lostcarnival | ⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 138 - Day 152
Where: The Summerlands
What: The Ringmaster brings the carnival to the Summerlands immediately after being freed from Portland so that everyone can take a fucking nap. Her included.
Warnings: Individually marked! Most likely discussion of torture and trauma in here.

DAYS OF SUMMER↴

You made it! And things are back to normal... more or less. Upon waking, you will be greeted with a clear blue sky and gentle breeze – the carnival has found itself situated between a pair of mountain peaks, with great fields of flowers extending in the distance. In the other direction, you’ll see mountain-top cities and tall waterfalls accenting vast swaths of forest.

Some of you will already know this place. It’s the Summerlands. You game here once to rest in safety nearly a year ago, and now you’ve come to rest once again.

► WAKING UP: Shortly after the carnival arrives, the Ringmaster will send out a somewhat cryptic radio message - but her immediate location won't be clear. Whatever items you had on your person at the time the Severing was broken will still be on your person, including whatever clothing. All of the animals and pets of the carnival will have returned to the grounds as well, though they are currently free from their designated living spaces. Things in the carnival will appeared to have naturally aged a month, as if the carnival was been sitting here empty and waiting while everyone was in Portland. The lawn needs mowing.

► SUMMER CITY: After the Summer Fae become aware of everyone's presence, they will welcome you into their city. There are stairs that lead up the sides of the mountains, but thankfully there are also magical means of getting up there as well. The Summer Fae will be willing to help workers with the injured as needed, offering herbal remedies and healing magic to those that want it. You'll also be invited to join them for dinner, but they will not be particularly offended if they are turned down, for now.

► SUMMER PEOPLE: The fae here will mostly enjoy the company of any carnival members that offer it - it doesn't seem that much happens here besides day after day of peaceful meditation and relaxation. It is not uncommon to see Summer Fae spent days doing exactly the same thing, whether that be enjoying the weather, listening to music, or dancing - the day and night periods may be similar to earth, but when you don't need rest it can all blur together just the same. Some of the fae work on feats of agriculture or craftsmanship, and while there is no particularly need to work in this place, they take pride in the fact that they do.

► NEW ARRIVALS: Though the Ringmaster will not be offering much guidance for the first week or so, eventually the carnival will begin running for a few small performance sessions, off and on, as a thank you to their fae hosts. The carnival will also be open to receiving new arrivals during that period, and so there will likely be some newbies to train and get orientated as well.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, yes. That too." It'd be less fun enforced, obviously. Lambert would find a way to make dance practice a misery.

Scout adjusts and compensates, barely having to think. This is nice. The promenading part takes her a little off guard and she's half a step off for several seconds - the tiniest of faults and she knows it doesn't matter, but she has to press her lips together and remind herself to let it go.

"How much have you been drinking? Please make some kind of signal if you're about to throw up," she says, though she doesn't think he's actually at that point.

"Oh, don't worry," Strange laughs, as he continues to dance. "If I feel ill, I'll simply step out of the dance." The fact that he's still here, still spinning and promenading and what-not while remaining upright means that Strange isn't as drunk as he could be. Just drunk enough to stop caring.

"I'm old hat at these sort of things--I know my limitations." After all, he's been to plenty of parties (and also had an unfortunate alcoholic phase when he was a bachelor). Strange knows his limits. "What I want to know is why aren't you having even half as much fun as I am?"

She shakes her head, smiling. "I'll hold you to that!"

It's a bit surprising that he's noticed, she thinks, though that's maybe unkind. This isn't the time to get into what's bothering her deep down, or the person to get into it with.

"How disheartening do you want the answer to that to be? The happiest one is that I don't drink to get drunk." She can, young though she is, but if she takes any mood-altering substances she's not allowing them to work on her. Scout's power is already limited enough, she doesn't need to hamper it further.

