OPEN | the "Lost People" mingle!

[boyhood]

Who: Every lonely person with a story to tell! (Check out the OOC details if you haven't yet!) Oh, and Peter Pan (boyhood), too.
Where: Mingles are out on the mansion grounds.
When: June 4th-6th, night.
Rating: PG-13? We'll see.
Summary: Peter is up to old tricks. Using his influence as the Pied Piper, Peter gathers together everyone in Wonderland he can for a celebration. Are you ready to make some new friends, sad sacks? This doubles as a convenient excuse to see how many vulnerable children there are.
The Story:



So you heard a little tune on the air and you've come to play! The more, the merrier. Night 1 isn't strictly an action event, but if you'd like to have your characters react, or just want to thread something out for that time, go for it. Night 2 and Night 3 are where the action's at. The prompts are general ideas of what's going on!

Anyone who isn't invited is going to find they can't figure out where everyone's disappeared to, exactly, and if they do go to a location, it's going to look like nothing's going on. Strange, huh? For those who are invited, he only rule is this: mingle to your hearts' content! Make new posts, tag into things, do what makes the most fun!

After each night, everyone will be free to disperse before the sun comes up. They'll wake up in their beds feeling refreshed, with the pleasant, surreal sense they've just had a sweet dream.

Except it wasn't really a dream, was it?

Comments

[rattus_rattus]

What should I be celebrating? The fact that I get to grow up to be a monster?

[He's angry and bitter. His tone melts through his numbness and he begins to feel enraged. Merlin, he hates that he has to live with this burden on his shoulders and everyone around him gets to celebrate as if nothing ever happened.]

Would you be celebrating if some bint wrote a book where you betrayed your best friends, killing them, attempting to murder their infant son, and throwing one mate in the worst prison imaginable while cowardly running away? Let me drown in sugar. At least it tastes good.

[boyhood]

<sub>[This is subtle magic he's worked, and it's not designed to dominate someone's mind and heart. The source of the boy's tirade--anger and what Pan sees as a little bit of hopelessness--is a thunderstorm compared to the light little rain shower of upbeat energy he's cast.

If he's thrown for a loop by any of this, it doesn't show on his face. He blinks, and for a beat of time of that's all.]</sub>

So someone took your name and wrote a little story about you. So what? Not everything put down on paper is true, you know. _{[He gives a little shake of his head.]} If that's a future that might come to pass, it hasn't happened yet. You haven't grown up. You can't feel guilty over things you haven't done and might never do.

<sub>[What he doesn't say is that he's familiar with monsters, and betrayal, and murder, and cowardice--he's guilty of all of these things himself, and his story makes a roguish hero out of a villain instead of the other way around. But that's not information likely to inspire confidence here.

He slides over, reaching out to put a steadying hand on Peter's shoulder.]</sub>

Listen, you should be celebrating, and you want to know why? Futures can be changed. _{[He points at the other boy.]} Your future. You've already got the most powerful thing of all when it comes to changing fate--foresight.

[rattus_rattus]

[Peter wants to believe that it can change. He wants to be able to write off all the shite that James told him as being fiction but he can't. Maybe the reason he can't is what troubles him even more.]

Can I tell you a secret?

[Peter shifts closer to Pan, suddenly feeling as though he can trust this boy with every dark and rotten thing he's ever hidden deep down. That Pan is more than just his friend, he's the one who could make meaning out of Peter's sad little pathetic life.]

I'm not sad because it's a bad story. I'm sad because it's fucking true and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I might not know why but it's going to happen. Because whatever monster pops to the surface in two years time has been there for a very long time.

[boyhood]

_{[A secret? He nods.]}

Of course.

_{[And he's warm about it, inviting, because there's nothing that scares, nothing that shakes his loyalty to his fellow boys.]}

Ah. _{[His demeanor shifts, turning more knowing than surprised.]} You're worried you've set your own course. Then let me ask you this, why would you? Even the very worst of us have their reasons. As would you.

[rattus_rattus]

But I don't want to know what those reasons are. I don't ever want to be that person who betrays their friends and hands them over to be slaughtered.

[Peter shakes a little, afraid and angry at himself.]

I hate that person. I hate... me.

[boyhood]

Everybody has a reason for everything they do. Even the very worst of us with monsters inside.

_{[A gentle reminder before he starts to shake his head, too--for a different reason than the other boy. Pettigrew doesn't need to be afraid and angry, he should be bolstered.]}

But I've met a lot of bad people who've done far more than that, and take it from me, you're not that kind of boy, to lose control like them. I'm a good judge of character. _{[Then glances away like one in thought, drawing his lip between his teeth, before he looks back again.]} But what if you never had to take the chance. Never had to become that person? When I said there were ways to change the future, I meant it.

[rattus_rattus]

[Change the future? Now Peter is intrigued, if not a bit skeptical.]

How? Is there really a way that could happen? Besides staying here forever. I've thought about that, you know. If I just stay in Wonderland I never have to go back, never have to turn around and kill my mates and destroy everything.