lostcarnival | ⇨ DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS

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⇨ DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS

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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Steven is finally able to sigh a breath of relief, at that, a gentle stream of bubbles coming from his mouth as he does. There's a long list of people he wants to ask about, but the fact that Yuya hasn't immediately rushed to tell him about more makes him feel a little bit more at ease.

Despite the fact that he's dreaming, he still feels so tired.

He looks back up to Yuya, trying to meet his eyes, to stay focused. He doesn't know if anything Yuya does here will really help him. All he needs is time.

"I know this seems really weird," he explains, as levelly as he can. "But... I can go into people's dreams, if we're sleeping at the same time. This is really me. When you wake up... remember that, okay?"

His ears fold down, a look of helplessness coming across his face.

"I don't think I can fight her. But... I tried. I'm sorry."

Yuya stares back at Steven as he looks up, pursing his lips at his weary face and words.

And then he moves his hand to grab Steven's shoulder and start shaking him with a stern expression. "Hey, don't give up! It's not over! I'm coming for you, okay? And not just me! Joker too, Gongenzaka, and everyone... she definitely can't have you!"

His eyes brighten as he smiles, determined to combat Stevrn's hopelessness with his faith. "If it's a dream, then why can't we try and fight back here? I know you can do it!"

Steven has helped other people by entering their dreams before, but he's never really helped himself. The stuff in his own dreams never seemed as obvious, probably because the stuff behind them belonged to him.

He believes that they're going to try to get him back, but it feels so hard to imagine that it will work. In Portland, he'd only managed to escape because he saved himself. If he can't do that now... then what?

Tears begin to fall down Steven's cheeks - a paradoxical sight, considering they are underwater. Yet, visually, they look like little bits of sparkling crystal, trailing through the water before dissolving. Yuya's belief in him makes him feel like he needs to try, but by the same hand, he's terrified of doing so and failing again. It feels like a challenge that he just can't reach. So, he tells Yuya something else, instead.

"Please tell them... I didn't mean to let her take me. I didn't mean to do this."

He remembers how betrayed Connie had felt, when he left her behind. He didn't want to do that again, but he did. Despite everything Yuya is trying to tell him, he doesn't feel like he can do any better.

Yuya's expression rapidly slips, his heart sinking as Steven starts to cry. His words aren't enough, and at first he wants to sink into the same hopelessness. That they can't compete with the Fae, that he's powerless. He wants to feel his pendulum between his fingers, but it's...

The silence hangs between them, Yuya's gaze shifting slightly out of focus. Weren't his own words that this is a dream? And why not?

He moves, suddenly, to pull Steven closer, or himself closer to Steven. Yuya looks up, a clear view over his shoulder as he reaches with his free hand again for one of the vines.

"Neither did I!" He tries to dig his claws into the vine, to pierce and sever it. If it hurts, he's sorry. "But you know, you escaped before! And this time you're not doing it alone. You're definitely not alone, Steven!"

It's hard to tell his progress, but Yuya keeps trying. "How are we going to know if we don't try?! I'll start, just follow me lead!"

His instinctive reaction to the stab of pain that sends through his shoulders is to grab at Yuya, trying to push him away. The vines are made of the same stuff that his wings had been, and they feel just as much a part of his body. Yuya trying to claw them off feels horrible. His super strength doesn't apply in this dream, either - it's a battle of will, plain and simple.

"Stop," he says at first, clawing at Yuya's shirt. Yet, as he does, something else rises up in him - it's Creation. The same Creation that has been riding with him this whole time, waiting for the moments he needs it most.

It's glow spreads across his body, soothing the pain. Steven's panicked struggle against Yuya relaxes, and he exhales into the water.

Yuya's claws begin to make progress tearing through that first tether.

Yuya grits his teeth, his progress ceasing when he hears Steven in pain. He doesn't want to do it this way, but this is how the Rose Queen has her vice grip on him. Maybe he can imagine a better way, something cleaner than his claws...

He feels a familiar presence, then, and shifts slightly to look down at Steven's glowing form. Gongenzaka's words ring in his head--I've called on Creation to protect him--and Yuya's heart just about leaps out of his chest.

"You recognize that, right? Gonenzaka called Creation for you. Everyone's here for you, Steven." His trapped hand grips a little more tightly, the best comfort he can offer with it, while he starts digging his claws unti the vines again. He tries to use a little dream logic to will them sharper, stronger, to cut better.

"If it's hard to be strong right now, then borrow mine!" He keeps talking, encouraging, trying to keep Steven with him so he can free him. "That's what friends do. I get scared too, I feel like I'm weak and I can't do anything, but my friends always help me up. You have that, too! I told you!"

