lostcarnival | ⇨ EDEN

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 79 - Day 85
Where: Eden
What: Everyone arrives in Eden with their new animals forms - unfortunately, the welcoming party is a bit more intense than expected, with a ritual called 'The Anointment.' Better get this place figured out before anything gets any crazier.
Warnings: Hopefully no ritual sacrifice!

FLAME OF INSPIRATION↴

So it begins. After everyone has been given their new animal form and have had about an hour to readjust to it, the Ringmaster begins the infiltration. You don't see a lot of the specifics of the magic - all you know is that Pru's sword, the Hand of God, is somehow involved. It alone can tear through the wardings of Eden's realm, and once that entrance is made, the teleportation is instant. Everyone will find themselves in an open grassland overlooking a dense forest, with buildings and lights poking up out of the leaves. Behind you, there is a darker place - the barrens, the Ringmaster has explained. It's were the Outcasts are sent after they're banished.

You are scattered across the area as if you've been dropped in with nothing. You've been given specific instructions - act as if you have no memory besides the vague life of being an animal. None of you know each other. You don't know how you got here, you've just been suddenly found yourself enlightened. Hopefully feigning ignorance will be what the residents are expecting, as what information the Ringmaster could find suggests it should be.

Before the beasts of Eden come to claim you, you'll see the Ringmaster once last time, in the form of a giant serpent. With a nod of her head, she slithers away towards the barrens - she'll be in touch.

► THE WELCOMING: It's not long until you're discovered. The first to find you is a pigeon, who seems rather surprised. She'll ask the first few new arrivals she sees a couple questions - 'did you just get here?' 'did you meet the great Lilith?' Regardless of your answers, she'll hurriedly say she's going to go get help, and will fly away back into the forest. A short while later, an entire welcoming party of different animals will have come to greet you, sweeping out to find every straggler and explaining that you are the newest of the chosen. After they are sure that nobody is being left behind, they will invite you into Eden.

► THE GARDEN: Eden is a beautiful place. Every street, every structure, is surrounded by flowers and vibrant plant life - every bit as idyllic as its mythos would imply. The architecture is ambitious and creative, as if the residents have been perfecting the art for thousands of years, which they almost certainly have. There is the sweet smell of perfumes and incense on the other animals are you are led into the city. This is your home now, the locals will explain. You have been chosen by the Creator to serve Her cause. You will become one of the Honorable, one of Her artisans working towards the Divine Clarity. But first, of course, you must be sanctified.

► THE ANOINTMENT: On that first night, everyone is brought to a vast cathedral, covered in unknowable writings in a shining script. You are brought in through several gorgeous hallways lit with shining crystals and blue flame torches, only to emerge in a great hall built around a circular, sparkling pool of water. There are several braziers around its circumference blazing with fire, with sets of tools hanging out of them, like iron pokers. All of the new arrivals are gathered into the grand hall, and scriptures are read in the background that you can't really make out the specifics of.

You will all be made to stand around the outside of the pool, and the local animals will gently explain to you what needs to be done. To become a new Honorable, you must be Anointed with the Flame of Inspiration - that is, they are going to brand you with the metal pokers they have heating up. If you go along with it, they will burn the mark into a highly visible part of your person (they have smaller brands for smaller animals), and then cool it off in the pool of water, where you are encouraged to bask until you are comfortable again.

There are obviously a couple concerns with this. The biggest one is that it's sketchy as hell. The second one is that the brand is definitely made of medium grade iron. While the painful difference it makes won't be super obvious from the outside, long-term veterans and those with superlative fae qualities will find it very uncomfortable, and it will blister for a fair while afterward, which is seen as unusual. If your character refuses, or tries to get around it somehow, please explain in reply to the post down below.

► THE DAYS AFTER: After everyone is branded (or isn't, as the case may be), you'll be given the opportunity to dry off and head back into town. All of the fancy structures here are communal, they will explain, and you can choose wherever you'd like to sleep. There are a few buildings that are mostly empty that newbies seem welcome to hole up in, though the locals assure everyone they will be nearby in case they need help.

In the days that follow, everyone will be welcome to explore Eden and find their bearings, and begin to discover what gifts the Anointment has bestowed on them. Whether or not you were good at a creative pursuit before, you will find yourself filled with inspiration for something - any artistic talent will do. It's like a creative talent will have been born in you overnight, or like an existing talent of yours has been boosted to near perfection. This effect will last as long as the characters are in Eden unless you are told otherwise.

You won't feel the need to eat, but there is breakfast available, if you'd like it. The locals are very courteous, though they seem a bit confused. Something about your entry seems to strike them as different than usual.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeees, this can't be convenient--you weren't, born? Knowing?" He sounds very stilted and confused, unsure of how to talk about it. His tail has gone all twitchy with anxiety, his ears tilted slightly back.

"I don't think so," she decides, still wobbling up the tree. "I don't think I was um... ...I don't think I was supposed to fly before," she decides, trying to avoid outright saying she's Pretty Sure she's a BABY animal right now.

Baby animals don't DO stuff, normally. But unfortunately she has a feeling that doesn't really make sense as a 'known statement' on her end, and who knows how many Honorables are going to overhear them.

Many, many animals, hear better than they after all. "Mnh...but...since I have to now, I'm just going to try falling and moving my wings. That's how flying works, I think."

