⇨ 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

Jonathan Strange | day 3 | ota!

[kingsroads]

Having gotten into two dumb fights over the radio the day before, Strange is spending most of his third day back being an adult...except for the fact that no, he isn't, he's sulking around the place like a literal child. His sulking takes place in various locations around the carnival.

Option #1: His trailer where Strange's form of sulking consists of him pouting with the door closed and the lights off. The problem here is that a few of the windows to the trailer are open and anyone passing by can hear some creepy music box music emanating from inside the trailer as well as the faint sound of a woman's voice. Care to investigate?

Option #2: near the forest where Strange is still sulking, but this time he's sulking while performing magic so okay, he's feeling a bit better already. He's been standing near this tree for the past half hour or so, muttering almost constantly under his breath as the tree blooms, then stops blooming, as limbs grow then retract, and so on. Strange is also infinitely more jumpy near the forest than anywhere else. As he hears someone approach, he turns to them and grumbles, "Can't you be quieter?"

It doesn't matter how quiet they were to begin with. They could totally have been quieter in his mind.

Option #3: at the medical tent where Strange continues sulking, but this time it's sulking as he's reading a book. The book's massive and boring looking with tiny print, but Strange seems to enjoy it. As such, his expression changes every few minutes. He'll calm down and seem downright relaxed before a thought crosses his mind and that petulant scowl reasserts itself. He's also unintentionally sitting in front of one of the medicine cabinets. Have fun getting those supplies you need.

2

[atouts]

"No," Childermass tells him, simple as that, and follows it up immediately with a, "Here. I believe this is yours."

That being the other magician's radio that he tosses towards him without further ado, previously pried out of his hand just the other day when Childermass showed up to stop him from talking. Over the public channel, anyway. What a god awful mess that had been. Anyway, the single silver lining here is that Strange could hear him approach at all, which means he deigned to walk up rather than appear through a shadow like a huge, unexpected creep.

Probably because he doesn't want to startle someone in the middle of doing magic, so... yeah. That's definitely the consideration there.

[kingsroads]

And Childermass could probably tell Strange was doing magic from a mile away to begin with. He's not necessarily being subtle in his spellcasting.

As Childermass returns the radio, Strange pockets it. "Thank you." And then there's a pause because honestly? Strange really doesn't want to talk about the various dumb fights he got into yesterday and he hopes Childermass doesn't want to talk about them either (because if he does, then Strange knows it's going to be less talk and more lecture.) So instead, he walks back over to that tree, putting a hand on it.

"I think I've managed to recreate that spell I cast to break the Prince's magic during the first Hunt. The problem, of course, is that I've only been testing it on my magic. Are there any enchantments you could cast that I could try to break?"

There we go. Talking about magic. A much safer option.

[atouts]

Because he can't see through that at all or anything. Childermass gives him a massively unimpressed look when Strange charges straight into a different topic, even before he can bring up the first. Oh, they'll talk about it before he leaves, of that he promises himself, but since breaking enchantments is of a particular interest to him—

"Not particularly," he answers, letting Strange take the conversation down this path for now and taking a moment to frown and thoughtfully tap his chin as he looks down, considering.

"Or at least not the sort I imagine you have in mind, but if you're only looking to break another's spell..." He looks up again, back to Strange. "Would it be enough to practice dispelling shadows with it?"

[kingsroads]

Watch in amazement as Strange tries his hardest to ignore that massively unimpressed look. If they talk about something else, then Childermass would forget the confrontation, right? Right.

"Shadow magic should work," Strange admits, with a shrug. "There is a physical component to breaking the spell, but I've fiddled with it enough that a verbal incantation should suffice."

To Strange's credit, he realized that there are some things one shouldn't put their mouth on and other things that he can't put his mouth on in the first place.

[atouts]

Childermass doesn't forget, he only waits.

