lostcarnival | ⇨ 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Julien gives him a lopsided smile.

"I think of it as like having two arms. In a place where everyone's just got, I don't know, one and their teeth." This is a metaphor that could get away from him quickly, he's not sure how good Cole is with this kind of thing. "It's useful sometimes! But if you had two bodies, one of them would have to look a lot less human. That upsets some people."

His palp taps thoughtfully on his collarbone. "You know already you're going to end up looking different, right? From being here?"

"I don't mind that," Cole shrugs. "The body is borrowed to begin with."

This isn't what he looks like normally. Cole really doesn't know what he looks like normally. This is just the appearance of a dying mage that Cole took on because he couldn't think of any other way to help.

"Is it?" He tilts his head, unconsciously birdlike. Julien has no idea what 'borrowed' means in this context so he'll just try to roll with it. "Won't the old owner not like it if it's not in the same condition when you bring it back, or is this like test driving a car and if you like it you buy it?"

Maybe he can use references sometimes talking to Cole, if Cole's going to be dipping into his head anyway? Maybe?

There's a brief look of utter confusion because Cole has no idea what the fuck a 'car' is. Still, he's able to pick up enough in order to guess at what Julien is implying.

"The real Cole won't mind. This is the best I could do for him." I'm sorry Julien, were you expecting less cryptic statements? Because that's not what's happening. There's a pause before Cole continues. "He was alone and forgotten. I could only be there."

Julien blinks, and takes a second to gather his wits. "If you say so? Look, I'm sorry if that sounds flippant. I don't really get what you're talking about but it sounds like it's a really unhappy story. Maybe another time? I can't right now."

He's preoccupied, sick and lonely, wishing he could go home, wanting to just nuzzle up to the people he loves and try to ignore that the gulf between him and them has just widened. Again. He feels selfish about it, but Julien knows he can't give proper focus to something that sounds important right now.

"So like... what are you looking at me like that for, anyway?"

Cole pauses.

"Looking at you like what?" He is apparently unaware of his creepy staring, the fact that he keeps looking at Julien like he's attempting to stare through the other man.

"Is this strange? I'm sorry. I'll stop." He's not stopping.

Yeah he's not stopping.

"Like you want something from me, I guess? Or like I'm invisible? Not sure what you're going for here, dude." He rubs the back of his neck, and guesses that Cole's weirdness back at the ball had apparently been inherent to him, not just magic laid on him.

It's a little bit of a dick move, but Julien passes his hand in front of Cole's face to see if his eyes track it.

Cole blinks, a little confused. Hand in his face, what the heck, why did he do that.

"I'm trying to see," Cole explains, looking at Julien, with a little frown. "You're a tangle. You want him to be here but you don't. You want to be human but you don't. You miss the angel but you're glad you're you. How can I know which end to pull first?"

People are complex. Sometimes it's easier than most: find a missing item, say a soothing word. But for people like Julien, who are just a bundle of tangles and contradictions, Cole doesn't really know where to start.

Yeah okay he feels a little bad about that. Saying 'Anyone home?' probably wouldn't have helped in this case. Still, at least he blinked?

As Cole talks about the things Julien's been thinking about, he feels his arms goosebump up and presses onwards, determined to act like that wasn't creepy. He'd love to be the kind of person who takes things in stride. Morgaine, who'd been called Curse, was a great example that way.

"Whoah, hey. Why do you want to pull on any of that? Sometimes feelings are complicated, I wouldn't want them taken away."

"I wouldn't make you forget. Not unless it was needed. But working through is different." Helping Julien grapple with that hurt, those confusions, all of those different and contradictory feelings is still helping, isn't it? It still would make things easier for him.

And hoo boy is Julien a tangle of things that need to be worked through.

Julien holds up his hands, palm out.

"I guess! Please don't make me forget anything without asking me - and without me saying yes, for that matter!" The idea is pretty repellent. It's like how the Prince made it impossible to directly think about certain topics. Even if forgetting was done more neatly than that, there would still be a great hole. Especially given that the things in question are his greatest friend, his species, and his more recent, Portland-related history.

"Talking about things is a better idea. But you gotta understand, sometimes you like things to be a little bittersweet."

Why were so many people scared of forgetting? It's silly. For Cole, people forgetting him and occasionally forgetting a hurt was just how it should go. You didn't have to remember everything. Why was that so hard to understand?

Still, Julien didn't want this, so Cole would try to remember. But this is hard. It was always easier to make people forget after he messed up a conversation, said something he shouldn't, pushed and poked in directions that should stay safe.

"Bittersweet is balanced," he calmly responds. "Some of this isn't."

There's still a whole range of importance related to various memories, he might say if asked about this. Some of them are tent poles, and if they go, everything has to change and the whole thing is something else. He's had enough of that.

Julien wipes his cheek with a fuzzy blue palp. "Well. I suppose so. There's a lot on my mind, but there's a lot on everyone's mind. That stop didn't... it didn't go so well."

Well, that's an understatement.

"Everyone thinks that," Cole mutters, with a little frown. And from what he can tell...they thought it for a reason. The Prince weighed on their minds just like hell, like Portland, like so many other things and places and events.

"But not everyone is able to think the way you were. Not everyone suffered the way you did."

There's not tone of judgement or censure. Strange is just relating this in a matter of fact tone of voice.

"Well." He takes his glasses off and turns them over in his hands. They're smudged, because glasses are always smudged, it feels like.

Cole probably already knows, and while he doesn't actually like that, part of him digs his heels because you don't just admit things to people, well..

"I made a mistake and someone horrible jumped in on it. That's mostly his fault, it's more his fault than mine, but I feel like people blame me. And I know why, and all, but..." One of his palps waves helplessly.

⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

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