diatu | you're the first one when things turn out bad

you're the first one when things turn out bad

Who: EVERYONE, you're all invited. Or invited to happen upon this, if you missed the invite, and spot it happening in the Great Hall.
What: Aziraphale wants to show off his best friend, so he's invited you all to a tea party.
Where: The Great Hall
When: Tuesday after classes
Warnings: Tyzias is a menace, there's no reason to think anything at ALL about The Arrangement, and if the invite was any indication, the ineffables probably cannot be contained

Due to circumstances which will not be discussed (but, namely, that Pallidus cannot be in indirect sunlight), and using weather as an excuse, Aziraphale's planned tea party out on the lawn has been moved indoors.

He's gone all out. There is plenty of tea (with optional sugar and cream), biscuits (by which we mean crisp cookies), some small cakes that are rather adorably decorated, a fruit pie or two, and treats provided by Sunset Shimmer. (And possibly booze, if Tyzias did decide to bring some). Casual though the gathering is, he's set a proper table to hold their food, with a table cloth, a few candles, some nice napkins. This is not slipshod work. This is the work of someone aesthetically living in a past century who feels like he has waited a good millennia for this moment and is going to do this right.

And what This is, is introduce his demon best friend to polite company. As Crowley put it.
It's true, though. Except where Tyzias is concerned, anyway.

In the center of the table is a small, homey potted plant. Nothing particularly extravagant. Leafy and green and moderately well-cared for, recently purchased, and even more recently labeled with a tag that says "For: Crowley." The "for" was added secondary, after it occurred to Aziraphale that it looked a bit like he'd named the plant Crowley. Which he had not.

Aziraphale, aka Mr. Fell, is playing the anxious, bustling, gracious host as best he can, while being utterly preoccupied with his friend: a tall, gangly ginger who he introduces to everyone as "Crowley." Any assumptions one might make about the two apparently middle-aged, man-shaped beings is entirely one's own assumptions. But if Aziraphale is glowing with joy and affection, and eager to tell stories about the two of them, that's just how it is.

When things settle down and everyone has been served tea and introduced, he might try to show off some silly card-tricks: absolutely typical sleight-of-hand like humans perform, and not performed especially well. He's doing this mainly to annoy Crowley and seems to delight in that, even if he is a little genuinely embarrassed at how rusty his skills have gotten.

Come, join in, mingle. Hang out with your fellow classmates and enjoy some treats. We're coming up on the end of a year and, like a harvest festival, it's time to make new friends, rekindle old bonds, share in some good food, and party before the winter.

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Mr. Fell had been so kind, taking Pallidus' "skin condition" into account for this party. As nice as it would be to have tea on the lawn, today was not the day Pallidus was willing to test the fates with his possible sun allergy.

Dressed in a somewhat old fashioned style and with his horns sporting delicately spun silver chains, Pallidus does his best to mingle amongst all the rest of the party-goers. He speaks politely, if a little coolly, with anyone new, but smiles more warmly towards familiar faces.

Taking up a cup of tea and several lavender biscuits, Pallidus smiles fondly at the gift for Crowley before moving to find a seat.

Tyzias lurks at the fringes of the party, fiddling with some (probably) magic thing as she casts a curious gaze over the attendees. She has to get this right on the first try, or else Fell will probably shut her right down. So- oh hey Pallidus.

Shuffling to his table from her shadowed corner, Tyzias pulls out a seat. "May I?" she asks, grin indicating that the politeness is ironic. She's undoubtedly up to something here.

Seeing that now quite familiar face smirking in his direction and with such uncharacteristic politeness caused the prince to give a short, undignified snort. For a moment his red eyes shone and nose crinkled with warmth before he schooled it back to something cooler.

"Please, you honor me with your presence, Miss Entykk." Taking a cocktail napkin, Pallidus removes one of his lavender cookies from his stack and slides it over to her. "Have a biscuit. It's quite good."

A pause, then Pallidus also pushes over the nearby bottle of ketchup to her. Just in case.

