lostcarnival | ⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

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⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 178 - B1: Day 6
Where: The Carnival and sometimes on top of the Heart of Stone.
What: Now that the Prince is dead and gone, there's a lot left to sort out. As the remaining servants are liberated and those captured by the Prince are tended to, it's time for recovery and goodbyes.
Warnings: Nothing in particular.

HOME GROUND↴

At long last, it is over. The Prince is dead, and all of his stolen Names have been restored - all that's left to do is treat the wounds and move on. For the first day or two, the Ringmaster will be arranging passage for the servants that are left, all of which have remembered their names for the first time in years. The earth elemental that had been trapped and forced to serve as the Prince's manor, the Heart of Stone, is happy to help for the moment. It appreciates the Ringmaster's mercy, and is free after untold eons of imprisonment.

Yet, there are plenty of aspects that are far from simple. There are still servants left mad and transformed into beasts, with no easy way to change them back. The Prince's spells outlive him, and those bearing his poison and his curses will have a difficult road ahead of them. Though most of the bestial servants have been rounded up, and a large number that had been reduced to unmoving statues returned, even the Ringmaster can't return them to normal so simply.

The next week is for rest and for settling remaining affairs. If you want to bid farewell to any particular NPCs, or assure care is given where it's needed, now is the time to do it.

► A CURE: The Ringmaster will tell everyone simply - there is no simple way to undo another fae's magic. The Prince's powers were essentially on par with hers, which means that those who have been transformed to stone and those that were cursed into beasts and driven insane are not something she can trivially fix. It will take the work of the carnival and a couple weeks of treatment to shed the curse of stone, and the maddened servants are an entirely separate matter. She will do what she can, but for the most part she is arranging for the Prince's servants to be cared for elsewhere. At least for now, the Ringmaster will be animating the stone portions of people's bodies with magic, though those portions will still be a bit clumsy and numb feeling.

► THE NEW HEARTSTONE: In the absence of the prince, the Heart of Stone will be taking over the remains of the Prince's realm and preventing it from collapsing into void. As it turns out, the manor had been an earth elemental all along - a form of Wyld Fae almost on par to the Prince and Ringmaster themselves. How the Heart of Stone was enslaved is a long story presumably, but the Ringmaster considers it to be a sign of the Prince's own depravity. The Heart will be allowing visitors for the first couple days of this period through the portal, but keep in mind you are essentially just walking around on its body. At least the realm has a floor, now, instead an endless abyss surrounding it.

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It does suck. It sucks a whole lot, actually. Turns out when you have pain taken away from you completely then dumped right back in, it's a little shocking, even at the gradual way she's going about it. Lambert's breath hisses out of him sharply, fingers shifting from gripping his daemon to curling into the sheets instead. Celandine uncoils, pressing her head against Lambert's balled fists reassuringly; if they weren't in mixed company, she would probably say something. However, all her attention is focused on bracing Lambert right now, so she misses Trakata's shifting.

But even as all the aches and pains trickle back into his body, threatening to drop him under again, Lambert finds the balance he's looking for and steadies. Draws on years of training, a routine his tutors managed to drum into his stubborn head despite all his unwillingness: tricks to relax the muscle, slow heartbeat and breath, one by painstaking one until it evens out and he can relax his grip on the blankets. Experimentally, he flexes a still-stony foot -- the sensation in the limb itself is still the heavy feeling, like he's trying to move it through mud. The non-petrified muscles moving it puts up enough protest at the movement that it feels like agony, though, and Lambert stops that quickly.

Still. There's something good about being able to feel that.

"... Thanks." It's said with slightly too much strain to be casual, but it is, to all appearances, pretty sincere, rather than sarcastic.

Scout grimaces as she withdraws the block, partly from her patient's reaction, partly because she thinks she can pick up on the poisoning. It's not normal poison, not something she can work on and help scour away. Really it almost feels like a fae-change, but so much more detrimental than anything the Ringmaster has ever caused. The Prince really was a piece of work.

Despite herself she's a little impressed as Lambert masters his body's reaction. He does have some skills, some training, she supposes. Being able to think and function despite serious injury is a useful skill - she trains for that by causing herself pain and not blocking it, knowing that in battle she'll never have the time, and it's probably help.

Then he goes and sounds sincere. Her eyes widen and her eyebrows quirk with surprise, and he would've seen that, and now she's sure he'll ruin the moment with some terrible comment, so she rushes to do it herself. "Sure. So, I noticed everyone's turning into giant flying beasts now. Should I try and get in on that, or is it supervisors only?"

Her dæmon snorts. "Nulling magic is more practical, and we've already taken a step onto that path."

Celandine and Lambert both blink, heads swaying first to Scout then Trakata as they both try to puzzle out that shift in conversation, but when it registers Lambert huffs a soft laugh and shrugs. Ruining the moment was actually the farthest thing from his mind, but since Scout is throwing herself onto the sacrificial pyre anyway...

"That's right, when you get promoted to being a supervisor, the shapeshifting is mandatory. Were you thinking about applying to be one?" Celandine teases, still pressing her body reassuringly against Lambert's arm even as she chatters comfortably at Scout and Trakata.

"What's this about nulling magic?"

Maybe she'd misread, Scout feels in her dæmon's steady gaze. It's a shame sometimes that her little talent for anticipation doesn't work in conversation, not unless it's the kind of conversation that gets interrupted with violent action.

