⇨ 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

[atouts]

Childermass weathers most storms alone, figurative and literal both, which only exacerbates the problem of suddenly having another part of himself, one that can chatter away and try to cheer him up. Worse, it's a half of him that will give away secrets like this one, purely because she's worried about him.

"I wish I knew," the crow answers, giving her own birdy rendition of a shrug the best she can. "He never asks for h—"

Ah, but speak of the devil. The crow shuts up, beak snapping shut, just before the shop's door swings open and the man himself steps out. He glances towards the bird first out of habit, simply knowing she exists there, a constant on the edge of his perception now that she exists, but that attention is quick to shift to Rita and her own daemon. At them, he frowns, brow furrowing.

"Ms. Mordio," he says by way of greeting, even if his expression says he'd rather be telling them to bugger off. He'll step closer, away from the door, though really only so he isn't blocking it. "Enjoying Greysol thus far?"

[anti_nonsense]

The crow's sudden silence is warning enough for what happens next, but Rita doesn't so much as flinch at his sudden appearance. She simply turns to face Childermass.

"...Yeah, I am," she answers. "It's nice to be in a human world again, and there's plenty for me to study while I'm here." Rita's not sure if he expected a sincere answer to his pleasantries, but he's getting one anyway.

With a glance at his daemon, then to him, she adds, "I take it you're not so into it." Maybe it's rude to draw attention to a subject he's obviously been avoiding, but it'd probably be ruder to start pretending like she wasn't already prying. Childermass isn't an idiot, and it's easy enough to guess what she was doing just now.

[atouts]

No, he really isn't, and so he'll take it in stride when she more or less admits to it. It was always only a matter of time before someone tries chatting with what is, essentially, his other half here. It's an uncomfortable idea, especially for a man so used to keeping every part of himself, well, completely to himself. Now there's a bit with a form and voice all its own.

Worse, that part ended up being a crow. Of all the possibilities, a crow? They both knew why. He's not sure he can blame himself for being upset. Can he? All thoughts he, naturally, won't share out loud, although the crow somehow manages to look even sadder than before, almost as if her feathers were wilting the way she lets her wingtips droop.

"I am afraid not," he confirms, though not without a sigh and another glance between his daemon and Rita. "I can't say I ever felt that I needed to meet my own soul."

[anti_nonsense]

"That's not so bad, is it?" Rita offers with a shrug. "Daemons show us parts of ourselves that we didn't know were there... or didn't want to acknowledge. But that just means we have a chance to face those things, instead of going on kidding ourselves about who and what we are."

Krios watches the crow as the two of them talk, and, seemingly sympathetic, he hops over from Rita's shoulder to join the other daemon where she perches. He attempts to nuzzle her, in some effort to comfort her.

Rita, seeing this, quickly turns her head away from the embarrassing display of affection. It's not that she wants to make him feel better, she's just trying to explain her perspective. Stupid Krios.

[atouts]

It's a struggle, getting told that by someone so much younger than he is. The biggest problem is this isn't normally an issue for him. Accept what can't be changed, work around it, move on, that's Childermass. Only up until this point, none of those problems have involved having the makeup of his soul altered.

Everything else he gains from the carnival, that fades. He's been told that and he believes it well enough to not be worried, even if the changes can be trying from time to time, but what about changes left by other magic? Like this? This wasn't the carnival. His daemon shouldn't be a crow.

It's a lot to weigh his mind down, but it's also a lot he won't bother Rita with. She's figured out he's upset with the crow, that much he's sure, so he'll only address that, doing his best to ignore the other daemon comforting his own as he does. The crow, in return, leans against Krios, taking what comfort she can when faced with this kind of situation.

"I admit I am usually the first to accept and move on, but this is..." What? How does he put it? "More personal. Insult added to injury and not one I can ignore."

[anti_nonsense]

"I mean... I get it. The ways the fae change people... it makes my blood boil." And Rita's definitely been known to lose her cool from time to time... as Childermass has already seen. She'd probably be flying off the handle if she were in his shoes. It's not even clear what it means to have your soul influenced, but whether or not there's tangible harm in it, it's messed up.

"But there's no point in punishing yourself over it." And by punishing himself she means his other self, which is still sort of... him. Rita, for her own part, was pretty quick to accept Krios as a reflection of herself.

[atouts]

"I'm not punishing myself over—"

Ah, except maybe he is. It would be the first time someone pointed out the crow is just a part of him. The better part, at that, an insult he can certainly thank Strange's own obnoxious daemon for. From her, it had been grating, but Rita isn't a four-hundred-pound seal with an attitude problem. She's just a magician who also happens to have an attitude problem, but at least one Childermass has never had reason to dislike.

He finally chances a glance over at the two birds, this time looking at his own with a closer eye. She does seem terribly put out, though that's nothing he's only just noticed now. It's been ongoing since day one in Greysol.

"She could have at least went with a raven," he finally picks up where he had trailed off, this time with a sigh. "But that isn't how this works, is it?"

[anti_nonsense]

"No, it's not," Rita agrees. Not that she really knows how it does work. From talking to Krios and to locals, she gathered that a daemon's form reflects one's personality just as much as its behavior does... but Rita has no idea what a cat-thing or a songbird really says about her.

"Are crows and ravens really that different to begin with?" she asks with a raised eyebrow. As far as she's concerned, they're all just dark-colored birds.

[atouts]

"Not really," he answers, shrugging. "They're far bigger. It's more of a preference of mine than anything else, I suppose."

A preference ridiculously tied up with, surprise, surprise, the Raven King. A raven for a daemon would have been a flattering choice to Childermass, even if he even admitting his preference is done so with reluctance. It's no doubt too vain of him to have hoped for that.

[anti_nonsense]

"I'm sure," Rita mutters. She's aware of the significance of the Raven King, and she remembers Strange mentioning Childermass in one of those conversations. Seems like everyone she knows from England is a fanatic of that guy on some level.

"And I'm sure she understands that preference better than anyone. Among other things," she adds, glancing back to the two birds. She meets Krios's hopeful stare, then quickly looks away again, turning to leave. "...Not that it's any of my business to begin with. Come on, Krios. We should get going." She's given her opinion, and that's all she really ought to do. It's up to Childermass to do what he wants.