[OPEN]

[anti_nonsense]

Who: Rita, Francis, and you!
When: During the day or so the Ringmaster allows for everyone to consider their choice.
Where: The carnival, or what's left of it.
What: Rita reunites with her cat, returns to what remains of her temporary home in the carnival, maybe gets sappy over her boyfriend, maybe gets talking about the decisions they all have in front of them.


At long last, they made it back. The carnival doesn't look anything like Rita remembers it, but there's a vague sense of familiarity in the air. Once their immediate business is concluded and the Ringmaster has left them all with time to deliberate their future as mortals (or not), Rita takes the time to wander out into the empty, grassy space of what used to be the trailer park. It doesn't take long for Francis to find her, and together with her cat, she locates the space that seems to vaguely coincide with the home she shared with 9S.

Littered on the ground in several haphazard piles are books, papers, clothes, electronic devices, and all sorts of knickknacks collected from various worlds. Rita sits on the grass next to one of these such piles, pulling out an item one at a time, examining it, and setting it aside. A magic textbook here, a tacky t-shirt there... Everything, with some kind of story behind it.

"Nyaa?" Francis seems to ask her, tilting his head.

Rita shakes her head, as if comprehending and responding to his question. "No... he isn't here. But we'll all be back together soon. I promise."

Despite the wide open space, she's so engrossed in what she's doing that she may not notice someone approach while she attempts to sincerely reassure her cat.

Comments

[alphudo]

There are... a number of people Yuusei has wanted to talk to over the past while. So much has happened, so much has changed, but there's always been some big thing or other that's been going on, that's held everyone's immediate attention. There's been so much going and going... It's exhausting. It's all been exhausting.

Finally, though, everyone's efforts have culminated into a victory, a success conjured by their own collective hands. Finally, they can settle down and breathe, if only for a day.

They'll be going to the Winter Court tomorrow, but for now, they have today.

Yuusei's gait is no longer the nervous, unsteady wobble he had entered the carnival with upon receiving his new body, so approaching Rita while she surveys her belongings and speaks with her cat is a thoughtless task. One arm folded behind his back, he absentmindedly adjusts his shirt (still wearing his Summerlands outfit in all its clownery) as he comes up beside her.

He greets her with a soft smile. "You'll never guess what I found laying around."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita looks up from her conversation with her cat to give Yuusei a somewhat confused look. He's not the first person she expected to approach her here, and with a line like that...

"What?" she asks, her brow scrunched with uncertainty.

[alphudo]

His smile broadens as he sits down and brings his folded arm around. In his hand is a very familiar tool, the very one he had been using when he first spoke to Rita in the carnival.

"I found your wrench."

[anti_nonsense]

Slowly, Rita's eyes widen in recognition. "You're kidding," she murmurs. "Of all the things to survive to this point... hah. I can't believe it."

[alphudo]

"Funny, isn't it?" He tosses the wrench up in the air (away from Rita) a couple times before simply placing it on the ground. A silence falls over him.

Physically, Rita doesn't seem to have changed much compared to their first encounter. Were her legs already like that? He can't recall. He remembers she disliked these changes, however, at least at first. He wonders if that's still the case.

His lips purse.

"...I... kind of can't believe we survived to this point. It feels like we should've..." Mm, maybe don't take it so pessimistically. "I don't know. I'm just surprised we're still here."

He knows not everyone stayed the whole time. He knows many of them had disappeared suddenly, even before he'd shown up.

[atouts]

"Talking about 9S?"

The question is posed by a tired, gravelly voice most often attached to Childermass and, unsurprisingly, this time it's the same. He had been on his way to his own trailer — or where what had been in it should still be — when he wandered on up behind her, pausing to listen in on her talking to her cat. It's not different than him chatting away at Baker, so he hardly finds that odd.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita winces briefly at the realization that someone's been listening, but she doesn't bother dwelling on it for all that long. Once she's had a moment to get over the embarrassment, she takes a breath, sighs, and admits, "Yeah."

She puts the book in her hand aside, stacking it atop several others, then reaches into the junk pile to retrieve another.

"You know, it feels weird to think... This was our place. We talked about everything here, ate our meals together, stayed up late watching video recordings... but now it's just gone. It's not like this was where we planned to stay for the long term or anything, but..."

[atouts]

"But it was still your place, just for the two of you," Childermass finishes for her. He understands it, even if he and Lambert maintained an ultimately foolish image by keeping their own separate places. "And right now all you're left with are your memories. Missing it is perfectly reasonable, Ms. Mordio."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita looks up at the magician, seems to consider whether there's anything she can argue in there... and, finding nothing to disagree with, simply replies with, "Hmph." She doesn't want to say so, but he more or less has her figured out.

Francis slinks over closer to her, rubbing his body against her legs as he passes by, then giving Childermass a curious look.

"Well, don't think you'll see me moping around here for long. I know what I have to do. And... it won't be long until we can make a new place. One that's even better than this one was."

[atouts]

"So you've figured out a way to track him down, have you?" Childermass asks, though his attention has moved on to the Litten eyeing him right back. He's never really had a chance to get a closer look at Francis, especially with how often Baker tends to be out and about in the carnival, but in the dog's absence...

Well, of course he's going to crouch down and offer a hand out towards the cat, wiggling fingers at him (though thankfully not making any ridiculous 'here, kitty' sounds).

[hippocarnival]

Yuya crouches down near Rita while she's sorting through her things, taking off his pendulum and swinging it in Francis' sight in an attempt to distract him. It was fun last time, wasn't it?

He hasn't approached his own pile of things, yet, even though he knows where it is. Looking at the state of everything else, it's a little harrowing, and he's not quite ready for the personal punch of seeing his trailer gone and his things so carelessly scattered.

