⇨ THE SUMMERLANDS

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 119 - Day 126
Where: The Summerlands
What: Ignatius and Gild portal everyone to the Summerlands, with hopes of appealing to the Summer Maiden for help. Meanwhile, the carnival gets the chance to relax in luxury as only tentatively welcome guests. Here is the location write up from the last time the carnival visited. Since then, of course, some things have changed.
Warnings: Nothing in particular.

THE SUN RISES↴ After taking the time to rest, Ignatius and Gild will be able to pool together their energy to portal the carnival (and the airship) to the Summerlands. Those still in Polaris will be left to their own devices for the moment as Gild intends to ask for the Summerlands aid in relocating them, hopefully as soon as possible. With the effort the carnival put into sorting things out in there, however, they should be fine on their own for a little while, at least. They will arrive in the flowery fields at the base of the mountains, and soon the Summer Fae will notice their presence. Since the last time they visited, however, the atmosphere has changed. ► YOUR ARRIVAL: As the Summer Fae discover the group's arrival, it will quickly become apparent that there is a tension present that wasn't there any of the other times the carnival has visited. The Summer Maiden comes to greet the group personally, with an entourage of armed Summer Fae. They are not at all aggressive unless provoked, but there is clearly a wariness that is new. They seem uncertain about Ignatius being here, and while Gild will be able to do a lot of the talking and smooth things over, the Summer Maiden will deflect having a serious conversation about affairs until the carnival has taken time to 'rest.' It's more likely that the Maiden needs a moment to think over this new information before dealing with it. ► SUMMER CITY: After the Summer Fae become aware of everyone's presence, and the initial uncertainties are accommodated, they will invite you into their city. There are stairs that lead up the sides of the mountains, but thankfully there are also magical means of getting up there as well. The Summer Fae will be willing to help workers with the injured as needed, offering herbal remedies and healing magic to those that want it. You'll also be invited to join them for dinner, but it feels like more of a formality, and no one is obligated to take them up on it. ► SUMMER PEOPLE: The fae here will do their best to entertain these new visitors - but it doesn't seem that much happens here besides day after day of peaceful meditation and relaxation. It is not uncommon to see Summer Fae spent days doing exactly the same thing, whether that be enjoying the weather, listening to music, or dancing - the day and night periods may be similar to earth, but when you don't need rest it can all blur together just the same. Some of the fae work on feats of agriculture or craftsmanship, and while there is no particularly need to work in this place, they take pride in the fact that they do. ► FAMILIAR FACES: One very different thing about the Summerlands this go around is that there appears to be a small settlement built at the base of the mountains, filled entirely with the former residents of the Manor. Alyss and Reyna will explain that they set up a place to live down there with the Summer Fae's help, and that the fae seems to be trying to remain hands off except when they are needed. The Manor folk overall seem to be doing well, though there is some tension regarding their place in the Summerlands - they are clearly seen as refugees, and while the Summer Fae do their best to help them, the arrival of the carnival and the request for even more help with refugee aid seems to be making things awkward. ► OF THINGS TO COME: The Summer Maiden will remain distant for the first few days, but according to Gild and based on personal observation, it will seem that the news that the Ringmaster has been taken and the idea that even more desperate mortals are requesting to come here are putting her at significant ill ease. She's not rude or dismissive, but she seems reluctant to address the situation head on, though she has said that she will hold a meeting with the carnival later in the week to discuss everything in more detail. None of them seem particularly angry or resentful, but they seem to regard the carnival as an ill portent of things to come.

Comments

[whattaprick]

It's an entirely unsurprising response, which is why Lambert has a ready answer.

"Because it's fun," he points out, with exaggerated patience and a slight roll of his eyes. "Polaris didn't take that out of you, did it?"

It very well may have. Lambert doesn't know. In any case, he's not waiting for an answer before he's wheeling Pig around, calling over his shoulder.

"Bet we can beat you to that cliff!" Well, no, Childermass could probably beat them if he used his shadows, but he's counting on Childermass sticking to the spirit of the game -- even if Lambert's cheating himself by taking off like a shot, standing on his stirrups as he urges Pig forward into a thunderous gallop, laughing like a madman.

[atouts]

Childermass watches him go, sighs, and reaches for the Pokeball hidden behind the drape of his cape, at the hip. Polaris really has brought his mood down to rock bottom — if it's all his own doing or exacerbated by the Void, he can't even tell anymore — but he can give Lambert this much. He can give him a race.

Especially since there's no way Pig is beating Baker there.

