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.

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There's a brief but uncomfortable pause. The words used to fall so easily from his lips, but it's hard to feel the same enthusiasm for his work that he used to. Finding out what YoRHa did to him killed that enthusiasm, big time.

"I'm a Scanner, so my primary function is scouting enemy lines and supporting our war against the machine lifeforms. My secondary function is gathering information regarding the old world so we can better understand humans."

But he might not go back. He doesn't know. A part of him wants to. To return to what he knows. To return to his directive to serve mankind. A part of him wants to let them all rot.

(Except 2B, of course.)

"Us androids are created to serve mankind, so our aim is to win the war and prepare the Earth for humans to return to their homeland. Once that's done..." We'll enter a new age of peace. He'd been excited about the prospect of being jobless once. Now the thought is terrifying. "...I guess there won't be any need for androids."

Something about the way he describes his life tugs at a part of Lavellan that isn't given over to her goal, to simply making it through one day to face the next. What does one do, when you've outlived your purpose?

The ghost of her hand twinges, and for a moment a sympathetic expression crosses her face. Lavellan has avoided answering that question for herself as long as possible -- perhaps 9S will find an easier answer. After all, he's young, less set in his ways. It isn't as if he has only ever wanted to be one thing, only to find it based on lies, pulled out from under him by a man she thought--

It doesn't matter.

"Can you not find some other purpose?" Lavellan says, with a small shrug. "You fight a war on behalf of the humans, and yet gain nothing in return?" It seems almost like slavery. Perhaps she has more in common with him than she would like to admit ever sharing with someone who looks only barely into their teens.

That's what Cole had told him. To find a new purpose, one that would make him happy. But the truth is that serving humans does make him happy. It's just...

Well, Cole's right that he wouldn't be happy if he went back home now.

9S shakes his head, she doesn't understand. "I was created to serve. I'm not born in the sense you are," he's assuming she's born, given the biological nature of her being, "but you could say I was 'born' a soldier. So fighting on behalf of my human creators is reward enough."

The joy of serving is what he gets in return.

"But finding another purpose is..." 9S wracks his brain, trying to find a way that would satisfactorially explain the situation. He doesn't know if Lavellan's experience is anything like Strange's experience of 'growing up', but... "For us androids, we're created with purpose in mind, serving from the moment we are 'born'. All my functions are designed specifically for my role in the war. I didn't learn how to scout. I am a scout. Does that make sense?"

The inherent magical nature of elves doesn't influence how they're born, at least, not anymore. And if that were ever different, it's something that Lavellan is ultimately unaware of beyond what snatches of knowledge she gleaned from thousand year old memories -- of being kin to spirits, and of shedding bodies. And yet when he speaks he reminds her of spirits, with one purpose and one goal.

Solas might have something to say about it, about the importance of choice and free will. But Lavellan isn't Solas, so she nods as she accepts his words. "Born a soldier -- how old are you?" For he's a teenager to her, and even then she has a hard time wrapping her mind around someone sending children out to fight.

But she tries, and nods again. "It does. I can't say I know the exact feeling, but I know a similar one." For she was born a mage, that is what she is, and for the Dalish that meant she would be First, and Keeper. She had to learn -- unlike him, apparently -- but it was what she was, what she always considered she was.

At the age question, 9S' expression immediately sours. Age had never been a problem back home, but after the ribbing he got because he's the youngest in the Carnival, he's more than a little touchy about it.

"Why is age so important? It's not like I'm biological and go through a period where I need to cared for by adults. I'm fully functional from the moment I'm alive."

Can't he be judged on his deeds?? If he knew that people would respect him less because of his age, he would've lied about it during that public poll!

His dislike takes Lavellan by surprise, and she tries her best to explain it. "You don't look like you are," she points out, with a small shrug. "Whether you're capable of functioning independently or not, the first response isn't to look at you and think 'fully functional', but 'this child needs guidance and protection'." Can they really be blamed for doing so? Or think that he's much too young to be fighting at first glance.

Which makes her wonder. "If age does not matter, why were you created in the image of a child?"

"What? I'm not--! A child is smaller!"

A child is someone like Reira, not him!

But... it's true that he's not as... bulky as the male models in the Resistance. The appearance of muscle seemed kind of pointless to him; they're androids! But now he feels self conscious! Maybe he'd be taken more seriously if he looked more like human males in some of the video data they uncovered...?

9S kicks at the snow with his boot, pouting. "I don't know why I'm modelled this way. But all the other Scanners have the same build. Maybe it's because we're not combat units." He quickly adds, "But I can fight." One of the few Scanners who can. "So I don't need to be protected."

Says the guy with the skin melted off his legs. His hands, too, though those are covered by his gloves.

"I didn't say you couldn't," Lavellan says in an attempt to pacify him, holding out her hand to calm him. "But someone your age fighting isn't a common sight." Even in Thedas, which Lavellen thinks is saying something -- after all, she's fought demons and Templars with rocks growing out of them, and Darkspawn, and whatever else it's thrown at her. But no children. Never children.

