lostcarnival | It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

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It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Who: Peridot and Lapis, Peridot and YOU, Lapis Lazuli and YOU, or, you AND Peridot AND Lapis! Now featuring Pumpkin.
What: Peridot called in a favor from the Ringmaster and got her vegetable dog back! Also, Lapis brought home a gross skeleton and a weird sword, and you can see it outside their trailer.
When: The night the carnival leaves Atlantis and on
Where: The supervisor's grove, and around the Carnival in general

A. CLOSED TO LAPIS

"Look on the bright side Lapis! We match now!"

This would be Peridot's attempt at reassuring her roommate that the changes which she has retained, following two weeks of being underwater, could be a whole lot worse. They are blessedly walking (instead of swimming) back to their trailer in the supervisor's grove, and Peridot is pointing at her mouth and flashing a sharp-toothed grin.

It's been a fairly exhausting two weeks for the both of them. All things considered, Peridot didn't find Atlantis to be too objectionable. Sure, there was the whole giant crab incident wherein a hideous sea beast had tried to kidnap her and her friends in order to add their gems to his treasure hoard, and Greg had been in danger of being eaten through the whole ordeal, but other than that? It was pretty pleasant!

She sure is glad to be back on two legs though. Also, she's more than ready to get back to her morps.

"Anyway, you're lucky you just woke up with your teeth like that," she continues, ascending the front steps and reaching for the door. "When my teeth changed, I was awake, and it was pure agony!" Peridot says brightly.

And then she pulls the door open. And something round and orange comes tearing out of the trailer and hits her square in the chest. Wheezing, Peridot goes flying off the stoop in a flash and slams into the ground flat on her back. Her orange assailant remains seated right on her chest, yapping wagging its weird vine tail in sheer joy.

...Despite the assault, the engineer is not even remotely angry. "PUMPKIN!" she squeals, overjoyed, and holds the gourd aloft.

B. OTA, THE DAYS BETWEEN ATLANTIS AND THE PARTY REALM

From the day after the carnival leaves Atlantis and onward, as you go about your duties around the carnival, you may be visited by Pumpkin with either one or both of her caretakers in tow. Pumpkin is a friendly and energetic little pal who basically just lives for pets and play time. Be advised, though, that she can be a bit nosy sometimes, and has an appetite for things that most people wouldn't exactly consider food? Like plastic cake toppers. And buckets of soapy water.

(Please specify in your subject line if you would like a tag back from Peridot, Lapis, or the both of them.)

C. OTA, LAPIS' VORPAL BLADE GOES SNICKER SNACK

There's another oddity in the carnival now, and it's Lapis and Peridot's rather macabre new lawn ornament.

...Okay, so it's more Lapis' lawn ornament than Peridot. Peridot's not really a fan of it, if she's being honest.

The "ornament" in question is actually the skeleton of a Mer, propped up against their trailer with a gigantic mystical looking sword pierced between its ribs. There is no explanation for why it's here. It just is, because neither gem has considered that maybe putting this thing out as a decoration is maybe not exactly in good taste?

You can stop and stare at if you want, but don't you dare touch.

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The day after they leave Atlantis, it oddly takes Sora longer to readjust to having legs than it did to having a tail. This is weird, but not entirely unexpected on his part.

What was not expected was the strange things happening while he's simply running around doing his job. First the Ringmaster, and now-

Oh my god that is the cutest pumpkin and/or dog he's ever seen. Being led by two girls with multicolored skin. But look at that dog. What a good dog.

Sora kinda wants to pet the pumpkin dog.

Evidently, the pumpkin dog wants to be pet as well. It zips right over to Sora and starts bouncing and pawing at him with its little nub feet, whimpering for attention.

"Hey! Pumpkin, come on!" Peridot yells, half jogging after the wayward vegetable in pursuit.

Lapis naturally follows after Pumpkin and Peridot, though she unfortunately lacks the friendliness of both of them. By a large margin.

What a shame.

