hellawrath | IC Inbox

[It's time to fill this inbox with garbage!

Should Taako deliver them, Lup will receive +2 shiny beach pebbles. Why? Because "they're the color of her eyes."]

[Does Lup regret letting this gremlin into her life yet?? Because Ren has another gift for her.

This time in the form of a flower crown, with a similar color palette to the one she gave Taako, accompanied with small bits of tape that hold it together. Any exposed stems have been colored with her new chalk, making it kind of ridiculous looking, but at least it's colorful!]

[I'll take 'I'm getting tired of this child spamming my inbox for $500, Alex'. Well, this is what happens when you let raccoons stay in your tent. Don't judge.

Lup gets a special crown, specified for Barry should he arrive, made out of blackberry stems with some of the berries still attached because 'it's their name too'. There's a bunch of tape holding the short stems together, and it's really more of a weird, branch circle than a crown, but she Did Her Best.]

Aunt Lup!

[She can probably hear her from the tent but whatever. Ignore that. She's a happy beepo.]

Do you know where I am?

Surprise, binch. Whilst Chara intends to be Well And Truly Away most of the day, it's only partially due to the copious amount of drug usage Enso is about to see.

The other reason comes in a large, colorful box located in the tent, a ripped out piece of paper simply stating For Lup and Taako in neat cursive. Because you don't get one twin presents you just get them both shit you know they'll love????

Which is why, upon opening said box, these underserving elf shits will find:

Two t-shirts. The pink one is for Taako, obvs.

More t-shirts because Chara fuckin' said so.

So many hair doobies. Go wild. Style to your greatest imaginations. There's definitely like, a dozen odd things to Stick In Their Hair because you do you, narcissistic boogaloo.

Some nice brushes SHARE LIKE GOOD CHILDREN.

Anyway so yeah hap birth it's not like they like you or anything whatever.

There is no real routine to island life unless you create it yourself. The months Shepard has spent here have given her more free time than she has had in literal years. She's still not sure how she feels about it, but judging how she wakes herself up at the crack of dawn to patrol the island practically every day probably says more than anything she could come up with. This self-inflicted patrol has its benefits though- she gets to watch the sunrise over the beach, gets to watch the birds awaken from their nests in the trees, gets to see how the fruits are growing in various orchards, observe a rather large object trying unsuccessfully to grab coconuts out of a palm-

Wait.

She turns back around and watches carefully, noting the shaking of palm fronds in the air as something moves within its branches. It doesn't take her long to realize it's a person, and it's only a fraction of a second longer for her to realize it's Lup. She must have wandered farther into Enso than she thought. She walks up to the base of the tree and looks up.

"Lup. You need any help up there?"

Lup's Stone of Farspeech crackles to life as a voice comes in. Do these things crackle? They do now. And hey, your old buddy Merle is at the other end.

"Lup! Something just-- Something amazing is on that island! I think Pan's trying to reach me!"

It's probably like at the ass crack of dawn or something. Stop meditating or whatever, this is more important.

Meanwhile, Merle is running at top speed back towards Camp BASE from wherever he was when this revelation of plant owls came to light.

[They've probably messaged her on the iRock before and 90% of the time it's probably been with their Business Voice but-- that voice isn't doing so good, right now. That voice is a little too tense to be calling just for business.]

Would Magnus happen to be close by you, right now? I- could use both of your assistance. Immediately.

It's the sight of (what looks like) an unmanned store that gets Taako's attention first; whatever pointless bullshit he's saying dies out mid-word, and leaves his mouth hanging open like a dumbass novelty wall fish for a second there. What have they even got Stones of Farspeech for if people aren't gonna call for replacements when they get bored and wanna fuck off from their perfectly legitimate responsibilities? He huffs theatrically. This isn't the note an impromptu Twin Day should end on, but someone has left him no choice.

"What kind of store do these jokesters think we're running? Who's on tap today, it better be someone I can yell at."

[Guess who's next on the list? The five minute mark barely hits and Ren's back on the phone after her talk with Uncle Taako, ready to hit up someone that's too brave for her own good. The are you okay messages are mostly directed towards [1] problem elf with a penchant for coming back with injuries.

So here she is, ready to mother hen the heck out of someone who definitely doesn't need it, but is getting the full brunt of it right now immediately.]

Aunt Lup-

[Then silence? So much silence, like she needs to get a whole gigantic breath in before her verbal onslaught.]

Are you okay? Did you bring enough food? Does your fire still work?

[Is this a bad time? Probably.]

[Still, they look for her all the same, one of a very small margin who may be able to help them, right now. She's probably busy, or perhaps not... back yet, but that's fine.]

[When they do find her, they won't take up much of her time.]

Nothing seems to brighten her aunt's mood lately and it doesn't take glance at the remaining flower petals to figure out why. The final days of the plague were a hazy mess, but she remembers, vividly, the frantic tremble in Lup's voice as she tried to reach her, the loving, gentle melody that calmed her terrified heart in those final moments.

She doesn't want to think about it-not again, but it's hard not to be reminded of those horrible weeks whenever she catches Lup's gaze. The memories must be stuck in her head too, if her tired eyes are any indication, and she wonders if her dreams are causing her problems. Wonders if she's able to rest at all or if the onslaught of thoughts keeps her up at night.

It's why she wants to help, in her own way. It's too hard to ask outright and tear open a wound that's only begun to heal for all of them, so she starts off small, by placing tiny, shiny stones under Lup's pillow before she goes to sleep, wakes up in the middle of the night to cover her with that special yukata 'cape', makes sure her hair's braided first every morning and requests to brush it with that special, charmed brush Barry let her use while Lup slept for a week.

