⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

[criticallyfucked]

Days 1-2

At first, Foster is very easy to find, because all he does is sleep. It's not a surprise; after everything that's happened, he's exhausted. Physically and mentally. There's not much else to worry about besides those two, but those are bad enough. So it's almost a kind of mercy that he's sleeping so heavily. And definitely not worrisome at all.

Anyone seeking him urgently for some reason (no really, why) will find him curled tightly under several layers of blankets. Drooling.

Day 3

You definitely found Foster during the first couple of days, right? Got whatever you needed out of him? No?

Too bad, because right now Foster is a sour and self-loathing pill. A pill who still refuses to eat. He's actually working, of all the things, and can be found struggling to haul carts of trash (actually, they look like... potato peels?) back and forth across the carnival with a dark look on his face.

It's pretty transparently a losing battle, though. His body's increasing efforts to shut down on him force him to sit down, or lean against walls or fences, breathing hard--pale, drooling, visibly ill.

He'll ignore anyone who approaches until they're within arm's reach.

Days 3-6

Thank god for Hinawa, probably.

Having sick people doing heavy manual labour is not really to anyone's benefit, and even Foster can eventually be persuaded of that. Instead, she has him set up with a cart laden with food, which he is tasked with delivering to those who are confined to their trailers for one reason or another. This job seems to satisfy him in some way; it also compensates for his ailing state, since he can use it to support himself while he makes his rounds. He still has to stop periodically as waves of dizziness or weakness come and go, but he doesn't look so much like he's ready to die any more. Of course, everyone still has to deal with his personality when he shows up at their doors.

But starting on the fourth day, he actually seems... significantly less unhappy.

He finally had a talk with the Ringmaster.

Anyway, he brought you food!

It's potatoes.

Days 4-6

It's no longer forbidden to him to eat, but after a week and a half of not eating, attempting to do so...

He doesn't really know how.

He's sure that if he could just start--but he can't, he can't and he doesn't know. It's as though he's lost the impetus required to start--as though perhaps whatever function of the mind that's involved in eating has just stopped in him. Maybe the disease finally rotted into him there. He doesn't know. He keeps thinking about it--almost wanting it, trying to grab apples, or plates of fries or mashed potatoes (there are a lot of potatoes right now.) But he just... he just can't seem to start. He can't even bring himself to sit down with them--he just grabs them, walks a few yards with them, and then loops back to the kitchen to put them back.

It's... kind of sad.

Day 5

[whattaprick]

As Fosters heading back to return whatever it is he's grabbed and can't make his mind up on whether he wants to eat or not, a french fry comes sailing at his head out of seemingly nowhere, flicked with all the force a mildly irritated witcher can muster.

"What are you even doing?" When did he even get there? It's a mystery.

[criticallyfucked]

It's a testament to Lambert's aim that the french fry hits Foster in the back of the head. Unfortunately, Foster's hair is both thick and heavily textured; it's also approximately french fry coloured, which may or may not make it more distressing that the fry becomes trapped in it.

The french fry snags a curl and flops, brushing the top of Foster's ear, which flicks--once, twice in irritation before he actually turns, still holding his plate of scalloped potatoes.

"... who, me?"

[whattaprick]

"Do you see anyone else around?" Lambert's voice, at least, appears to have recovered admirably. He's dressed in a red and black kimono, and his petrified feet are hidden under the table he's sitting at for now, elbows propped on the surface. The potato surplus the Carnival is going through has been a blessing for Lambert's throat, if not quite his tastebuds; the french fry he threw at Foster is one of the strays cluttering up his plate.

He doesn't even bother to hide that he's picking up another one, squinting to aim, and then throwing it at Foster again, this time trying to deliberately get another one stuck in his hair. Man's got to get his entertainment somewhere.

EXCUSE YOU, mobile browser???

[criticallyfucked]

Well, no, he doesn't.

So, that answers that. It also answers what he felt on his ear, probably, and in typical fashion, he's immediately charmed by how rude it is. This kind of egregious disregard for his dignity is exactly what he likes about the man.

He's still perplexed about something else, though.

This time Lambert's fry hits just above his forehead, tumbling briefly in the curls before falling--it glances off his nose on the way down.

He frowns, watching it until it hits the ground; then he looks up. Still frowning.

