⇨ THE EPILOGUE

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

day 62

[anti_nonsense]

Rita's passed by the medical tent a few times now, but each time the Nightrider appeared to be sleeping, so she let him be. This time, she's about to walk away again when she hears his voice.

She turns around to face him with an uncertain look. "You're up?" That's a question, because even if he seems awake, it's not clear if he's fully aware. She's not convinced he won't just go right back to sleep in the next few seconds.

[whattaprick]

Lambert's awake, but whether he's lucid ... that's a different story. Rita can probably intuit as much, from the way his eyes struggle to focus on her, the vertical slits of his pupils contracting and dilating erratically.

Of course, what comes out of his mouth first is also definitely a clue that he's missing a few hens from the coop right now.

"You did great," he tells Rita. This, it seems, is absolutely imperative for her to know. "Don't regret... taking you on..."

[anti_nonsense]

“Huh?” That earns him a weird look, a tinge of pink in Rita’s face. Is he still out of it...?

“You might be the only person who thinks so,” she says wryly, grabbing the back of a chair and pulling it over so she can sit near his bed. “You know everyone’s furious with us, right?” And if he doesn’t know, then he does now.

[whattaprick]

Lambert is, in fact, pretty out of it. He tracks Rita as she sits down, lazily -- and her question makes him smirk, crookedly.

"People get mad at me all the time." Rita's usually among that number, frankly. "What're they mad about?"

Maybe he's had this conversation already in some form ... hard to recall that now. Maybe he's just repeating something he's already said.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita rolls her eyes. Will he even retain this information if she tells him?

Whatever. Waste of time or not, she'll tell him. "Most of them are mad about the use of mind control, and the some are mad about the possibility of retaliation." Rita has some concerns of her own, but she can't exactly complain when she was a willing participant. There's one thing she will complain about, however.

"As for me, I'm mad because I had to deal with all those angry people because Syrlya couldn't be bothered and you were here unconscious."

[whattaprick]

"They can fuck off," is Lambert's stellar, succinct advice. "They weren't there."

If he were conscious to answer questions That's what it comes down to in the end, doesn't it. They were the ones there, not anyone else. Someone else might have done it differently, someone else might have done better, but they're the ones who did it, and they'll have to live with it.

Trouble is, so will the rest of the Carnival, now. Even Lambert recognizes that.

"Stay mad." His gaze drifts away from Rita, self-absorbed and lost in thought. "You'll need it ... for what happens next."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita's not sure how much of this encouragement is the medication talking, but she'll take it.

"Right," she says flatly. "And what do you anticipate is happening next?" Rita has a few ideas of what he might mean, but she's also curious if he can communicate his thoughts in a clear and lucid manner.

[whattaprick]

There are a few things, and it takes Lambert a few moments to gather scattered thoughts and push them into something resembling coherency.

"Gonna find out ... if the fae'll come for their people... like we do." Retaliation isn't a possibility in his mind; it's an inevitability. Might as well accept it and prepare for the worst.

"She didn't kill him." He remembers that much, from bits and pieces of conversation. Nobody explained exactly what she did with him, either, but those are really just details. "We'll find out if it worked."

[anti_nonsense]

Looks like his head isn't too scrambled. Rita nods, frowning. "It's probably too much to hope that we got Ignatius before he could relay Strange's information to the Rose Queen. If they don't still have a means of tracking us, we can probably expect them to intercept us when we go after the Mirror."

It also looks like someone's told Lambert about the aftermath, if he knows Ignatius is still alive. Maybe Childermass...? He did say he was coming here.

A somber look crosses her face as she goes on to say, "If he gets his strength back, he'll probably just go back to the way he always was. I doubt a fae would understand us, even if we showed them."

[whattaprick]

Stiffly, Lambert nods. The possibility of abandoning the quest for the Mirror hasn't crossed his mind -- for good or ill, it's their hope now. If the Fae have the same information they do, chances are good they'd just go to claim it and then come back to raze the Carnival for the rose.

"He doesn't need to understand us," Lambert snorts. "Just needs to see us."

Maybe that doesn't make much sense to Rita hearing, but regardless of whether she gets what he's getting at, he rambles on.

"You remember... what the Beast was like?"

[anti_nonsense]

Rita raises an eyebrow, but decides not to question it. Instead, she focuses on his question.

"In Portland?" She only really spoke to the Beast once, but... "Sort of, yeah."

[whattaprick]

"I think ... that was what she used to be."

Lambert didn't ask explicitly. Even as rude as he can be, it hadn't seemed wise to pry too much into that. Maybe Rita didn't have much of an impression of the Ringmaster before Portland, but she looked a little less humanoid from the Summerlands on. It had been hard to miss...