But nothing works. The temporary smiles don't ever reach her eyes and she escalates her efforts to telling her nonsensical stories about fire princesses and space princes who like berries, drawing pictures of her and Hot Boi and Taako and Barry and Chara and anyone she's ever cast a smile towards and-

Nothing. It doesn't change anything for more than a few minutes, at most.

And that's when she tries her newest trick-a special power bestowed on her by Kravitz and one she hasn't gotten the full mileage out of yet. The next time she's able to catch Lup alone, she becomes armor. It doesn't matter if Lup's laying down to rest or trying to accomplish some kind of task-it's happening right now. Her arms wrap around her aunt's whole body and she squeezes as tight as she can.

"This is called 'Ren Armor'-I think this kind of thing will help your heart."

[Their birthday likely passes without much fanfare since ages are apparently subjective and everything is 1% more chaotic than normal right now.

However, she didn't forget and one afternoon when everyone's relatively themself, she manages to coerce Kravitz into helping her make, what likely is, the worst cake of all time. No one privy to this baking session knows what ingredients to use and everything's terrible. Also, what icing? But she seems proud, especially of the leftover sparklers dotting the top, lighting up the terrible, barely edible mess like it's a festival all its own.

And you know what else is terrible? The First Gift.

A Cantrip.

A literal can, with chalk covered salt in varying shades of red and orange and yellow, mixed with some colored, crushed leaves. "Hot Boi let me take this from its nest" probably makes the creature sound as willing as the lobster had been, meaning it wasn't and also, it's terrible. The phoenix is probably pretty offended and who knows how long it'll take to get back into its good graces.

Thankfully, her eye off with Hot Boi doesn't last long because Lup gets a Thing-one she doesn't throw, because it's a lot smaller. The fire opal necklace is handed off far more delicately than the hammock. The Storyteller found this special treasure for you.

But is that it?? No?? It's never it, honestly. Alongside these humble offerings, she offers a cryptic message to "not go anywhere scary until you get the last gift".

And that?

What a mystery.]

Smart kids.

Way too smart for him, not that it's ever hard to be. Smart kids with a dedication that's pathological and irreversible. They've altered entire worlds. They're the most determined creatures in the universe.

And they knew him well enough to know that if they didn't force him to get up and do this, he never would.

They said to wait a week. He's just...not sure he can do that. Not when he's already breaking at the seams, and someone's bound to notice, and the news is bound to reach her anyway.

It's better that she hear it directly.

So he makes the trek to the camp where the elves stay with one note in hand, the other in his pocket. He knows the route well enough by now. His face is still stiff and wet, and his free hand keeps compulsively jerking up over the heart-shaped lump underneath his shirt.

"L..." The word is rusty, croaking. He needs to do this. They wanted him to do this. They wanted him, specifically, to do this in person. He's just not sure he can.

Swallow, and try again.

"Lup." Louder. She's gotta be here. Right? "L...Lup?"

Edited 2019-08-11 21:56 (UTC)

[She knew it would be hard.

Knew the second the word sis left that woman's mouth, while she was in the throes of her own grief, that it would hurt. She thought it would happen the day she found out about her illness-that it would end in rejection and a different sort of hurt than the one consuming her that day.

But-

Sis is what hurts the most now. It weighs on her heart as she picks up chores she used to ignore. Sweeps dust out of the tent openings because it won't be comfortable for her to dig the bits of sand out of her long hair when she comes back to sleep and-

She won't come back. Ren knows that. Doesn't really think much about it as she sets on this mindless task. As she sits around a fire that's too empty and flips a phone in her hand that goes unanswered no matter how many times she tries to say her name.

No matter how many times she thinks of her sis-of her aunt. It doesn't change anything.

It's hard to do her hair now and more often than not, she doesn't bother. Kravitz tries-makes tiny little braids and strands and tries to put little trinkets, but-

Sometimes she sits in a corner and tries to do it alone-reaches back behind her head to get those loops pulled tight- they were always hard to reach, but the little bands to keep her hair up are in short supply and it's not worth her accidentally flicking them. She could ask for more, but-

It wouldn't be the same.

She thinks about her family sometimes. Thinks how they made this a family. How Lup made a family here, out of nothing. Out of sticks and leftover fabric and stolen goods from islands that no longer exist and-

She calls for Aunt Lup now, because it's hard without her. Because Umui is back and they took care of her and now they aren't here. Because it's not a family without them all and-

She calls for Sis sometimes, when it hurts more than normal. When the flowers twist and dig into her heart and she wants to hold someone's hand and she needs to be there for Kravitz. Muster some of that strength Sis had-a woman who won't answer, who isn't answering, and she's not sure she can do it. Be anything like her, keep this last piece of home safe and-

She brings the fresh water back to camp sometimes. Drags it by the pail handle and looses more than she intends, because Kravitz shouldn't have to do everything and maybe if they see she's trying, they might come back.

She knows it doesn't work like that, but-

She hopes it might.]

early september delivery

late september delivery

mid-october delivery

3/30 irocking from the freaking tent

4/20 BLAZE IT

BACKDATED TO 2/14 because gay knows no boundaries of time

did u think i FORGOT / backdated to before the event

Backdated to uhhhh May 4th because what's time

what up trucknuts

7/15 iSTONE

8/20

end of august

LATE APRIL DELIVERY

8/12

no subject