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

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."

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.

Miko hops back, as if making sure not to end up getting hit by any rogue tater tots. "--Jeez, man, really? Are you five or what? Yeah, you gotta eat. Whether you think you're a person or whatever or not, you still have to eat. That's how bein' alive works."

"Eventually," Foster replies in a dismissive tone. He doesn't even look at the tater tots he's cast into the dirt, but gestures with his free paw, tailtip brushing the tops of the grass.

"But it won't... work right now."

So that settles that.

"What d'you mean it won't work? Have you tried to eat and gotten sick or somethin'?"

Very tactful, Miko.

"I've tried to eat. But I haven't eaten."

That may or may not be the kind of answer Miko was hoping to receive, but it's the kind of answer Miko is getting. Frankly, it's the only kind of answer Foster is equipped to give; cryptic, unhelpful, and overwhelmingly literal

"So... you tried, but you didn't actually get it in your mouth." That's about what that's sounding like. "That's gonna be the first step, then!"

A pause, then: "Actually, first step is gonna be getting more food. Since, y'know. You dumped it on the floor."

Miko is correct, which is something she can hopefully figure out for herself, because Foster has already bent down and begun to pick the discarded tater tots off the ground. He picks them up one at a tine with his claws, making a truly valiant effort to keep them on the plate (but he appears to be making less of an effort to keep grass out of the mix.)

"No, these are fine." He seems pretty sure of this one.

Okay is he for real right now. "--Dude, gross! Those have been in the dirt, don't do that."

She moves to take the plate away, frowning. "Look, if you want to eat floor 'tots later I won't stop you, but they probably shouldn't be the first thing. Then you will hurl."

"It's only dirt." Foster feels a lot more confident that he could eat these tater tots specifically because they've been on the floor. He's too slow to stop Miko from taking his plate--paws and claws don't offer much grip on ceramic--but he picks up another tater tot up out of the grass, holding it between thumbclaw and foreclaw. He regards it pensively before he glances at Miko, sideways.

"How many servings of tater tots do you expect me to eat?"

"That depends. D'you want to get tater tots now, or..." What else do they even have. "Fries, or I guess like... a vegetable that's not a potato. Anyway, the point is, however many it takes, as long as it doesn't all come off the ground."

"I didn't want tater tots to begin with," is what Foster says in response. He's still looking at Miko, tater tots notwithstanding.

There's something a little nauseating about the constant smell of frying potatoes. He's not especially into potatoes to begin with, but especially not after days on end of smelling them and looking at them and repeatedly trying and failing to actually eat them.

"Okay, cool, then don't eat tater tots. Like, constant potato onslaught aside, there is other food around."

And if he's not eating tater tots he's definitely not eating tater tots that have been on the ground.

The potatoes, he's aware, are part of someone else's punishment. Foster is somewhat unappraised of who else has failed the Ringmaster or their specific orders, but he had been pushing himself to and beyond his physical limits to dispose of the peelings, and has correspondingly been informed of their origins.

Which he's indifferent to, really, except for the knowledge that punishments have been warranted, and.... well.

"I don't think I've seen a vegetable that isn't a potato..."

Wow. This man is so sad about potatoes. It's actually kind of pitiable, but Miko is pretty sure saying as much (or expressing sympathy in any way) wouldn't improve his mood any.

Dammit Foster why are you so hard to help.

"If you haven't seen any, we can go ask! C'mon, we can go to the kitchen."

"Oh--no." Foster picks up his head quickly, a flash of something in his eyes--which immediately lose focus because he picked his head up too quickly. He's immediately dizzy, seeing colours and lights, and shuts his eyes against them, ducking to hold his head in his paws.

The tater tots that he'd still been holding mostly fall back on the ground, although one remains sort of awkwardly smushed between a claw and his hair.

"Mmm...."

Oh that can't be good. Miko stands up straight, her ears pricking up, and sort of holds out her paws in case he starts to tip over.

"--Hey, careful, man! Why don't you want to go to the kitchen?"

⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

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