lostcarnival | Meet n Greet!

Entry tags:

Meet n Greet!

Who: Sophie and youuuu. (and Sophie and Sans) (AND and Sophie and Carly)
What: Touring the carnival, seeing what's changed and what's stayed the same.
When: Post Atlantis.
Where: Wherever around the carnival, she's wandering.

Closed to Sans:

[So...Sans was the new warden huh. That is. Real weird. Not inconceivable or anything, but she's surprised he didn't just turn down the position. There's got to be some kind of story there, and she's itching to find out about it. Also she is required to report to her supervisor so that's convenient. Out of habit she starts heading to his old trailer, but no. He'd be in the supervisor's area now. She was literally thinking about him being a supervisor the entire time and did not realize he would have moved. It's really gonna take a bit to sink in. She does a heel face turn and starts heading back in the correct direction.

Aaaand before too long she gets there. Pokes around, reads some names on some doors, and finds Sans's trailer. Which has a cannon on it for some reason. Man what even happened while she was gone. She hesitates for a second before knocking. She'd left pretty abruptly. Or uh, entirely abruptly. Her contract was over, so it's not like it was totally unpredictable, but she hadn't really been planning to leave until the last minute. Then she got out before she had a chance to change her mind. She doesn't think Sans will hold a grudge or, even that he cared that much that she left but, with everything else that's changed who even knows? Waffling over it won't answer any of her questions though, so she shrugs off her doubts and knocks.]

Oi, you in there?

OPEN

[Sophie felt it was incredibly convenient that she'd rejoined the carnival during travel days. She knew how hectic things could get here even on the relatively normal stops, so getting a few days of down time to re-adjust to being here was nice. So right now she's giving herself a tour of the attractions, paying special interest to anything newly added since the last time she was here. Little's changed with the rides and the concessions. Most of the chance games and rigged contests were also just how she remembered but there was a slight variation here and there. She makes sure to look over each of those more carefully, and figure out which one was the most likely to get people riled up about it being unfair. Being a bouncer was only fun when you had people to bounce, and the aggravation of getting conned out of all their money was generally what caused the unruly behavior she then got to deal with. She interviews some game runners, asking if they'd had problems, and if so how the current bouncers were at their jobs.

The most change of course is in the Big Top. Almost none of the acts she remembers were being practiced, because almost none of the people who used to do them were here. She spends a good while observing rehearsals, sizing people up and generally watching the proceedings with clear interest, although it's hard to tell from her expression if she's enjoying what she's seeing, or hating it. She's not actively glaring, but she's got quite the case of resting bitch face. If an act particularly catches her eye, she'll watch until the performer is finished, then try to pass on a compliment when they head out. Things she has learned since the last time she was here: not interacting with people means you don't talk to or see anyone, which sucks over extended periods of time.

Finally, she heads to the mess hall. She's got to inform at least somebody on kitchen duty about her vampiric diet and figure out the logistics of keeping her fed.]

Closed to Carly:

[Again she feels that hint of guilt. It's a little worse this time than with Sans. Sans was definitely her friend, and they got along really well, but he was very much a go with the flow kind of person. Water, duck's back, all that stuff. Things got to him sure, but they didn't really lean on each other that much or anything. Carly on the other hand. They'd been roommates for crying out loud. Sophie'd had basically one of her first successful attempts at Comforting a Person with her. She really had cared about Carly, but again she'd just. Bolted.

It's far to similar to her current actions and predicaments than she likes to think about, but the parallels are so obvious even she can't ignore them. Well she'll think of this like a trial run for her eventual reunion with Foster a year down the line. She'd grown up so much the last year she'd spent here, surely she'd be able to pull it off again, one way or another. So she knocks, no rough greeting this time, mostly because she's not quite sure what to say yet.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Well, not inside, apparently.