"You shouldn't run off like that." Lapis scolds the pumpkin, completely ignoring Sora for the moment. Sorry.

The pumpkin dog comes over to Sora, and wow it's even cuter up close??? Sora crouches down to pet the pup, playing with it and giving it all the attention it could ever want as it bounces all over and is generally on top of of him.

"Ah, sorry, is this your dog?" Sora asks the shorter girl as she jogs up to him. "It's really cute."

He grins up at the two, oblivious to any ignoring from any blue girls.

"Actually, she's a pumpkin," Peridot corrects him, very matter-of-fact. "From what I understand, dogs have fur. Come on, Pumpkin..."

"Rowf!" Says Pumpkin with a glance at Peridot, before stretching her front paws up and trying to clamber into Sora's lap. Upon witnessing this, the engineer gasps and looks scandalized. "Hey! Those affections are supposed to be reserved for us!!"

ET TU, PUMPKIN?

"You're stealing our affection!" Is that a thing that can actually be stolen? Lapis seems to think so, clearly offended that Pumpkin has chosen to love another. How will they ever get on in this cruel, lonely world without their gourd giving them its sole affection?

"She's supposed to love us, not you!" SO STOP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING THIS MOMENT?

Ohhhhhh my god Pumpkin the gourd dog is in his lap and ahhhh this is the best. Dog pumpkins are the best. He'll continue to pet the pumpkin, who looks pleased as punch to be getting all this attention.

"Well, can't she love more than one person? If you're her owners, I'm sure she still loves you best of all," Sora grins. That's how dogs work, right?

It's funny how Lapis is mad at Sora, but Peridot was placing the blame solely on Pumpkin for being a gosh darned traitor.

"I guess that's possible," Peridot concedes reluctantly, watching as Pumpkin rolls over to expose her weird orange belly for petting. "I guess Pumpkin just loves everybody. Which is a shame, because I thought we taught her better than that."

The engineer cocks her head, appraising Sora. "I don't think I've seen you around the carnival before. Are you a new recruit?"

It is actually very much more than likely that she has actually crossed paths with Sora before now? Peridot is just not always the most perceptive person.

Lapis makes a disapproving noise of Pumpkin rolling over and exposing her belly for more petting. To go with that disapproving noise, she's also going to give Sora a very disapproving look too.

Pumpkin could totally do better? Especially when Lapis and Peridot are right here?

Sora only glances at the blue girl before turning back to the green one. He gets the feeling the blue girl doesn't like him.

"Well, I've been here almost two months, actually. I'm Sora. It's nice to meet you!"

He grins, and continues petting Pumpkin. Maybe if he keeps smiling, the girls will stop being upset.

Bless this poor boy. He has no idea how eternally grouchy these two can be.

One could argue that Lapis doesn't like anybody, though. Peridot, on the other hand...

"Two months!?" Peridot exclaims, reeling back a little, clearly surprised. "Hm. Which supervisor are you working under? You can't be on my team, I mean. I know everyone who's on my team."

All two of them. Herself and Steven's dad.

The engineering team is pretty short handed at the moment.

"Um, I don't think I have one?" Sora wonders vaguely. "I'm a Patch, but they told me that there's no one in charge of that right now. I've just been kind of helping out everyone, though."

He takes a closer look at the green girl. She looks like a supervisor, definitely, but he's pretty sure they've never met. How is it that keeps happening? It feels like he must've met everyone by now, but geeze, how many workers does the carnival even have?

"Which department are you in charge of?"

Pumpkin is an absolute traitor, and Lapis honestly can't even believe this. This is Terrible. With her love and affection scorned, how will she ever learn to trust again?

Pumpkin barks loudly once, twice, and flops over immediately in Sora's lap for bell rubs with a soft whine.

"A Patch?" She looks at Peridot with a raised eyebrow. She hasn't exactly been keeping up on terms for who is what unless they relate to her job specifically.

At Lapis' question, Peridot glances over and gives her a little shrug. She has absolutely no idea. Keeping track of what positions are under the the other supervisor positions isn't something she wastes much thought on.

