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✖ THE CARNIVAL

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL & THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
You can see the lights of the Ferris wheel from the water, and by the time you pull into port you can smell popcorn, cotton candy, grease, sawdust. Music drifts on the air, interspersed with screams from the rides.

The carnival is in town.

Not just any carnival, either - the carnival. The one to end all others. Every circus you ever read about or saw in a movie, with striped tents filled with acrobats and sideshows, midway games complete with carnival barkers in straw boater hats. But it's also every shitty fair that ever rolled through your hometown, with unreliable looking men with greasy mullets smoking as they jockey the Wild Mouse, the Gravitron, the Zipper, the Corkscrew. There's a constant stream of 80s hair metal playing underneath the roar of the rollercoaster tracks, blending somehow with the traditional piping organ of the carousel.

Experienced Travelers will know by now that every island has its own temple, and this one is no exception. It’s not in the carnival proper, though; if you step away from the lights of the midway and tents, you’ll notice dozens of old wooden circus trailers, arranged in a circle, growing tighter together the closer to the center you walk. The trailers are functional living places, with built in beds - sometimes one, sometimes two - and a small table and an old wood burning stove with a cooking top just big enough to boil a kettle on. There’s a toilet, but if you want a shower you’ll have to go outside and find a tent set up at the outskirts of the makeshift trailer park where there are tent showers set up, locker room style.

The clearing in the middle of the parked caravan is completely empty except for a solitary midway game: a towering high striker. It must be at least twenty feet tall, surmounted by a round, red bell. A wooden mallet is leaned against a sign next to the game that reads, predictably, TEST YOUR STRENGTH.

Step right up.

Notes:
1. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

2. These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.

3. The island temple is accessible to all. The High Temple is only accessible to new characters this month - it will re-open to all others next month.

4. The Test your Strength game can be played by anyone. How well your character does is entirely up to you, but the game does not necessarily measure physical strength.

5. These residents of the island are normal humans. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.

6. Any food found on the midway is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities.

7. Have fun!

Ⅱ. HALL OF MIRRORS
When it comes to amusements, the Hall of Mirrors has always been second-fiddle to the Haunted House. But the line for the former was shorter, so here you are. The guy working the door has weasel eyes and is smoking. He gestures for you and whoever is behind you to enter together; "No singles. For safety."

The lights are a dull neon, cycling from deep blue to cyan to purple and back again. You find that your outstretched fingers will bump against smooth, clear glass as often as not. The mirrors reflect the maze back into itself over and over, disorienting and strange.

Some of the mirrors are convex, some concave, and as you pass them your reflection warps and bends alongside that of whoever you're stuck inside the maze with.

At some point you will realise that the reflection looking back at you isn't quite right. It's still you, sure, but it's not how you really look, not on the outside.

Looking back at you from the cold glass is how you perceive yourself. Perhaps that's stronger, perhaps uglier, perhaps as a sniveling child or an ancient hag. And this reflection is going to follow you from mirror to mirror as you desperately try to find your way out.

One of you spots an exit sign, bleeding red light. Only catch is that it's behind a pane of glass. And another. And another. You could break your way through all of them, certainly, but it's not as if there's anything laying around for you to use to do so. Just yourself, which might work in action movies but tends to cause a lot of physical damage in the real world.

Above the glass someone has placed a sticker that reads, “who are you really?” in black sharpie. Answer it, and the glass will swing open. Don't, and well...

Guess you'll have several years worth of bad luck.

Notes:
1. Yes, characters can bash their way out of the maze, but it is real glass and will cut anyone who isn’t invulnerable. There is a first aid station run by extremely unreliable carneys on the premises, so hopefully they can patch themselves up enough there.

Ⅲ. THE CAROUSEL
CW: childhood trauma
Old fashioned organ music and a million flashing lights draws you to the carousel. It's a vintage delight: huge, with ornate animals carved out of wood and lovingly hand painted. There are horses, of course, but also lions and leopards and birds and rabbits and wolves... any animal you could want! In fact, you'll see an animal that looks perfectly YOU. You just have to climb up on it for a ride.

Settled on your mount, the ride begins to move. To your surprise, it begins to move backwards. You can't seem to ungrip the pole you're hanging on to, so you're helpless to escape as the ride spins again and again.

When it stops and you step off, you will be younger. You will in fact be the same age you were when a formative event happened to you.

You're a kid at a carnival! How fun! Well, maybe you're not that young, and it's probably not very fun at all considering that now your trauma is fresh.

The only way to become your proper age again is to get on the carousel and get it to run forward. Depending on your age, you might not be able to figure any of that out, but surely one of the other Travelers can help you. You'll definitely need someone to man the carousel controls. Oh, and be careful not to knock it into overdrive...

Notes:
1. If your character does not get back on the carousel and ride it in reverse, they will revert to their actual ages at the end of the month.

2. Please be especially mindful of content warnings with underage characters. A reminder that the game does not allow explicit sexual content with minors.

3. You do not have to regress your character to childhood - if a very formative event happened at age 20 for example, you can choose that route instead.

