~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

Rex | vday | time for them to be dense as a sack of rocks

Rex scoffed, waving his free hand. "Months," he said dismissively. Too long. Sweeping the grief aside, he cracked a grin. "You missed me getting shot. Got sniped right off my speeder." He laughed quietly. "Thought Kix was going to have my head. He was ready to shoot me again to make me stay in bed."

| Eurydice | Valentine's Day Room | Orpheus |

Eurydice felt her ears burn red though she wasn't exactly sure why, as Orpheus spoke of love songs. "Do you ever play angry songs? Or sad songs?" She asked, genuinely curious. "I can't really see you doing that. Angry songs, I mean. But sad ones... maybe." She mused pensively.

"Dancing songs, if the mood's right." Eurydice snuck a glance over to the tearful pair quietly talking amongst themselves. It was definitely not the time for that, and plus she didn't know anyone here, hardly, so it just didn't seem like the right time. But she did love music that made you hear your heartbeat in your own ears, music that you could get lost in.

"Or just... beautiful ones. Ones hands have played many times over, so they flow smooth like... like... setting the table at a place you know. Familiar. Footpath songs. Er, something like that." Eurydice tripped over her words, unaccustomed to spewing poetry like Orpheus was.

Sal Fisher | Valentine’s Room

Sal wasn’t sure he knew that much about friendships, either, but he did think that being friends with a ghost wasn’t actually as weird as it sounded. Besides, he was friends with a fire bender, wasn’t he? That would have probably been even harder to understand in his world.
He wasn’t sure if there were ghosts in Zuko’s world, though. At least…he’d recognized the word. So there was probably at least some concept of them.
“Wait, what?” He blinked, looking up as Zuko continued. “All of them?”
He turned, taking in all the people again. The two intense ones at the table, talking in lower, more serious voices. The other two were future away, but Sal could still tell they knew each other just by how they were looking at each other…at least, he thought he could.
He shook his head slowly, looking back at Zuko. “No. I mean, I guess I knew there were other blinkers, but…you’re the only one I’ve actually met. I just assumed…”

Rex | vday | oh yes

Rex tsked, shaking his head in disappointment. "At this rate the CIS army will just wipe itself out. According to Skywalker they already did that on Naboo before the official start of the war, so maybe they're getting back on it."

"A holiday hm?" he said, looking around and taking in the many. Many. Many pink and red heart shaped decorations, as well as Touka's beet red face. "Let me guess," he said dryly after a moment. "It's a ✧･ﾟ*✧･ﾟ* love *･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ✧ holiday." The thought amused him to no end. He knew that a lot of different planets had different holidays, so it wasn't surprising that there was one for lo- wait.

The gears in Rex's brain turned slowly as he took in the only other people in the room. They were all in pairs. They were all in pairs.

"Nine f[oops]ing hells," he muttered under his breath.

“Angry songs and sad songs,” Orpheus echoed, taking a second to think about that. “I don’t often play angry songs, but I’ve had to learn more of them. I sing great poems and stories of battles, but… I always think that those are more sad than they are angry. My crew likes angry songs, I think. It makes them feel righteous and justified.” He gave a small shake of his head, then lifted his gaze to meet Eurydice’s once more.
“Yes, I sing a lot of sad songs. There’s love in those, too. Honestly… I think there might be more love in sad songs than happy ones. There’s more of a tangible feeling in them, that there’s something that was worth holding onto that’s been lost.” He breathed out, then gave a small, genuine smile.
“I have… an idea of a song to play,” he admitted, fingers settling into place on the strings. He held Eurydice’s gaze for a long moment before his eyes closed and he began to strum. It wasn’t a happy song, but it wasn’t a sad one either. It was a folk song, one he had been learning since he was a child. One every person he knew had heard at least once before. It was the House, so he doubted Eurydice had heard it before, but he hoped the age of it came across in the tenor of the notes.

“I mean… I can’t say for certain all of them,” Zuko replied, shrugging a little bit. “But most of them, for certain. House people don’t really interact with each other like this.” He cast a sidelong glance at Matt, then frowned. “I don’t know about that one, but the other two pairs… yeah. I’m pretty sure they’re blinkers.”
It was weird to realize how limited Sal’s experience in the House had been compared to Zuko’s. He had met so many fewer people, seen so many fewer rooms… it was easy to forget that Sal was, for all intents and purposes, a newbie.
“They’re also not paying us any attention, except to acknowledge that we exist. It’s too human for a House person.” At least… in Zuko’s opinion. He hoped he wasn’t giving the House ideas for how to make its creations more realistic…
“You seriously don’t know what all the hearts and stuff are for?” Zuko asked, picking up a small piece of shiny confetti and flicking it at Sal.

Rex | vday | rex is taking a sharp left and hitting the gas

No. No that couldn't be it. He didn't even like Touka. They were friends. Yeah, no it was fine. Besides, the others in the room were just hanging out and talking too. It was probably just a celebratory room like several of the other holiday rooms.

Rex waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing," he said, hauling himself up. "Want to check out the food and see if they have anything good this time?"

Joey | Valentines day | dude I have an essay due tonight |

A man dressed head to toe in black and a partially white mask blinks into the room. He is wearing a dashing tuxedo, no wrinkles, oddly perfect in about every sense. He had black leather gloves and a pair of dress shoes that were shined. Yet he still wore the same bandana mask stained by small, red droplets. He isn't in his usual outfit and that leaves him utterly confused. He admires the craft of the gloves for a couple of seconds.

