lostcarnival | ⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

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⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 138 - Day 152
Where: The Summerlands
What: The Ringmaster brings the carnival to the Summerlands immediately after being freed from Portland so that everyone can take a fucking nap. Her included.
Warnings: Individually marked! Most likely discussion of torture and trauma in here.

DAYS OF SUMMER↴

You made it! And things are back to normal... more or less. Upon waking, you will be greeted with a clear blue sky and gentle breeze – the carnival has found itself situated between a pair of mountain peaks, with great fields of flowers extending in the distance. In the other direction, you’ll see mountain-top cities and tall waterfalls accenting vast swaths of forest.

Some of you will already know this place. It’s the Summerlands. You game here once to rest in safety nearly a year ago, and now you’ve come to rest once again.

► WAKING UP: Shortly after the carnival arrives, the Ringmaster will send out a somewhat cryptic radio message - but her immediate location won't be clear. Whatever items you had on your person at the time the Severing was broken will still be on your person, including whatever clothing. All of the animals and pets of the carnival will have returned to the grounds as well, though they are currently free from their designated living spaces. Things in the carnival will appeared to have naturally aged a month, as if the carnival was been sitting here empty and waiting while everyone was in Portland. The lawn needs mowing.

► SUMMER CITY: After the Summer Fae become aware of everyone's presence, they will welcome you into their city. There are stairs that lead up the sides of the mountains, but thankfully there are also magical means of getting up there as well. The Summer Fae will be willing to help workers with the injured as needed, offering herbal remedies and healing magic to those that want it. You'll also be invited to join them for dinner, but they will not be particularly offended if they are turned down, for now.

► SUMMER PEOPLE: The fae here will mostly enjoy the company of any carnival members that offer it - it doesn't seem that much happens here besides day after day of peaceful meditation and relaxation. It is not uncommon to see Summer Fae spent days doing exactly the same thing, whether that be enjoying the weather, listening to music, or dancing - the day and night periods may be similar to earth, but when you don't need rest it can all blur together just the same. Some of the fae work on feats of agriculture or craftsmanship, and while there is no particularly need to work in this place, they take pride in the fact that they do.

► NEW ARRIVALS: Though the Ringmaster will not be offering much guidance for the first week or so, eventually the carnival will begin running for a few small performance sessions, off and on, as a thank you to their fae hosts. The carnival will also be open to receiving new arrivals during that period, and so there will likely be some newbies to train and get orientated as well.

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He desperately wants to lie, to tell Yuya that everything's fine and there's nothing to worry about. Yuya's been through too much already. He doesn't need to worry about an idiot who made terrible decisions.

And yet, there's a feeling deep in his gut that twinges horribly at the mere thought of lying, even if it's just something as blase as this. So, Strange pauses for a moment, before shrugging it off, with a shake of his head.

"It's nothing that I won't recover from." The technical truth. And one that will have to suffice because the expression on Strange's face plainly states that he does not want to talk about this.

"... Yeah, I know." He doesn't doubt all of them will find this way through this, because they're not alone.

"But if you ever need to talk about it, I'm not holding any of that against you." Portland Strange may have made terrible decisions and been a general asshole, trapped a changeling to his bidding... aligned with the Summer Court... would have tried to kill him if he knew Yuya was the catalyst...

Look, he saw some good in him before the brainwashing debacle. And you can't blame someone for getting brainwashed.

Yuya looks back at the dancing circle, idly at first before he sits up a bit watching them. "How long have they been dancing?"

At Yuya's question, Strange shrugs. Heck if he knows, buddy. "At least an hour? That's when I started, at least."

Though it's probably been longer than that. Which really...Strange is slowly coming to the realization that while the idyllic paradise is nice, it can also be boring as hell for certain people. He doesn't mind wiling the day away with music, dance, and relaxation, but he can think of a few people at the carnival who would find this absolutely horrible.

"That's a really long time to be dancing." At least, he thinks it is? He doesn't know, he plays cards games, not dance. Card games didn't last for hours. "Is that how long you had to dance at all those parties, too?"

"Oh, we usually danced longer than that," said as if dancing for over an hour is a perfectly normal occurrence. "Of course, you have to take a moment to sample the food, have a drink, go around and have a brief conversation with anyone of importance, and occasionally step out for a breath of fresh air, but Arabella and I tended to focus on the dancing."

There's a ritual to Georgian English parties. You don't just go for the fun, you go to be seen, to talk to the right people, and then for the fun.

The way Strange phrases it sounds rigged, especially since the extent of Yuya's experience with parties is children's birthdays and a decent guess what adults do to party in Maiami. Given the choice, the dancing does sound the most appealing of the options. And then maybe the food second, if it's good.

