⇨ GREYSOL

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 155 - Day 169
Where: Greysol
What: The carnival resumes its tour, this time heading to Greysol, a city tied deeply into the fabric of the multiverse. Here, everyone has an animal companion from birth that is the second half of their soul - and thanks to the Ringmaster, so do you. (Remember, joysweeper is our guest event runner for this location, and location specific questions should go to them.)
Warnings: Individually marked!

THE CITY OF GREYSOL↴ The carnival arrives in a manicured park in the center of a big city that sprawls out along where the river reaches the ocean. It’s spring, early enough that nights are chilly, warm enough in the days that people and their souls savor the weather, and sometimes shelter together from the rain. Greysol was designed from the bottom up to accommodate the human-dæmon bond. Go out and see! ► THE SHAPE OF YOUR SOUL: The dæmon-forming spell kicks in at about four in the morning. Most characters will wake up with their souls in some small form, curled against them. Even if they were awake, they became dazed and unfocused while their souls were being drawn out of their bodies and have little memory of how it happened. Until that evening every character's dæmon is able to change shapes, and children and some teens will continue to do so. Most will settle on their permanent forms by evening. Characters without dæmons will just look on, and the few who are thousand-pound bears have to handle being really big. ► IT’S GOOD TO SETTLE: Elaine Tavis Aracari, sixteen-year-old daughter of two actors and a moving pictures sensation herself, just ‘settled’ - her dæmon Tavis stopped changing shape - as a stunning blue peacock. Settling is a major coming of age milestone and celebrated as such in different ways all over the world. She and her family are throwing a massive party in the central park and inviting the public to join in! Enjoy easy access to free catering, live music and showings of moving pictures, and displays of mostly trivial magic. There are also form readers from across the country setting up booths, happy to accept a small fee to inspect your dæmon’s settled or most favored forms and tell you what they mean. Is there anything to these analyses? Eh, maybe, but they’re flattering and fun. ► WITCHING HOURS: Characters who are clearly witches for this event will often be assumed to be in town for a lover, and people, witches and not, may want to know who that is. Humans usually regard them with wary respect and interest. Real witches living with their human families or on business quickly suspect that something’s up, but without clear and present danger take a relaxed wait-and-see attitude. Wait for long enough and any possible decision will come around again, they believe. There isn’t time to learn much witch magic, but witches, real and carnival-made, have an inherent power: the ability to fly using branches of “cloudpine”, an attractive soft-needled tree common in the park. Witches usually ride large branches as if they’re steeds but can use even short sprays, and you’ll probably see the few witches in the city coming to the park to do so. Why not try? ► BEAR PUN: Human-panserbjørn relations have historically been troubled, but have warmed in the past century. It’s the 65th anniversary of the breaking of the Siege of Bertin, a much-mythologized time when Spectres flooded Greysol and a company of panserbjørn arrived and directed efforts to get the survivors out of the city. A statue is being erected and many florid accounts of the story are being told. If you’re in a panserbjørn shape for the duration of the visit you will probably get thanked and celebrated by people trying to hide their nervousness of you. Expect someone to ask if your dæmon would be a human - it’s a common supposition. ► KERNER ISLAND: From the harbor you can see a wooded island. Although there are no rocks to speak of it sports a tall lighthouse, and nearly all boat traffic avoids it carefully. On a clear day someone with binoculars or a particularly sharp-eyed soul can see loads of trash, birds and various other animals that don’t seem local, and… children? Adults and settled teenagers will see tall vague shapes moving about too. When asked about it the most important thing adults will tell other adults is don’t go there. They’ll hold their dæmons close and tell you that on that island are things that eat souls. They may also admit with mixed pride and shame that it’s been a source of wealth and innovation for the city. There’s a facility there that can open windows into other worlds, and the children who can reach it can cross through and bring things back. Many of the children are recruited by research and development teams on the lookout for items they can use, but there are also kids out to have adventures or who’ve run away. More on this later.

Comments

[dontpokethat]

It's-- I mean, not like-- [He gestures helplessly for a moment, because okay yeah he can't back that one up.]

What? What about my-- Ginko, don't ask, they'll take it as an invitation.

[pipers_son]

[Judging by their shit eating grins- well, shit eating grin plus an extremely cocky air about the magpie- Midori is absolutely correct on that front. Yet perhaps because they've been caught, neither of them presses forward on that front.]

[Or maybe it's just more fun to leave Ginko guessing.]

[Either way, Joker makes sure that the other man can't escape his gaze as he talks.]

Now, I don't know what fool went and filled yer head with this idea that ya ain't handsome-

Although they're a right tit for it.

-but trust me when I say ya are, Ginko. Ya may not be pretty, like me- [Joker flashes him a playful wink.] Or gorgeous like some ladies we've seen, like the Ringmaster can be when she ain't a pain...

But yer handsome in an earthly way. Like a kitchen full of herbs, or bein' at the base of a mountain.

[Aurora nips at his ear again. There's a lot of area to choose from.] That barely makes any sense.

Ah, but y'know what I mean, don't ya?

[dontpokethat]

[Ginko makes no effort to answer that first part, because that's a years-long story that he can't imagine Joker will actually want to hear. Instead, he shoves his hands into his pockets and grips the fabric lining tightly, then looks away and gives a short, quick nod, hoping that Joker can't see the heat that he can definitely feel in his face. Maybe his scales will be enough to cover it up.]

...Guess so. Kind of, anyway.

[He does know what Joker is describing. It's an easy thing to visualize, to feel - but imagining that feeling as a part of himself, the way he looks, is another story entirely.]

[pipers_son]

[Oh, there's a bit of something there, Joker is sure, but he plays nice. Ginko barely ever gets this flustered, at least in this way. So he exchanges a grin with Aurora before finally hopping back.]

Well, just think on it~.

And don't doubt when folks think yer handsome, because he'll go on all the more~.

[dontpokethat]

[Perhaps ironically, that comes as a relief - because it gives Ginko something to latch onto other than his own embarrassment. He laughs quietly, as shaky as it is amused.]

Are you threatening me now? I think that's just what they're doing.

[pipers_son]

Hey now, I'd just like ta remind all that're present that ya threatened me first.

All's fair in love and war when he wants ta use that excuse, of course.

[Laughing himself, Joker starts to flap upwards.]

Anyway, should I leave ya ta yer work? I suppose I outta get back ta mine, after all.

[dontpokethat]

Hey, now, I offered a compromise. If you take that as a threat, that sounds like a personal problem to me.

[HE'S JUST SAYIN'.]

Yeah, probably. I'll see you later, then.