paper cities burning

[collector]

Characters: Braxiatel and anyone ever. It's an open log! Tag in! Join in origami art!!
Location: The Astral Plane. Somewhere near food, probably.
Time: After Narvin has been made into a wee-bitty thing. Before the hypothetical future where Braxiatel jumps into a ravine because he hates babysitting.
Summary: Braxiatel needs to do something in his spare time. This is it.
Warnings: Origami awesomeness.

Among the stars and spaces between them, free of the heavy weight of unease that had haunted the Plane, a man was putting his supreme talents in dexterity and mathematical genius to use by making art out of folded paper. Or to put it more simply, Irving Braxiatel was going slightly mad playing the babysitter and so had resorted to origami to try to keep himself sane.

He had begun with a few simple flowers and had quickly gotten sick with the mundanity. That was how the paper model of the Palace of Versailles had ended up at his feet. Then, when he had gotten bored with that, he crafted for himself origami warriors, the grand life-sized sazu game pieces that once were placed in the floating tombs of the Deathless Emperors of Draconia, that they may battle one another in their sleeping death.

Presently, Braxiatel was putting the finishing touch on Nelson's battleship. He had done a fairly good job of representing the Battle of Trafalgar, as far as he was concerned, and was rather pleased by the final product.

Comments

[brandyhabit.livejournal.com]

Benny came over, picking up Nelson's battleship and looking it over curiously before addressing the man of the hour, surrounded by his piles of folded paper.

"You haven't got a shred of free time on your hands, do you?" Benny asked.

Her attention drifted to one of the flowers instead as fixed it into one of the belt loops on her trousers. She continued inspecting Brax's work, carefully inspecting some pieces while carelessly handling others as she tried to find anything else that grabbed her fancy.

[collector]

Braxiatel let her wander, masking his sigh. "Narvin has been having fun playing with technology. Well, he was a technician." A pause. "Will have been. English didn't evolve for this sort of conversation, not presently, anyway." Given a few more millennia, the language would have quite a vocabulary for time travel.

Brax nudged one of the battleships into place with his foot, pondering what to make next.

[brandyhabit.livejournal.com]

Benny caught sight of Brax nudging the battleship into place, and she did her best to subtlely nudge it just a tad out of place just because the mood struck her. It was all accidental of course.

"Five dimensional thinking, I'm sure. Probably goes straight over my simple human mind."

It was all said very lightly, because it was a joke and it was pleasant. There may be a large amount of Time Lords becoming part of the ensemble that was Benny's life, thanks to the Plane. This didn't mean they were meant to be taken seriously in the slightest. Far from it, in fact.

"Are they difficult to make? The origami, I mean. It is rather fascinating, the way cultures find to create art."

[collector]

Unphased by this typical display of pettiness, Braxiatel tucked a white paper lily behind Bernice's ear. "Have you never tried it? It's not really hard. Some of the more complex patterns can be difficult for two-dimensional minds, but I'm sure you can manage a simple flower or balloon."

One of the most important things about dealing with Bernice's mockery was to give it fodder in a very carefully ironic way.

[onehundredbeers]

Nathan was once more his personal pinnacle of perfection, an alliteration he would have amused himself with if it had dawned on him. As it didn't, he particularly didn't give a damn, other than he was back to looking exactly as he ought to. Hair well maintained and brushed, nails manicured and polished, clothes spotless and in perfect order. Everything was back in balance in the world of Nathan Explosion.

He hadn't been too keen on going to hang out on space for any length of time, not after being stuck there for a month. Even more so with the various annoyances that had gone on and done their best to make sure he hadn't had a good time at all. But he lived with a bunch of unappreciative dildos, and a few scant days after going home, Murderface (and Toki, but Toki wasn't really to blame, he was just sort of there) decided to sue him. Great.

So there he was, in the last place he really felt like being, because he was pretty sure if he had to see Murderface he was going to deck the dick. But upside! Hey, look. Irving.

Nathan stepped over to observe what the hell his bro was doing. "Uh, what are you doing?" He asked, because he didn't particularly feel like employing his brain cells into finding the information regarding origami. Irving could tell him, Irving was pretty good about that, or so he thought. Or, you know, he'd give him a deadpan look. Either/or. That was his expectations here, that's what I'm saying.

