lostcarnival | ⇨ HOME AGAIN

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⇨ HOME AGAIN

Who: Anyone!
When: Day 68 - Day 72
Where: Carnival grounds.
What: Everyone makes it back to the carnival after their adventure in hell. The Ringmaster makes a new lake to celebrate, apparently.
Warnings: A notable absence of torture.

TO HELL AND BACK↴

The rescuers and the liberated captives will emerge from the portal like bats out of hell. Much like their previous return, this arrival will be met with a flurry of medical activity as everyone gets their injuries seen to, particularly those that had been held prisoner within Morningstar's hell fortress. It will still be night when they arrive, and the rest of Day 68 will be clouded over completely, for the benefit of the new vampires as they get settled in. After the immediate panic is dealt with, the Ringmaster will disappear into the forest until the morning of Day 69. It will be raining off and on during her absence.

► RECOVERY: Unlike the last time, the Ringmaster will be supplying the carnival workers with some healing potions from her private hoard, given that most of the healers are already wounded or spent. Damage caused by iron poisoning will not be cured by healing magic or healing items though, unfortunately, and those who have spent a lot of time in contact with iron will take at least a week to fully recover. However, regular healing remedies like bandages and herbs may help speed things along if the patient is suited to them.

► A BRAND NEW LAKE: On the morning of Day 69, the Ringmaster will return the forest to announce that she's built a new lake into the carnival grounds, only a short trail's distance from the backyard. Unlike most of the forest, this area won't just lead you in circles when explored, meaning that it can actually be modified and developed as the workers see fit. The water is always clean and just the right temperature for swimming, though it gets a bit cooler the deeper you swim. At the far side of the lake, there is a warm, stone pathway leading up the side of the mountain, that will eventually take you to some bangin' hot springs. Brought to you mostly because the Ringmaster doesn't know how to say sorry with actual words. At least it gives you something to play with while you try to shake off the trauma.

► FRUITS OF VICTORY: On Day 70, all the workers who came to hell for the rescue mission will be given a gift from the Ringmaster. Each of them will receive a bright green, glowing seed, about the size of your thumbnail. She will tell you that, when planted, the seeds will swiftly grow into a small citrus tree, which will grow fruits with regenerative properties. More details about these plants will be written up in a separate post, but for now your characters can ogle them and decide if they are going to plant them or not.

► TAKE ME TO CHURCH: Staring on Day 71, the Ringmaster will be starting to work on removing the vampirism from those infected with it, which apparently involves a lot of... meditation? She will take the newbie vampires out into a shady area of the forest and encourage them to look inside themselves and attempt to separate themselves spiritually from their demonic beasts. How well you character masters her teachings over time will determine whether or not she is ultimately capable of stripping out your demon soul and returning you to life. Of course, not all demons are made equal, and some will be more difficult to separate than others...

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The dogs are intent on helping shield Sans from the world, or maybe Sans is intent on hiding from the world and they're helping. Either way, Papyrus barely starts to offer a hand before they're hobbling up and out. He follows a short distance behind, looking around and listening for some hint of what exactly they're checking... and they don't get all that far.

"S-Sans..." He crouches down, reaching a hand to rest on his brother's shoulder. Collapsing and rattling, in the open like this... If Sans did this back home, it was more in the privacy of his own room.

"Would you like to be somewhere else? Like, your trailer? Or mine??"

Lambert isn't in there all that often either, and he'd probably leave if it was an emergency. Which, this might be.

His head is starting to swim, which actually makes him more cooperative than he might have been otherwise. He's not capable of over thinking this when his thoughts are just starting to scream with wordless anxiety and shame.

He doesn't know where he's going or how to get there. So when Papyrus asks, he nods numbly, staring straight ahead like he's barely recognizing that his brother is there.

"Yeah."

New looks up at Papyrus and circles around to stand beside the younger skeleton, nosing at Sans's shoulder. Apparently they would be eager to do this themselves if they were more bipedal.

So they would. Well, at least that offers an idea of how Sans has been getting along, without his supporting and inspirational brother around. The dogs following him around instead, tugging him out from the worst situations.

