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

Sorry Rita, Strange notices that it's a one-sided contract and can't help but raise an eyebrow. He sets the quill down on the table as he looks over at her. "I accept. However, it's only fair that you answer any questions truthfully as well."

Strange is annoyingly open. Him trying to answer any questions without lying wouldn't really have as much of an effect as someone who's a bit more closed off would. Besides, a part of him wants to see how Rita would react and push against the bonds of a contract.

Rita tenses slightly at having her terms turned around on her... but she relents. "Fine. But if you ask anything stupid, you better be ready for the consequences."

Despite the threat, Rita generally considers herself an honest person. She never really lies about anything. If Strange is hoping for something juicy, he'll probably be disappointed.

With that settled, she sits in one of the chairs by the table and leans over the surface to watch Strange write the contract.

It takes about five minutes for Strange to write the contract before he pushes it over to Rita. This is an exercise as much for himself as it is to figure out the magic. It's no secret that Strange found himself on the end of a few losing contracts, what with Portland and Frost and canon and okay, pretty much every fae contract he's dealt with. He might as well practice writing something out now.

The contract itself is fairly defined and wordy, even if it's just for a simple agreement. For an hour starting at the signature of the contract, both Jonathan Strange and Rita Mordio must answer any question asked by either Jonathan Strange or Rita Mordio in an honest and truthful manner. This contract does not apply to other people asking either of the signed parties questions and after the period of an hour has passed, the two may lie and refuse to answer each other's questions to their hearts content. And hey, Strange's handwriting is legible! What a shock!

There are two spaces at the bottom for them to sign. Strange hasn't signed yet, instead giving Rita a chance to look it over before she signs. "You don't need ink to sign it or make any changes," Strange explains. "Just write and the magic will provide the ink itself."

From blood. Bit creepy.

Rita pulls the contract closer to herself, reading it over twice to confirm that any potential loopholes have been closed. It seems to be in order, so she grabs the quill and signs her full name in one of the provided spaces.

There's a faint feeling of magic at work as she signs, but it's not clear what it is. It's only when she's already put her name down that she notices a familiar smell from the paper. Rita wrinkles her nose, then turns sharply to face Strange.

"Is that blood!?"

Strange doesn't say anything. Instead, he takes the paper from Rita and signs his name on it. There we go, the contract is made. And, now that he's signed it, he starts to feel an odd little compulsion at the back of his mind, something which he can only assume is the contract taking shape. He delays for another second before he finds himself answering, without even thinking,

"It is," he admits in a matter of fact tone. "The quill magically writes using the blood of whoever's holding it."

Something which doesn't seem to rattle Strange all that much. Okay, so it uses blood. Plenty of magic does the same! That's his justification and he's sticking to it! "Does that bother you?"

The moment he signs, Rita also feels something weird, but the feeling quickly fades as her focus shifts to Strange's answer.

"Yeah, it bothers me," Rita blurts out in response. "It's creepy. Don't you think you could've warned me first?"

"I could have," said with a little shrug, only a moment after Rita's question, "and I probably should have. But I didn't think you'd agree to this if you knew blood was involved."

And at that, Strange gives Rita a very pointed look. It obviously is bothering her and (at least in his mind) she obviously wouldn't have agreed to do this if she knew about the whole 'write the contract in your blood' bit. Not telling someone a creepy detail is a perfectly valid and sometimes needed strategy.

Rita grits her teeth. So he kept that bit from her on purpose. She's not impressed.

"Well, I sure would have thought twice before signing!" she huffs at him, folding her arms and turning her head away. Would she have still done it if she knew...? Possibly. Rita's desire to learn about new kinds of magic could very well overpower her disgust... but she would have been more cautious, to be sure.

"Anyway, the contract should be in effect now." Rita hasn't considered that their exchange just now might have been affected by it. "What do you want to do, take turns asking questions or something?" Not like they're likely to stick to any sort of plan once they start.

Strange is still standing his ground, not trying to seem rattled or annoyed by Rita huffing and frowning. But this, this is entirely why he wanted to keep the blood thing secret in the first place!

Still, she isn't leaving so that's at least a plus. Strange frowns for a moment before answering. "I suppose so. That would probably be easiest."