Yet the red heart decorations and the man in front of him quickly diffuse his initial confusion. "Couldn't get enough of me, could you?" He teases uneasily. It screams of a certain holiday but it was oddly strange since Christmas was right around the corner. With not much of a choice besides making a run for it, Joey reluctantly grabs a seat at Matt's table and sits himself down.

Sal Fisher | Valentine’s Room

“Hey!” Sal protested again, though he couldn’t quite keep the hint of laughter from it this time. “Okay, yeah, so maybe I have a guess, but that’s not the same as knowing. It’s just…probably the same.”
He reached without looking, trapping a piece of confetti under his thumb and cocking his head just a little at him. “Anyway, it’s about time I had inside information about the House that you don’t. My turn to look knowledgeable and impressive here.”
He knew he could say no and mean it, and he knew Zuko would drop it if he did. But…something held him back.

| Eurydice | Valentine's Day Room | Orpheus |

Eurydice nodded thoughtfully. That was true, who were they to say? But Eurydice thought that there were far fewer righteous people in the world than people generally thought there were.

"Exist? That's where I'm from!" She answered. The sharp note hung in the air like an unanswered question. She hummed the corresponding note, rough and quiet in her throat. "I thought that everyone in the House was from different worlds..."

But it made sense. Orpheus had a name that sounded closer to her own world's names than the other names she'd heard. He dressed more similarly. And he knew a song that she knew. If she was going to choose anyone from the House to be in her world, she'd probably choose Orpheus.

“You’re from Thrace?” Orpheus repeated, eyes growing much wider than they had been even a moment before. “I mean… I’ve never met anyone from Thrace here! Or anywhere in Greece, really! I know someone who’s from what’s possibly from my world… or maybe our world… but very far in the future, but…” he grinned, searching Eurydice’s eyes and resisting the urge to put the guitar aside, pick her up, and spin her around. It was only the fact that they were both seated that stopped him.
“I just… wow…” he let out a huff of breath, the smile on his face open and surprised. “Is… is it bad that I want us to be from the same world? If only so… so I could have a chance to find a flower as beautiful as these in the fields beyond the town and give it to you?”

Zuko sorted as the confetti came flying back towards him. He met Sal’s gaze for just a moment before he lit a small fire in his hand, the heat from the flames lifting the confetti back up and sending it towards Sal (with the least risk of burning him Zuko could manage). If all went well, the confetti wouldn’t even be warm to the touch.
“You know perfectly well what I said,” he replied, unable to tear his gaze away from Sal. “You just wanna hear me say it again.”

“Hey!” Zuko yelped in dismay as the confetti ignited, melting for a moment before the fire burned through and reduced it to ash. Zuko extinguished the fire, staring at the small, blackened ashes of confetti in his hand. He was tempted to pick up a few more pieces and flick them at Sal, but he wasn’t sure if Sal had ended it because he didn’t want to mess around with them anymore or for another reason.
“Something about Sal Fisher being a ****,” Zuko replied, a laugh building behind his tone. “You tell me what the hearts mean and I’ll repeat what I said.” A cocky smile teased at his lips as he looked at Sal, brow raised in anticipation of a response.

Orpheus felt a blush creep onto his own face, a shade of pink to match Eurydice’s. It went along with the general decor, though Orpheus couldn’t say for sure if it was designed that way or not. He kept his attention focused on Eurydice, only looking down when she gave her verdict.
“I guess… I am kind of mushy,” he admitted, awkwardly scratching at the back of his neck. “I like doing things that make other people happy, and that make their lives just a little bit more worth living. I can’t change how Apollo drives the sun forward on his golden chariot, but I can give someone a bit of his brilliance in the form of a sunflower. I guess… it’s the little things like that that are important. But only if you like flowers.”

“Involving bending made it cool, you’re just too proud to admit it,” Zuko teased lightly, letting the ashes of the confetti drift down to the ground as he looked up at Sal.
“Guess?” he asked, looking around the room with his brow arched in a way that made clear how incredulous he was. “It could mean literally anything. I’ve never even seen a shape like that before. And I’m willing to bet the red doesn’t represent the Fire Nation.”
He reached up and touched one of the hearts dangling from the ceiling, then let his gaze drift back down towards the table. He had ignored the glossy paper-thing lying on top before, but it seemed that was the most likely thing to help him guess.
“Valentine’s Day Lunch Menu,” he read, brow furrowing as he looked at it. “What the heck is Valentine’s Day?”

Sal Fisher | Valentine’s Room | strider

Sal had been hoping there would be some connection between what the hearts meant in his world and what they would mean to Zuko, but from the way Zuko was looking around the room…it seemed that wasn’t happening.
He could explain the room without mentioning why they were there. But really…how long would it take Zuko to figure it out? As far as he could tell, everyone else had already split off into pairs, and the two he could see well looked like they were probably doing better so far.
“What?” He yelped, turning sharply back as Zuko spoke. “That’s…oh!”
He hadn’t even noticed the menus, he’d been too distracted by everything else.
Now that he had help from the room, he wasn’t sure he wanted it anymore.
“Involving bending was cheating,” he said instead, choosing the safer topic at the last second.