He wrinkles his nose a bit. "Do those drinks smell as bad as these?" Because he'd been getting whiffs of Strange's breath as they talk and it isn't appealing. He doesn't want to say 'your breath smells', but alcohol smells.

Fun fact: in his useless gentleman bachelor phase, Strange was pretty much an alcoholic (though he'll swear to the moon and back that he wasn't that bad--only a bottle a day!) So he has no idea what Yuya means when he complains about the drink's smell and thereby his breath smelling as well. He's certainly drunk worse things--all of the drinks that he's been served here smell positively pleasant!

"I've no idea what you're talking about," he admits, with a frown. "Do you have a specific example in mind or...?"

"Your breath smells terrible, Mr. Strange." Regardless how they smell on their own, everything turns sour once it comes in contact with someone's mouth, especially when Yuya has no tolerance to it. Probably, especially, the mouth of a man used to 1800's English hygiene. "What'd you drink?"

There's a pause while Strange discreetly checks his breath. Is it that bad? He thought it wasn't terrible at all. And Yuya's about to be downright disappointed by Strange's answer. "I've no clue," he explains. "It was light blue, served in a wine glass, and sparkled with it hit the light a certain way."

"Oh." Not that Yuya'd be able to tell the difference one way or the other. Even if these fae are friendly, he definitely remembers the lesson not to eat their food willy-nilly. "You should probably ask--" He waves off the invitation to dance for a third time. "Uh, what it was so you know what you drank?"

"I wouldn't worry too much about that," he responds, with a wide grin, as he looks back towards the fae. And then, in a semi-conspiratory tone, he leans in to gossip.

"Apparently the Ringmaster and the Summer Maiden are very close friends. It wouldn't be good to enthrall someone else's employees in the first place, it especially wouldn't be good to enthrall your friend's. Besides, the carnival's been here before."

Yuya leans over as well, as this is apparently gossip. "Who's the Summer Maiden? I mean, what's she like? Have you ever met her?" She's gotta be nicer than the Rose Queen if the Ringmaster likes her company.

This is certainly gossip in Strange's mind, though it's not precisely good gossip or secret gossip compared to what it could be.

"She's apparently the person who helps run this place, she's a big deal among the fae, and no I haven't met her." Strange looks a bit too proud of himself for learning this information that's common knowledge among the fae. "I'd like to meet her, though, if only to see what she's like."

A big deal among the fae, huh? Yuya looks thoughtful at that. He might like to meet her too, actually, but he isn't expecting to be able to if she's that important.

It raises another question, though. "Is the Ringmaster a big deal among the Fae?"

"I don't think so? I know she's a Wyld Fae--that's what you call a fae without a court allegiance." Again, he literally learned this information in the past 24 hours but he's saying it like it's absolute fact and common knowledge.

"They're not a big deal in the way that the Summer Maiden is. They're more...forces of nature, I'd suppose. The Ringmaster does what she wants and damn the court system if they try to stop her."

"So does that mean these fae are with the Summer Court?" He wrinkles his face in displeasure at that. Well he hopes the Ringmaster is enough of a force of nature to kick the Courts to the curb if they ever try anything. He's also not sure what it means for their continued relations given she tried to kill the Rose Queen.

"Not entirely? They might be summer aligned but I don't think they're with the Court." Does that make any sense? It might not make sense. Strange frowns for a moment, leaning back as he tries to think of a better example.

"Like how one might be an Englishman but live abroad...I think."

He's pretty sure this analogy is a, completely reductive and b, sucks.

That analogy absolutely fell apart. And it still doesn't answer Yuya's concerns. "But if they has to choose between the Ringmaster and the Court, which would they choose?" How careful do they need to be with this fae after all the fighting in Portland?

He pauses, mulling things over. "Truth be told, I think they'd choose themselves. The ones I've talked to aren't fond of some of the Court's actions, but I don't know if they'd fully side with us should the Ringmaster and the Courts be drawn into a major conflict."

This isn't something that's worrying or concerning to Strange: it just is. And he's telling Yuya this in a very nonchalant manner.

Well... That's better than turning on them all, Yuya's fairly certain they don't stand a chance against an entire army of fairies.

"Hopefully it doesn't come to that. There's plenty of space in the... in all the universes for everyone right?" Wouldn't out be nice of they could dodge the courts forever.

Strange, in comparison, is a lot more paranoid than Yuya is. There's plenty of space in the universe for everyone but not when part of it wants to keep colonizing worlds and another part might want their changelings back.

"I hope you're right." Because he has a worrying feeling they'll run into the courts again and is secretly terrified that will actually happen.

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⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

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