Lambert will have a head start, finding himself riding alone for long enough that the cliff is coming up worryingly fast. It's enough that he might start worrying but it would be for nothing. There's a flash of orange and white off to the side and Baker will have already caught up, Childermass hanging onto his mane and leaning forward to keep with the angle of a running dog's back. Despite giving the witcher and the Mudsdale the lead, he's there and passing them by, moving as quickly and as lightly as a bird over the ground, all in spite of his size.

[whattaprick]

In turn, Lambert will spur Pig on, each strike of her hoof shaking the earth under her ever more violently. That presents its own problems entirely apart from the race at hand— the tremors rock through the ground, making the cliff shudder and shake violently before parts of it begin to collapse and break off. At the rate it’s going, there won’t be a cliff for Childermass and Baker to race up to — its coming down to meet them instead.

[atouts]

All this effort to race him here and now they're going to get squashed by falling rocks. Great, just great. Childermass scowls at the crumbling cliff and pulls on Baker's mane, bringing his speed down some and drawing his attention to the rocks as well.

"Those rocks there!" The ones falling. Baker spots them and skids to a halt, leaving furrows in the dirt with his paws. "Use Flamethrower!"

Which means the magician needs to lean back and steady himself for the massive dog inhaling and then spitting out a long stream of flame at the nearest batch of debris. Smaller bits are burnt up right off the bat, larger knocked aside just enough so they won't hit them.

[whattaprick]

Pig, naturally, isn't remotely afraid of falling rocks, and neither is Lambert, not with all that powerful muscle flexing under him. As they draw close, the witcher whistles sharply -- he's never liked name cues for moves, not when other ways of calling them out are faster -- and the Pokemon moves to obey, shattering larger rocks rolling back towards her way with well-placed kicks. With all the fuss, though, a clean path up is out of the question, and the whole thing looks shaky enough to fall apart on a breath.

When the dust finally settles, the witcher looks up at the denuded cliff face with exposed rock, pursing his lips.

"Damn, I was looking forward to the view. You think they won't notice if we can cover it up with something?"

[atouts]

"With what? More rocks?" Childermass gives the path a skeptical look, then gives the witcher one just as skeptical. "There has got to be a way to train Pig to trot lighter..."

But that said, he looks back up towards the overlook they'd been heading for. It isn't so far up, at least in view, and he's certainly managed longer distances. He leads Baker over, closer to Lambert and Pig.

"I should be able to take us up there."

[whattaprick]

Lambert looks mock-offended. "You're not calling my girl fat, are you?"

Nonetheless, bringing Pig up onto unstable ground is likely a losing proposition, something Childermass probably knows just as well as Lambert does. Which means after a gentle pat on her neck (where her mane is, of course, already plaited with ribbon, though not to the same extent as her master's) the witcher will slide off her back, landing a bit heavily but recovering quickly. Having found his feet, he'll raise a brow at the magician as he steps away from the Mudsdale, exaggeratedly holding out his hand to him on the pretext of helping him hop off off Baker.

"Why don't we let them run loose while we're at it? No sense keeping them stuck in balls when they could be terrorizing the local wildlife instead."

[atouts]

"So long as Pig doesn't cause the entire mountain to collapse," Childermass carries on as if he totally isn't calling his girl fat. Fat, no, but obscenely powerful? Maybe that. Still, he'll take the offered hand without too much hesitance. He does look at it, considering, for a second, but what matters — in the end — is that he does take the help getting down from Baker.

"But very well. They've been cooped up for two stops now, anyhow..." Polaris wasn't really a stop but. He doesn't want to think about it. "Shall we?"

[whattaprick]

If things were normal, Lambert would take that as his cue to squeeze Childermass's hand, but he doesn't really want to know if the magician would register that feeling different, too. Doing it in the heat of the moment, with the urgency of needing to get from one fight to another, is one thing; facing the reality of the small and big ways Polaris is still affecting interactions they took for granted is another.

Lambert doesn't so much hold Childermass's hand as he provides a surface for it to rest on, handling it as carefully as brittle glass.

"Can you talk through how you cast it before we actually get up there?" he requests. "If I'm trying to learn it, understanding that is as good a start as any."

[atouts]

How he casts it? Now there's a tricky question. It is, fundamentally, faerie magic. English magic requires words or devices or even both and some concept of how they all go together but faerie magic is just instinctual. Childermass looks up towards the top of the cliff, considering it but not moving them just yet. He hangs onto Lambert's hand still, if loosely.

"It doesn't need a sign or any word," Childermass starts there, with something Lambert does know. It isn't anything like witcher magic, either. "It's will alone. I pick where I want to be and, if there's a shadow nearby, I go there. At first, it was only short distances, shadows I could see, but I can feel my way out through longer trips now. It's..."

