lostcarnival | ⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

Entry tags:

⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

Who: Everybody!
When: Day 64
Where: The Camping Grounds
What: While the Ringmaster attempts to purge the carnival of magical tracing spells and deal with the angry fire fae in her belly, everyone else is getting sent on an emergency camping trip with some unusual local fauna.
Warnings: Camping.

CRYPTIC CAMPGROUNDS↴

You're given about three hours to prepare, after the Ringmaster tells you her plans for the coming week. There is a vast selection of camping equipment at your disposal, and the means to take along enough food for the length of the stay. The wilderness of the planet you're left on is nearly idyllic, but some people just don't like the great outdoors.

► CRYPTOZOOLOGY: As it turns out, the carnival won't be alone here. There is a varied ecosystem of cryptids to be found as well, living in relative peace and mostly reacting to the newcomers with curiousity. More details can be found on the plotting post. You are free to NPC the cryptids as much as you need to, as long as you stick to the behaviours described.

► DREAMSHARING: There is a player plot going on which will allow characters to share dreams! These are specifically more dreams than nightmares, and the mushi-adept characters will be here to help.

► CHILLAX: There isn't any plot twist for this setting, so this is mostly an opportunity to decompress from the last plot and get ready for the future. The Ringmaster will show up occasionally to help with needed medical treatments and check on things, but won't stick around for long.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's dangerous to let one's guard down even in a place like this when it comes to the carnival. Tyki was never sure if a peaceful place like this was going to turn disastrous. May as well enjoy it now while it was possible. Yet Tyki can't help but be relaxed after a bite of his golden apple from the Ringmaster. He's a lot more mellow as a result once the high energy burned off.

It's why Rita might notice Tyki squatting down over one of her notes pinned to the ground with a rock, pouring over the information with his eye as much as he wants to pick it up. He's been known to be quiet and appear out of nowhere and with her guard down, it's even worse.

Rita was a hothead but a rather smart girl with a sharp intuition. It's no wonder he's looking at what she has to offer.

When Rita's doing research, she can become completely blind to everything else around her. She writes several more lines of notes before her eyes wander enough to catch a glimpse of Tyki. When she does, the sight catches her completely by surprise.

"Gah!!" she cries, jerking back and dropping the notebook, which falls to the ground with a soft thud. "Wh... how long have you been there!?"

It's kind of adorable how much she devolves into her notes and he takes note of that. When he's not called out after a minute or so he'll assume it is alright to keep examining the information. It at least fills in a few pieces of he missed when it came to conversations. As much as he wanted to listen to everything that was almost impossible.

He raises a brow lightly with a small chuckle under his breath at startling her, "Five minutes perhaps. I didn't want to disturb your concentration."

Five minutes...!?

"Ugh... you should've said something!" Rita huffs at him, her cheeks reddening. She glowers a bit as she looks him over, her gaze drifting to the notes he was just looking at. His snooping, at least, doesn't seem to offend her as much as the sneaking.

"Should I have? You seemed to be focusing on something intensely and I wouldn't ever want to ruin such concentration," he replies with a cheeky grin.

She's getting red in the face again and he prowls forward, which looks awkward from how he's squatting down and scooting forward, from his spot in front of notes now that he's done reading them. At least he's keeping his hands to himself but he'll pick up her notebook and dust it off. That is until he just opens it and pads to the most recent entry he can find.

In the most recent entry, Rita has written about the Winter Queen. Tyki might have noticed her notes about the fae heavily focused on the Summer Court, with comparatively few mentions of Winter fae. It would appear most of her knowledge about the latter was obtained recently.

The notes mention the Winter Queen secretly sending demons - vampires, to be exact - to attack the carnival. It also mentions the accusation that she "cheated" her way to the throne. The Ringmaster was said to have killed the previous Winter Queen. Did the new Queen use her, and then turn on her...?

Furthermore, there's a mention of some kind of 'link' between the two Queens, and a similar one between Maidens. Even as their Courts wage war on one another, the Queens remain connected, almost like sisters.

Also mentioned in that page is the Winter spy, Frost, who supposedly tailed the Carnival for years.

Rita, in the meantime, simply faces Tyki with a frown as she waits for him to give her book back.

He tries not to take long as he reads through the notebook with renewed interest. Unlike Rita, he's very much aware of her watching him like she expects him to give it back, and one panther ear will slide upwards in her direction to gauge any tone of impatience getting worse. When done, he'll close it and hold it out to her.

It fills in a few blanks within the information he's been compiling. Tyki never really wrote anything down. His mind was where he store everything and he loved to talk in order to explain. "Sorry, I was admiring such detailed work." He sits more properly on the ground, resting his chin into his hand, "Whose Frost? I heard he was at Athenaeum too. His name has been coming up a lot."

Rita's frown deepens at the compliment, but she's content to take back that book.

"He's the Winter Court's spy. Ignatius said that he somehow latched on to the realm and was riding it around the multiverse. I guess he's always been lurking nearby, but... the library wasn't the first place our people encountered him directly."

It's story time, Tyki. Rita waves a hand idly as she explains, "About half a year ago, Strange tried to summon a fae to the Carnival. The spell didn't exactly work as intended. He summoned a fae, but not the one he intended to. We got Frost instead, who proceeded to dump a snowstorm on the realm before getting dispelled. At the time, the Ringmaster remarked that it was strange, that he must have been oddly close to the Carnival in the first place for that spell to work the way it did."

So that's who she was talking about earlier when they said they learned of information by doing what they did to Ignatius. He supposes it is something of importance even if the means were controversial enough. Still, he's not one to judge methods. It wasn't beneath him. It's not to have a name to a spy.

