⇨ 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]

Lambert can safely say he still doesn't entirely understand what's going on here, but he does know one thing: Peridot is being far too serious about all of it.

Which means he's reaching out, with a shitty little smirk, to plant a hand firmly in her hair and give it a good ruffle.

"Stop thinking about it so hard," he says, good-naturedly. "If it's your dream, shouldn't you be able to make it something you want to dream about?"

[periphrasing]

Peridot looks up at him with bright, ever-so-slightly watery eyes; she doesn't often shed tears, but Lambert's concern is touching in a way that she sorely needs right now, hair ruffling aside.

But it also hurts. It hurts because she's trying to reveal something horrible about herself and it doesn't seem like he's understanding it. Or at least, he's not reacting in the manner she would expect? And somehow that disparity is distressing.

"W-well normally, yes, but--" Peridot pauses and tries to swallow, her throat tight. She's trying to follow up his good-natured tone with something similarly rational, but the pressure of holding back her fears makes something snap in her. All of a sudden, she ducks out from under Lambert's hand and looks up at him, babbling anxiously as she gesticulates wildly at the holes that are surrounding them on all sides.

"Lambert are you even understanding what I'm telling you? This place-- This is what I was made to do! I was created along with thousands of other slightly-less-intelligent peridots to I manufactured other gems. For THOUSANDS OF YEARS, this was my entire existence! Making soldiers that the stupid cloddy Diamonds could take and use to invade EVEN MORE PLANETS, so we could make EVEN MORE GEMS to keep growing our cruddy stupid empire! I personally contributed to the destruction of untold amounts of organic life in the process! I'm-- I'm no better than a court fae!"

[whattaprick]

Perhaps it’s because this is a dream that things are just a bit more difficult for Lambert to react to like he normally might. It’s not that he’s insensible to Peridot’s distress, but he also isn’t really sure what sort of answer she’s expecting.

The last, though, has him frowning, though it’s in thought rather than disapproval.

“Well,” he says, slowly. “You decided to change, didn’t you?”

[periphrasing]

She blinks at him. She still kind of looks like she's on the verge of tears, but she at least seems to relax a little bit.

"...Yeah," she says softly, glancing away. Almost involuntarily, the scenery starts to shift around them, no warp pad required this time. The kindergarten fades away, the scene of a sunny barn with a massive vegetable field out front taking it's place. Peridot is still nervous, but she has relaxed enough to shift locations to somewhere more comfortable. She flops down to sit on the ground just outside the barn door, before the scenery even finishes resolving itself.

"The Ringmaster told me the other day that court fae are actually a lot like gems," she mutters, sounding melancholy. "The colonizing, the world destroying, the whole 'being made to serve an express purpose' thing... I guess I just haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I never talked about my past before because it just didn't seem relevant, but. The more similarities I found between my species and the fae? The more it felt like I was lying to you all."

[whattaprick]

Lambert considers Peridot's words, thumbs hooked into his belt, and cocks his head. Suddenly, something occurs to him.

"Was this why you were asking about making amends in Wismuth?" Lambert's already mostly forgotten that conversation, having had other things on his mind at the time, but in the way of dreams, the memory is easy to retrieve. The scenery around them doesn't change, but an echo of Peridot's voice from Lambert's recollection, uneasy and wavering:

Do you... Believe that it's possible for someone to make amends for something that they did in the past that was really, really bad, by doing something really really good?

[periphrasing]

Ooooh that's weird, hearing her own voice when she hasn't opened her mouth at all. She looks alarmed, straightening up and glancing around for the source with widened eyes before hunkering back down.

"...Affirmative," she groans, voice wavering slightly. She feels incredibly stupid all of a sudden, realizing just how much this has been bothering her... and then to have Lambert around to witness that shame? Ugh.

TWO WHOLE WEEKS LATER

[whattaprick]

The witcher scratches his fingers through his scruff of a beard. Hard to know what to say to that, really. He gets the feeling that his Portland self might have had something better to say, at this point -- the right words to cheer Peridot up again, or something more meaningful to get at the heart of the problem here.

So in true Lambert fashion, he reaches down, a little farther this time now that she's sitting down, to ruffle Peridot's hair again ... and changes the subject.

"This is a nice place. Home?"

No worries ALSO SORRY I HIT POST BY ACCIDENT BEFORE I WAS DONE,

[periphrasing]

"...Yeah," Peridot replies, surprised but eager to latch on to the subject change. "This is the barn where Lapis and Pumpkin and I live. Our little home away from Homeworld..."

She's still wary, but some of the tension in her shoulders is already ebbing away as she explains and starts to realize that this maybe isn't going to be as big of a deal as she was making it out to be. She's not getting shouted at, she's not getting peppered with a ton of accusatory questions... She feels like she knows Lambert well enough to proceed with confidence that he's not likely to change his tune just at the drop of a hat. Her heart, or whatever passes for one in a gem, is still be beating a mile a minute... but Lambert's rather calm reaction is taking the edge off her nerves.