Tyzias sits down daintily, unscrews the ketchup bottle, and pours it into a shotglass before downing it in one gulp. "Hm. Excellent vintage," she says, dead serious for all of five seconds before bursting into uncontrollable laughter.

Nibbling at the biscuit, Tyzias looks out at the party, smirking. "Honestly, I thought Sore-Gor was pulling my leg when he invited all of us to a tea party with his sourspade just to annoy the shit out of him. Never thought that tea parties could actually be this boring."

Okay, that does get a laugh out of Pallidus, though he tries to hide it behind curled fingers.

"Oh, come now, it's not too bad. Quite a large turn-out and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves." His gaze flickers over to Crowley sprawled out over a chair while he derisively makes comments about Aziraphale's poor attempts at card tricks. A huff of amusement leaves him but it's tinged with something a little more somber.

"It must be nice, having someone so close to you Sundered to this world."

"...okay, I'll admit watching Fell make a fool out of himself is pretty damn entertaining," Tyzias says, a phantom smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. "Especially when he's too prideful to realize how ridiculous he's being." Look. Tyzias has had to deal with Fell on a regular basis for almost her entire tenure here. She's earned a little schadenfreude.

Tyzias's expression darkens, and she swirls her ketchup thoughtfully. So many of the others on Vaikuntha had company, even if it was only for a little while. But her? Until they returned to save Paradox Space, Tyzias was functionally the last and only troll. She didn't even know Terezi, and didn't get the opportunity to so much as give Stelsa a goodbye kiss that her matesprit would forget.

Despite everything, Tyzias felt—and still feels—alone.

"...yeah," she says, and her isolation can be felt in the undercurrent of her voice, "yeah. I can only imagine."

Considering how at ease Tyzias has been just moments before, the change in mood was depressingly palpable. If it was loneliness she felt, he could definitely relate.

“I’ve never really been away from home before and...” He hummed. Stirring the sugar around in his cup of tea he glanced at Tyzias out of the corner of his eye. “... Did I ever tell you I’m engaged?”

Of course he hadn’t. He would definitely remember if he had. Still, he wasn’t sure if she was actually interested or if she would rather dismiss the subject. But it didn’t seem like a bad idea to suggest sharing in their loneliness a bit.

Tyzias has always viewed marriage as a quaint practice. Sweet, but completely impractical (at least on Alternia). Forever pledging yourself to a single being is sweet, especially when you don't have to fuck at least two to survive due to government-mandated genetic collection policies, but what happens if one of you dies? Gets pulled off to a different front? Or becomes attracted to somebody else?

Maybe she'll understand it after a few more sweeps of separation from Alternian culture, but...

"Ooh. Who's the lucky demon?" Tyzias asks, smiling genuinely.

Judging from what little she’s spoken of Alternia, Pallidus wouldn’t say he would be surprised if Tyzias had negative feelings regarding marriage in a place like that. He wouldn’t be able to fathom how it would even work, let alone know if it were even allowed in the traditional sense. Still, she didn’t seem to be lacking in understanding of how it should work for him.

“Not a demon at all, actually,” Pallidus responds with a small smile. “A human princess. Her father and mine made a deal when I was only a few weeks old; King Zinzo would save the Kingdom of Suida from suffering any further ravages of war from the neighboring kingdoms and King Rodai would provide three daughters to marry his three sons.”

It was old news for Pallidus, a story he had heard and recounted so many times over the past year that it felt almost like a fairytale in his own mind. But it was the truth of things and he accepted it as such. “I only met Princess Tyria a few months ago in person.”

...

...

...

"...no offense, friendo, but that's really fucked up."

Pallidus jerks, blinking rapidly as if having trouble processing her words.

“Ah... what... what’s wrong with it?”

Tyzias slaps her forehead and groans. "Ugh, right. You're from a medieval world. Arranged marriage must be pretty common there." Fuck, she's going to have explain that hundreds of years of political tradition are wrong to a noble ingrained in it, isn't she?

