⇨ DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS

[ringleaders]

Who: Anyone out in the library.
When: Day 59
Where: The Athenaeum
What: Towards the end of the visit, we are visited by a series of worrisome NPCs, who may or may not be illusions. There will be at least 5 NPC toplevels posted overall, all happening in a similar time period ICly (in rough chronological order), so not everyone needs to be in every thread.
Warnings: Possibility of very real danger to anyone who participates. Remember that Sans has told everyone to travel in groups, so if you aren't, you'll probably get a scolding later.

TURNING THE PAGE↴ As the carnival continues to explore the Athenaeum in the pursuit of more information about the legendary Miracles, the tension is thick with the knowledge that the Summer Court could be in pursuit any day now. On Day 59, a series of threatening encounters will begin manifesting - but are they real, or an illusion?

Comments

[mirrortide]

Lapis holds Jasper under tighter. She can't drown, Lapis isn't that same Fae who could make her drown, but it makes her feel better all the same to see Jasper struggle under the water in the same way that Lapis couldn't get her captor too.

She's a Lapis Lazuli.

There's no reason for her to not have control over water. There's no reason for her to be unable to control it with absolute precision. Taking these frustrations out on Jasper makes her feel better, and she lifts her foot, putting it on the top of Jaspers' head in a clear motion of superiority.

She'll keep Jasper under for as long as she likes.

[npcarnival]

A soft giggle emanates through the cavern, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The water that Lapis is controlling shifts, changes and takes on the form of the Lady herself. She fits between the ground and Jasper, using her arms and hair to hold her instead of the water.

She looks up past Jasper shoulder, meeting Lapis's eyes. She smiles.

"Keep going," she will say without moving her lips, both of them able to hear it regardless. Like the turn of a switch, Jasper will begin to drown.

[stompadour]

Jasper's eyes go round.

In all her time held prisoner by Lapis, submerged, struggling to free herself from Lapis's chains and haul herself above water, she has never felt anything like this. She had been desperate, yes, but a purely ideological desperation -- for control, for power, for escape. This is an undeniable, physical need on a level Jasper has never experienced before. She gasps, chokes on a throatful of water, thrashes and kicks and cries out in a frantic, wordless gargle.

[mirrortide]

It's probably real unfortunate for The Lady that her sudden appearance has broken Lapis' anger with surprise and fear. Unless she herself continues to hold on, the water in Lapis' hold will drop as she, quite frantically backs up.

Jasper, quite quickly, has been forgotten.

[npcarnival]

The Lady doesn't let go. Whether or not Lapis helps, she wants to see where this goes. She doesn't want to spoil Jasper's first drowning with a premature ending, after all.

Still, as Lapis panics and backs away, the Lady will keep watching her. She speaks again.

"Hold her down, or I'll hold you down longer."

[mirrortide]

It's a good threat. Lapis stops mid-backstep, ripples forming underneath her as she fights internally on what she should do. There's no escape here. It's a closed room. It's a closed room with a fae in it that has more control over water than she does, and the ability to drown them both with it.

She doesn't like Jasper. She wants to hurt Jasper, but not on someone elses orders.

Water rises up again, but it doesn't shoot towards Jasper, but instead the Fae herself. Maybe if she takes her by surprise, it'll be different.

[npcarnival]

As Lapis seizes hold of the water, the cavern will begin filling with it, the water level rising at a rapid pace and putting Jasper further and further from the surface while Lapis is forced closer to it. Before she can make any progress with suppressing the Lady, the water will hit the roof of the cavern, and Lapis will be submerged.

The Lady floats up to meet her, with Jasper still struggling in her arms, her naked body pressed against the Quartz's back. She can feel the life leaving her, even if she won't let her die from this.

She keeps looking at Lapis expectantly. Lapis will feel her need to breathe slowly returning, as the Lady watches.

[stompadour]

Jasper looks wild-eyed from Lapis to the Lady and back again, her struggling becoming, against all reason, weaker by the second. She hates it. She hates this. She persists, though, trying her hardest to escape the fae's grip, even as this alien sensation presses in on her consciousness from every angle; Jaspers never give up.

[mirrortide]

She still has time. Her self preservation has yet to kick in when she still thinks she has a chance at maybe subduing The Lady. It's something she puts all of her effort in, even more so as the need to breathe returns. To wrest control of the water is all she needs, if she can do that, then she can move it aside to get air back.

