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

"Auhhh..." Well. He looks himself over. "Truthfully, I, the man Gongenzaka, have come to expect this sort of change when entering other locations..."

Though the cheetah beside him chuckles a little more loudly just as they say that. "Of course, it is still taking time to come to terms with his own soul..."

"MMNNGH! Th-We are doing fine!!"

"Well certainly I am..."

"It is okay to say it's rough," Zecora said with gentle sympathy.
"Nopony will think you aren't tough."

Truth be told, she was glad her own glamour and predilections dodged that particular bullet. As much as she thought she had little to fear from her soul under normal circumstances, Portland had put her through enough that she was grateful not to have to test that thought.

"AUH-I-it isn't about being tough..!!" Gongenzaka protests, his daemon apparently agreeing (for once). With a slight tail twitch, the cheetah frowns.

"It is the idea of keeping a burden from another," she explains, though she does frown to her partner. "All the same, Noboru, doing so tends to create more of it in the long run."

"Nhh...." He's being battered at all sides here isn't he. A true display of what he just said. "...I, the man Gongenzaka, hardly think there is anything beyond what we as a pair do to work through things..."

"You should hide nothing from your doctor's eyes," Zecora said with an amused smile. She meant no harm, and even sympathized with his position, but it couldn't stand.
"I do not wish for a surprise."

"It is merely something we must sort between ourselves, I assure you."

Marishi, at least, seems to agree, nodding. "When it comes to matters of the heart, that is how it goes after all."

"Matters of the heart? Tell me more!
What surprises do you have in store?"

Zecora wasn't, apparently, going to let him off that easily.

"AUH-" Gongenzaka is now frowning rather dryly at Marishi. "...Heart is perhaps not the correct word..."

The cheetah, in question, coughs. "...Perhaps not. He's still at odds with how I settled as a 'runner', is all," she mutters, looking somewhat embarrassed.

"Oh, that's all you have to say?
I confess to some dismay.
I'm glad it's nothing worse instead
But that is no choice gossip to spread."

Some of the people in the carnival were a bad influence on Zecora, teasing though she might be.

"Nmmmh....rather frankly, more than that is not what has ever been upon our minds..."

"Yes, we are rather young aren't we..?"

"NNH-! That is not the reason..!!" Perhaps there is gossip in here after all.

"Not so young as could be
To ponder that life mystery." Zecora struck a careful balance of commenting to keep their dialogue flowing without trying to push, casually watching his daemon as she did.

Ehhhh. Well, both are sort of flicking their ears back under the glamors, and for the most part, both are keeping themselves rather contained beyond that.

"....We have time enough before it needs thought, I think." Smooth word choice, that....

Well, she wondered where exactly that train of thought was going, but she only had a desire to pry so far. And only that because she'd spent too much time in the Carnival to begin with.

"When it happens, it happens, that's fine.
Don't mind these amusements of mine."

"I, the man Gongenzaka, would be surprised if it happened while here.."

"Though to be fair, we may be staying longer than initially intended..." Marishi hums.

"You're inclined to make a pact
With the Ringmaster for another contract?"

This had been a particularly rough year, so she was a little surprised at how many people seemed inclined to stay further. Not that she was judging -- she was probably going to as well, after all.

The pair of them both nod.

"Yuuya will not even be half way through their own contract," Gongenzaka insists.

"Therefore, it is in our interest to remain until he has done just that."

"But what if the same thing happens in reverse?
Will that not just make things worse?"

Zecora could easily imagine a scenario in which two people with overlapping contracts kept signing up time and again, until the point where -- well, she remembered the vampire attack, and what it had cost the carnival.

"Mmmmh..." Worse?

"We have no doubt that we should be able to convince Yuuya not to extend his contract to such an extent..."

"Aaauh. After all, time will not be passing between all of us-and this will ensure that I, the man Gongenzaka, can watch over the others from our home until then as well."

"And your friend will just agree
To leave you here for a month or three?"

Honestly, Gon. If it didn't work one way, why would it work the other? Even Zecora can see this was only the beginning of his problems....

"Mnnh!! Of course!!"

"Well, we'd hope so at least...." They're both quite stubborn aren't they.

⇨ GREYSOL

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he has such....innocent theories...

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