⇨ CAMPING GROUNDS

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

[whattaprick]

“More than I want to, and not enough,” Lambert admits. It’s strangely not that hard to say.

“The Ringmaster says ... that was real. All of it. Even if I don’t remember all of it, it really happened.”

For a little while, in another life, he was happy. Lambert took a while to accept that ... and now, part of him aches thinking about what he’s already lost, mourning a life that wasn’t really his own.

[hippocarnival]

"That's what I said the first time, wasn't it?" Well, not exactly that, but when they crashed that air balloon and were left to their thoughts until help arrived--what they felt there was real. How much of it was manipulated memories versus manipulated reality, Yuya can't tell. But he knows exactly what he was, what he did, what he felt was true.

But he can tell there's something else to the way Lambert looks at it, now, and Yuya regards him curiously. "Do you want to go back?"

[whattaprick]

Lambert shakes his head, an annoyed expression flickering across his face as he barks with laughter.

"You don't get it," he says, and its his turn to grip the railing and turn away. "Everything was real there. Everything. Growing up with Peridot and Miko, going to school, working at that stupid cafe..." Portland's Lambert had had a life. It wasn't much of one, and it was a small and ignorant existence in a way that Lambert hates thinking about now. But it's not an answer to Yuya's question, and he shakes his head again, more slowly this time.

"I don't want to go back." What he has now, he wouldn't give up for anything. But... "I want a life I can keep."

[hippocarnival]

Yuya's face scrunches up a little at Lambert's response, pursing his lips in a slight frown. But he doesn't bother to argue as Lambert goes on to answer his question.

He leans back a little on the rail, absently swinging a foot. "So... keep this one. You've already decided not to go back and keep being a Witcher, right?"

He knows that sounds way too simple as he says it, so he quickly holds up a finger before Lambert can mock that too. "I know it's not that easy, but you're still going forward for the life you want to keep, right? Like going to England. So keep going, and I think you'll definitely be able to make it happen."

Lambert's strong, he's brave, and he's stubborn. Yuya has no doubt he has what it takes to make and keep the life that makes him happy, no matter what. "I'm glad, actually. It sounded like you didn't like being a Witcher much."

[whattaprick]

“...Thanks.” It’s clear Lambert doesn’t know what to say to that, really. Strange had mocked his plans (even if that was before he’d known what was driving them at the time, it still stung) and even Childermass had expressed his doubts (though he apparently had no intention of intervening) but it’s warming, at least, to think that someone believes in him. Even Lambert has his doubts — will this situation witlh Ignatius only cause more pain, not less? — but as childish and naive as it may be, it feels ... nice, at least.

Though in the strange way dreams have, something twists in the fabric of reality, and Lambert flushes. “Just stubborn,” he mutters, turning away, as he responds to Yuya like he’d spoken his thoughts out loud. It isn’t really brave if he’s doing things without thinking too far ahead, and he’s not strong enough. The fight with Ignatius proved both those points.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya laughs, as if he really did say that aloud. It's hard to tell in dreams, anyway, even dreams that are technically merged with someone else's. He feels that rebuttal, and it brings back something else that Lambert had mentioned not long ago.

"I don't think bravery has to do with being smart." Otherwise Yuya would be out of luck. "And if we compare ourselves to the Fae... we're always going to need to be stronger. That doesn't mean you're not strong and brave now. Creation picked you to be a Guardian, didn't it?"

It didn't pick just anybody, although that doesn't really get to the root of why Lambert seems to think so poorly of himself. Is it about what happened with Ignatius? "Why do you think you're a monster?"

[whattaprick]

"I think Creation is drunk," Lambert says, matter of factly. It made Jasper a Guardian, after all. Lambert can't pretend to know what standards the force apparently powering a good chunk of the multiverse holds, but even Yuya has to admit that seems a bit suspect.

Yuya's second question, though, draws a more pensive expression out of him. It's something he thought he'd more or less accepted a long time ago, but lately...

