Logs:The Fae Look

The Fae Look
Dramatis Personae Blink, Joshua, Ren
In Absentia Damien	2024-07-26 "Venus fly traps are halfway to fairies themselves."
Location <NYC> Van Cortlandt Park - Riverdale
For some total mystery reason and much to the consternation of the neighbors, this park has in recent months become home to a growing mutant tent city. Whatever disturbance was happening over there recently it has now quieted down, and probably these two X-Men could simply have gone home after de-escalating. Joshua isn't blipping home, though, he's wandered across the park far afield from the small encampment toward a different sort of commotion entirely -- a bustling arts festival set up in the eastern half of the park. He's in the haphazard sort of messy-casual of someone who definitely was in or heading to bed when the ping of Potential Mutant Trouble came in -- cargo pants, old sneakers one of which is untied, a worn old tee advertising a production of Into the Woods from the Cambridge School of Weston in Massachusetts, the sharpie-marker signatures on it fading but sstill legibly made out to an "Adam" with their frenetic and cheerful exhortations to enshrine the production in memory 4ever. His kippah, red with a black flag embroidered on it, is kind of askew on his shaggy hair. He's ambled curiously by a few artisan stalls and stopped, now, at the fringe of a small cluster of people sitting in the grass. They are listening to a very earnest young black woman with flowers woven through her neat braided updo; the propped-up sign on the workshop leader's blanket says SUMMER BLOOMS CRAFT SERIES, and under that: Flower Crowns Workshop! She has a wide array of floral vines both real and artificial arrayed around her, though she is encouraging the participants to wander through the park armed with her little pictoral zine and pluck their own if they want. Joshua has been considering the array of flowers very seriously, and then tipping his eyes up as if to consider his own shaggy hair, which could, probably, stand to be more colorfully adorned. It's hard to say what Blink was dressed for, in a loose, gauzy heliotrope tunic edged in the same jade green as her palazzo pants, and plum ballet flats. She wears a neat fishtail braid that shows off the magenta streaks in her hair as well as the tips of her pointed ears. She picks up the trailing end of a morning glory vine and holds it up beside Joshua's head, squinting at the blue-purple flowers. "Not sure this is your color." She swaps it for a string of moonflowers. "This works better, but..." She frowns, which looks probably more intense that she really means it because it makes her nearly all-green eyes look so much darker. "Is white a death color, where you come from? Or in your religion?" Ren looks dressed for a funeral, although the dark bags under his eyes and general disposition perhaps make it unclear if it’s for his own. He wears a long dark coat, but at least the grey patterned shirt and dark colored slacks he wears seem breezy enough. His fabric mask, also grey, matches vaguely enough in pattern that it doesn’t clash too much with his shirt. He probably looks vaguely ill, pale and clammy, but that can be easily chalked up to the coat he’s chosen to wear in the warm weather. Despite all this, as he wanders up to the Flower Crowns Workshop (poking at the grass with his cane first to check if it’s muddy) there are two cheerful purple flowers poking out of his hair by his ear, close enough that they could have been tucked in there. At Blink’s words, he glances over, studying the two before speaking up, “Those pink begonias could look nice as well.” He inputs, “But depending on where you’re from, they could be considered bad luck too.” "Huh?" Joshua is frowning deeply, which probably just looks more intense than he means because his face is Like That. "Those," he's nodding to the morning glories, "would pop on you. -- Is it still a death color for anyone outside the East?" This doesn't sound like a challenge but a genuine question. His frown is deepening, eyes cutting to the side when Ren approaches. "You got a headstart." He's moving forward, nodding at the instructor as he picks up the instructional zine and retreats back to the periphery with the others. "... do you think they're bad luck?" Blink is still frowning at the moonflowers thoughtfully. "I don't know. I don't actually have a ton of Chinese community. It's just stuff I remember from way back." She picks the morning glories back up. "Hm, I think you're right. I might have to redo my hair for that full elven princess look." She peers at the zine in Joshua's hand, then looks at Ren with a small smile at the flowers tucked behind his ear. "What kind are those?" Ren tilts his head to observe the morning glories and hums in agreement. His gaze drifts to Blink’s ears before looking away. “No, to me begonia’s are just nice flowers.” He answers Joshua. He hadn’t reacted at Joshua’s comment about a head start, but with Blink’s he’s casually bringing a hand up to his hair, first through the top of it, then along the side, before he finds what the two had referred to. A quiet breath leaves him, close to a sigh, and he removes one of the purple flowers from his hair. One of his eyes twitch at the action. He observes it, tilting it from side to side in his palm, before answering, “…Clematis.” He determines. He leans forward to pick up the instructional zine as well, scanning through it briefly before holding the Clematis flower out to Blink, “It would match your morning glories if you’d like to add it.” Joshua's eye twitches as well, and his gaze tracks the flower. "s'not a clematis." He is reaching into his pocket for his phone, the zine tucked behind it as he swipes it on. "Zine says there's periwinkle all over here. That's an elven-princess-ass flower, if you want to lean into..." Though he's just grimacing after he says this. "... the fae look." He glances briefly to the flowers on the blanket again, then down to his phone. "You going for the begonias?" "Periwinkle." Blink nods