"Oh, sure. I'll be the new doctor," she says, rolling her eyes with a smile. She will not be the new doctor, but she might quit repairs to be a nurse. "How long do you think I'd last - a week? Do you keep the shape shifting when you're demoted?"

Scout wrinkles her nose, knowing now that she'd been too careful when she first joined, too concerned about near-effortlessly changing what she could do. "My first contract had a little to do with that. Just making it so I won't be caught flat-footed if I'm fighting someone with a lot more stupid, special skills."

"Anymore," Tràkata mutters darkly. His teeth are always partially bared, they're very prominent, but they're a little more bared. Scout's lip curls, remembering that, remembering that the contract hadn't done her any good when the Traitor came. She assumes a more neutral expression and shakes her head; this isn't the time.

Edited 2017-11-14 19:19 (UTC)

"You keep the shapeshifting, but the real perk is the trailers," Celandine answers playfully. "That's the real reason he'd never quit."

Lambert smirks, straightening a little -- don't comment on the wince, Scout, he did ask for this -- and settling into a slightly more comfortable position. It's a little harder to concentrate on the spell keeping Celandine present and managing the pain at the same time, but he manages, though it's at the cost of having anything particularly insightful or deep to add to the conversation.

"There's always someone with stupider, specialer skills," he murmurs. Never mind that 'specialer' isn't really a word, either, she knows what he means. The push and pull of the reactions between Scout and her daemon make Celandine cock her head slightly, but she doesn't comment, content to let it be. If it matters, Scout or Trakata will say something, probably.

Edited ( ) 2017-11-15 09:26 (UTC)

She eyes the wince, but she hasn't commented on the increased strain in his voice, she can leave this too. If he needs to be moved again, maybe.

"Eh. You can keep it, I don't want to have to clean my own space." It's the nice thing about rooming with a professional mother. Anyway, Scout just doesn't really collect stuff. Even if the Jedi hadn't been iffy on personal possessions as a philosophy, she's had to pick up and run a lot in the past few years, and having collections of items wasn't practical at all.

"I know there's always someone like that, and I hate it," Scout grouses, folding her arms across her chest. At some recent point, the vaguely leopard-spot brown patterning from her thighs has found its way down the backs of her arms, past her wrists. She is not inclined to explain, either part of her. There's been more than enough discussing peoples' pasts today.

Witchers don't really collect stuff, either. The most they'd had at Kaer Morhen was skins and furs on the walls, and that was more for the practicality of insulating a drafty old castle than any sort of aesthetic sense or sentimentality. Trouble is, Lambert's picked up a bit of a jewelry hoarding problem at the Carnival. That's been fun.

"You're supposed to hate it. It's to keep you humble," Celandine says, stretching out on Lambert's lap and leaning comfortingly against him. "Well, that's what Lambert was taught growing up, anyway." One would think it would be hard to be light and teasing when your other half's currently managing a fair bit of pain, but the easy conversation is as much a distraction as anything else -- something that doesn't require Lambert to think too hard.

Scout lives like someone in a hotel room they don't expect to stay in for more than a day or two. Nothing is personalized and the few sets of clothing and various items she actually has are folded on flat surfaces or threaded on hangers in easy reach. She has some specialty clothing that usually doesn't get used given the Carnival climate, items for cold weather or heavy rain and so on, in drawers or a closet, but her storage space is almost empty. When she sleeps she keeps her lightsaber on her, though currently it's not in any condition to actually use.

She rolls her eyes. "I don't need help staying humble, I know I'm the dregs and I'm comfortable with that." Her dæmon's tufted tail twitches, but he says nothing.

"You did just say you hate knowing there's someone out there better than you," Celandine points out, mildly amused."So not that comfortable. Not that it's a bad thing."

Lambert exhales, and the polecat turns her head to him curiously, ear flicking, before she nods and turns back to Scout.

"... Anyway, I suppose we didn't come here to talk about that. Do you have anything to report about what we missed?"

"I'm comfortable with me. There's only so much I can do, and I'm doing it, and that's not going to matter, I don't know, twenty percent of the time," Scout insists crossly.

She is not glad of the subject change and sighs, looking pained. "I managed to clear my head after a while. When you set a table on fire I decided to take some people over the roofs to try to talk to the house or find the rose. It didn't work. Actually, that's how Joker and Rita were captured. I did meet Childermass's group."

Tràkata murmurs, "Papyrus came too. I was surprised at how capable he was."

Yeah, it's time to give Scout a quizzical look, brows nearly shooting to his hairline (no mean feat, considering how far up it is).

"You tried to talk to the house? On the roof?" He can't say his own plan was much better, overall, but at least that didn't involve getting on a slippery building in the middle of a storm. Lambert grimaces at the mental image. If nothing else, it's a remarkably effective distraction from his own pain, and he shifts his weight, narrowing his eyes.

"You're lucky you didn't break your necks," Celandine chimes in, sitting up. "Rita did mention she was caught on the roof ... but she never said she was with you. What happened?"

Scout rolls her eyes. "I couldn't really try in the middle of a party or go deeper into the mansion with people everywhere! There was even a little curtained off alcove out of sight and people were fornicating in it, so that was a no."

That's a very old fashioned word for it. She doesn't seem scandalized, at least?

"Gargoyles happened," she said shortly. "If you'd met them maybe you could have compared notes. There were lots and lots of gargoyles."

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⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

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