Winter Faire

[voidtreckermods]

”Shortly arriving in World#5562102022. The dressing carriage is open for your convenience.” The announcement might be unexpected so late in the month, but soon enough further information arrives on their SCA’s.

World#5562102022: Home of the famous Winter Faire. Voidtreckers may spend the evening here. Please remember your Snowcoins. Enjoy.

The dressing carriage is open for characters to choose from an array of winter coats, hats, gloves and scarves. There are also ice skates in a variety of sizes and shapes, suitable for all passengers.

THE PLAZA

The Express comes to rest in a station roofed by sheets of ice. Streamers of light run up and along the arches overhead, sending flashes of colour through the structure at intervals. A wooden path leads through stands of sparkling trees to the faire proper.

The faire is a large one, mostly made up of a large market of wooden huts. The market is held outside; while it's dark when they arrive, there are floating lights twinkling in the darkness that illuminate the area. There is snow on the ground and a light flurry in the air, the perfect amount of snow to be atmospheric without anyone being too damp or cold.

There are both ice paths and ordinary wooden paths through the market. In the centre of the market there is a large ferris wheel, where guests can sit in glass bubbles filled with soft cushions and blankets as they view the snowy market from above.

THE ICE RINK

There are two large ice rinks, and ice paths weave through the market, with many of the eateries having 'ice gardens' where skaters can rest and drink before continuing their skating. Wooden railings run through the middle of the ice paths, both to form two one-way lanes, and to give new or wobbly skaters something to hold onto. 

There are benches at the entrance to the large ice rinks for people to change into their ice skates and cubbies for them to store their shoes; the ice paths connect to both rinks. There are also skate aids for those that need them, carved wooden animals to hold onto and push along the ice for balance. An animal that looks like a furred penguin dominates.

THE SLEDDING SLOPE

To the north of the market, there is a snowy field with a hill perfect for sledging, and sleds to borrow for any who want them. 

The whole field is deep with snow, with a well trodden path leading up the hill and sledding tracks leading down. To the side of the slope are snowpeople and snow animals, some better built than others, and plenty of snow to add to this collection.

THE WOODLAND ENCLOSURES

To the south there is a small woodland where a member of staff will allow guests through with warnings to be peaceful and not disturb the creatures. 

The trees are bare of leaves and white with snow, some with frost forming crystal snowflakes on the branches. There are indeed woodland creatures within the woodlands: deer, rabbits, strange white pompom-looking creatures. They are comfortable with people, and won't flee.

THE FERRIS WHEEL

In the centre of the market there is a large ferris wheel allowing guests to sit in glass bubbles filled with soft cushions and blankets as they view the snowy market from above. The ferris wheel moves slowly, allowing plenty of time to take in the view and enjoy the company, the soft seating, or both.

Bubbles can fit up to 6 people, though the attendants will allow groups from single guests up to six. The glass can be made one-way, so that guests cannot be viewed from outside.

THE MARKET

All the activities in the faire are free.  Everything in the market, from a mug of beer to a blown glass ornament costs one snowcoin, the snowflake tokens that passengers received on station day. Each passenger has ten to spend.

FOOD STALLS

The actual market sells drinks: hot chocolate, mulled wine, beer, spiced apple juice and cider amongst some more alien picks like a bright pink concoction that is delicious but very alcoholic; food: sausages, bread, cakes, roasted chestnuts, candied nuts, stroopwafel and a whole collection of unrecognisable but delicious things.

All are available to take out, though many of them also have a bar area where shoppers can sit, drink and people watch.

SHOPPING

The stalls don't sell much that would be considered useful, but are filled with trinkets, decorations, cute hats and other clothing, sweets, glassware, jewellery, toys… and much much more.

After a good few hours in the market, things are beginning to wind down and stalls start to close. The Voidtreckers will receive a message on their SCA telling them it is time to return to the Express. Once all passengers are on board the train will leave the ice-covered station and return back to the Void.

Comments

[singlefaith]

She's worried, she's frightened, and frankly frustration is building slowly towards anger. At the edge of the trees she doesn't hesitate, diving in, footsteps crunching through snow and dried leaves. The lighting is working in his favor; it's dimmer here, the light of the Winter Faire not able to get through the trees as readily. A branch scratches her cheek; she barely pays attention, her sole focus on not losing him.

