⇨ POLARIS

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Days 102 - 109
Where: Polaris
What: With the Ringmaster kidnapped and the rest of the carnival imprisoned, characters find themselves at the mercy of a Winter Fae called the Mother of Invention.
Warnings: Graphic experimentation in places.

TRIALS & TRIBULATION↴ After a day of cleansing and processing, where all the belongings and attire of their old lives are stripped away and replaced with something newer and more form fitting, the former members of the carnival will find themselves let loose into the Farm for the first time. A sizable green area, filled with orchards growing inorganic looking fruits and field ready for tending, the Farm is where they will be spending their days for the forseeable future. Food and drink are no longer needed, and so every day is an endless cycle of work. Technicians are seen only when necessary, and when being taken from your place of work to your lonesome cells at night. Every day, there are new postings on the "Production Board", where various dire sound scientific trials ask for subjects. The majority won't be forced, at least not yet, but the system is at work to push its participants to the brink and force their hand. After all, volunteers make the best subjects. ► PRODUCTIVITY: As explained elsewhere, characters will be forced to compete to attain enough Productivity Point to be considered Satisfactory. There are literally not enough points to go around for everyone to attain this, which means that at least some people will be deemed "Below Expectations" by the end of the first four-day cycle. What this means has yet to be discovered, but the Technicians have grimly warned against it. Productivity involves many tasks, including orchard picking, tilling, planting, harvesting, watering, maintenance, and more. Any task you can think of that would take place on a plantation is applicable here. Beyond that, the Production Board awaits you, offering precious Productivity Points in exchange for your cooperation. How you become Satisfactory is up to you, but it's every person for themselves. Only one person can turn in the credit for harvesting or preparing fields, and while you can certainly try to help others by letting them take credit for your work, it's a sure fire way to fall behind the herd, especially if you are already in a low Classification. Fruits and fields will miraculously grow overnight, and will be ready for a new day when you are. You've been told not to eat anything you harvest, but right now you aren't hungry anyway. ► POLARIS BY NIGHT: During the night, you are left alone to your thoughts and maybe an annoying roommate. Solo or in pairs, the entire night will be spent in small sleep pods, as shown on the locations post. Is it possible to sneak out? It doesn't seem like it is, but who is to say? The real question is if you want to dare to try. There is one hour of rest before and after seven hours of darkness. Even if you don't usually have to sleep, you'll find yourself oddly weary and inclined to rest. Supernaturally, almost. ► PARTICIPATION: Sometimes participation in experimental trials is manditory, sometimes it isn't. You are free to handwave your character having been pulled aside for minor examinations, such as blood tests or aura scans. Each time, you will be pulled into a separate part of the station and analyzed by a Technician and heavily automated machinery. Anymore more complex than basic check-up level tests will be posted about in a section called "TRIALS" in the body of the post below.

Comments

[soft_focus]

"..........am I bad company too, then?" she asks quietly, not quite looking at him.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya stops, then twists around awkwardly to face her. "Wh--no, I didn't say that!"

[soft_focus]

Phew. Okay. She seems a little more determined then. And confident. Maybe.

"...Then...Then stay with me anyway! Just because I'm smaller doesn't mean I have to have the best company- you need good company right now!"

Bold words from the kid who just gave him a panic attack-

[hippocarnival]

"... Okay." The truth is he just doesn't have any fight in him right now, and when he relents he just sounds defeated. Reira wants him to stay, for whatever reason, so he's going to stay.

But it's hard to feel much about it, outside the hopelessness and guilt that clogs up his heart and mind.

[soft_focus]

Good. Sort of.

Sorry Yuuya, she's going to press.

"....can... ...you tell me why you're sorry? ...while we get fruit?" she asks, puffing her cheeks a bit.

[hippocarnival]

He doesn't really look like he wants to. He doesn't even know where to start--or honestly why she's asking. She was just getting on him about his failure, why does he have to say it?

"Because I messed up during the hunt." Failed to use the mirrors right, failed to stay safe, nearly endangered so many of them.

[soft_focus]

"...." Okay that's fair. And she was actually mad about that. But.

...She probably shouldn't stay mad, since it won't do anything. Also because Yuuya is being a sadsack.

"...Hey. ....If Strange-oji," OJI!? "Can use mirrors to, how come he didn't show up then?"

[hippocarnival]

"Because I was the one using the spell." Actually Strange got his own damn self lost, but Yuya doesn't know he tried using his own magic and thinks that's fashionable his fault too.