Well. He frowns some, turning to look back at Lambert.

"Not a very good explanation, I know, but think of it like your dragon form. You just tell yourself to be a dragon, don't you?"

[whattaprick]

Lambert makes a face at that.

"Not exactly?" he huffs, frowning. "When I asked the Ringmaster to teach me that trick, she said I'd need a little more 'bestial energy' to pull it off, whatever that means. And then she kind of just ... stuck some in me. I don't really feel like I tell myself to be a dragon as much as I have to yank that magic out where she put it in the first place, hold it as long as I can."

Although given he's not the only one who can turn into another form, here, he's left squinting at Childermass suspiciously. "Wait. Do you just tell yourself to be a bird when you turn into one?"

[atouts]

"Well, I have to picture it first, but... yes," Childermass answers a little bit, uh, awkwardly. He never realized Lambert's dragon form had needed the Ringmaster's own energy, although— "I imagine it's easier because of who I'm related to."

It's something he admits with reluctance. There's that connection, a bit of the Count's magical spirit in him, not unlike what Lambert has to access or, at least, they could theorize that as possible. Though saying that only makes him frown all the more and look away, anywhere besides Lambert or the cliff.

"All of my magic became easier after that, all save spells I knew from England."

[whattaprick]

“Well,” Lambert says, after a moment. “I’m not an expert, but I’m not sure shoving some shadow magic in me is going to fix it.”

He sighs, theatrically put upon.

“You’re just going to have to teach me the old fashioned way.” Whatever that is. Nonetheless, he’ll gamely continue through. “You were doing this before we ever ended up in Portland. It was your spell first. What does reaching for shadows feel like?”

[atouts]

"I could always try," Childermass muses aloud. It's a joke, of course, since he doesn't have the Ringmaster's... abilities, whatever the hell most of those even are. "But you're right. I figured this out before but we'll need to begin with closer shadows."

Which is why, now that Baker and Pig have wandered off to explore the Summerlands, he's using Lambert's shadow to hop them straight up to the top of the cliff. Lambert was never going to make a jump that distant, anyway, and there's a grove of trees clinging to the mountainside up on it.

But to answer Lambert's question, once they're up there, he simply turns to look at him and says, "It's like opening a door. You're going from one place to another, there just isn't a physical handle for you to hang onto."

[whattaprick]

Exploring, of course, really just means heading off to harass some unsuspecting woodland creatures. As Childermass teleports them up, the Pokémon disappear in the foliage below. Lambert tries to concentrate on the sensation as Childermass pulls him through instead of just passively letting it happen to him, but it means he stumbles slightly on the landing, fingers briefly tightening on Childermass’s fingers before he lets them go and laughs, taking a half step back.

“Like a opening a door. Right. Only the door doesn’t just not have a handle, it also doesn’t have a doorframe, or anything else, or exist.” He sighs, then squares his shoulders, expression stubbornly determined. For all his bellyaching, he does want to learn this. He needs to, if he wants to be able to use it to save someone’s life sometime.

“Is there any other trick to it? Something that helps it work better?” And before Childermass can say anything, he’ll add— “No matter how stupid it sounds. You’d be surprised. The first time I managed to cast Aard was by pretending I was a gassy ogre.”

[atouts]

"We may need to start smaller, in that case," Childermass admits and turns to step around Lambert until his back is to the sun and his shadow is thrown across the witcher. "There. Now, one thing you need to remember. You cannot go into your own shadow. You may put other people or items into mine but I've found it impossible to actually sink into it."

For what reasons, he's only ever been able to guess at. Could be he needs a shadow to enter a shadow, could be he'd be lost if his shadow suddenly stopped existing. Even so, it's a mystery.

"But that doesn't mean you can't use it to try yourself. Imagine a shadow is like a pool of water instead of a door. If you step into the water, your feet go under, right? That's what I want you do."

[whattaprick]

“A pool of water you’re just throwing an innocent babe like me to drown in,” Lambert sighs theatrically, but he does look down, frowning slightly.

“I should probably start with just myself, right? Don’t want to accidentally slice you in half or anything like that...” His tail flicks behind him with a clink of metal ornaments before it stills, the witcher’s mind and expression focusing on the task. He’s got magic of his own, somewhere — he knows it’s there, stunted as it is, nestled alongside the fire in his belly and the other changes the Ringmaster’s magic has wrought on him.

But it’s a strain, even as he grasps at it, difficult to understand how to shape it to his needs. From Childermass’s end, it’s nothing particularly exciting to watch, just the witcher standing with an increasingly frustrated expression on his face.

