lostcarnival | ⇨ THE SUMMER COURT

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⇨ THE SUMMER COURT

Who: Everyone in the Summer Maiden's entourage.
When: Day 129 - Day 131 (Subjectively experienced as only one day.)
Where: The Summer Court
What: The Summer Maiden returns to the Summer Court for the first time in eons, leading a posse of carnival workers and Summer Fae. The Summer Queen has initiated a peaceful Elysium for discussions to take place, with dozens of the Court in attendance, but the true tone of the negotiations has yet to be unearthed.
Warnings: Fae being bitches.

SUNSET OF AN ERA↴

The phase shift takes few minutes to complete, when it's time. The Summer Maiden gathers everyone together - her guard of Summerland Fae, and her carnival wards - and activates the spell to bring them to the Summer Court. It's been planned with the Summer Queen, she says, and they should have her cooperation. Nothing has been settled in terms of negotiations, but at the very least, the Queen was not willing to shut down the opportunity to see her daughter for the first time eons, along with her lesser children, Ignatius and Gild.

The Summer Maiden has recommended that everyone dress formally and conduct themselves with respect, but she is not forcing anyone to do so. It simply seems like the best way to make an impression.

When they arrive in the Summer Court, they are in a courtyard. The Maiden's light magic fades and they will see themselves in a garden of alien trees, with golden towers rising up around them in all directions. Two Summer Court fae are waiting for them at an ornate gate, but it isn't until the Summer Maiden has claimed her role as an adjudicator or the present Elysium that she breaks the barrier surrounding her party. She tells everyone that it is safe to go forth but to be cautious. There is no way of knowing what direction negotiations will take.

The guard leads them in, and they will find themselves in a spacious and life-filled throne room, with massive trees that function and supporting pillars and the throne itself. A variety of True Fae that the carnival has never seen before are scattered around the room, waiting with a thick air of tension. As the Summer Maiden leads them in, she will announce herself to the Queen, and claim all those present as under her protection.

The introductions are brief, and after the Maiden is done, the Queen will ask to speak with her privately. There is a clear nervousness beneath the Queen's veneer of control. As the Maiden joins her at the throne to speak about personal matters, everyone else is free to explore the throne room and mingle - if they dare.

► STICKING OUT: There are some notable reactions going on as the Maiden's entourage arrives. In general, the Court Fae respond strongly to Ignatius's presence - both the fact that he's turned up as an ally to the Maiden, and his curious magical transformation. Ignatius, for his part, holds back and tries to keep to himself, looking like he's trying to hide a significant amount of stress. To the Gilded Mark, there is a particular note of resentment, which she mostly seems to ignore and focuses on staying close to the carnival folk. The Starlight, the Whirling Rainbow, and a few other Summerland Fae have come along, and they all hold back as the Summer Maiden discusses things with the Queen privately. In general, the Court Fae eye the carnival with a mixture of curiousity and disgust.

► TOUGH CROWD: There are dozens of Summer Court Fae here that no one will have seen before. They mill about the room as if this is an uncomfortable formal engagement, eyeing up the Maiden's entourage an gossiping with one another. The opinions they hold of the situation vary wildly - some seem more of the attitude that the Court would be better off if the Summer Maiden were to die and be replaced, where others are openly optimistic and excited about the potential of reparations being made. You are free to make up/NPC any of these fae as long as they aren't doing anything radical, like trying to break the Elysium. Some of them will treat the visitors as threats, while others may even attempt to ask them questions about the situation.

► ACCOMMODATIONS: There is food and drink provided while negotiations endure. Normally you may want to be cautious about accepting this kind of thing, but given that it's part of Elysium, they are obligated to not harm any of those present. So, if you want, you will be able to enjoy faerie ales and other luxury foods that have the capability of being distractingly tantalizing to mortals with low self control. If you need some space, you are free to go back out to the courtyard where you arrived. There are few fae out there, but it is still covered by the Elysium. Take some time to settle in - this could take a while, and there's sure to be drama before it's over. Later on, there will be public discussion.

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No sign of the Rose Queen so far.