"That was a yes to a question where, yes wasn't really an answer," Papyrus starts to say, complaining reflexively, before remembering the current situation. "Uh, but that's okay! I suspect you'd like to go to yours."

He wraps an arm around Sans, available for holding, leaning on, or even being picked up with. Just like particularly roudy nights at Grillby's, and carrying his hungover brother home. Just like that. Except with vampires and hell and temporary comas.

They better figure out some way to fix the time loops back home, because the occasional thought that they might not are awful. Sure, as Papyrus he can simply brush those ideas back to the needlessly doubtful depths where they belong, but the fact that they keep rising in the first place...

Sans interacts with Papyrus's attempt to support him like he doesn't really know what limbs are for. He tries to stand but falls weak at the knees, nausea filling him as he turns himself around and clutches at Papyrus's arm as if he's desperately hanging from some kind of precipice.

"Ngh..." The spines raise beneath his shirt again, and the fingers of his grasping hand will crack as they abruptly grow longer and sharper. His whole body is tense, and his tail thrashes with the flood of anxiety.

"God," is all he can manage, and there are tears at the edges of his sockets. "Oh god."

Papyrus jolts at the sudden cracking sound and scratching of claws on his arm, looks and stares at they visibly grow. That sounds and looks painful. The crystals grew over a few hours, and they itched something fierce for a day or two. Speeding up that feeling, he doesn't particularly want to imagine what that'd be like.

"H-hey, Sans? Are you with me?" He pats his brother's arm with his spare hand, crouching down to see him better. "Is this... your spell? There's no need for that, is there? You're already tired out."

Sans gaze finally levels on Papyrus face, and the lights of his pupils seem to focus for a moment - enough to take in what's actually happening. Papyrus's words are the only thing that clue him into what's actually happening, what he's actually beginning to do... it catches him off guard, and he pulls his cracking hand away from his brother's arm, clutching it close to his chest.

He's never done this by accident before. The idea only panics him further, with memories of what had happened before. The idea of taking on that form and losing his mind are too closely wound, and he can't separate them. It terrifies him.

"Sorry," he manages, back to shivering. "I didn't... meant to. She..."

His shoulders shake with a sudden sob, and it arrives so suddenly. He hates what he's feeling as much as he'd hated those iron chains.

"She's dead," he reminds himself. "She's dead."

Papyrus hovers, not sure what's going on or what to say. Again. This is getting to be a pattern. No wonder Sans' first response was to hide and say I'm different, I'm not who you remember, or something like that. Trying to pretend they're the same people they were years ago, as if these awful things that they'd never lived through underground aren't coming up... Sometimes, it just makes him feel so helpless.

He shakes his head at his own thoughts. Feeling like he can't fix his brother, that's nothing new! Sans has always kept secrets, even ones that seemed to hurt him, selfishly refusing to let anyone help. But feeling helpless, that's a completely different and unrelated thing! Helplessness is thinking he can't do anything. And the great Papyrus, now temporary king because so many people recognized his greatness, can do a whole lot of things! The question is whether those things will have the effect he wants, and that, there's never any guarantee! Feeling helpless because he can't control the outcome... What a joke. He can control himself into continuing to try.

"I don't mind! If you need claws, then I'm of no mind to stop you," Papyrus offers. "But it would be a lot easier to comfort you, if I knew which 'she' you mean."

He'd been mostly speaking to himself in feverish worry, so being asked for clarification gives him a pause. He look up at Papyrus, trying to focus - its a good thing that skeletons don't need to breathe, or he'd by hyperventilating right now. The surges of magical energy in his body are being distracting in a similar way.

"There was a vampire," he says, trying to piece together his thoughts quickly enough to articulate them. "She got into my head - I couldn't stop myself."

With all the things he'd lost in his life, bodily autonomy was one of the few things he felt as if he'd maintained control over. He was unappealing, he was fragile, but his body was his and he'd had some degree of power over it.

In hell, he'd lost that completely.

Papyrus can at least see the alarming brightness of his eye lights, the way Sans keeps talking in a way he ordinarily never would. Something isn't right here, on top of the obvious, that much is clear.

