⇨ 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

[soft_focus]

...Woah........ [Okay, now that was rather cool. She was a little confused for a moment-they both seemed so focused-but there it was, the pasta all in a....plate?

She quickly hands it over, but frowns.] If it's going to be a plate, what about forks though...

[espigeon]

Well, you can buy them back at the stand but they're a little pricey actually, you're expected to give them back for a partial refund.

[He reaches out of sight of Reira, Julie hopping onto the bench besides him and so-casually stretching out her wings to screen it from anyone else, and opens a small portal into his inventory on his leg to pull out a couple pieces of silverware. They're wet with saltwater.]

That's not necessary in this case, though!

[soft_focus]

Ohhh.... [Well there goes that idea for spoons or forks...but here come the other ones, and Reira gasps as they appear.] You hid them there..!?

[espigeon]

I thought they'd be useful, so I carried some with me! I've got a lot of stuff like that.

Here, there's a lot of ways to eat long pasta like this, but the traditional way is to do this and twirl so it gets wound around the fork.

[soft_focus]

Is there a lot of things in there..? [She asks, watching how Julien twirls the fork and mimicking it as best she can.

Which is...Pretty exact, actually.]

[espigeon]

Tons of stuff! It's one of my powers - I can carry so much junk without showing it. It's pretty useful.

[Well, that's a little weird.]

You've had pasta before?

[soft_focus]

Mnn-mm. I haven't had lots of foods before, [she adds, trying the noodles. She's doing pretty well all things considered.]

[espigeon]

Hmm. Well, you're handling it like a pro. Long noodles are tricky.

[He just pops his entire forkful into his mouth, where it's more than is comfortable. It's going to take a minute before he's got it chewed enough to swallow. This is too much to talk through.

Julie looks at him.]

Smooth. Reira, just... eat it however. Have some fun. Get sauce on yourself, it's fine.

[soft_focus]

[She certainly will be eating it, though she definitely doesn't bore into it like Julien just did. Actually it's oddly clean considering her age....probably because she's actually conscious of the mess it'll make. She doesn't want to make a mess! She wants to eat.

Even so, she does nod. It's good to acknowledge she has permission.]

[espigeon]

[Julien is very careful about not getting sauce on his shirt - leaning forwards, rolling neat forkfuls, blocking with his other hand when he has to.

The noodles are a little overdone, he thinks. They kind of come apart too easily. Still, it's hot and fresh. Julie taps her foot on a different unfurled plate.]

Try this one too. Try all of them, they're pretty good!

[She doesn't eat any. Dæmons rarely do, and usually it's just to taste. From her perspective she is eating right now, that's what Julien's doing.]

[soft_focus]

Um! Right... [Right, she sort of. Forgot the others existed. She stares at her fork a moment however.] ..........................do I use the same fork...

[espigeon]

Sure, why not! I could get you another one, but it won't hurt anything to use the same one.

[She holds her little feathered head over the plate of seafood pasta and inhales.]

Mmm, that garlic-and-mussels! There's nothing like fresh street food by the sea.

[soft_focus]

Mmmh... [okay, SEAFOOD pasta time! ....Definitely good, yes.] Mhh...'s chewy...

[That'd be the mussels, kiddo.]

[espigeon]

Not too salty for you?

[Julien sucks up a long trailing noodle and wipes his chin with a napkin, conscientious.]

They should have stalls like that at home.

[soft_focus]

....I thought it was supposed to be salty.

[So that's a 'no' on that, then.] ...What kinds of things are normally at your home?

[espigeon]

Oh, well, food trucks at home are usually like pizza or hot dogs. Or tacos!

Ice cream!

Yeah. [He tilts his head at Reira, unaware of how birdlike that gesture is.] Have you had any of those?

[soft_focus]

...Ice cream is cold... [She mutters, frowning.] ....Yuuya showed me ice cream earlier though.

[So....Not until BASICALLY TODAY, in other words.]

[espigeon]

It is! Lots of people love it but it takes some getting used to. Did you get a brain freeze? When you take something cold into your mouth and then your head aches?

[Poor kid. Julien's been getting the impression that it's not just a this-child-is-from-a-culture-that-doesn't-have-these-things issue, but he doesn't know where to go from there so he'll just be aggressively friendly and positive. As usual.]

[soft_focus]

....No, I bit it.

[COLD TEETH. It was the worst.]

[espigeon]

Aww, no!

[He's trying not to laugh. Julien's folded wings flick and her tail quivers.]

Yeah eating ice cream safely is a little bit of an art. Very easy when you know how to do it, but when you don't...

[soft_focus]

[She can sense that amusement, and it means she frowns at them both. Very deeply.

It sucked you jerks.]

[espigeon]

You'll do better next time! Maybe get some on hot pie, that's always good.

[Julie wipes her beak on the back of his hand. He's not going to repent about being amused.]

Here, try my plate. The tomato sauce one. I'm going to steal some of your pesto. If you don't mind?

[That isn't how you steal, Julien.]

[soft_focus]

Umnh... ...Shingo talked about pie a lot... [She'll take both of their words on this she supposes. She carefully nudges her pesto pasta over, reaching to try the tomato in the meantime. So far...they've all been pretty good, so that's good at least.]

...You don't have to steal it, just eat it.

[espigeon]

It's pretty good! And easy to make, easy to eat. No real wrong ways to eat it, either.

Unless you get excited and bite the fork.

That was one time, Julie. Once!

[He twirls up some pesto.]

Figure of speech! Sometimes around my friends I'll say 'steal' instead of 'take' or 'borrow'.

[soft_focus]

....That sounds like it would hurt... [She mutters, quietly chewing up a few noodles. But, well, that aside...] ....and that still doesn't make sense... [She's quite the literal child, see.]