Arcadian Forest Party

[askmenosecrets]

This was more work that he usually bothered to put in, Pan thought, especially here, at home, but everything was set.




At first glance, it appeared to be a forest clearing, beautiful and wild but nothing different than a hundred other clearings spread throughout the woods of the Arcadian mountains. But when you looked again, Pan thought, you saw something quite different. Hidden in the trees were a series of structures suspended in air, hung with ivy and dew, and through the mist-shrouded branches you could see the faint glow of light, and you could smell the scent of fire and food. There was the fire pit, a circle suspended in the arms of a large oak with a crackling golden fire, a roast, and bowls of marshmallows, chocolate and crackers waiting. There was the bar, stocked with a rich variety of wines and alcohols and staffed by two of the satyrs. And then there was the forest floor itself, bare now, but waiting for the dancing. On all sides of the floor, there were cushions on the low branches and benches of fallen logs, each accompanied with wooden buckets full of wine and beer bottles and glassed suspended with vine.

"Well," he said to Zaffre, currently wrapped around his neck, "I think we're ready." Pan flicked a leaf off his forest green turtleneck and looked around with approval before pausing. "We're almost ready," he corrected, and pulled his pan flute up to his lips.

The forest filled with music as he played, music that began as the mystical songs of the flute, but transformed as he let the instrument fall to his side - transformed into thrumming, sensual rhythms and intricate guitars that would encourage the party-goers to...well, Pan thought with a sharp grin, to be bad. Very bad.

"Let the games begin," Pan said.

[Notes: Everyone in fortuna_invicta is invited, the more the merrier in Pan's opinion. If anyone needs directions to the right section of the forest, let Pan know on the SWS post. Mingle! Get drunk! Stuff your face! Find a secluded tree and do naughty things! Pan approves highly of all these pursuits. Format = narrative third person, if you please!]

Comments

[falconvengeance.livejournal.com]

"Several hundred years seems like far too short a time." Indeed, Horus wouldn't have objected to about three or four hundred more before he had to see Set again. He turned around and stormed off through the crowd, intent on having a bartender fix him a drink so strong it would knock him down.

Unfortunately, the voice of reason in the back of his mind wouldn't let him be. "He's the only family you've seen in ages. Are you really going to sit here and brood over ancient history or go back over there?" One long, weary sigh and a half-finished beer later and Horus found his feet dragging him back over to Set. He started right back in as if he hadn't just stormed off in a dramatic huff. "Incidentally, what have you been up to since we last spoke?"

[sandsofchaos.livejournal.com]

Set lifted an eyebrow as he watched Horus turn back and walk back over. Unexpected, he thought. Highly unexpected. The only civil thing that he and Horus had ever managed to do in all their years had been crown the pharaohs.

"I left the desert to you after the Ottomans overtook Egypt," he said. Being the god of foreigners in a captive nation had been...uncomfortable, to say the least. He received no tributes, in fact exactly the opposite. "South first, and then to Europe, and finally to the New World. I live in New York these days." He paused. "And you?" he asked.

[falconvengeance.livejournal.com]

"You would end up in the city that fancies itself the center of everything." Horus rolled his eyes. Sometimes, it was more like having a much older brother around than an uncle, the way the two of them sniped at each other.

The question of what he had done with his time was left hanging with a thoughtful pause. "I stayed, even after the last of the family had abandoned everything. I left the cities once the British became too obnoxious to bear any longer and returned to the desert for good. I went back only once when the Germans and Italians invaded."

[sandsofchaos.livejournal.com]

"So they all left," Set murmured almost to himself, sinking his hands into his pockets. Somehow...he hadn't expected his family to follow his footsteps, and somehow, despite his own actions, it annoyed him that they had.

"New York is a melting pot of cultures and chaos," he said after a moment of silence. It was that that drew him there, he thought; that and the fact that he could manage to blend in while standing out in New York.

"And now?" he said, lifting an eyebrow at his nephew. "This is not the desert."

[falconvengeance.livejournal.com]

"There was nothing left to keep them there with the temples crumbling and people turning to new gods." Horus had been tempted to leave as well many times. He had no reason to stay. None, save the eons old loyalty he felt towards the land and its people.

Horus shrugged, his hands rubbing the beer bottle in his grasp. "I suppose the desire to talk to someone besides myself was stronger than the distaste I have for the usual drama that surrounds these gatherings."

[sandsofchaos.livejournal.com]

"That was beginning to occur even when I departed," Set said evenly, but it was interesting, he thought, that there were no recriminations for that from Horus. Forever, it seemed, the two of them had found things to criticize.

He looked around and his lips quirked up. He had seen Eros passing, and of course Pan was hosting. There was likely to be more hedonism here than drama. "I think if there is to be drama at this party, the two of us shall have to expend the effort to create it."

[falconvengeance.livejournal.com]

"Looks like you set a precedent." He sounded just slightly accusatory. "But I can't blame you much. I've been half-tempted to leave myself."

Horus attempted to raise a single eyebrow, but failed, and ended up looking more dopily surprised than anything. "I'm not drunk enough to get into one of our oh so entertaining squabbles. Give me another hour and then I'll go from being stumbling-when-I-walk-drunk to I-hate-everyone-around-me-and-their-dog drunk."

[sandsofchaos.livejournal.com]

"Won't that be fun," Set murmured almost to himself. His temples had been defaced and wrecked, his family had...disliked him, certainly. Egypt had left him before he'd ever left Egypt.

"We could try something new," he said dryly. "I haven't had anything yet," he added, and stepped over to one of the benches to get one of the bottles of beer. "Personally, I require some fortification."