"Ohh. I think I understand that. She tried to mess with all of us... If she had longer, she might..."

Well, she might have done to the rest of them exactly what she did to Sans. Aside from the whole pushing him to transform, and be big and scary and almost unrecognizable, thing.

"Lambert didn't like that. She's very dead now."

His gaze falls away from Papyrus's, the shame finally catching up with him. The way that statement makes him feel is humiliating - a mixture of relief, anger, and terrible loss. Loss for what, he wonders? Nothing he had felt had been real.

He folds down over his knees and Times whimpers, bumping his shoulder. He stays folded up.

"I know," he manages, finally. "I felt it. It was my fault."

The last part slips out like a compulsion, those feelings of desperate need overwhelming him even though he's technically free of her control. It sounds like his abuser being stopped is something he actually feels guilty for.

Guilt and regret that someone's dead, regardless of how they'd hurt him... Papyrus just sorta nods to himself. It makes sense to him, to feel like that... even if Sans is beating himself up about it more than he needs to. But that's Sans for you; in public he laughs off everything, and in private he's always hurting himself in ways that make it harder to do anything.

"It's too bad, we couldn't convince her to be friends," he says, as if that was why Sans is sad. "But... she just wanted to hurt people. It was hard enough, keeping those guys from killing everybody."

He'd probably feel friendship for the the human even if he could remember them killing him.

Papyrus's words fill him with an immediate revulsion - a feeling of dread and disgust that makes him physically recoil. It's a flood of emotional in direct conflict with his feelings of regret and longing towards her presence, a sense of nostalgia that fills him with desire and simultaneously memories of the terrible fear of being completely unable to stop someone from having their way with you bodily and spiritually.

That conflict makes it so hard for him to explain to Papyrus what's wrong. It makes it impossible to describe how badly that rationale hurts him, and how much it reinforces the bad thoughts he's been having already. Papyrus still doesn't understand. He was trying so hard to make the words come out and Papyrus still doesn't understand. He doesn't understand anything about him!

Along with a flash of irrational anger, he's left with a feeling of utter loneliness. No one understands what he tries to tell them and nothing he says makes a difference.

"No," Sans snaps - frustrated, desperate. He doesn't want her anywhere near him. He doesn't want anything from that place near him. New growls at Papyrus, sensing Sans distress and interpreting it as a threat that Papyrus is ostensibly causing. Times just sinks down against Sans's side hopelessly.

"Huh??" Papyrus exclaims, confused and surprised. The growling, the snapping, the dejected slouching...

It's funny, but Sans and those dogs never seem out of tune, never in conflict like most people sometimes get. Like he and Sans are getting right now... Guess that kind of synchronicity's what happens when they're with him all the time, or something. But he can take a hint when it's in size 80, underlined and lit on fire.

"Okay, no." Something's bothered his brother, right after Papyrus spoke. Nothing he said was hurtful, which could only mean... "I misunderstood something?"

His blue eye is starting to glow more brightly, the tingle of his magic in the air. It's much weaker than it would be, any other time - all of the energy he'd reserved was wasted when he'd been transformed. It probably wouldn't even be capable of affecting much, in this state, but the aura of it clings to Sans and all of their surroundings - that familiar, blue magic.

He can't stop thinking about what she did to him. Now that its all back on his mind, it doesn't feel like it'll ever go away.

"She..." The words come out, staggered and forced. "She..." One of the tears building around his sockets finally plummets, and he presses his palm over the eye, like he's trying to force it back in.

He tries to teleport, and what would normally be such a simple and familiar trick flares up and burns out uselessly. A final expenditure of effort, his head swims, and he pitches forward into the dirt.

Well, shit.

"Oh my god, Sans," Papyrus protests, crouching down to check that his brother hasn't hurt himself by topping over like that. "You just woke up from... falling down! What are you trying to use magic for? ...You can't even hear me, can you."

