⇨ 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]

Peridot looks a little bit taken aback, because it sounds like... "Uhhh, wait... You don't mean right now, right this second, do you? Because I kind of have to fix this laser that you broke, and also I should really tell Lapis if I'm going to be bringing guests back to the trailer--"

Also she's not mentally prepared for this at all??

[dressedtothe]

Who isn't offering to fix the thing he broke? This guy.

9S flaps his hand dismissively. "You don't have to fix it now, do you? Besides, not having the laser there would be a surprise to the people who run the course all the time."

Yeah.

And really, who cares about Lapis!!

[periphrasing]

Peridot cares about Lapis!! :(

But Peridot is also a total doormat when she's trying to get on someone's good side. CASE AND POINT...

"I guess... It can wait," the gem concedes reluctantly. It's no big deal, right? As long as it gets fixed at some point today? Yeah. "Alright then. To the Gem Cave V2!" Peridot announces, pointing in the vague direction of the supervisor's grove and marching ahead. Chop chop 9S, keep up!

[dressedtothe]

Gem Cave V2? Ugh Peridot do you have to be such an alien? Not that he knows what the dead aliens back home were like but he imagines they would be like her right now.

Nevermind that he would probably name things by a similar convention.

He keeps up, easily. "We're heading towards the Supervisor's Grove," he observes. "It's not an actual cave?"

[periphrasing]

"No, that's what we call our trailer," Peridot says cheerily. "Well. It's what I call our trailer. Lapis doesn't like it when I call it that, but all the good command centers have catchy names so why shouldn't ours?"

[dressedtothe]

Lapis...

He heard about what had happened to her when it was broadcasted all over the public radio channel. Even though she's a Gem, an alien, he can't help but feel a stab of sympathy for what she went through.

It won't last long.

"A good command centre should have a name that accurately describes its role or function," 9S argues back.

Naming it a cave when it isn't a cave is just downright inaccurate.

[periphrasing]

"You know, further back, I would have agreed with you on that, one-hundred percent," Peridot replies, undeterred. "But now I think it's actually kind of important to have fun with these sorts of things. Besides, it's named after our old place back home, and that was named after a human term for a relaxing retreat or personal sanctuary. I just gem-ified it to fit us better."

[dressedtothe]

It's a human term? 9S mentally recoils in horror. Not just at the idea of an alien integrating human culture into their own, but the fact that he didn't know that about humans!

"You're using a human term?" There's an accusatory tone in his voice.

[periphrasing]

"Um-- Yes?" she replies, shrinking back a little. What in the heck did she say wrong this time!? "I lived on Earth for the better part of a year, you pick up on some of the vocabulary after a while."

[dressedtothe]

"After the invasion?" Not the words Lapis had used, but that's what 9S had equated them to. "I'm surprised there are even any humans for you to learn from."

Who's made a lot of assumptions about what happened? Certainly not 9S!!

[periphrasing]

Peridot stops walking abruptly and turns to look at him, her brow furrowed. For the first time in this conversation she actually looks kind of annoyed?

"Invasion? What are you talking about, I never took part in any invasion. Not unless you count three gems in one ship to be an invading force, which, it isn't," the engineer huffs.

[dressedtothe]

Maybe not an invading force, then. "So a scouting team?"

He folds his arms, defensive. Any decent invading force will have smaller teams deployed on the field first, for information gathering and for subterfuge. Unless they're just so overwhelmingly powerful... or overconfident idiots.

"How much damage was caused by your arrival?"

[periphrasing]

She folds her arms and levels a scowl at him, recalling the night they'd landed there. "Plenty of damage occurred overall, but it was sustained almost entirely by our ship, which wound up destroyed," she growls. "But I assume you're specifically asking about damage to the Earth, and that was in fact, minimal. Actually, if anything, my arrival did negative damage, because I went on to help save the whole planet from EXPLODING."

[dressedtothe]

9S scowls right back.

"Oh yeah? Why was it exploding in the first place?"

An alien saving Earth? A likely story!!

