lostcarnival | ⇨ THE EPILOGUE

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⇨ THE EPILOGUE

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 61
Where: The Carnival
What: After all the rescues team return, it will be matter of tending to the wounded and getting the hell out of dodge. The Ringmaster can handle the fleeing part, but someone will need to look after those in the medical tent. Or, maybe, you just want to show up and ask what the hell happened.
Warnings: Some messed up consequences of faerie fuckery.

IN REPAIR↴

As the minutes tick past, all four rescue groups will eventually return. Everyone in the carnival is encouraged to help out, ensuring that the rescues and victims both are taken care of after the fact. You can tag in here as rescuers taking care of business around the carnival, victims recovering, or other workers checking in to see what's going on. This log is for general aftermath threads, made by anyone.

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Yuya follows her in, gently closing the door behind him before he sits at the table opposite of Rita. There's a moment where he awkwardly fumbles with his hands before just resting them in his lap.

"So... what happened? When you went to save Mr. Strange." How had it failed like this?

"We had a plan, to get Ignatius to duel one of us. If we won, he'd return Strange. We made a few offers to try and entice him, but in the end, he wouldn't accept any of our conditions." Rita folds her arms, her gaze not meeting Yuya's.

"Ignatius knew we wanted Strange, so he wouldn't bring him out. So instead, we summoned Strange, and bound both of them to our location so they couldn't escape. What followed was a big messy fight against that idiot and a High Fae."

So he did end up having to fight them. Yuya's heart sinks as he looks down at the table, feeling hallow. Maybe Strange went willingly, but he was protecting the carnival and now he had to go through exactly what he'd been afraid of. And they lost him, even if he will come back.

Tell Lambert to do what he needs him to do. Yuya wants to throw those stupid words back in Strange's face, but he can't.

"Then what happened?"

"We used the Athenaeum's power. Zangetsu filled the whole arena with water, but we could still breathe and move normally. Lambert called on the Earth Spirit to chain Ignatius down to the ground. I invoked my Guardian powers, conjured a sword, and stabbed him." It was a triumphant moment for Rita. After all this time, she finally defeated him. It's everything she wanted.

So why doesn't she feel happy about it...?

"While I was occupied with Ignatius at the bottom, Lambert and Zangetsu fought Strange on the surface. I didn't see how he died. I just know that Lambert was injured and knocked into the water, and then... Zangetsu must have killed Strange and run off with the body." That's what she heard, but she didn't see it.

So she doesn't know exactly what happened there, either. He was probably coming close to killing them if they did. Yuya rubs his face, then buries his face in his hands and takes a shaky breath as he tries to push the memories of his corpse out of mind.

"I guess the sword didn't kill him." He peeks at Rita from between his fingers. "You said you mind-controlled him?"

Rita frowns. She's not exactly proud of what happened at the end, but...

"We accomplished our mission, but Ignatius was still there... bound, wounded. A High Fae, the bastard who used me... the other Rita like a tool, who'd screwed around with Strange's mind..." She turns away, a dark look in her eyes as she looks off to the side. "We saw an opportunity, and we took it.

"I'll be clear. I hate mind control. I hate everything about it. But I hate him more, so I agreed with the plan. Syrlya used mind-altering magic, I used my power to conjure visuals from his memories... and we interrogated him until he wouldn't talk anymore."

Mind-altering, huh... is Yuya supposed to feel upset about that, or justified? He doesn't know, because he really just feels numb. His anger is wearing him out, extinguishing into grief as they leave behind the Fae licking their wounds again... and for what? When will it happen again.

He doesn't know Ignatius--he just knows what Ignatius did.

"... I hate them too," he says dully. "I hate seeing them hurting people all the time."

Rita's gaze snaps back to Yuya, surprised at hearing him admit to hating anyone.

"Me too," she says, her expression softening. Maybe he does understand. It's nice that someone does.

"...I regret some of it," she admits after a lengthy pause. "I'm not sorry he suffered. But I wish I did it differently." It might sound weird, after doubling down over the radio last night, but she feels like Yuya will listen without making her regret showing weakness in front of him.

Yuya looks back up, slowly lowering his hands from his face as she admits it. Making someone suffer... he's not sure he has the stomach for that anymore, but it's really hard to hold Rita's feelings against her with everything they've been through. With everything she has been through.

Rita's one of those who's been hurt the worst by the Fae. Absently he reaches to rub the shoulder that carries his wounds from the hunt before he crosses his arms on the table. "You mean the, uh, mind control?"

