Get Ready For the Show

[pipers_son]

Who: All the performers, plus any visitors
What: Time to get back into the swing of things! Nothing says "I've recovered from trauma" like learning how to plaster a smile onto your face for the crowds.
When: D1 - D5
Where: The Main Tent
Warnings: None.... Probably

As the saying goes, "All play and no work makes Jack forget how to do his job". On the bright side...

Over the radio, Joker makes a cheerful announcement for all performers to start getting back into the practice schedule with new arrivals to show up on the first day back from the moon. On the first day, he'll be lenient. No one has to be on time, but he does want them to at least make an appearance and token attempt at practice. After that, well... Show up, or you'll have an aggravatingly cheerful stage manager paying a personal visit. He bothers because he cares.

To those who have become familiar with it, the tent is outfitted with all off the usual practice equipment, and new faces will be in for a treat. There are the usual acrobatics equipment: silk ropes, the high wire, trapeze swings. Daredevils will find all sorts of things to threaten their lives with, although they'll soon find that there are magical safety precautions in place which stop the Big Tent from, say, getting set on fire. And the magician stuff? Well.... Don't hurt yourself there.

Out of the love of his heart, Joker will make sure there are bottles of water nearby, so don't be afraid to work up a sweat.

Comments

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya's not sure how close those two types of magic are. But, more importantly:] You had a dream about a ghost? What was it about?

[Yuya's spiritual sensitivity is actually pretty untested and untrained, so something like that he only has the impression of stories to base it on. Maybe it was a premonition? A warning?]

[kingsroads]

I summoned the ghost so that we could have a conversation through the dream. However, another magician interrupted my dream so we didn't actually get to talk.

[ said in a matter of fact tone as if this all makes complete sense. Which hey, it does in STrange's mind. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Spirits just poke him telepathically when they want to talk so sure, maybe there's special dream communion too. He's never tried it.]

So you were looking for her. Was the other magician your friend... uh, Mr. Norrell? [He thinks that was it. Yuya hasn't heard as much about him, since most of the magic study was about the magic itself (and the Raven King, probably) and not Strange's history.]

[kingsroads]

He wasn't. The other magician was a man named John Segundus. That was the first time we met, though we went in and out of each other's circles multiple times throughout the years.

[ Though never directly. It was always interacting with the same people or reading the same things instead of the two men interacting face to face. ]

Segundus was the one who inspired me to write to Norrell in the first place.

[hippocarnival]

[John Segundus... John Childermass... Jon(othan) Strange...]

Is John a common name in England?

[That was obviously the important thing to take out of that.]

[kingsroads]

Why do people keep getting hung up on that? I'm sure you know of some people with the same name.

[ the answer is yes, John is a very common name. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya snorts, smiling a little.] Of course there's common names... but you're also all magicians and know each other, so...

[So it just kind of stands out as either really common, or a really huge coincidence. Also, Yuya comes from Anime Land where names are kept explicitly unique.]

[kingsroads]

[ Strange mulls it over for a moment, frowning, as he puts his hand to his chin in thought. ]

Well, I'm sure someone's got some theory out there about the fact that the man who brought magic to England called himself 'John Uskglass' and why a handful of people in the revival of English magic are named John. But that's all a bit too conspiracy theory for my taste.

[ Strange's money is on hugs coincidence. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Common names are a more likely coincidence than, say, common faces. But when Strange names off yet another John, Yuya isn't totally sold on that. Still, he won't protest.]

That's the Raven King, right? [Yuya bases on the 'brought magic to England' thing. Absently, he remembers Lambert telling him that was a name Childermass went by in Portland. A pseudonym?] Is he why you wanted to do magic?

[kingsroads]

That is him, [ Strange explains with a nod. Though, that 'why do you want to do magic' question has...so many layers. Layers upon layers. Strange frowns for a brief moment, thinking, before he answers. ]

He's not why I became a magician but he's certainly part of the reason why I continue to do magic. Truth be told, Arabella was the reason I became a magician in the first place.

[hippocarnival]

Does she like magic? [He sounds a little uncertain, mostly because her response to finding out Strange had joined the carnival was exasperation and alarm. He also hasn't heard any mention that she casts magic himself, and given how much Strange likes to talk up his wife that seems like something he'd mention.]

[kingsroads]

[ not in the slightest ]

She did at first. She wanted me to find a profession and magic, though unorthodox, counted. I became a magician to make her happy. It's only when I took an apprenticeship and became more of a magician that her feelings about magic started to change.

