⇨ 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?

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[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.

[stompadour]

Jasper hesitates. She... isn't sure how to justify this gut reaction in a way that she feels comfortable saying out loud.

"... I haven't earned it," she says at last. It's the best she can do.

[npcarnival]

"I want you to do it anyway," she says, just as serenely. "I give that to you."

She slips closer to Jasper in the water.

[stompadour]

"That's not..." Jasper is looking more and more uncomfortable. She can sense the authority that the Lady has over her, and that obeying would be in her best interests, but..

"I don't want it," she says, as though this might make any difference at all.

[npcarnival]

She slips onto Jasper's body, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

"Hold her down," she breathes. "For me?"

She kisses Jasper on the cheek, and on the neck. A certain inevitability will overcome her - the inevitability of following through with this request. She doesn't have to like it, but its an order from her Lady. It's her duty.

[stompadour]

Jasper shudders at the touch of the Lady's lips. And that's it: she has to. With some trepidation, she wades towards Lapis.

[mirrortide]

All it takes is for Jasper to take those few steps towards her before Lapis is up. Quite literally, she goes from zero to sixty, as far as the roof goes with her wings in an attempt to get away from Jasper.

[stompadour]

She can see Lapis trying to summon her wings and failing, and it makes this feel so much worse. It's not like Jasper has never taken something out on a defenseless victim -- it's not like she's never done that and enjoyed it. She enjoys a fair fight more, but she is also, frankly, a bully, and she isn't at all above kicking people who are down when she needs to feel better about herself.

This isn't like that, though. Whether she's attacking Lapis or grovelling at her feet, it's because she wants to be with her, or for her to lash out in a way that might feel the way their fusion did. If Lapis can't push back against her, turn all the water in the room on her -- what's the point?

But the Lady of the Lake has compelled her, and so she has no choice but to advance on Lapis and seize her while she's still trying to deal with not being able to use her wings. Without her powers Lapis is all but helpless, and Jasper only needs to use one hand to seize her and plunge her underneath the water.