"I could have gotten all of you hurt, or--" He doesn't want to think about dead. "It was my fault."

[soft_focus]

Fortunately, Reira has taken enough advice from Strange to make some guesses. Or at least enough to make them after deliberately seeking excuses to make Yuuya feel better. After all- Yuuya not showing up, that makes sense.

But now that she thinks about it, why DIDN'T that dumb magician show up where she was! He could probably have at least figured out her spot!

"....Strange-oji's magic wasn't working properly after we left Eden," she notes, blinking.

"...Ummmm..." How does she put this. "...But...he also thinks he's better than a lot of people at mirror things..."

She's pretty sure that included Yuuya. Pretty sure. "...did...Strange-oji touch the mirror...? Before going in..?" ...

"...If he knew where he was supposed to go, he probably could have come to find me, too..." she mutters as an after thought.

[hippocarnival]

There's a pause before Yuya looks up, looking a little more defensive."Are you blaming him? He didn't do anything! I was the one who was sending everyone through the mirror, he was hurt!"

Obviously Yuya was the one who thought he knew where he was sending everyone.

[soft_focus]

Oii oii.

"...No. You're still the one who made a promise and didn't come back."

That was a bit blunt, and she grimaces knowingly at the fact, but presses on. "...But...maybe his magic broke yours. You probably made everyone go before you, right?" she says quietly.

"...So even if you fixed it, I had to leave that spot anyway, and then I wouldn't have been there when you got there, I guess..." she continues- her voice little more than a whisper. As it is. "...I don't want to say it wasn't your fault. You did do something wrong, and I was scared," she adds.

"...But I don't want to stay mad, not when everyone who found me did that too. ...And I don't want you to stay sad either, because that's not the important part. The important part is doing stuff now, even if it's little things like picking fruit, or planting seeds, or talking. I already know you didn't want the magic to break..! But you're so sad, you can't even pretend to be happy, when I wouldn't be able to know this time..!"

It comes out a bit like an avalanche- and perhaps makes as little sense. Her thoughts are all over, and her feelings are all over too. Is she scared now? She doesn't think so. But she does know that for all that she's mad, she's worried, and for all that she's worried, she doesn't want Yuuya to be like this.

And that part's her fault, on top of it.

[hippocarnival]

"... I can't do anything." He takes her words as they are when he struggles to follow her intentions, but that's the part that captures his thoughts the most. To do something now, when he's hopeless.

And something inside him breaks at that moment. "I can't--I can't do anything! I can't protect you! I can't protect Gongenzaka, I can't cast a stupid spell right, I can't stop the Fae, I couldn't even save Yuzu!"

The sob starts to wrack through him again, and he doesn't realize. He drags his hands against his face as the events replay a long string of failure, and this was their end? Trapped to gather seeds until what? Until what?

[soft_focus]

Man.

She really is bad at this.

Reira doesn't speak- not for quite a while, actually. But she does eventually tug at his arm until he relents and sits down.

...Important talks need sitting, after all. "...You weren't the only one," she eventually says, looking at the dirt. "...A lot of the others said 'I'll get you,' and went somewhere. ...and I know it's not fair to be mad at you most," she adds, only to correct herself- "...or, that I was mad, I guess... ...but it doesn't mean I want you to be hurt because of it. ...After what happened at the Prince's place, everyone said, 'it happened, so you can't ignore it. You did something wrong, so you have to make sure it doesn't happen again'. ...And... ...I tried really hard not to get in trouble after that," Reira goes on. "...I even started to learn magic too, so that I could be safe. And not all the magic works, because magic is hard. But I was learning.

"...The Ringmaster brought me out before everything that was supposed to happen, happened. ...so if she saved me, then she saved Yuzu, right? ...and even though you didn't come, I still didn't get hurt. ...I didn't even get a little cut," she adds, perhaps a little proudly.

She decides not to mention that she had to use Yuzu's magic horn. She's realized Yuuya's not going to take it well at all, by now. But she dug the hole and she has to fill it.

"...Yuuya-niisan?" she starts tentatively, slowly looking to him from the corner of her eye. "...I..."

She broke her promise, for that matter. ...She doesn't deserve to be mad, or to leave him sad.

