lostcarnival | ⇨ 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

With nothing to do with his hands, Lambert plants them on the dirt behind him, turning his face up to the sun. He has no idea what a talking rock's idea of interpersonal relationships is like, but this all sounds super suspect.

However, deflecting the focus of the conversation on Peridot's problems seems like an excellent strategy for ignoring his own, so he's going to keep at it.

"You met at an interrogation?" He can't help waggling his brows at that. "So that's what does it for you, huh? Guess you two are freakier than I realized."

Edited 2017-08-20 19:30 (UTC)

Lambert is quickly becoming an expert at getting her to change colors. The teal shaded flush in her cheeks intensifies.

"It wasn't like that!" Peridot splutters. "And I fail to see how an interrogation could 'do it' for someone, anyway! It makes no sense!"

Edited 2017-08-20 22:42 (UTC)

"Really?" Lambert drawls, slow and drawn out. "You can't see the appeal? Having someone in a position where you're in control, and you both know the only way for them to get out is your mercy or them giving the answers you want to hear, and they've got all kinds of ways to make you talk..."

He pauses, reconsiders what he knows of Peridot and Lapis thus far, and deftly changes tracks. "Or, you know, the other way around."

Yeah, now that he thinks about it, doesn't Lapis make a much more natural fit for wicked interrogator than "Can't Keep Her Cool to Literally Save Her Life" Peridot?

The gem just continues to gape at him, her mouth floundering open and shut. She's mostly just outraged, but there's an embarrassing part of her that's also intrigued? Like, really, there's a certain merit to his words, she can kind of see what he's getting at but-- No! No, right?

Now is not the time or place to be contemplating this, she scolds herself for even daring to devote the mere half a second of her time to the thought. Blast it, Lambert...

"Okay it really wasn't like that," Peridot insists exasperatedly. "You are operating under the very false assumption that gems romancing and consorting with one another is a thing that we normally do, which. It isn't. We're not organics, we're not equipped by default for mating or whatever it is you humans happen to like to call it."

Edited 2017-08-22 18:24 (UTC)

"Then correct my assumptions," Lambert grins. The more rope Peridot gives him, the more he has to hang her with, and he'd like to know exactly how much more he can find out about this whole 'gem' biology thing and how many more colors he can see her turn.

"Does that mean you could be equipped if you wanted to?"

Edited 2017-08-25 15:31 (UTC)

Peridot is going to fall for it hook line and sinker, because hey, talking about this stuff doesn't even remotely embarrass her, as long as they're talking about it in broad terms, and not talking about it in a way that applies to herself directly. If anything, she's more just vaguely irritated to have to explain this all over again, because she has definitely had similar conversations with other workers at the carnival before now.

"Correct," the gem confirms, sighing resignedly and propping herself up on her palms. "Because our physical forms are mostly made up of hard light, most gems can naturally alter their shape however they please to. Like... Amethyst, for example, gives herself a digestive system because she loves to ingest human garbage. Lapis uses her ability to try and hide the changes the carnival's magic has wrought on her base form..." Peridot scowls lightly, shrugging again. "Personally, I think it's a huge waste of their energy and time."

Although, while she hates to admit it, Amethyst's eating habits have kind of grown on to become a point of strangely charming hilarity for Peridot. Even if it is still gross.

Stars. She misses her... For a brief, subtle moment, the engineer's ears droop sadly as her thoughts linger on her absent friend.

Sensing her owner's shift in mood, Pumpkin wriggles in her arms and whines softly, pawing at the engineer before throwing a beseeching, confused look Lambert's way. The trouble with being a gourd is that you just aren't a good shape for comforting.

There are a lot of ways for Lambert to respond to that -- most of them lewd -- but Pumpkin's alertness picks up something he otherwise would have glossed over completely, giving him pause. But only a little bit of a pause, enough to change what he was going to say, but not get rid of the desire to give her shit anyway

Which means, shortly, Peridot's going to find a hand resting heavily on her head, shamelessly sinking through the soft, fluffy mass of it. Lambert doesn't pet her, exactly, but the suggestion of it is definitely there.

"I dunno," Lambert drawls. "This doesn't feel so hard to me." And then, promptly, he scrubs his fingers and palm into her hair to muss it vigorously.

Edited 2017-08-26 03:37 (UTC)

In her infinite talent, Peridot somehow manages to make a distressed sound that is both nasally and guttural at the same time which, persists for the duration of the mussing. The gesture catches her by surprise enough that she freezes up at first, but then she's flapping her hands at his hand with an indignant snarl, trying to shoo him off.

"You know what I meant," she huffs, scowling at the other supervisor and running her claws through her hair to try and tidy it back up. It's weird, though... annoying as the gesture was, it also isn't entirely unwelcome? It's almost... comforting, in a way that Peridot really needed.

Not that she's going to tell Lambert that, because she doesn't want to encourage him.

"I actually don't," Lambert laughs at her indignation, ruffling her hair once more for good measure before he withdraws his hand from batting reach (not that he has to go far, since someone has pretty stubby limbs). The visible signs of irritation are encouragement enough for someone like Lambert to remember to try and do it again at the earliest opportunity, but for now he's curious.

"What's hard light, and how are you made of it?" Lambert is pretty sure this is going to result in the nerdiest lecture of all time, but hey, maybe he'll get something useful out of it. A little more knowledge about non-human biology never hurts, in case he ever has to take someone out.

The gem scoffs and shoots him another dirty look, this time relenting and leaving her hair as is. She'd be more annoyed, but the opportunity to lecture a bit is sufficiently distracting enough.

"Hard light is exactly what it sounds like. How it works is a bit difficult to explain to someone who isn't at least a little familiar with the concept, but... For you, I'll make an effort," Peridot sniffs, putting on like 1), none of that teasing just now ever happened, and 2), she's doing Lambert a huge favor by answering his question.

"As you know, typical light is made up of a sort of intangible particle known as photons. The light that gems produce--" and she points a claw at the stone set into her forehead-- "is different. It can solidify and take on shape and mass, allowing us to create the physical forms that we use to interact with the world around us. The advantage that gives us over organic creatures, who are made up of different kinds of cells rather than photons, is incredibly significant. It means that with the right output of energy and enough concentration, most gems can temporarily alter the projection of their forms however they please."

⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

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Time to BULLSHIT SOME SCIENCE