⇨ 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

[periphrasing]

Strange are you really sure you're prepared to deal with the all the worms that are residing in this can that you're opening? It's a short jump from interrogation rooms to fusion and geo weapons and basically the gem equivalent of Frankenstein's monster. And Peridot doesn't tend to supply the abridged version of things.

"I was interrogating her," Peridot confirms, looking just a teensy bit embarrassed. "I mean, I was just doing my job at the time. I was still working for Yellow Diamond and I'd been assigned to evaluate the status of some geo-weapon experiments that had been left to develop on Earth at the end of the war. But my progress was being continually stalled thanks to unforeseen difficulties in re-establishing a working warp-pad connection between Earth and Homeworld. Lapis had just returned to Homeworld FROM Earth, so it just made sense to interrogate her for more details."

[kingsroads]

Oh my God, he has no idea what any of these words are. Geo-weapon? Warp-pad? There were multiple colored diamonds? Strange just gives Peridot a blank look as she continues talking. He doesn't really know where to start first but he knows that Peridot mentioned a war so okay, that's a thing, he can focus on that. And Peridot was trying to find a way back to Homeworld from Earth, right? At least, that's the implication Strange got.

But wait a moment. Wasn't Homeworld the one that was trying to colonize Earth? Peridot said that she didn't exist yet, but the point still stood.

"Out of curiosity, were you aligned with Homeworld when you were interrogating Lapis? And, again just out of simple curiosity, was Homeworld still trying to colonize Earth at that point?" There's a little bit of a judgey tone in Strange's voice as he looks down at Peridot with a little frown.

Because party foul, buddy. He lives on Earth!

[periphrasing]

And now Peridot is steadily flushing an intense shade of blue-green, because they sure are getting into troubling territory. It's frustrating, actually; she never used to be afraid to share details about her past life because it just was what it was, she was made to serve the diamonds and it was the only thing that she knew.

But she ALSO never used to have numerous human friends who might take issue with the fact that she was once working to help destroy their home planet. 9S's opinion of her has made her extra leery of that kind of judgement, of being rejected, and Strange's tone isn't exactly inspiring any confidence either.

"I mean," she starts, a strain of anxiety in her voice, "technically I'd say I'm still 'aligned' with Homeworld--? No, no no no that's not right. I just mean-- Homeworld is a place, it's where I'm from. And I still care about it! Even if I can't go back there, ever again, but I'm sure as heck not aligned with the Diamonds anymore! Though yes, I was, at the time that I interrogated Lapis. But all gems serve the Diamonds, at least starting out. It's the only reason we're ever even created to begin with--"

[kingsroads]

The more Peridot talks, the more Strange realizes there's no way he's going to be able to keep up with what she's talking about. Homeworld's a place apparently, not an organization, and all gems were created to serve the Diamonds who might be in charge of Homeworld? It's a miracle if he even retains half of this information.

Honestly, the whole thing is reminding Strange a bit too much of the Wyld Fae and the Courts in Portland for his tastes. A few members of a long-lived jargon-filled race defect from the rest of that long-lived jargon-filled race to go fight people and piss off to somewhere else? Sounds familiar. Not that he's going to mention this to Peridot, of course. He's honestly got no idea how she'll take the comparison. Especially since Strange has a sneaking suspicion this conversation is going to take a quick nosedive.

'I'm sure as heck not aligned with the Diamonds anymore.' That...might be a problem.

"Do most of the gems here have such a, erm, negative view of the Diamonds?" Now it's his turn to have a little strain of anxiety in his voice. Though, Strange is just going to go ahead and air out his concerns. It's not a secret who he chatted with, after all. "Blue Diamond and I got along splendidly when she was here. I don't see why you wouldn't want to associate with her."

It helps that 'technical mass murder' and 'rampant speciesism' didn't come up on a regular basis in their conversations.

[periphrasing]

'Nosedive' is probably an understatement for what this conversation is about to do, and Strange will see his suspicions start to be confirmed as Peridot's posture stiffens noticeably.

