⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

[starseedling]

Steven looks a little bit startled by the question, but he quickly turns that expression into a more steady frown, as he regards Lambert with his take on a somber glare. He put his hands on his hips.

"No," he says, and has to pause to figure out how to phrase this appropriately in character. "I just... decided that my outside should look like my inside, from now on!"

Is this his round about way of saying that he has a problem? Possibly.

[whattaprick]

"... Constipated?" Lambert guesses. Assuming Steven even knows what that is.

He does find it amusing, though, that much is obvious, and he isn't even going to bother trying to hide it. Since it feels like they're going to be here a while, he's gonna go ahead and settle down on a crate with a wince.

[starseedling]

"No," he says, sounding mildly offended. Mostly just because his role in this whole thing is that he isn't going to try to react positively to everything, like he's used to doing. It's difficult.

"The problem does not lie within my bowels," he says, with a heavy dramatic flair, like he's reading (or making up) poetry. "But within my soul."

[whattaprick]

Steven can't say that and not expect Lambert to keep a straight face, so he outright laughs, throwing his head back. It's a scratchy, awful sound, like he doesn't get to use it much, and this is probably the most amused he's managed to be without also so drunk he couldn't walk straight. Though people are likely to think he's drunk anyway, given such an honest emotional reaction.

"Okay," he gasps, after a good fifteen or thirty seconds of just ... absolutely trying and failing to hold it in, wiping at his face (he can't stop grinning, he absolutely can't). "What's wrong with your soul, then?"

[starseedling]

Steven is having a hell of a time figuring out how to actually react to that - though Lambert fortunately gives him a while to consider it given that he laughs for basically ever. Mostly it involves Steven going completely red in the face.

"Isn't it obvious?!" he pleads, confused by the reaction, mostly due to his completely mixed read on what the basis of Lambert's laughter is. It sounds so scornful, but yet he doesn't feel that negativity on the inside. He had this whole schtick he was going to get into with this, but all of this has thrown him completely off his tracks.

Lambert saw him. Everyone saw him.

[whattaprick]

Normally, Steven's obvious embarrassment would only be invitation to tease him more, but there's enough of a thread of desperate confusion in his voice--

(--he's heard something like it, in a memory that never really happened, his sisters tiny claws digging into his skin as she shrilled in panic at her body betraying her--)

--that Lambert's going to confine his reaction to a chuckle, shaking his head as he rests his hands on his knees and tries to decide how to respond.

"Not to me," is what he settles on, finally, head cocked. Honestly, he has no idea what the cause for Steven's soul problems might be. He didn't get stabbed ... as far as Lambert knows. But his memory of the last fight is all pretty hazy, a lot of yelling and things breaking and people getting knocked out, so it's entirely possible he missed something there. Still, now that he's looking at Steven properly, he does realize something he'd somehow glossed over before.

Is it the wings? Those are new. He'd had them in Portland, but not before, he's pretty sure of that. One more way the place has left its mark on someone from the Carnival. But how having new wings is connected to dressing all in black and glitter, he can't fathom. It's almost like ...

"... are you dressing up as someone else?"

[starseedling]

Steven blinks, having lost the momentum of his outburst with Lambert's relatively low key follow up. Mostly, he just feels embarrased and confused. His wings fold in self-consciously.

"No," he says, trying to regain the ground he lost on this whole gothic veneer thing. "I'm just dressing up... because everything sucks. And so it makes more sense to act like it does."

Easier said than done, with someone like Steven.

[whattaprick]

Lambert blinks. Confusion remains the predominant reaction to this, something that's only deepened as Steven goes on, but as he looks him over for what might be an uncomfortably long period of time, he thinks he gets what he's trying to go for here. His lips twitch slightly, that faint sense of amusement rising again, but he just settles himself more firmly on the crate, propping his chin on one hand.

"Well," he says, "No offense, but your outfit doesn't exactly say 'everything sucks' to me. More like 'I couldn't decide what to wear today." Lambert pauses, thinking with his hand to his chin. "Maybe you could work on making that clearer."

[starseedling]

Steven huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. Why can't anybody just let him have this, he wonders, in a moment of bitterness that doesn't last particularly long. Maybe it's just a dumb idea after all.

"But if I work on it too hard then... wouldn't that sort of make it hard to get across the part where nothing matters and the future is just an uncaring void?"

Is he just reciting this phrases from a book? It isn't clear.

[whattaprick]

Lambert pauses, considering that.

"Hm. Good point. Well, nothing really says 'I don't care about anything and that includes putting effort into showing it' more than running around naked."

[starseedling]

"Yeah, well," Steven says, brushing that off as if it's ridiculous for reasons beyond the presumed obvious. "People don't like it when I do that. I know from experience."

If there was a joke there, Steven missed it.

[whattaprick]

"People liking it isn't the point," Lambert grins. Whether Steven's picked up on the joke or not, he's certainly invested in deriving as much amusement out of this as he can.

"You've done it before? When?"

[starseedling]

Steven goes blank for a moment, blinking at Lambert as if he doesn't comprehend why he would be interested in that information. After a pause, he shrugs a shoulder.

"I dunno, a few times? Some times you just don't have any clothes on!" He counts off items on his fingers. "You know, because of combat... or art..."

[whattaprick]

Lambert crosses his arms and nods sagely. Yeah, that's right, sometimes you just don't wanna wear anything! Nothing wrong with that! If Steven decides going bare is how he wants to live his life, nobody should get to tell him otherwise.

...but he should probably stop letting the conversation drift off topic here, huh? He waves a hand through the air, dismissively.

"All right, so it doesn't really capture what you're going for." Clawed fingers drum against the crate he's sitting on. "Is this kind of thing what people do, where you're from?"

[starseedling]

"Dressing like this?" Steven asks, looking down at himself for a moment. "Yeah... I guess so." He crosses his arms over his chest, shrugging uncertainly. "I think they call it being 'goth'? It's how people dress when they're sad."

Or, at least, that's Steven's non-nuanced interpretation of the subject.

[whattaprick]

Lambert's blank expression suggests the concept of 'goth' isn't something he's encountered before -- if Portland Lambert ever dealt with them, those memories aren't something he can call to mind right now.

"What, like mourning clothes with veils and all that?" He looks over Steven, skeptically. If he squints he can kind of see it, but even so... "Seems a bit too shiny for that, doesn't it?"