The kick brings her attention to his legs, and she frowns further. "It will be an uphill battle when you're surrounded by people unfamiliar with 'androids'." Something he no doubt knows. "But your... function?" Is that the right word? Must be. "Is clearly not determined by anything else other than what you were programmed to do. It may not be impossible to change that."

Which is hypocritical coming from Lavellan -- not knowing what to do now that everything she thought she knew had been taken from her, exposed as a lie. But she's always been a hypocrite.

He thought he was supposed to have free will. What a joke. He can think all he wants, but when it comes down to it, he can't bring himself to hurt a human, no matter how much he wants to. And even his thoughts would slide away from the idea. And even though he looked, he can't untangle that part of programming from the rest of himself.

If he were to purge that function from himself, he would lose too much of his personality data. Then would he really be himself any more?

He doesn't respond initially; it's different for androids. So he asks a different question, calmer, "How old do you think I am?"

This isn't the first time he's gotten grief over his age from a pointy eared humanoid.

What a question. Lavellan doesn't answer for a moment, looking him over as she tries to come up with an honest answer. Not one that will settle his nerves or his temper -- that's not the sort of person she is, for better or worse.

"Not old enough to have gotten these," she says, gesturing to the tattoos on her face, "if you were Dalish. One is an adult when one can sit through the process without crying." But he's not Dalish, or from Thedas, so Lavellan tries to put it into terms he'd understand. "Over ten years, but not yet fifteen?" That seemed a good enough guess, but where he fell into that, she doesn't know.

So younger than Rita, huh...? Is that how old people view him as? He doesn't understand why age is so important to biological beings, though. It's not as if personality comes from age!

Maybe it's best if he stays silent on his actual age; Lambert had been bully enough thinking he's 3 years old. Imagine the reaction if he said it was actually closer to 3 months.

"I bet I could," he says loftily, folding his arms. Not that he knows what's involved in getting those markings. "I've never cried for anything."

She pauses, frowns, and then looks at him once more. "Did that not hurt?" She asks, gesturing to his legs. If he hasn't cried for anything, then perhaps he's simply not able to feel pain. Like the dwarven golems were rumored to be like -- created with a single minded purpose. That, at least she understands.

But if he did feel pain, and didn't cry when that happened? Well. Lavellan remembers the ache in her arm, the way it had been mangled beyond recognition before it had disintegrated as Solas left through the eluvian. A final parting gift, Lavellan supposed. She had cried then, near the end, as the pain of it had nearly overtaken her, as the frustration and the loss of everything had crashed in around her as the mirror went black.

it wasn't something she was proud of, no, but no one was there to have seen her. Just her and the statues Solas had left in his wake, the angry, twisted faces of Qunari forever immortalized in stone.

"I do feel pain, if that's what you're asking."

Granted, by human standards, it takes a lot to really injure him in the first place. The swords used by androids mimic the human weaponry featured in many of the records from the old world, but they're sharp enough to slice through metal with little issue. They had to be, when the enemy was also made from metal like themselves.

But unlike machines, androids had a fascimile of nerves. Androids would feel pain if you ripped off their arm. Machines wouldn't.

9S shifts from foot to foot. "It did hurt. It hurt as much as you would hurt if you hugged a white-hot flame with your entire body." With few other choices available to him, he had no other option but to strangle Rita to death while she tried to burn him alive. "But I'm a soldier." He feels like he needs to emphasise that point. "We have to be able to put aside our pain to do what has to be done."

Lavellan is absolutely going to continue asking questions, if only because everything that 9S is is new and fascinating to her -- but she listens to what he says with a small, accepting nod. "Spoken like a true soldier. And I doubt I'd much resemble you if that were the case. They'd probably have to chop off another of my limbs." So at least she accepts that from him now. She pauses, however, and presses a finger to her lips in thought.

The golems were something she'd only heard about, never met. The Warden had, but she'd gone and left them all to find a cure for the Calling, and Lavellan was left with only a letter and no one to talk to; a shame, for she could have used a fellow Dalish elf for support during the more difficult times. But that meant no one to answer her questions about the golems beyond Leliana, and Lavellan hadn't bothered. Now she wishes she had.

"It's just--" Hm. "It seems a cruel thing, to make you look so young and capable of feeling things like pain, and then make sure that the only thing you can do is fight." But if it was what he did, did that truly matter?

Finally, some kind of respect!! Though he does wonder about the arm; Taako had reacted pretty poorly when 9S had suggested cutting off his wrist to solve his problem. Apparently biological beings can't just reattach limbs! Who knew?

So... A war wound, then? Hm. He files that away as something to ask later.

"Pain. Loneliness. Happiness. Joy. We feel emotions in both mind and body." He places his hand over where his heart would be... if he had one. "If I didn't feel pain, I wouldn't be much different from a machine."

Lavellan has enough presence of mind to keep from saying but you are a machine, and instead considers this. "I don't think anyone would argue that suffering through pain and emotional turmoil is a welcome part of being alive and real," and she knows a man who'd have argued that even if they were, if it wasn't the right kind of people doing the suffering it wasn't real. At least he'd changed that opinion, a little.