And, without waiting for Rita to say anything else, he asks his first question (which thankfully, is a bit of an easy one). "What do you think about our stay at the moon so far?"

Rita raises an eyebrow, surprised he went for such a harmless question.

"It's... nice, I guess." She struggles a little with the word nice, but other than that, her words flow easily. "The food's good, the cabin's cozy, the market has interesting stuff... I don't normally do vacations, but the relaxing atmosphere helps me focus, so I've made a lot of progress on my book." Rita apparently can't take a vacation without dedicating a portion of it to working, but that's what relaxes her.

It's her turn to ask something. She was going to aim for something difficult to answer, but with Strange's first question being more or less agreeable, she opts for something similar instead. "What've you been up to since we came here?"

"Getting drunk and high mostly," Strange admits, without even thinking about it. There's a brief wince on his face because he knows Rita's going to judge him about this, but he just continues talking anyway. "Though I have been learning how to sew as well. One of my presents for someone else involves sewing and I've got no idea how to actually do it in the first place."

There we go, it's something that doesn't make Strange sound like he's reverted entirely back to the useless bachelor days of his youth. Though, Rita's very clinical answer in comparison to his does make Strange wonder.

"There's plenty of alcohol. Have you gotten drunk at all while we're here?" he asks the literal teenager.

Rita's definitely judging him, and it shows in the disapproving look on her face.

When he asks her if she's been drunk, Rita starts to shake her head and say no, because really, what a stupid question. Of course she hasn't been drinking. But the word that ends up coming out of her mouth is different.

"Once."

Her eyes widen in surprise at her own response, and her face flushes. There's a pause, and then she hastily clarifies the answer. "I-I wasn't doing it for fun, it's because Lambert put all that alcohol into the poison cure!" So it's his fault, really.

Well, it seems the contract works better than expected. Strange looks downright delighted as Rita's eyes widen in surprise and she goes flush. He's not amused by the fact that she got drunk: he's amused by the fact that she got drunk and she's so embarrassed about it.

Like the garbage friend he is, he finds that embarrassing point and just keeps prodding at it.

"Well go on," he badgers, grinning up a storm and taking full advantage of the fact that sucks to be you Rita, you've got to answer this now, "what all did you get up to?"

There's a flicker of anger and indignation in Rita's eyes and her jaw clenches... but within seconds, her mouth is moving almost as if it has a mind of its own.

"I stayed in the cabin, with 9S. We ended up talking a bunch... about how he feels about me, what happened back at the ball... stupid things. At some point, I probably hit my head on something." 9S. She hit her head on 9S. It didn't hurt much at the time, but she definitely felt it the next morning.

Rita's babbling comes to an abrupt end as she slams her hands on the table and stands, toppling her chair over and leaving it to clatter on the floor behind her. "Watch it, old man!" she snaps at him, reaching over to grab a piece of his shirt. "Keep asking questions like that, and you'll be sorry!"

Her face is a few shades redder than it was moments ago.

Strange looks absolutely delighted as Rita starts talking. He knows a bit about what happened with 9S at the ball, as Strange and 9S had a conversation about it while Rita and the rest were stuck underground. 2B was there, the two of them talked, 9S learned about the fate of 2B and of his world, and 9S and Strange had a solid bonding session about how it really sucks to hallucinate your loved ones. All of this is to say that he has no idea what went on between 9S and Rita but if it makes her blush this much, Strange desperately wants to know what went on between 9S and Rita.

He lets her grab his shirt and yank him forward but that big, shithead smirk of a smile hasn't left Strange's face yet. Thank you Ringmaster, this gift is awesome. "What happened between you and 9S at the ball?"

It doesn't occur to him that the contract went both ways: if Rita wanted, she could make him spill the beans on something just as ridiculous and embarrassing. It also doesn't occur to him that he's heading on a one-way train to getting punched at the moment.

The second he asks, Rita swings her fist into his cheek. But that doesn't stop her from answering.

"We danced, and he said a bunch of things that sounded like a love confession, but maybe wasn't, I don't know, but then he just ran off without warning..." And it was only when Rita was completely drunk that she decided to confront him over all of it, which probably didn't help.

Once she's said enough to qualify as an answer, Rita shakes her head. "Ugh... you've got some nerve! Haven't you done anything embarrassing in the past few weeks!?"

