This is not how healthy individuals deal with their problems.

[dorkypantsuit]

Who: Psi and Open
What: Drinking Alien Booze
Where: The Cookhouse and Around (see prompts)
When: Right after the supervisor meeting.
Warnings: People using alcohol in unhealthy ways. Drunkenness. Adult language highly likely.

He takes to the air as soon as the meeting is over, sick of looking at that weird symbol and sick of listening to everybody talk about what to do next. All the other supervisors seemed to feel like some kind of violent response was necessary. Perhaps in their minds if the carnival didn't respond it would allow the vampires a second chance to attack. The Psionic, however, didn't agree with that line of thinking. The reality was that none of them had any way of knowing if the vampires were considering a second attack or not. The Psionic really didn't see anything wrong with getting rid of sygil and leaving it at that. It was weakening the wards, so of course they needed to remove it, but so long as the wards could be fixed they were safe here.

Even as he thinks that he can't help but feel some small sense of doubt. Even if he did feel that way, everyone else seemed to disagree. Was he missing something that seemed obvious to everyone else? Maybe they knew something he didn't. It's those sorts of fears and anxieties that begin to emerge as he flies. He doesn't want to remember the first attack, but the images come unbidden as his worries grow. Would a kid as young as Bonnie be forced to defend herself from beings like that? Miko and Lars were older. They were a bit more capable and a bit more annoying, but could they truly stand up to a foe like that?

It's nights like these when the Psionic misses his Alternian companions most. They had always know what to say and do. Their absence stings tonight in a way it hasn't in a long time, so where he ends up doing really isn't much of a surprise.

I. The Cookhouse
When he finds the bottle he holds it up victoriously. The drink inside appears to be a truly distressing shade of fluorescent lavender. He smiles before twisting off the top and pouring himself a drink. It's an Alternian liquor, or at least that's what the label seems to imply.

"This stuff is the best. Here, try this." And if you're nearby he pours you a drink. Even if you're not that nearby he'll probably end up calling you over. "This is what real liquor tastes like."

II. Around the Carnival

He's just a little bit drunk right now. He isn't stumbling, but his psionics seem to be going off much more frequently then normal.

"Hey, you! You!" he shouts loudly as he see's you walking by. He rapidly waves your character over before excitedly asking them, "Truth or dare?"

III. Supervisor Grove

Now he's really really drunk. He probably should not have drank that entire bottle, but it's too late for regrets now. His head is spinning, which is annoying, and he keeps wobbling a bit as he tries to balance himself. He stumbles, tries to catch himself with his own psionics, misjudges the force and ends up pushing himself flat on his back in the opposite direction. There's the thud of his body hitting the ground before before he just starts laughing hysterically. He makes no attempt to get up whatsoever.

Comments

[kingsroads]

There's a pause as Strange mulls things over, frowning slightly as he thinks. He's certainly not going to tip his hand that he was spying—after all, though he couldn't hear the interactions, it was obviously apparent that nobody know what the sigil in the forest was. But what else to ask....

"This should be an easy one. Do the names 'John Uskglass' or 'the Raven King' mean anything to you?"

Probably not. Strange's theory that this domain of Faerie had something to do with the domain of Faerie that interacted with his London was slowly falling apart at the seams (which really pissed him off, come on world, do something with the Raven King). Still, couldn't hurt to ask.

[dorkypantsuit]

He frowns in confusion. He has absolutely not heard of either of those things. However, he is drunk, so thinks about it a little longer just to be sure. Finally he shakes his head no.

"Never heard of them. Is it someone you're looking for?"

He thought Strange was looking for his wife or whatever. Maybe this other John stole her away?

"Hey. How come all you guys are named John?"

[kingsroads]

"Of a sort. John Uskglass was a magician who ruled over England and Faerie back in my world, hundreds of years ago. I simply wanted to see how far his legacy spread."

Which, it seems the answer was not as far as Strange wanted it to be. Any sort of points of reference that he could use to compare this world to his own are slipping away through Strange's fingers, something that he finds far too annoying. But as for names...

"There's not that many people from my world named John." And, as if to prove that, Strange starts counting off on his fingers some other names. "There's a Gilbert. And Arabella, of course. I know a Walter and an Arthur—there's Flora and Henry as well." He is making no sign that he's going to stop listing off names any time soon so Psi might want to cut him off before this gets ridiculous.

[dorkypantsuit]

"Okay," Psi starts, cutting off Strange's list partway. "But look, I don't know any trolls that have the same name. It's like. You are named John, right? And Childermas. And now this Yuck-Glass guy? I mean, what the hell?"