"Because it's what I was made to be," he says, simply. Literally made, and it wasn't easy. "You think anyone normal chases down monsters for a living? It's the only thing I knew. It's why Strange thought he could count on me to kill him." Lambert can't imagine Strange attempting to extract the same promise out of someone like Rita or Yuya, for one. Maybe he should have. Trying to be something other than a killer, for once, certainly hasn't won him any friends.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya doesn't know Jasper very well, he doesn't see any reason to doubt her above everyone else.

That isn't the part he's focused on, though. He raises an eyebrow slightly as Lambert determines it in his history, but he isn't quite following the logic.

"But that's just your job. It doesn't make you a monster just because you have to fight them." He pauses, considering what Lambert had told him about it before. "It's like pest control, right? And, anyway..."

Normally, Yuya doesn't spread what his friends tell them between each other. But Lambert confides in him, and he's feeling especially loose tongued right now. "Mr. Strange told me he asked you because you're one of his closest friends and he trusts you with hard things. He was really scared, you know, of hurting people because he got brainwashed again."

Not because Lambert was just a killer--because Strange was afraid, and sometimes (a lot of the time) Strange makes terrible decisions when he's volatile. They both know how deep the wounds Nightshade inflicted go.

[whattaprick]

"It's how people see us, back home. Mutants, freaks. They believed it enough they killed most of us, actually. I'm part of a dying breed." There'll be no more witchers after him, not like him. The mob made sure of that.

The comment on Strange doesn't feel out of the ordinary, either. When he wakes up, he's going to regret being so open -- worse than being half-insensible while drugged to the gills.

"I know. But he wasn't scared enough." Lambert's gaze turns distant, looking across the shifting scenery in front of them. "I think he thought dying would be easy."

[hippocarnival]

"Or just easier than killing someone he cares about." Can Yuya blame him for that? "It probably wasn't the best way, but... I don't think he asked you because he sees you like that. I think he just didn't think about how hard it is to be on the other side of that, either."

Strange is insensitive, news at eleven. Yuya didn't get the impression he regretted asking Lambert, not the way Yuya regrets the way he's asked Gongenzaka. To him, it was probably like being backed into a corner.

Yuya leans forward, resting his hands on his knees as he follows his gaze outward. It's not easy to shake off an impression like that, and the way it colors everything else--everyone else. "It's hard to forget the way other people see you, right? You start to believe it, like they see something you don't, but... I'm pretty sure they're the ones who are wrong this time."

There's more he wants to ask and know, but he doesn't believe any of it will change that opinion of Lambert. He cares too much to be a monster at heart.

[whattaprick]

Strange is insensitive and it's probably a tragedy that all his friends have mostly resigned themselves to accepting it instead of ever anticipating he'll change. Unless he sees a reason to do so, Strange will never listen to anyone else but himself.

Maybe that's part of why Lambert envies him and Childermass both, sometimes, for being capable of truly ignoring other people's opinions. He's not meant to care about what other people say about him -- and for the most part, he still doesn't -- but strip away the anger and cynicism he shields himself with, and he's more vulnerable than he'd like to admit. It's why Childermass's words had hurt so much, in Wismuth. Hearing every insecurity he had in the voice of someone he--

"Stop making him think so hard." The gravel-rough, dryly amused voice should be familiar to Yuya, even if the vision it's attached to -- Childermass as he was in Portland, with a very un-Childermass like smirk on his face -- strides up to them out of the shadows, casually resting a hand at the small of Lambert's back as he comes up beside him. The contact has the witcher startle, then flush, glancing at Yuya. Childermass would never be this open, not with someone else around, even if Lambert instinctively leans into it with the familiarity of a well-practiced gesture... and that's when he realizes.

"This is a dream, isn't it?"

[hippocarnival]

Yuya lifts his head, offering Childermass a wave as he approaches. And then what Lambert says makes him stop, "Eh, a dream?"

