⇨ THE WINTER COURT

[ringleaders]

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.

Comments

[moonfang]

Cracking an eye open to glare at Beau from his taur-couch.

"Fiiiine."

He sits up! WHATEVER, MOM!

[npcarnival]

The Ringmaster looks around, like she is expecting something more. She tentatively moves into the room, keeping her grip on the other two Miracles firm.

"Why would I want to come back sooner when you spent all this time trying to kill me?" the Ringmaster growls. "You've got a lot to answer for, Winter."

"As do you, beast," the Winter Queen says. "My intent was never to kill you. I simply decided that your forays into the mortal realms had been humoured long enough. You can't just do the things you did and expect to get away free, can you?"

"What are you talking about?!" the Ringmaster exclaims, already frustrated. "I don't even understand what you think I did wrong! I did everything you wanted! I led the rebellion, I helped you kill your miserable progenitor-"

The Winter Queens hands clench around the arms of her thrones, the apathetic look falling from her face in favour of something terse and displeased.

"And you left me to pick up the pieces alone," the Winter Queen says.

[hippocarnival]

"... Not all the pieces." Yuya glances between both of them. Maybe he should let them debate between themselves, but since the Summer Maiden gave them this context...

"She carried all the blame for you. She was hated, and the Courts already see the Wyld Fae as people below them. They wouldn'thave had ant reason to spare her if it was all her fault, right?" He steadies his gaze on the Winter Maiden. "What would they have done to her if she stayed?"

If she's upset about being left alone to deal with it, does she care about endangering the Ringmaster with her story?

[atouts]

"You throw her to the wolves and blame her for it? Pitiful," Childermass scoffs at the Winter Queen, face drawn absolute scorn for the audacity of it. "No. I imagine what she really wants is for the Ringmaster to suffer the same kind of hell she's put herself in."

[moonfang]

"Keh! They woulda strung her up like goddamn Christmas lights, make her an example fer any other uppity Wyld Fae who think they could challenge the courts! A scapegoat," Zangetsu spits with a sneer. "Sounds like Queendom ain't all it was cracked up to be and miss frosty-britches over here decided ta take it out on her former friend. What a pal."

Why, exactly, aren't they just swarming her and killing her?

[betheman]

Gongenzaka looks none too pleased himself- though he isn't nearly as loud as his passenger. A small frown upon his face, he stares toward the Queen.

"Perhaps she will explain that then, the way she feels the pieces fell? Despite the evidence that we ourselves have found chasing us all this time?" Really- just what does the Queen have to say for herself, that would at all bring pity from them now?

[npcarnival]

The Winter Queen doesn't seem taken back by being scolded, but she does seem immensely spiteful about the general concept. She sneers at them, standing up from her throne.

"I told you I would handle it," she snaps at the Ringmaster, and at everyone else by proxy. "Is that really so difficult for you to understand? You had managed to follow instructions so well up till that point..."

The Ringmaster, for her part, seems lost. It's not like she hadn't been expecting scorn, after everything the Winter Queen has ostensibly done! She just doesn't understand at all why anything had to happen like this.

"Winter..." she says, her voice falling. She's genuinely confused, and even now, this hurts to hear from her own mouth. "I don't... I don't understand. I don't know why you did this to me. We... We were... Everything..."

"Spare me," the Winter Queen says, cutting off the Ringmaster's pleading. The Ringmaster takes a step back. "The Winter Court is broken, and we're the ones that broke it. We all deserve our punishments."

[anti_nonsense]

There's an exasperated sigh in the room, and with some reluctance, Rita steps forward, glaring at the Queen.

"You mind explaining for those of us who weren't there, but almost got killed because of whatever nonsense went on between the two of you? By my understanding, the two of you conspired to kill the previous Queen, and succeeded. You rose to power in her place, and now you've got the whole Court under your thumb with no dissent to be seen. So what exactly went 'wrong', here? What the hell more do you want?"

She's well aware that she's being presumptuous, but she's also running out of patience.

[chronosynthesis]

"Are your punishments usually full of collateral damage to everything surrounding your target? I'm sure the patrons of the bathhouse would enjoy hearig that... those that are still alive, at least."