He finishes his diatribe by holding his hands out at his side. He's totally stumped by this strange human naming convention. Maybe humans just weren't creative enough to come up with new names.

[kingsroads]

"We have the same first name but we don't have the same entire name. I don't know any Jonathan Stranges aside from myself and don't know any John Childermass's aside from our mutual friend."

Strange explains as if it's the most obvious thing ever. This isn't really new or odd to him. It's simply a face of life. Some names get repeated among people and he really doesn't see why this is somehow confusing.

But wait a minute, trolls? Now that's a bit confusing, the only trolls he knows are in children's stories. "How many trolls do you know to begin with?"

[dorkypantsuit]

He can't help but feel like Strange is missing the point. He tries to think of a way to word it again, but then Strange is asking him about trolls. He's even more confused than before. Obviously he knew a lot of trolls, he was a troll for Gl'bgolyb's sake.

"Like, basically everyone I knew before I came here?"

Was that confusing? Were they even talking about the same thing.

"And you know one to now because you're talking to me."

[kingsroads]

Somehow, Strange had never gotten the memo that Psi was a troll. So he looks the other man over, giving him a slight frown, before responding with a succinct, "Well then." He did not know that! That is really, really obvious. "I thought all your differences were due to faerie magic, not you being a different species."

After all, Psi looked human enough...ish...sort of. He kind of wants to ask Psi if he lives under a bridge and eats goats but even Jonathan 'running into things headfirst without thinking' Strange realizes that might be a tad insensitive.

"I believe it's your turn to ask me something in the game, by the way."

[dorkypantsuit]

Ah. Psi's freckles grow a bit brighter as he understands the miscommunication. Right, of course, most people he met did assume he'd just been changed a lot when they first met him. Honestly that was one of the more annoying things about being the only troll here.

"The gray skin and the horns and my eye color is normal." He explains, whether Strange wants to know or not. "Some trolls do grow wings, but I didn't have these until I got here."

He stretches his wings out at the mention and they spread out further behind him. They were translucent and thin, like a bugs wings really. He feels like he should probably mention he's not from earth, being that most humans seemed to have some kind of strange fictional troll species on their planet, but figures if it's important it will come up later anyway. Strange seemed intent on leaving that discussion for another time so Psi would as well.

"So, truth or Dare, Jonathan Strange?

[kingsroads]

"Fascinating," he can't help but mutter, as he looks over Psi's wings. A species that looked fairly human but had different skin, eye color, and horns. Even a few weeks ago he wouldn't have believed that. However, since then his flatmate's eyes changed color overnight, he went to a magicless world with technology he couldn't have even dreamed of, and the doctor is a horse. Simply accepting the odd and moving on seemed to be like the best method to deal with this place.

But back to the game. Strange mulls it over for a moment before answering, "Why not. Truth!"

After all, he's a bit curious as to what Psi would ask in the first place.

[dorkypantsuit]

He nods. He really was pretty fascinating, if he said so himself. It's only natural that other people would think so as well.


"Well, the other John was out here earlier. He said he wouldn't call you a "friend." So what exactly are the two of you to each other?"

It's the question he'd wanted to ask from the beginning, before being distracted by the number of human Johns there were amongst other things. Of course he still had his own suspicions about the two of them, but a suspicion wasn't ever as good as hearing a confession straight from Strange himself.

[kingsroads]

Well that was an odd question. Strange frowned for a bit, as if pondering the answer. Of course, the actual answer was terribly complicated and involved timelines and magic and a whole bevy of information that Strange himself didn't know.

"I suppose colleagues would be a good term? He worked with the man who helped teach me magic." Strange gives Psi a little laugh before continuing. "Honestly though, I doubt Childermass would call anyone a friend. He's too standoffish for that."

That doesn't change the main question on Strange's mind. "Why on Earth were you asking about us to begin with?"

[dorkypantsuit]

He frowns, clearly unhappy with that answer.

"Well everytime I see you, you're looking for him! What the hell do you think someone's going to think after a while."

Psi throws his hands out in frustration, wavering a bit on his feet as he does so. He overcorrects for the momentary loss in balance and ends up taking a step back to catch himself from falling over.

"I mean he is kind of stoic, but that's a fine quality to have in a kismesis if you're into that sort of thing."

It wasn't Psi's kind of thing, but it was for some people. He knew a whole slew of movies that included the words "tall dark and handsome foreboding stranger" in their titles. As for Psi, well, he liked someone a little more feisty for his black quadrant. He thinks of Mari and smirks lazily.