Worth it. Strange gets punched in the face but he's still grinning like an idiot as Rita explains what happens. There are times when she seems like the hot shot blastia specialist that he knows she is...but there are moments like these where Rita is such a teenager that it's kind of hilarious.

Still, she asked him a question as well. So, still grinning like an idiot (though backing up from Rita slightly), Strange answers,

"Lambert had to deal with me when I was high, one of the caravan workers and I were drunk to the point of sickness, a few of my coworkers and I were drunk to the point of sickness, I got into a snowball fight, fell off Childermass's dog, and was picked up by Tyki's tentacles. Oh, and I kissed multiple things to break multiple spells."

It seems Strange has been a parade of embarrassment.

Rita's grip on Strange's shirt gradually loosens until she lets go, and she steps back and sighs.

"I suppose that does make me feel better, in a way," she mutters. Rita's been getting wound up over one embarrassing conversation, but it seems like that's nothing compared to the nonsense Strange has been up to. "If you're always doing stupid things while under the influence, then why keep drinking and using drugs? What's the point?" Doesn't that make him an idiot?

...Granted, it's far from being the only thing that makes Strange an idiot.

He's a complete idiot. At her question, Strange shrugs. "The point is that I like it. You feel amazing when you're under the influence. And I haven't done anything so stupid in the carnival that I can't apologize for it and have people forget it."

Jury's still out on whether he's done anything so stupid back home. Does making yourself crazy count as being under the influence? Hell if Strange knows.

"How did you feel when you were drunk?"

Rita pulls her chair back upright and sits.

"I don't know, weird," she replies with a frown. "Like I wasn't completely in control, and everything was sort of... dulled. I sure wouldn't call it amazing." Being smart and in control is important to Rita. When she isn't those things, it's uncomfortable, even scary. "You actually like feeling like that?"

"I do," he simply responds. There's really not much more to say about that, Strange likes getting drunk and taking drugs and not thinking too much or feeling as tense as he feels half of the time anyway. Then again, Strange is a man who saw the concept of madness and thought 'this is an awesome idea' so he plays fast and loose with things like mental stability to begin with.

"At least for me, I don't worry as much. I feel lighter and things feel simpler, like they're easier to grapple with. It puts me in a better mood and makes me feel less stressed. Besides, part of it's a force of habit."

"Habit? I'm pretty sure that's called addiction," Rita scoffs.

"You come from a place with stuffy social norms, right? Don't they frown on stuff like that?" Especially if he's overdoing it to the point of getting sick and acting like an idiot all the time?

Not that Rita would really know. Aside from her friendship with Estelle, she's had very little contact with the nobles of Terca Lumireis, and she's happy to keep it that way. There's no guarantee that the upper class of Strange's world would have the same perspectives as those of her world, anyway.

For the first time in this conversation, Strange kind of regrets that the spell goes both ways.

"They frown on both in excessive amounts, but the drugs more than the drink. One can drink a bottle a day and still be polite company." Or, at least, in Jonathan 'useless alcoholic bachelor phase' Strange's mind, one can certainly be polite company despite their mild alcoholism.

"Besides," he grumbles, "I've done more that they could frown on than simple drinking. Do you not know about my time in Venice?" Rita knows a bit about Strange's dangerous habits of ingesting poisonous plant life thanks to his actions in Portland. But Strange honestly has no idea if she knows that particular range of bad decisions is also tied to the real Strange.

"No," Rita replies simply, raising an eyebrow. Does she want to know? She's not sure, but she's just curious enough to try asking. Maybe she'll regret it, but maybe Strange will regret it more, making it somewhat worth it.

"What happened in Venice?"

"I ingested all sorts of plants and poisonous concoctions, turned a woman into a cat, went mad, got cursed, and then radically changed the landscape of English magic." It's all said in a matter of fact tone like Strange is explaining a shopping list. Strange can't help but look a little embarrassed about parts of it, but not the overall whole. After all, he couldn't go back and change any of it.

"And now you see the reason why I don't exactly care about drinking or taking certain drugs. When I eventually return to England, they'll have plenty more to chastise me over than something like the fact I smoke weed."

This is not something to be proud of. And yet, Strange can't help but look a little smug about the fact that he's a massive trainwreck.

⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

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