lostcarnival | ⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

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⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

Who: Everyone!
When: Winter Breaks: Day 6 - Day 25
Where: THE MOON
What: The carnival journeys to one of its moons to celebrate the Lunar Solstice. More information here.
Warnings: Winter fun.

MOON WALKING↴

The journey to the moon only takes a blink of an eye, but it leaves the carnival far away beneath you. The second moon can be seen on the peripheral, massive compared to its usual view. At least when the holidays start out, there will be no notable wildlife on the moon, though this is something you can talk to the Ringmaster about if you think it needs a change. It sounds like this is the first time she's used it in quite a while - it probably needs some dusting off!

Claim your cabins, and proceed to... well, do whatever you want! There is no rush and little obligation, besides to enjoy yourself. For real, this time. She promises there will be no vampires. Or, at least, none that don't already work for the carnival.

► CABINS: Living arrangements are character choice for this event, and there are a variety of cabins of various sizes, mostly built to house 2-6 people, though you can fit more in if you squish. They are all made of wood and of a rustic design - no fancy modern furniture, here! Each building is housed with a fireplace and the needed amenities. You can pick up materials to cook with the private kitchens if you like. Theoretically, you could spend the whole holiday sequestered away, watching the snow fall. Some of them also have outdoor hot tubs available!

► ACTIVITIES: Activities are mostly going to be character driven, though there will be some large group games like bingo and maybe a poker tournament happening at some point in one of the festival halls. Otherwise, there is a lot to offer: skiing, snowboarding, hiking, ice sculpting, snowball fights - it goes on! If you'd like to run a winter activity, just let the mods know, and we will get the word out there for you.

► FEASTING: Every day isn't a full-out feast because that would get a bit unhealthy, but there will be a number of specific feast events over the holidays where everyone is encouraged to let out their inner hedonist and stuff themselves. There will be one big feast per week, with smaller but also delicious meals offered in between. The feast dates will be B12, B18, and B24. There's also plenty of alcohol available for anyone who wants it.

► SHOPPING: As mentioned in the planning post, there is a massive market being run by the World Walker Caravan! The Ringmaster has given everyone 1250 credits to spend on items, but there is a caveat - must spend at least 500 of those credits on gifts for other people. And it better be a good one, if you only buy one! (She will ask that you do not buy her presents, however. She appreciates the sentiment, but it seems sort of silly buying her things with her own money! If you'd like to gift her, please have it be something more personal or handmade, but you are not obligated to get her anything at all.)

► TREATMENTS: The beginning of the holidays will also be about the time that the emergency Medical Team will have finalized their treatments for the Prince's poisoning. Watch out for further information on that - and make sure to get treated if you are suffering from petrification or poison induced illness! The holidays will be a lot more fun that way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'll drown if I want ta," is what's probably muttered, but Joker doesn't fight Ginko any. His hands are exactly like he always figured from when they first started working in the carnival together, watching him tend to the animals. It can't just be the steam that's making them so warm, right?

Still, at the suggestion, Joker blinks and his gaze drifts back up to Ginko's face. Oh. "That'd be alright..." Nice, maybe. But then he's not really in a picky state.

Wow Joker don’t give him that. Ginko frowns at him, but doesn’t comment. Instead, he needs to think about what he could say to kill six minutes.

“Let’s see… oh, you know what. A while back, maybe… eight years before I got here, I’d say? One winter, I got caught traveling through a mountain pass in the snow. As you can probably guess, that wasn’t exactly an ideal situation, so, when I saw lights from a house, I went to ask permission to stay the night.

“When I was leaving the next morning, though, I came across a young boy who was trying to climb up a tree - and grab a dangerous mushi that had gotten knotted up in its branches. I managed to stop him, just before Suzu, the young woman who had let me stay the previous night, caught up. It turned out that the boy, Miharu, was her little brother. He had been seeing mushi for a couple years, at that point - ever since he had encountered a phenomenon called a harumagari.

“See, a harumagari is created by a mushi called usobuki; usobuki are known among mushi masters to take the form of blossoms, and attach themselves to trees. In the dead of winter, something happens that we’d been collecting evidence of for years, but which very few people had seen firsthand: The usobuki give off a scent that wakes up everything hibernating in the area, plant or animal. They create a patch of thriving life, a ‘false spring’ in the middle of winter. But the usobuki don’t create the harumagari out of benevolence. Once the harumagari is in full bloom, the mushi’s effects change. They feed off the body heat and energy of the things they bring out of hibernation, sapping away at their life force. It won’t kill them, but everything that the usobuki wakes up, after that brief period of liveliness, will find itself falling asleep again until spring.

“Of course, Suzu had no way of knowing any of that. There was nobody around who knew much of anything about mushi, even in the village at the base of the mountain, and she couldn’t even see them herself. All she knew was that, one winter, Miharu had disappeared into the mountains, for months; by the time he wandered back home in spring, she had given up on ever seeing him again.