Yuya blinks slowly, bewildered, before slowly turning to look around the mishmash of his home and Portland. Neither of which are places he should actually be right now.

"Oh, we're dreaming!" He says it like it's a revelation, suddenly looking down at himself like realizing what isn't real is going to make it all stop existing. "Ginko said this could happen..."

He looks up at Lambert, raising an eyebrow. "You're really Lambert, right?" This isn't all Yuya's imagination?

[whattaprick]

“What do you think?” Childermass answers for Lambert, contentedly keeping his arm right where it is.

Lambert’s scowl, in the meantime, only deepens, and he steps away from Childermass. The changeling watches him go with no small amusement, eyes half-lidded.

“Does it matter? How do we wake up?”

[hippocarnival]

Probably real. He raises a brow as Lambert pulls away. He knows, so it isn't like there's anything Lambert has to hide with him.

He shrugs. "I don't know, this doesn't usually happen when I dream. And mushi always make things weird."

He turns his attention to Childermass. "Are you real?"

[whattaprick]

Look, there’s a difference between knowing Yuya knows and actually knowing he’s standing there watching them get all mushy together! It’s embarrassing!

Childermass pauses to consider the question — the expression, at least, is faithful to the magician’s serious consideration, unlike the smarmy smirk of before.

“Hm. As real as the spirits in your cards, perhaps,” is what he settles on, sounding a good deal more like his real self, though he’ll turn to Lambert at that. The witcher flushes on cue, even if he doesn’t understand what’s going on here, knowing he’s being teased somehow ... by his own subconscious, no less!

[hippocarnival]

Yuya did talk about his spirits on the radio, but that's not the kind of thing he'd expect Childermass to jump to as a comparison. Especially when they just got out of dealing with a bunch of book spirits.

He looks sideways at Lambert, pursing his lips in a thoughtful manner. "The spirits in my cards are real. They're really there."

He doesn't seem as reluctant to explain that, this time, and instead counters like he's relaying a definitive fact. Since, well, it is. "It's just most people can't hear them."

[whattaprick]

Lambert just looks at Yuya helplessly. Look, he isn’t all that smart, all right?

Fortunately, Childermass — dream Childermass, evidently — picks up the thread.

“If you claim they are real based only on what you can perceive, what’s to stop others who cannot from claiming otherwise?” He steps to Lambert again, though he’ll come to a stop before him, with an expression that ... well, it couldn’t be described as sappy, but it’s certainly intense and focused, and when he reaches out to take Lambert’s hand the witcher is helpless to resist.

Childermass tugs Lambert to him, gently, and the scenery shifts again, as he pulls them and Yuya through the shadows — to what’s evidently a basement filled with strings of lights, cheap furniture, and a box spring mattress. Incongruously, there’s Chinese food on the counter. Yuya wouldn’t recognize it, but it’s he house John was squatting in, in Portland, some slapdash mockery of a college student’s dormitory, and poorly heated besides.

But this is Lambert’s dream, and his memories make this place warmer than it was. His gaze is still locked on Childermass, dazed — but Yuya will find, suddenly, a large muzzle nosing at the small of his back. Baker is here too — in his church grim form, meaning that cold spot at Yuya’s back is much colder than a dog’s should be.

[hippocarnival]

"Because the spirits are the ones that have magic back home." He gestures to his pendulum for emphasis. "They can still affect us even if most people can't hear them."

Granted, Yuya recognizes it's probably better when they don't, and most people wouldn't believe in them... but it's a little less perception, and a little more of a hidden truth. He'd explain a little more thoroughly, but then he's pulled through a shadow and ends up off balance as he finds himself in a dingy basement instead.

And then Baker puts a cold nose to his back and he jumps and yelps, spinning around. "Wh--ah! Don't scare me."