But in this case, waiting involves some magic, so he supposes he ought to get on with it. He'll wave a hand towards the same tree Strange is standing next to, but he won't lower it again once it's up there, pointing towards it. Instead, he focuses. Faerie magic is based more on instinct and control rather than muttering spells and throwing items around, provided it isn't some sort of ritual or another. His shadows aren't, so it's really just a matter of concentration before the tree's own shadow begins creeping up the bark, shifting from solid black to vine-like shapes and filling out into actual, tangible-seeming shapes.

So, yeah, literally that, vines made of shadow, although them being 'solid' is more illusion than reality. They aren't difficult to break apart if Strange chose to swat them away physically instead of dispelling them magically. He's going to wrap the entire tree up with them and then drop his hand again, taking a step back.

"There," he says with only the tiniest amount of triumph. "Try those."

[kingsroads]

"Impressive magic," Strange has to admit, as he looks over the shadow vines with a little nod. Because it is impressive and they do look amazingly solid and well-formed.

Walking over to the tree, Strange places his hands behind his back as he mutters an incantation. The magicians can feel the magic straining and can feel something about to happen, but it doesn't. Strange pauses, again looking at the tree with a frown. "This is going to be terribly undignified," he admits, more to himself than to Childermass (though it's certainly audible).

Once again, Strange mutters the spell. And with a mental reassurance that he's done worse things in the quest to understand magic, Strange leans in to kiss those shadow vines. As his lips brush past the shadows, the spell snaps: the shadow vines vanish as the tree's shadow returns to it's proper place.

He's also blushing bright red now, so enjoy that while it lasts.

3

[osteothropy]

Sans is busy applying some treatments to himself, something that has been a reoccurring habit over the last few days. Plenty of people are hanging out around the medical tent lately, but most of them are actually... doing something? Like being injured? Or researching?

Strange is just kind of taking up space, and despite the fact that Sans's regular personality is reasserting itself, he's a bit less patient than usual.

"Wow, better take a load off, Strange," he comments, smearing some stuff over the stone on his arm. "You might break a sweat at this rate."

[kingsroads]

Strange simply rolls his eyes, as he dog-ears one of the pages to mark his place. "I thought this book would have useful information on the properties of conversing with stone. As it is, the chapter seems mostly to focus on the magical implications of mountains. Interesting theory, hardly useful here."

And then, he looks over at Sans again. It's a bit of a novel feeling remembering someone's name after you're certain you had forgotten it. Certain aspects of it remind Strange of his madness, but just in a highly specific form. Though this does present some novel questions. How does one say 'sorry I knocked you unconscious but in my defense, you had it coming.'

"I'm glad you've your name back, by the way."

[osteothropy]

By not saying it at all, probably. That's a pretty sound strategy, in Sans's experience.

"Are you?" Sans asks, returning what he considers to be a pretty flat obligation of a comment in kind. "Cool." He keeps messing around with the various salves, most of his eyes busy on that while a couple of them look at Strange. "It's for the best. Not having a name was kinda a chore."

He winks.

[kingsroads]

Strange glowers. He is a grown adult and does not pout but the expression on his face is preeetty close to pouting. Because that is a very deliberate word choice on Sans's part and Strange is fairly certain he's referring to the giant mess that became Strange and a bunch of gems yelling at each other over the radio.

"I tried to be sensitive, you know." He just kind of failed at it. And yep, we're talking about that giant argument because fine, apparently he can't escape talking about it, whatever. "It's hardly my fault Lazuli is so difficult. Besides, it would have gone so much easier had the rest of the gems not rushed in to defend her honor or what have you."

[osteothropy]

"It also probably woulda gone better if you hadn't felt the need to educate everyone on your bootstrap theory of magical imprisonment," he says, and shoots Strange a casual finger gun. Yep, that's the joy of radio arguments. Everyone with their channel on gets to hear you whether they like it or not.

"Protip: victims of abuse don't like being told that their problems are their own fault." Sans has his own reasons for finding Strange's opinions pretty offensive - he's just less of the type to try to pummel the guy as a result.