"All of the gems here have that negative of a view of the Diamonds, because the Diamonds are a bunch of short-sighted, ego-maniacal, bossy clumpy jerky CLODS!" she snarls, tail swishing agitatedly. Perhaps recalling her promise to Strange that she wasn't going to yell at him, she takes a deep breath and calms down enough to add as an afterthought: "Well. All the gems here except for Jasper, but. She's an idiot, so she doesn't really count."

So there you go.

"I don't have quite as much of a personal issue with Blue Diamond as I do with Yellow Diamond, I guess. But regardless, they're all universally bad. Like, for starters--" She starts ticking off points on her claws-- "They boss other gems around, they act like they know better than EVERYONE else, they shatter people for showing the slightest bit of disobedience-- And THEY'RE the ones who wanted to colonize your Earth! Sure, Blue Diamond may seem sympathetic, being all weepy and emotional all the time, but did you know she wants to kill Steven!? STEVEN! Also, she keeps humans as pets in a ZOO. You're actually lucky she left, if she liked you it means you were probably on the short-list of people worth adding to her little 'menagerie'."

[kingsroads]

It's a bit hard to reconcile 'lovely woman who you had plenty of wonderful conversations with' and 'woman who would literally put you in a zoo' as traits that belong to the same person. Strange can't help but gape a bit as Peridot goes on this long, drawn-out rant about Blue Diamond. There's a bit of an awkward silence after Peridot's rant where Strange just kind of stares at her for a confused moment.

"She gave me a present before she left," Strange admits, with a little frown. And before Peridot can say anything, Strange just continues. "Which doesn't excuse any attempted murder or shattering gems, I'm certainly not apologizing for or condoning her actions, it's just...well, it was a thoughtful present."

He's working on reconciling the two aspects of Blue Diamond! But it might take a bit.

[periphrasing]

Peridot makes a scoffing noise and shrugs her shoulders, which she's still holding up stiffly so it kind of just looks ridiculous. "I suppose it's possible that being reduced from her lofty position and being forced to interact with her 'lessers' as 'equals' may have humbled her. But I feel it's more likely that she was just on her best behavior so she could get what she wanted from the Ringmaster."

A beat. She narrows her eyes, then asks: "What did she give you, anyway?"

[kingsroads]

"A way to best explain the peninsula." Strange continues talking as he moves over to the large desk in the room, opening one of the drawers and pulling out what looks to be a framed Google Maps image (not that Strange would get the reference). "I had talked about the magic I performed there with Blue and mentioned that really, nobody in the carnival seems to understand what the peninsula is. She gave me this to help better explain it before she left."

Strange moves over to Peridot and shows off the framed picture of...an overhead shot of trees. Still, as someone who looked at overhead maps of the terrain for at least a few years, Strange knows precisely what he's looking at. He makes a pinching motion on the picture and 'zooms in' to look at an overhead shot of a river, with a town to the east.

"And look!" As he moves his finger across the image, the map zooms in to look closer at said river. "That's the Zadorra. Wellington had me around one of those trees, moving rocks and changing the river and putting out fires and things like that."

It's like the world's most boring topographical photo album, but Strange at least thinks it's pretty cool. And there's something oddly nostalgic in his tone as he describes the peninsula. For all that Strange hates the idea of murder and frets about the changes war wrought...he can't deny the fact that by the end of the campaign, he had become damn good at it.

[periphrasing]

Curious as ever, even while knowing that this item came from Blue Diamond, Peridot peers at the map attentively, standing on her tip-toes to get a better look.

"You've mentioned this peninsula a few times before, but I don't believe that we have ever discussed it together at length," Peridot says, still studying the picture. "So the Zadorra is the river? And who's Wellington...?"

[kingsroads]

"Lord Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington and field marshal of the British army." And then, knowing that most of those words really won't mean anything to Peridot, Strange clarifies.

"The man who commanded the British army in the peninsula when I was a part of it." Hopefully that's a good explanation? This is Strange, he doesn't mind talking more if Peridot wants but the key phrase here is 'if Peridot wants.'