Rita doesn't answer right away, seemingly preoccupied. She settles on saying, "That's part of it." It takes a while before she seems to find the words to elaborate.

"When I defeated Ignatius... there was a minute, or a few seconds, where he just... I don't know..." She trails off, furrowing her brow, clearly bothered by something. "He tried to talk to me about Portland. He sounded weak and lost, like a person... not like how they usually are." They being fae, of course.

"Later, I used that weakness against him. I don't feel sorry for him or anything, but... it felt dirty."

Yuya looks surprised, briefly, at her assessment. Like a person... it's not impossible. The Ringmaster behaves in many ways like them. And really, even humans could be cruel--humans just didn't have unequivocal power to hurt entire worlds of each other. His expression softens a little as he watches Rita, for a moment, in silence.

"... How much do you remember about Portland?"

Rita meets his gaze, unsure of where he’s going with this.

“Just about everything from that last month there. For everything before then...” She gives a small shrug. “Bits and pieces. Why?”

Yuya scratches his cheek, glancing aside. "It's about the same for me, but I didn't really think a lot about how much the people that were there remember about us." But seeing the Rose Queen still pursuing Steven as her son, and Ignatius reminiscing... it must have been just as real to them, right?

"What'd he say to you?"

“He asked if it was real,” Rita says, looking as if concentrating on a spot on the table. “If meeting me, the other me, was real. He said he didn’t understand anything, and was looking for a solution... that I ended up being part of it.”

It’s something Rita sometimes wondered herself... That little girl she remembers being... who was she? Rita? Someone else? Nobody?

“If it was any other fae, I’d think it was a trick,” she continues, a wry look on her face. “But with him... I don’t know.”

The doubt is a little surprising. Rita is typically certain in her ways, and in things she's not... well, he hadn't imagined Ignatius making an impression where she would seem to be so conflicted about it. Not with what he did--the things that were real and the things that might not have been.

Across the table, it's hard to reach, so Yuya settles for sliding his hand across it in a silent offer of comfort. "Do you want to know?"

Rita gives him a surprised look, then sighs. "...I doubt the Ringmaster wants me going anywhere near him." It's not an answer, but it's not too hard to infer that if she could approach Ignatius, she perhaps would. Whether he'd be open to dialogue after everything that happened is another question, though.

"...It's not like mortals and fae could ever understand each other, anyway," she adds in a mutter.

Yuya doesn't look totally sure about that, but right now he won't argue it. He does, however, consider going to talk to Ignatius in Rita's place, if the Ringmaster isn't going to allow her to herself.

"What about you? Are you okay?" Besides the moral quandary of torture.

"I'm fine. I wasn't hurt," Rita replies simply. Other than being stressed, sore, and lacking sleep, she's in fairly good health. And while she won't say as much, talking to Yuya like this seems to be making her feel a little better.

"...You went to help Steven, right?" she asks after a moment. "How did that go?" She'll go ahead and guess it didn't end as controversially as her expedition.

Yuya nods, smiling with only a little bit of strain. "The Rose Queen really hurt him, but... we got him out. Things went a lot better when we knew how to use the Athenaeum against her--nobody else got hurt."

Well, Yuya's shoulder was pulled out of place but that wasn't actually the Fae's fault. "He's recovering at the med tent right now."

"Good," Rita says, though she doesn't look especially happy. Of course the Rose Queen hurt him. Damn it, she shouldn't have been able to get her hands on him in the first place...

"We can't let this happen again," she mutters after a pause. Steven's suffered enough. A lot of them have.

"We won't." He doesn't know if they won't, but he doesn't want to sound so uncertain when Rita already is.

He looks back at her, trying to meet her face with determination. "It can't go on like this forever. We have to be able to change something."

Rita meets his eyes and nods. Something has to change. She's felt that way for a while.

"Yesterday... we beat a High Fae and made him feel what it's like to be a helpless mortal. I don't know if that'll help us, or if it's just going to make things worse for everyone in the long run." Realistically, it might do both. "But I didn't want to just run away and hide, like we always do. Just for once, I wanted something different to happen."

She feels herself getting worked up, so she sinks back in her seat a little and glances away. "Anyway... thanks, I guess. For hearing me out."

Yuya purses his lips momentarily, then nods with a little smile. "Yeah, of course! We're friends anyway."

He draws his hands back, lightly gripping the edge of the table. "And thanks for telling me everything."

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⇨ THE EPILOGUE

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