"What was the question again?"

[whattaprick]

Lambert opens his mouth to repeat the question, pauses, and rephrases it in his mind. It's not like Foster was paying attention, he can probably get away with it.

"What are you doing here?" he leads with, instead, slowly and deliberately. "Did you decide not to bet on the Prince after all? It is a little hard to sign up to work for someone who's dead."

It's been however many days, and Foster's still at the Carnival, with no tangible repercussions for ... whatever it was he confessed to, down there. To be fair, Lambert's not sure even Foster understood what he was confessing to, so it probably makes no sense to beat the guy up over what is, more than likely, a tragic miscommunication between brain and mouth, but it never hurts to check.

Day 3

[drrdrrdrr]

Amethyst doesn't go full tilt at looking for Foster straight away. She'd been bracing for it, when everyone came back? But then he was just sleeping, and... she was okay with leaving him to it. The whole human siblings thing? Just kind of awkward, and part of why she left, even if it wasn't the biggest part... but the problem is that when she left she was kind of hoping that by the time she got back maybe Foster would have, like, just forgotten about everything in Portland?

But now that idea seems like the opposite of pleasant and she doesn't. Really. Know what to do about it. Who'd have thought, avoiding your problems... makes them... worse??

So it's a few days before she sees him around, hauling... potato peel... across the Carnival grounds? Hmm. Well, at least the potato peel is an excuse to interrupt him, right.

She ambles over and grabs a pawful of raw vegetable leavings out of the cart, and stuffs them in the mouth in her stomach. "Hey, bro. Uh, dude. Y'know, bro as in dude, haha, like a regular no strings attached kinda 'bro', obviously," okay no she should have put the potato peelings in the mouth she uses for talking, this was a mistake, she's going to just, reach for more of them so she can rectify that error,

[criticallyfucked]

The fundamental problem with Amethyst's plan, besides absolutely everything, is that Foster had absolutely no idea that Amethyst was back.

At all.

So Amethyst's sudden appearance when she comes waltzing up to the cart is about as close to personally witnessing the apocalypse as Foster has ever experienced.

So Amethyst's words, while not falling on deaf ears, outwardly elicit exactly zero reaction. He hears them, of course; he even processes them, insamuch as he understands them to be words, and also have meaning, but he is not terribly functional under the most ideal conditions.

Which leaves Amethyst, masticating her sodden potato peelings under a pall of uncomfortable silence.

[drrdrrdrr]

Amethyst slowly and awkwardly continues to chew her potato peelings.

She kind of. Grabbed too many?

After what feels like an age,

she swallows them.

"Uh."

[criticallyfucked]

Foster studies her, slowly processing her return, his brows knitting together like a particularly troubled dog.

After a very long, very tedious silence, he reaches out and grabs her by the face.

The whole face. Just in case that wasn't clear.

[drrdrrdrr]

Amethyst blinks.

Then she extends her own paw to sort of flop it against Foster's face. Fair's fair.

"...You okay, dude?"

DAY 1

[soft_focus]

Reira is there on the first day, the moment it's obvious that everyone is coming back. He's not hard to pinpoint either.

Foster has a very unique set of 'emotions' suffice to say, the sort that stick out a fair bit as she wanders from trailer to trailer. She does knock. But knocking doesn't do much, and soon enough she's in there anyway. Now, where...is....

...

Oh.

"................................." She'll just sit down near the pile, and let him sleep for now. Better for him, she thinks.

[criticallyfucked]

Reira is so quiet and unobtrusive that her entry doesn't wake him at all. Then again, he's so deeply asleep thanks to the combination of physical exhaustion and mental strain that he's borderline comatose.

Eventually, though, eventually the blanket pile stirs.

There's a faint sound, possibly a groan, as Foster turns his face to bury it directly in his pillow. Which is soaked with warm, wet drool.

His claws dig into the soggy pillowcase, but even thatisn't especially unpleasant, especially compared to the rising threat of his increasing awareness. He's... warm. He's... sore.

He's...

No.

...no.

"Mmnnngh." He closes his eyes tighter, intending to just... let himself go.

[soft_focus]

"...Hey." Don't. You. Dare. Foster.

She knows what you're feeling when the feeling is there, after all.

"...............You're back now." Tadaaah.