He can respect that answer. Strange's brother-in-law is a clergyman, after all, there'd be plenty of familial disagreements if he judged people on whether they got drunk or not. And, he's not going to pry--he barely knows anything about Scout's world to begin with, if he asks more questions, then he'll just end up with even more questions and (if he's lucky) a hazy understanding of the whole thing.

"There are other ways to have fun, you know. This place..." Strange pauses in the conversation for a moment, as he tries to think of the best words to describe the Summerlands, while also stumbles through a particularly complex turn in the dance.

"It's odd. It reminds me of the Celebration in a way, though not as persuasive."

There are a lot of very different places represented here, and people come and go so readily that learning how everyone's homeworld works is unending and fruitless. Scout's glad enough when he doesn't probe.

She reaches out a hand in case he loses his balance, but he manages to stay upright. "I wasn't at the Celebration. It sounds like it was kind of unpleasant, really. Even on Zeltros - that's a planet that really is like one big party, a lot of the time - it's not enforced. Just encouraged."

"You weren't? Damn, I thought you were." Needless to say, it's an easy mistake to make, especially when one's already drunk as hell. Still, if Scout wasn't there, then that means Strange just needs to explain his analogy a bit more.

"I meant that it's sort of like the Celebration in the sense that there isn't any work to be done here. The Celebration was about enjoying yourself, the Summerlands seem to be about relaxing. I plan on asking around to see if there's anything I can do to help out here, but I don't know what I could even do in the first place."

They are imposing on the fae's kindness a bit. The least Strange could do is find a way to repay them somehow.

"Nope! I came back and signed a second contract and immediately got sent to go rescue people from vampires." Her first year with the Carnival had been a lot less messy, she knows that.

Scout's not sure if he's at the rambling talkative stage of intoxication or he's always like this, or both. She doesn't actually know Strange all that well. "I see. Normally when you have many people who can spend all their time at play it's because they have others beneath them, doing all the work. We'd have to be a lot busier at the carnival if we didn't have the cinder sprites, for example." She sees the twirl coming and executes it, curling her tail in imitation of the way a long skirt would move.

"Well, they seem pretty happy to be entertained. You could put on a show."

"Or because they're powerful enough that the work doesn't seem like work." And that, at least, seems to be Strange's opinion of this place. The Summerlands is swimming with magic and the fae themselves are powerful enough as is. If someone could repair clothing or grow food with a wave of their hand, then why would they need tailors or farmers to begin with?

"They are true fae, after all. Who knows what their limits are in the first place?"

Scout shrugs. She'd barely seen the Summerlands last time. Maybe there's an underclass at work here, whether or not its work is the same as what people at the top normally need to be at leisure. Defenders, maybe, people who keep watch; this world would be a valuable asset for some people. Maybe there's not.

Leaving that subject, she just asks, "Have you asked if there's anything you could do for them?"

The dance seems to be dispersing from a coordinated thing to couples or trios spinning on their own time.

"I've talked with a few of them," Strange remarks, as he moves closer towards Scout. After all, the dance is spinning off to smaller groups, Scout is part of his smaller group, he's going to dance with Scout.

"It's interesting. Obviously the fae here have magic, but it's just as varied as the magic of those in the carnival." Summer Fae isn't as limited a classification as Strange had thought it would be. Their magic encompassed so much, plenty more than he was expecting. "I'm most likely going to help one with some larger, earth-based magic sometime in the next few days."

She adjusts her grip on his hand. It's a waltz now? All right, she's good at the waltz.

"Do you think they're from one origin, or many? If they're the Ringmaster's people it'd make some sense that they are or associate with dimension-travelers." Maybe the general, broad uniformity of the Summer Fae is chosen.

"That's the thing--I don't think they're the Ringmaster's people to begin with. Or, at least, not entirely. She's Wyld Fae. These fae aren't."

It's said as if Strange expects Scout to know precisely what the Wyld Fae are and like he didn't just use a bit of jargon that few carnival members knew in the first place.

⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

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