There's a faint lift of his brow at the mention of Strange. It makes him curious as to why but also it seems really stupid. "I'm imaging it wasn't a normal snowstorm," he says casually. "But I guess it makes sense now. Also, that implies that when he left he hadn't truly left at all." And what are the chances they would've figured that out before they retrieve the Miracles. One has to wonder.

"Exactly. Maybe if he was taken seriously as a threat that first time around..." Rita tenses for a moment, then sighs.

"Ugh... Guess we just have to live with what's already been done," she grumbles, instead of continuing down that line of thought. If they dwelled on every mistake that was made, they'd have so much blame going around the entire carnival, including at Rita, that it'd take weeks just to talk about it.

From what Tyki heard Frost was a bit of a brat but no one had ever bothered to explain anything in great detail about him. "Would you say someone like me would know him if I saw him?" All fae were a threat. Some were just easier to manage than others. The Ringmaster for one could be a threat if she wanted to. She just chose not to be.

"Yes, what is done is done. There is not any reason to yell or discourage. Not right now and far too late later on." There's too much going on for that. Too much inner conflict. He leans forward, as close as he is to her, and curls his fingers against his own cheek, "And Ignatius? What about him?" He asks only because she was a source of knowledge, not because of her personal involvement. "Feel free to not answer that." He just wants her to.

His first question receives a simple enough answer. "Probably. He's small, pale, has wings." Rita only saw Frost briefly and indirectly, but it was enough to get the idea.

As Tyki leans in and continues, he's met with a wary look. "What about him?" There are a lot of things that could be said about Ignatius.

"Hmm," he responds to that description of Frost. His curiosity is peaking mostly because she's acting so wary and defensive. He's fixated on her body language but then she was like this before.

It's hard to stop the grin on his face from growing. He hadn't expected his question to be met with such hostility. "I'm only asking the same thing I asked about Frost, Miss Wary. I meant nothing else by it."

Rita glares, then turns away with a huff. She doesn't appreciate the fact that he seems to enjoy her discomfort.

"He looks a little less human than the others. He's tall. Red skin. Flaming hair. A brand on his chest." Her reply is terse, but she answers the question. "Will that do?"

Tyki's far too honest to ever take anyone else into account but then he knew how to read a room. His smile softens out of that grin and he sits up to give her some room to breathe.

"Yes, that'll do nicely," he responds to end that conversation, "I do hope though that you don't plan on using this break to compile notes. Surely there must be other things you do for fun."

"Studying is what I do for fun," Rita replies with all the sternness of someone who is probably not much for fun to begin with. "Organizing notes helps me organize my thoughts. It's relaxing. Like meditation."

Incidentally, relaxing is another thing Rita doesn't seem to do a lot of.

"That, and magic practice," she adds after a moment of consideration. There you go, those are the two things she likes.

His mood deflates the moment she starts talking. He was hoping for something like sticker collecting, pony riding, starting fires, or even something mundane as hiking. But no, it's studying. He would've even been fine with reading books.

It's all over his face how disappointed he is until she perks up about magic, "Oh right, you were part of the Mage's Club." That's acceptable, "I just figured with all this wonderful air, the beauty of the trees, the feel of the water on skin, that there would be something more."

"Trees don't interest me," Rita says simply, shrugging. "I'd be able to find way more to do in a workshop, a laboratory, or a library than in a place like this." Really, what's she going to do with a bunch of trees? Set them on fire? Actually, that wouldn't be so bad...

"I grew up in an underground research facility, so I never really came to crave sunlight and fresh air, like a lot of people do." That makes perfect sense to Rita, who found her home cozy and familiar, but probably isn't a good general rule. There were plenty of people in Aspio who couldn't stand going weeks at a time without seeing the sun.

"That explains a lot actually," he says with no real judgement. Tyki could honestly thrive inside or outside as long as he wasn't bored. It's why punishments or motivation worked on him in small spurts. It's a good reason why he can't sit and study. He just gets really bored even with a really good topic.

"Everyone has their preferred pleasantries, I suppose. Cats though. I know you like those," he responds with an all too bright smile.

Rita's face reddens. There's no hiding it, really, but boy does she hate being called out on it.

"A little," she hastily qualifies, even though it's pretty clearly a lie. "That's not much of a hobby."

Ah, she's kind of cute when she blushes but he won't say it outloud. He's both seen and heard her temper rise easily from the slightest comment.

"I don't know. I think it's a wondrous hobby. Anything is what you make of it, even your love of studying. To you at least."

"Yeah... right," she mutters, through gritted teeth. She can't really argue, but there's still something irritating about the way he puts it.

"And what about you? I take it you've been taking advantage of the location?"

"Cats are cute, gentle in nature unless disturbed, soft and comforting to pet. One can certainly make a hobby out of it if they want to."

And he did mean it about her passion for studying. It was hard to be a Noah of Pleasure and yet not lock in on what made people happy, even if that wasn't for him at all. He liked gathering information but he couldn't ever make a hobby out of it. "I have. It's not as quiet as I would like but then I like the chatter of people. I enjoy the company but then I enjoy time by myself. Fishing is much more grand here than at the carnival. There is something about actual stars that brighten up an entire sky at night. Not knowing what they are, what they mean, or where they lead to."

"Didn't know you were the romantic sort," Rita comments flatly. She doesn't sound especially surprised, however.

"Or a fisherman." That one is mildly surprising, but then again, Rita's never known anyone who's all that into fishing... though even 9S tried his hand at it, so maybe it has wider appeal than she thought.

"I aim to please," he responds just as gently as the rest of his tone.

"Fishing, while some may find it boring, is usually found to be relaxing. It is the ease of comfort and the wait that allows time and temperance to take hold. Enjoying the water, feeling the breeze, the smell of the water, until that tug from the line signals it is time to lure it in."

⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

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