lostcarnival | ⇨ GREYSOL

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Peridot's also up early, but that's only because Peridot doesn't sleep. She's making her usual rounds, doing a quality check on all the carnival's essential equipment when Joker approaches her. Her own daemon has presently taken on the form of a sort of surly looking wolverine, which is circling her legs and squinting around restlessly. She spots Joker before Peridot does, making her look up before he even lands.

Before she can even greet him though, her eyes bug out with alarm at that comment.]

Yours is bleeding!?

[Out of everything he could have expected, that kind of response catches him by surprise, and both him and the fox jerk back in surprise as they try to realize what she's talking about.]

[Aurora realizes first. And she bursts into a fit of laughter when she does.]

Oh, no, no, I meant- will ya stop laughin', good lord, I'm tryin' ta explain here- s'just a way of swearin', Peridot! Like "damn" or "fuck", that kinda thing!

[Peridot flushes and frowns, and Olivine bristles at Aurora while showing off some big ol' nasty wolverine teeth, because neither of them sure appreciate being laughed at.]

[Olivine snaps:] Quit laughing at us!

[And Peridot clears her throat quietly, trying to retain some of the dignity that her daemon is piddling away by throwing a small indignant tantrum.] Right. Well. Mine is sporting some kind of scar, so you can imagine where my confusion is coming from... You know, on top of that being a really ridiculous form of expletive? Isn't "bleeding" something you humans use in regular conversation?

[If Aurora is scared, she's sure not showing it as she weaves around Joker's legs. While she can't smile, there sure is a sparkle in her eyes.]

If it makes you feel better, I'm laughin' at him, too.

[Snorting, Joker nudges her a little with his leg, but it's an absentminded gesture at best considering Peridot is speaking at him again.]

Now ain't that a little mystery... Anyway, yeah, it is. [Another little grin.] And "fuckin'" too, although how normal it is depends on yer company.

[It doesn't make either of them feel better, but Olivine just scowls and then changes shape to a blue jay, fluttering up to rest on Peridot's shoulder and huddle against her neck. Sure enough, there is some kind of bizarre remnant of a wound on her breast, a patch of scar tissue where the feathers refuse to form.]

So how do you not go around offending each other all the time?

Weeeeell.... [Joker leans back with his hand curled at his chin.] It depends on if yer friends, or family... Or if two people are just so low on the ladder that they don't give a proper damn if they're bein' polite or not.

[Aurora pipes up.]

And if ya say it around rich folk, they're already decided on ya bein' trash, so it ain't a loss, now, is it?

Hmmmm... [Peridot unwittingly mimics the gesture of putting her hand to her chin, and Olivine turns her head to stare critically at the duo with one jewel green eye, like she's trying to make that they're not messing with them both.]

So basically, it's all contextual. How peculiar.

Exactly the sort of complicated mess you'd expect from the likes of humanity.

[Peridot looks alarmed.] Well, yeah, but that's one of the things that I like about Earth! You make it sound like it's a bad thing...

Not bad, just impractical.

[At least Joker is by no means offended by Olivine's observations, and in fact, him and his own daemon just laugh a little.]

Well, that's just what happens. What, ya don't do the same kind of thing where yer from?

[Which... he... cannot for the life of remember the name. Welp. He'll just dance around it if necessary, he's good at that.]

Like, it's not more common for ya ta say certain things around people ya work with than people ya work for?

⇨ GREYSOL

Shape of Your Soul

JFC..... peridot why are you the best

SHE'S EMBARRASSING IS WHAT SHE IS

also true

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