"You know that was real ... right?"

[anti_nonsense]

What she used to be? Then unlike the rest of them, who assumed the lives of what were sometimes radically different people... the Ringmaster's form and identity was actually part of her reality?

Rita only has a few seconds to process that, however, when his next question catches her completely off-guard.

"What do you mean?" she asks, stiffening. It's eerily similar to what Ignatius asked her... but Lambert couldn't have heard that, could he?

[whattaprick]

It's something that Childermass only explained to him once, and to be honest Lambert doesn't really grasp the details of it himself. All he can do is struggle back to that memory, which is a tall order considering his state of mind.

"The lives the Severing gave us ... we really lived them," he blinks, slow and hazy. "John asked the Ringmaster. That's why he and Steven became faeblooded, even after..."

[anti_nonsense]

"No..." Rita's eyes widen as she looks over his face, seeking confirmation that he must be lying, or confused. He could be confused.

"That's ridiculous," she sputters, shaking her head. "We can't be... I can't be her."

If he'd told her this a day sooner, she might have accepted it easily. She and the other Rita are a lot more alike than they are different, after all. It's not exactly insulting to think that they're the same. But now, accepting it means acknowledging that her past with Ignatius was real, that she was there, and that on some level, he knows her. All of that, just the day after she denied as much.

[whattaprick]

Lambert's tired, and unfocused, but there's a certainty to his words nonetheless.

"Didn't make sense to me then." He frowns, like he's trying to remember something. "Still doesn't. But not impossible."

They are, after all, in a Carnival that deals with impossible things all the time.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita’s stare lingers for several seconds, then she forces her gaze away. It’s going to take a while to unpack that revelation. Thanks a lot, Lambert.

For now, she decides to change the subject. “Looks like you’re in rough shape. How long do you suppose it’ll be until you’re back in action?” Lambert’s probably been on the verge of death enough times by now to have some idea of what it’ll take. Maybe.

[whattaprick]

Lambert frowns, considering.

“Probably a week or two.” He scowls, just thinking about it. That feels like a long time, even longer with what’s at stake. “Bones take a while, even with magic ... was there anyone injured worse?”

[anti_nonsense]

"We've got a few injured. Some of them don't look good, but..." Rita shrugs as she casts a glance over her shoulder, at some of the other occupied beds. "They'll live."

She doesn't look back to him. "When you get better, I was thinking... I want to step up my combat training. You think you could...?" Apparently, it's too hard to actually finish that request for help, but he should get the idea.

[whattaprick]

... Why is she asking him and not 9S? The question is on the tip of Lamberts tongue, but after a moment’s thought, he decides to let it go.

“Sure,” he says, simply. But to take the sting off asking— “But until then, I need you to do something for me first.”

[anti_nonsense]

Well, that was easy. Or so she thinks, until Lambert comes out with a request of his own. Maybe she should've seen it coming, considering he's technically her boss.

"What is it?" she asks, facing him with a questioning look.

[whattaprick]

Lambert frowns slightly, then gestures tiredly over the edge of the bed, trying to indicate something under it. There is, in fact, something under it -- his sword, and the metal bracer he was wearing during the fight, still fully charged from Ignatius's attack.

"You remember the bracer I had during the fight? It's made of a metal that absorbs magic energy and lets you use it again later." He pauses for breath, but Rita can probably guess where he's going with this.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita follows his gesture, then slides off her chair and crouches to check under the bed. The bracer in question catches her eye, and she reaches for it, then stands to examine it.

"This has Ignatius' power in it...?" she surmises, eyes fixed on it for a few seconds before she finally looks back to Lambert. "You want me to analyze it?"

[whattaprick]

"Careful," Lambert warns. Fresh-filled with power and heated by flame, the bracer had been hot enough to burn Strange's face -- but right now it's just hot to the touch without being painful. To Rita's magic eye, it's probably lit up with magic potential.

But he nods, once she has it in hand. "I don't know if you'll get anything useful out of it," he admits. "But if not, the magic should power up your own spells, if you need it."

[anti_nonsense]

The heat radiating from the bracer is tolerable at first, but gradually inches towards being uncomfortable. Rita looks around, spots a stack of cloths on a nearby table, and takes one to wrap the bracer with. It should be fine if she borrows one.

Lambert's offer is met with a surprised look. He'd even let her use this magic...?

Her expression soon gives way to a slight smile. "We'll see," she says. "For now, you'd better get some more rest." Rita's eager to get started on examining this bracer, after all.