[Ren glances back to observe that little hesitation - it speaks enough to what Ren had suspected already - but doesn't directly remark on it when Merlin catches up to him.]
Mmm, she's put a bunch of rides and games and food stalls out, mostly, though they're kind of weird. I think she's kind of missed the point that with games that give out prizes, they're supposed to give out more prizes the better you do and not less...
[There's a faint amusement to Ren's tone that says he might've observed a few not so great reactions to that system.]
Maybe our dear lady has only read about the concept of a carnival, and never actually attended one. One can't fault her for trying, even if the losers are getting the better end of it.
I feel like she might be taking the whole "trying to make everyone feel better" thing the wrong way, honestly, but that's probably part of it too...I guess she doesn't do this sort of thing often, huh?
[This is his first return from a world jump, and he knows the one before had been even more disastrous, so he's kind of curious whether this kind of damage control is normal.]
Not necessarily. When I showed up here, most of the Temple was ill from a sickness brought back from another world, and that had to be sorted out before we all went to Akvos - in the end everything got a little too much vitality and the plantlife ran a little wild, but fine with me.
Then after Akvos, that's when you likely showed up - with the servants fussing, the strange foods, all of that. I can't say for certain, but it feels like the magic here ebbs and flows and comes out in a more spontaneous manner. With her so tied to this place, I wonder if the magic output is shaped by her thoughts, conscious or otherwise.
[do you really want to get Merlin started on magic]
Oh, I'm glad I missed the sickness thing, the plant thing sounds okay but the rest of it I could pass on... [Interdimensional sickness sounds like a Not Great experience to him, honestly, and that's ignoring everything he's heard happened with Akvos.
Merlin's not wrong about when he arrived, though, and he gives a bit of a familiar nod at what he mentions.] I guess that would make sense, wouldn't it? Akvos sounds like it was pretty bad, but I feel like this last one might have been more...personal, I guess? For some people. Maybe including her.
[Ren does not at all mind getting started on magic, but he does feel like it's possible the Horologium hit some people harder by virtue of being more comprehensible to most and more psychologically seated in its horror than losing an entire world.]
Oh, certainly. It's never easy to accept you did the best you could and that you still failed.
[there's a brief twist in his smile.]
I don't think until then it sunk in to the others that we really are juggling with the fates of entire worlds. Blind heroics aren't enough for that. Sometimes you can try everything and even a miracle can't save you.
[and then he shrugs.]
We did save some people from Akvos. They're living in the lake now - and my take is that saving some lives is better than losing all of them. There's some pride to be had there.
[Well, Merlin's being more frank about it than Ren was trying to be, but he gives a somewhat rueful smile along with it.] Mmm, I heard about the people living in the lake...I guess a lot of people here are probably used to winning, as well. If something like that happened to their worlds and they didn't stop it, then they probably wouldn't be here to help this one...so they might be experienced with helping out their world, but definitely not with failing at it.
[And what one does when faced with failure can be a lot more telling of them than anything else.] I think everything that happened on the ship might have just made that aftermath worse for some people, even if we technically succeeded.
[There's a light stress on that "technically", because to him it really was only in a technical sense that they succeeded considering how many people died.]
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Mmm, she's put a bunch of rides and games and food stalls out, mostly, though they're kind of weird. I think she's kind of missed the point that with games that give out prizes, they're supposed to give out more prizes the better you do and not less...
[There's a faint amusement to Ren's tone that says he might've observed a few not so great reactions to that system.]
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Maybe our dear lady has only read about the concept of a carnival, and never actually attended one. One can't fault her for trying, even if the losers are getting the better end of it.
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[This is his first return from a world jump, and he knows the one before had been even more disastrous, so he's kind of curious whether this kind of damage control is normal.]
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Then after Akvos, that's when you likely showed up - with the servants fussing, the strange foods, all of that. I can't say for certain, but it feels like the magic here ebbs and flows and comes out in a more spontaneous manner. With her so tied to this place, I wonder if the magic output is shaped by her thoughts, conscious or otherwise.
[do you really want to get Merlin started on magic]
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Merlin's not wrong about when he arrived, though, and he gives a bit of a familiar nod at what he mentions.] I guess that would make sense, wouldn't it? Akvos sounds like it was pretty bad, but I feel like this last one might have been more...personal, I guess? For some people. Maybe including her.
[Ren does not at all mind getting started on magic, but he does feel like it's possible the Horologium hit some people harder by virtue of being more comprehensible to most and more psychologically seated in its horror than losing an entire world.]
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[there's a brief twist in his smile.]
I don't think until then it sunk in to the others that we really are juggling with the fates of entire worlds. Blind heroics aren't enough for that. Sometimes you can try everything and even a miracle can't save you.
[and then he shrugs.]
We did save some people from Akvos. They're living in the lake now - and my take is that saving some lives is better than losing all of them. There's some pride to be had there.
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[And what one does when faced with failure can be a lot more telling of them than anything else.] I think everything that happened on the ship might have just made that aftermath worse for some people, even if we technically succeeded.
[There's a light stress on that "technically", because to him it really was only in a technical sense that they succeeded considering how many people died.]