⇨ 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

[stompadour]

Jasper is at a loose end. She was far more in her element fighting monsters and participating in the Prince's hunt than trying to help people in the aftermath; she can appreciate a little downtime sometimes -- although you'd never hear her ask a superior for it -- but she really doesn't want it now. She doesn't want to relax and get her bearings, because that means having to think about this situation... about the fact that she hasn't been able to find Blue Diamond again, which means she must have already left like she said she was going to, which means the only instructions Jasper can follow going forward are those from the Ringmaster and the Supervisors. Which... she's willing to do, completely, if it'll mean Pink Diamond can be restored, but taking orders from non-gems -- non-gems and a treacherous, untrustworthy Era 2 Peridot -- is... the kind of thing that will take some getting used to, to say the least.

Not to mention the fact that it's impossible to determine someone's station in the Carnival by simply looking at them, like she'd be able to among gems. Ordinarily, she'd be able to simply class them all as below her by an order of magnitude by token of not being gems at all, but since she's been tasked with operating within the Carnival's hierarchy...

It's bad, and it also means that while everyone's recovering from the immediate aftermath of the hunt, Jasper's skulking around the Carnival grounds accosting people with a harried, slightly lost look about her, demanding, "You: what's your job here?"

[anti_nonsense]

Despite being one of the people in need of recovery, Rita's back on her feet within the week. She still spends most of her time resting, but it's hard to stay cooped up in her trailer all the time, and it's not like it'll kill her to walk over to the cookhouse or the medical tent to take care of her own errands once in a while.

Most of her injuries and stone patches are covered by her clothes and a yellow scarf draped loosely around her neck, save for a small portion along the base of her neck, visible between her tunic's collar and her scarf. She has a square bandage on her cheek, and another bandage on one of her feathered wings.

She looks up at the woman with a slightly weirded out expression, then shrugs and answers the question. "Uh... lighting and special effects, engineering division. Why?"

[stompadour]

Jasper squints. She pretty much only understood 'engineering' out of that.

"Huh," she grunts. "Engineering. That's under the Peridot, right? What do you do there?"

[anti_nonsense]

"The Peridot?" Rita's just giving her a weird look, like what a weird way to put that, lady.

But she goes on to answer the question. "During stage performances, I'm backstage operating lights and other visual effects. Making the spotlight follow the performers, applying colored lights thematically, using fire and explosions in a precise, controlled manner... stuff like that." From the flatness in her tone, it's not hard to tell she's not all that enthusiastic about her job, but it's simple and she's good at it, so whatever.

[stompadour]

"That sounds... extravagant," says Jasper, unimpressed. Of course, from what she's seen this whole place is extravagant... but she was still kind of unconsciously expecting better from an engineering department headed up by a qualified Kindergartener like Peridot. What a waste.

[anti_nonsense]

"That's the carnival for you," Rita says with a wave of her hand. "Doing pointless, flashy things for show is kind of the whole point." When they're not butting heads with stupidly powerful fae and making new enemies, anyway.

"What job did you get assigned with?" she asks, giving the woman a look of mild curiosity. She looks like she'd fit right in with a band of mercenaries.

[soft_focus]

It's probably so easy to accost Reira, that she becomes Invisible.

And by invisible, it's meant 'you can't see her beyond Jasper's hand'. Regardless, she takes a half second to stare a bit owlishly at Jasper-taking in the Emotions coming off-and soon after answers.

"..................I'm an Animal keeper." .... "....I look after the animals here."

[stompadour]

Jasper's face creases into an appalled grimace. She's been assigned to work as an animal keeper too -- and yet this tiny, evidently weak individual has been given the same job? This is an insult.

She leans down.

And then a little further down.

"What do you do... to look after them," she demands, disgusted.

[soft_focus]

"Mostly, you have to feed them, and keep the places they're in clean," she explains. "....And make sure they aren't sick, or bored..."

There is a pause. She can. Definitely feel the insult and disgust, but well! It wouldn't be the first time someone didn't think much on a current arrangement.

"Different animals have different things they need. Explaining them is easier one at a time."

[stompadour]

"Hmph," says Jasper. "What do you do? Why did they give you this role?"

[soft_focus]

That's a good question, actually. Why DID she get this one? She gives it only a moment of thought, having a fair guess on her mind. "I know what the animals feel." She's pretty sure that's the reason. Definitely sure, actually, since she's under the impression that everything else she does is...nothing special.

"....Like...Right now, you're sort of mad?" Not entirely accurate, but she doesn't actually have a word for the kind of mood Jasper has. She needs a dictionary honestly. "A lot of other people can probably see that easy, but if an animal is mad...sometimes it's hard to know. It's hard to see if some are hurt too, or sick. But animals have feelings-so when those things happen, they feel a certain way.... ....So I can tell when that is."

