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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Pecans, pecans, more pecans, and some crust. There are very clearly no fruits in that pie and Childermass is too busy giving Lambert a disapproving look to notice Strange zeroing in on it. Certainly, there's enough left, so it's not like there's any room for complaint on top of more or less stealing it from Lambert's fridge, anyway.

"The Return of English Magic is fine," he slurs, the dullest of choices. That's Strange's job, though, isn't it? Thinking up the most ridiculous of things? Names, spells, just about anything. "I do not believe any of our own spheres have..."

He turns back to look at Strange, vaguely waving the fork around (watch out Lambert).

"They haven't conjectured, I don't believe. That's not a thing for us."

"I believe it's conjunctioned," is Lambert's dignified and valuable contribution to the conversation, retrieving his piece of pie and dodging out of fork range. He retreats to his end of the couch, feigning indifference, but his ears are pricked all the same, listening closely.

What an amazingly dull name. Strange can't help but wrinkle his nose as he frowns at Childermass's suggestion. Yes, the man's the practical one, but can't he even think of something slightly creative?

"But it could be a thing," Strange insists, as he lolls his head over towards Childermass. As he talks, Strange reaches over to try and grab some of the pecans off of the top of the pie instead of just grabbing an entire slice. If he succeeds, he's just going to talk with his mouth full, munching on the nuts as he continues to yammer.

"What does it mean to conjecture spheres anyway? I can do it." Can he do it? Strange thinks so, that's what matters. "We might have conjectured realms when the mirrors broke, we can certainly conjecture spheres as well."

Just don't ask Strange how this conjunction's going to happen in the first place. He doesn't know and all of the ideas he's getting are typical, drunk, good in theory but horrible in practice sort of ideas.

Whatever, Lambert, whatever, and yeah, he isn't paying attention to who's grabbing bits of pie.

"Conjecture, conjunction," Childermass mutters, though, yes, Lambert is right. It's his world-shaking event, after all, or something. "That requires us to know whether Faerie truly is or isn't completely separate from our own world. Do we know that? And if it is, does that make Hell one as well? Wouldn't doing that line us up with that as well?"

It's said the Raven King has been to Hell and they've already been to a hell, so he will assume Hell is a real thing. What is in Hell and how one ends up there, that's the real debate.

Edited 2018-01-07 06:22 (UTC)

Tragically, this conversation's already off and galloping away beyond what Lambert can readily keep up with, so he's not really following what they're blabbing about now, just munching on his pie and interjecting at random.

"Conjunction's how we got monsters," he said, helpfully. "Do you want monsters?"

"I'll stop the monsters myself!" Strange declares, with the confidence of a man drunk off his ass and ready to fight the entire world. He's grinning like a fiend as he goes in for more of those pecans, seemingly unaware that he should just take an entire slice of the pie and stop eating all the toppings.

The conversation's just continuing as Strange yammers on about magic. "I'm not so certain about Hell, but I don't think Faerie is as separate as people would have you think. It's more off to the side. After all, I was able to use the king's roads as a byway—I ended up going to Hampstead from...oh, from that place where Grant and I played billiards."

That grin swaps back to a frown as Strange tries to think of the place's name. "You know, that one."

"No, you won't, because we're not getting any," Childermass puts an end to that right there and then. No, Strange. No monsters. "And we won't be conjunctioning anything."

Did he get it right that time? Does he care? He'll finally dig into the remnants of the pie in the tin himself, only to pause again with a piece stuck on the fork and furrow his brow, frowning as he tries to recall if he knows that place or not. Ultimately, the answer is no.

"I do not. In spite of what you may believe, I did not spend my whole time following you about on Mr. Norrell's ridiculous notions."

"You just spent most of your time," Strange corrects. "And there's no use correcting me on that, you had to have followed me more times than the one I caught you." Everyone had better be careful otherwise this is going to turn into a drunken bitch session about poor Gilbert Norrell.

But where were they? Oh, right, the conjuncture.

"You might not be conjunctioning anything, but I've no idea what shall happen to me back home. I might need to cause a conjuncture or two." What he means by that, Strange isn't entirely sure. But realms and magic and curses are weird and Strange is currently stuck god knows where. There's no point saying something won't happen when it very well could happen in the first place.

"Not even most," Childermass scoffs, "I had more important things to do and it was easier to just have someone else follow you for me."

Not that he would ever tell Mr. Norrell that. He'd only be further scandalized to know his man of business had what was more or less a small network of ratty street-dwelling spies. Besides, he had a book to find and with that coming to mind, he adds, "Besides, you should at least wait until I've translated the book to mess around with anything. For all we know, the Raven King has how we're meant to fix it written down right in front of us. "

Which might involve lining up worlds and unleashing all hell loose on the mortal realm but he likes to think John Uskglass would have a little more sense than that.

"Which is another problem," Strange continues, with a sigh. "Unless you translate the book in the next few months while we are both here, how exactly am I supposed to know what it says? I can find a way to contact you, but the spell is...finicky at best. It only lasted for a minute or so, certainly not long enough to hear the contents of an entire book."