The distance is closing; she's pushed herself to the very limits of her energy, and her lungs are burning. She's close. Closer . . . Her hand stretches out, fumbles.

Then catches, grabbing fast to the back of his coat. Unfortunately the stretch is too much, sending her downward into the snow -- and likely him with her, refusing to let go.

[deductiongeek]

With the growing pain and rapidly skyrocketing fever, Shinichi was barely staying upright as it was. The tug is more than enough to knock him off his feet and push him down into the snow. He lets out a soft cry at the shock of the cold snow against his feverish skin.

[singlefaith]

For a moment she's not able to do much -- just gasp for breath, barely registering the cold beneath her or the fact that she's fallen, air rasping in and out of her lungs. Her fingers never leave him, though, still wrapped securely around a handful of his coat.

She pushes herself half-up to her side as soon as she's able, though, and grabs for his shoulder, flipping him over, eyeing him as fiercely as she can manage while trying to catch her breath.

"What. Are. You. Doing?" Each word comes between punctuations of breath.

He's scared her, made her run all this way . . . he'd better have a good answer.

[deductiongeek]

He stares up at her, his face flushed with fever and his eyes wide with shock. In the moment, all he can think of is to blurt out what was at the top of his mind.

"I want you to be safe. You can't be here for this."

[singlefaith]

"What?" That's not anywhere close to what she might have expected him to say, and that wild look in his eyes twists at her stomach. Yanking off a mitten, she presses the back of her hand (still cold, despite the mitten) to his cheek, to his forehead. "You're burning up . . ."

Another tug of breath. "We need to get you back; you might be getting sick--"

If that gasp of pain from earlier is any indication, he definitely is.

[deductiongeek]

"I can't go back," he insists. "But you should. I promise I'll be fine."

He closes his eyes and curls in on himself as another wave of pain passes through him.

[singlefaith]

"You're not fine!" One hand tightens on his shoulder as though it can somehow brace him, at least pull him back to look at her. "Who do you think I am, to leave when you're like this?"

Lifting his arm, she tries to slip beneath it, aiming to lever him up. Her lungs are still burning; her arms and legs feel fuzzy with overexertion. Whether or not she could actually get him anywhere is a good question, but she's going to try.

[deductiongeek]

"I'm not fine, but I will be," he insists. He tries to carefully extract himself from her grip. "Go, Ran."

[singlefaith]

"You're being ridiculous," she spits. She's scared and angry and he's not helping. "You just made me chase you across a fair and into the woods. You're feverish and plainly in pain, and you tell me to just leave you face-down in a snowbank in the dark on your word that you'll be just fine. Again, what kind of person do you think I am?"

Refusing to be fully extracted, she pushes her way back under his arm, trying to get him up. "We're getting you back and getting medical help now -- or I'm calling for someone on the SCA."

[deductiongeek]

"And I am telling you, there isn't anything anyone here can do for me." His voice cracks with the strain of the situation. "Getting help is a waste of time."

Before she manages to get him up, he convulses, biting back a scream as he clutches at his heart.

[singlefaith]

That scream is like a stab into her own chest, and immediately she's down again with him in the snow -- for all she knows, moving him caused it, and she's made him worse. "Shinichi--"

Her hands are shaking. "I-I'll call someone on the SCA. They'll come here."

Plainly moving him is out of the question, and she's completely out of her element. He needs far more help than she can give.

[deductiongeek]

Shinichi knew Ran, and he knew that after seeing him like this, there is no way she would leave. The moment she'd followed him into the forest, his options had narrowed.

There is a kind of despair in knowing that the moment he'd both hoped for and dreaded was finally here, and none of it was his choice. But there was also a kind of freedom in it. In the chance that maybe there would be an end to the lies.

"Ran," he says firmly. "Do not call anyone. That's my request. I promise-" He has to stop a moment to bite back the pain. "I promise I will be okay."

He stops here and fights to focus. The change was almost here, but he needed to say this. "And I'm sorry. Please.... Don't hate me. I just... I just wanted you to be safe, away from this."

[singlefaith]

"What's going on?" Her voice sounds high, far away amid the rushing roar of her blood in her ears. Somewhere in this her hand has found her way back to his, holds on as much for her comfort as for his. These words have gotten through much more clearly: He knows what is happening, and it's terrible -- something he's afraid to have anyone else see, something he believes will change her view of him. Her mind races for possibilities, find none. Her fingers squeeze his, hard, hold. "Shinichi-- tell me what's going on!"

