B1, Day 2 [public channel]

[whattaprick]

[ There are a lot of things people need to do right now: help the Prince's servants get resettled, get started on figuring out who can work on a cure for the petrification, deal with the trauma of dying in a hopefully healthy and non-self-destructive way, show the new people the ropes of what the Carnival has to work with.

Instead, in the morning of the second day since the Prince was defeated, anyone on the radio gets this: ]

So, I've been wondering.

[ The Nightrider's voice, for those who recognize it, has definitely been better. It's a low, hoarse rasp, and the pause at the end is not just for effect, but to actually catch his breath. ]

Just how old is everyone here, anyway? Here, I'll start. I'm ... pretty sure I'm almost sixty. [ A beat. ] ... Maybe.

[ Why did anyone let this man have his radio back again? ]

[ ooc; Lambert's flat on his back in the medical tent for this, feel free to bug him in person and threadjack each other at will. ]

Comments

[whattaprick]

[ Lambert shrugs, but he can't speak loud enough to be sure his voice will carry effectively, so Celandine steps in for him: ]

Genetics and a healthy diet make a difference, I suppose.

[espigeon]

[He hesitates a beat but decides to come closer and brace himself on furniture, the palps on the sides of his head giving his cheek an anxious wipe. This body is only poisoned via the soul, but he got a lot of poisoning, so this part of him just feels lightheaded and weakened.]

And possibly hormonal imbalance, good grief. Balls dr- er, puberty coming early or just deciding to wait. [He's not being loud but there are more people around.] Fourteen, though! I thought Gon was younger than he looked but not by that much.

Well, I'm thirty, if it means anything.

[He usually looks somewhat younger than that - he's been mistaken for an older teenager before - but today he does not.]

[whattaprick]

[ That's going to get a bit of a skeptical look from both Lambert and Celandine, a long, skeptical once-over where polecat and witcher both move in an uncannily similar way before Lambert shrugs. ]

Means you're old enough to know better than to break curfew.

[ It's not really a conversation he has the energy for right now, but hey, it's the obvious opening! ]

[espigeon]

[Julien takes a breath, but he doesn't back away or hide his face.]

I know.

I didn't think of it like that. I was in two approved places at the same time, and I can move things from one to the other. If I'd been in two rooms... but, yeah.

I know I fucked up.

[whattaprick]

[ Lambert waves a hand lazily, insouciant, like it isn't a big deal. In contrast, on his chest, Celandine sits up. Her fur is matted and patchy in places, showing off the effect of the poison that no potion they know is going to cure easily, but it puffs up the best it can as she bristles in outrage. ]

It doesn't matter what you know, or if things had turned out differently.

What are you going to do about it?

[espigeon]

[He rubs his cheek with a palp, slowly, looking down and then back at them, discarding sarcastic and flippant answers. This is something to take seriously, and it's not just affecting him, so he can't take a light tone.

Internally he notes that both aspects of the Nightrider are expressing so differently and files that away.]

I won't make that kind of assumption again. I'll try to be more circumspect and cautious, and float ideas past people instead of jumping.

Maybe I'll memorize some supervisor's channels, too.

[whattaprick]

At the very least, you should memorize whoever you report to! [ Celandine sniffs haughtily. Lambert's ignoring his daemon's fit of temper for now, narrowing his eyes at him slightly before he shrugs. ]

He was out to get us to start. 'Least nobody ended up dead ... permanently. Might not be so lucky next time.

[espigeon]

Carly. She's... [Julien winces. 'Excitable'.] She's a veteran, she can probably keep her head if it counts. [Hopefully?]

My intention with using that language was to tell someone what was happening without it panicking people. Sans responded and I told him not to escalate. He saw me getting carried off by security, I said 'go away'. Too late.

I know. I'm glad the kids didn't end up riding this to the end. People nabbed them.

[whattaprick]

Those wings aren't just for show, you know. She may not look like it, but she can fight and kill.

[ Excitable is the very least of it. In Julien's position, Lambert can't honestly say he would have gone to Carly for help either, but there's no point in continuing to beat a very dead horse. He pokes her in the side, idly, and she turns towards the witcher, taking a moment to read his expression before glancing back at Julien. ]

Others got caught at the ball. You saw. [ Rita, Susan, Yugo, and Gon. Though some of those would fight hard against being classified as children, no doubt. It's not that Celandine or Lambert has a particular issue with children getting trouble of their own volition, but ... well. It's a matter of professional pride, in some ways. ]

Have you talked to Sans since then?

[espigeon]

[Julien's not going to argue, but coming in 'fighting and killing' would have been probably the worst possible response in that situation, even worse than ducking in to see. He just nods, tired.]

I saw. [That they were involved doesn't feel like it's as much his fault as the first few people. He's not clear on everything that went down, of course, and if he was he wouldn't feel that Rita's capture had much to do with him at all. Still there'd been a snowball effect and he'd been up there near the start.] And I'm sorry for that, too. I'm just glad they didn't have to be in the underbelly.

[There's that. Only Julien experienced that one particular chain of horror - the underbelly and all that went with it, servitude, transformation, death. Sans had it worse, but this was still bad. All the kids who were involved only experienced one of the two worst parts.]

Not since the ball. He was pretty pissed - and yeah, that's a legit reaction. I haven't seen him around since, but I haven't been looking. [Julien's barely ever talked to Sans. In Portland, briefly in the underbelly, during the ball. He doesn't know how the Warden works at all.]

[whattaprick]

Don't be sorry. Be better. [ Celandine huffs. Nonetheless, Lambert of all people isn't the person to deliver this lecture. So far as he can tell, Julien's already reaped what he sowed, and if Sans is holding any sort of grudge -- unlikely, given the skeleton's personality, but who really knows -- or actually wants to see Julien, he doesn't have a doubt the Warden can find him easily enough. Not Lambert's business.

Having said as much as he cares to on the matter -- and singularly uninterested in further discussion of what Julien is and isn't sorry for or dwelling on ifs -- he shrugs as best as he can lying back as he is, shutting his eyes and running his fingers absently through Celandine's patchy fur while she settles down. ]

Not exactly what you signed up for, is it?

[espigeon]

If I can.

[No one can tell him anything he hasn't told himself. He can take it.

If the grilling is over for now, though, he's going to sit heavily on an unoccupied bed and rub the bridge of his nose, while his palps move to press his forehead above his eyebrows. Julien smiles, lopsided.]

Getting turned into things and dying but surviving it? That's, uh, I've already turned into a bird and learned how to spread myself out, I knew it could happen. If you ever need a warm body to get killed, I've got a spare and I can make more, it's fine.

[It's not fine, but he's good at acting like it's otherwise, and in any case, better him than most people.]

But that did absolutely suck. Fucking Fae royals. What was he the prince of anyway? Slavery? Burning cat shit?