[periphrasing]

God knows Peridot has lectured Strange enough about gem shit today. Besides, she's always been genuinely curious about the differences between various multiversal instances of the planet Earth. Particularly with how the planet may have progressed without the interference of gems.

"I didn't know humans could have such long names," she says, boggling at him a little. And he'd shortened the name down to just 'Wellington'... it kind of reminds her of how gems speaking among themselves often refer to each other by their cut, rather than their type.

She turns her gaze back to the map, studying the topography more closely. It's hard to look at a landscape without considering how a Kindergarten might fit into it. Plant life possibly indicates an abundance of nutrient filled soil, but a large body of water closeby... risk of flooding, risk erosion, puts the whole area at Gamma quality at best, at least without the help of a lapis coming in first to direct that water away. Which brings her back to something Strange said just before now:

"Did you say you were working to change the shape of the river? What was the purpose of that, exactly?"

[kingsroads]

"The only reason his name's so long is because he has a title," Strange remarks, with a little shrug. "That last part is his position—I could introduce myself with my position in the army and it'd be a bit long as well."

As Peridot studies the topography, Strange does as well, though he's getting lost in memories instead of lost in Kindergarten plans. Because as much as he feels slightly nostalgic about the people he met during wartime, it doesn't change the fact that it was war. And for every moment of Strange remembering momentous magic, there's a moment of him remembering someone getting shot next to him or someone else dying at camp.

The moment after that thought enters his head, Strange props the framed peninsula picture on the desk so that he can move his hands behind his back, out of sight of Peridot—for Strange knows they're already starting to tremble. Focus on the magic. That's what Peridot's interested in anyway. And oh wait, she's asking a question, he can focus on that as well.

"Hmm? Ah, the purpose was for simple confusion. People planned via maps back at the campsite but on the field, navigation was occasionally done by following natural landmarks. If I made the river run backwards or changed the location a bit, that would disorient the French instead."

[periphrasing]

"Huh. Funny; your job in your human army really wasn't actually all that different from what a lazuli does," Peridot observes, blissfully unaware of Strange's moment of growing discomfort. "At least, not in terms of function. Your purpose was incredibly different, of course... Hmmm... Confounding your enemies by altering the playing field. That's the sort of thing that modern global positioning technology wouldn't be so easily fooled by."

Her comment isn't exactly meant to be a dig against magic, but it sure could easily be misconstrued as one! At least, before she clarifies: "Not that these 'French' had that kind of technology, so I suppose the point is kind of moot."

[kingsroads]

Strange can't help but raise an eyebrow at Peridot's remark. He doesn't exactly know what modern global positioning technology could do, but he's smug enough and has strong enough convictions in his magic that Strange is absolutely certain he could win out over modern global positioning technology in another way.

"Find me some of this modern global positioning technology and I'm certain I'll find another way to baffle it." Even if it ends up being the magical equivalent of chuck a rock at it. "And I don't exactly know what a lazuli does in the first place, but my job involved much more than rearranging the terrain. Creating roads, putting out fires, spying on the enemy, things of that sort."

And bringing back the dead that one time. Strange is just gonna keep that one to himself.

[periphrasing]

"Lazulis are terraformers," Peridot informs him offhandedly. No comment given on the GPS thing, since she'd rather like to avoid getting into another magic vs. tech debate. She's still looking at the map, trying to imagine what a human war must be like. Messy is the first word to describe it that comes to mind, humans being so squishy and all. In general, it's hard for her to imagine... humans gathered on a massive scale, charging at each other with weapons drawn...

"What were you fighting over, anyway?" she asks suddenly. "These 'French' and your 'British'."

[kingsroads]

Hmm. How to sum up a backstory of European history, imperialism, and revolution to someone who might not know what France is to begin with. Strange mulls it over for a moment before deciding on the best choice: omitting a good chunk of the details and context.

"At the time, France was led by a man named Napoleon. Napoleon wanted to conquer Spain and Portugal, the countries of the Iberian peninsula, and add them to his growing European empire. As you can imagine, the Spanish and Portuguese people weren't too happy about that and started to kick up a fuss. The British didn't want that to happen either so we sent men and ships over to try—and succeed—at pushing back the French."