~~it's really not~~

"Well, I don't know anything about bats," Herbert says, almost truthfully, "but there must be. Pillows or other such things you could be practising over." Herbert's only about 30 cm tall so he's not particularly helpful as far as boosting goes, but he is here to try and stop Reira from dying! Doctor stuff, probably.

Reira, frankly, looks somewhat distraught.

"...but it took me so long to get this high already..." she laments, curling on the side of the tree. She has to get Down??? Drag a PILLOW here???

She's far too small for that, sir!

Herbert stares silently at Reira for a moment and then says "Stay there," before racing away.

When he comes back, he's kind of awkwardly trotting with a cushion in his mouth, head bobbing in an attempt to avoid tripping over it. He places it down a very short distance away from the tree before standing up on his hind legs, paws on the tree, to look directly at Reira.

"Do you think you can hit that. ... I'm...not equipped to gather much else."

Well. Stay she does, not even moving an inch before Herbert returns with the pillow. At which point she gasps. "...A landing cushion!" It's a pillow, but, you know. Tomatoes tomahtoes, it works out. She nods furiously- though she doesn't really...let go and fall persay.

She keeps gripping with her feet- she wants to try it after all, this wing flapping bit. And they stretch out experimentally, wiggling, and wobbling....

And finally she's let go and sort of...half fallen onto the cushion.

It's half because the 'fall' path looks a bit more like a gradually careening paper airplane. "OOF-!"

Well, at least she didn't injure herself--although he supposes 'baby bat learning how to fly' is probably the least suspicious new injury for the Healer's Temple to receive. All the same, it's essentially the one job he has, and this is all he can do of it.

"I believe you have...multiple joints to manipulate?" he says. Is that pushing knowledge he should have? "Aren't there any other bats here you can ask--that seems like the best course of action."

The bat squirms quite a lot to be able to sit up from that, but once she does she's looking over her arms. Even if one didn't have Herbert's Anatomy-Vision, the wing membrane makes viewing each of the joints of the wing quite easy in the light; Reira flexes both wings at once, peering back and forth between them to stare. "Umn! I guess so," she notes, flapping them a little. It's not unlike if an actual child wearing fake wings gave it a shot.

Which is to say, it's a mess. "I guess I could curl them when I'm flapping up..."

"Maybe," Herbert says, staring at her wings and aimlessly trying to piece it together. That isn't particularly his field, though. "I'm...sure it's at least in part, instinctual." He's walking on all fours, after all, and using his whiskers and so forth. There has to be something in the form itself, he'd think.

"Did the fall hurt?" He leans down, squinting his eyes mostly protectively shut and gets his nose down by Reira.

"Mnhh...maybe..." It has to be. If it isn't, she's going to be stuck practicing how to fly Forever, and that's just the worst.

She's pretty sure she's not hurt though. "I don't think so," the girl claims, though after a few seconds she pauses.

"Um... ...but, everyone said the branding hurt more than it hurt me too... ...and I don't think things hurt me that much, so..."

She apparently is only now realizing that there might be something off about her pain tolerance.

It's a bit difficult to assess nerve damage as a cat who isn't supposed to know medicine with a little girl who might not have previous experience.

"Is that a...recent? Development?" he tries for, half opening one eye and nudging her with his nose. "Climb on, don't leave me crouching here, I'm lifting you back up."

"...Not being hurt by things?" She climbs on, but tries to get near the cat's ear so that she can better explain with a whisper.

"Umm... ...I don't think it's new. Is not feeling very cold the same as not feeling hurt by lots of things?" she tries, attempting to put some sort of date on the matter.

Honestly, it would be a really beneficial addition to her file for Herbert to find out what all of her various idiosyncrasies are about. If there's a source. He finds her to be the most tolerable child he's ever met, certainly (however short that list may be) but he isn't unaware that she's not what's considered Normal, in a lot of ways. He obviously doesn't think that's particularly a problem: he, of course, wasn't Normal as a child, which means he can only really see this as a good sign for Reira in the future. But the behaviour intersecting with her specific power as well as what's apparently some variety of currently untestable and possibly previously unexplored neuropathy...

Moderately concerning.

It's fairly inconvenient he's coming to this conclusion whilst he's currently both a cat with no access to any of his supplies in addition to trying to stay undercover. He'll need to keep it in mind for when they're both human again.

"It can be," he murmurs back, trying to stay vague. It's unclear if the locals have some additional method of spying so he's just assuming someone is always watching. What is magic, even. Lifting his head, and then hoisting himself up with slight tree support to get Reira as high up as he can manage. Which isn't very high, being as he is quite a small cat. "We can look into it...later." That's the best he can hint at wanting to do some tests after Eden. He'll come and find her for them if she doesn't pick up on it.

It could be as easy as finding the folder labeled 'bad memories' in her trailer, Herbert. There's enough photographs of the past in there to paint a bit of a scene for extrapolation.

After that though, it's all in the air. Even questioning would simply end in rambles that make half as much sense as ever.

But Reira takes Herbert's word to heart on the matter. If it can, then it can- so that's one step forward...and as he said, something to look into. The bat scrambles a bit to get some grip on the tree, and nods.

For now then... "Mn! Okay. Thank you for helping me up-!" she adds.

⇨ EDEN

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