⇨ 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]

"I'm getting to that part," she huffs at him, a little indignant. "Haven't you ever heard of setting the narrative?" SHEESH.

"Anyway. As I was saying... Steven's uncle shows up. Except that we didn't know it was his uncle at the time, so we just thought he was just some crazy human swooping in to shout at us about how we'd ruined 'his barn' by turning it into an awesome gem cave for me and Lapis to live in. We only found out that he was related to Steven after Greg arrived and identified him as 'Cousin Andy'-- of course, at that point we had already assaulted him with an impressive water/attack drone combo..."

She is just straight up prattling this all off like a teenage girl passing on some juicy gossip, making sure to get in all the most useless details, because it makes her feel extra smart and knowledgeable to include them. And she's not even close to done yet.

"...Anyway, it turned out that Greg hadn't seen this Andy in quite some time? And then all this weird drama started happening about human familial relations that I still to this day don't really understand, even after-- uh--" Erk. Almost mentioning Portland makes her stammer awkwardly for half a moment. EMERGENCY COURSE CHANGE. She coughs awkwardly, and continues: "B-Basically 'Andy' got upset about a whole number of things, including the fact that Greg had gone and spawned offspring with an 'illegal alien' without getting married first? So at that point, us gems, we're all getting real annoyed with listening to this clod saying this stuff that was upsetting Steven... But my friend Garnet is like, 'no, we can't attack Andy. It's important for Steven to know his human family. We have to make friends with him.' So that's when we decided to hatch an INGENIOUS PLOT that would make EVERYTHING RIGHT!"

[whattaprick]

Lambert thinks he can guess exactly what this ingenious plot is, but for once, he's not going to ruin things by stealing Peridot's thunder. Instead of spoiling the retelling for her, her grins.

"Go on," he prompts, indulgently. "What did you come up with?"

[periphrasing]

She is absolutely soaking up that indulgence like an awful little praise sponge. If only her audiences for these stories were always this good!

"The only logical solution available, given our understanding of the situation: We decided that if he was upset about the absence of marriage, the best thing to do would be for ALL of us to marry each other, to make up for the deficit!" Peridot says proudly. "So we did! And we threw in a bunch of other human ceremonies in to sweeten the deal!" She starts to tick them off on her claws: "Birthdays, funerals..."

Pause.

"Well. Mostly just those three things, but, you get the idea. We even brought him the most massive, glorious cake that we could afford on such short notice!"

[whattaprick]

That answer is even more ridiculous than Lambert was expecting. Before he can stop himself, he laughs -- and regrets it instantly after, for how it tears at his aching throat, but it's still worth it -- and tips his head back against his pillows, sharp teeth bared as he cackles at Peridot's expense and the gems.

"And?" he gasps, when he gets his breath back, grinning at the gem. "Did it work?"

[periphrasing]

"Actually, he reacted pretty much exactly as you did just now," Peridot snorts. "But it did get him to calm down and concede to participating in a traditional human family dinner, so, in a way, you could say it was actually a total success!"

Yeah, she knows better now, that it was a dumb plan from the get-go. But they did their best at the time!