TW: suicidal ideation

[criticallyfucked]

That wakes him immediately.

It's a literal jolt of awareness--hyper-awareness actually; he jerks upright, paws planted on the bed as his entire upper body rises off the mattress, eyes already open.

Seeing it's Reira does very little to calm his heartrate immediately; he just stares at her, dazed and uncomprehending.

Back.... he's. He is back. He's back from? Back from. Failure.

Back from failure. The Ringmaster's victory? He's still. Still--

He's scrambled up, feeling ill, and the saliva-sodden pillow is now a lot less appealing to the touch. He... starts laughing, confused. Upset? He's no longer in control of his reaction, so it probably doesn't matter. The urge, the compulsion, the need to kill himself, to die floods his mind, and he curls up on the bed, still laughing hard enough for it to actually hurt.

[soft_focus]

Ah. There's the mess of...Things. She grimaces as certain bits of them flood over, keeping quiet to start, before finally repeating herself. "...Hey! ....You're back..! ...So you have to see something!" she shouts, frowning at him. CALM THYSELF.

Day 4

[hippocarnival]

Yuya has watched Foster take and return that apple three times now. He just wanted to get something quick that wasn't potatoes, and every time he thinks he's free for the apple instead, Foster changes his mind.

"Uh--" He finally interrupts, holding his hand out to stall him. "Are you going to actually eat that, or can I...?"

YOU BEAT ME TO IT

[criticallyfucked]

Foster turns and shoves the apple at Yuya with an unreasonable amount of force--and absolutely no words at all. Which is less unusual for him, but just in case Yuya thought everything was fine, he also has to reach out and grab a fence to keep his balance. Which breaks the impassive, flat expression momentarily; he is so tired of being unstable. Don't say it.

This only takes a couple of seconds, all told. It takes a few more for him to realise this is Yuya.

"Ah," he says. Then:

"You."

I beat you to it o9

[hippocarnival]

Yuya lets out a grunt as the apple is shoves into his chest by Foster's big bear paw. That's almost more like pushing him, but he fumbles to take the apple before it falls to the ground and looks up at Foster.

"Me?" He's not sure if that's accusatory or surprise. But Foster's... well, okay, he's never looked super healthy, but Yuya can tell he's gaunt in a way that he wasn't before the manor, and he remembers his inability to eat.

"Uh... you can still have it if you really want it. You should eat something."

[criticallyfucked]

"It doesn't matter what I want," Foster responds promptly. Then, almost in the same breath, he says, "I was looking for you."

The truth is that he keeps taking the apple because something about the idea of hot food is really off-putting, revolting even. But the idea of an apple--juicy, fresh, cold--is exactly what he wants, a desire strong enough that he actually craves it despite himself. But every time he takes the apple and reaches the part where he has to actually eat it, his brain just... fails him entirely. At which point he has to put it back, because carrying the apple is annoying.

And so he keeps starting it over, as though maybe trying again will change anything.

But Yuya wants it, so that's over now.

"You were right."

[hippocarnival]

Yuya purses his lips, but he doesn't want to get into that kind of argument with Foster again. He really needs to eat, just from a biological standpoint, but Yuya doesn't get the chance to press on it because what he says next makes him pause in confusion.

"Right about what?" He's gonna need a bit of a reminder. It's been a long week.

let's say day 6

[pullingamiko]

It's very, very sad. And after watching this sadness for a bit, Miko decides to do something about it.

Which is to say, she gets up from her seat, walks over, and just positions herself between Foster and the kitchen, effectively blocking his path.

"Dude. Sit down and eat."

[criticallyfucked]

Foster pulls up short. Obviously. He's not going to just run Miko over. He looks at her kind of sideways, though--there's a lot of white to his eye, and it's not clear if it's the result of the angle or just his face.

It's one hell of a look to get from a man holding a plate of tater tots, though.

[pullingamiko]

The guy looks like a scared horse, fucking hell. A scared, starving horse.

"Don't give me that look. You keep going back and forth, you've gotta actually put stuff in your mouth at some point."

[criticallyfucked]

That gets a reaction. Not a great one, though. Foster gives Miko a cold look, still angling his head aside as he shifts the plate of tater tots to one paw--

And then, rather pointedly, dumping them on the ground.

"....I don't, actually." There's no anger, just indifference.