lostcarnival | ⇨ THE WINTER COURT

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⇨ THE WINTER COURT

Who: Everyone willing to come.
When: Day 142
Where: The Winter Palace
What: Whether you've ascended to godhood or been blessed with temporary protections, it's time to confront the Winter Queen.
Warnings: ???

THE BEGINNING AND THE END↴

Once everyone has made their decisions, the Ringmaster will take those that have chosen to ascend to an isolated place within her realm. As it turns out, that end up being the core of the two moons, combined into one impregnable space. This might be a bit explosive, she warns. Can't be too careful.

With everyone together, back in her partly humanoid form, she will bring out the Blue Rose and the Silver Mirror - both in their sword and shield forms respectively - and begin her work. Her wings, now feathery and glowing red with power, spread around the group, and they will feel a stirring in their body and soul.

The space becomes blinding, like overwhelming light and darkness all at once, burning and freezing all at once. Life and death, all at once. You bleed into the ether, become one with it, and then reform - only you've brought something back with you. The domain of one of the Miracles has bound itself to you, body and soul. Though it is the Miracle's legacy, the power is now yours, to do with what you will.

No other force will command you.

Once it is done, the moon has become an eclipse, it's corporeal form melting away. You will find yourself floating back down to the surface of the realm, changed but empowered. Your body may appear different than before, or it may be the same - regardless, you are something fully new. You have the same memories, the same desires, the same hopes, but they have come together to create something else.

You are born again.

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"And... you were one of them, and so was Torch. Right?"

He glances over to read his face for confirmation. Ignatius was closer to the truth than they'd both realized, but could the Ringmaster's word have been taken at the time either?

It doesn't matter, wondering what could have been avoided if they'd all regarded each other differently. Only because they know now and it doesn't bring back what Ignatius lost.

Still, Yuya looks sympathetic.

"Of my kin, it was the Iron Forged, Torch Bearer, and myself," he says. He is speaking levelly in a way that suggests he is specifically trying not to become emotional. "The Forged and I survived, but Torch died of her wounds while imprisoned."

The Ringmaster had been considered as bad as the Winter Queen, at the time. Even if she'd been around, he doubts either Court would have trusted her testimony.

Died of her wounds... He thought maybe she died in the initial battle or something, but wasting away from lack of care while imprisoned and far from home...

"Do you hate her? The Winter Queen." He asks softly, without judgement. He's pretty sure he would hate hated her in that situation, anyway.

"Yes," he says, without hesitation. "Or, at least, I hate the creature I've believed her to be, all this time. Someone who played us all for fools, even her own allies. Someone who left my kin to perish in captivity while she endlessly stalled the Summer Court with stubborn politics. I had always believed this to be a calculated cruelty."

"The idea that it wasn't... That it may have been the ravings of the new Queen's madness... I do not wish to deny the possibility, knowing what I do now, but I'm not sure what I'll do if it's the truth."

Yuya's brows raise a little, mildly surprised about the detail of his response. He wondered of the decision to appeal to her might have been a personal insult to Ignatius, after what he's been through.

"Even if it is the truth... it doesn't remove the responsibility she has in what she did." He looks back up to the moon, kind of wishing his pants has pockets so he could stuff his hands into them. "It just means maybe there's a chance for her to change. To be better. There's still a lot she has to make up for."

And Yuya, ever forgiving, is willing to give her that chance. He'll always accept anyone's will to change, to try and turn around the hurt they've caused. But it's something that takes work, like Ignatius had to. Like he has to. He won't absolve the responsibility of it.

Thankfully, Ignatius isn't quite that self centered. It's not a comfortable proposition, in the least, but he was aware of the inevitability of it.

"We don't have much choice, either way," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "We can't kill her. With only a Crone left, there would be no way to continue the cycle. In that perspective, her being simply misunderstood would be a blessing."

He huffs.

"I will always bear the scars she gave me... but any contriteness on her part would be more than I ever expected. To serve my Court that way was always my purpose."

Yuya nods. The Summer Queen's assessment of that is something that's stuck with Yuya going into this, and not just his own pacifism. Killing her isn't an option.

"Yeah... at least, even this way, we're putting an end to the chance of anyone else suffering the same way. Like others in the Summer Court."

Mortals, Wyld Fae, honestly probably Winter Court members too. But for all Ignatius accepts his own suffering for the sake of his Court, seeing said Court and those loved ones suffer is very different.

"What are you going to do when it's over?"

He looks down at the ground, now, only briefly glancing at Yuya on the way. That's a loaded question.

