ioduanlogs | Be my shelter from the storm

Characters: Pepper Potts, Devin Parker, and you!
Date: Throughout October
Location: Around Aifaran
Situation: Pepper is enjoying the festivities, while Devin is not
Warnings/Rating: Possible mention of murder, violence; will add in headers as needed.

A. [Pepper] Arts 2 | Open

Usually, Pepper is not a clumsy person, especially not with the level of physical training she's been doing since coming to this world. Her balance is better, her situational awareness is better - on every day but today, apparently. One moment, she's walking down the street taking in the decorations and wares of one of the pop-up fair. The next, she's stumbling to the ground as cake - and an ungodly amount of fondant - topples off its stand and onto her. The baker of said cake is now staring at her like she's an actual demon. At least one of the tiers survived?

"Sorry! Oh my god, I am so sorry," Pepper says in a rush, holding her hands up.

B. [Pepper] Sci-Tech 4 | Mid-late October | Open

Thanksgiving and Christmas may be some of Pepper's favorite holidays, but the whole city getting into a melting pot version of Halloween has her super excited, too. And she's gotten a ticket to a wicked cool haunted house that promises to be every bit as spooky (and hopefully not nearly as dangerous) as a Makluan temple. The free candy doesn't hurt either, so she's practically vibrating while she's waiting in line to go in, peering around every now and then to see if any of her friends are here, too.

C. [Devin] Academy Library | First week of October | Open

It was only a matter of time until Devin fell prey to the Dreaming sickness. He had been worried that it would be displays of one of his many hunting missions, or Bobby, or his family. He had been worried that all he would see was violence and not knowing the difference between dreams and reality, he would hurt someone. Privately, Devin had decided that the moment it started, he would go on a camping trip somewhere isolated and wait it out.

He turns down an aisle at the library and stops dead, nearly dropping the stack of books he's holding. Shock overtakes his features. Leaning against one of the shelves with a soft smile on his face is a young Asian man with shoulder-length hair pulled back into a tail. Devin barely manages a whisper: "...Sam?"

"And you said this wasn't a hobby," the dream needles.

D. [Devin] Commerce 4 | Open

Devin has a day job, but the owner of one of the bars he's taken a liking to is harried with preparations for the Night Parade. Since the whole idea of the Parade has him a little uneasy, Devin agrees to run an errand and retrieve a box of slow-burning red candles. Once he's made the purchase (and quite a few rhinn lighter, until the owner reimburses him), Devin considers them pensively. Red was meant to ward off the spirits, and he has a whole army of dead in his past that he would like not to meet again.

E. [Devin] Outside Aifaran | 2nd Week of October | Trahearne

This is an extraordinarily bad idea. Granted, it's a bad idea that could potentially resolve as many problems as it could create. Trahearne doesn't like him, and would probably continue to feel they have unfinished business until they got the chance to finish the fight they started. Or, Devin allows, until he has spent long enough proving he is not, in fact, like the undead Trahearne knows. It might take longer than either of them have here, or it might never happen. In any case, Devin has no intention of hurting the sylvari. The Fool is going to be angry with him enough just for sending the embossed invitation, much less getting into a real altercation.

Though he appears unarmed, Devin isn't stupid enough to leave all of his weapons at home and has daggers hidden on his person. He arrives at the field in the early morning. When Trahearne arrives, Devin is leaning against one of the sparse trees in the area, the picture of relaxation.

F. Wildcard!

Threaded | Flat

Pepper's in luck, because the one friend who has never experienced Halloween before - of any sort - is standing only a few yards away, debating whether dyed sugar molded into replicas of anatomical structures is really worth an hour's pay of rhinn.

"Look," the vendor says to Rutile, a twitch in her eye. "Either you buy things, or you don't. If you're not gonna buy, then move along and let someone else do it."

"I'm just not convinced your business model is reasonable," Rutile points out, their confusion becoming more evident with each word. "Sugar crystals are by no means rare."

"It's novelty sugar."

"It's just painted! How is it novel?"

(Rutile doesn't plan on eating the candy. It's the principle of the thing.)

After how hard the Dreaming Sickness hit him, Trahearne had forgotten all about their talk of duels, up until his invitation arrived in the mail. The thorniest part of this whole situation was that he still didn't see anything wrong with doing this, no matter how deeply his common sense ran when it came to most anything else. It was nothing to do with his personal sense of honor - they did have unfinished business, and though a couple of people had vouched for Devin's good behavior, Trahearne had yet to see any of that for himself.

And so, he arrived at the field only a few minutes shy of the appointed time, striding purposefully towards Devin until he stops about five feet away. Trahearne was in his usual leaves, but he did have a weapon of sorts on him, a rod meant for channeling magic hanging at his hip. "Devin. I received your challenge, and I am here to meet it. On this day, I stand here prepared to defend my honor against - well, you being yourself, I suppose."

From here

The vampire sighs as he turns to lean on the counter, now facing X's direction but with eyes on the floor. "Not exactly," he begins, folding his arm across his chest. "I can't pretend with myself I'm not feeling anything, but..."

Devin trails off for a moment, shoulders tense. "You know my life, X. You know that examples of healthy relationships have been practically nonexistent." And the level of violence he perpetrated, and the trauma he experienced, X knows about that too. He closes his eyes for a moment. "I don't know how to be what he wants me to be."

Klaus had stopped at the library that day for some light reading. In Klaus's case, 'light' reading was about thirty pounds of hard-back books but who was keeping track. It was when he was perusing a particularly interesting volume about the holiday traditions of Aifaran when he spotted Devin passing by.

He was about to greet him when...

"...Sam?"

Klaus blinked, and turned his head in the direction Devin's eyes were set.

Something... wasn't right. The man didn't look quite there and Klaus replaced the book on the shelf, watching the exchange like a hawk in case it was something sinister.

"Copper for your thoughts, my guy?"

Look, Aly hadn't sought out Devin - honest - but she was here anyway, also contemplating some of the candles. Warding off spirits took a lot more than red candles, in her experience, but things were probably different here. And she didn't have anyone dead who she wanted to avoid, anyway. Probably. The tough thing about the Otherside was making sure people stayed dead.

When he hears some hurried apologies, Miles turns around from his mask-shopping. (Which he hates.) He's happy for the distraction, but is a little baffled to see Pepper coated in cake, and being the one doing the apologizing.

"Hey, you okay there?" he says, walking up to her and holding out his hand to help her up. "Only I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to become the human embodiment of that thing people do at weddings where they shove cake in each other's mouths." Beat. "Which is just generally weird."

Pepper's not the only one who's excited for this haunted house. Kai loves a good spooking, and all the candy is only making things better. Sugar rush is a great way to prep for Turf War, because when a bunch of Inklings hopped up on sugar take the field, it's adrenaline from here to Octo Canyon. A three-minute game feels a lot longer, because everyone's running around and laughing as they spray ink at one another.

She's practically bouncing on the balls of her feet (or they would be, if she had bones), and turns to the person next to her in line. "I can't wait!" she says enthusiastically. "This is gonna be great!"

B!

E

For X

C!

D

A

B