just gotta ignite the light and let it shine

[whattaprick]

Who: Everyone who's stupid enough to show up for this, because legal drinking ages are for people from a different century/planet.
When: Afternoon/Evening, Day 30
Where: Lakeshore
What: Local Carnival workers get wasted and set off fireworks by the lake.
Warnings: Carnival shenanigans, ie. booze, drugs, and people getting set on fire probably. Put any tag-specific warnings in your headers!

So, Wismuth happened.

Lambert's pretty willing to bet a good chunk of the Carnival is pretty happy to act like Wismuth didn't happen, but he also doesn't really care about what sorrows people are drowning or not tonight: he knows he needed this drink, and after he'd slept off the immediate exhaustion that came with running around Wismuth for nearly two weeks with the power of Creation more or less constantly burning through him, he's ready to something, anything to feel like himself again.

Fast-forward to the lakeshore. There's a huge bonfire going, a box of assorted fireworks that's been 'liberated' from wherever the hell engineering keeps their supplies, and probably a crate of wine that's going to disappear sooner rather than later. Anything else, someone's going to have to bring themselves.

[ ooc: This is a mingle log! Bring your own entertainment, food, questionable substances etc. ]

Comments

[motivenotfound]

"Your dad, huh?" Mari remembers Greg. He wasn't actually that bad, for an adult. He really cared about Steven. He was really big on following the rules, though. Right up until he wasn't.

It was so transparent. She never called him on it, but yikes.

"You ever hear the old chestnut about how children inherit their parents' trauma? No? Well, you can't convince me your dad wasn't a big rulebreaker in his youth."

Truthfully, she's not really trying to get Steven to drink so much as get him to talk to her. But she wouldn't count it as a loss if he did.

[starseedling]

Steven isn't completely sure he knows what she means, but it sounds really deep, and inheriting terrible bullshit from your parents is a familiar concept. He just never really thought about his dad that way.

"Well... usually I just get traumatized by my mom's legacy," he says, as if that's a subject he's well versed in. "But I guess my dad did drop out of college and drive his van through fences and stuff."

That was in the name of love, though, so. You know. It's cool.

[motivenotfound]

"Fences? Like, plural?" Well, score one for Greg Universe, apparently! She laughs.

Which is probably inappropriate given what he just said about his mom, but listen.

Let's just say Mari knows a lot about mom trauma.

"But see? There you go. Your dad's his own person. And your mom's her own person, and so on. And they gotta know you're your own person, too. A person who has a lot of both of them in him. I'm not saying rules are made to be broken. But the rules exist for reasons that say a lot about the people who made them. And how you break them is as important as whether you do. Having a drink with people who are gonna make sure nothing bad happens is different from having a drink alone, shut up in your room. That kind of thing."

Sometimes the degree to which Mari has to explain things to people really dulls her point. This is one of those times. She's starting to stress herself out a little with it.

"You don't have to have a drink though. I'm just saying, if you do or don't, you should do it because you know that's what you want, and why it's what you want."

[starseedling]

It's okay, Steven just kind of throws stuff like that out there on the reg' without expecting anybody to comment on it too much. You gotta let it out somewhere. hat said, he looks a little man overwhelmed by all of this, but at least it's in a vaguely empowering way.

"Oh man," he says. "That's a lot of responsibility." He runs a hand through his hair nervously. "I don't know anything about drinking. I never really thought about it..."

Mari you fucking enabler.

[motivenotfound]

Mari smiles, tipping her bottle of suspicious-looking red fluid at him as though making a toast.

"That's free will!" It is a lot of responsibility! Full awareness of your actions always is. "But, you know, not drinking is also a choice. And so is putting off the decision. I mean, you might not even like it!"

She pauses, then adds, "Just don't start off drinking whatever Lambert's having, I don't even know if he should be having it."

[starseedling]

Steven glances in Lambert's direction, before smiling slightly and nodding. She's probably right. This is probably something he should learn more about before getting right into.

"...I should probably avoid getting in any more trouble, for a while," he says. slight self-deprecation in his tone. Mari almost certainly knows why.

[motivenotfound]

Yeah, she gets it.

No, really--she does. She may not be saying it, but, yeah--she's got her own share of regrets, even if they're not quite the same flavour as everyone else's. 'Embarrassed' is the word she'd use, if pushed... but Steven isn't pushing, so why should she?

"I'll drink to that," she says with a wider smile, and puts out her bottle for him to tap his juice against.

"Cheers, right? To future mistakes!"

[starseedling]

He's holding a plastic cup so it really makes a dissatisfying kind of sound, but the sentiment is there. It's only now that he gets curious about what she's drinking, mostly because he realizes it doesn't smell like juice or alcohol.

"Cheers," he says, a little bit distracted. "What are you drinking, anyway?"

[motivenotfound]

"Oh, this?" She raises her bottle, sloshing the drink around inside for him to see.

"It's LCL! It's kind of a specialty of my homeworld." She has one of those feline smiles.

"Most worlds actually have it, though--I'd bet yours does too! It's just easier to get where I'm from. Anyway, the Ringmaster stocks it for me because she's awesome. Here, try a sip!"

She unscrews the top so he doesn't have to share her scary vampire mouthgerms and holds it out for him to taste. You know, if he wants.

It definitely smells like blood.

[starseedling]

That does smell like blood. Steven's face goes a bit purple. He looks at the bottle and then looks at her, deeply unsure.

"Is LCL... blood?" he asks a moment later, his voice cracking. Right to the point.