"I'm the Engineer Peridot says, jerking a thumb back towards herself. "I'm basically single-handedly responsible for making sure that this whole place doesn't fall apart. I also supervise the guy in charge of the lighting and sound effects for the shows."

"Oh, um, a Patch is someone who makes sure arguments don't break out between visitors, and helps protect the carnival. I think the person in charge is the... Treasurer? But like I said, no one's doing that right now."

Pumpkin rolls over in his lap, barking, and Sora can't help but give into that pout for belly rubs. Who could resist that cute face?

"Oh! You mean Greg? I've met him! He's really cool."

A creature of habit, Papyrus greets the sun most mornings with a walk around the carnival grounds. That got a little bit interrupted in Atlantis by not properly having two legs, so with the dawn of the first water-free day, he gets right back into it.

And what a good morning it turns out to be! Not only are there several skeleton statues he and his brother are responsible for, between the wide-mouthed statue Sans has for a mailbox, the trailertop decoy, and the couple of sand Papyruses that Psiionic enabled him into making... But, today, there's a brand new skeleton statue in somebody's lawn! Remarkable realistic, too.

...In fact, Papyrus realizes as he inspects it, it's too realistic. It doesn't have the grainy quality of the sand, or the fine erosion of stone. It looks like bone, like his own bone. But if that's really a skeleton, one who's just taking a nap, somebody has pulled quite the jape on them. With that sword holding them in place, they may not be able to stand.

...Well, they wouldn't be able to stand anyway, with that tail. But they won't be able to swim, either. He coughs and calls out a greeting to wake them up.

"Hello! Are you in need of assistance? You look a little, ah, pinned."

The mer skeleton, unfortunately, does not stir from its place.

Lapis does, however, and she sits up from her place on top of her and Peridot's trailer and... squints at what she sees. "What are you doing?" You better not touch her skeleton, Skeleton.

Did the narration say don't touch the skeleton? Well, he sure doesn't hear it. Papyrus kneels next to the totally-sleeping decoration and rests a hand on its shoulder.

"I'm offering assistance," he calls over. "It seems someone has fallen asleep on your lawn!" The alternative is that they've fallen down here, and then someone put a sword in them for mysterious reasons? Or that the sword is part of that. Now that would be strange.

"Hey! Hands off!" Unfortunately for Papyrus, Lapis is the more physically aggressive of the pair that live in the trailer. Which means, very suddenly he is going to be shoved away from her skeleton meepmorp with a jet of water from one of the nearby fountains they have rigged up.

It's not harmful but it is hella rude.

Fortunately for him, he's still somewhat used to being flung around. It doesn't hurt too much, and he regains his fitting quickly.

"You're protective of your friend's nap! That's very considerate!" He calls over, never mind that shouting would need up a nap. "But now are they going to get up with that sword??""

"Seriously?" Is. Is this weird magical skeleton for real? "They're dead. They aren't getting up." Though as far as Lapis is concerned, said skeleton is in a much better state than it was while they were under the ocean.

It's definitely better not being disgusting and gooey with rotten bits of flesh still stuck in it.

He is very real, earnestly staring between her and the merskeleton with increasinly wide eyesockets. Sure, the way they're lying so still, maybe they have fallen down... but they don't seem to be breaking into dust. And it's such a public place to keep a fallen friend.

Maybe he misheard her. "They're... what?"

"Dead. As in, not getting back up." Why is that so hard to understand? "Now or ever." Unless there's some sort of magic that Lapis doesn't know about, but that seems a little weird, considering that it hasn't moved yet. It also probably couldn't get up and move anyway due to being a mermaid skeleton and not a regular human skeleton.

"Oh." Then he did hear her correctly. He shivers a little, stepping closer again to look between them. "What... happened to them? Why are they here?" Far be it from him to question somebody's decision to be left on a lawn, but that didn't seem like much of a funeral. Who loved grass that much?