4. Speeding up the carousel while it is moving forward will result in, you guessed it, aging your character UP. Obviously you can ride it backwards again to fix this, or again the aging will be reversed at the end of the month.

Ⅳ. COULROPHOBIA
CW: clowns, suffocation
Who can possibly resist the big top? Not you! You're ushered into the tent and you take a seat in the stands, where you have an excellent view of the huge ring before you. The excitement in the air is palpable, and even if you're the grouchy type you'll find yourself a little bit thrilled.

It's a little surprising when the lights go up to the sound of screaming guitars. Mist belches from hidden foggers, and flames shoot from near the center of the ring. The lights stutter red, blue, green. The whole thing is a lot more rock show than it is Ringling Brother's.

At any rate, even if the ringmaster looks like a reject from a trailer park metal band and the music is liable to burst some eardrums, it's still a circus. There are trained horses and riders, contortionists, and a score of talented trapeze artists. It's all sparkling and impressive and terrific fun.

The trapeze artists take their bows, clearly ready for a break. And if a break is needed at the circus? You know what happens next, don't you?

SEND IN THE CLOWNS!

The clowns spill into the ring, all sorts of them! There's Harlequin and Pierrot, Auguste and Tramp. There's Bozos and Ronalds and Clarabelles and Krustys. Hopefully no Gacys, but there's so many of them that it's hard to know for sure.

One of these clowns - the one you hate the most, of course - approaches you in the stands. With comically exaggerated movements, it leans close to you and whispers...

Well. It whispers horrible things to you, really. It recounts to you some instance in your life where you delighted in the suffering of another, a moment where you really and truly were happy that somebody else was hurt. It's not a moment to be proud of, for sure, but as the clown tells your own secret shameful joy to you, you start to laugh. Really laugh - soon you're bent over double, tears running down your face, absolutely howling with laughter.

Your stomach hurts, and you're running out of breath. Very soon you won't be able to breathe at all.

Eventually, one of your fellow travelers won't be able to resist asking you, "What's so funny?"

The only way to stop laughing is to tell them. Otherwise you're going to pass out right where you sit, a creepy clown leering over you the whole time. Maybe your fellow traveler will be nice enough to drag you out of there if that happens, because if you're left alone? Everybody knows clowns get so much scarier alone in the dark.

Notes:
1. What happens if you really do get ditched with the clowns? Great question. Maybe they make you one of them. Maybe they eat you. Maybe you just wake up in the Big Top dressing room and see all the clowns smoking cigars and taking their floppy shoes off to film Clown Foot Erotica.

It wouldn't be a party without some jams.

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[Well, that's an entirely new expression to be directed at him. Sephiroth even draws back slightly, defaulting to wary in the face of the unfamiliar reaction. But maybe he's doing better with people than he thought he would? Is he likeable?

He did just give her something, but... she's been hanging out with him for a while, before then.]

Let's... stow them away.

[What happens if he stops winning games or giving her things?]

( Her expression then turns apologetic. She didn’t mean to alarm him, and probably should have known better.

Despite having that thought in mind, another pops into her head as she leads him in the direction of the trailers. She gives him a couple of quick sidelong glances before she speaks. )

Sephiroth… I know you’re very capable and self-sufficient but if you need anything, you can come and find me at any time, okay?

( The offer may also be a bit too much for him. Or imply she thinks he’s weak. She’s willing to take the risk so his teenage self knows he’s not alone in a strange new land. )

[He isn't self-sufficent at this age, not really... but if she thinks he is, then that must mean he'll figure it out.

The offer is a lot, though. He's never been able to go to anyone when he needed something. He had to depend on it being provided--and for his physical needs, it was, mostly, if you don't count affection.

Even as a nice person, he doesn't know why she'd make an offer like that.]

...don't you have things to do?

That's one of the luxuries of where we are - time is largely our own. You don't have to worry about disturbing me or anything like that. I'm here, okay?

( Of course she's going to make time for him. She'd do the same for his adult counterpart as well. His child self seems in need of some care and Chloe is ready and willing to provide. )

...do you tell that to other people, too?

[He's not sure, when he asks, what kind of answer he's hoping for. If she's treating him the way she'd treat anybody, or if it's because of who he is...]

( Her expression softens as his question tugs at her heart. There's a chance she's being overly sentimental but how can she not be moved? How can she not think that this boy might want someone to care about him?

Her answer may also be overly sentimental, but it's honest. )

It's something I tell to the people who are special to me.

[He's more honest about wanting that at this age, at least to himself. Not so jaded yet by failed attempts at normalcy.

He considers the way she put that. Not "special" in general, but "special to her."]

But, you said we were acquaintances.

( She can only imagine what his adult self will make of this. If he is able to remember it. Though it all begs the question of how much of this boy may be present in the man. )

It's the word you use. I thought you might be more comfortable with it. I think of you as my friend.

[Sephiroth is quiet for a bit as they approach the trailers, processing. This is about the strangest circumstance to make a friend--to be told he's made one in the future that he won't acknowledge. It's not what he expected, and she's a lot different from the people he's used to interacting with, including his actual acquaintances in SOLDIER.