At first all she may see is the cannon, but at a second she'll notice something else beside the cannon. First off, there is a sand sculpture built on top of the trailer that would look eerily like Sans - that is, if it didn't have a weird trilobite body for its lower half, and if the sand hadn't has the chance to start falling apart, skewing his sculpture's features kind of bizarrely. Also, if the real Sans wasn't sleeping on it. That would probably help, too.

Sans is sleeping on top of his trailer, using his Sans sculpture duplicate as a pillow, apparently without a care in the world. There are a few empty liquor bottles resting on the metal surface alongside him, which probably helps. It isn't until she shouts that he actually wakes up.

He looks the same, in a lot of ways - except the part where he has a tail, and digitigrade feet, and possibly other changes she can't see from this angle. It's been almost two years, and that feels like a very long time.

He opens his eyes, genuinely surprised - it doesn't happen often, but Sophie showing up again was one of the last things he would have expected. Did she seriously come back?]

Huh? Sophie?

[His voice slurs just a little as he looks at her, sticking a fist into his own eyesocket as if he's scrubbing it out.]

Have I got sand in my sockets or what?

[She knew anybody left that she remembered would have gotten some new additions, but in Sans' case they seem more noticeable than she would have expected. A skeleton in a hoodie she's well and used to, and given how often people acquire animal feet around the carnival, she should be able to take the new digitigrade limbs in stride easily, but somehow they look a lot weirder when you can see the foot bones all smooshed around into a new shape instead of just being the familiar sight of 'paws'.

The liquor bottles at least are good and familiar, and as she clambers up onto the roof herself to join him, she frowns slightly in disappointment that none of them have anything left. She takes her time to look more closely at the creepy bug Sans....thing. She'll put that on the 'things to ask about later' list. For now she just flops down across from him, sitting in a cross legged, mildly hunched position.]

Nope, I'm really back. It's been like a decade for me, not that you'd really be able to tell.

[In fact, she does look older than she was while she was here, but weirdly enough only by about...well three or four years at most. Her kind of vampirism stopped aging, but apparently was not strong enough to hold back puberty from running its course.]

Anyway, I guess this is my job interview since somehow you're the new Warden?

[As always with her, right down to business. They can chat and catch up down the line.]

[Sans sits up, the situation actually beginning to sink it. It's weird. Not many people have come back after leaving, especially for an entire fucking decade. She does look older, and it's weird thinking about when she was here and how he'd been different at the time, too.]

Huh.

[He's not really sure what to say at first, his recent consumption making it even more difficult. Of course, her question obliges an answer. His grin widens, a bit ironically.]

Surprise.

That's how you know the place has gone to the dogs, right?

[It's a pun, even if she might not understand the full breadth of it.]

[She shrugs, a smile on her face. She does miss the dog thing, largely because without fur or anything his altered bone structure could be from just about any digitigrade animal.]

Eh, the bigtop's still standing so I guess you haven't done that bad a job. So how about it Baldy, do I get my old spot back, or do I have to start as an intern and work my way back up.

[That's a joke too. It's not like bouncers really have a hierarchy.]

Edited 2017-02-19 03:25 (UTC)

God, Sophie.

[He leans back on his sand sculpture as a dramatic gesture.]

You would not believe the crap I've been putting up with, workers wise. Except, I guess you probably would.

[He snorts.]

But yeah, sure. It's not like it's my call, anyway.

[She raises her eyebrows, so he hadn't had a radical change of heart into a Hardworking Motivated individual. That's comforting to be honest. But it leaves her most pressing question unanswered.]

So how'd you get stuck with this gig in the first place? Never really saw you as being the management type.

I'm not.

[That part comes easily enough - not defensive, but just as a plain declaration to fact.]

But... Kiwani went and got killed during this whole vampire fiasco that happened months ago. [The old Warden. Her name is said with some degree of regret.] 'N after that... I guess there weren't enough bodies around to be picky, and the RM asked me to take the job.

[Her smirk vanishes abruptly as she hears the news. Whoa that's. Her first thought is just how. Kiwani had been. Well she'd been so Badass. When she heard about the change, she thought she must have just retired finally or something, not. Not get beaten.