"...In all of the other places, a lot of bad things happened. And a lot of the time, we could never get the Ringmaster, right? ...And even if she lost this time...Even if a lot of other bad things happen here, like it happens everywhere else, I think we're going to be okay at the end. But you can't just be sad. ...Um..." Shoot, rephrase. "...I mean, you can be sad, but... ...Just like I had to try and do things, you have to too. They're not big things. And they probably won't feel like they matter. ....but they're somethings, and it'll mean something in the end."

She's not sure she made sense.

But she's trying.

"...I know I was mad. ...But I was just mad because I don't want to go away from everyone again. All of the bad things happen even if we're together or apart, but... ...all of the good things happen together too."

[hippocarnival]

This is probably the wrong time for a moving speech when Yuya's in the middle of his fourth breakdown in three days, with everyone getting worse than the last by his much harder he falls.

He falters to his knees when she pulls, and really honestly misses half of what she's saying because he's choking on sorry sobs and his head is numb and it feels like the suffering is never going to end. None of this feels good.

"I can't stop them, I can't stop any of it."

[soft_focus]

Reira is about to say something that she probably wouldn't say ever, under normal circumstance.

...

But it's still true, and she definitely implied as much when she told Lambert.

"...You stopped Zarc," she says calmly. "...That didn't happen until a lot of bad stuff did. ...So...who says you can't stop some of this, if you try?"

[hippocarnival]

After. That's the problem, it's always after. After the pain and trauma and loss, and it's been harder for Yuya to cope as it builds up everytime there's another inevitable tragedy. He can't prevent it. He's always trying to pick up the pieces of his friends after they've been shattered.

There's a raw wound that the Fae from the hunt left, that Yuya didn't have any time to close up before it was ripped open again. Helpless.

"After how much bad stuff?!" He snaps suddenly with a wheezy breath. "Not everything that happens can be fixed like that!"

[soft_focus]

"I don't even know what 'like that' means..!" She protests. It's not with a shout, but the feeling is certainly there. "I know it won't be the same. Nothing will be the same. Just like I don't know how many bad things will happen. But that's why you can't just think about what happened that you couldn't stop, or about what you don't think you CAN stop," Reira rambles in her frustration.

"...because you can't stop everything, or fix everything, but you can at least keep trying so that there's SOMETHING good instead of nothing in the end!"

... She swallows, and looks away. "...Everyone always says life isn't fair. ...it doesn't mean you shouldn't keep trying to make something happen anyway... ...s not what you'd tell ME," she mutters more to herself.

[hippocarnival]

Reira talks big, but Yuya just can't believe in it right now. It isn't just her, and normally he'd be saying and believing it too... this has just been harder for him to spring back up from, after he spent hours wondering when he was going to die, having the control of his body ripped from him and abused to hurt people he loves.

And he's aware how awful it is that Reira's sitting here trying to be the strong one when it should be him. It's cyclical, where he feels worse about himself for failing his own expectations and hers, dragging him further down.

He can't bring himself to look up at her, expecting disappointment. "Reira. I..."

[soft_focus]

Well then the only thing to be done is to break that cycle, isn't it.

Reira doesn't say anything. Just wraps her arms around his waist for a hug. It's a bit awkward because she has very strange arms now, but there they go.

Is she doing this 'feel better' thing right?

[hippocarnival]

There's some hesitance before Yuya wraps his arms around her in turn, almost clinging.

He just wishes he could protect her.

[soft_focus]

She will take the clinging as a tentative 'yes' on doing it properly. And even sit there a little while longer. It'll be fine.

...Yeah. ...Eventually- after a Lot of sitting and clinging- she...speaks. "...is this your first break, today?"

[hippocarnival]

"I haven't been keeping track." He hasn't had the mental capacity to try and schedule himself, and stopping is just another chances for him to cycle back into these terrible feelings. So he's been avoiding it.

[soft_focus]

"..." Well, she'll move out from the hug, and just sit then. "...It's break now, then," she declares. "...You're supposed to take small breaks while you work, so that you don't get too tired and can't work anymore."

Stamina! Pacing!

Now then. "...What would you do, on a normal break?" Mostly she's been taking ten minute power naps between hours.

It's great.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya knows about pacing, he just can't bring himself to care about doing a great job right now.

To that, he just shrugs. "Rest? There's nothing else to do if we're not farming."

[soft_focus]

"You could draw things in the dirt, I guess." She's taking a big guess- she's not really attuned to being...'bored'. But a power nap won't do any favors here. "I don't know a lot of things to do when you're resting, but not everyone has games and things when that happens right?" Maybe he has ideas?