[kingsroads]

That casual finger gun gets an exasperated eye roll as Strange's grimace only grows.

"It might not have been her fault that she was trapped there in the first place, but it certainly was her fault that she remained there. She had a thousand years to free herself, why would she simply accept it?"

Because she had to have accepted it, right? After all, there was that thousand years bit. Countries could rise and fall, magic could grow and wane, so much could happen in a thousand years. To not fully take advantage of that to solve a problem struck Strange as rather lazy.

Option 1 probably near the end of the day?

[periphrasing]

Peridot doesn't want to investigate, but since there's no way in hell she's going to let this conversation end where it did over the network, she kind of has no option but to move closer to the source of creepy music if she wants to continue it. Lucky her.

She approaches as a bat, too, so she picks up on the sound from the air well before she even identifies which trailer belongs to Strange. Pausing to hover in front of one of the trailer windows, ears straining, she tries to pick up on the source. Is he just watching TV in there or something...? She can hear him breathing, she can hear a woman's voice, but she can't see shit, because spoilers, bats are practically blind.

Normally she'd go through the door like a normal person but, since she's already in front of an open window... eh. One entrance is as good as any other. She lands on the windowsill and peers inside. "Strange?" the bat calls out, and then hops onto the floor. "It's me... The great and lovable Peridot..."

[kingsroads]

Peridot can pick up on the tail end of a conversation being broadcast by the memory gem. The woman's voice is doing most of the talking: "Jonathan, I cannot keep my countenance if you stare at me like that. You never do look at me so very often. You always had your nose in some dusty old book." The words float in and out, some more audible, others less so, as Strange's shoddy memory doesn't remember exactly what Arabella said to him, just the general gist of the conversation—the general gist being 'stop staring at me like that, why are you so smitten all of a sudden.'

It's still light enough outside that Strange can see the memories projected by the gem, but dark enough that Strange is seriously considering getting up and lighting a candle or something. Unfortunately, the arrival of Peridot puts a stop to those plans. As he hears her voice, Strange reaches out and pockets the memory gem. Both the memory and the music stop as Strange resists the urge to swear. Urgh. Fine. It seems they're doing this.

"What do you want?" Strange grumpily asks, before he shifts his position, looks down from his top bunk to try and find Peridot...and then looks further down because she's a bat. Okay. So this is a thing now.

"It seems Portland was more contagious than I ever realized."

[periphrasing]

The darkening room is briefly, brilliantly illuminated in pale green as Peridot shifts back to her regular form, arms folded across her chest, a displeased scowl on her face.

"Yes. I got a lot of use out of this form while I was there, so I asked the Ringmaster for a spell that would let me replicate it here," she huffs, glancing cautiously around the room for the source of that other voice she heard. Now that her eyesight is no longer garbage, she can clearly see that there's no one else in here, but...

"Were you talking to someone else just now...? I thought I heard someone..."

[kingsroads]

As Peridot looks around the room, Strange clambers down from the top bunk. He's not going to yell at her from up there, that'd be silly. With both feet now on the floor, he waves his hand. Some of the candles on the desk light themselves, flames springing up out of nowhere. This would at least give them a better view.

And ah. Someone else. Reaching into his pocket, Strange pulled the gem back out again. It's a red gemstone, about the size of a ping-pong ball. "A gift from the Ringmaster," he explains, as he sets the gemstone upright on his palm. It magically balances on it's point as it starts to project a different memory into the air.

Said memory involves a lot of kissing. Strange just watches for a moment, slightly relaxed smile on his face. At least in this moment, he's forgotten about the fact that Peridot probably showed up to yell at him. "The woman's name is Arabella Strange. My wife."

No shit, Sherlock.