A pause, and- "....Which is important, because they have to stay alive." Very Key.

Other than that, she continues along the path, letting Jasper follow if she wants. "Everything else is sort of easy, I guess. Like getting on Tyrannosaurus' head, or walking the 'Bow-wow' chomp." That's the small one. 'Chain Chomp' is...the bigger one.

[spaghettimonster]

Finally, Papyrus' loose ends are re-raveling. His brother is returned, in one (admittedly painful) piece... A sorta friend from home is here (and also in a rather significant amount of emotional pain) and already making friends... He himself has caught up with just about all the people he's been worried about, and is even getting back in the habit of doing his job...!

He pauses at the question, broom idly in hand, and points at himself. "Me?" A quick glance around, nobody else is in this corner of the mess hall. "I am... a janitor. Effectively, the head janitor! I'm a double mentor by now."

Not that Foster was the most sincerely enthusiastic, or Miko seems likely to clean more messes than she creates... but still, it's a trust, and a truly essential task. Imagine this place without anyone cleaning. Horrible. "Why do you ask?"

[stompadour]

A janitor. Hm. Jasper reflects on this, trying to determine whether this puts this peculiar entity above or below her in the overall Carnival hierarchy. Above, presumably, if he's the head janitor -- but Jasper's so used to looking down on jobs like that.

She folds her arms.

"How important is a janitor here, exactly?"

[spaghettimonster]

If they were being technical, talking about the hierarchy of who tells who what to do... not very. His domain is still very small. But that's not the question. It's more, how much does a janitor contribute to everything going on. And that's an easy question to answer.

With no feeling of exaggeration, Papyrus shivers and declares, "very! They couldn't function without us. Nobody wants to go to a filthy carnival."

Just the employees and their day-to-day messes take some doing. Pranks, food prep, the grossness of biological functions... And guests multiply that a couple times over, with performances and littering.

[stompadour]

Well, that doesn't sound untrue... She doesn't like it, though.

"I guess not," she concedes, surly. "You organics make a lot of mess."

[spaghettimonster]

"Hey, don't lump me in with them," he protests, with more laughter than heat in his voice. "I'm a skeleton! Not an organic. Whatever that is..."

[dontpokethat]

...Ginko is way too sleep-deprived for this. Like, there's a simple answer at least, but... being suddenly confronted by huge angry orange women is not something he's particularly used to.

"Uh... I'm an animal keeper. Are you... new?"

[stompadour]

Another one. Ugh. At least this one isn't as minuscule as the first.

One hand on her hip, Jasper leans forward slightly, squinting a bit as she looks him up and down.

"Of course I'm new. Why were you picked for that function?"

[dontpokethat]

Well, that's fair, he guesses. He's pretty sure he would have remembered seeing her around before.

"...Because I'm good at it?" And then, to rephrase: "I have experience working with... organisms that don't necessarily listen to me."

Like mushi. And children. And grown-ass adult clients who should know better.

[stompadour]

She arches one of her weirdly immaculate eyebrows.

"And that's what you need to be good at... keeping animals? Working with things that won't do what you tell them?"

[dontpokethat]

"Well, it's... not all of it. But it can be a useful skill. Other than that, it's certainly helpful to understand how the different animals communicate, and that's without going into things like specific diets, enrichment needs, and so on..."

He pauses, and his tail gives a quiet thump against the ground as he thinks. "Why do you ask?"

[sworntothesword]

Connie is kind of struck by the surrealness of this situation. So struck she can't even do or say anything until she's approached by the large orange quartz and what can only be described as 'interrogated.'

"Um- I'm a Patrol?"

She's not attacking so that's a good sign? Maybe this Jasper is from a timeline from before when she met her. Finger's crossed?

[stompadour]

Luckily (??) for Connie, Jasper doesn't recognise her at all. She remembers that Rose (or Steven, or whatever) fused with a human, and that the fusion defeated her -- but individual humans are pretty hard to tell apart for Jasper. She's accustomed to dealing with gems, who come in a much wider variety of colours and sizes, and can be distinguished by their actual gem and that gem's location far more quickly and easily than by things like facial features.

"A Patrol, huh," she says skeptically. "Is that important?"

[sworntothesword]

"I'm told that it is. I'm supposed to be a peace keeper here in the carnival. I haven't really started yet, though. Everyone is still recovering from the Hunt and everything before it."

She summons up a big wad of courage from her gut.

"So what are you? Your job, I mean?"

[stompadour]

"Roustabout," she says, with visible unease. She's not a roustabout; she's a Jasper. This isn't her job.

Except that it is here, and that's what Blue Diamond has told her to do, and she doesn't have any choice.

"... and animal keeper."

She really doesn't like that what this human is describing sounds like a more appropriate job for a Jasper than what she's doing herself.