Of course, the obvious answer here is 'don't do anything until Childermass translates the book.' But one, this is Strange and two, he again has no idea what's going to happen back home. Sitting and doing nothing most likely isn't an option.

"Without the book here, that's where we run into our real problem..."

Childermass didn't bring it, due to how the book was literally a man who he's left in the care of Mr. Segundus for the time being. There was no full copy of the tattoos just yet. Moreso, he hadn't anticipated running into anyone he knew here, on a wild thought to follow the suggestion of his cards into the unknown, especially not Strange of all people.

In retrospect, perhaps he should have considered it. The man's mad enough to take any deal he can find or... was, anyway.

"Still worth a try before pouring monsters into our world, isn't it?"

Whereas Strange took the deal thinking Childermass was sensible enough not to sign a year of his life away to a faerie. Whoops.

At Childermass's question, however, Strange shrugs. "I don't know," he simply responds. Because he doesn't know anything. What's going to happen to him, where he and Norrell even are, what to do next, and so on and so forth. Strange has absolutely no clue what's going to happen back home and what he's going to do in the near future. So yeah, waiting for Childermass to translate the book does make sense, but would he even have time to do so?

"If pouring monsters into the world is needed to further English magic, then I'll consider it. And if your book suggests it should be done, then I'll certainly do it—we don't know what your book says in the first place, after all. We shall see the results when they happen." And if it's needed to get Strange back to Arabella, then sorry England and sorry book, there's a high chance of monster in your future.

He sincerely hopes it doesn't come to that, but he's been hanging onto this bit of pie for some time now and he's finally going to eat it, even if he scowls around the fork just thinking about it. Monsters, in England. The fae could be bad enough, did they really need anything more?

"If it suggests it should be done," he echoes after, digging into the rest of the pie with his fork again after that first bite. "Though even I would question it, why the devil the Raven King would want to do something like that in the first place? It wouldn't help anyone."

Well, it would help Strange and Norrell, assuming the book did claim as much, but just not everyone else!

Strange reaches over and continues to pick pecans off of the top of the pie. Someone really needs to stop him before he eats all the topping.

"You never know," Strange simply responds, with a shrug. "Besides, we don't know what sort of monsters our world would have in the first place. We're not going to have the giant crab as we don't have mermaids or any sort of underwater civilization for it. We don't have a subtle knife, so there goes anything that popped up in Greysol. We're not going to have the chest with legs because frankly, that one's ridiculous."

Some A+ drunk logic from Jonathan Strange right there. He's talking with his hands as he does so, winding up that punch ring to worrying levels of power.

Whoever that someone is, it sure isn't going to be Lambert, and he's similarly not going to be the least bit of help if Strange lets loose with that punch ring. The witcher's lapsed into a protracted silence for the majority of this debate (if it even deserves the name), and if either magician actually bothered to look over to figure out the reason for it, the answer is immediately obvious.

Lambert's just straight up dozed off, one arm draped over the back of the couch (and therefore behind Childermass's head), his chin half-tucked against his chest while his ears continue to twitch at the sound of the magician's voices. He's warm, he's happy, and he's in decent company -- not much more he can ask for than that. There's still a half-smirk caught on his flushed face, like even mostly unconscious, the stupid conversation's still funny to him.

It won't be Childermass, either, though he will give Strange a light shove when he keeps waving his hands around and the one with the ring comes a little too close for comfort.

"Careful with that," he grumbles, "You'll knock the entire cabin down with it. You know that's what it does, right? Didn't we tell you?" Didn't they? He doesn't recall, actually, and he does turn to ask Lambert, only to find the man's dozed off. "Ah..."

Well. He gives a faintly amused snort at that, slowly setting the pie tin down on his lap.

"Mr. Strange, we appear to have bored him straight to sleep."

As a matter of fact, nobody told Strange exactly what the ring does. Just that it somehow involves punching and will somehow make up for his inability to throw a punch to begin with. He's about to continue to argue that no, they didn't tell him, but the conversation shifts as Childermass mentions Lambert and how he's asleep.

"Well, we are magicians," Strange responds, wry smile on his face. "Driving people to boredom with constant arguing is to be expected."

Strange shifts in his seat slightly, trying to get a better look at Lambert. He tilts his head slightly in an attempt to get a better look at Lambert's face but overcorrects the tilt thanks to the alcohol. "I wonder," he can't help but muse out loud, "when was the last time he looked so relaxed?"

Childermass could name a few times but guess what, he's not going to, and settles on just looking over at Strange and shrugging instead. Like, how would he know? Really?

"So much for the witcher mutation to outdrink us all," he deadpans — or tries to, words slurring some as he does — in place of giving any real answer to that. "I never even got around to... to my gifts. I have some, you know. For people. It's very strange."

Mostly due to his chronic inability to spend more than absolutely necessary or, in fact, have people he cares enough about to give anything to. Quite surprising, all in all.

Strange can't help but give Childermass a quizzical look. Because him? Gifts? Caring about people? Honestly, that's a bit of a shock. To Strange's credit, he doesn't outright say 'I have no idea you actually give a shit about people beyond your own self-interest' but it's written large on his face.