That's, of course, the primary thing on Steven's mind. Ever since they showed up, he can feel prickles of anxiety running across his nerves, constantly expecting that she will suddenly appear somehow and see right through him. He's been trying to put it out of his mind, to stand strong and confidently, but it's more difficult than he'd hoped.

He locates a familiar face and hustles over to Amethyst, avoiding the judgemental glances of some fae who probably know who his fae mom is. He tries to act like his arrival was natural, and not like he was clearly trying to escape something.

"H-Hey Amethyst, how's the grub?" he asks, his voice wavering nervously. He tries to act casual.

Ah. Amethyst knows that look. And that tone of voice, also. She lowers herself on her tail a bit so she's closer to his eye level.

"Pretty good. Doesn't seem too cursed, anyway. You want some?"

She offers him a savoury pastry.

"I dunno what's in this but it tastes kinda like fish."

Edited 2018-12-29 22:47 (UTC)

He takes the pastry and looks at it like he's thinking deeply about whether to eat it or not. Mostly, though, he's too distracted to complete the thought and arrive at a decision, so he just keeps holding it.

"Are you doing okay?" he asks. "This is kind of scary, right?" And he can't help but feel like Amethyst mostly came out of concern for him.

SHE SURE DID, but she's not going to admit that.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she assures him. "...It is sorta scary, though." She sighs. "This fae stuff is all kinda nuts, huh?"

"Yeah..." he admits, folding back his ears as he stares ahead at the various fae that can't help but glance at him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. "This feels way different than the Summerlands. It's almost like... when the Diamonds put me on trial for shattering Pink Diamond, only... I actually sort of get those Homeworld guys, now. I don't know what to expect here at all."

Both Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond seem reasonable in comparison to the Rose Queen.

Amethyst grimaces.

"I guess at least no one here thinks you like... killed somebody, right?" She glances around the vicinity. Not being held in personal suspicion of murder doesn't seem to be taking the edge off the looks on the fae's faces when they glance this way, though. Oof. "... I mean, I think they don't. I dunno what their deal is at all, actually."

"I mean... I guess we killed the Mother of Invention?" Steven says nervously. "But... I dunno if these guys really care about that."

Even if they didn't care personally, they might care about people smaller than them rising up and making a fuss.

"Isn't she, like, their enemy?" says Amethyst, pulling a face because she's not one hundred percent sure that makes it OK.

"Yeah... but..." Steven hedges uncertainly. "...Maybe that doesn't really matter, when they're all worried about someone coming for them next." It has to set a bad precedent. "I think they're mostly relieved, though. Like the Mother of Invention was bad even by their terms..."

He laughs frailly.

"I just feel like... I have to get used to this. Even if I'm scared, y'know? I'm so... different, now... I have to figure out how to make this work."

Amethyst sighs and drops onto her feet.

"What d'you mean? You're still Steven."

"Yeah, but..." he doesn't seem convinced. "I'm part fae now, and I probably will be forever. Nothing I do is going to make this stop being a part of me, even if I go home."

He looks away, and laughs in a sad, hicuppy way, rubbing one of his eyes.

"My gem isn't even the same kind anymore. What are the Homeworld gems going to do about that?"

Amethyst makes an extremely weird sort of grimace in response to that.

"Well... I mean..." She rubs the back of her neck. "Are they even gonna be able to tell...? It doesn't look any different..."

"It's blue," Steven says miserably, looking at it through the tailored gap in his outfit. At least, it's partly blue. It's still blue around the edges, like it has been since he fused with the Blue Rose. "Everyone days it looks like a diamond, and when I bleed it turns into diamonds, and... when they took it out of my body it was shaped all weird."

He lifts his hands, gestures like he's trying to indicate how it was. Pointy on one side, like a traditional diamond cut. Not flat, like Amethyst, or the Jaspers, or the other Rose Quartz.

"Was... Was mom's gem different?"

"That's just the colour," Amethyst starts to protest, but then he's talking about the shape and everyone saying it's a diamond and...

She puts a paw over one side of her face for a moment, and looks away.