She's not exactly sad...she's never been very good at mourning, and when she first left it's not like she expected to see any of them again anyway so for her personally not much has changed. But there's plenty of shock and confusion. She's just having trouble wrapping her head around it. Just like Sans being the warden it didn't fit. But she guesses in context now it sort of does. It's a long quiet period before she talks again. She's not looking at him now, staring somewhere off into the distance.]

...what vampire fiasco?

[The question is soft, and it's not really the one she expected to ask first, but now that it's out there she realizes she wants to know.]

[The details are, thankfully, pretty plain and easy to explain when it comes down to it. That's just what happens when you piss off enough people, he guesses. Honestly, looking back, it's a surprise that the carnival's nonsense hadn't caught up with them sooner.]

We ended up going to this planet that was openly ruled by the local vampire population. Mostly we just did our usual thing, but then... well, you know how the RM likes to stick her nose into things. I guess she was trying to do good works or something, but after the Nightrider finished assassinating some of those vampire overlords, they managed to follow her crew back to the carnival somehow.

They attacked us when we weren't expecting it. Fighting went on for a while until we pushed 'em out. Some people died, and it kind of killed the mood for a lot of us afterwards.

[Sophie's already pretty high opinion of the Ring Master just went up several more notches. She makes a face kind of like she just smelled some spoiled milk, but then it eases into a bitter sort of smile.]

How much did I ever tell you about where I'm from? Cause the whole 'Shitty Vampire Government' thing is what we've got going on too. And murdering various blood sucking politicians is uh...my job now. Like really it's how I pay rent. I'm an assassin back home now.

[Granted, 'good works' isn't applicable to her particular murder sprees. Normally she's hired by other vampires actually. Just a piece being shuffled around the board of stupid immortal politics. God she wishes she could have been around to actually work to cripple a group like that. But...looks like it hadn't turned out all that well for them.

With Kiwani going down, Sophie's not surprised so many people she knew before aren't here anymore. There were a few longstanding veterans missing that she would have assumed were going to spend the rest of their lives at the carnival. Well...maybe they had. Either way, the abundance of new blood makes sense now. She sighs.]

So you got forced into it huh? Now you're just waiting for somebody minimally qualified to show up?

It sort of thought it seemed like your style, at the time.

[It's said with a note of familiar humour. Though it's honestly sort of weird having vampires in the carnival, now. Not that he's concerned about Sophie himself, who knows how the newer veterans might feel.]

Forced is a strong word, though. The RM went after me for it, but I accepted on my own terms. Even if it was basically a huge joke from the start. Seniority means a lot more than experience around here - plenty of newbies have trickled through with plenty of skill but none of 'em have had the chance to be around longer than a few months.

[Plus, stepping down would honestly be sort of embarrassing at this point, thanks to his newly developed sense of shame.]

Edited 2017-02-24 21:47 (UTC)

[Sophie grunts in understanding. She's betting those terms were something along the lines of 'but i don't gotta do shit'. Kiwani was a force to be reckoned with, but her training was always way more intense than anything the security team actually had to deal with on the job. Well...at least until the vampire thing. Sans being a flake and disorganized probably wouldn't affect the functioning of the bouncers and patrols.]

Well...don't go looking at me to relieve you. I hate handling people things.

[Does she mean 'things to do with people' or 'people or things similar enough to people'? Both. She means both.]

Don't we all?

[He chortles drunkenly and the eventually stops, looking away awkwardly.]

Nah. I'm not lookin' to go anywhere. I've got business I need to take care of... and I guess this was a good way to make some progress on it.

[He's quiet for a moment, and then:]

My brother showed up.

[He wouldn't have actually told her about his brother at any point, so that may seem out of nowhere. It could have been Sans's best kept secret, if it weren't for the fact that pretty much every part of Sans is a secret.]

You have a brother?

