⇨ 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

OTA

[sworntothesword]

Being shanghaied- well, no not shanghaied. Rescued? 'Rescued' into a magical space carnival sounded inaccurate. 'Obligated' sounded ungrateful. The Ringmaster had done her a great service. It hadn't been her fault she'd been abducted by the Prince, and she had no obligation to break the spell for free. And faeries were not well known for their progressive ideas of ethics and compassion.

Maybe 'Obligated' was the right word.

Word choice aside, Connie is now in a strange place with strange rules and strange people, so she needs to learn. Learn who is here, learn what is here. Learn the rules. Learn the norms. All the ins and outs. Get the down-low. Every phrase that suggests a thorough understanding of the topic.

So she's going to just be swallowing her Anxiety trying to Meet People and Explore. Exploring is actually fun, when there's no people around. She can pretend to be a private detective, sleuthing for clues. Or an athropologist, studying a strange people to determine their ways.

Hopefully, no one finds it weird if they spot her skulking around with a magnifying glass.

[anti_nonsense]

"Uh... What are you doing?"

Here's one person who finds it weird.

Rita, a teenage girl with large, feathered wings, stands a few steps behind Connie, her arms crossed and her expression flat. She wears a long-sleeved tunic and a yellow scarf that hides most of her injuries, but a large bandage on her cheek and a visible patch of stone between her collar and scarf show that she didn't quite get through the recent events unscathed.

Also, weirdly enough, she has a magnifying glass of her own, sticking out of her sash.

[sworntothesword]

!!

"Nothing! Definitely nothing suspicious or prone to misunderstanding," Connie says quickly, trying to hide the magnifying glass behind her back.

Mistakes were made.

"I'm just looking around! I'm Connie, I just uh, joined? The carnival?"

[anti_nonsense]

Yeah. Definitely not suspicious.

"So you're new." Rita's tone is mildly disdainful, but she gives that a little thought and then asks, "Wait... just joined? When?" They've only been back for a few days, tops. Is the Ringmaster already recruiting new people?

Or... was this girl at the manor?

[sworntothesword]

"Uh, that would have been...." She tried to count on her fingers. That can't be right.

"Ten.... days ago? Right before the hunt."

She had a natural response to try to check her phone for the time, but it had been dead for over a week now.

[anti_nonsense]

Right before the hunt... so, probably while Rita was in the Prince's dungeon. Looks like her guess was right: this girl was at the manor.

"I suppose I wouldn't have seen you, then," she says vaguely, shrugging. "I wasn't around here."

[sworntothesword]

Already here for almost two weeks, wow. Time flies.

"I haven't seen a lot of people so far, not since the ball. Things have been really crazy."

She noticed that Rita kind of just skipped introducing herself.

"How long... have you been here?"

[anti_nonsense]

You'd think she'd introduce herself after Connie gave her name, or shortly after, but Rita has no manners, even after all those lessons on courtly manners before and during their last stop.

"Since my contract started? Little over three months, I guess." She glances around idly. So she showed up at the ball, and probably didn't have much choice but to come along after... "You're pretty unlucky, getting stuck with this disaster of a group."

[sworntothesword]

Connie sincerely didn't understand where Rita was coming from. What group? Did she accidentally get involved in some kind of delinquent clique? What was disastrous about them? Had she also been cursed wiht bad luck? Fae do that a lot.

"I don't-- think I understand...?"

[mirrortide]

Unfortunately for Connie, the trailer that she's decided to skulk around belongs to none other than Lapis and Peridot. To be fair, that means that there's a lot of... interesting things around it. A Smaller-Than-Average-Lake, a fountain that's glitzed out with glitter and christmas bobbles, and just a bunch of junk stacked up in weird ways.

Also, there's a mermaid skeleton with a sword sticking through it right there, right on the front lawn, next to the Smaller-Than-Average-Lake.

"What are you doing?" Comes a distinctly displeased voice from somewhere behind Connie. And from somewhere to her right, a gentle, soft sounding "Draa" sounds. There also seems to be a suspicious length of blue and white... something sticking out of under a pile of junk in that same area too.

And Lapis, for a change, isn't hiding her changes. She's way too tired for that.