“The thing was, the next winter, just as their stores of food started to run low, he’d disappeared again. This time, though, he was found unconscious outside the village. When he was brought home, she found he had filled a pack with edible mountain greens that shouldn’t have been growing that time of year.

“When I told her about the harumagari, Suzu was relieved to have some idea of what was happening to her brother, but, understandably, she was still pretty worried about him - especially given his tendency to just pick things up that he found interesting. Traveling in the snow would have been difficult, anyway, and the area’s mushi population wasn’t too dense, so I stayed to teach him about the local mushi until the mountain paths cleared some.”

Even as he talks about it, he can’t help the small, fond smile that tugs at his lips. “The next couple weeks were… interesting. Miharu generally meant well, but… he was kind of a handful. I still don’t know how Suzu managed to look after him on her own. He was pretty smart, and picked up on what I taught him quickly, but sometimes it felt like I was spending more time pulling him away from one infectious mushi or another than I was teaching him about them. On top of it all, he refused to tell me where he had found the harumagari, convinced that I would tell Suzu.

“All the same, we basically managed to avoid any serious incidents - until it got to be time for me to leave. That same day, Miharu disappeared into the mountains again; when I finally found him that evening, he was unconscious. Sure enough, he had a pack on him full of greens - and, though I wasn’t sure why at the time, a single butterfly that flew away when I opened the wrap.

“I brought Miharu back home, but I ended up having to leave the next morning; staying any longer would have put all of us in danger. Since I couldn’t stay until he woke up, I agreed to return in a year and check in on the two.

“When I got back the next winter, though, it turned out that things hadn’t gone quite as they had before. Though he’d always woken up in spring before, this time, Miharu had stayed asleep for a whole year. Suzu couldn’t begin to understand what could have gone wrong, and I had no idea either. All we knew was that, one way or another, something must have been different this time. The only way we had to find out was to go back to the source. I knew where the harumagari must have been last time, and it was safe to assume it would be there again. Suzu thought it was too risky to go check, but we didn’t have any other options. I told Suzu where I was going to be searching, and set out.

“After a few hours, I found the harumagari; it was hard to miss, once I ran into it. In the middle of the mountains, with everything around me covered in snow, this one area was absolutely flourishing; plants had sprung from the ground, flowers bloomed, animals that would normally be deep in hibernation clambered among the trees. Among it all, beautiful white and purple butterflies flew threw the falling snow. Everything seemed entirely unbothered by the cold, filled with warmth by the harumagari’s effects, with its sweet smell filling the air.

“I could feel that it was effecting me, too - and that was exactly why I needed to move quickly. I knew usobuki were supposed to look like tree blossoms, but all the flowers I saw looked entirely ordinary. After a few minutes, I hadn’t found anything… and then, the scent in the air changed. It was almost cloying, and the longer I was breathing it in, the colder I felt myself get, until I could barely move my hands. Animals were falling back into hibernation all around me - except for the butterflies.

“I finally remembered the butterfly I had seen fly from Miharu’s pack, and managed to put the pieces together. The butterflies were simply another form of usobuki, which would rest in the trees after they fed and wake their prey in the spring.

"By then, I was succumbing to their effects. Before I collapsed, I barely managed to catch one in a canister.

“From there, it was really Suzu who saved us both. I was found, and brought back to her house. There, she found the canister in my pocket - and she opened it out of curiosity, unknowingly releasing the usobuki inside into the house.

“When we both woke up in spring, Miharu had no idea he had been asleep any longer than usual - but Suzu was overjoyed to see him awake. As it turned out, he had figured out that the butterflies were the key to waking back up in the spring; that was why he had taken one with him, expecting Suzu to release it in the house.”

Ginko gives a quiet snort, exasperated and amused all at once. “He said… the butterflies had been his favorite part of those patches of spring, so he wanted to keep them secret. That was why he wouldn’t tell me about them. But, after all that had happened… Miharu finally understood that mushi weren’t really something to treat as friends; they were simply living their lives, and he would need to be careful getting involved with them. Knowing that, though, wasn’t enough to keep him from liking them… which was likely for the best.”

Edited 2017-12-12 02:47 (UTC)

Ginko has sure killed more than six minutes.

Joker listens the entire time through, although not without some difficulty. Before, the poison would have been to blame for that. It's hard to concentrate on long stories when everything down to your very soul is bogged down. This time, it's a poison of an entirely different sort, although the booze is certainly doing what it needs to do. Unfortunately, it's all he can do is to remember to even keep track of the fact that Ginko is speaking. The lazy warmth of the spa probably isn't helping, quite frankly. Or maybe that's just the feel of Ginko's hands...