[She's surprised, but not overwhelmingly. There's no betrayal or 'how come you never told me!!' sort of tone in her voice. She didn't talk a lot, (or at all actually), about her family and it's not the kind of thing she would have thought to ask about. She has a younger brother herself that she's pretty sure she's never mentioned. If people didn't bring up their past or their own world voluntarily, she didn't ask. Everybody had their reasons to be here, and for plenty of people 'home' was a pretty sore subject, herself included.

Honestly she didn't even know if Sans even had parents or how he yknow....existed. She kind of assumed necromancy of some sort, in which case maybe he had a family while he was alive?

Suddenly she has a lot of questions, and doesn't really know where to start. That first one hardly counted, it was more of an immediate reaction, and practically rhetorical. There's barely a pause between it and what she says next.]

Is he human, or like, alive? Or bones and stuff, like you?

[Unbeknownst to her there sure is a lot to unpack in that question. Her tendency to make an ass out of herself through assumptions has apparently not diminished in the slightest over the past decade.]

[The two of them had never crossed paths: Zecora had joined shortly after Sophie had left, and so for the moment she doesn't process Sophie as someone familiar with the carnival.]

[Not that it affects her choices anyway -- Zecora has other interests on her mind as she paces down the fairway. Which means Sophie has an excellent view of a small cloaked zebra strolling past, a paper plate clenched in her teeth as she eyed the funnel cake balanced on it with anticipatory delight.]

[Sophie does a small double-take. When she was last here she probably wouldn't have batten an eye, but after a decade away her first thought on seeing a well dressed Zebra, even in the context of the carnival, is 'escaped zoo animal'. She catches herself before saying anything though, and gives her head a little shake. Nobody else is reacting, AND it, (that feels weird to say but she has no idea how to tell Zebras apart...at least from this angle), has funnel cake. Pretty sure the menagerie animals are not allowed to have funnel cake among other things.

As if to make up for her mildly offensive first impression, Sophie walks over.]

Hey, I can carry that if you'd like help.

[Figuring that an answer would be difficult to say with a mouthful of plate, (unless she can communicate telepathically? some of the less humanoid workers could do that she remembers), she holds her hand out to receive the plate should the zebra want to pass it off to her.]

No need, I'm afraid.
But thank you for the aid.

[Zecora can both rhyme quite coherently and smile around the plate, which only seems impressive if one doesn't stop to consider that she's spent all her life doing it. Hooves, whether natural or their present state of obsidian, aren't the best for such fine manipulations, but that hadn't stopped equines from building their own comfortable civilization.]

[Sophie blinks a few times. Wow that is impressive and unexpected. And it rhymed. Did she mean to do that? 'She', yeah the voice sounded female. Probably better not to just assume but for an internal monologue it didn't hurt. One more blink. Her hand hovers there awkwardly for another moment before dropping to her side. She keeps stride with Zecora, forgetting momentarily why she even came to the mess hall, in favor of getting a few answers about this new worker.

Or not new she actually, there's quite a lot going on here. She is guessing the zebra part is innate. The fact that she can talk around that plate so effectively is one indication, the other being she'd never heard of someone straight up turning into a new species. The shadow and smoke stuff though, that looked like fairy bullshit. So not only is she not new, she's probably been here a while. She could probably fill Sophie in on what's happened while she's been gone.

They get to a table, and again Sophie stands still, perplexed. She's probably not going to use a chair, right? So uh, pulling one out would be pointless. Unsure what to do, Sophie just sits, figuring that probably this person...zebra...didn't need help anyway. ]

[Perhaps to her surprise, Zecora does clamber into a chair, situating herself on it like a cat might sit to watch the goings-on before she sets the plate carefully down. When she glances over at Sophie, she offers a comforting smile.]

Might I guess you're surprised to find
This carnival holds one of zebrakind?

[This isn't her first rodeo, and she doesn't doubt that she'll be explaining herself many more times before her tour here is done.]