He doesn't want to seem overeager for it. He knows if he'd lived a normal life, then he should have had friends by now. It would be a little pathetic for her to be the first.]

...

I don't mind that.

( The look on her face holds a hint of surprise. Mostly, she’s touched. For all the upheaval, the uncertainty and questioning, being here has one upside Chloe can’t deny - the chance to be in the world again (even one that isn’t her own). It isn’t like she’s swimming in friends back at home. )

I’m very glad to hear that.

( No more is made of it than that, lest she spook him again. She shows him to one of the trailers. )

This is where I’ve been staying. You’re welcome to stay here at any time, should you want to.

[Even if she is nice, even if she is a friend, he won't go in first. It's a small space that only appears to have one door. But if Chloe goes inside, he'll follow, looking around in curiosity. It's definitely homier than the Shinra building.]

It's your space, though.

It’s alright. Really.

( Chloe ushers him inside the little living space. If anything, having her own space is stranger than not. At home, there’s Elijah. There’s the other Chloes. There’s nowhere that’s just hers.

There are a couple of personal items collected from their travels; a sketchbook, a box of watercolour paints, a box of pencils. A few bags of herbs and spices sit on the table.

She gestures for him to sit and make himself as at home as one can. After setting down the oversized plush monstrosities, she places the little fox toy upon the bed with a fond smile. )

If you’d be looking for your own space, I think one of the trailers next to this one is free.

( Yes, that would absolutely be her encouraging him to stay nearby so she can watch over him. )

[He follows suit in setting down the plushies, including the dog, but he doesn't sit. He's never been invited into someone else's living space, and he doesn't understand the gesture.

He very clearly notices her art supplies, but he doesn't remark on them, and he keeps his hands at his sides.]

I think that's best. Otherwise, we'd have to determine sleeping shifts.

[Which must not be odd if she's okay with him staying here, but it seems unnecessary if there's an available trailer he could use.]

( To make it plainer without trying to cause him any embarrassment, she pulls out the chair from the small table. ) Please, take a seat.

( Like any good hostess, she begins to potter about making some herbal tea. A lovely lemon balm blend seems a good choice. )

Then a nearby trailer it is. Though I did mean what I said - just knock if you need to.

( Should she explain the potential presence of Connor? She's not sure if the other android will be sharing the space at any time. Maybe best to speak to the android in question first. )

[Cautiously, he sits, watching her activities intently. He's had very little opportunity to observe any sort of kitchen work.]

I'll remember.

I- would also prefer, if you knocked. [If she wanted to come into his space. He's not explicitly inviting her, he just assumes she might show up because that's what he's used to.]

( She turns to look at him, bemused. ) Of course. I would never just walk into your space.

( Even at home, there are places where she knocks before entering. The tech lab, for example. Though it's her home, she doesn't stroll about like she owns the place. Elijah's space are Elijah's spaces and it's not for her to be present without his approval and permission.

Noting his interest in what she's doing, she smiles. )

Would you like me to show you how to make the tea?

[He looks a little uncomfortable that she noticed. He was going to learn from observation and then she'd never have known he didn't know how to make tea.]

I can see it. It doesn't look complicated.

I’m sorry. Sometimes I’m a little keen to share. Though this isn’t the most respectable way to make tea.

( Without an infuser, it’s a rather vulgar case of pouring the liquid from one mug to another, using a spoon to stop any stray leaves from falling in. Her own cup is less thoroughly prepared, the leaves left in. She can sip around them.

She sets the mug down in front of him, curious to see what he’ll think to it. )

I'm not sure what you mean.

[There are respectable methods of cooking?

Regardless, he picks up the mug, absolutely doesn't blow on it, and takes a sip. Frankly he's been talking a lot more than he's used to and he's a little thirsty.

It's not bad, but if she was expecting him to express that aloud, she'll have to ask.]

Well… There’s the proper way to do things and then there’s the… improvisational way to do things.

( Needless to say, she’s been schooled in the former. Elijah is a particular man of particular standards.

She watches him a moment then gives her drink a blow. )

What do you think? It’s alright if it’s not to your taste. I wouldn’t want to keep making you tea you don’t like.

I see.

[That actually does make sense to him. After all, there's such a thing as improvising a weapon. He takes another sip.]

It's all right. [Compliments: clearly never his strong suit.] I'm not particular about drinks.

( On the contrary, him deeming something 'all right' is pretty good praise as far as Chloe's concerned. )

Some honey would be a good addition but alas, we have what we have.

( She looks down into her mug for a second then back up at him. )

What sort of things do you like? In general, I mean. ( A very elegant segue. )

[It's not something people ask him, so he takes a moment to think it over. He likes some things about training, about fighting, but not all of them, and he doesn't know if he'd miss it if he wasn't doing it.]

...I like books.

And music, but not what's playing out there.

( She has to smile, given that they first met when he was reading. Evidently it's been a long-standing love for him. )

I like those things, too. Do you play any instruments or sing at all?

No.

[He's never even thought about it, really.]

...do you?

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