though she can feel natural curiosity bubbling up within her, Alice knows this is probably a bit too personal to ask about, so she doesn't. Instead she just shakes her head, looking away.

"We're all little more than rats trapped in a cage here to begin with, yes."

The cage just happens to be train-shaped.

The train, their experiences before the train - and, to a point, all of his existence. Choice, where it really matters, has been a bit of a scarce resource. But he supposes everyone makes due however he can. He certainly prefers the train over where he and Crowley found themselves in for the better part of a year, before.

"Unfortunately so, I'm afraid." He adds, with a bit more of a solemn tone. But, after a brief moment, he looks at his carved turnips again, still laying there with sculpted faces of untold despair. "But, at least, we do have some things to help us pass the time."

"Is that what you're concerned with?"

There's no judgement in the tone. Which isn't always the case with Alice, but really, she isn't going to judge how others cope with this situation unless it's in really dumb ways.

She supposes that Aziraphale's turnips from hell are not the most dumb way she's ever seen.

"Potentially getting bored?"

He doesn't seem to know how to answer right away. Having it put in such a way feels like a simplification of something perhaps a bit grander, but even for someone who is so given to ramble away through explanations, he doesn't quite know where to start with that one.

"Well, not just." Is what he settles on after a bit of fussing. Of course, being what he is, his concerns of personal safety are just a tad different from those of the passenger population at large. So is his perception of time.

"But it does seem to be a rather long and slow process in trying to unravel just exactly what this entire...situation is really all about." He continues, vaguely gesturing around them as he speaks.

"Records are rather lacking and I've yet to find a viable way to directly communicate with the, er...vehicle."

Thankfully communicating with a train is not the strangest idea to Alice - who has spoken to a lot of much stranger things than a vehicle, honestly - so that part doesn't really stick out to her. Instead she thinks more about everything Aziraphale is saying as a whole.

"Hmm, I understand." Or she thinks so, at least, with that explanation. "It does seem like there isn't much progress in our situation."

Though she's used to that. It's kind of Wonderland's whole thing, isn't it.

"Even though some people seem fairly desperate to get off the train."

The concept of talking to the train is still entirely strange to Aziraphale - never mind what he is and how his perspective of the world at large would blow the minds of many, many humans, as an example - but since he has been told about such a concept more than once, he's stopped questioning it. Whether or not whoever he brings it up to is on the same level as him is something he doesn't quite dedicate any time to consider.

"Well...I can't say I don't relate." He sighs faintly. "I would much rather be in my world than stuck here. And all of this, if there is a point to it and the things we are told to do, I would quite like to know it." Which is a significant development from how he's lived his life ever since Earth was created until very recently, not that Alice is aware of that.

"I think you're quite spot on by using the word 'if' there." Rather than assuming there is a point and wanting to know it. Sure, Alice is not totally discounting the possibility that there may be some greater point behind everything they're doing here, but from her own experience..

"After all, often there is no point to things at all."

Sometimes things just don't make sense. If Wonderland taught her anything, it's that.

"Perhaps that's why we are being told so very little. Because there is nothing to tell us in the first place."

Although he doesn't comment on it, for just a moment, Alice sounds remarkably like one certain demon. And, in that moment, Aziraphale wonders if their connection made on that island was coincidence, too.

"Right." He says with some vaguely frustrated resignation, in a gentle sigh of the word. "But I can't help to think there must be something to it."

There's something about the vague frustration in the face of a situation like this that Alice recognizes - not from her experiences here on the train, but something from longer ago.

But it's just enough for her to not push the point. Not when he seems displeased enough with the situation. Instead she shifts slightly.

".. well, someone I know once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Even when that step may sometimes be hard to determine, especially in a situation like this. "If you truly wish to find out more, I'm sure you will find at least that first step."

At least the frustration eases from his face, the resignation perhaps a bit contested when she says that.

"That's quite true. And I do hope you're right." He's been trying to, at least. But his usual methods aren't quite paying off. Not yet, anyway. "I'm getting rather sick of having to choose between travelling to an unchosen destination, more often than not riddled with lurking dangers and strange happenings, or having to sit in a train for the rest of my days."

Which would be far too many days. All of the days. Unless something cut that short, and he would hope that was a solution and not, in fact, him meeting some sort of untimely end.

"I don't think we'll be here forever, at least."

Granted, Alice doesn't quite mean that 'forever' as literally as Aziraphale's days would turn out to be.. But even with the difference of length of a life, even for a human it wouldn't exactly be fun to be stuck on a train forever.

"Don't all things have an end, eventually?" Even her stay at the asylum did, and that really did feel like it would never end at multiple points. "Even though I'm not quite sure if that end to our journey here is something that will happen inevitably or if it's something that has to be brought about by us."

Don't all things have to end, eventually? Oh, how such a question bears such a weight in Aziraphale's mind. He's yet to discard all the meanings it had a year ago. Barely a breath and the blink of an eye for a creature like him, really.

His expression softens, however. He entirely agrees with her last assessment, though he fears to think what else could be brought on them by someone else, whoever they are. Part of him still believes the Almighty has to have something to do with this. But...

" That is usually the way of things." With the caveat of sometimes, far more often than it should, things not happening the way they were planned or assumed to be. "Suppose the best we can do is stay sharp and stay on our toes."

Her head slowly dips into a nod.

"That's what I'm planning on doing."

Even though she may not mind being away from home as much as other people - London was a miserable place, after all - she's all too aware of the downsides of their stay here on the train as well. She's planning on keeping an eye out for anything special.

There's a small, awkward pause. Like the girl just hasn't had enough proper conversations to know how to really end them, and so she slowly says. "Well.. Good luck to you with that too, then."

Good job, Alice. Totally not awkward. (Except it definitely sounded awkward.)

(Aziraphale was in London during her time, of course. His experience was, by nature, radically different than any young human person of lower means would ever be able to have. But he wasn't blind to the injustices and terrible deeds that ran abound back then. Such things seemed to be a bit of a constant, unfortunately.)

Aziraphale takes the hint, given to manners as he is (often employing a similar tactic, albeit a bit more smoothly). He gives the young woman a polite nod, already planning what to do with his next turnip-based creation.

"And you as well, dear girl. Hopefully, it will all work itself out."

He hopes. It wouldn't be too silly to think it could happen a second time around, would it?

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it's halloween, lo-ween, everybody!

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