"You know what, I didn't get to ask him, but who's the higher caste between you two? I mean... Class. I think that's what you call it... You know, who's the boss and who's the lackey?"

[kingsroads]

Strange steps forward, as if to help catch Psi from falling...but thankfully the troll catches himself, and Strange returns his hands to his side shortly afterwards.

Of course, then Psi continues to go on about their class differences (what?) and kis-something or other (what?) and Strange can't help but give him a confused look. He's not sure if this is because the other man's drunk or if this is some troll or faerie term but he's got something else to ask around about.

After he finds out what a meepmorp is, of course. Thanks for not telling him, Lapis. But back to straightening out his relationship with Childermass to Psi which honestly is something Strange never thought he'd be doing.

"I wouldn't call Childermass a lackey. He's far too competent for that. But, since I maintain an estate back in Shropshire, that makes me the higher class. As for what I expect people to think about us...well, we're from the same London, we both work as magicians here and, on most occasions, we get along fairly well. Why wouldn't I be looking for him?"

[dorkypantsuit]

Shropshire... He repeats the word in his head. It definitely doesn't sound like a real place. It did sound like a tongue twister. Shropshire, stopsprier, fopflier. He couldn't even think it three times fast! He get's distracted by that for a moment, so it takes him another second or two to respond. As the silence drags on though he realizes Strange has asked him a question and leaves dumb english tongue twisters behind him.

Of course were the Psionic sober he'd know better than to use troll terms like kismesis around humans. However, if Psi wasn't drunk then they wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.

"Joker's from London and a performer, but I never see you asking where he's at."

Joker was probably a much better lay too to be quite honest. Then again if you were looking for a relationship you might be afraid Joker wouldn't commit or something like that. He could seem rather flighty. But fuck that trash! Anyone would be lucky to have Joker as their partner. Joker would be a great kismesis.

"Oh, I know. It's because he's your boss. You don't like the idea of being on the bottom of someone's spade... Well listen, that's not how it works here. There's no caste! I mean I'm a fucking yellowblood, but here I can boss around anyone I want! I could tell you to do something stupid right now and you'd just have to do it."

As the conversation goes on, it seems Psionic is going to be making less and less sense.

[kingsroads]

Yeah, he's got no idea where to start with this.

So Psionic had yellow blood and that somehow meant something? And class relationships were apparently important to Psionic? Granted, they were important back in London society, but Strange was under the impression that things were different in Faerie. And why on Earth did Joker get dragged into this? So, Strange just pauses for a moment as he tries to parse any sense or useful information out of the drunken troll's conversation.

"I...see," Strange says, in a tone of voice that implies he doesn't see what's going on in the slightest. Well, he can at least answer part of that question (were there even any questions to begin with? He is not nearly mad enough for this conversation.) "As for Joker, the man's from around fifty years into my future. I imagine I'll be quite dead before there's the opportunity for us to meet back in London. I don't ask about him simply because..."

There's a pause, as Strange mulls things over. "Well, it's not the same as asking about someone you know from your world personally."

[dorkypantsuit]

Psi just shakes his head, laughing for a moment. That sounded very much like the protest of someone deep in denial to him. If you wanted to see someone and you didn't know the reason for it obviously it was because you were interested in them. Some of these humans acted so childishly, but Psi saw right through their little acts.

"Well what about if... Henry or Flora... Or the other people you named. What if they were here? Would you ask about any of them constantly?"

Of course he's certain Strange will answer in the affirmative. Psi doubted Strange would be willing to truthfully admit his attraction to Childermass at this stage of the game. Well that was just fine with Psi. Being afraid of admitting your feelings was all part of the fun after all.

"You know, you're alright. Definitely crazy, but alright."

[kingsroads]

Strange can't help but smile at that. "Oh, undoubtedly! Arabella is my wife, if she were here, we'd drive the rest of you to annoyance with our constant asking about each other."

Granted, he's got a feeling Arabella would do more of the asking in that regard and in more of a 'oh god, what has my idiot husband gotten himself up to now' sort of sense. As he finishes talking, a small sadness sets in Strange's eyes. If Arabella were here. In his mind, there's no way she could be here in the first place. Back home, at the moment, she's dead. Though hopefully, when his contract is up, he'll have a way to change that.

Thankfully, Psi shakes him out of that brief pit of the doldrums by calling him crazy, a fact that Strange looks worryingly proud of.

"I'm afraid you're telling me something I already know. But thank you for the compliment anyway. Likewise, you're also, ah, 'alright.' Though, I'd call you more eccentric instead of mad."