"But nor do I think we would be the same without it." So they made him as real as they could, and then asked him to fight. Lavellan is not sure that's fair -- he doesn't have the choice to pick, but they made him to be as human as any shemlen. In fact, she's certain that makes it worse.

9S smiles, though it's a little strained at the corners. Yeah, that's right. Though he wishes being alive didn't hurt so much.

"We try to be like our human creators, but our physiology is different so we can't ever be exactly like them." He gestures to Lavellan's lost arm. "An injury like that is trypically easily fixed for us."

In fact, she's the first person he's seen to sport a missing limb. Minus the time he cut Taako's hand off, of course. But a zebra reattached it so it was fine.

"How'd that happen?"

Wouldn't that just be frustrating? To know there was something you were supposed to be like, but couldn't ever achieve because of who you were? It's not similar enough to Solas's expectations of the People that weren't his own, no, but she knows the feeling of falling short of someone's expectations for what one is. It itches and it burns and there is nothing she can do to prove to him that they are worth saving.

Not yet, at any rate.

The question about her arm takes her aback, but it's one she'd have to get used to. Back in Thedas, everyone seemed to understand or know why and how she lost it. Explaining it, well. It was more difficult than she thought it was going to be. "I was dying," she says, simply. "It needed to be removed to save my life." Which is the truth of it, if not the entire truth.

Edited 2018-01-03 15:42 (UTC)

Aren't all biological beings dying from the moment they're born? But, he supposes it must've been something more immediate.

"Wow, that's lucky."

Probably not the expected reaction to that kind of news. But his train of thought is soon explained.

"Trading an arm for your life? That's not a bad trade, considering you only get one life."

The laugh that pulls from her is sharp and biting, perhaps not the response 9S was expecting from her after calling her lucky. Lucky. As if her life hadn't been one long streak of bad luck enough to wrap around to being lucky again. Varric argued so, and Lavellan finds it so hard to believe in.

"No, it isn't a bad trade. But it was-- more, I'm afraid." She lost her arm, the Inquisition, her faith, her history, her culture. And her lover, although he'd never been it in such a traditional sense. But it all crumbled along with her arm, falling away; turned to ash in her mouth and on the ground.

But it isn't his place to deal with Thedas, or her own baggage, so Lavellan attempts to move the conversation onwards. "I am grateful to him for saving my life, something I hope he knows." After all is said and done.

9S watches silently at first. He recognises that sort of laugh. It's the laugh of someone who's drowning in loss and despair. It's a mirror of his own laugh when he left the Prince's ball, emotionally broken and beaten. So the arm wasn't just about the arm, though he can't figure out what.

He doesn't know the history behind this arm. He wants to find out. But he senses now isn't the time.

He hesitates. They're not really close and don't have the same kind of understanding he had with Cole. So he bites back some of his words -- I know being alive is full of pain -- and settles for, "Maybe he does." Who is this he? But also... "Is there something stopping you from telling him?"

Maybe he does, but Lavellan will never know. She pushes back her hair from her face with a hand, and hums slightly. There are so many things stopping her, but she settles on perhaps the easiest to explain, the one that does not leave her open and raw to more questions than she feels like answering.

"He left, and I was in no shape to follow him. Not that he wanted me to," she muses, her lips twitching up wryly for a brief moment. "But we are at odds, the two of us -- I doubt he'd give me the chance to say so without fleeing like the coward he is if we were ever to meet again." For he runs from her in her dreams, although he dares to invade them in the first place.

She is torn, she is always torn -- between the Inquisition and her clan, between her duty and her desire, between loving Solas and wishing to wrap her hand around his neck and strangling him for all that he's done. It hardly matters now, though, and she shakes her head.

"But that is in the past, for now." And that is where she is content to leave it.

That's so weird. It almost sounds like whoever saved Lavellan was her enemy. Now why would someone like that bother to save her? Then again, 2B and him did help out Pascal every now and again even though Pascal and his villagers are all machines...

A small, wry grin curls at the corner of his mouth. It's in the past, huh?

"Well, there's plenty to see and the people here are kind. It's easier to," not necessarily move forward, but, "put things out of your mind for a while."

He gestures to the squirrel or swan ice sculpture as an example of a distraction.

"Anyway, are you with the Carnival? Or are you one of the other world travellers stopping here?"

"I'll need the break," she admits, eyeing the ice sculptures in question with a wary eye. Still, any distraction is a good distraction, and she focuses on the question he poses to her. "I joined the Carnival, yes. Signed a contract and everything." Although she's coming to understand not everyone comes here willingly. And what a trip that must be, to suddenly find oneself almost enslaved to a place as strange as this.

"What about yourself?" For he doesn't seem to be as changed as most of the people she's come to consider being part of the Carnival are.

Of course, 9S wants to find out what her contract is. But he's realised that some people -- Solas -- are less forthcoming about it than others. Given that she's new, he'll have plenty of time to ask.

"Yeah, I'm with the Carnival on contract, too. Working as a scout and," ugh, "repairs."

⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

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