lostcarnival | always do sober what you said you’d do drunk

Who: Childermass & the Psiioniic
When Evening of D53
Where: Back at ye old waterlogged carnival.
What: Childermass never did get around to asking about that sigil...

Strange would ask about the vampires and Childermass would ask about the meeting in the woods, the one they hadn't been meant to watch. That is what the two magicians had decided out at the reef, far beyond Atlantis, and it was only a matter of time before he settled on which supervisor to ask. Since it had been the Psiioniic that had begun this inquiry, so it only seemed proper to let him end it.

Whether that meant coming away with any useful information or not was yet to be seen.

It's during the later evening of the carnival — gates long since thrown open to the fishy public of Atlantis and slowly beginning to wind down — that he goes searching for the foreman. With the shows at the big top tents already over for the night, he's free to look, tiredness not factoring into it as it often does not with him. The one silver lining for Psi is that he's too lazy to cloak himself from the crowds and lurks the old-fashioned way, which means he won't be appearing out of thin air all of the sudden.

Whenever he does find him, wherever that happens to be, he'll drift to a halt and find a spot to prop a shoulder against and lean idly, arms folded, waiting. There's definitely something expectant about that waiting, too, making no attempt to hide the fact that he's watching Psi finish up whatever work he's at currently.

Because, really, why interrupt when you can be a shark waiting ominously just within eyeshot?

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"I'm not usually inclined towards rash actions if that's what worries you."

He isn't exactly free of bad decisions, either, though those tend not to be the sort fueled by recklessness. He will accept the offered soda, though, even if he's not actually sure what it is. A drink, obviously, and thankfully grape. It's not going to end well regardless, but at least what's written on the can doesn't put him off of it from the get-go.

"What you're doing right now is rash." Psi says, shaking his head. He opens his own soda can and it pops as the carbonation fizzes out. It's clear Childermass is clever, but being clever didn't mean you wouldn't act rashly, it just meant you needed the right motivation.

"So why do you want to know?"

"I did say usually," Childermass points out, opening the can of soda at the end of saying that as if to punctuate it. He is distracted for a second or two by the fizz, frowning at it some before continuing on. "I want to know because if the carnival is striking first, Strange will be stuck going out alongside the Nightrider."

And he would have gone on with why that's a problem had he not decided to try the grape soda. One sip is all it takes for him to hold it away, far away, again and make a face. Now, normally he wouldn't complain about a drink he took mostly to be polite, but good God, Psi...

"What is this?"

It takes quiet a bit of strength not to laugh at Childermass here either. He raises an eyebrow, watching the other man with a clear look of amusement.

"Grape soda?"

"Grape? It tastes like nothing but sugar..."

Which is honestly the only way he can describe soda right now.

He does laugh at that.

"Yeah, it does. That's kind of the point."

He would probably laugh about it after the fact, too, the way he wrinkles his nose and says, "That's terrible."

And way too much sugar, Psi. Way too much, but it's also distracted from the original conversation, so he'll set the soda aside next to something akin to a tacky fake cactus and continue where he'd left off.

"But as I was saying before..." Before grape soda. "Mr. Strange being dragged off into some unknown danger is not something I can stand by and do nothing about."

"Right, you're not friend." He says, with a little smirk.

"You know, for someone you claim not to care about you seem rather concerned for his safety."

"This again," Childermass can't help but say with a sigh. "I may not call him a friend, but he is nonetheless important to my world. It would be much deprived should he never return and myself much out of time and place for the same reason."

Honestly, the fact that Childermass finds it irritating only makes it that much more amusing to him. He doesn't bother continuing though, just taking a sip from his soda after Childermass explains. The pause is enough for his mind to turn back to the topic at hand, as disagreeable as the topic is.

"So your worried about the vampires." he bites his lip after he says it, thinking about what he can say. Nothing good, but if Childermass wanted to know that bad he could at least tell him the truth.

"Personally, I still think it's all Mari's fault." He comments, setting his soda aside. He leans against the counter, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "The Ringmaster makes some money sending the Nightrider off to take down certain folks. Well their crew didn't do their job and got followed back here by the stragglers."

It's plain enough to him that he's talking about an assassination attempt gone wrong, but humans could be funny sometimes. He looks to Childermass to make sure the other man is following along.

To which Childermass nods, showing he is, indeed, following along. The fact the Ringmaster has mercenaries at all makes that unsurprising to him, as what else would they even be for if not for hire?

"So the Nightrider fails, the vampires come here to the carnival, and...?"

Nothing good, he assumes.

He smiles, but there's nothing happy about it. It's the smile of a cynic watching as all his I told you so's become real. Did Childermass really have to ask? Or maybe he was looking for something more specific.

"Panic, terror, death." He lists them off looking away as he does so, because he can still remember that feeling of dread as the screams of the dead filled his head split seconds before they'd struck.

"They can control you." he says, with a small laugh of horrified amazement, "Make you do things against your will, attack your friends."

And he does look at Childermass here because he's sure the other man knows well that feeling.

"The people who didn't die went home when their contracts were up. Sans got a promotion."

He does know that exact feeling. He also hopes to never know it again. It also means he won't ask what happened to those who were controlled (he can make some educated guesses) or if the Psiioniic himself was controlled. If not him, then friends of his. It's cruel on either side, really.

So the Warden died, too. Another thing he won't say out loud, but an interesting fact to know.

"And then the Ringmaster began collecting anew." This does finally explain how understaffed the carnival had been when he first arrived. "But what of the sigil? Or is that unrelated?"

He sighs, looking to the side, his annoyance from before returning. Annoyance at the memory of learning of the sigil though, not at Childermass.

"It's a mark they left, to curse us or something. The Ringmaster is going to get rid of it I guess."

always do sober what you said you’d do drunk

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