He huffs a sigh, gathering his brother into his arms, and looks around. They'd already been going towards the trailers, so should he finish that, or bring Sans back to the medical tent? While it makes sense for sick and injured people to be in the medical tent, it didn't seem to be helping Sans. With how disoriented and scared he'd been, waking up, maybe somewhere familiar would be better. He might be less likely to do aggressive, energy-exhausting things on waking up in his own bed. Maybe.

...Honestly, who even knows. Papyrus sure doesn't. What's going on with his brother anymore is a mystery to everyone. But somebody's got to make the call.

Nodding decisively to himself, like it helps his confidence to hear his internal narration describe it as decisive, Papyrus strides toward the supervisor's grove... Towards the familiar mystery of Sans and Amethyst's trailer.

He isn't supposed to go in there and clean, so maybe... he shouldn't stick around? But aren't you supposed to have somebody watching when you're sick? What a headache. Maybe he'll luck out, and Amethyst will be in there.

Indeed she is, sprawled in a nest of comfortably shaped chalkware dogs and snoring gently. One of them gets dislodged as she stirs, rolling across the floor to stop against Papyrus's shoe.

"Huh? Oh, whoah –" Amethyst sits up a little more, pushing some hair out of her face (but not all of it). "When did you get here?" Her eyes widen. "Is that Sans? Is he OK? Shouldn't he be, like, in Zecora's tent or something?"

"He should be," he agrees, glancing around for signs of Sans' bed with blossoming feelings of dismay at the clutter. This sure is a place Sans lives. And far be it from him to tell Amethyst how to nap, but he's not putting his brother down in a pile of kitschy dogs.

"But, um. He panicked when he woke up. And took off, and rambled, and finally fainted. It's probably for the best that we not risk a repeat!" He gives up looking at the surroundings, and looks Amethyst in the eye. "Do you think Zecora does in-house visits?"

"Uh," says Amethyst, gently boggling at Sans's prone form. "Heck, I dunno, probably? She's gotta, right...?" She glances up at Papyrus, frowning. "You think it was being in there that made him freak out? I mean, what if he wakes up here and the same thing happens?"

"Hmmm. It's a fair question," Papyrus mulls it over for a moment. "Before he fainted... he said he needed to check on something, and started walking this way. Even though he really couldn't walk well." The supportive bone dogs, making such a point to be at his side for him to nuzzle him and maybe let him lean on them, could attest to that if they were following the conversation.

"I think he'll freak out no matter where he is. But, he'll recover faster if he recognizes where he is! Somewhere familiar and comfortable seems best. Doesn't it?" He's genuinely asking, still holding Sans rather than dump him and run. This is, after all, Amethyst's home space too. Nobody wants their home getting wrecked.

Amethyst frowns. "Yeah... that sounds like it's probably true. Do, uh... do you wanna stay with him?" She's worried about him, but the idea of sole responsibility over a troubled Sans is kind of daunting, honestly.

Edited 2017-04-23 05:29 (UTC)

"Yes, I want to. As a monster and a brother, I'm uniquely qualified to recognize when he's flipping out. But I don't want to intrude!" He says, standing in the middle of their trailer, still holding his brother. "...More."

"Naaahh," says Amethyst, flapping a hand. "Make yourself comfortable if you want. Or, uh. Make Sans comfortable, I guess," she corrects herself, glancing uneasily at his unconscious form.

"I'm not sure that's possible! But that won't stop me from doing my best." He nods, stepping towards the surface that is, presumably, Sans' usual sleeping area. Easy enough to drape him over it, and fuss about a pillow or blanket for a minute or two.

Amethyst does, at least, push herself up from her awful dog heap to go over and take a closer look at Sans's unconscious form.

"... Geez," she says. "D'you... think he's gonna be okay?"

He looks over his brother's lingering wounds another time, then glances away.

"O-of course!" He says, with the intensity of saying so to make it so. "He's already woken up once... so that's the worst case scenario out of the picture! Now the picture is just... how long it'll take to heal all those bruises. And, well..."

His iron burns, his bruises, and most of all his mental state, which had already been Not Great, but better than a couple months before. Now it must be more than worse than then.

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drrdrrdrr - 2017-05-03 03:17 (UTC) - Expand

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