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

A few brief things Lambert would seek out RM to ask about:

a. What happened to the crystal the Prince stored the Rose's power in?

b. Now that they have the Blue Rose, are they clear of the courts, or are they likelier to try and snatch it because the Carnival's arguably more vulnerable than the Prince walled in his fortress?

c. Finally, a bit stiffly -- considering he's going to be incapacitated from performing his duties for the foreseeable future, would she prefer to appoint a new Nightrider or does she expect him to assign someone else to take charge?

a. The Heart of Stone ate it, presumably.

b. UNCERTAIN SHRUG. She can put it under the same level of threat that the Prince could. She doesn't see why they would be any more willing to put it at risk with her than with him. They were worried about it being destroyed, but it can simultaneously be used to defend.

c. Her reaction is basically "?????? No, DUMBASS, don't be a baby." If he wants to appoint a deputy then he can but it isn't like this is some terminal prognosis. Get a hold of yourself, man.

Welp at the first, he says he hopes her judgement's correct on the second, but also asks, curiously, if the artifact can be destroyed in the first place -- and what would happen if it was?

Also to the last point, he just looks kind of uncomfortable for a bit and is like well, he didn't exactly fulfil the job to her specifications. While it's unlikely they could have stopped things going to shit at the Ball, it also wouldn't have given the Prince the opportunity to steal people and weaken them enough to take their True Name.

Speaking of which? He looks extra pinched now. Is there any way to keep that kind of thing safe?

It can be destroyed, yes! The Court wasn't afraid of fighting him because he might use it, it was because he could destroy a priceless artifact and it would be gone. This Summer Maiden told her this a long time ago. Like, it's just a flower, after all.

As for what would happen, she has no idea. It's not supporting a pillar of reality or anything as far as she recalls, but one of these artifacts has never been destroyed in her experience, so who knows??

Also, if Lambert hadn't created that distraction, there's good odds that Childermass's plan would have been discovered. She hates that it happened at Sans's expense, but... if there was a better way for it to play out, then she's not what the ideal scenario would have been. She would have rathered that no one was captured at all, but if they hadn't been, she's honestly not sure what the outcome would have been.

All of these actions and reactions are tangled together, and it's hopeless to try to imagine which ones could be separated out. At least, that's how she sees it.

In terms of True Names, she isn't the expert, because she's never even looked at someone's True Name before, let alone tried to take them. The main defense is having a strong spirit and a strong mind, but that will only delay the process, ultimately. No one can hold out forever against a High Fae's will.

So their defense against potential vengeance is a sentimental (incredibly powerful) keepsake? Got it.

If they're quits as far as she's concerned, Lambert supposes that's fair enough. He visibly looks like he feels a bit better after that revelation, relaxing a little. He's not one to dwell on what's done, typically, but it's been bugging him, and it seems he can relax a little knowing this hasn't marked him down as incompetent or unreliable in her eyes.

Her answer to the True Name question has him quiet a bit longer. She says she's never looked at someone's True Name before, but ... could she, if she wanted to? Or if they asked?

He did his best with what he had. She's more cross at the original three that started all the bullshit, but even so... they've probably punished themselves enough, really.

She probably could, yeah. The magic of Names is a whole thing, and nothing that she's personally spent much time with, because most of it is used by total control freaks like the Prince was. He did it with an ease that was kind of absurd - it looked like he was a true master of the craft, which isn't really complimentary.

Knowing your own Name can be a source of great power, but only if you truly comprehend it and everything it entails. It sort of requires a sort of spiritual awakening to do so, though theoretically, that is something she could help with, especially if they made it easy by giving her permission.

Any Fae has the capacity to do it, but not all are inclined to. Superstition regarding Names is part of why no Fae uses terms of personal address - only objective titles. Knowing another Fae's True Name is, like... off the charts intimate.

Edited 2017-11-21 05:11 (UTC)

A source of power? Now that gets Lambert's attention, and visibly so. When the Prince took Sans' name ... well, they all saw the results of that, even stuck where he was. It never occurred to him that it could be used the other way.

Well, he'll joke, they both know he sure as hell isn't much of a spiritual guy, so that's probably not going to happen for him. But, it's nice to know it just can't be ripped out of his body like that, which was mostly what he was worried about. But he is curious: does she know her own True Name? Does every Fae inherently know that?

Yeah, Fae are born knowing that. It comes with the territory. It is probably part of what makes them so awesome. They keep it to themselves, because no one else is entitled to that piece of their identity.

Sans tool a massive spiritual and physical beating before that could happen. It's not pretty. She's seen the effects before, but never with someone that she knew before it happened.

Even she forgot his name, and that's pretty daunting.

Ssso fae are confirmed cosmic cheaters, as usual. (Lambert is probably joking.)

He sure doesn't like the sound of that! Frown frown. Is it actually possible for someone to lose their True Name forever? That sounds like a bad scene.

Well, functionally forever, anyway. She's not sure if you can actually destroy a name, but it could certainly get taken somewhere that was basically out of reach.

Most Fae wouldn't restrict someone's identity as far as the Prince did with Sans because it essentially makes them useless, but the point of that was to make an example. It was torturing him to show what might happen to the others if she didn't surrender.

⇨ THE PRINCE IS DEAD

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