[whattaprick]

Hearing Yuya yelp like that pulls Lambert out of falling back into the lull of a dream a little, and he shakes it off some, looking to Yuya again.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he mutters, frowning. Baker seems to think otherwise. Sure, he looks like a creepy death omen of a dog right now, but his tail is still wagging, looking at Yuya expectantly.

[hippocarnival]

The creepy death omen is still getting pets, Yuya ruffling the top of his head and scratching behind his ears.

"If I knew how to walk out of your dreams, I would." Because he can take a few guesses what they're going someplace private for, and he's not looking to be a voyeur tonight.

"Should I just use the door?" Is there a door?

[whattaprick]

Baker, for better or worse, is also only semi-solid, so Yuya's fingers will at least partly find themselves slipping right through instead of on him at points. Not that the dog seems to mind -- his tail just keeps wagging faster.

Dreams ... right, he's dreaming, Lambert remembers, and he definitely doesn't need Yuya hanging out in his dreams to see Childermass casually putting a hand on his ass (as happy as he would be to have it there under any other circumstance). There is, in fact, a door -- two large glass ones that open out onto a stone balcony, with stairs that lead up the side of the house to ground level.

"Leaving already?" Childermass doesn't sound particularly put out, but he does do something that makes Lambert suck in a breath, sharply, and put his hands to his chest to push him back.

"I'll be back," the witcher mutters, reaching up to adjust his glasses (where they've come from, he's not sure, but his other changes have faded with them). If this is his dream, he should be able to shoo Yuya out of it, right? Stepping away, he heads for the doors, which push open easily at his touch.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya has his back to them, for privacy's sake and because Baker is very demanding for attention. Which, his hand going through is weird and makes him pause, but since Baker doesn't seem to mind he doesn't pull away until Lambert pushes open the door.

He turns back then, when it creaks, and gives Baker a quick goodbye pet and muttering how he needs to go before he draws back. He approaches the door from the other side and peers out.

It seems to lead back to where they were before, except all the signs of Portland have given way only tl Yuya's home. Two people are standing on the sidewalk, waiting. One of them has pink hair in pigtails, that Lambert might recognize only from having seen her across the carnival until her disappearance in the Athenaeum. Yuzu.

The other one is a taller, muscular man who probably isn't initially familiar except for the styled pompadour that is the only physical trait Gongenzaka still has from being human.

Yuya's expression brightens, and even less inclined to sit around and watch Lambert and Childermass make out he walks through the doorway. He stops before he gets to far, turning back and giving a wave.

"Hey, thanks. See you later!" And then he runs to catch up with them, his carnival changes seemingly dissolving like an illusion.

[whattaprick]

With a final wave-- and Baker reluctantly returning inside -- Lambert watches Yuya go, frowning ever so slightly. He recognizes the girl on sight, but not the boy, at least not right now... but then a hand's snaking around his waist to pull him back inside, and he forgets to wonder about it entirely.

Later, much later, is a different story. With how active his dreams have been, Lambert can't say his sleep has felt very restful, meaning he's often ended up napping during the day. It'll be in the afternoon that he runs into Yuya, in the middle of munching through a loaf of bread snatched from their rations after waking up hungry.

Rather than spray the kid with a bunch of crumbs, Lambert raises a hand and gives a little wave.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya much appreciates not getting crumbs spat in his face, giving Lambert a smile and a wave in return as he approaches. He's comparatively more rested, if only for making up with overly active sleep with more sleep. It's a vacation, he can do that.

"Hey, Lambert. What's up?" Besides the bread, of course. There's a little curiosity in his expression.

let's maybe call this dayyyy 70? assume they've been too distracted to talk

[whattaprick]

Lambert takes a moment or two to chew the mouthful he's on, swallowing before he answers.

"Not much. Going to see about getting back into shape, now that I've healed up enough to do more than nap." He hasn't, really, but he isn't going to tear any stitches or rebreak any bones here, and he's well enough to start feeling restless.

"What about you?"