He digs his sword point into the ground. "And who is going to deliver your punishment, when you've delivered your judgement?"

He has just as little patience, but Rita's questions are probably less rhetorical.

[atouts]

"No one will punish her, that's what. No one ever punishes royalty."

Childermass moves a step over, firmly placing himself in front of the Ringmaster rather than off to one side. He doesn't have to worry about being vaporized by some shitty High Fae anymore and he's most certainly not going to forget that.

"The Winter Court is broken because you broke it. Admit it already. You drove the Ringmaster and the Summer Maiden both away with your schemes. You either ignored it when all of your other followers were killed or you ordered it yourself. You refuse to create a new Winter Maiden. Why? Do you fear any child of yours will have the same greed for power that you had?"

Although during his little diatribe, he's reaching out with his own senses, now empowered beyond that of a mere human or changeling by the Silver Mirror. He could feel the Void before thanks to Wismuth but now, he feels, he may be able to pinpoint it much more clearly if it's around.

If the Mother of Invention could be filled with it, one can't help but wonder if it's been leaking into the rest of the Court, right?

[flashover]

Wow. This lady gives a whole new meaning to "icy bitch". Rin can sense the hurt in the Ringmaster, and he places a hand on her arm, giving her a sympathetic look. It seems like the other Changelings have "sassing the Winter Queen" covered -- so he'll run backup.

"Don't let it get to you. She's just trying to make you feel miserable, just like her."

[textsfromhotland]

Alphys just buries her face in her hands (but peeks through a small gap in her fingers) Oh my god you guys stop yelling at the extremely powerful fairy queen.

[insidescoop]

Carly's fists are clenched, but her words do not go to the Queen- as much as it's clear her anger is directed in that direction. "For someone who thinks she got the short end of the stick Ringmaster, she seems pretty keen on taking most of the blame off herself too, don't you think?" First it's 'you should have stayed', then it's 'You should have listened'...for all the Queen speaks of both deserving punishment, the others are right as far as Carly can tell- it seems more like that's falling on the Ringmaster if anything.

[npcarnival]

With the power of Light and Darkness, it's fully within Childermass's power to discern the nature of the Winter Queen's soul. There's everything you'd expect to be there - a flurry of everything Winter represents: ice, darkness, decay. Yet, that is only her magic, her potential. What ends up sticking out far more is not the type of power she has, but the way it's aligned. It isn't the Void, but it's something that beckons to it - it is the essence of self-destruction.

Her soul is tempestuous, in a way that won't make sense to Childermass's perception. Most souls would have their own combination of Light and Darkness, as all consciousnesses do, but this one seems fragmented. Like broken glass, with parts out of place, parts missing, and shards of Darkness and Light that don't seem to match together.

Rebellion and control. Change and tradition. Hatred and remorse.

It's like puzzle pieces that could never fit together in a way that would be whole.

[npcarnival]

"We're all greedy," the Winter Queen says. "I know that full well. Every member of the Winter Court is filled with the same sickness I have."

Suddenly, the Winter Queen laughs.

"What does collateral damage matter? I have no love for what we are, but it is simply a way of being. I never realized that before, but now... now I do. I thought I would take you away, simply because you're what the beast wanted. Isn't it amazing? How you can simply... inflict yourself upon others?"

[atouts]

"Would I have not already seen fae who managed to change their way of being, I might agree, but now that's nothing more than a lazy excuse," Childermass says before shifting back before turning to look at the others, Ringmaster included. "Her soul is a mess, broken and missing in places."

He focuses on the Ringmaster once he's let everyone else in on his creepy soul-peeping there.

"Would consuming too much power do something like that if it were done the wrong way?"

[moonfang]

Zangetsu looks at the Queen, then back to Childermass.

"Wait, you can actually make sense of that hot garbage?"

The Red Beast's blessing had given Zangetsu's senses a boost, but souls were still more Silver Mirror stuff. To him, her soul reads as some sort of horrible white noise -- something is very wrong there, but what, exactly, is a mystery.

"Though she's clearly nuts."

[periphrasing]

"Maybe the old Winter Queen is still in there somewhere, and she's slowly driving her insane," Peridot snorts unsympathetically, to no one in particular.

