⇨ GREYSOL

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 155 - Day 169
Where: Greysol
What: The carnival resumes its tour, this time heading to Greysol, a city tied deeply into the fabric of the multiverse. Here, everyone has an animal companion from birth that is the second half of their soul - and thanks to the Ringmaster, so do you. (Remember, joysweeper is our guest event runner for this location, and location specific questions should go to them.)
Warnings: Individually marked!

THE CITY OF GREYSOL↴ The carnival arrives in a manicured park in the center of a big city that sprawls out along where the river reaches the ocean. It’s spring, early enough that nights are chilly, warm enough in the days that people and their souls savor the weather, and sometimes shelter together from the rain. Greysol was designed from the bottom up to accommodate the human-dæmon bond. Go out and see! ► THE SHAPE OF YOUR SOUL: The dæmon-forming spell kicks in at about four in the morning. Most characters will wake up with their souls in some small form, curled against them. Even if they were awake, they became dazed and unfocused while their souls were being drawn out of their bodies and have little memory of how it happened. Until that evening every character's dæmon is able to change shapes, and children and some teens will continue to do so. Most will settle on their permanent forms by evening. Characters without dæmons will just look on, and the few who are thousand-pound bears have to handle being really big. ► IT’S GOOD TO SETTLE: Elaine Tavis Aracari, sixteen-year-old daughter of two actors and a moving pictures sensation herself, just ‘settled’ - her dæmon Tavis stopped changing shape - as a stunning blue peacock. Settling is a major coming of age milestone and celebrated as such in different ways all over the world. She and her family are throwing a massive party in the central park and inviting the public to join in! Enjoy easy access to free catering, live music and showings of moving pictures, and displays of mostly trivial magic. There are also form readers from across the country setting up booths, happy to accept a small fee to inspect your dæmon’s settled or most favored forms and tell you what they mean. Is there anything to these analyses? Eh, maybe, but they’re flattering and fun. ► WITCHING HOURS: Characters who are clearly witches for this event will often be assumed to be in town for a lover, and people, witches and not, may want to know who that is. Humans usually regard them with wary respect and interest. Real witches living with their human families or on business quickly suspect that something’s up, but without clear and present danger take a relaxed wait-and-see attitude. Wait for long enough and any possible decision will come around again, they believe. There isn’t time to learn much witch magic, but witches, real and carnival-made, have an inherent power: the ability to fly using branches of “cloudpine”, an attractive soft-needled tree common in the park. Witches usually ride large branches as if they’re steeds but can use even short sprays, and you’ll probably see the few witches in the city coming to the park to do so. Why not try? ► BEAR PUN: Human-panserbjørn relations have historically been troubled, but have warmed in the past century. It’s the 65th anniversary of the breaking of the Siege of Bertin, a much-mythologized time when Spectres flooded Greysol and a company of panserbjørn arrived and directed efforts to get the survivors out of the city. A statue is being erected and many florid accounts of the story are being told. If you’re in a panserbjørn shape for the duration of the visit you will probably get thanked and celebrated by people trying to hide their nervousness of you. Expect someone to ask if your dæmon would be a human - it’s a common supposition. ► KERNER ISLAND: From the harbor you can see a wooded island. Although there are no rocks to speak of it sports a tall lighthouse, and nearly all boat traffic avoids it carefully. On a clear day someone with binoculars or a particularly sharp-eyed soul can see loads of trash, birds and various other animals that don’t seem local, and… children? Adults and settled teenagers will see tall vague shapes moving about too. When asked about it the most important thing adults will tell other adults is don’t go there. They’ll hold their dæmons close and tell you that on that island are things that eat souls. They may also admit with mixed pride and shame that it’s been a source of wealth and innovation for the city. There’s a facility there that can open windows into other worlds, and the children who can reach it can cross through and bring things back. Many of the children are recruited by research and development teams on the lookout for items they can use, but there are also kids out to have adventures or who’ve run away. More on this later.