To hell with his request -- she should be ignoring it. But she finds herself still held by the words, by the moment slipping forward; it's happening fast, like being swept along in a river current, and she's no longer sure she has any control left at all.

[deductiongeek]

He slumps down into the snow as he loses what strength he has left.

"I can't... There isn't time to explain. Just... Promise me that you'll listen when its over."

His fever has risen, high enough that the snow around him is melting and a thin haze of steam starts to rise from his body.

[singlefaith]

The melting snow and the steam are not reassuring at all. The light isn't strong, but a curl of it catches what little there is and she stares in horror, pulling away slightly to see the full effect. This can't happen -- the human body isn't meant to withstand this kind of temperature; it's like every cell is a small sun.

There are tears running down her cheeks now; she doesn't know when they started. How can he say he'll be fine after this? (After what, and how long?) How could anyone be fine after this?

"I--" She can't even answer that, not even understanding what is happening. Her mind is focused on the immediate, not even confident that there is a later.

"J-Just don't die," she whispers, and clings to his hand for all she's worth. "Please?"

[deductiongeek]

He grits his teeth as a pain like liquid fire runs through his bones.

"I promise," he says in a strained voice. "I refuse to die from this. Not until I've explained."

And then, finally,mercifully, he slumps into unconsciousness.

[singlefaith]

It's not nearly quite as merciful for Ran. At least before he was still there, could still speak to her, which, at least in her mind, was some reassurance that he was still okay enough. As long as she had that contact with him, that thread, she could almost (almost) convince herself that there was a possibility that this could still be okay.

"Shinichi?" His muscles have slumped, gone lax. Trembling fingers shake his shoulder. "Shinichi??"

Oh, god. She's been stupid, an idiot -- why didn't she follow her first instinct? Her fingers fumble for the SCA, shaking almost too badly to get any purchase on the controls. Someone has to be there. Someone who can get here quickly.

[deductiongeek]

His skin is terribly hot, so much so that the heat radiates out even through his clothing. For a terrible few seconds there is no change. And then, slowly, he begins to shrink.

[singlefaith]

Fiddling with the SCA, trying to get her fingers to work, it takes a moment for her to catch this -- that the hand that she's never quite let go of feels different. Not just burning hot, but different, even if she can't quite place how.

More than that, his body seems different -- not quite occupying the same place in the snow that it was, as though somehow, subtly, it's moved, shifted.

She tries to pause. Tries to breathe, though her lungs don't quite seem to want to work either. "Shinichi," she tries again, though she knows it won't work, won't reach him.

Light. She needs more light.

[deductiongeek]

Conan's watch is laying half buried in the snow nearby, where it had fallen out of Shinichi's pocket earlier.

[singlefaith]

Finally her eyes catch the glint of it as they whisk vainly around her, and she stretches to seize it, still not willing to let go. His hand is feeling stranger by the moment--

. . . Smaller?

That's not possible--

Her heartbeat is still a roar in her ears as she manages to get the small light on, twist it to shine down at him.

[deductiongeek]

He is already noticeably smaller. His hands are half covered by sleeves that barely reached his wrist a few minutes ago.

[singlefaith]

Not possible.

On the train things like this are possible. She's certainly seen the miraculous at this point -- people who gleam with light, who juggle orbs in the air, who cling to the ceiling.

In her world, these things aren't possible. People live their lives mostly quietly, mostly unremarkably save in the small miracles and bumps that life normally brings as it's lived. Metamorphosis only exists as a child grows, turns into an adult.

No one goes the other way.

Yet it's increasingly hard to deny that this is what's happening. His hand is normally close to the size of hers, just a little larger . . . already his fingers only reach to just the first joint. And now that she's aware of it, focusing, there are sounds wet pops and light snaps of muscle and bone as the body pushes inward on itself, as ribs push inward around organs and tissue.

Her breath shudders in her chest. She wants to cry out, call out, but there's no sound, no air.

[deductiongeek]

Shinichi's breath hitches with soft moans of pain as the change continues. He was noticeably too small for the clothes now as his arms vanish inside the sleeves.

[singlefaith]

She can't move. Can't look away. All Ran finds herself able to do is sit in the snowbank, the narrow beam of light shining on a face that seems to be growing younger by the moment. Every other part of her has gone numb.