[periphrasing]

Peridot gives the stone a curious look when it is first produced, though her eyes widen significantly when it starts to project images. She's not so close-minded as to not be able to immediately tell the difference between a gem and a Gem, but it's still kind of surreal, seeing what would otherwise just be an ordinary rock perform a feat that she has seen their Pearl do a dozen times before.

"That's amazing," she says in a hushed voice, staring intently at the motion of the images; not at the specific content of the memory, but at the projection itself. She's not being a creep! Really! It's just cool that Strange has a magic rock that can project images.

"The rock is amazing, I mean," Peridot clarifies after a second, as an afterthought. "Not your wife. Er-- I mean-- I'm sure that she, too, is a perfectly 'amazing' human specimen in her own right, I just--" The engineer stands on her tip toes, squinting, trying to peer closer. "How does it work? We have similar technology on Homeworld but I'm assuming this is more of a magical nature...?"

[kingsroads]

Well this is unexpected. Strange honestly looks surprised when Peridot said that the gem is amazing. Because he certainly thinks so. But it seems to Strange that he's the only person who feels that way. So he just gawps, mouth open for a few moments before he realizes he's staring like an idiot and Peridot likes the thing.

"It is," Strange remarks, with a little smile. The memory lingers for a bit before Strange closes his hand around the gem, knocks it off it's point, and the image vanishes. "It is both magical and amazing, that is. The gem draws from my memories to project the image. The magic is specifically attuned to myself and my memories of Arabella. I cannot use it to summon a memory of anyone else." His fingers close around the gem for a moment, gripping it tightly before putting it back in his pocket.

"I do not mind the limitations. They only make me like the thing more." That sentimental moment lingers for a moment before Strange continues with, "Ah, and when you spin it, it plays music. I haven't the faintest why it does that, but I find the sound rather charming." It exclusively plays creepyass music box tunes.

2????

[brightspot]

"Maybe if I was a mouse. But I'm not."

Yes, that's her answer, said straight-forward and without a hint of sarcasm. She doesn't appear fazed by his grumpy attitude, even if she's more reserved and less excited than she was at the ball. She also seems to be more calm and less nervous than she was after signing her contract. Like she's settling in a little bit at a time?

Five climbs up on a relatively high rock (like maybe her own height) to sit cross-legged to watch what he's doing, hands in her lap.

She'd been wandering around, not feeling quite as lost as she has been but still feeling... lonely, sad, and worried about her pseudo-family, since she'd been taken during a time of such chaos and she honestly doesn't know whether her friends are dead or alive back home.

Still, there's a light smile on her lips, sympathetic. She'd heard some of what went on on the radio before, but doesn't feel the need to bring it up. For now, anyway. That might change.

"Hi?" Almost a question more than a greeting, but she's not exactly asking permission to stay. Maybe just testing what his attitude is towards her staying.

[kingsroads]

"Hello yourself," Strange responds, trying to give Five a small smile of his own. Though there's something undoubtedly stressed and undoubtedly annoyed on his face, Strange is trying to power through that anyway.

Now that he has an audience, Strange doesn't mind showing off a bit more—especially considering said audience is Five. She's new and she got dragged into this nonsense at the worst possible time. He can try to push past his utter sulkiness right now, just to keep her out of all of this nonsense. After all, she's new.

"There's a particularly murderous tree that lives in the forest," Strange explains, seemingly out of nowhere, as he gestures towards a non-murderous tree, one closer to Five. It starts to bloom slightly, a few flowers appearing near the edge of one of the branches. "I'd like that murderous tree to not realize I'm here in the first place. Of course, the magic I'm working on involves living beings and I've a sneaky suspicion there won't be any volunteers."

He nods at the tree. There's a creaking sound like a wooden door opening as the blossoming branch lowers, stopping right at about Five's height. Those blossoms are at a perfect level to be picked—which is definitely Strange's intention. "The tree won't mind," Strange explains, as he gestures towards the blossoms.