Comments

1. shit I laughed at the front desk, well done

[showmystar]

Allen's lips press together as he fights back the laughter threatening to escape from his chest. His shoulders bounce once, for his troubles. What a pair they make . . . The pine marten that had been previously resting around Allen's shoulders pointedly shifts to a small, blue bird -- a kingfisher. It may be reminiscent of the form Allen had taken in Portland on more than one occasion, and as the memory had influenced the magic, that may be apparent.

"Yes," a soft, feminine voice replies blatantly, a smile to her tone. "On both counts."

The shoulder beneath the bird shakes, as if Allen is silently admonishing her but also silently agrees. Aloud, he says, "I really don't think you should be arguing with yourself. Even if your self is currently a . . . walrus?"

"It makes you look a little mad, you know," the dæmon helpfully adds.

dumbness is my rp meat and drink. ;)

[kingsroads]

For all they're arguing, it's apparent that Strange and his daemon are more in sync than either of them realize. It's almost comical how both look annoyed at the same time for completely separate reasons. Likewise, they both start to speak at the same time, but then Strange pauses, and gestures for his daemon to speak first.

"I'm a seal, thank you very much," she responds, with an annoyed little 'hmmph', as if the seal vs. walrus distinction is a point of pride. There's a moment where Strange pauses, checking to see if his daemon wants to say anything else before he launches into his point of irritation.

"And I, in comparison, am already mad. Didn't you know?" Though come to think of it, did Allen know of his madness in the first place? He's talked with the young man before but the 'surprise, I'm a bit bonkers' conversation wasn't one that slipped out on a daily basis. Strange is just now realizing that Allen might not know about the whole madness thing, and can't help but frown a little in confusion.

Hmm. This conversation might go off the rails a bit if that's the case.

i love it

[showmystar]

That is not something that Allen knew. He blinks vapidly, thrown for a response. It occurs to him the longest meaningful conversation they had had likely been back in Portland. He doesn't really know him at all.

Rather than give the obvious reply, Allen instead asks, "In comparison to what?" He immediately regrets it. Rewind. "I mean . . . I'm honestly not sure if that explains everything or nothing at all."

The bird on Allen's shoulder shifts briefly into a dwarf hamster, as she awkwardly begins cleaning her face. Allen can't help but wonder if Strange's Portland persona mad. He wants to ask, but even though he hated him then, he doesn't want to be rude. Besides, that Allen was a punk, and he would rather not bring attention to that.

[kingsroads]

"What I'm trying to say is that it's no use threatening me with looking like a madman when I already am one to begin with." Though for all his talk about madness, Strange is an oddly composed madman. He's not foaming at the mouth or anything and is only slightly erratic, instead using a tone of voice like one would talk about the weather.

"So I suppose it's in comparison to the rest of the carnival itself!" said with a little laugh and a grin.

"That's still not something we should be proud of," the seal chimes in, speaking what's probably on everybody's mind already.

[showmystar]

"The rest of the carnival is fairly mad to begin with," Allen replies flatly. Perhaps that's the point. That makes him the maddest one in the room. Strange just has to be the best at everything he does, doesn't he?

"But thank you," Allen's dæmon says to the seal. "At least someone here has sense."

Allen shoots his dæmon a hard look. "Is that including me as well?"

She only changes from hamster to pine marten and seems to smile innocently, head cocked. The dæmon of a brat will forever be a brat.

[kingsroads]

Strange is about to go on a whole different rant about the semantics of madness and how one becomes mad (he put a mouse in his mouth, do not recommend) when the seal juuust so happens to shift her weight slightly that she treads on Strange's foot. He shoots her a glare, but the seal continues talking.

"Have you gotten a name yet?" she asks, looking towards Allen's daemon. "We're still working on mine, I didn't want to pick something until I've settled down into a shape. I don't think that's how it's normally done, but this an unconventional situation to begin with!"