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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"Spoilsport," Lambert says, sighing and making a show of looking put-upon. "Get drunk faster, then, or you're not going to appreciate these either." And with that, he nudges the two paper bags across the table, one for each of them, grin turning distinctly wicked.

The gifts don't require any complicated unwrapping, just opening the bag and peeking inside. For Strange, there's a shirt folded on top of a gray sweater with "ASK ME ABOUT THE PENINSULA" lavishly embroidered in dark purple thread on it. Touching it, it's easy to feel a thicker shape under the fabric; when the hem is flipped up, it reveals a felt appliqué of the peninsula (clearly imitated from one of Strange's strategy books, embroidery marking the topography and all) sewn on the inside. The effect is basically like one of the children's shirts at the caravan, which is probably where Lambert got the idea in the first place.

Childermass's gift is no less ridiculous, though the shirt is at least in a color he's more likely to wear. The sweater under that, however, is not. It's a deep wine red, against which Strange's drawing of Baker from before he evolved has been embroidered in bright, metallic threads the color of the dog's fur. A black bird -- it could be a raven or crow -- flutters over it, outlined in silver thread to stand out against the dark sweater, and the shifting light gives it the illusion of movement.

At the very least, the material the sweaters are made out of is soft and warm to the touch, and the quality of the embroidery makes it pretty obvious it isn't Lambert's work -- but it doesn't change the fact that, well, he spent money (even if it technically wasn't even his own money) on some incredibly silly clothes.

Get drunk faster, don't mind if he does. Strange takes a large swig of his ambrosia, almost draining the glass, before he takes the bag from Lambert to look inside. And hot damn does he feel a bit called out on both of those shirts.

"Well, you've got me figured out," he teases. Strange takes the shirts out one at a time, showing Childermass and Lambert each of them, before Strange leans over to see what ridiculousness the other man's gotten.

When Strange looks over at Childermass's sweater, his face just goes pale for a moment before he quickly tries to regain his composure. Because yep, he recognizes that artwork, that is 100% an attempt at drawing a Growlithe from one of his notes. Strange isn't sure what he's more horrified by: the fact that it's on a sweater or the fact that Lambert actually kept that drawing in the first place. Oh God, and somebody else had to have seen that drawing, there's no way Lambert is talented or patient enough to do this embroidery himself.

Strange sure as shit isn't going to tell Childermass that the drawing's his terrible handiwork though. Instead, he busies himself by taking off his coat and slipping on that peninsula sweater over his button-up shirt, waistcoat and cravat. He is 100% going to wear this dumb thing for the rest of them getting drunk. He also looks stupid as hell at the moment but doesn't really seem to care.

"This is actually comfortable," Strange admits, surprised by the fact that Lambert thought of things like 'basic comfort' in his attempt at giving his friends grief via clothing.

'Get drunk faster', what an awful order to give, but he'll make the effort. For the holiday, if for nothing else, and hope that no one with one of those ridiculous cameras is around to document him in a bloody stupid pirate hat.

That, however, will have to wait until after the shirts. He can't help but give an amused huff at Strange's before taking his own out of the bag Lambert shoved his way. He takes them out one at a time, as well, though he doesn't waste much time showing them off rather than shaking them out to read them himself. The belief that he'd need to be drunk to find these funny turns out to be entirely false because the first one earns itself a quieter chuckle, but the second one? A full out laugh.

"What is that?" Oh, no, he knows. He can tell that's meant to be a growlithe. "An orange potato?" And since he's assuming the bird is a raven (for his own sake and everyone else's), he chuckles some more and folds it up again, along with the other shirt. "If I ever needed a standard to fly, I think I would give them this to base it off of."

"Of course it's comfortable! What's that supposed to mean?" Lambert leans over to punch Strange in the shoulder and scowls, but it's only to avoid looking too pleased or looking too long at Childermass when he laughs out loud like that. But there's no hiding the pleasure in his voice as he responds, grinning wide and cheeks flushed.