"Okay, so imagine that you're a normal kid. Living your life, having fun in a stuffy, noble way, et cetera et cetera. Then as soon as you're old enough to understand your daddy kneels down, looks you straight in the eye, and tells you that you're getting married to, uh..." What would be a good analogy here? "A giant squid that lives in the sea that your people have all sorts of horrible rumors about. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, you're going to have to make with the kissy-kissy with the squid.

"The fact that you're a reasonably nice, attractive guy—although I'm no expert on that—doesn't really factor into things. You spend a good chunk of your childhood in fear of this squid thing, and even if it turns out to be a handsome merman you still have absolutely no say in the matter, and since you're in the sea you aren't going to be able to visit your family, friends, or anyone you've ever known."

Okay, that comparison makes him laugh. Not too much; the party hasn’t been that crazy ~~yet~~.

“Oh, no, that I can agree with. It shouldn’t have been a problem, but King Rodai didn’t, ah, quite manage to tell Tyria before she was called to Cavernae so...” It was definitely worse than just fearing who or what you were asked to marry.

Pallidus ran fingers through his thick, dark hair. “I would rather things had gone differently, but it was out of my hands.”

"..."

Tyzias slumps, forehead gently bumping against the table. Pallidus was a decent man, all things considered, but she couldn't help but to feel sorry for the poor girl who got saddled with him.

"So she's fated by a magically enforced contract to marry you. Is that right."

I mean, when you put it like that...

"Kind of? It's more complicated than that. The magic of demon deals are, well, not fickle, but no different than any other contract." Pallidus shrugs. "As it involved someone outside of their majority, their guardian, in this case, her father, was able to make a deal without her consent, but now that she is of age, it's still up to her to decide if she wants to marry me."

Pallidus bites his bottom lip, suddenly unsure. "... I don't actually know what it would mean should she decide against it. Father insisted we have a year-long engagement to allow her ample time to decide it that's what she wished. Were she not to agree, I'm honestly at a loss as to what I would do."

He couldn't imagine a future without Tyria by his side. Or perhaps he just didn't want to imagine it.

"Of course. There's nothing complicated or traumatizing about getting abducted to the Underworld, away from all your friends and family, to be ceaselessly courted by a creature straight out of the fairytales they tell to naughty children.

"A very polite creature straight out of the fairytales they tell to children, but still."

“Excuse me? I am not the one who offered the deal to her father. I am not the one who accepted the deal. And I am not responsible for her parents’ negligence in informing her of the betrothal.”

Seriously, what the hell Tyzias? Pallidus thought it would be pleasant reminiscing about missed loved ones. Instead he was facing accusations as though he were some monstrous cad. Or maybe just a monster.

Tyzias looks at Pallidus, droll. God, what a prick. The good kind of prick, but a prick nonetheless.

"I'm not saying any of that is your fault. But I am saying that you continued to participate in this system despite clearly knowing that it was wrong on some level.

"Also, Pallidus? Your eyes."

"Partici-" Pallidus huffs, incredulous. "I'll have you know, I do not have the ability to opt out either. Yes, it was wrong to have so much obligation dropped upon her, but that was her parents' decision. Either way, she would have had to marry someone of noble birth, whether they were demon or human. She told me she had previously received letters of intent.

"Beyond Tyria, there has never been any other option for me." For more reasons than just the existence of the deal.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Pallidus tried to rein in his outrage. He hadn't ever really spoken of his own feelings regarding the arrangement with anyone outside his brothers before. With his father, there was never any room for discussion at all.

Still simmering, he glared at her through the corner of his eye. "What about them?"

"One, they're glowing like a motherfucker. Moreso than usual. You alright?" Tyzias's concern is obviously genuine, completely untouched by the contempt she has for Pallidus's situation on his home world. It's almost like Tyzias is used to having completely impersonal yet very heated debates on a variety of esoteric concepts just to prove a- oh, right. Lawyer.

