⇨ CONFLAGRATION

[ringleaders]

Who: The Ringmaster, Peridot, Amethyst, Shima, Tyki, Childermass and Ignatius.
When: Day 68
Where: THE CENTER OF THE (OTHER) MOON.
What: The Ringmaster has recruited the help of a not-so-elite group of carnival members to help her deal with the imprisoned Ignatius.
Warnings: Weird egg stuff.

THE FIERY ONE↴ When you meet up with the Ringmaster at the portal she's in her humanoid form, but that doesn't last long. After a brief period of waiting, she will take you back to the carnival grounds, still fresh and partially undefined from her rebuilding. It's familiar, but as if details have been left out - like a painting that's not finished yet. The sky isn't right, and and the forests are oddly barren. She'll assure you she simply isn't finished with it yet, but that this has taken precedence. Soon, she'll be turning into her dragon form and whisking you all away, up into the second moon. The flight happens almost instantaneously - first you see the carnival grounds, then the sandy oceans of the moon - then, you see nothing. It doesn't last for long, though. A ring of glowing stones light up the new space you're filling - a cavern carved out of the center of the moon itself. Unlike the moon with the Blue Rose, however, it isn't perfectly spherical, and gravity goes straight down. There is a rough, uneven floor you can walk on steadily, with boulders and rocks scattered about. The Ringmaster's current dragon form fills about half of it. In the center of the room there are two man-sized eggs. One glows brightly with an inner light, radiating heat. The other does as well, but less so. There's an impromptu nest of rocks around them, preventing them from falling over. The Ringmaster seems unsure of how to start. "So," she begins, uncertainly. She is till hunched over in dragon form. "This... is a bit complicated."

Comments

[periphrasing]

"Wait, what?" Peridot growls. Is he seriously trying to end this conversation right there? Like, yes, he answered her questions promptly and in their entirety, but, she hardly feels like they're done here.

She dares to move a bit closer, stepping around to remain in his line of sight even if he attempts to pick up the damn hammer again. "How is that possibly to your benefit? The other day you were telling us we should have killed you, now you're hoping you'll escape somehow? I thought you were concerned about going home with those new beast features of yours."

[npcarnival]

He doesn't get back to hammering quite yet, at least.

"You've already said you aren't going to kill me," he says, with some degree of forced patience. "And that if I want that to happen, I'll have to do it myself. Sadly, that isn't going to happen."

He won't get into why.

"What hope do I have left? As I see it, my only option is to be rid of this place and face my humiliation in Arcadia, or to live in this purgatory indefinitely."

[periphrasing]

"Well that's a pathetically defeatist way of looking at things," Peridot says flatly, relaxing her posture a bit now that the topic of conversation is moving away from Lapis. "Not that I'm trying to imply that you're pathetic. I just expected more zeal than that, I guess."

She keeps talking as she meanders over to the wreckage of the trailer to take a closer look. "Between you and me, I don't think the Ringmaster intends to keep you up here in this chamber indefinitely. So hey, that's already an improvement right there. Not quite as hopeless as you thought, right?"

Unless he means that the carnival itself is the purgatory, of course. In that case he is probably SOL.

[npcarnival]

He does pretty much mean that the entire carnival is a purgatory, but he isn't going to quibble over it. Instead, he focuses on what he considers to be more immediately irritating.

"More zeal, hm? And what alternative do you propose I'm missing? The one where I suddenly decide your Ringmaster is correct, and that I'd rather forsake everything I've lived for till now to follow her lead? Hah, it would be familiar, at least."

[periphrasing]

Peridot watches him with brows slightly raised, a flat expression on her face.

"I mean, I guess that is a third potential option," she says, shrugging lightly. "Though it doesn't sound like a particularly realistic one. What I was actually going to suggest is that you take the time to observe and learn what you can. Maybe you come around to our side, maybe you don't... Either way, you experience something different, and that makes it worthwhile."

She levitates a piece of scrap metal up to her hand and gives it a tap with her claws, testing the give of it. "Of course, I was created to be an engineer, not a soldier, so. That might not hold the same appeal to you as it did for me."

[npcarnival]

Ignatius doesn't know anything about gems, but still, that statements doesn't strike him as particularly odd. He knows there are species out there that behave more like fae.

"Are you suggesting you were captured by the Ringmaster as well?" he asks. That seems like the most straightforward explanation.

[periphrasing]

"No?" Pause. "Well. Actually... Yes, I was at the start, technically. But I willingly signed up to stay for longer after my first contract was satisfied."

She doesn't see any harm in telling him that much.

[npcarnival]

"No matter," he says, waving her off. He seems impatient with her line of reasoning at the first sign of uncertainty on her part. "You are free to choose your loyalties, as transient as they may be. But if you think that this is a situation where I can simply sit by as a tourist, you understand nothing at all."

Maybe engineers do just have less personal responsibility on their shoulders.

[periphrasing]

Peridot scowls a little at that. "My loyalties aren't transient," she growls. "I started working for the Ringmaster to repay some minor accidental damages I caused, and then in the course of that she earned my loyalty by being awesome." She tsks and rolls her shoulders a little. "And, yeah, fine. Maybe I don't understand! Maybe that's also partly why I'm here: Because I want to understand."

[npcarnival]

"Do you actually?" he asks, already sounding like he doesn't believe her, or at least like he's a bit bitter. "Because the others seemed to prefer implying I was an ignorant hypocrite whilst being too ensorcelled to defend myself."

[periphrasing]

"Yeah. I do, actually." She sounds a little bit snide but, only to the barest degree in direct response to his skepticism. "For one thing, I've never really talked to another high fae besides the Ringmaster before. And for another..."