"I guess a lot's changed."

[anti_nonsense]

Francis tries to act disinterested in the pendulum, but that lasts for all of ten seconds before he stalks over to it and starts batting at it with his paws.

"...Yeah," Rita murmurs in response. "Both this place, and us. I'll bet Nines is in for a surprise..." Her gaze wanders to a yet-untouched stack of belongings, one largely composed of his things. Will he even come back here again? Rita's not so sure.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya swings the pendulum side to side.

"I guess it depends what we're all going to do... since we still have contracts. But I don't know if the Ringmaster will make it a carnival anytime soon." He looks up to Rita. "Especially if we're going to change even more about the Courts."

[anti_nonsense]

"Are those contracts even valid, after everything that happened? I have to wonder..." Rita mutters with a frown. After all, if their contracts were transferred to the Mother of Invention, and then she died...

"Not that I'm worried or anything. It's the Ringmaster who came up with those stupid rules for this place. What was it... 'always pay your dues'? She'll... probably come through." There's a brief moment of hesitation as Rita admits she actually has something resembling faith in the Ringmaster. "...Have you decided what you're going to do, about her offer?"

[hippocarnival]

Yuya really has no idea, he's just been assuming. It could be they're all totally contract free except for the claims of Ignatius and Gilded Mark.

"She'll do what she can to make it right." He speaks with a little more confidence. At her question, he turns back to Francis. "I don't think I'm going to take it. I still have to talk to Gongenzaka, but it doesn't really seem right for me."

So much power, responsibility, longevity he doesn't think he's suited for at all. "What about you?"

[chronosynthesis]

"Isn't much of a welcome home is it?" Syrlya glances around, hands folded behind his back. He's perused his things, mingled with Strange's, but with no place else to put it he simply left it where it was.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita sighs, then gives a small, defeated nod. "Yeah. I don't know what I expected... Guess I should just be glad the whole realm didn't get torn to shreds while the Ringmaster was trapped by the Huntsman."

Is that a thing that could've happened? Probably, she thinks. It was certainly a surprise to Rita that the Rose and the Mirror had been successfully kept out of his hands all this time.

[chronosynthesis]

It's a small blessing, frankly, that they weren't contending with that.

"She resisted. We were lucky... we did good work to find her when we did." But also they were really lucky nothing else delayed them and wss inevitably worse.

He smirks. "Although I admit, our plan at the very end was perhaps the worst we've ever had that actually worked."

[anti_nonsense]

Rita manages a short, bitter laugh at that.

"Seriously. Maybe it was all the death fog we were inhaling, but I was starting to feel like I was going crazy. Or everyone else was. Maybe both." Rita can act like she's smarter than that, to try to use nonsense speeches about friendship in a life or death situation... but in the end, she'd sheathed her weapon and joined in. And it worked.

Maybe the multiverse just is crazy.

[chronosynthesis]

The multiverse is completely crazy.

"It's probably both." He shrugs a shoulder. "But I suppose we always were a little, to have arrived here after everything."

At the end of murdering multiple Fae, liberating hundreds, causing chaos, and also becoming super beings themselves. Around all the torture and trauma.

Speaking of that... "We should assess how many people intend to accept the Ringmaster's offer. The amount of firepower on our side will change our strategy."

[npcarnival]

Ignatius has been... around. For a while he disappeared with the Ringmaster, taking for some time, but now he's back. He put off doing this because he didn't want to push, but now he's going to find Rita as she sorts through her belongings.

"Rita," he calls as he arrives, giving her some warning. "Have you made a decision, yet?"

Keeping it to the point.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita looks up in surprise at the sound of Ignatius's voice. She takes a moment to study him before looking back to her sorting. Francis, curious, hops up on top of a stack of books to get a better look at the towering stranger.

"More or less," she replies. "The whole reason I came to the carnival in the first place was to learn more about magic. With the power granted by the Miracles, I could achieve more than I ever dreamed of... and considering how much I've already been changed, there isn't much of a downside to accepting."

There's a pause after that, as she seems to weigh something in her head.

"Say... if I go through with this ascension thing, will we still be..." She stops, seems to reconsider her wording, and tries again. "...Will I still be a faeblood, technically speaking?"

[npcarnival]

His shoulders slacken a little, like her immediate answer gives him some sense of relief. Well, that's one thing he doesn't have to wonder about, apparently. As a born fae, he can't imagine many reasons to turn it down, either. At least Rita isn't a sociopath, like many of his peers.

He crosses his arms at her question, uncertain.

"I'm not sure," he starts, because he isn't. "But if it's anything like what happened to me... then my bonds of kinship remain, despite what happened. It's possible you will remain connected to the Summer Court."

And him. He's not sure if that is bad or good in her book.

[anti_nonsense]

"Bonds of kinship, huh..." Rita echoes in a murmur, then lets out a short breath, like a voiceless laugh. "That's a first for me. My parents both died when I was little. I don't even remember what they looked like. So I don't know anything about family, or kinship..."

She leans back with one hand flat against the grass, and the other over her heart.

"It's funny... not that long ago, I would've hated the idea of being bound to you, or that stupid Court. But now... if I lost this connection, I guess I'd feel... disappointed? Something like that." It would feel a lot like loss, in a weird way.

[npcarnival]

He tilts a little, taking that in. He'd kind of assumed that Rita's parental situation was a Portland thing only. He still has a number of 'parents' but he also knows what it's like to lose one.

He comes closer with a bit of hesitation, and then sits on the grass near her.

"Fortunately, kinship isn't something you have to know. You only have to feel it," he says, tentatively. "And if that's how you'd feel about losing it... I suppose you already do."