"They did a pretty good job, considering what they had to work with." With that, he's digging into a pocket, coming up with a folded-up piece of paper scribbled over with his stiff, blocky handwriting. He brandishes it at both magicians with a flourish, then begins to unfold it to reveal the scratchy pencil original in all its spiky, lead pencil glory.

Strange gives Lambert a shithead smirk as he takes that punch in the shoulder. It's teasing, that's what it is. Him giving Lambert shit about the sweater because Lambert is definitely giving him shit by getting the sweater in the the first place. Besides, he can take it. Though that smirk quickly fades as he sees Lambert pull a folded piece of paper out of his pocket.

A lot of the notes on the paper are in Lambert's handwriting but there's a few near the drawing itself that are in a different handwriting entirely. The problem here is that those notes are unmistakably in Strange's handwriting. It doesn't take a genius to realize that if the notes are Strange's, the potato dog drawing might be Strange's as well and really, he doesn't particularly like the idea of enduring another round of teasing about his inability to draw.

"I'll take that," he interjects as he reaches over, trying to snatch the original from Lambert's hands.

Any other time, Childermass wouldn't be involved in fighting over a piece of paper, but since Strange inexplicitly upset over it, well. Well, well, if they're out here to have fun, he may as well get his digs in at the other magician while it's open season.

Strange goes for the paper and so does Childermass, dropping his sweater to lurch forward out of his seat and make a grab of his own.

If it had only been Strange, Lambert could have played a comfortable game of keep-away and had a good laugh, but he isn't expecting Childermass of all people to lunge for the paper as well. The sudden movement out of his peripheral vision makes him instinctively dodge sideways to move away from it ... except he's been happily drinking, he's sitting down, and his mind is anywhere but a fight.

While this means neither magician gets the paper just by grabbing for it, it also means Lambert clumsily topples backwards, landing on the floor with a thump that startles a yelp out of him. The impact is enough to make him let the drawing go, and the paper spins through the air, drifting with a lazy disregard for the chaos it's caused.

Strange can't help but laugh for a moment as Lambert wipes out and eats floor. It's nothing mean-spirited, just Strange teasing Lambert because that's what friends do and the only thing wounded is Lambert's pride. However, this means Strange is briefly distracted for a moment as the paper flies through the air.

There's a brief grin on his face before Strange realizes oh shit, the paper's still out of his grasp. He makes another grab for it, but it's futile: unless Childermass stops paying attention as well, Childermass is probably going to get that paper.

He is, especially since there's a flicker of magic and shadows and he's getting over the table, down to the floor to snatch the paper, in the quickest way possible. Which is to say, as a crow. That requires infinitely less leaping over furniture. Of course, that means the damn magician-turned-bird now has Strange's drawing in his beak and of course he's going to cock his head to one side, beady black eye gleaming and focused in that too clever way that corvids have about them.

He doesn't take off once he has it, just standing in place and waiting to see what the other two do next. Almost like he's taunting them or something...

Lambert, legs still hooked over his seat, looks offended by the laughter for all of a second before he hoists himself back up to sit properly at the table. Unlike Strange, he doesn't have any particular incentive to snatch the paper back, so he simply leans his elbow against the edge and picks up his drink again, directing his words at Strange instead.

"See, this is why I tell you that you need more exercise." He uses one hand to pour another generous measure of ambrosia into his mug ... and the other all too casually reaches out to attempt to give the crow a clumsy pet down the head and back.

"Exercise doesn't do a thing when the other person cheats," Strange points out the obvious. Birds have wings buddy, what the hell could he do then? Still, two can play at the dumb shapeshifting game.

With a wry smile on his face, Strange turns into smoke. The purple smoke lingers where he stood for a moment before trailing over towards Childermass (and Lambert by proxy). Strange doesn't really have a plan here. Get in Childermass's face? Make him cough so he drops the paper? Can birds even cough to begin with? All he knows is that smoke in Childermass's face will be annoying, ergo that's what Strange will do: try to float around Childermass's bird face in an annoying manner.

Pity he's forgotten that he's slightly poisonous. Thanks, alcohol.

Good god, Strange can do that with his entire body now? Childermass doesn't even waste the time needed to make an offended noise at Lambert's petting, instead straight up just taking off once the hand has left his back. It's... a very short flight.