[Sophie's strangely charmed by that. She had always loved horses after all. She did some riding in her youth, and well. The abandoned stables at Poppy's Academy had "saved her life" in a way. She was grateful to them for uh...other reasons too. A smile comes easily now, spurred both by those memories, and Zecora's continued rhyming. So it definitely wasn't a coincidence. Whether or not it was a conscious effort wasn't entirely clear, she was quick and natural in the way she talked. Maybe it was a fae change. She'd never seen anything like that, but it didn't seem totally impossible.]

Not as much as you might think. I was here for a year a while ago, but it must have been before you joined up. One of my friends at the time was...he wasn't even an animal that existed where I was from. At first I felt kinda bad for him, being an odd one out, even in a place like this, but apparently he was used to it. He might not have been a unique individual on his world, but they were a rare, solitary, and widely spread out species apparently.

Are you a rarity where you're from, or are talking ungulates the norm?

[Little does she know the two are not mutually exclusive.]

[Nopony in Equestria ever fixates on her rhyming the way humans do. Zecora simply doesn't understand, has never understood, why humans overanalyze it so much. Not that she minds... it's just strange.]

Equestria, you must understand
Is mostly a pony land.
Zebrakind and pony
Are divided by the forest, Everfree.
So you left a while ago?
My joining must have been too slow
By the smallest degrees
Or we'd have met with ease.

[Well, Equestrians also break into rhyming song and dance at regular intervals, so it's bound to be less strange there.

Huh, so she's from like, a horse world then? Neat. Sophie hopes they make a carnival stop there some day, she'd love to see it.]

Yeah, my contract was up right after the Demolition Derby, if you know about that...[Sophie admittedly doesn't know anything about the worlds the carnival visited before she joined up, so maybe that wasn't very helpful.] If you've been here a while ago, I'd love to hear about how things have gone since I left. What kinds of places have you visited over the last two years?

[Traveling to Equestria would be pretty strange -- how did the carnival handle heading to a world that a worker is from? She can't think of a time when it had happened.]

[The zebra lifts one obsidian hoof to her chin as she cast her mind back over the years. Years... it really has been that long for her.]

A land of elemental power
Property damage occurred each hour.
Then a land of metal folk
A demon realm was a sick joke.
A king who tried to behead
Many of us until we fled.
A world of magical song
One where everything was wrong
The grey people gave me the willies
And then spoiled human fillies
An ordinary human world
Then a land where fashion unfurled
Soldiers, then a spirit realm
A magic world, a spaceship's helm
A place of superpowered might
And a world of steam and light
The formless being that loves us still...

[Zecora hesitates slightly, the cheer slipping out of her voice.]

Then things went downhill.

[Sophie has to sit and take a few moments to tease out the meanings in Zecora's rhyming verse, but with her previous experiences at the carnival serving as a template, it's not too hard to figure out the gist of what went on in each place. That last line though, Sophie's frown deepens from concentration into something considerably more dour.]

The vampires right? Sans told me about that.

[She lets out a long angry breath out through her nose, one long extended hmph. They might not be the same vampires from her world, but from what she'd been told they had quite a bit of overlap, especially where being immortal dickhead tyrants was concerned. She's so mad about not having been here, and so mad that she missed out on the chance to lay into them without really having to worry about alliances and politics. Just a simple us vs them, home against invaders. A good righteous sort of fight.]

[There had been nothing righteous about it. Nothing glorious about good people hurt and injured. Zecora had lived through many things, but that might have been the worst.]

We lost many on that day.
Many more went their own way.

[The zebra's gentle voice only hints at her true thoughts.]

[Sophie's opinion on violence is...unconventional, and she knows it. It's colored by a myriad of unusual and really incredibly unfortunate life experiences, but she's been working for a long while on trying to straighten her head out about it all, if only a little bit. So for the most part she never really brings it up out loud, (as often as she can remember not to anyway).

She gives a solemn nod and her gaze drops down to the table. Her eyes trace the grain in the wood.]

I heard about Kiwani. She was a friend.