Well, he had no idea that Childermass actually gave a shit about people beyond his own self-interest, except for Lambert. Even drunk, Strange can remember how they're spending a large amount of time together and how Lambert's soul seems much more comfortable around Childermass than it does Strange.

"I assume one of those gifts is for Lambert? I can wake him up if you wish to give it to him."

At which Childermass might take offense, but probably not. He knows how he comes off to people and he rarely ever corrects it.

"One of them, sure," he tells Strange, "And one for you. A few others for... others. She did say we had to spend a certain amount, after all."

If they wanted to spend anything at all, that is. He came away with at least one thing on his own credits, only one. Worthwhile, though. In any case, he shakes his head and leans back against the couch.

"But no. Let him be. I can just get them tomorrow or some other time..."

Edited 2018-01-10 03:59 (UTC)

Strange can't help it: he looks a bit surprised as Childermass mentions he got a gift for him. Oh. That's nice. A bit unexpected, but still nice. Idly, he can't help but wonder what it is but if Childermass doesn't want to get it now, then he'll just have to find out later.

"Well, if you don't want me to wake him up, then I won't do it," he answers, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. But that does present them with a new problem. Strange really doesn't want to move right now. But he's not entirely tired, not just yet. So, he slumps backwards on the couch as well, staring at the ceiling in a slightly creepy unblinking manner.

Strange isn't really good with silence. So, the quiet lasts for a few moments before Strange opens his mouth to talk again. "This is nice." Okay, he's saying something dumb. "Not the snow thing, I'm still of two minds about that, but just...this." And he gestures vaguely at Lambert's trailer. Sitting on the couch, being drunk with two people whose company he enjoys, not really giving a damn, that's the nice thing.

Whereas Childermass has slouched back, head leaning against Lambert's arm and swashbuckler hat tipping haphazardly downward as he does. He wouldn't be shocked if he were about to doze off as well, though not yet, not just yet. He smirks faintly at Strange's idle chatter, at least still aware enough to listen.

"Snow isn't so bad," he comments idly, but to the rest, he adds, "And I suppose it isn't so bad, doing something like this on occasion, though I would never have anticipated company like this."

Because Strange is from a vastly different social standing, fellow magician or not, and Lambert... well, he's Lambert. The man's stated enough times that witchers don't stick around and make friends, so any other scenario would have had them passing each other by, all three of them.

Strange can't help but laugh, a small little quiet laugh, at Childermass's words. No, he never anticipated company like this either. What would they say, back in England, if they knew that the king's magician considered the servant of his former mentor and a crude, brash monster slayer his closest friends?

"Likewise," he admits, leaning back against the couch, head resting on it's back as Strange stares at the ceiling. "I like—" And then he yawns. "I like the company, though." Strange is keeping himself up solely due to his inability to shut up. He's tired and yawning and it's obvious from the tone of his voice that if he stops talking just for a moment or two, he'll fall asleep.

"When I return home to England, I'm going to introduce you to Arabella—and properly this time." Not an illusion caused by the Prince. "She needs to know who to thank for keeping her reckless husband safe." Never mind the fact that by the time he and Norrell break that curse, Childermass and Arabella might have met already. That thought doesn't seem to cross Strange's mind as he drunkenly (and sleepily) plans for the future.

Childermass can't disagree with the company being likable so he won't say anything about it at all, giving his own laugh at the thought of Strange trying to introduce him to Arabella. In theory, he had done just that at the Prince's ball, only that Arabella hadn't been real. Fortunate and unfortunate all at the same time. Probably not a good idea to mention it, though.

"I do not think she will like that much at all, Mr. Strange," he says that instead. "Even if I have left Mr. Norrell's service."

Or she will, if nothing else, find him highly suspect. He can't even blame her if she does, assuming that ever even happens. It's almost something to hope for since it means he's back and uncursed, but... He won't dwell on that. It's pointless to, especially since he actually is nodding off about now himself.

And so that's how the night concludes for all three of them, two magicians and a witcher drunkenly passed out on a couch. At some point closer to the morning, Lambert wakes to answer the somewhat pressing demands of his bladder, only to laugh when he realizes what's happened, Strange and Childermass hardly the picture of dignity in their respective positions. It's a funny enough sight that he wants to preserve it, so he extricates himself from the pileup, he rummages for one of the few things he's purchased for himself at the Caravan.

Thus, the magicians will find themselve rudely awakened by a bellowed and all-too-cheerful "Good morning, sleepyheads!" and a camera flash going off in their faces the moment they startle into wakefulness. The witcher snatches the photographs and tucks them away before either can make a grab for it -- though with the hangovers they've got to be nursing, it'll be amazing if they manage to move without puking, though he may not be able to avoid any attempt to grab the camera out of his hands.

At the very least, they won't suffer the indignity without any sort of recompense. Once Lambert's done laughing at them (not for long, because faerie ale leaves an odd fuzziness even for him) he'll set about making them both coffee to stave off the worst of it, spiked with a small amount of phoenix fruit juice just to wake them up.

Someday in the future, long after he's left the Carnival, Lambert will always remember this as one of his fondest memories: three friends at a breakfast counter, disheveled and unkempt, giving each other shit on an early winter morning.

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⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

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