⇨ 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

[espigeon]

He will admit to himself, the four-armed look is a good one. Be cool if he could pull that off. Not with arms like those, or human arms, though, especially since changes seem to be mirrored between his bodies.

Julien's dazed but he knows the introduction to some kind of escapade when he hears it. He hooks his bigger, feathery head over his human shoulder and opens the eye on that side, turns his human head, all just to trade a glance with himself. At extremely close range like this it's really just for the visual effect.

A smile starts hovering near his lips. "It's more comfortable like this but I can split up, sure. Should I ask what your idea is? If you wanna surprise me can I request it's not something that leaves bruises? And should I call you something besides 'facehugger'?"

[motivenotfound]

"Hmmm." She adopts a pensive posture, crossing a pair of arms and tapping her scale-flecked chin with a purple-clawed finger.

"Well, I can't promise this won't bruise you, but the patient's comfort is pretty important! So you're both on board now." She crouches down, and does not even ask before sliding her arms under his massive (surprisingly sturdy) pigeon wings, tucking her own dinky baby wings flat against her shoulderblades so she can piggyback his bigger half. Her broader, monstrous arms are wrapped back, claws nestled gently in the slightly-bedraggled feathers of his torso.

"You're so soft!" She sounds genuinely awed--she shifts him up so his beaked face is resting on her shoulder, and her various eyes make eye contact with both of Julien's bodies in amazement.

She doesn't actually answer his other question, though, not until she's gathered his human half up in her smaller, more humanlike arms, bridal style.

"There. All set!"

That wasn't so bad! Honestly, splitting her two arms into four was one of her better ideas. She'd never thought of two bodies, though... she wonders if he can fuse them into one, like Israfel. Probably not, she supposes. If he could, he probably would have for this.

"Comfy?"

She'll provide him with a name in a minute. Probably.

[espigeon]

"Uh. Is this really happening?" A lot of his apparent size is feathers making a dense shell around his very compact body, but he's not small. He overhangs, broader and longer in the torso than her, and it's a good thing that his spine is rigid and his expansive keel and breast muscles can carry his weight. Somewhere back there his feet just sort of hang.

He's very soft, and when he speaks through his bird body his voice thrums through it oddly, the vibrations lower and more full-bodied than a human voice, resonating into whatever it touches like low notes on a big speaker sounding in a listener's chest. "God, you're strong!"

Many, many birdlike spectral eyes appear and open during this maneuver. If they're touched they have an almost soap bubble sort of physicality, like a very small amount of something stretched to make a larger shape, though rather than popping they just close and disappear if handled roughly.

While this has been going on Julien's other half stood up. He starts laughing as this, too, is scooped up like it's easy; both a disbelieving, vocal, human laugh that shakes his shoulders, and a near soundless trembling and shaking of his tailfeathers. "What the fuck! Okay. Hi! Uh, could be worse I guess? Depends on your plan here."

It's not a bad feeling, which is a little surprising. Kind of nice, even if there are hard small wings pressing up into his chest and little useless dinosaur arms pinned against her back.

[motivenotfound]

"Thanks, it's the vampirism!" she informs him--him? Them? Shit, she didn't even think of that. Which one is she supposed to use here? That's kind of awkward. It's too late to ask, probably. After you've stabbed someone to death is like...... way too late. Oh well....

"I'm Mari, by the way. Mari Makinami Illustrious."

She's very proud of her name, as well she should be. Also she may have appended some of it there herself.

She is sort of impressed by how well he's keeping his cool here. A lot of much less new people would have been flailing around and yelling. But since he's settled--

"Okay, here we go! Hang on tight!"

Wait, what?

Oh. Yes. She's running him there.

[espigeon]

"Um. I've got some angel in me, so you might want to be careful with that," he says, remembering his encounter with a demon's ex-plaything. Good thing his aura's only on when he wills it into being.

It's not that Julien isn't kind of freaked out, but he just doesn't generally have that reaction. Past experience has instilled in him a kind of calm when things go sideways, a weird, fragile steadiness, an appreciation for the absurd. "Well. Okay. Hi. Pity about the last time we met, huh."

He doesn't say anything, though he closes the eyes that are actually set into flesh and reaches up with both hands and presses them to his bird face. The running does hurt, jarring repeated impacts spiking the duller medicated headache and the general pain in that side of his head, and he tries to manage that.

The eyes he forms don't move much once manifested, and they can only exist within arms' reach or his much longer wings' reach. On the move, they appear out ahead like a patter of raindrops, hanging wide and round, some closing as or before they can be rushed through, some staying for long enough to close behind them.