[brightspot]

Five follows his lead, to focus on other things beside whatever he's been sulking about. She thinks herself a pretty good listener, and likes to be there for people when they need someone to talk to, but... Maybe what Strange needs here is a distraction, a reprieve, before he has to discuss the unpleasant mess with the other people who are actually involved? And the truth is he's right: Five isn't involved, really. She knows in a way that it's not any of her business. But at the same time... These are all people she has to be around, to work with, for maybe an entire year. If there's anything she can do to help ease tensions, well, that would be good. Not that she'd even know where to begin, when everyone at the moment is a virtual stranger to her.

She puts that thought process on hold, and startles for a moment when he gestures to a tree close to her while talking about a murderous tree, thinking for a second there that it's the one he means and maybe she should get out of the way before she's attacked by the malevolent plant. The temporary almost-panicked expression on her face makes her misunderstanding obvious. When instead of attacking her, it begins to blossom, though, she relaxes again and smiles, impressed and pleased, her eyes brightening.

"Oh..." She takes a flower from the branch, feels the petals gently in her fingertips. "It's beautiful," she observes, before tucking some of her green curls behind her ear and placing the flower there. She doesn't have a mirror here to look in to see the full effect, but at least it makes her feel pretty.

"This is like with the rain, right? Because the flowers want to grow, so you're encouraging them?"

[kingsroads]

"It is," Strange responds, with a little nod. Is this being a braggart? Maybe! But is it the truth? Definitely. "Magic is so often used to destroy or change things that it's easy to forget the beauty involved." As he gestures back to the tree, the limb moves over towards Strange. There's a pause before he decides to take a flower for himself, putting it in the buttonhole of his coat instead of behind his ear. Another gesture (plus more of that creaking sound) and the tree limb returns back to it's normal place.

It's still flowered, though. That addition can stay on.

"But you're correct," Strange responds with a nod, as he looks up at Five. And then he just starts yammering about magic, partly because this is Strange and half the time he's talking he's yammering about magic and partly because talking about magic helps keep his mind off of other things.

"Natural magic is all about asking, a give and take, relying on the connections between the magician and the aspects of nature. This is only a theory, but I believe the reason I can perform magic so effortlessly in the carnival compared to other locations is that both the trees and I serve the Ringmaster. They're willing to help a fellow subject."

[brightspot]

Sometimes the need to brag about things comes from wanting other people's approval, and Five's done it a little in regards to her tech and hacking skills. Once in a while. It just feels nice to have people be impressed with you, okay, she understands this.

Five watches him take one of the flowers as well and add it to his coat, and she smiles and gives a nod of approval.

It's a good thing that Five's super interested in magic, then, so his talking about it just stokes the fascination there. She gives thought to what all he's saying too, particularly the part about it so often being used to destroy -- she wouldn't know, since it's not really a thing in her universe, but it both saddens and makes sense to her that that would be the case. Still, a thought drifts across her mind that good things can come from destruction too, that breaking things down sometimes creates new things, new reactions. And there's a certain kind of beauty in destruction...

This silent train of thought is interrupted when he brings up his theory, and she looks curiously at the trees around them, their surroundings, head slightly tilted as her gaze climbs a tree trunk as far up as it goes.

"Maybe! But, I sort of doubt they signed a contract like we did..." A pause. "Unless they were people once?" And now she's looking at the rock she's sitting on with some trepidation. Please don't be a person.

[kingsroads]

"Some might have been people." As he continues talking, Strange's little shithead grin spreads across his face. He's obviously teasing Five and is getting a grand time out of doing so. Think of it as hazing the newbies!

"After all, the Ringmaster is quite adept at transformation magic. She turned one particularly irritating coworker of ours into a lizard. The poor chap had to eat bugs and flies until she deigned to turn him back!"

Despite the fact that eating bugs and flies is ostensibly a terrible fate, Strange still has this 'better you than me' tone in his voice. Because said coworker was rather irritating. And it's one of those things that you look back on later with amusement. Plus, it's simply damn good gossip.