lostcarnival | ⇨ GREYSOL

Entry tags:

⇨ 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.

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The crow very obviously does mind and that much is obvious to Strange. Still, he's got nothing better to do, so he can at least try to cheer up the crow until Childermass comes back (and then give him an earful about the poor thing.) And if she wants to make a tower of coins...well, he can help with that.

"I've some spare change in my pocket. That can help make your tower even taller." Reaching into his pants pocket, Strange fiddles around for a bit before pulling out a handful of spare change and setting it down on the edge of the fountain. It's only about fifty cents or so in various denominations, he doesn't mind giving it up to the crow. As he does so, Siobhan just yammers on.

"You know, you never told us your name," Siobhan chimes in, blissfully unaware that she just got the verbal equivalent of a stink-eye from the crow.

That does cheer her up! Some! She puffs out her feathers when Strange sets the spare change down and hops over to them, looking at them closely before moving them or anything.

"Oh, I should put all the same colors together, too..." Although that's mostly said to herself. She has a lot of time on her wings to fill up, unfortunately. Siobhan asking her name, though, that gets her attention again, followed by a long silence.

An awkwardly long silence, even.

"Ah. That. My name." Right. That thing. That thing that everyone usually has. "I don't know. I thought John and me could pick one together, but he doesn't think it's important."

Strange just takes a deep breath because all of his friends are idiots. First Lambert, now Childermass. It's just a name! And, most likely, the daemons will be gone once they leave this world. It's not like this is a lifetime commitment or anything, just name the damn thing that's following you around so you don't have to call it 'bird'!

He's trying to seem like this doesn't bother him in the slightest, but there's a level of irritation and annoyance at Childermass in his voice that he just can't hide.

"Well, I understand that you'd want to pick out an actual name with John, but perhaps we could come up with a nickname? Something that just the two of us could call you. Plenty of beings have nicknames!" he quickly continues, trying to make it seem like having a nickname and not a name is a perfectly normal thing. "I had a nickname myself back in the peninsula."

"They called him Merlin," Siobhan chimes in, picking up a little bit of what Strange is trying to do here. "He won't mind if we call him that either, that's what Tamaki does." Only because Strange took offense at all of Tamaki's nickname suggestions.

"Merlin? That's not very clever, is it?"

Which is probably a little mean of the crow to say, but after that, she does take a moment to pause and consider, head tilting from one side to the other while thinking. She also takes a moment to pick up and add another coin to the stack, but then she will answer, really.

"I guess? It can't hurt, right? But what would it be?"

Strange frowns, looking the crow over. She was small, with a bit of white to offset the blackness crows usually had. She liked stacking coins, stealing shiny objects, and (apparently) making fun of his nickname. He can't really think of any famous birds off the top of his head to nickname her...perhaps something with her color? But there's no way he's going to call part of Childermass's soul something as silly as 'Blackie'.

"What about Bianca?"

It's Italian for white--at least, he's pretty sure it's Italian for white. Strange is not very good at nicknames and even worse at Italian but hey, he's making an effort.

"Bianca," the crow repeats slowly to herself, looking down at her stack of coins as he does. She mutters it a second time as if addressing those same coins, then shakes out her feathers and sighs. She looks up again. "It's a nice name, but it's definitely not mine. You can use it, though, if you really need something to call me by. I won't mind."

It's not a real name to her, so as she said before, it can't really hurt. Although, on the topic of names, she switches her attention from Strange to Siobahn, blinking once, twice at the seal.

"How did you end up deciding on yours?"

Strange remains quiet for a moment, just letting the two daemons talk. In comparison, Siobhan tilts her head, as if mimicking the crow's gestures.

"Do you know what a selkie is? They're awfully romantic, creatures who look like seals in the water but can shed their skin to look like humans on land. They've got to remain human if someone steals their skin but if the sealskin is found, then they go back to the sea in their seal shape. Well, I thought the story fit, so I asked Jonathan to come up with names that a selkie might have!" Siobhan seems awfully proud of herself as she talks, propping herself upright against the side of the well so that she can see the crow better.

"Of course, the idiot only remembered that the legends were mostly Scottish, not Irish, until after we thought of an Irish name."