[Zecora nods slightly, a world of quiet sympathy in her eyes that she doesn't spoil by giving voice to.]

[After a moment, she picks up her narrative once more.]

Many lost and many quit.
Our numbers sure took a hit.
The Ringmaster sought to recruit.
As you've see, that bore fruit.

Yeah. Like, turnover with this place has always been fairly high but when I got back the lack of a few permanent residents was notable.

[Her eyes keep following the wood grain but she looses track of her original line. She shifts her shoulders a bit, then starts over, this time with a clawed nail tracing along, helping her stay consistent.]

Some of us remained here!
Joker is still near.

[She has to know Joker, right? He's been here longer than Zecora herself has, one of the few people who can say that.]

[It's been a very long time, since they've seen each other. She thought Sophie's contract had ended, herself. Maybe it ended a little abruptly, of course, but maybe she'd just been distracted. It had been the end of a world, and there had been a lot of thinking to do. A lot of talking to do, with her shadow, as well.

She wasn't just a tailor any more. The trailer looks mostly the same-maybe a few scattered feathers, the occasional purple lit candle (don't touch that)...and it is just Sophie's luck, truly, that she's inside. The door opens, and Carly stares.

And blinks. And her now totally inky form, with wings folded back and golden runs glowing, hover there for a moment, a pixel-like aura streaking from the bottom of her feet.] S...Sophie..?

Yeah...hey. [A weak sort of smile follows.] You look good.

[She'd gotten quite a few more changes since Sophie knew her, but not enough to be unrecognizable. Changes with her could be a sore subject, or at least they used to be, so Sophie hopes she's been handling this all. A little ping of guilt, but just a small one. It was long past when her contract should have expired, so if she'd really been unhappy she could've left. Not for the first time she wonders what changed about Carly's situation that she was still here. She wasn't miserable when Sophie knew her, definitely not by the end of Sophie's contract, but she also hadn't exactly thrived at the carnival at first. They've got a lot to talk about she guesses.]

[That...she does. And she smiles widely at the words, as if entirely unaware of what they had last spoken about. She's had many chats, and many months to adapt to all of this...and the girl's fae marks glow as brilliantly as orange on the card Carly would have shown her in that first fearful conversation appeared to, against the very same inky black.] AHH- Y-You too..! [She says without thinking, only to stammer a bit.] ...It's...

...It's been a while, hasn't it..?

Yeah, haha. About ten years for me, I guess two for you?

[She scratches the back of her neck a bit, that smile was encouraging and puts her at ease somewhat. She does seem pretty chill with it all.]

I'm uh, back.

[Yes, thank you Sophie for clarifying that.]

Yeah, two... [Geeze, Sophie, ten years..?

She stares a little, before coughing and moving back into the trailer.] Um! Do you want to come in..? Ash is out right now, so we could have tea, or...

[Well she's the tea drinker. And the coffee drinker. But what about you Sophie, what was it again..?]

...How are you?

[It's not like it was all that easy to find her way back. Just sort of had to wait for it to happen. It's not like this place has an address in the phonebook. I mean nobody uses phonebooks anymore but also there's not google maps for extra dimensional space.

She nods at the invitation and enters. It's not surprising that Carly's having trouble remembering her preferred beverage given that she will readily take either. Her particular brand a vampirism restricts her to a 'liquids only' diet, so any variety is welcome.]

Either, whichever. Yeah.

[The trailer is simultaneously familiar and foreign. She hadn't done a lot of decorating or personalization of her space while she was here, but she did have a tendency to acquire clutter and junk. Whoever Ash is, their stuff isn't her stuff, and it's a little weird to see. Like going home and finding your parents had turned your room into a home gym. It's not upsetting, just, odd.]

I'm uh, good.

[The response is rote, and Sophie has never been that good at lying. Or pleasantries. Or lying about pleasantries.]

So you got a new roommate? How are they?