[collector]

Irving was indeed good at explaining things, unless things were very important to know, in which case he tended to keep them to himself. This sort of exposition, however, was exactly his sort of thing, so he gestured broadly to the assorted creations he had made in his idleness. "I'm practising origami, Nathan. I've been, well, completely without anything of any significance to do, so I thought I'd work on something entirely insignificant to fill up my time."

He took in Nathan's appearance and smiled, locking away the discomfort that had haunted them for a month. "You're looking well. All the better for a wash and a change of clothes?" He opted not to immediately bring up the interesting new programming that had made its way to the Collection's vidscreens.

[onehundredbeers]

"Yeah, and a massage or two."

He slowly slipped into a grin as he examined Irving's work. Flowers: gay. He didn't pay attention to those much, because, well, as stated, gay. Who the fuck cared about flowers. Nobody, that was who, and nobody included Nathan Explosion. Which I guess would turn it into 'somebody', but that would imply caring, which he most certainly did not.

Palace of Whatever, yawn, boring, snoozefest.

Warriors, pretty cool.

Battleships? That's awesome.

"You going to do anything with all that? I mean, uh, you know, the non-flower shit. You've got enough stuff there to stage like an assault on that... building thing with those warrior dudes, and then you're totally set up for a fucking badass game of paper battleship there."

[practicalrobes.livejournal.com]

Once Narvin had successfully disassembled and reassembled some late 20th century computer equipment, he quickly grew bored with primitive circuit boards (and in one horrifying case, vacuum tubes), and instead decided to wander over to see what his new babysitter caretaker guardian babysitter was doing with all of that paper.

"What are these?" he asked, craning his head to look up at one of the sazu pieces.

[collector]

Braxiatel looked down at the small child, wondering how, exactly, he was going to do this for who knew how long. He'd have to find him more technology to play with, for one. Unfortunately, there weren't many Röntgen blocks on the Collection.

Besides that, Röntgen blocks reminded Braxiatel of days of manipulating other children into throwing objects at people Brax didn't like. It really wasn't a necessary association just now.

"They're sazu pieces. It's a sort of board game popular on Draconia. There was a time where their Emperors, put to sleep in paper palaces in low orbit, would control the sazu pieces and play against one another using their half-dead minds. Something to occupy their minds while they rested." Braxiatel declined to mention the part about how incredibly lethal these origami warriors could be.

[practicalrobes.livejournal.com]

Narvin pondered this, still staring at the paper pieces, before turning to Braxiatel and cocking his head. "Why are you making them? Are you going to play against someone?"

[hypospraying]

[Christine approaches, having recently been home but then she thought about the Astral Plane and returned abruptly, hence the pajama pants, tank top, and messy ponytail she's sporting.] Irving, hi! Whoa... what is all this?

[collector]

[Braxiatel, of course, is in one of the many suits he seems to inhabit like a second skin. He smiles.] Just something to pass idle hours.

[hypospraying]

They must have been ridiculously idle. [She gets down on her knees to examine the palace closer.] These are incredible!

[bonnypiperlad]

Jamie pops into existence a short distance away, bits of a straw-like substance clinging to his clothing. For a few seconds, he casts a wary glance about the area as if still expecting things to be wrong. But they're not, so he relaxes.

Much more at ease now, he looks again and catches a glimpse of the various creations. He's not seen the like before, and out comes a "Hey, would ye look at that!"

Spotting Brax, he makes his way over, brushing the worst of the straw off as he goes. He's full of questions - everything here is interesting in one way or another. However, the ship has most of his immediate attention. The Battle of Trafalgar was after his time, so the setup's not familiar to him, and he's curious about it.

"Which battle is that?" he asks, once he's close enough. "I've not seen it before, I don't think."

[collector]

Braxiatel glances over Jamie, not commenting on the straw just yet: a briefly lifted eyebrow will do for questioning.