[spaghettimonster]

"Huh? But it's never worked like that when the Ringmaster... eats other fae..."

Papyrus trails off, squinting with concern towards the Ringmaster as though she's about to start springing their past foes out of her head. And then he remembers; the Ringmaster's not just a fae - she's a miracle, too, one whose powers of change might give her an edge when it comes to things like consuming others' powers.

Maybe there was a reason Ignatius sounded so incredulous at the idea, before.

He focuses on the Winter Queen, on her soul. Monster magic has so much to do with souls - one of his favorite techniques targets it - and the new powers in him go far further. And it gives him some insight; like Childermass says, the Winter Queen's soul is a contradictory, jangling mess. As though someone divided her, just as many of them had divded in Shabon, then crushed the pieces back together unwillingly.

"She... does feel pretty messed up," he finally concludes.

[betheman]

Gongenzaka looks to be wondering whether or not he should be trying to sense out for the Queen's soul himself at this point- with Zangetsu's exclamation, it's not feeling like a great idea. But it's Papyrus' trailing statement that causes him to blink in abrupt understanding.

Or at least, apparent understanding. All of their thoughts right now, are merely theories for the most part after all. "...That is how the Ringmaster does so," he notes, eyes widening. "But the Winter Maiden was not the Ringmaster- and we have already been told that the move from 'Maiden' to 'Queen' has never taken this path," he adds more firmly.

"So then- who is to say that in defying it, such damage could not happen?"

For all that they are making these theories though, they are still...well. Right in front of the Winter Queen. "...What the question is, is how to reverse such damage, is it not?"

And, he thinks somewhat bitterly as he looks at the Queen, whether or not she'll let them try that.

[whattaprick]

Lambert has been mostly quiet up to this point, but the way the conversation’s turned has him raising his head, eyes narrowed. Sure, the Ringmaster does it and it’s fine, but maybe highlighting that she inspired the Queen to do the same isn’t the best idea — not in front of the Queen, anyway. Childermass’s questions may cut to the question of Winter’s succession and his scrying may have revealed what might be the underlying cause of her problems, but he has a much more personal one for her.

“You said you wanted her to stay,” he calls, stepping a little farther ahead of the rest of the Carnival a bit, fingers curling in on themselves. “Did you even ask her? Or did you just assume you didn’t have to?” His voice tries for steady but his tail betrays him, the filaments starting to glow with a light that tries to fight against the cold isolation of this room, instinctively wrapping his friends in the ambient warmth of Creation.

Also, Lambert just really hates the cold, even if he can’t really feel it anymore. He’ll let the rest of them work on figuring out the details, but he reaches out for that sense of a fractured soul and suppressing a flinch at the conflict there. He may have gained the affinity for light and shadow only recently, but he knows something fucked up when he sees it.

[lordofthering]

"I don't know," the Ringmaster says quietly, conscious about the fact that they are discussing this all within plain hearing range of the Queen. "Consuming each other's power is a Wyld Fae thing... the Courts never practiced it." She swallows. "Maybe that was for a reason."

Just another way she managed to screw this all up, she thinks. She looks at Peridot, and then Lambert, obviously concerned, but she doesn't add anything to that. She's increasingly unsure of if logic will matter.

[npcarnival]

Ignatius has been uncomfortable since the moment they arrived, and upon entering the throne room it's only gotten worse. The more the Winter Queen speaks, the more his frustration and strain is evident. His fists are clenching, and his hair is burning and misting more heavily than usual. His white scales glow faintly, as if charging with ambient energy.

He turns to look away, and the effort he is putting into keeping calm is obvious.

[hippocarnival]

It's probably not actually a surprise to the Winter Queen that she's totally screwed up on a soul level. Yuya looks around before taking a step forward to the Winter Queen. Just one.

"What did you want to change about the Courts? With the Summer Maiden and the Ringmaster, why you wanted to be Queen--what was it for?"

She's addled, but Yuya doesn't get the impression she's being dishonest right now. It's not exactly in the Fae's nature to directly lie, anyway. And maybe none of them know where her real feelings laid this whole time.