sagely. "I like those, if I'm thinking of the right ones. I'm not really great at identifying flowers. I wouldn't know a clematis from a..." She accepts the flower with a duck of her head. "...whatever this actually is." She also fishes out her phone, snaps a picture of the flower in her hand, and tries to make the Internet identify it for her. "Do you have something against the fae look?" she asks Joshua, a little puzzled. "I guess it is kind of overdone in certain corners of fandom..." Ren’s brow ticks downwards and he watches Joshua’s phone. “…My mistake then.” He says steadily. He considers the begonias, and he runs another hand through his hair, “Y’know…” a grimace from under his mask pushes at his eyes, “They’re all yours.” Ren briefly moves forward for some of the artificial flowers from the blanket, murmuring a small “Sorry” when he has to maneuver around someone, and “Thank you.” to the instructor, and he begins assembling them when he returns. He eyes Blink’s phone now, warily as she takes a photo, but forcibly refocuses his attention back on his task. He hums, “The fae look might be a little hard to avoid here, for everyone.” "Got something against the fae, tricksy-ass bastards." Joshua is frowning at his phone, and then frowning at the flower in Blink's hands. Then the phone again. His cheeks puff out and he exhales a short raspberry when neither of his two plant identification apps return him Instant Gratification. He's also snapping a picture of the flower before shoving his phone back into his pocket. His Instructional Zine is a little crumpled, now, but that doesn't stop him flipping back through it. "... tickseed. Fleabane. Shit. Gonna make me a whole Bug's Life crown." "My experience with fae is pretty limited," Blink admits with the slightly uncertain chuckle of someone who isn't quite sure it's okay to be amused by something. "Don't worry, though, I'm on the low trickery end of the elven princess spectrum, which is probably why I'll never be queen. Fleabane?" She's peering at the zine again. "Get yourself some bee balm while you're at it." She looks at Ren again, mouth pulling slightly aside. "You seem to be avoiding it pretty well. And I'll bet this guy can wear a whole crown of bug type flowers with only minimum fae-itude." Ren’s eyebrows rise up, “Sounds like someone stumbled into a fairy circle.” He says, jokingly of course. His movements do become a little more stiff when Joshua then also takes a photo of the flower. His movements pause altogether, as if he wants to say something, but he wipes his forehead with his sleeve and continues working. He briefly glances up at Blink, “Artificial flowers will last longer.” He reasons, and nods towards Joshua, “Maybe you can get some fly traps in there.” He says, “They’ll eat up any fairies that cause you problems.” "Brutal LARP session," Joshua replies, deadpan. He seems to give the fly trap question an earnest thought before deciding mournfully, "Putting those next to the bee balm'd be like declaring war against butterflies." He's closing the zine and tucking it half into his pocket. "... think if you're, uh, that touchy about your flowers you. Maybe. Shouldn't. Hand them out." "Venus fly traps are halfway to fairies themselves," Blink opines very confidently for someone who can't tell a clematis from Ren's mystery flower. "Anyway, if you're fighting fae, you want cold iron. I'm not sure what makes iron cold, or why fairies and demons take extra damage from it, but that's what the DM Guide says." She looks Ren up and down. "Do you want the flower back?" she asks earnestly. "I don't think this would go with the periwinkles." She's tugging the elastic from her braid and shaking it out with enviable ease. Ren lets out a long sigh, and pinches the bridge of his nose with his eyes crushed shut like he’s fighting off an incoming headache. “Maybe you could put some iron in a refrigerator.” He lets his hand drop and he blinks against the sunlight, before going back to threading some flowers. “And they’re not. My flowers. I got them from…” He takes a moment to scan the blanket, the surrounding bushes, and abandons the sentence. With Blink’s offer, after some hesitation, he nods once, “Yes, thank you.” He holds out a hand for the flower. “Sorry.” "Cold iron?" Joshua wrinkles his brows uncertainly. He is nodding at Ren's suggestion as if he plans to stick some iron in the fridge and see what happens. His mouth twitches to the side, brief and thoughtful, and he's eying the flower with a new curiosity. He plucks both his phone and the instructional zine back from his pocket, opening up his PlantNet app again. "S'gonna look dope with that other flower," he comments absently to Ren, nodding at the other purple flower by his ear, and then he's turning to Blink. He lifts his brows and also the zine. "Wanna go find some wildflowers?" Blink gives Ren an encouraging smile as she returns the flower to him with a flourish. "Thank you. And I hope..." She does seem to quite know what to say, but then settles for, "...they're the lucky kind of flowers." Maybe it's odd that her smile to Joshua is more reserved, though the widening of her eyes in excitement is so dramatic it would probably look creepy if she grinned. "I can take the ones that are too fae." And the she's veering away toward the less manicured parts of the park with Joshua. Ren brings the flower back up, and tucks it behind his ear once he finds the other one Joshua pointed to. It holds in place. “Thank you, both.” He brings up a hand, as if he were going to ask one more thing, but aborts the action for a small wave. “Good luck with your fae repellent, and your fae look.” He says with a nod. He finishes up his string of artificial flowers, and places them on his head. He lets out a breath, and are there suddenly more flowers that weren’t there previously? Hard to tell, with the newly added crown on his head. He puts back the zine he used, which he kept carefully uncreased, and with a wave of thanks to the woman running the workshop, he wanders deeper into the fair himself.