Still. He manages to keep himself awake (probably unlike Tyki) all the way to the end. It takes a few moments for him to gather up the wits required for speaking, but he manages in the end. "S'a.... good big sister. Very good." Sorry, Ginko, he's trying to nuzzle your hand again. Is that steam or tears on his face? Hard to tell.

He might feel kind of bad about taking so long if it weren't for the fact that soaking a little longer than necessary could probably benefit Joker. Better to be totally sure he's cured.

Ginko can't help but smile at Joker's mumbled response, unnecessary nuzzling or not. Honestly, that would be sort of cute if it weren't so embarrassing.

...Who is he kidding, it's still cute.

"She was. I'll never know how she kept going through all that." And he kind of wishes he had managed to help out without giving her a goddamn heart attack.

Ginko's brow furrows slightly as he feels the moisture on Joker's cheek, but... no need to make a scene, one way or the other. Instead, under the water, he runs his thumb gently over the spot where Joker's face had been partially petrified. "Seems like your face is about done. How's your leg feeling?"

"Ah..." As if he'd forgotten entirely, Joker kicks his leg through the water a couple of times before groping half-blind with his good hand. It's a little hard to tell, when one's fingers are made out of living wood, but...

"Good, I think. Oh, wait, yeah. That's skin. I think it's skin." A snort into the water. "Three sheets, who knows..."

Ginko snorts, and gently pushes Joker back upright. "C'mon. Sit on the edge of the tub, then we can check it out."

"Yeah, yeah..." Wobbling only a little, he gets upright and takes a breath. Getting onto the edge as he is right now seems like it'll be a mess if he uses his hand, so...

Sorry, Ginko, he's trying to do the flying thing again. Sorry about that water splashing. At... least he's only trying to flap up a little bit?

Oh no that is absolutely not what he had meant. Ginko makes a faintly distressed noise in the back of his throat, then jumps to his feet and grabs Joker's arms.

"--No. No, don't... don't do that. If you don't want to climb out, I can just lift you, okay? That'll be safer."

You mean he grabs Joker arm. Singular. Because that's the only one available, and thus has Joker twisting awkwardly in a way that only a one-arm grab can be. With faintly green water still sticking to one side of his face, he blinks befuddledly at Ginko.

"What?"

Whoops, that could've gone less uncomfortably. Ginko makes sure Joker is standing solidly on the floor of the hot tub before setting his hands on his shoulders to make sure he stays there for the time being.

"I'm sure you remember what happened last time you tried to fly in this kind of condition. Lifting you out has a much lower chance of leaving you stranded in a tree. But I do need you to hold still if I do that."

"....Oh." The way he says it, Joker genuinely had forgotten up until right now. Grimacing with a lot more feeling than he'd normally bother with sober, he reaches up to press his hand against his face.

"Sorry. S'like walkin'- y'know. No thinkin'."

"Yeah, the 'no thinking' was pretty clear."

Snarking aside, though, Ginko waits for Joker to finish his moment of realization. Once he seems to be more settled, he says, "Alright, now hold still."

Then he crouches some, gets his arms around Joker's waist, and hauls him right out of the hot tub.

Oh, Joker certainly holds still... but that might be from the pure shock of actually experiencing a lift from Ginko. Logically, it's not surprising. He's seen Ginko lift all sorts of things while taking care of the menagerie.

Yet knowing is entirely different from the experience, and Joker finds himself stunned into silence as Ginko lifts him straight off of his feet. His own hand hovers awkwardly nowhere in particular, fingers almost near enough to brush against the other man's skin, and his toes curl uncertainly while his feet dangle in the air. Maybe it's the alcohol- yeah, it's definitely the alcohol, right- but he's suddenly extremely aware of how defined Ginko's arms can be with how they press right into his torso.

"Oh," he says after a second, as if he's realized something.

Ginko steps back from the hot tub, focusing on keeping steady and not dropping Joker or anything. It's unlikely that he will, but he'd rather be sure, and there are definitely some puddles around here.

Watching his step as he moves away, however, does give him a few moments longer to become acutely aware of Joker's heartbeat against his chest. That sure wasn't there last time he carried him around - which. Duh. He had been a vampire then.

He turns away from the tub and sets Joker down, gently lowering him to sit on the deck. Seems like a better idea than trying to get someone this drunk to stand upright. "Okay. Let's see that leg."

Even with Ginko's care in setting Joker down, once he's even a little more independent, the stage manager nearly tilts to the side and just barely manages to catch himself with his good hand pressing down against the ground. "Huh?" Oh, right. His leg. Tearing his gaze away from Ginko's arms, he glances down at it.

"....I can wiggle my toes." And, quite clearly thanks to the length of his shorts, it's plain to see that his leg is all flesh now and no stone.

He crouches down next to Joker, giving a small nod as he checks the state of Joker's leg. "That, you can. Looks like you're about done here."