"Two, even if you're inside the system and are as chained by it as anyone else, you can still work to subvert it. The 'deal' isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was at first, so thank fuck for that, but have you considered that any system that overwrites the autonomy of young girls is inherently unjust both above and belowground, and as a somebody within that system you have some small power to change it?"

He didn't understand why her opinion on things affected him so greatly. If anything, whatever happened in this realm of existence didn't have any real weight on how things went back home, so he really shouldn't care. He didn't care. He really didn't.

He released a soft breath, and the shine to his eyes dulled back to its typical flat red. He responded dully, "Allergies."

"I will admit I am, unfortunately, too selfish to wish to be alone for the rest of my existence."

"That isn't selfishness. That's self-preservation, it's different." Tyzias sighs, tracing her fingertips around the rim of her wineglass. "Maybe I could've elucidated by points better. It's just... when you're in a position of power, you need to at least evaluate your ability to change things if a system is broken, and try to do what you can to fix it. That's moral obligation.

"But the key is doing what you can. Ultimate self-sacrifice isn't for everyone, and I don't begrudge people who aren't willing to risk it all on something that's guaranteed to not work." Tyzias takes a sip of her wine, assessing the red inside with an unreadable expression. "Back home, I toed that line, but convinced myself that it wasn't worth it. That I should just do what I could without causing too much of an upset, otherwise it would only make things worse. That was the only logical decision I could've made in the face of the odds I was facing.

"But now, with everything that's happened since I left... well. It tips the scales in the other direction. Now I'm convinced that if I get back home, it's my duty to bring down the Empire, because now I actually have a chance at doing it.

"Eternal sacrifice isn't for everyone. Hell, the fact that I'm actually considering it proves that I'm really fucked up and should probably see a therapist. But there's always a choice between action and inaction, and I'm no longer fine with the second.

"...fuck, I totally lost the thread there, didn't I?"

Pallidus could be stubborn when he wanted to be, and yeah, he kind of wanted to be right now, but when she started talking more about herself rather than pushing against him he felt compelled to listen. Slowly, the tension eased out of his stiff shoulders and by the time she finished he was watching her with an uncritical gaze.

"You have strong convictions, and that's admirable," he murmured, subdued. "I don't fault you for feeling as you do. And... I agree with what you're saying. Would that I could do more to help Tyria's situation it's just..."

He sighs. "I may be a prince, but you highly overestimate my influence. My father is not one to change his mind and he would remind me that until I am King I have no real power."

Perhaps after Tyria and he married, when they had children of their own, they could work to make things easier for their sons and daughters. But that was putting the cart before the horse now, wasn't it?

"You do have a lot of strength, Miss Entykk. I don't doubt you'll manage to make a true stand against the oppression in your world with your abilities. I wish I could say the same for myself, but I am afraid as I am now, my father could easily kill me should he wish." Pallidus gave her a wry smile. "Not that he would wish to, but he would do it if he had to. Refusing to marry Tyria wouldn't likely land me in such a bad spot, but I doubt he would ever try to help me find a wife again if I went against him, and that's perhaps just as bad."

Every time she sees Pallidus, it strikes her how incredibly Faerie he looks; the resemblance is particularly poignant at a party such as this. She knows that last time they spoke, he mentioned elves, but still -- she can't help but wonder if their worlds may be more similar than it seems.

(Part of her is incredulous at the fact that she misses being among the Folk, with their unending theatre of petty slights and fickle cruelties.)

She'll rise from her seat when he comes near, affecting a bow.

"Your Highness. Have you been well?"

Unaware of her somewhat mixed feelings about him, Pallidus offers Jude a smile and bows his head in greeting.

"Lovely to see you again, Lady Duarte. I have been well enough, I suppose, if one doesn't care to look too closely at my grades." He may be exaggerating somewhat but his grades could be better. His nocturnal lifestyle doesn't sit well with having three intense magic classes first thing in the morning.

Offering her a lemon scone, he takes a seat near her. "What of yourself? Still struggling with settling for this simple student lifestyle?"

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you're the first one when things turn out bad

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