"I don't know. I found them in a cave behind a boulder. The skeleton was a lot more disgusting before I removed the nasty rotten bits from it." Lapis suppresses a shudder. "Anyway, the sword was already through them so I left it like that." Because the sword seems to cut through literally everything else she tries to stick it through.

It's very frustrating.

"So you found a dead skeleton in a dump... and thought to clean them up?" When she puts it like that, it's not so bad. Practically a favor, even if they couldn't appreciate it. "I guess... skeletons from other worlds don't dissolve so quickly."

"A few hundred years, give or take I think?" At most, anyway. Look, she's hardly an expert on human bone deterioration rates anyway. "But yeah, I guess so?"

"Are you serious??" A hundred years is a stupefying amount of time for a dead body to linger. Papyrus clasps a hand to his head for a moment, trying to take it all in.

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?" What is he getting so worked up about? It's just a skeleto- Oh..

Oh well, not her business.

"A few hundred years," he repeats, staring at the merskeleton. He's not making any moves towards it, but he's also not moving on.

Two decorative skeletons for the price of one.

Hinawa was having her own issues. She was grateful to no longer be a jellyfish, but she wasn't quite back to normal. Her legs were back, but instead of feet, she had hooves that were considerably more difficult to walk with. In an attempt to relearn how to move, she was wobbling around the trailer park, one hand out and the other grasping onto whatever she could to keep her balance.

And that's when the pumpkin attacked.

Okay, it didn't attack, it was just bounding towards her excitedly, much like a dog, but it was enough to startle Hinawa. Before she knew it, she was toppled over on the ground, the pumpkin pawing and barking at her.

"H-hey, there, where did you come from?" She asks, trying to make sense of the dog... squash...thing.

"PUMPKIIINNN!" hollers Peridot furiously, hot on the dog's heels. This is like. The third time today??? that this vegetable has run off on her and Lapis??? She's getting kind of sick of it.

"There you are!" she scolds, running up to the scene of the incident. Pumpkin turns around on top of Hinawa to face the green gem, yapping and bouncing up and down. Peridot scowls at the creature, hands on her hips. "I don't know how you expect us to finish showing you around the Carnival if you keep running off every nanosecond to go slobber all over some new--" She pauses abruptly to appraise Hinawa, eyebrows raised, as if she has only just really noticed her here. "Oh. And look at this, you seem to have interrupted a human in the middle of her.... llllaying on the ground time?" Suddenly she's yelling: "Bad Pumpkin!"

Hinawa can hear someone, but the constant barrage of pumpkin kisses makes it difficult to see anything. Finally, she puts her arms up to block the slobber.

"Is this your little friend?" She asks Peridot. "They're very... energetic!"

When Pumpkin bounds back to its master, Hinawa attempts to stand up. It's a long and arduous process. Hooves are hard.

Predictably, Peridot doesn't offer to help, because she's a rude little shit. "Yes. This is my Pumpkin," she says simply, and Pumpkin leaps up into her arms with an agreeable 'wuff'. "Sorry if she interrupted your nap time, or whatever it was you were doing down there. She doesn't really have the best manners."

Lapis lands down next to Peridot from the air, wings dissipating off of her back as she does. "You found her!" Lapis sounds relieved, but honestly she's also a little miffed at their pumpkin? Geeze...

Lapis reaches over to scratch the gourds head because this traitor needs to understand that her and Peridot can give it the best affection possible? And it should love them and them alone?

And then she realizes there's someone else there. And she looks from them to Peridot and back. "Did she do that?" She's asking Peridot, not Hinawa. Because Lapis is an unfriendly piece of shit.

Lapis is not amused by Peridots bright and sunny outlook on her changes. As far as she's concerned they are terrible and she absolutely does not like them, and neither should Peridot. Thankfully for the two of them, Lapis' ire gets replaced by joy as the tech Gem is flattened by a yapping jack-o-lantern.

"Pumpkin!" This makes her day so much better? She's already leaning down to rub the barking dog gourd. Dogourd. "When did you get here?" And who put her in the trailer?