"You're part of my soul as well," Strange gently chides, rolling his eyes at Siobhan. "You're equally to blame."

"Of course I know what a selkie is," the crow replies, although, in her opinion, she adds, "But stealing someone's skin isn't very romantic at all. Sounds more like trouble to me."

Only perhaps she shouldn't be criticizing the reasoning. She had asked for it, after all, and it's at least an interesting answer. So even after saying that, she'll still add, "But it is a nice name, even if it isn't Scottish." And if that's how Siobhan decided, well, she has to wonder herself... "Ah, I can't think of any stories about birds like that, so I suppose that's out."

"The romance isn't between the selkie and the person, silly. It's between the selkie and the sea!" Siobhan relates in a 'duh' sort of tone, rolling her eyes slightly at the crow.

Though as she does so, Strange quickly starts wracking his brain for any stories about crows, myths about crows, any sort of thing that he could tell and pull a name from to suggest to the bird. Unfortunately, he's coming up blank. "I think I remember one about a crow and a cat. Perhaps you could draw a name from that story?"

There isn't a story about a crow and a cat. This is just Strange quickly making up some bullshit because he doesn't want the poor bird to feel left out. And, based on the look that Siobhan's giving him, it's obvious that it's kind of bullshit to begin with.

Oh, but this is still Childermass's daemon. When Strange decides to come up with a story out of nowhere, the crow looks up and away from Siobhan rather than arguing the point of just what the romance is supposed to be between. They would just end up going in circles. This, though, she can see right through.

It does help what the seal is giving her other half such a look, though.

Still, in similar Childermass fashion, although with a little less deadpan and a little more cheer, she'll encourage him to make a fool of himself by chiming, "Oh? Really? What story would that be?"

Ah, damn. Now he's actually got to make something up. Once again, leaping into things and running his mouth without thinking it through has stymied Strange. Strange has such a lack of a poker face as he frowns and mulls this nonexistent story over before he just throws caution to the wind and starts bullshitting.

"Well obviously there's a crow and a cat." Awesome, a good start, let's keep going. "And they got along fine to start off with, but the cat was always a flighty sort of beast, running off and getting into trouble. The crow saved it time and time again and started to wonder just what use the cat was but eventually the cat did something extraordinary and...I don't know, saved the crow's life or something like that."

What an amazingly shitty story. Strange realizes that and just pushes onwards, ignoring the judging look from Siobhan and the probable judgement from the crow.

"Honestly, the whole thing's an allegory for friendship or something of that nature. Fairy tales usually are. So if you draw your name from the story, then maybe you could be named something like Patience? Or Constance!"

The crow listens ever so dutifully, then, when Strange finally wraps it up with his other naming options, she makes a noise not too unlike a quiet laugh, albeit one she muffles behind a wing. Yeah, she's buying this one as much as Siobhan is. Still—

"It's okay, you didn't have to put on that much of an effort for me," she tells him after the stifled chuckling tapers off. She'll give her feathers a shake, ruffling them out a bit. "But thank you anyhow. It was nice of you to try. Maybe you should just stick with Bianc— ah."

Which would be her suddenly stopping and looking towards the shop's doors, not finishing saying the name. A few seconds after that is when Childermass walks back out, though he comes up short when he turns to fetch his daemon and finds not only Strange, but a four-hundred pound seal in his way as well. Yeah, you had better believe he's going to look a little dumbfounded at Siobahn.

"Is that... yours?"

Siobhan looks over at Childermass, gives him a glare, and then with a small 'hmmph!' swims through the air to sit in the fountain, next to the crow. Strange realizes this for what it is and looks downright mortified: his seal's giving Childermass the silent treatment. Part of his soul is acting grudgy and judgmental and amazingly petty.

The problem here is that a four hundred pound seal in the fountain displaces water everywhere. The water sloshes out over the side of the fountain, probably getting the poor crow a little bit wet as well.

"She is mine," Strange explains, looking at Siobhan with a sigh. Turning back to Childermass, Strange gives him a small smile of his own. "Her name's Siobhan."