Then he looks over at the state of Joker's everything else, and his mouth quirks slightly. "...Which means you should probably get settled and sleep this off. Who are you staying with?"

"My arse is freezing straight ta the ground," Joker informs him helpfully, which says something about how being drenched in water and out in the middle of winter is a bullshit and questionable idea. He's sure he had something around here, somewhere, like shoes, but who knows where they are now. Things are foggy.

But as for the question... With his odd lolling to the side, Joker glances over to where the tub is. Instead of his usual general smile, his resting expression seems to be a lot more serious... which means any moment now he's going to fall back into his usual bad drunken habits of being miserable.

For now, however, he eventually raises a hand to point straight at one Tyki Mikk. At least, what can be seen of him. He's either sunk into the water or the tub, but hey, that's fine.

"Ah-- yeah, hang on." He leans over to grab his coat from next to the hot tub. There's a bit of slimy water on it from the puddles around the area, but it's mostly dry. Ginko unfolds the coat, shakes it out, and pulls it over Joker's shoulders. At least it's something, but he definitely needs to get inside sooner rather than later.

Then Ginko follows where he's pointing, and... oh dear. Okay, so, dropping him off at his own cabin would mean he's effectively unattended. He could leave him with Doll, but he'd feel bad making her look after her drunk brother when she's supposed to be on vacation...

"...How would you feel about staying with Psi and Tanyuu and me for the night?"

While Ginko may be taller, he can't be that much broader. Regardless, it feels easy to sink into it, and Joker droops his wings so that it's even easier. It's not perfect, still a little cold as his body heat and that of the coat adjust to each other... but it's experienced some benefits from being near the heat of the hot tub. Burrowing into it, Joker curls his fingers into the opening. Yeah. This is better.

His eyes squint open at the offer, blinking a few times as it sinks in. It's easy to tell when it's penetrated through the fog of alcohol. Joker's eyes immediately widen, and his ears flick down in dismay. "Oh no," he mutters, curling his legs closer up to himself- mostly for the heat, partially as a reaction. "Aw, hell, I'd just- I'd go and ruin somethin' that nice."

Ginko blinks, startled for a moment - then leans forward and sets a hand on Joker's shoulder. "You won't ruin anything. We're all your friends; I'm sure they'd rather you be there, where we can keep you safe, than off on your own in this condition."

"But I make ya miserable." Slouching, he leans wearily into Ginko's touch. Really, it's a nice thought, and he knows he'd probably accept in an other condition but this one. Just... "Like with the hunt."

"What?"

Ginko picks up on Joker leaning in, and... okay. Should he just...

He scoots over and puts his arm around Joker's shoulders. Once again, it's sort of a clumsy effort, his wrist on Joker's far shoulder and his hand hanging limply against his arm. Fucking hell. Physical affection was a mistake, but he hopes it's a mistake that will bring Joker some amount of comfort.

"You don't make me or them miserable. The hunt wasn't your fault - the problem was what happened to you, and what... what we had to do." He lets out a quiet breath and looks over at Joker, his ears drooping. "...We all care about you, Joker. And we like being around you."

Edited 2017-12-19 23:28 (UTC)

Faintly, as Ginko seems to fold over every bit of him from his shoulders down into his lungs, Joker wonders how the man can be so warm. Even his scent seems pleasant and reassuring- or is he just thinking of this memory with another one from not that long ago? Either way, Joke slumps against him, taking the lack of space between them as an offer.

"Everythin' is always happenin'," he sighs, words a little wet from deep within his throat. His face, for the time being, seems like it's clear. But only for now. "And I can't give folks better." Turning his head, he nudges his face against Ginko's shoulder with only the faintest thought to make sure he doesn't gorge out his other eye. "And, hell, I'm doin' it again. The talkin'."

"Things happening to you is not your fault," Ginko repeats, his voice quiet and insistent. "You give us plenty as it is." Sometimes too much, but now isn't the time to bring up Joker's workaholic tendencies. "You're a good friend, Joker, whether you believe it or not. That's why we care about you so much to begin with; it's not a mistake or because of what you pretend about yourself or anything like that."

He lets out a breath, somewhere partway to a laugh but not quite getting there. Even through his sweater, he can feel the heat emanating from Joker's face, and he watches the white vapor of his breath dissipate in the air. "Don't worry about that. I don't mind; gives me a chance to clear things up."

That sounds incredibly incorrect to him, on multiple levels. If only his mind were put together right to understand how, and explain it all. But poison and then intoxication do not make for a clear mind, and Joker gives up easier than he'd like. Instead, he just sighs against Ginko's shoulder, curling up a little and the coat falling further about his shoulders.

"You'd worry more if I was on my own like this then, yeah?" he mumbles into Ginko's shirt.

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LONG TAG INCOMING

wraps up in it like a blanket

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