Edited 2018-05-22 02:32 (UTC)

"It's been protecting me," Steven explains in a half daze, until the relevance of that occurs to him. It had helped him feel safer before, but maybe it's still with him for this. He saw what Creation was capable of. Maybe there's more to this, now?

As Yuya speaks, he feels his resolve finally begin to harden. He has to try. He has to try...

He starts pushing against the tug of the vines, leaning into Yuya's hold and pushing further down, until they're held taut. The weight against them makes them easier to tear, and even though the pressure resonates sickly deep beneath his shoulders and spine, he tries to keep going.

His eyes are closed with exertion as the first tether snaps.

It snaps. Yuya exhales in relief, and then he's immediately grabbing the next one and tears hia claws into it. "That's right. It's working!"

It's working. That's all the encouragement Yuya needs to keep going, and he won't stop. Not until he breaks the Rose Queen's hold on Steven, no matter how long that takes.

"Keep holding on, Steven! You can do this, you have me and Creation here with you. You can fight back."

They can do this.

He keeps holding on. No matter how much the pressure builds, no matter how much it makes him want to quit, even with the help of Creation, he clings to Yuya and keeps straining against the tethers. He doesn't know what this will amount to, but it's all he has.

It's an arduous process, but one by one, the tendons of vine break. Each one hurts, even with his pain being soothed, but neither of them quit.

His will is starting to waver by the time they get down to the last one. But, that doesn't matter when it finally snaps and Steven is suddenly set loose, plunging forward with all of that released momentum. He smacks into Yuya's chest and stays their, his hands still buried in Yuya's shirt.

He lets out a gasp as its finally over, and vines left to drift in the ocean water, a short distance away.

"Did... Did we do it?" he asks, afraid to look back.

Yuya grunts as they're thrown back as all that tension is released, and Yuya feels the tension in him release too. Maybe it's just a dream but... in a dream, they were stronger than the Rose Queen. Maybe it doesn't have to stay a dream.

"We did it." Yuya smiles wide, carefully settling his arm around Steven's shoulders, trying to avoid obviously wounded areas. "You did great. See? I knew you were strong enough." Strong enough to bear the pain and give Yuya the edge he needed.

Yuya's gaze drifts up, relieved.

"I don't know what to do now," Steven mumbles, still resting against Yuya's chest. He feels more mentally clear than he did before - the ocean water isn't bothering him at all, whereas before he had to concentrate to be able to talk. It just makes it obvious how deep her hold is on him, with her controlling the way he thinks even when she isn't directly forcing his actions.

"When I wake up... she's going to do this to me again. I don't want it to be for nothing," he says. He's not being fatalistic, here. He's almost certain that she will get into his head again, and there's no preventing that. What he does want to do is try to use the time he has well.

Yuya furrows his brow, but continues to let their bodies just float peacefully through the water.

"It's not for nothing. You know you can beat it, now. You have to remember that, and Creation will be there with you too." If it's been protecting him up until this point, surely it'll continue to do so. That's what Gongenzaka asked for.

"... What is she doing to you?" He noticed the changes, but it's only now that there's the space to talk about it. Her hold is deeper than just locking him up, isn't it?

Steven looks at his own hand when asked that, processing how it's still all messed up, even in his dreams. There is a faint feeling of revulsion when he sees what's going on with his body, not because he thinks it looks hideous, but because it's come on so fast and was forced upon him so violently. He's never been as uncomfortable with any carnival changes as he has been with this.

"She put something in me, and... it's been making everything that happened with the Blue Rose worse. It's been doing stuff to me all night, and until Creation showed up it hurt so bad I almost couldn't deal with it."

Since then, Creation has basically been providing him full-time painkillers and soothing whatever wounds form as a result of the changes. it doesn't stop them from happening, though.

"I don't even know why, or what she wants," he says, starting to tear up again. It's been really hard, and he's had no one he can talk to about it. "She just says stuff about how the Rose's influence was good for me, and how she needed it... I can't control any of it."

So she's using Steven to get to the rose... Yuya doesn't really understand the technical parts of it, or even what the Blue Rose did to him originally. But he doesn't need to in the face of how much agony it's causing Steven. Something hot and furious starts to boil in Yuya's chest, but he swallows and forces himself to keep that feeling buried deep for now.

"I'm sorry." Sorry Steven is suffering, and also sorry he didn't do more to stop this from happening in the first place. He can't help a pang of guilt, remembering Joker's admonishment for their lack of plan, for his inability to forcibly free Steven from her grasp. "When we free you, I bet the Ringmaster can help."

When, not if. Yuya refuses to accept a failure, here. "She doesn't have you entirely. You still found me this way, didn't you? Can you keep finding us in our dreams?"

