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♥ Who: Lup + Close CR (who will be contacted! <3)
♥ Where: Lup's house
♥ When: start of August
♥ What: A ladies (kinda) night, the redux!
♥ Rating: PG and up, probably

Those who Lup deigned to grace with an invitation will receive one at random: that at the recipient's convenience if they so desire, they are invited to join her in what she is calling (without explanation) a Pocket Dimension Party. As per the instructions, any time within the next 24 hours, they can enter through the garden back door and "find the cat".

Should one accept the invitation and follow those instructions, they can find Ditto curled up in the grass beside the house, dozing, though at the arrival of any visitor he perks up and stretches. Rubbing up against their legs, Ditto will head over to a section of the wall and paw at a corner, until a door abruptly glimmers into existence and opens for him. He meows plaintively and waits. Go on in! Just close the door behind you.

Inside the doorway, visitors will find… a mansion. Elaborately decorated, warm, and inviting, it is like entering a rich and immaculate house that someone's taken a lot of time and TLC to make perfect. No one greets them as they enter, but if they call for attention and no one is in the immediate vicinity, a semi-transparent spectral servant will arrive and guide them to Lup. Otherwise, they are free to explore the house and make use of the facilities as they please.

The following areas are available:

An extravagant entrance hall with soft wood paneling and fancy art on the walls
A lounge area with big fluffy couches, pillows, and blankets, as well as a projection screen that works with communicators and whatever digital media Lup is familiar with, or a music mix in lieu of said media being played
A full-service kitchen and dining area, where a collection of spectral servants (features to be determined) will upon request cook any meal a person desires, assuming they (and by association Lup) are familiar with the recipe and ingredients. It's all delicious, too!
A sizable basement with regenerating training dummies, various targets, and more servants who will act as moving targets on request. They can't be hurt, but they can move around freely.
A big and beautiful spa with all the soaps and pampering material that anyone could ask for
A "pet room", AKA a room devoted to toys, climbing shelves, cat trees- whatever an animal might want to stay entertained for hours unsupervised

More details to be added as needed! This is a mingle free-for-all, there is no set schedule. Visitors can come and go as they please for 24 hours, and at the end of the spell anyone still inside will be summarily booted out into the garden.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Hmm. Well, better than what he could have said.]

You know, I'm familiar with a great way of improving one's self-worth.

[he was making a real effort!]

Oh? And what would you have in mind?

A little something called "self-care".

Sounds terribly difficult.

Anything is difficult if you keep saying it is. You know that this is self-care, right?

...I fail to see how the 'self' part applies when you're the one doing the work here.

It isn't just by your own hands. It's allowing yourself to have good things. Why do you think I asked you earlier about what you like?

...Oh.

[well, phrased like that it sounds incredibly obvious]

That does make a fair bit of sense, yes.

You can expand the list a little. Like... I'm pretty sure you enjoy getting your hair played with.

["Pretty sure", said with utmost confidence. The difference between her hands on his back and in his hair is night and day.]

I'm rather quickly learning this myself.

I'd be worried if you didn't.

[Surely no one is that unobservant...]

Seems like you have, mm... no-go spots. But you like to be touched, right?

[thankfully, ardyn tended to get some hints sooner rather than later.]

...I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about the idea for a while--it's taken a fair while of getting used to. But I do enjoy it, in some moderation.

Moderation?

[That's a little vague for her purposes.]

It's more that... [He trailed off briefly, looking for the right words.] ...after going without contact for a long while, it's easy to find myself a little overwhelmed by it.

[.....ah.

Lup's hands pause for a long moment, frozen against his hair. Ah, yeah.]

I get it. [Her voice is calm, but quiet.] Even if you get used to it, even if you love it, it's still... a lot. Time doesn't necessarily change that.

[He frowned a little when her hands stopped, caught between primarily concern with a faint selfish desire to want her to continue.]

...I hope I haven't said a little too much. [Gods forbid he should have upset her with his own problems.] But...yes, it's been a difficult thing to readjust to.

No, it's not... it isn't you.

[She exhales quietly before resuming her movement, though with some hesitance that wasn't there before.]

I understand, that's all. I was... stuck, for a while. On my own. It takes a long time to get used to corporeal touch when you've gone without for so long.

[Ardyn didn't answer for a long moment; he knew better than he wanted to how difficult a subject that kind of thing was.]

...I'd only just left when I arrived here. A...few months before, I think--I don't have much of a grasp on the passage of time anymore.

Yeah, that happens too. Part of it comes with agelessness, I think- when everything changes except for you, it's harder to gauge how long it's been. There's a weird uncertainty that comes from being constant, if that makes sense.

[She's not entirely sure it makes sense even to her, but it feels right nonetheless. She hesitates after, and then adds,]

No one notices, so no one asks.

[It was a good way to phrase something Ardyn himself hadn't fully understood. He felt out of place in more than mere exile; without Somnus or Aera he was the only one left in a way that lacked definition. Far from the only Lucian or even the only inhabitant of Eos in the city; the furthest thing from isolated or alone, and yet he felt so painfully lonely more than he felt made any sense.]

...it makes perfect sense, actually. And even if they asked, however would it be possible to explain?

Probably not in a way that people can easily get.

[Lup shrugs. That's just the way of it; she's gotten used to keeping it to herself. It's actually kind of nice to have someone who gets it the way that Barry did when they were stuck on a "lich year". A handful of months can't compare to years and years of isolation and touch-starvation, but the similarities here are aching in ways she hadn't expected, to both those years and her time in the Umbra Staff.

It's not just the touch thing. The rest... maybe she should have reached out sooner. She'd had no idea how deep this went.]

I can only say I've found it near impossible even when I thought I had the nerve to try.

[Even if he could fully bring himself to state it outright, how could anyone understand how it felt? He feared no one could ever come close, and the mere idea that Lup had the slightest inkling from the sound of it was an incredible relief. Even if he wished no one else would have to understand such a thing, at the same time...he felt a little less alone at the idea someone might.]

[His hands curled uncomfortably into loose fists before he folded both arms under his head to hide them.]

...I've rather brought the atmosphere down a little, haven't I? I hope you can forgive that, it's a terrible habit.

[She hums a response, noncommittal, and works quietly on brushing and weaving through his hair for a little bit before she speaks up again.]

Can you guess why this room exists?

...I don't know. My best guess would be you desiring a place where it would be easy to relax, though I wonder if it's not quite that straightforward.

A fair guess.

[On both parts. Very little about her is straightforward, after all.]

We were on a very long journey, my family and I, with no control over where we going or what we were looking for. Sometimes we'd end up in places that had no food, no water, no shelter. If not for magic we'd absolutely have died. This spell? It gave us all of that, once a day. We couldn't take food or supplies out, but while inside we could eat our fill and sleep safely. All we really needed was a couple of bedrooms and a kitchen to survive the year.

[She sets the brush aside and begins weaving his locks into a loose and lazy braid.]

We were stressed out of our minds, though. It'd been decades, living like that, with no end in sight and the apocalypse nipping at our asses. We were unravelling bit by bit, and it sucked. This place... this room... it's a room made for healing.