Like anyone would be shocked to know part of Jonathan Strange's soul was capable of being grudgy, judgemental, and petty. To that, Childermass only watches Siobhan go and raises his eyebrows high at how she acts, not so much surprised than he is wondering what in the world the seal is mad about.

There is tiny frown that passes across his face, however, when he notices the crow has had to retreat to the edge of the fountain, shaking water from her feathers.

"And she clearly does not care for me," he states the obvious, although there's no real distress in those words. It's a fact. Nothing more. So he just shrugs and turns back to Strange. "What in the world happened that caused you to end up with a seal? I would have expected something, ah..." Something more shrill or energetic, he supposes, but let's go with, "Smaller."

And Strange simply shrugs! "Truth be told, I think part of it is sheer stubbornness. She was shifting earlier in our stay. When I told her I didn't like her seal form, she resolved to stay that way out of spite."

Again, like anyone would be shocked to know part of Jonathan Strange's soul was spiteful.

"I did get her form read though, at one of those booths. Apparently having a seal means that I'm sociable, enjoy attention, and am playful of all things." Strange laughs, shaking his head slightly. "I'll grant them sociable, but playful? It seems to me like that reader took a random guess."

There's deliberately no comment on the 'enjoys attention' bit, mostly because Strange has realized he does enjoy the attention he gets from performing, but it's a little bit embarrassing to admit that. Over at the fountain, Siobhan has started complaining under her breath to the crow, grumbling about Childermass and occasionally giving the other magician a look.

"And you didn't mind it?"

Which, from Childermass, is an uncommon question. Any other time, he wouldn't have much else to comment on regarding stubborn seals. Even better, he would likely find it funny that Siobhan existed as such just to be stubborn. Although, he can at least find some humor in Strange's soul being playful. All one had to do was look at the nonsense he got up to elsewhere in the carnival...

But that's neither here nor there. Pointing it out won't change a thing. So, instead, Childermass looks between Siobhan and Strange, although his gaze does linger on the daemon longer, brow furrowing as the seal grumbles to the crow, who, for her own part, looks embarrassed. How can he even know that? How can a bird look embarrassed? Maybe it's just a connection, where he knows, and even that is irksome.

"I minded it terribly at first!" said with a small laugh. "After all, you've seen the size of her!"

It's much easier to navigate things with a crow or a tiny polecat than to navigate a city with four hundred pounds of seal. Strange continues, looking over at the seal and crow as well as he talks. "But I don't mind now. She's happy in that shape. Likewise, there's something about it that feels right, like stepping into an old pair of shoes."

Having noticed that the two men are looking at her, Siobhan perks up a little, looking over at Strange. "Jonathan," she haughtily starts, "you're going to stay with Childermass for the next few hours, so I can continue talking with his daemon. The poor dear's starved for conversation." Says the daemon who undoubtedly spent most of the conversation talking over the crow. Siobhan shoots Childermass another glare and it's Strange's turn to look embarrassed.

"A pair of shoes that weigh several hundred pounds," Childermass can't help but add. With the way Siobhan has been giving him the evil eye, he can't exactly say he likes the seal one bit. That she goes on to demand Strange stay with him for the next few hours is just the icing on the whole angry seal cake!

"And she's a crow. What conversation can one even have with a crow?" Is what he has to say to that, his irritation finally bleeding through into his usual bored-seeming demeanor as he turns to address Siobhan directly. The crow is quick to flutter behind the larger daemon, leaving her to face Childermass's wrath without a feathery buffer.

Siobhan seems to have taken Childermass's irritation as a challenge. With a self-assured little hmmph, she gives the other man a glare, not moving from her position and acknowledging her status as crow buffer. "What conversation can one even have with a magician?" she rebuts, still giving Chidermass the evil eye. "She's as much a part of you as I am of Jonathan—and it seems she's the more pleasant parts at that!"

Don't mind Strange, he's just visibly rubbing the bridge of his nose because his soul is embarrassing and petty. Despite the fact that Siobhan is ready to fight, he very obviously doesn't.

Ugh, why is he even letting a seal get on his nerves? Why is that even remotely a problem? Childermass still frowns at Siobhan, but he'll settle on solving this the easiest way. That is, by shaking his head and turning to go. Of course, with the crow not moving from where she stands on the fountain, he'll only get... so far.