See, someone didn't take a little fact like body mass into account when changing into something significantly smaller than a fairly tall human man.

Childermass has had a cup of wine and some of the ambrosia at this point.

What does that equal?

A crow taking off, flying a short distance extremely awkwardly, and then landing poorly on the next table over, tripping over his own wings as he tries to cross it. The silver lining is he's evaded the purple smoke (for now). The more rusty and sharp lining is, uh, well, he probably can't take off again, as a few false starts send him tumbling over an edge and onto a chair's seat instead.

Lambert just laughs like an asshole when Childermass takes off and takes an awkward spill. Now that is hilarious, and all this over a shitty drawing of a dog?

Strange being smoke puts a cramp in the whole 'getting drunk together' thing (alcohol evaporates, after all) so it's time to put a stop to that. Lambert waits to see if he'll follow after Childermass first, but whether he does or doesn't, as soon as he's taken another deep gulp of his drink, he's raising his other hand and waving his fingers in a lazy gesture.

Most of the time, Lambert can cast Yrden in his sleep. Most of the time, Lambert hasn't been spending hours trying to learn a different way of casting a spell that comes second nature. Meaning when the purple runes meant to force Strange back into corporeality appear on the floor, there's something subtly different about it, a glowing ball of purple light hovering lightly in the center.

A ball of purple light that suddenly shoots a streak of crackling force at smoke-Strange. If it makes contact, not only is Strange going to find himself suddenly corporeal, he's also going to find himself flung backwards.

Strange lingers for a bit as Childermass takes a tumble. Well then. That's unexpected. Bird went down and went down hard. However, Strange lingering around for a bit means that he's a sitting duck and perfect target for Lambert's spell.

There's a brief moment of shock as Strange realizes that Yrden's been cast and a brief moment of confusion because he hasn't seen that purple ball before. As such, the spell hits him right in the chest. Only a moment later Strange turns back to solid form as he's flung head over heels. He hits a chair, legs draped over the chair, chest on the floor, looking awkward and gangly as hell as he looks over at Lambert with surprise.

"That's new."

All this over a shitty drawing of a dog, that's right, although Childermass had meant to return it after making Strange chase him around a bit. That plan is super dead right now, though, because he's already dropped the drawing in his efforts to try and right himself.

He does manage to roll off of his back at some point, only it also means rolling straight off of the chair he landed in and to the floor with a dull thump of feathers and a plaintive caw.

Yeah, whatever Lambert and Strange are doing over there? Crow ain't paying attention. Crow has bigger problems right now.

"Yeah," Lambert says, staring dazedly at the still-glimmering light in the center of the spell. In hindsight, pre-gaming on an empty stomach with the intention of being able to get comfortably drunk at the same pace as his friends was not the brightest idea he's ever had.

"That is new." The thump followed by a caw draws his attention, though, and he laughs, louder than he should. Seeing Childermass kiss floor is hilarious, though the magician's not like to see it that way.

"What, can't remember you're not supposed to have feathers?" he quips. Ah, but he sees that bit of paper has gotten loose again. Only, it is so very far, and he really doesn't want to take another spill ... so instead, he shuts his eyes and concentrates, and Celandine pops out of thin air and teaches everyone in the vicinity something that they hadn't known before (or at least Lambert certainly hadn't) --

"Lambert," Celandine says, with a plaintive hiccup and giggle, stumbling over her own paws as she trots towards the fallen paper. "This isn't what I'm for."

-- daemons can, apparently, get drunk too.

Edited 2017-12-31 00:48 (UTC)

Considering that he isn't a bird and didn't pregame, Strange might be the most sober out of everyone at the moment: a terrifying thought, as he's also the one standing up and trying to become less tangled with the chair.

He's on his feet as Celandine is summoned...and as they learn just how drunk the poor polecat is. "We're all lucky I can't summon Siobhan," Strange points out as he clumsily walks over towards the paper as well. Celandine is rocky because she's drunk, Strange is rocky due to a lack of coordination.