[That sort of inability to locate the place is possibly what keeps Carly from just filling out a contract and then leaving. Would she be able to return? Would she be able to see anyone again? It is a tempting prospect, the idea of going home to those who wouldn't have missed a moment...but she knows full well, most especially in this moment, that it would mean those in the Carnival have any number of weeks or even days pass...not to mention, herself, now that the 'bookmark' is removed.

Coffee it is-she feels she needs something less to relax and more to 'think', and so she gets the pot filled with some grounds before getting the water going.] Hehhhh, just 'good' huh... [she answers, her own words just as paper thin. It's a more than awkward meeting, and they both know it.

More than anything, they both know it.] Ashleigh is okay! She's really merciless with teasing though!! You can't reveal any weaknesses at all, or else!

She's a musician.

[Conversely it was a part of the draw of leaving for Sophie. No second guessing. A forced restart. Making herself return to reality. Not that the carnival wasn't real, but. It wasn't her reality. It didn't have the consequences to her actions. And in a small way, not returning would make her own deal...kind of pointless. The end goal was to get free of her situation there and if time just kept staying frozen then in a way she'd never really left. Ultimately, she had her reasons go, and her reasons to be alright with never coming back, even if that last part wound up not being true.

Sophie settles in the trailer by leaning against a wall, and folding her arms across her chest, watching as Carly bustles in the kitchen. She gives a bark of laughter at her responses, and as usual comes clean about her feelings with not much prompting.]

Ha, well. I'm back for a lot of the same reasons I left. I was getting too comfortable... [She ends that line of thought with a quick shake of her head. Or tries to. She can push it out of the conversation for now, but predictably it's still on her mind.]

Sounds like we'd get along. You know I'm a fan of anyone who doesn't pull their punches.

[Initial hiccups aside, Sophie feels glad to be back. That comfort that she'd feared before phases her so much less now. Now that she knows she can live without it if she has to. That it's optional. And that's what she needs to know with Foster. If he's...essential for her.]

[Too comfortable...Carly pauses at the coffee machine, mulling over that. To be too comfortable was something of a dream come true for her. It was always strange to think that someone would become bored with a good life. Strange, but she had made herself accept it in the end. At the very least, it had made it easier when she'd returned to the trailer to find herself alone.

She gives a bit of a whine, huffing.] Mmnnh! But she hits you where it's really embarrassing..! Like innuendos, and fitting ideas, and asking about why I'm glowing more every now and then..!

[Carly no ~~and ash, also no-~~] AH! And things like if I had a date..!!

[You sound 12, Carly-]

[Boredom wasn't the problem. Certainly not at the carnival of all places. It was more about vulnerability. The loss of her complete self sufficiency. Growing up under constant adversarial and isolated conditions made her wary of needing anybody for anything. Now again, she had cut and run to prove to herself that she could make it without him.]

PFfffT!

[Sophie makes a sort of laugh/snort combo and smirks wide, eyebrows shooting up. Yeah she's definitely gotta meet this person.]

Oh?? And did you? You start seeing someone after I flew the coop?

[She wants to know if congratulations are in order.]

Edited (asd;giawhe html) 2017-02-21 00:22 (UTC)

[It is a very good thing she isn't holding the coffee pot when Sophie speaks, as she very nearly drops the mugs she was getting ready to set up for the drinks. Thankfully nothing is broken, but Carly sputters considerably, her feathers fluffed and raised.] D- D-e

Of course not..!! I'm going to go back home to Jack, Jack! [she insists, shaking her head.] I'm not dating at all, no way..! I just had a coffee with Lauren, as a way to get to know him more as a friend..!

...His brother tried to make us talk in a fancy restaurant, so I thought he'd appreciate something quiet like that...

[Sophie nods, loosing the teasing grin in favor of a more genuine smile. That feather ruffle was so cute. It looked like Ghibli anime hair! Doing the 'increase volume when startled/offended' thing. She hadn't ever really thought about it, but now that it's happening again, she realizes how much she missed the reactions and emotional tells of people with animal features at the carnival. It was so much easier for her to read ear position, or a snarl, than a plain old facial expression. Human body language flew by her unless she was really paying attention, but animal cues like this were so easy to pick up on.

