⇨ 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

[whattaprick]

"Ignatius said he knew nothing but the life he'd been given," Lambert says, his gaze rolling up to the ceiling. "I can't understand ... how someone can live that long without wanting to change that."

He frowns. "How can you have all that time ... and waste it?"

[periphrasing]

Peridot watches him for a long moment, her hands falling slowly back down to her lap. She stares at them, tensing and relaxing her fingers, choosing her words carefully.

"...It's easy, when you don't have anyone around to challenge your perspective of the world," she murmurs sullenly after a moment, ears drooping sadly. "Or.. when the people you answer to take great pains to constantly remind you that you're only ever good for the position you were born into."

[whattaprick]

Lambert cocks his head a little, frowning as he thinks it over. He doesn't quite realize yet, in this moment, just how personal the response is for Peridot -- his mind still on Ignatius and the Fae. It's a bit relatable. It's the sort of reasoning behind why he gave up on being anything but a witcher, too.

It still doesn't make him feel sorry for Ignatius, though.

"Or when you don't see people as people," he says, at last, his lip curling. But he'll pick up the thread here, since he wasn't quite done with the story. "We tried to change that ... but I don't know if it worked."

[periphrasing]

For half a second, she thinks he's accusing her of not seeing humans people, just because she's projecting so hard on the situation. Which, she DID used to think like that, which makes it all the more embarrassing when it sinks in, even after she realizes that's not his point.

"Tried to change it?" Peridot repeats, looking back up at him, shoving those unpleasant thoughts under the metaphorical rug. "Change it how? You can't possibly just force someone to learn something like that..."

[whattaprick]

"No," Lambert agrees, frowning. "But with the Athenaeum... we could make him feel it. What it's like when the fae hurt us, and we can't do anything about it."

Lambert wouldn't consider it torture. Only justice. If perspective is what Ignatius lacks, now he should have plenty.

"Rita's book ... could share memories. I couldn't think of anything else."

[periphrasing]

"So, what, you narrated that he could feel what it was like then?" Peridot asks, leaning forward with interest. "How did he react?"

She and Lambert may be on the same page here, regarding it being torture or not. That just sounds like a sensible solution to her, depending on how they phrased it.

[whattaprick]

“We did. It looked like it hurt,” Lambert looks satisfied... then faintly annoyed all over again.

“Didn’t exactly get to talk after that. The Ringmaster showed up.”

[periphrasing]

Well the satisfaction from hearing that sure is short lived.

"And then presumably after that is when she knocked you unconscious, and then ate him, leading us into our current predicament." She says with a sigh, leaning back in her chair again and looking vexed. "Wow. I still can't decide if I'm impressed or annoyed with you."

[whattaprick]

Lambert stares at Peridot, blankly.

"She ate him?"

[periphrasing]

Peridot stares equally blankly.

"Does that really surprise you?"

[whattaprick]

"You said you saw Ignatius." Lambert is looking a little perturbed. "So what, she shat him out?"

[periphrasing]

She pulls a face. Thanks Lambert! She really didn't need that mental image!

"Stars no," Peridot squawks, recoiling slightly. "She was just kind of... Holding him, in her stomach?"

Look, don't ask her how the hell that's supposed to work. She doesn't even HAVE a stomach most of the time.

[whattaprick]

"So her stomach is a dungeon now?" Lambert has his doubts. "Did you know she could do that?"

[periphrasing]

"Absolutely none," Peridot admits, staring up at the ceiling distractedly. "I don't think she intends to keep him in there forever, though. He seemed to be causing her a significant amount of pain. Plus he was none too comfortable himself, and she was pretty concerned about that."

[whattaprick]

Lambert is unimpressed.

“He’s loyal to the Summer Court, which makes him our enemy until they decide to stop being our enemy, so he can stay uncomfortable.” Come on, Peridot! Don’t sympathize with this guy! “Must be like swallowing a furnace.”

[periphrasing]

Boy does that judgement call on Ignatius make Peridot uncomfortable! She shifts her weight with a frown, curling her tail around herself. "She said the only reason she can withstand his power is because she's also a fire elemental, and even then... She's only just barely able to."

[whattaprick]

Listen, Peridot, if you overidentify with world-hopping universe destroyers, that's your problem.

"She couldn't use the Rose to help?"

Not that Lambert actually knows how the Rose could possibly be used to solve the matter of a fire in the belly, as it were. It's not like RM can just stick it in somewhere and hope for the best.

[periphrasing]

BUT SHE WAS A WORLD HOPPING UNIVERSE DESTROYER ONCE, LAMBERT! Well. Planet destroyer, actually, but. Close enough.

She frowns. "...I actually don't know? She might have tried that already, for all I know. Though I don't see how a super weapon is supposed to help her with something like indigestion from eating someone who's still very much alive."

[whattaprick]

"The Courts think they're weapons," Lambert concedes. "But ... they're also called Miracles. And if there's anything we've learned, the Fae don't name things for fun."

He frowns, thinking, but it's getting hard to string thoughts together again, his energy flagging. "Funny, right? Even the Fae have their fairy tales..." The witcher trails off. "Maybe they forgot what they were made for in the first place."

[periphrasing]

A bit of an abrupt shift of topic, but... He has a point. And poses and interesting question, to be sure.

Peridot can tell he's flagging, though. Rather than engage further in that discussion, she sighs and exhales sharply, and then reaches out to lightly plap a green hand against the witcher's forehead. "Alright, quit talking and some more sleep, you clod," she huffs. "I'll come back and yell at you again after you stop being so broken."