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

[starseedling]

"I... I think they just live there, now?" Steven admits, now looking super embarrassed as he remembers them. "I turned back the people I made into kids, but... I didn't want to get rid of the animals, and I didn't think I could bring them all back here, so..."

Steven fidgets, looking awkward. Maybe leaving them behind was a super stupid idea after all.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya almost asks about the 'turning people into kids' thing, but decides better of it. Steven probably doesn't want to reminisce on everything he did as a Harbingers.

His eyes widen in equal realization, however, about the plant animals. Oh. "I took the ones in the market to the end of the city after you left." And after he woke up, so some had probably long wandered off by then.

"I let them go there... how long do they, uh, live?" He asks, as if he ever understood his own Guardian abilities that thoroughly in the end. How long do fruits usually last, a few days? A week?

[starseedling]

Welcome to one of the weirdest aspects of Steven's existence, Yuya - the fact that he just kind of creates life, while simultaneously haven't little idea how the power actually works.

"I don't know! It seems like it's different every time it happens... Pumpkin has been around forever, but... when I made the watermelon Stevens, they all went into the ocean, and when I found them again they had a whole village with babies and everything?"

He might get around to explaining "Watermelon Stevens" but it will take him a minute.

"There would have been way more of them if they lived for a long time, but I never actually found out..."

[hippocarnival]

"You've done this before?!" It is definitely the weirdest thing about Steven he's heard to date. That said, he's much less affronted and more completely shocked. He's not sure what exactly being part Gem or whatever entails (aside from what he heard on the radio, he hasn't asked), but apparently it's super strength and magic shields and turning plants into sentient creatures. Okay.

"Does that mean all those animals are going to reproduce, too?" Yuya rubs his chin thoughtfully. Steven may have unleashed an entirely new and inexplicable creature onto Wismuth... hm.

Well, Yuya also felt too bad about killing them, so that's just going to have to be a thing now. Besides that, Yuya gives Steven a cursory look and raises an eyebrow. "You made watermelons after yourself?"

[starseedling]

"Not intentionally?" he says, sounding just as confused himself. He shrugs helplessly. "It was the first time it ever happened... I spit a bunch of watermelon seeds on the ground, and when I woke up they'd grown into melons shaped like me..."

Which is, really, one of the weirdest things to say, but here we are. It's just plain true.

"Making things like that was something I inherited from my real mom... being a Harbinger just made it way easier. Usually, I'd have to spit on the seed and plant it, but when I was in Wismuth I could just make fruits and stuff grow into animals just by being around them."

It can been super cool, but also pretty scary in retrospect.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya stares blankly at Steven for a long minute as he starts to put mental visual imagery to 'village of Watermelon Stevens'. He's probably not far off the mark after witnessing all the plantimals around Wismuth.

And then he snorts, ducking his head a little with an amused grin. "Wow. I'd completely panic if I woke up to a bunch of melons that looked like me! I thought that was just what you got from your Spark."

Yuya is, in retrospect, even more glad that Steven didn't just trash him right then. Well, trash him worse. "Your mom was a Gem like Peridot, right?" It comes out a little slowly, and Yuya gauges Steven's reaction to see if this is something he doesn't want to talk about at all.

[starseedling]

"Yeah," Steven says, and at the moment he doesn't sound that downtrodden about it. Honestly, compared to the Rose Queen, his opinion of his Gem mom is glowing. "Except, she was a Rose Quartz instead of a Peridot. Gems are all named after what kind of gem they have. Which... would be more confusing if I didn't mostly just know one of each."

"When I was born, she gave me her gem," he lifts his shirt indicatively, showing off his belly. "So I have most of the same powers she did, because she's part of who I am."

As in, literally part of his body.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya leans sideways as he looks at Steven's gem. Part of who he is... that's something Yuya grasps, although it being his mother adds a whole other layer of weirdness to it.

"Oh... but she's not living inside you?" Steven talked about her like she was certainly gone, so he's pretty sure not. "Blue Diamond told me a little about how gems work... uh, and Connie told me about how you two are protecting your world."

[starseedling]

His face falls a bit at the mention on Connie - talk about the disappointment of the century, there. But it's not as bad as it could have been. He's getting used to having his friends from home leave before he does.

"No, all of her is just... half of me. So, she's not really around anymore. Because she's me, now." It's taken a while for him to understand this concept himself, let alone explain it to other people. "And... I'm not the same person she was."

[hippocarnival]

Yuya nods once. He hasn't seen Connie since they left Wismuth, either. But then, for everything the carnival goes through he can't be surprised at people who want a break.

"Because it was her and your dad who made you, right? You're not just her but reborn." Even that causes substantial changes, but if Steven if really their kid and not a reincarnation, it would be wrong to equate him and his mom.

At least, he hopes he has it right. It doesn't sound like the same situation he's in.

[starseedling]

Steven has gone between feeling like he is his mom's reincarnation and feeling like he's a totally different person - it's not a concept he's entirely settled on, to be sure. That shows in his voice when he talks about it.

"Yeah," he agrees, regardless, because that's the best explanation he has at the moment. "I'm made from parts of both of them... my dad just didn't have to disappear to do it, I guess." Good old fashioned procreation.

"I have actual skin and stuff, too. That's from my dad's side."

[hippocarnival]

Yuya is definitely still visualizing it as normal procreation, having no other reference, so what it would take for Greg to disappear instead is... well, that's too strange of a thought.

"R-right." Anyway. "So... could any human and gem do that? Or is it only because of who your mom is?" He's only curious, and his expression doesn't show any deeper scrutiny.

[starseedling]

"I think anybody could do it," he says, which is always a weird thought. Sometimes he wonders how Gems could have been on earth for thousands of years without it ever happening, but who knows. Maybe it did and the baby just... hm. "As long as... they could shapeshift the right stuff."

Steven only has a vague notion of what the right 'stuff' is, but presumably biology is involved, which Gems don't normally have.

"But it'd be kind of weird, right?" he asks a moment later. "Wanting to do it so much that you'd just stop existing..."

He can't imagine any of his other Gem friends wanting to do that. Why would they? Why did she?

[hippocarnival]

"Like... organs?" He pauses, considering that. His knowledge of gems definitely isn't enough to question it further.

Steven brings up a good point, though. Did she know it was going to happen, if it really is that special? His expression twists as he tries to understand it. "It's pretty normal for someone to want a kid really badly, but..."

His gaze drifts to Steven's gem briefly. "That's a lot. I don't know." He shrugs. "She never told anyone why?"

[starseedling]

"Kind of," he says. He thinks back to all he's been told about it. It's deceptively simple. "I think she really just... thought that it would be nice. To have a baby... to be a human."

"She loved humans, and was really excited that I would be one. Half of one, anyway." He's felt used by it in the past, but he doesn't right now. He's come full circle by now, back to how he felt when he first heard her explanation.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya folds his arms over his knees. It's not a conversation he ever had with his parents, nor is it one he can have now. As such, for a moment he's not really sure how to respond.

"I guess... whatever it was, if she was willing to give everything up for you then you were really special to her. She'd probably be proud of you..."

After all, Steven is fighting for the sake of his world. Being a hero isn't an easy job, is it?

[starseedling]

Steven sighs, his shoulders drooping even as he nods his head, just a little. He knows. If everything he wants to believe about her is true... she probably would be. She seemed proud of everyone, in her way.

"Yeah," he agrees quietly. "Probably."

At least he actually means it, now.