The gem trails off, making a slightly annoyed sound. She's not sure how wise it is for her to really bare her soul here, so to speak. "...Let's just say I can relate somewhat to your predicament."

[npcarnival]

"How is that?" he asks, and it sounds like an earnest question. He can't really get where she's coming from without context.

[periphrasing]

"Being captured by the enemy and trapped somewhere alien and far away from home, all while feeling like you've failed at the one job you were made to do for the leader you were created to serve? Been there, done that."

[npcarnival]

It's not really clear how surprised her is, or whether that admission catches him off guard. He's been scrutinizing her doubtfully, and he continues to do that. There's some time to hesitate before he responds, though.

"Then, perhaps you do understand," he says, cautiously. "But then, my reaction should be self explanatory. What else are you hoping to see?"

[periphrasing]

Peridot pauses and looks thoughtful, fidgeting with her tail by curling and uncurling it slowly. She's making an extra effort to actually pick her words carefully, for once.

"I guess I'm not really hoping or expecting anything different, really. I just wanted to offer my advice, knowing what worked for me." And then she adds dryly: "Which, yeah, having said that out loud now, probably sounds incredibly stupid to you, coming from some random wyld changeling who you've only ever encountered a handful of brief times before. But... No one in this carnival wants to make your stay here any more needlessly miserable than it probably already is. I suppose I just wanted to make that clear."

[npcarnival]

He stares at her, processing what she's said. It a takes a while, but eventually something in him seems to give way, and he sighs, seating himself on the boulder he'd been using as a work area. He takes the sword he'd been working on and stabs it into the ground next to him.

"As sympathetic as they may be, I can't afford to prioritize this place's struggles. Either most of the people here really do mean no ill or they are very determined liars, but I find it ends up mattering little."

He gestures vaguely with his hand.

"There are things that Arcadia needs to do in order to maintain the balance of the multiverse, and those things will not always appeal to the needs and sensibilities of those within it. You may have our understanding but our mercy is harder to offer."

[periphrasing]

Peridot plops her butt down at the edge of the trailer wreckage after he sits, and cocks her head at him while he speaks.

"Can I be honest with you? I feel like I understand absolutely nothing about Arcadia's purpose, or what it's goals are. From a non-fae perspective it seems like you guys just hop around from universe to universe colonizing places without any real explanation as to why, but you talk about this 'balance' like you have some sacred responsibility to uphold."

[npcarnival]

"That's because it is," he says, though a more specific explanation is a bit harder for him. "We were the first beings spawned by Creation, at the beginning of this reality. The worlds that came next are reflections of our essence, made in our image. Of course it's our responsibility to oversee the worlds we first inspired."

He makes some more vague gestures as he talks.

"The elements of the Fae are the building blocks of the entire universe. Were the Courts out of balance, it would undoubtedly throw the rest of creation into chaos."

[periphrasing]

That all sounds super arrogant to her, claiming that the fae are naturally meant to be in charge of everything just because they supposedly came first, but she's not going to get into that argument with him right now. She has more burning questions to ask.

"But what does that mean exactly? To be out of balance?" She's leaning forward a bit, ears perked forward with interest. "Obviously there's the whole issue with the Winter Court being janked because of what the Ringmaster did. But you say you have to do things that other beings don't like or understand to maintain order. What does that entail? Is that why you colonize different worlds, like Portland?"

It does not occur to her that 'Portland' is probably not the actual name of the realm or what Ignatius would necessarily call it.

[npcarnival]

"It means to have one Court have more power and sway over the multiverse than the other. Colonizing a world means that it will begin to bear the properties of the Court that rules it. If one Court held more sway than the other, it would shift the rule of the elements in turn."

He crosses his arms over his chest. This is obviously something he's heart many times in his life.

"There's also the issue of contending with the unsavory realms at the edges of the multiverse, where the laws of physics and magic alike become hostile an unfamiliar. Without us, those forces would be encroaching on more territory than they already have."

[periphrasing]

A gentle frown creases Peridot's features. "But... why do you need to colonize at all? If it's a matter of one court having more influence than the other, why don't you just agree to stick to an even number of colonies each and leave it at that? Does your civilization require resources that can only be obtained by conquering worlds that meet certain parameters? Does it have something to do with these 'unsavory realms' you're talking about?"

[npcarnival]

"It would be difficult to collaborate over such an endeavor when the Winter Court often refuses to work with us at all," he says, obviously bitter. "When the Winter Court decides to take more than it has, our only option is to respond in kind. At least Summer is a more hospitable host."

He pauses, and then adds:

"But we do gain resources from our colonies. Some are worth more to us than others. All contribute to the strength and prosperity of Arcadia, which then is reflected in the worlds under our sway."

[periphrasing]

The frown deepens.

"But..." She's having some trouble grappling with this information? She was hoping they'd at least have more reasonable justification behind doing something so destructive. Some kind of easy math that, when viewed on paper, at least made sense from a cold numbers perspective. Like, 'for every one world we colonize, two more are spared cosmic annihilation'. Or something absurdly specific such as, 'we need to colonize worlds to harvest universe juice to keep our race alive because the very fabric of the multiverse would literally be torn apart without the fae around to hold it together'. What he's telling her is just...

"That's it? That's why the courts ruin people's lives, destroy entire ecosystems and planets and whole realities? How is any of that to the benefit of the multiverse as a whole?!"

[npcarnival]

He looks offended.

"Destroy? We don't destroy anything! I don't know what it is you've come to believe about us, but a colony is not destruction."

[periphrasing]

She seems to simmer down a little bit at that. But only a little. "Alright, fine. Perhaps I've been misinformed. Walk me through it then: What, exactly, does a fae colonization effort entail?"