She has fewer concerns about Jasper right now.

[npcarnival]

The water won't come to her. Unlike the time before, where she was able to put forth an effort and be fought every step of the way, this time she loses control completely. The water refuses to obey her, as if her permissions have been stripped along with her ability to survive underwater.

The Lady just keeps watching her, watching her desperation. All the while, she enjoys the feeling of his gem warrior growing weaker and weaker in her arms. She's giving Jasper something she's never felt before.

[stompadour]

She sure is, and Jasper is hating every moment of it. She can feel herself growing feebler in the arms of this wretched fae; even thinking clearly is becoming hard, and something in her chest is burning. She doesn't know what she needs, but she knows it isn't the water that's surrounding her. She groans weakly, the sound muffled by the water. There aren't even any bubbles this time.

[mirrortide]

It's gone and she can't call it.

She doesn't stop trying, though her attempts are clearly becoming more frenzied with each passing second, culminating in wide swipes with her hands and her tail lashing as she tries to force something, anything to happen. A ripple, a drop, anything.

Anything to throw the Fae off. Anything to stop the burning in her Gem.

[npcarnival]

The Lady will wait until both of them have gone dark, their consciousnesses gone but their bodies intact. These gem bodies are strange, interesting. As long as the gem remains, so will they.

When they wake, there will be air in the room again. The depth is back to its original three feet, and they will wake up across from each other, as they had before.

The only difference is that the Lady is sitting in there with them, her arms wrapped around her knees as she watches them curiously.

"Are you here?" she asks them as she sees them stir. "What did you think?"

[stompadour]

Jasper sits up gasping, her hair spattering water around the room and onto Lapis and the Lady.

"What," she rasps, struggling to her feet, unsteady, "what was that, what--"

[mirrortide]

Unlike Jasper, when Lapis sits up, she's hacking and coughing, wheezing for air once more like she had done originally.

Unlike Jasper, she's quiet, and she's very clearly eyeing The Lady warily.

[npcarnival]

The Lady of the Lake doesn't directly answer the question, but she does lay back in the water, letting her hair flow outward as she muses.

"When you're immortal... you don't spend a lot of time thinking about death, do you? You don't feel it the same way," she says. "But... now you have. Now you understand, the feeling of life slipping out of your hands."

She smiles.

"I gave that to you. It's a gift."

[stompadour]

Jasper is panting and sputtering; there are bags under her eyes when she lifts her head and looks at the Lady of the Lake through bedraggled hair.

"You can keep it," she growls. "I didn't need it."

[mirrortide]

Lapis, helpfully, sits exactly where she is and stays quiet once she's finished hacking up the water left in her system out of some inane reflex that Gems really have no business having.

Maybe if she's quiet, she'll be ignored.

[npcarnival]

The Lady smiles and stands up, droplets of water running down her body. She looks at Jasper, beaming.

"Now it's your turn," she says. She gestures to Lapis. "Hold her down."

[stompadour]

It takes a moment for Jasper to realise what she means; to retrieve the context from before the incomprehensible experience of drowning, that before that she was asking Lapis to keep restraining her, and Lapis wouldn't --

She looks between them again, uncertain, uneasy.

"Why..."

[mirrortide]

At the command, Lapis looks at Jasper nervously.

She wouldn't blame her if she did. There's no reason for her not to. And with that Fae here, There's nothing she could do to stop Jasper. She's not a Quartz, she wasn't made for fighting.

[npcarnival]

The Lady looks surprised, but then smiles again. She crawls back down into the water and moves closer to Jasper, looking at her over the ripples.

"All this time," she says. "She's been the one holding you down. Months, she held you down, smothered you. Don't you wonder what it's like?"

She whispers it like its a secret.

"Except, it will be better. Worse than she could ever do to you. Isn't that exciting?"

[stompadour]

Jasper stares at her. She stares at Lapis. That isn't...

It's not that she doesn't want to hurt Lapis, is the thing. She does. But it -- not if she doesn't think Lapis will be able to fight back. To retaliate. More than anything else, she wants to provoke her.

"... No," she says warily. She's still looking at Lapis.

[mirrortide]

"What." Is the only response Lapis can give, and she certainly looks more shocked than anything else.

[npcarnival]

"Why not?" the Lady asks sedately, watching Jasper as she watched Lapis.