"Her gem always looked the same as yours does, Steven."

Steven shakes his head as he starts to tear up, a deep inner frustration rising to the surface. There's always so many things he doesn't understand.

"I just thought I was finally starting to get what was going on. Even if everything was scary and hard, I thought... I thought I knew where I fit into things." He rubs away some of the tears. "But now I don't. And nothing will be the same when I go home."

There's a sort of muffled groan from Amethyst as she puts her face into both hands. She hates seeing him like this. What if deciding to keep things from him was the wrong thing to do? What if he needed to know?

"Look... Steven..." Her voice is still slightly muffled. "Steven, I gotta tell you something. I wasn't gonna say anything 'cause I figured you already had enough stuff going on but..."

That's the kind of introduction that is just aggressively ominous, but Steven has spent too much time in his life fighting for information from people to turn down the opportunity to have something revealed to him. He finishes wiping his eyes, and looks at Amethyst, surprised. He has no idea what he's expecting.

"H-huh...?" he asks. "About... what?"

"It's about your mom," says Amethyst heavily. She lowers her hands to her knees. "And the... stuff with Pink Diamond."

She pauses a second, trying to organise her thoughts. Finding this out herself was -- overwhelming, so overwhelming, but thinking about it since then it's never really seemed like the blunt fact of it was complicated, exactly. Having to explain it to Steven, though...

"She wasn't... she didn't shatter Pink Diamond," she says, curling her tail around her feet. "She was Pink Diamond. She faked the whole thing to try to -- scare Homeworld offa Earth, I guess, to protect it? And then she changed herself into Rose Quartz to fight them." She's holding the end of her tail now, twisting it in both hands. "And then she just stayed like that and never told anybody."

Amethyst is right, that it doesn't seem complicated exactly. There are no points in her explanation that seem unclear, or even really gut reaction that says "no way that's impossible." He just thinks about it, and... it's there. It's information. It's an explanation.

The only improbable thing is that all this time passed with no one knowing, but he already knew his mom was a liar.

"She... what?" he barely manages, looking at her with obvious dread. "How... how did you... you didn't know, did you? How did you find out?"

He knows that she just said that she never told anybody, but there is the initial kneejerk fear that all the gems knew this whole time and just never told him for whatever reason. He feels lightheaded, and he sways a little on his feet.

"No!" says Amethyst immediately. "We didn't -- I mean, Pearl did, but she couldn't say anything, she -- she literally couldn't, Rose made it so she couldn't talk about it even if she wanted to it was messed up -- but -- not even Garnet knew."

She stares at her tail.

"You know before, when I said she split up. That's why. Pearl... figured out another way to tell you, I guess, without talking, and then we found out too."

That would do it, he guesses. In terms of something bad enough to make Garnet break up. He just... never really thought to ask for specifics. It seemed unimportant, like something he could deal with later, and the idea of the wedding had been so hopeful...

He rests his hand over his gem, looking stunned. He believes what Amethyst is saying. He believed that Rose would hide something like that, lie about it for thousands of years. He'd just never have imagined that this... his gem... could be a diamond. That it would all be that simple and that complicated. Rose had never killed anyone. Just like he'd hoped. Yet, maybe she had done something worse.

"So, all this time that they've been chasing us... because of what mom did..." he starts, and then immediately trails off. Amethyst already knows what he means. "I'm... like them?"

She looks up, at that, looking almost offended.

"No way. You're not like anyone, Steven."

The words hit home because he's heard them before. Out of his own mouth, even, but towards Amethyst. That neither of them were like anybody, which meant they were like each other. He tenses but then melts into a sad but relieved laugh. He can't say no to that.

"Oh right," he says, with a little self-deprecating titter. "I... I almost forgot that."

He looks at her, and then down at his gem.

"I guess everything is going to change no matter what."

"Yeah... I guess so." Amethyst sighs, smiling lopsidedly, kind of sadly, at him. "Stuff's gotta change, though, right? Your mom always said that was what was so great about Earth."

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⇨ THE SUMMER COURT

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