"I was speaking to the Ringmaster of some possibilities," he says. "Though it will depend on if our actions today leave us with a Court system to mediate in the first place." The Summer Court is fine, especially with the Summer Maiden returning, though they lost some of their numbers in the battle with the Huntsman. "I doubt that I can simply return to my previous role."

Yuya scratches his cheek. "You were a solider, right? Maybe protecting your home is something you can always do, but... if there's less to protect it from, you need something else to do."

But also, the home he has might change wildly too, if the Courts start working together instead of apart and there's no more need to conquer other worlds.

"But if we can really make things change, a lot of people will be in that position too. Because you've done so much first, they might look to you."

No pressure tho.

"It's not for lack of work," he says, shaking his head. "It's... Well..." He exhales, sounding mildly frustrated. "I can't... see things as I did before."

As much as it may seem beyond his station. He hates that it's how he feels.

"I'm not sure how I could resume my duties so simply."

Yuya tilts his head as he looks up at Ignatius. "Do you mean more than just taking over worlds?"

More than just the treatment of mortals, which is something Yuya would hope can be compromised with a new future for the Courts.

"Yes. But even that... no matter what we do, the fae lifestyle is not going to change over night. Until a hard line can be drawn, participation in the Court structure will be enabling those that would abuse its power."

"Even if it does change... I find myself with new priorities."

Yuya nods. He wants to hope that there's a way to enable change from the inside, but if Ignatius is certain he has to affect change from out of it then he won't argue. On a personal level, Yuya's wanted to give Ignatius the room to take his own future, just with hopefully more kindness to the smaller people.

He looks curious. "New priorities?"

"I can't only be responsible for the Summer Court," he says. "Remaining divided along the elemental lines has never accomplished anything but to obfuscate personal responsibility, and to inspire bloodshed."

Ah. Yuya pauses, putting his best understanding of the Court system together with Ignatius' statement.

"Is that because of this?" Yuya puts a hand to his chest. "Because you've got elements on both sides, now. Do you think the Courts can come together as one, and balance each other out as a whole?"

"What? No," Ignatius says, finally looking right at Yuya with an express of mild dismay and repulsion. "It's not... Nothing is as simple as that." Yet there is a slight amount of embarrassment, given what he told the Summer Queen during the negotiations.

"I only took that as a sign, that we needed to stop looking only inward. Both Courts have been preoccupied with nothing but their own survival and ability to flourish for as long as anyone can remember."

Yuya drops his hand. "So, uh, how would you change that? If it was up to you."

Did he talk about it with the Ringmaster? He's got his mind on some set of possibilities, anyway. And he'll probably be putting more in affecting that change as an immortal Fae than Yuya.

"It's a complicated question," he admits, thoughtfully. "Though that's some of what I spoke to the Ringmaster about. What we agreed upon most was that the Courts require an intermediary - some form of combined government that has sway in the actions of both sides. It would be a streamlined route to working past conflicts, and could potentially speed the rebuilding of the Winter Court."

"It could also aid in the development of wider policy changes... the Summer Court may have been willing to hear you out, but I cannot think of a single friendly Winter Fae left among their numbers."

That's a more calculated solution, which is why it's them and not Yuya finding a realistic way to change the course of the Courts. Yuya is, ultimately, an entertainer. And fourteen.

"'Left'?" Yuya starts hesitantly, because there atw bad and worse reasons that's no longer the case. "Because they went off in their own? Or..."

"After the uprising, most of the sympathetic Winter Fae had been killed in the fighting, fled, or were made to disappear later," he says, simply. "They culled their own numbers, to prevent something like that from happening again. Anyone with that spirit left in them has likely learned to keep quiet."

"Oh." Yuya chews on his lip briefly.

"Well... if we can turn things around with the Winter Queen, maybe we can give them the courage to speak up again, or come back like the Summer Maiden did. Those that are left."

His nods to Ignatius. "I guess the hardest part is falling on all of you. But I think you can do it."

"One can hope," Ignatius says, exhaling. "But before the Winter Queen is handled, there is little room for anything else. Unless she changes, it will never be safe to defy her." Not matter how petty and irrational her goals may be.

"Right. We definitely need to do that first." And that's what they're going to do, even Yuya. He may not be present for the eons of change after, but he can help move the biggest piece to make room for it.

He folds his arms loosely. "She's been after us--well, the Ringmaster really, for a while. I don't think there's any choice but to make her change, or..." Or kill her. He doesn't want to think about it coming to thay.

Instead he shakes his head and says more lightly. "Maybe when it's over you'll get to see what the carnival's like when we're not running and fighting. It was a lot of fun."

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⇨ THE WINTER COURT

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