They are very good questions. He wishes he knew for sure.

"I don't know if... if she'll realize I did this now, and keep me from doing it anymore. Or if something else will happen that will make it so I can't, but... as long as I can be asleep and other people are asleep, I should be able to look for them."

He's never used this power in a crisis situation like this before, but no better time to learn.

"She isn't here all the time," he says.

Yuya looks down, offering Steven a smile as well as he can given it's an awkward angle. "Then you've got that much, right?" It's pretty significant that the Rose Queen, for all her effort, couldn't isolate Steven entirely in Yuya's opinion.

"You can still talk to us and tell us how you and Mr. Strange are doing, or what the Summer Court is doing. We haven't left the library, so we're going to be there soon."

As soon as they have a plan, since they probably need it. But Yuya can't really confirm or not that much right now. Still, they've been through this before and he knows they won't leave anyone behind this time, either.

The assurance that they're coming is an important one for Steven, even if it fills him with related fears about what will happen to them when they try. He tries to think about what preparations could be made, but his access to the gardens is so limited, and the Rose Queen gets in the way of anything he tries to do.

"Okay," he agrees. "I'll keep trying to find you guys... and I'll try to be ready in the real world, too."

He goes quiet for another moment, thinking of the things that led up to this meeting. Something occurs to him, and his grip on Yuya tightens with the realization.

"Wait," he says, looking up. "Mr Strange wanted me to give a message to Lambert - can you talk to him?" He knows he just saw Lambert out and about, but...

Yuya's grin widens, glad to hear Steven more confident now. Although it shifts with curiosity when Steven mentions the missive and his grip tightens.

"Lambert? Yeah, I can talk to him." If he's not in the carnival, Yuya doesn't expect to have any problems calling him on the radio. "What's the message?"

"I don't know what it means, but... Mr Strange wanted to tell him to 'remember to do the thing he needs him to do.'" Or something like that. He said he'd pass along the message, even if it seems vague to him, it will probably mean something to Lambert.

"And if I can't find any of them here... can you tell the gems that I'm... uh..." Can he really say he's okay? He's not sure. "I'm still here, and I'm trying to help them get to me."

That only makes Yuya more confused, because it means absolutely nothing to him. But he nods, muttering the phrase under his breath to commit it to memory. It must be important if Strange is having Steven relay it.

"Got it. You can count on me." He pauses for a moment, going over all the gems he knows in his head. "The gems--I know Peridot, but who else is a gem?"

They probably all have accompanying names, Yuya's just not sure how to identify them off-hand. The carnival changes make it hard to assume anyone's appearance.

"Amethyst," he says, first and foremost. "And Lapis, but..." He trails off. He's pretty sure she's in danger too, isn't she? "I think... she was in trouble, too."

He thinks a moment longer.

"Don't tell Jasper. She won't care." He can't help but sound grumpy about that one. "She'd probably prefer if I never came back."

Yuya wrinkles his nose. "Well, that's too bad for her because you're definitely coming back." He sticks his tongue out briefly, dampening the offense of his words. He can reach the others, though, and at least try to contact Lapis.

They'll probably appreciate hearing from him. Watching Steven fall into the Rose Queen's arms like that... it was alarming, but Yuya's glad to see him finding some clarity again.

"Can you pass on a message for me, too?" He tilts his head. "To Mr. Strange. That we haven't left, and we'll definitely save him from Ignatius."

He's not sure if Strange actually needs the same reassurance, but he knows how much Strange has to lose if he's stuck with Ignatius. That would be daunting for anyone. "He has to get back to Mrs. Arabella, so... even if he offered himself, I can't leave it at that."

"Yeah, you right," Steven says, nodding in agreement. He smiles a little, feeling comforted for now, even if he dreads going back to what's happening in the waking world. "He does. I'll tell him for you."

He exhales, releasing tension. He feels like he might be wasting energy, now. Dream traveling tires him out rather than allowing him rest, he knows that much. What should he do? Should he keep searching?

"I don't know how long I can stay here," he says, before laughing feebly. "But I really don't want to wake up."

"Well, I won't tell you to leave." He scratches the side of his nose. Realistically, even Yuya shouldn't stay here when he has messages to deliver and rescues to start preparing. But he doesn't want to rip this comforting presence from Steven when he's suffering so much.

A little longer is probably fine. Yuya's mind is still filling the waters with the peaceful familiarity of home, if a little embellished. A school of fish will probably try swimming through them before being forced to scatter around.

"Gongenzaka meditates a lot to clear his head. I'm not very good at it, but... I guess it does help to let everything go just for a little bit."

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⇨ DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS

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