⇨ 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

now with bonus daemon icon action

[whattaprick]

Never helpless, huh? Lambert would be pleased to know they're perceived that way, after all the work he puts in, and Celandine won't compromise that -- at least not now (though she won't tell him that's how they see him, either).

"A witcher, of course. Someone who learned from a witcher before him." And on and on and on into antiquity, to a time when the word 'witcher' might not have mean spitting like it was a curse, if such a time ever existed. Celandine and Lambert aren't certain of that.

"It's still nothing compared to what a real magic user can do, but they come in handy sometimes." There's the hint of a laugh in her voice at that, though her expression doesn't betray it. "You'll get better with yours."

[stillwinningthehardway]

He'll get at least an inkling when Celandine fades back into him outside of this reality, but that's for later.

Tràkata's tempted to say that no, they won't get better, no matter how much Scout tries she's running in place, but it seems obvious to the dæmon-panthac. It's probably obvious to the Nightrider; his dæmon is just saying that because that's the kind of thing people say. He's nothing like as obviously giving a route non-answer as Scout would be, but he does look away, long tufted tail stirring. "I'd like that."

Anyway. "So why doesn't he like being called a witch? I don't like it either, but it's different for us. 'Witch', it's like... adjacent to the truth, but sort of insulting." It's hard to imagine Scout being trained or raised as a Force-witch outside of the Temple. She'd have grown into a different person. Tràkata would have settled differently, probably.

[whattaprick]

Well, the rest of the thought was you get better at yours or youll die, but that's something Lambert would say. Lambert isn't here right now, and Celandine isn't everything he is, even if she's a fair bit. Jedi aren't witchers, she's ascertained that much. The tragedy Trakata described was clearly a horror never meant to happen. Celandine has memories of Lambert being put to bed with stories about how a mob of peasants murdered the children and teachers of the Wolf School and left it a hollow shell of itself. And the few trainees after that were still culled as much as ever.

"It's not just being called a witch." Celandine says, eventually. How Lambert feels about something is usually obvious; the cause of that feeling, usually less so. Even his daemon can only offer so much insight on that. They don't share thought processes or emotions while they're separated like this, so she can only offer a guess based on their shared knowledge of the word. "It's the way they speak to him. Respectful, but afraid. They'll take your protection, but they'll tell stories about you to their children, and whisper behind your back. Because you're different, and they know it."