[atouts]

Childermass is patient enough to do just that. To wait, watch, not rushing Lambert to figure it out. It's only when it goes on a little too long that he'll offer a suggestion, even unasked for.

"Closing your eyes may help you pretend its water," he says, gravelly voice slow and easy to make sure he doesn't sound pushy. "I would ask you to give me your hands in that case, however, so you don't end up falling through a shadow unchecked." Well, either that or— "If not that, perhaps matching the concept with a new sign. All your spells go with one, don't they?"

[whattaprick]

“I told you I’m not a magician, didn’t I? I was always the last to learn any signs while I was training,” Lambert answers, wryly. No matter how gently it’s said, he knows what someone trying to offer advice to someone who’s obviously struggling sounds like.

“Every witcher spell’s just a shorthand for magic a real mage would cast. We’re not even the ones who made them — we just copy the magic users who taught us how. If anyone’s going to make up a sign, it’s got to be you.”

[atouts]

"Well, I had considered it just more of a mental aid," Childermass muses aloud, though he does consider it. Coming up with a motion to go with the spell but what? He looks down at his own shadow while turning it over in his head. He doesn't even know what the rest of them are meant to look like, though he won't let that stop him.

"Perhaps a grasping motion? Fingers hooked under your palm? A bit like a bird grabbing something."

He looks up again on saying that, demonstrating. Palm face down, fingers and thumb hooking under.

[whattaprick]

“Well, you know me. I can use all the mental aid I can get,” Lambert quips. He imitates the shape of Childermass’s fingers easily enough, then relaxes his hand and tries it again, over and over. It’s a little awkward at first, but it comes more smoothly with repetition, and he nods, looking up.

“Can you take me through the shadows a couple more times?”

[atouts]

"Of course," Childermass says, holding his hand out for Lambert's again. Once he has it, he'll move, shifting to using Lambert's shadow and not his own. They'll go to the shadow of one tree, then another, then back to the first. He'll take his time with it, adding longer time spent between shadows to give Lambert a chance to feel the magic out.

[whattaprick]

Feel the magic out Lambert does, though despite Childermass’s patience, it avails the witcher naught, no closer to being able to grasp at shadows and bend them to his will than when they began. Yet while it doesn’t yield them much in terms of Lambert’s progress in magic, Lambert doesn’t consider it a wasted afternoon — because it is, after all, the longest they’ve been able to spend together since the Hunt arrived in Shabon. And whenever frustration wears his patience thin, makes him more liable to snap, Childermass is a steady presence calling him back to himself.

They finally call an end to the day when it rolls around close enough to whatever the Summerlands has that passes for dinner. With the fae more inclined to eat out of pleasure than necessity, dinner ends up being whatever Baker manages to drag back from the forest, cooked assistance of one or two Manor folk mildly star struck from Alyss’s stories of Childermass. It’s a nice enough meal — companionable even, with Lambert managing to secure sufficient alcohol to loosen his tongue and tell people rowdy stories of other (heavily edited) feats of valor Childermass has performed — but at the end, when it’s time for bed, Lambert lingers by the portal back to the mountain cities, looking uncharacteristically bashful.

“So, ah ... can we try again tomorrow?” Under other circumstances, he’d be certain of what he could ask for, but ... even with the ring still on Childermass’s fingers, he isn’t. It had been easy enough to hold his hands all afternoon with the excuse of practicing magic to go with it, but right now it feels like an insurmountable distance.

[atouts]

And Childermass spends the evening looking as though he absolutely disapproves of those "feats of valor" Lambert gets on a roll about and yet he doesn't tell him off for it. He lets him have his fun, especially since with him telling tales, more attention is being paid to him than it is the magician, despite being the topic of those tales in the first place. Just letting the meal go how it will, it's relaxing, something he's had with finding on his own even after a few days in the Summerlands.

It's nice, to be left lounging against his big, stupid dog, eating a meal while people talk and laugh around them. It's a pity it can't last and he's walking Lambert back to the portal all too soon. He looks at the portal when Lambert asks that, absently fidgeting with that same ring...

"Yes, we will," he agrees after a moment, sounding a bit distant. Though he won't look back at the witcher, there's another pause -- a thoughtful one -- before he adds, "You could stay down here. I know it isn't as lavish but they have plenty of room."

[whattaprick]

Despite the obvious unspoken invitation, Lambert hesitates. He knows what he'd like to do, of course -- but the way Childermass can't look at him, the way his voice is a bit distant...

"You know I don't care about fancy," Lambert shrugs, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. Drink softens his tone, slurs his words slightly as he tries to think his response through. "Short notice to ask them to get me a place, though, isn’t it? Don’t wanna bother anyone.”