[sworntothesword]

Connie is surprised enough that the magnifying glass slips out of her grasp and she flounders a bit trying to grab it before just totally dropping it. It hits the ground hard enough that a y-shaped crack splinters the glass, although it otherwise stays in its metal container.

"Nothing!" She winces at the cracked glass. She took that from Steven's performance collection, how was she gonna replace it?

"Wait, Lapis?" she turns around finally recognizing the voice, and then, largely, recognizing the gem. Her changes aren't actually as significant as Steven's. Pretty cool, actually.

[mirrortide]

"That's me." Lapis just raises a quizzical eyebrow at Connie. "And you're snooping around my trailer." This time, she crosses her arms, and Lapis looks about as friendly as she always does when the person isn't Steven or Peridot.

The blue and white thing shuffles from under the pile, and makes a noise again.

[sworntothesword]

"Did you... forget me?" Again?

"It's Connie. We spent like, a weekend together. We fixed Steve's Dad's carwash sign?" After they broke it.

[mirrortide]

"No, I know exactly who you are. I almost drowned you." Lapis points out with a swish of her tail. "And we never spent any time together. Definitely not a weekend, and none of that happened either." She knows. She'd remember it. That's for certain.

1/2

[sworntothesword]

Ow.

2/2

[sworntothesword]

But, they were the New Crystal Gems? That's not just forgetting, right? Was it magic? Did she have amnesia?

How do you proceed in a conversation where a very important and formative part of your relationship never happened? She couldn't just forget that! She thought they were friends?

"I-I just got here, sort of. Before the hunt. I moved in with Steven..."

im so sorry connie

[mirrortide]

"Let me guess: You were at that stupid ball." Lapis doesn't really care about that hunt, but she does know a good portion of what went on at the ball. Mostly because she'd very, very vehemently tried to get Peridot to leave with her, and she didn't, and just as she predicted, disaster happened.

Maybe next time??? Peridot will actually listen to her when she says that they need to leave.

(We know this doesn't happen.)

;_;

[sworntothesword]

"Yeah..." She didn't elaborate because she thought it was pretty obvious that Lapis didn't particularly care, and... well, she's really, truly hurt. And she feels guilty because it's probably not even Lapis' fault.

She needs to... go.

"Well... it was nice... seeing you again."

[chronosynthesis]

"What are you doing?"

Hope Connie's not tired of that question yet. But Syrlya watches her with amusement instead of scrutinizing her odd behavior, leaning back with his arms folded and his eyebrow raised. Mostly he's covered under purple robes, but there's something not flesh-like at all about his face, and his 'hair' is large waxy leaves.

"Did you drop something?"

[sworntothesword]

She's so done with the question, so she's just owning it.

"I'm snooping around, to get the lay of the land!" She peered through her cracked magnifying glass at Syrlya, and then put it down again to get a not-cracked look at her.

"Wow, that might be the weirdest carnival change I've seen yet," obviously barring Carly who was like an earth elemental from Universe of Battlecraft.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya grins just enough to show fangs. This is some small human girl, isn't it? "Oh, no, it isn't. Trust me."

A lay of the land with a magnifying glass, however? He's not sure how staying at the dirt that close is going to give her a better idea about the carnival. "There isn't a lot of land to survey, but is that really the most effective method you have?"

[sworntothesword]

Connie follows Syrlya's gaze to the magnifying glass, confused.

"Oh, no. The magnifying glass is just metaphorical."

Okay, she heard that out loud, and realizes it doesn't make any sense.

[chronosynthesis]

That didn't make any sense at all. Syrlya just stares at her blankly. "I... see."

He doesn't see at all, but whatever she says. It's just far beyond his comprehension. "Are you actually looking for anywhere in particular? I'm familiar enough with the carnival to direct you."

[sworntothesword]

"Not at the moment," Connie replied. She'd already visited Gongenzaka, which was her first course of action, and she'd already mostly gotten her setup in Steven's trailer. Their trailer? Still weird.

"I'm just trying to learn as much about the carnival as I can, especially since I'm a Patrol."

[chronosynthesis]

"Oh, are you patrol?" He raises his brows, surprised. If she is a human, she looks young. An age he didn't think Taimi should have been on the field at. That Waine was, but maybe she's braver than him.

"Are you already an experienced defender?"