[periphrasing]

Peridot opens her mouth to retort, but cuts off with a stammer. The real answer is that it was set to explode because of the cluster planted there that she was supposed to be checking up on the progress of, but uh. That doesn't sound real good.

"Well-- It was set to explode because of the geo-weapon that was incubating inside the mantle," Peridot huffs. "I don't see why it matters to you anyway, I mean it's not your version of Earth."

[dressedtothe]

Yeah, he thought so. The stammer is enough to tell him that Peridot isn't being entirely truthful in her response.

But it's true; it's not his Earth. 9S looks away.

"It's just another case of aliens messing things up," he grumbles.

Are they there yet?

I could've sworn I tagged this on Wednesday wtf

[periphrasing]

"But I didn't mess up," Peridot says loudly, stepping in front of him to keep his attention, desperate to make him understand. "If anything I did the opposite of mess up, the whole Earth in my world would be in a billion pieces if it wasn't for me!"

wednesday was a lie

[dressedtothe]

9S levels a glare at Peridot. Granted, the effect is somewhat lost because of the visor covering his eyes, but points for trying.

"Why was there a geo-weapon incubating inside the Earth's mantle?"

[periphrasing]

"...Because the Diamonds put it there," Peridot admits after a pause, and then adds hastily: "But I'm not like them, I turned my back on Homeworld, gave up everything to protect Earth!"

[dressedtothe]

9S moves to step around her.

"One act doesn't make up for everything else you did before you turned your back on the Homeworld."

Not that... he knows exactly what she god up to. But if blowing up planets is what Gems do, then Peridot surely had a hand in that before she decided to turn her back on it! But the fact she did protect Earth does mean something, even if he doesn't openly acknowledge it.

[periphrasing]

For a second, Peridot looks devastated, her ears and tail both drooping miserably. Her whole frame sags, and she lets 9S walk right by her without another word.

Eventually, they'll reach the supervisor's grove. Peridot's trailer is about as weird as they come. There's all kinds of junk scattered around and pieced together to form various abstract art installations on the outside of it, an extremely tiny artificial pond out front... and also there's a mermaid skeleton pinned to the side of the trailer by a huge, nasty looking sword.

Basically it looks like a pair of aliens live there.

Peridot trudges up the front steps and yanks the door open, and she and Lapis's pet pumpkin comes racing up to the door, yapping excitedly and bouncing all over the place.

i feel so bad for peridot ; w; also wtf pumpkin is so cute

[dressedtothe]

Nice decor... And by nice he means tacky. Who keeps a skeleton impaled on their trailer? That's just really gross!

But at the sight of the energetic pet pumpkin, 9S takes a step back from the plant creature. "What the heck is this?"

This thing's weird! His instinct on encountering weird foreign lifeforms would be to kill it, but even his alien racism isn't enough to do something as stupid as getting Pod 153 to shoot his supervisor's... thing.

Pumpkin is the purest character in SU

[periphrasing]

"Ah-- That's our Pumpkin," Peridot says like that should immediately clarify everything. There's sort of an edge to her voice though, like almost like she's warning him: rudeness towards her gourd dog will NOT be tolerated. "Pumpkin, this is 9S. Say hello..."

Pumpkin notices and identifies the NEW FRIEND and scrambles over to him with another excited bark. She looks up at him with her best smile and whines excitedly, putting one of her little nub legs on his ankle in greeting.

[dressedtothe]

It's certainly more energetic than Francis... Uncertain of how to deal with Pumpkin, but having a little experience dealing with pets after living with Rita and her cat, 9S crouched down and tentatively pats Pumpkin somewhere on her... goard?

"Is it some kind of living plant or something?"

Like Syrlya?

[periphrasing]

"Technically all plants are living," Peridot can't resist pointing out. "Unless they're dead, of course But yes, she's a sentient pumpkin. Steven made her for me and Lapis."

Pumpkin pants excitedly, more than pleased to accept the patting. 9S doesn't have to be an expert at petting! She just appreciates being acknowledged.