And that's embarrassment! A clear, easy, sign to back off with the snark. At least for a bit. She was rather tempted to keep pushing with a 'methinks the lady doth protest too much' joke, but she'll just tuck that into her back pocket for later.]

Right, right. Calm down Carl, I didn't mean anything by it. So, how is he friend wise then?

[Had Carly ever had the chance to watch some Ghibli vhs tapes? They really needed to grab a few if they hadn't. She'd probably enjoy them, and a lot. Carly was already an expressive person over all, but the added feather fluffing just makes things even easier-there is still a bit of huffing at 'Carl'-but it's allowed to slide, just as all those times long back.

Friendwise...well.] ....He's sort of sad, honestly.

Susan seemed pretty sure that he didn't have any friends at all. ...I'd believe it, actually, since they lived alone in a forest though.

[Sophie would love that. Movie night is something that she actually does fairly frequently back home these days, it'd be nice to keep that going while she's here.

Sophie frowns a little bit, not quite understanding what she meant.]

Sad like, it's a pity he doesn't have any friends he's actually rather nice, or sad like, ah yes I can see why he has no friends and I too don't want to hang out with him?

[Sophie has experiences with both kinds of people. She's even been the latter more often than not.]

[And heck, there's so many movies to choose from! It'd certainly beat watching Carly's beat-up copy of 'ROAD TO KING' again... (no one wants to know about your boyfriend that much, Carly. No one.)

Carly has to consider that question for...a fair bit though.] Mmmmnnnnhhhhh.... [An unfortunate bit, in fact. On the one hand he CAN be nice, but on the other she CAN see why he has no friends...but on the other...] Well, if it was the last bit, it wouldn't be hard to stop...

It's more that he's really good at sabotaging himself? He can be really grouchy, and say really stupid things at the worst time....

[Cough 'undead debate' cough] He means mostly well, he's just REALLY bad at it..!

[Mostly these days Sophie has been into horror. Gorey slashers and over the top monster movies mostly, which Carly probably wouldn't be into. But Princess Mononoke would be a perfect compromise probably.

Grouchy, prone to foot in mouth syndrome, and bad at doing the right things for himself? Gosh that sounds suuuper familiar. Sophie nods with an unusually soft sort of smile.]

I can relate. It's good that you're trying with him. Here's some advice though: let him know in clear terms when he's crossed a line, and know that if he really pushes back against trying to get better with people, there won't be a lot you can do for him.

[God, her own words kind of hit home for her in a weird way. Not only is that the kind of stuff that helped HER stop being such an intolerable, incorrigible douchebag, but it's how she's been dealing with Foster too, and god why won't her brain stop going back to him like this. The whole POINT of coming here and making this contract was to get some space and perspective.]

[If Carly gave it some thought, she might think the same thing Sophie does-the familiar bit, at least. Actually, it seems that if she really were to think about it more, she's got something of a 'type'...though at least Jack (presumably) would have shaped up in the end. And Lauren....probably means well, right?

Still a poor choice in relations, all thins considered.] Oh! Believe me, I've told him..! [She blinks, humming a bit to herself on that note.] ....Actually, he seems to get really upset with himself when he realizes that he did...

[Sophie nods contemplatively.]

Upset is a good start. But excessive self flagellation doesn't actually go anywhere helpful. In this case it sounds like helping him with how to avoid that kind of behavior, or how to replace it with something constructive is probably what he needs most.

[Sophie, apparently capable of being some kind of interpersonal relationship guru. How ironic can you get. She's just got a lot of experience with morally and emotionally bankrupt people who hurt others unintentionally. (And one guy who did it super intentionally, but he was so so so far beyond 'lost cause'.)]

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Heads up turns out she wasn't around to see Carly consider/become a Scout Eyyy

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