There we go! A succinct summary that omits a whole bunch of context, prior alliances, trade information, treaties, et cetera but one that hopefully Peridot would be able to understand.

[periphrasing]

Yeah, not so much. Well. Maybe? Kind of? Mostly Peridot just looks up and stares blankly at him, processing all that information in her head.

"But.. What did this 'Napoleon' want with the peninsula in the first place? Like, what was the advantage of taking it? Did it possess particular resources that would bolster his empire?" the gem asks slowly, finally stepping away from the map to lean back against the nearest wall.

one trip to wikipedia later...

[kingsroads]

"The French and British are always at blows." Or at least, during Strange's thirtyodd years on this earth, the French and British were always at blows. "If Napoleon took Portugal and the peninsula, he would not only add another region to his empire but remove one of Britain's trading partners. With Spain, the rulers of that country were in favor of a French alliance while the masses weren't. There were a few rebellions so Napoleon wanted to conquer Spain to put an end to those rebellions and squash any further uprisings."

He thinks. Politics was never Strange's strongest suit, even after he became magician to the army and gained a few friends in Parliament. Still, it sounds like a correct explanation! And it's not like Peridot can correct him if he's wrong!

[periphrasing]

No she CERTAINLY CANNOT. In fact she can't do much more than continue to stare and scratch her head in confusion.

"So... Napoleon is like a Diamond... And you and your British were part of a resistance movement against the spread of his greedy, bossy tyranny?"

[kingsroads]

"Not entirely? It was more equal factions than a scrappy underdog sort of situation. We helped out the resistance movement, but England is powerful enough that we were seen as equals to the French—better than them, as a matter of fact, since we won the war."

Don't mind that brief bit of nationalism there. Though as to her other point, there's a pause, and a frown. Because he guesses Napoleon was a Diamond, in the sense that he was a military leader, commanded a lot of people, and was probably bossy. (Strange never met the man, but he's got a feeling all men in command are somewhat bossy.)

"I suppose that would make Wellington a Diamond also, though not one of the short-sighted, bossy, erm, 'clods' that your Diamonds seem to be, but a good Diamond." Although if that's the case, then that means...Strange brightens up a little. "Then that means I worked directly under a Diamond!"

Aw yeah, look at him seeming important, good job figuring that out, Strange's ego!

[periphrasing]

Peridot doesn't seem so sure about that conclusion. She tilts her head, looking thoughtful.

"Meh... I don't know. Did this Wellington have supreme command over the entirety of Eng-Land? Or was he just at the head of the military? Because if it was the latter, it's probably more accurate to say that you worked directly under a commander class gem. Something like a hessonite, or maybe an emerald. Which still isn't a bad place to be, of course! Very upper crust..."

[kingsroads]

Strange still looks unbearably smug for his own good. "Alas, Wellington was only head of the military. However, I am the king's magician and have performed magic on behalf of the King of England before."

Which is a lot more impressive than it sounds. George III was pretty definitively bonkers at this point of history so Strange has performed magic on behalf of the King of England as directed by the king's inner circle. Still counts!

And then two weeks passed before I got looked at my gd inbox properly

[periphrasing]

"...Yeah alright, that's more comparable to working for a Diamond," she concedes. "I'm not really sure what gem type that would make you equivalent of, though. Depends on what sort of magic you were doing."

thanks for that december

[kingsroads]

He worked for a Diamond! Take that gem society, Lapis probably never worked for a Diamond, look at how cool and how amazing he is. It's probably getting a bit annoying how smug he looks at this analogy. Thankfully, there's a different question to distract him.

"With the King, it was mostly attempts at restorative magic. However, that's not my specialty to begin with and magic cannot cure madness." But, still counts! At least, in Strange's ego it still counts.

[periphrasing]

Peridot snorts and shrugs her shoulders lightly. "Well now I really can't say for sure. Gems never work outside of their 'specialty', it would be considered an insult to the Diamond you were made to serve."