"Trafalgar," Braxiatel answers as he draws back, the British flag now in place on the Admiral's ship. "1805. The French and the Spanish against Britain. I believe it's one of Britain's very favourite battles ever fought." He assumes it has to do with the uneven odds, the creative thinking, and the rather Romantic death of the Admiral in the battle.

[bonnypiperlad]

In return, Jamie glances down at himself, then back up to Braxiatel. He shrugs, as if to say, 'Aye, well, what can ye do'? He's certain that Brax is aware of the various scrapes his brother gets into - and that it tends to extend to his companions as well. That is not to say he won't explain if he's asked about it, but for now he thinks the shrug will suffice. Besides, there's this wee battle going on here that is much more interesting to him, personally.

"Aye? Did they win, then?" He starts counting the ships of the British fleet, and realizes something. "Hey, they're outnumbered. How did they manage to pull it off, I wonder?"

[anoblesavage.livejournal.com]

"Braxiatel? What are you doing?"

Although she'd resisted the urge to pick up one of the paper warriors, Leela made no attempt to hide her obvious curiosity. Was it a game? Or was it the sort of game that Braxiatel usually favoured, with layers and layers of secrets hidden behind it?

[collector]

"Leela, it's a pleasure to see you, as ever." Braxiatel offered Leela a smile of greeting as he stepped forward, careful not to brush up against the arm of a paper warrior. They had very sharp edges. Lethally so. "I'm making origami figures. Would you care to try?"

[anoblesavage.livejournal.com]

"I don't know how," she said, though she was not ashamed to admit as much. She was not a Time Lord and she did not want to be a Time Lord. She certainly did not want their knowledge and their burdens. She was content to be simply 'Leela'.

"They are ..." she paused, unable to settle on the right word. "Not pretty. Dangerous. Like little paper warriors."

[le-traitre.livejournal.com]

Robespierre had seen death once before, when he had died in this wretched place as Lia had, but it had not been as clear. That death had been like his soul wandering through a muddy cloud, looking for a light that was not there. But at Lord Dashwood's hands, his death had sent him wandering into the light. Lorenza had pulled him back, as he hoped she would, but his goal seemed clearer than ever.

He had touched Lia's soul and felt her suffering. There was no question now that he had to save her and find out the truth. Confronting Durand was all that he needed to do before heading back to France.

Just how to negotiate that without losing his temper, though, was a matter of difficulty. So Robespierre came to the Plane to consider it and to mull over that future conversation, but the man folding paper caught his attention. Well, no, that wasn't accurate. What was at his feet caught his attention.

"A paper Versailles?" he asked lightly, but did not come closer to inspect it, "How very fitting."

[collector]

"I'm sure there's a metaphor in it," Braxiatel mused, taking in the Frenchman. Every time Braxiatel saw Robespierre, he immediately recalled the preconceived notions that others brought to the name, as well as one man's particular stubbornness to believe that Robespierre might not be the so-slandered tyrant of history. To Braxiatel, it didn't really matter. History required distance, and of late, Braxiatel had been feeling very removed.

So he smiled at Robespierre and said, "I have always appreciated its architecture."

[le-traitre.livejournal.com]

"It is a marvel of architecture. The many architects and designers that have worked on making it so lavish since Louis XIV have done well," he conceded. Despite his distaste for what Versailles stood for, Robespierre had many fond memories of Versailles. His work as a spy and a dragoon meant he was quite often there, and he wouldn't be able to count all of the conversations that he had shared with both Lia and d'Eon in the gardens.

But he didn't let his sentimental thoughts show, and thought of reaching for the Psalm of the King, but remembered that he no longer possessed it. It was a bit ironic how it had become a habit to flip through those blank pages.

So instead, he asked, "Monsieur Braxiatel, do you know what the meaning of the name Versailles is?"

[not-theman-iwas.livejournal.com]

Someone adorable and furry magically appears to sniff around at his paper palace. Three guesses who.

(His Gallifreyan shall be along shortly.)

[collector]

Braxiatel looks at Chatterton Chesterton and notes, "I won't be blamed if you cut your nose on it."

[not-theman-iwas.livejournal.com]

Then, Chesterton feels, he shouldn't be blamed if he sneezes on it.