[hippocarnival]

Oh. [Well, that sucks. You'd want your spouse to at least support what you like to do, if not enjoy it themselves, right? Yuya knows how much Strange likes magic.] Uh, sorry?

[kingsroads]

To be honest, I don't blame her. Half of the problems we've had in our marriage were caused by magic.

[ the other half were caused by Strange being an idiot. ]

Besides, I doubt she had the idea of me serving as the king's magician when she told her husband to find an occupation.

[ As always, Strange looks a bit doe-eyed and blissful as he talks about Arabella. He constantly misses her, and this is no exception. ]

[hippocarnival]

[That's difficult to visualize, mostly because Yuya has no experience in marriage and his parents shared similar passions, which meant there wasn't any conflict of involvement. Except the gang leader thing, but his mom dropped that before he was born.

More importantly:] The King's magician? [That's like... being part of the Emperor's court or something, probably. Monarchies are awfully similar.] So that meant you were really important, right?

[kingsroads]

I was. [ said without any trace of modesty or shame. Strange was important! That's a fact. He can't help but smile a little at this, ego just fluffing up as he talks. ]

I performed magic for the king directly and served as magician to the British army. The latter is more important to me than the first, but I can't deny that calling myself the king's magician sounds important.

[hippocarnival]

[Part of the army, huh...] Was it the same kind of stuff you did in the carnival? Like looking for people?

[And... He doesn't know what else besides fighting, which he isn't immediately assuming Strange was involved in. Both because he doesn't look terribly rugged, and because an army didn't mean there's a war. Maybe he's more like, an advisor.]

[kingsroads]

Partly. I also helped move the topography, change the weather, and anything else my commanding officer wanted me to do.

[ Strange sighs slightly, shaking his head. ] All of which is devilishly hard when someone's shooting at you.

[ nope, he wasn't more like an advisor, he was stuck there in the middle of it. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Those are all very impressive feats of magic, at least on the scale that Yuya is imagining them. He looks awed, for a moment, before--]

Wait, you mean you actually fought in a war? [He looks... not quite incredulous, but Strange it definitely isn't his first assumption Yuya would ever have about him.]

[kingsroads]

Of course I fought in a war! I fought with Lord Wellington in the peninsular campaign against Napoleon and the French.

[ And suddenly, Strange's yammerings about the peninsula make a lot more sense. although, wait a moment, there's something about Yuya's phrasing— ]

What do you mean actually fought in a war?!

[hippocarnival]

Uh, well--[He holds his hands up in a pacifing gesture.] I just didn't expect it! I know you can fight with magic, but war's a lot different than protecting the carnival, isn't it?

[Truthfully he's only seen him fight with magic a couple times in Portland, but nearly getting skewered is enough convincing for Yuya.]

[kingsroads]

I'll grant you that much, [ Strange admits. ] A war has actual soldiers.

[ Which isn't a slight on the nightrunners or patrol. It's just that a ragtag group of twenty or so people, half of whom are children, can't even begin to match the power or discipline of a national army. Strange says this in a matter of fact tone, though he can't help but frown a little. ]

Though oddly enough, war was a lot safer than some of the things the carnival gets into.

[ said a bit morbidly. But considering the peninsula didn't have brainwashing, alternate universes, the fae, or the magical changes of one's body, it certainly was safer in some regards. ]

[hippocarnival]

[That's right. Yuya doesn't really consider himself having been a solider in that interdimensional war. He hated the fighting, and whatever Reiji called them he was really there to save Yuzu and then stop it, but not the way washing countries do. Yuto, he was a soldier, maybe.

He frowns pensively.] It's a lot different fighting things that are stronger... and have more magic.

[It really makes all the difference. It and technology so advanced it might as well be magic.]

But we have other ways that we can fight back, like the hunt. [Although the face he makes saying it looks a little sick.] We wouldn't have won on our own, would we?

[kingsroads]

Not in the slightest, [ Strange bluntly responds. ] And we certainly wouldn't have won had we not obtained the Blue Rose. It takes great power to even wound a fae, much less kill one.

[ He's speaking from experience about this, though the frown on Strange's face plainly tells Yuya he's not exactly happy about that fact. ]

[hippocarnival]

I know. [So it's win horrible games for the slightest chance of success or get your ass kicked. Like they did in the gardens, and the ritual.

Both avenues of thought there are terrible, so Yuya rapidly shakes his head to try and deflect them.]

We should get bsck to practicing, we really have to be in shape for our performance this time. [Greysol was the last one, and that was... about a month ago, wasn't it?]