"I called in a favor a while back and asked the Ringmaster to bring her here," Peridot explains, and she looks immensely proud of herself for having done so. "Looks like she finally came through! Isn't that right, Pumpkin, awww..."

Pumpkin barks in what Peridot assumes to be excited agreement. She tries to sit up with the vegetable in both arms, but the little creature hops free and starts to run in ecstatic circles around the both of them, yapping incessantly.

Well, you know what they say. Pets help reduce stress levels and Pumpkin is the best pet anyone could have ever asked for? Lapis twists in spot to watch the excitable living vegetable do laps around them while barking.

"I'm glad. I've missed her." Lapis wants to scoop her up? But also if she does that then the pumpkin will probably just wriggle out of her grasp due to current amounts of excitability.

"Hear hear," Peridot agrees, standing up and dusting herself off. She puts her hands on her hips, watching as well. "Our little unit just wasn't the same without her."

Lucky for Lapis, Pumpkin decides she's had enough of running circles and switches over to bouncing up and down, reaching frankly improbable heights with each jump. She seems like maybe she wants Lapis to pick her up?

Of course she will, because both of them are complete suckers for this pumpkin. On a bounce, Lapis scoops the gourd up and clutches it to her chest, a hand on top to scritch her head and a hand below to support.

"It's true. It's not as quiet as the barn was, but it definitely wasn't the same without her." Now Lapis has reasons to actually do things that aren't sunning herself on the roof of their trailer like a shitty water flinging reptile.

Pumpkin whimpers and sighs, settling and savoring those scritches. She looks pleased as punch. Peridot, meanwhile, gasps with delight. "Oh man, we can show her around the carnival now! And, oh gosh, we need to tell Steven! And Amethyst too! HEY AMETHYST!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That last call is absolutely bellowed across the supervisor's grove as the green gem turns abruptly and faces the direction of the trailer that Amethyst shares with Sans. She stands there for a long moment, waiting for some kind of response.

"...Huh. She must be out somewhere still," Peridot shrugs. "Or she's napping again."

A minute or so later Amethyst pushes the door of Sans's trailer open, yawning hugely. She doesn't look particularly bothered to have been woken up, but she was definitely pretty asleep just now.

"Yo, P-dawg, what's up?"

"I'm going to say she was asleep." Lapis comments aside to Peridot. She can't find it in her to be really snarky at the moment because really, she's just too happy to have their barking gourd back?

"Pumpkin showed up in our trailer today."

"Yes!! What Lapis said, look, LOOK!!!"

She points eagerly with alternating hands at the vegetable in Lapis' arms. Pumpkin sees Amethyst and gets SO EXCITED, launching herself out of her grip and galloping over to run circles around the purple gem. EVERY PERSON IS PUMPKIN'S FAVORITE PERSON? THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF THIS GOURD'S SHORT LITTLE LIFE HOLY SHIT, SHE NEEDS TO YELL REPEATEDLY ABOUT IT, AAAAAAA

(bark bark bark bark)

"What–?"

She doesn't have time to fully process this information before she is being leapt and yelled at by Peridot's unconventional dog.

"Whoah – man, how'd this little guy get here?" She scoops the gourd up and holds her out at arm's length, grinning first at Pumpkin and then at Peridot. "Did she make some kinda vegetable deal?"

"On the contrary!" Peridot cuts in. "I made 'some kind' of vegetable deal with the Ringmaster. She owed me a favor, and the group just didn't feel complete without Pumpkin here... So now she lives with us again, free of charge!"

"I'm glad. It was pretty lonely when only one of us was in the trailer." When Lapis was alone in there, anyway. It's good to have someone else around. Especially when it's a pumpkin that loves you unconditionally.

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It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

B, Either is fine!

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gOURD DOG

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C because we need a battle of skeleton meepmorps

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B, por que no los dos

THIS ONE TOTALLY SLIPPED BY US SORRY

It's cool!

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