"We've an inebriated bird and an inebriated polecat, the last thing we need is a drunk seal." At least, he thinks Childermass is drunk. His inability to bird happened really fast.

Inability to bird and to human, apparently, because a polecat and a looming man both stumbling towards him is only going to put a drunk crow in a bad mood. Whoever gets there first is getting snapped at, although accuracy is about as against him right now as walking in a straight line is against the other two...

Edited 2017-12-31 02:36 (UTC)

"Too bad," Lambert answers lazily. "I would have liked to see her try to get on your lap."

Drunk or not, Celandine is a swift-moving target. Her fur puffs up as the beak closes onto air and she snatches the paper up in her paws and retreats.

"You're supposed to be fun when you're drunk," she scolds the bird as though it's a personal offense, swaying slightly and shaking her head.

Foiled by a bird and a rat. Still, Childermass didn't get the paper so Strange is calling it a win. Walking over towards the table, Strange pours himself a large glass of the sunlight ambrosia and downs a good chunk of it in one gulp.

Hey, he needs to get more drunk, this will work. Though really, the fact that Childermass seems insistent on remaining a bird means that there's one less person to bother...which makes it a bit less fun.

Though, there's an idea forming at the back of Strange's mind. "If you can't do that...turning back thing you normally do, then flutter over here and I'll break your transformation myself." It's said in a 'duh, Childermass' sort of tone as Strange is entirely oblivious to the fact that Childermass might not want to be a person and definitely wouldn't want to be smooched.

Celandine's only response is an aggravated caw, whereas Strange's is... Childermass trying to take off again. He makes it into the air, but only long enough to land heavily on another table and startle a few of the caravan worker's gathered there for their own after hours drinking.

They'd been watching the three with growing amusement since the rush for the stupid drawing. Well, right up until a friggin' crow knocks over one of their drinks, anyway. Now there's a little less amusement.

It's not until the crow knocks over a whole bunch of drinks and kind of seems to not generally not be acting Childermass-like that it occurs to Lambert that Childermass might not entirely be in the building. Celandine, as always, beats him to it.

"I don't think he can understand us," she giggles, curling in on herself.

Lambert gives the put-upon caravan workers his best grin, reaching blindly for the sweater Childermass left on the table and glancing at Strange. "If I catch him, you really think you can turn him back?"

To Strange's credit, he comes to that realization at the same time. This isn't Childermass screwing around while somehow stuck, this is...what, bird brain? Bird mind? This is probably the transformation spell messing with him because that's a thing that happens with transformation spells. He's halfway considering a lecture on this before Strange realizes that would be a very Norrell thing of him and thankfully bites that impulse down.

But seriously, was he the only person who learned something from his day as a cat, transformation magic could mess with one's mind! Good lord, you two!

At Lambert's questing, Strange scoffs. The man runs in ego, he is 100% certain he can turn Childermass back.

"Of course I can," Strange answers, without hesitation. This isn't like the bicorn, he knows this magic. How many times in the past few months has he had to deal with Childermass going bird and being annoying that way? A lot, Strange knows the spell, he's confident he can break it. "But we'll need to catch him for the spell to have full effect," said with a nod at that sweater.

Well, it's not like he's going anywhere else right now. Thankfully, he settles down on the caravan worker's table without knocking over anything else, mostly due in part of the workers grabbing their shit and backing off. They're no stranger to magic gone awry and they aren't about to get caught up in it.

Still, because of that, he goes from eyeing the retreating workers balefully to eyeing Lambert and Strange, instead, since they're suddenly the closest people making noise all of the sudden.

"Like the hunt then," Lambert says, and because there's a lot that could mean, he clarifies: "Keep his eyes on you."

Sweater over his arm, he seems to amble off aimlessly, but he's really just circling around the crow's table so he can come up behind him. Strange's distraction doesn't have to be all that long or all that effective -- a moment of inattention is all Lambert needs to try and throw the sweater over the bird and swaddle him up in the soft material.

The funny thing is, this isn't even the first time he can remember doing this, even if he knows that never happened -- not really. At least there isn't a broken wing to worry about this time.

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cue benny hill music

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