When he hits that twenty foot limit on human-daemon range, he tenses up at the shock of pain it causes. It's not enough to get much more than that as a reaction, but it is enough to stop him from actually leaving. The crow, unfortunately, feels it, too, and reacts by similarly giving a jump and leaping up to land on Siobhan, wings partly open and poised to take off. She hesitates, though, since Siobhan wants to talk and, oh, she really does want someone to chat with...

Childermass turns, looking back.

"Well? Don't just sit there."

This cannot seriously be happening.

This seriously is happening. Siobhan just looks so goddamn smug as she gives Childermass a smug grin before turning back to the crow. At least in her mind, she's won this conversation and is going to have a lovely chat with her new crow friend and suck it Childermass. "Do you want to continue to make your coin stack while we chat? Jonathan has money, he can go to the next store over and get change. Maybe he can take Childermass with him and we'll talk about them when they aren't hearing!"

So, Strange's bluntness and lack of secrets is apparently being interpreted as tactlessness by his soul. He still looks amazingly embarrassed but he's not going to fight this. Scrawny magician vs. hugeass seal, if Siobhan wants to stay and chat, then she will stay and chat. Maybe he can find a book to read when that happens.

"I'm happy to get change but really, don't you think it would be best if you were more subtle about your plans?" says the pot calling the kettle black.

"Hmm. She really is a lot like you," Childermass can't help but comment when Strange asks the seal that. Subtle plans would not make sense for a daemon of his, it really wouldn't. Of course, that's only said after Siobahn gets a tired look, but then he's resigned to this being a thing.

He can't leave if his daemon refuses to.

But they can, at least, go to the next store over, as suggested. He turns back towards Strange, sighing as he adds, "Very well. Let's go and let them talk. If that crow really is a part of me, I doubt it'll be interesting at all as far as gossip goes."

"Considering that seal is a part of me, she'll try her hardest anyway," Strange remarks, with a sigh. But, onto shopping. The fountain's stuck between two stores: the bookstore that Childermass came out of, and a stationary store. It's to the stationary store that Strange starts walking towards first.

"I keep misplacing my pencils," he complains, as he holds the door open for Childermass to enter. "Since I've some money here, might as well restock my supplies."

Buy some pencils, an eraser, maybe another little notebook since Strange's is already mostly full with doodles, scribbles, and nonsense.

To that Childermass makes a noncommittal noise, although it's probably a safe bet to assume he agrees with that. She will. He actually has no idea what the crow may or may not say, in all honesty, though the seal seemed hellbent on finding out just how terrible he's been.

From book the stationary, at least the smell of paper stays about the same. He could do with picking up a few more notebooks himself, but that's not been the main goal he's had since arriving in Greysol. If he needs paper, well, he'll end up lingering by the card stock, the other thicker kinds of paper, but all he'll do is frown at each and every piece he picks up and sets down again.

"You would misplace less of them if you tried tidying up your trailer from time to time," he will at least comment off-hand, if only for the sake of keeping the conversation going. Which isn't like him, really, but this is Strange he's with. The man will carry on with or without input, so he may as well.

Childermass is correct. If he tried to end the conversation, then of course Strange would keep talking, yammering on about pencils or notebooks or what have you. Strange finds himself by the pencils, grabbing a handful of plain ones before mulling over the colored selection. Yes, he doesn't need any colored pencils, but that purple one does look quite nice. And perhaps his drawings would actually be recognizable should he add color.

"One of the perils of being a lowly worker, I'm afraid! Were I a supervisor, I'm certain I'd have enough space to contain the mess."

That wouldn't happen. Were he a supervisor, the mess would just spread out to all aspects of the trailer.

"Besides, my most recent attempts at magic have been outside. The smell has a tendency to linger in the fabric." An oblique reference to Strange's new habit of turning body parts to smoke and the oddly sweet smell that smoke has. Though...come to think of it, has he even shown Childermass that talent yet?

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atouts - 2017-10-28 19:40 (UTC) - Expand

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kingsroads - 2017-10-28 21:32 (UTC) - Expand

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⇨ GREYSOL

hey, good enough for government work

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