#scarsdale

----------------------------------------------------

The Carnival is well underway at Alabaster Hollow. Athena wonders how many hours they have till dawn? It cannot be long after the events of Earth Runes and High Reed. Will her costume's potency fade soon? It hasn't yet. For now, folks will know her not. She knows this hold better than her companion, but she does know it. He was knighted here, after all. So they manifest just inside the entry way. Not bad. Guards and guests will likely think they merely walked in and they missed it rather than appeared.

Athena squeezes her companion's hand, before seeking tonight's Fool.

He squeezes back briefly, then lets her go. He longs to cling to her but he knows she may need freedom to dart ahead of squirm some place he can only go with portal passage. And this is important to her. Life is, but for a time, this was the hold she knew best.

As for Athena, the Amazon gets admiring looks from other figures. An irony to be noticed and even desired here of all places, by some folks she knows even in her costumes. She searches for the fool, and instead finds the queen. Oh young, a teenage girl of 16 winters, too young to drink yet she is drunk. Perhaps peers played a prank on her and the fae secured her in her inebriated state. Perhaps they don't much care for drinking laws and offered. She wears a crown of dougal and or nocker design upon her silk tresses which were in a bun but have fallen free. A backpack nearby bulges with books, and her dress is aristocratic steampunk. Her dark eyes dance along the sight of the crowd with confusion and some delight as she sways to music and strides near the dias among bowing subjects.

Zara pays the girl her due, a sweeping bow.

"Athena? " the girl slurs eyes pinching, "Athena, goddess of wisdom is in my dreams. You're my second favorite goddess besides Persephone, you know? The Dutiful Daughter, the one who would make a better ruler even than her father, but wants no part of that. The one who brings justice to even war, much to Aries' brutish annoyance"

"Greek goddess," She adds "There's Norse, and Slavic and Babylonian and so many... but out of the greeks, Athena is my second favorite goddess" She nods

"Persephone is a fine favorite, Majesty."

Ah, the vocal repeat still works fine, so the queen hears her very well, "A woman of distinction, most girls in my class, the -" SHe makes a sniff "The Madison Mob, I call them, they think mythology was invented by Disney if they think about it all." The queen says "I'm having boons granted today, because, it's my dream, and why not? So is there something you wish to ask for such a costume?"

"I ask to grant thee a blessing, if I may?"

"Well, I've already been given a grand dress and crown, and folks dance for me and so on, but yes?" The Queen says

"Tell me, Majesty - what is thy name?"

"I'm Valeria, and I should say I've made it a law tonight that anyone who calls me Val or even Valerie gets kicked right out," Sore point there. Easy to imagine such a name at school giving her grief. Some girls would secretly think it too pretty for such a odd girl.

Some cheer "All Hail, Queen Valeria, may she rule until the moon dies"

"All Hail, Valeria the Queen. May all know her as the nobility she is, fae and mortal. All hail, Valeria the Regal." The last intones, marking the Queen. Who would dare question her majesty? The Madisons would quail.

The nickname flows about Valeria, and where before was an adorable girl of teen years who was drunk seems to be a young woman of exceptional merit and elegance, her back straighter even as she drinks, her eyes more steady instead of darting. Those who had been play acting before find themselves more sincere in their respect for their Queen, "We thank you, Athena, please, all are welcome at our party. I opened the gates earlier by decree. You'll excuse me, I hope? I must see who else among my subjects has earned a boon this night?"

"But of course." A bow.

A nod, and the queen turns to see two bashful folks who are clearly making distant eyes at each other, and she orders a partisian about them so they might dance without eyes upon them. BLUSHES and grateful looks from the couple as it is set up.,

But where is the Jester?

Where indeed?

She notices a crowd , mostly nockers and dougal impressed with a machine, while others laugh at the activity it brings. Some sort of steampowered sling device? Being loaded up with pies.

She drifts closer, wary.

In what might be considered a shooting gallery, a bit shorter than a bowling lane, there is a fool. Pies are launched at him now and then by the sling device, launched with a splat! There are stacks of pies around him too, but he must THROW them... and obviously that's not as effective, though sometimes he might use cantrips to find ways to hurl them with greater distance. The face of the jester is entirely covered, no doubt the merry mask is NOT reflective of the lord behind it. Stupid holiday anyway some sidhe think.

It is to credit that one knight has dressed up in a jester outfit as well and is with him. Sharing his lord's treatment, but Zara isn't sure who. She only knows the spurs are still there.

A touch of a frown behind the mask.

"Grant me glimpse..."

It is the count taking the worst of the lumps, and enduring. Dougal are usually too honest to cheat tradition by slipping in fakes. He seems in good health despite his age and frustration, and yet? Something is about to happen. Something dire.

Perhaps Fate is not yet set?

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees moving forward, a dark figure. Tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave, but so very dark save for his mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse ebony with a brillaint halo akin to a sun too large to be blocked by the moon's girth. The figure glows at the edges, and out of the black skull masks eyes. Had Zara not been tuning into her senses of sooth, she might have merely thought it an impressive garment of some celestial event made manifest. But he brings his own pie, and well she knows the scent of decay.. and plauge.

"You have to wait your turn" someone tells the new figure without really looking at him, "or you can throw it from here but that takes a strong arm!"

The living Corona merely nods and holds up the pie he carries, apparently ready to hurl it anyway. It looks like some sort of blood pie?

And Zara GRABS at the threads, yanking and twisting - defying the Plague-bearer and wishing him ill. "Failure is your desserts, Pale Rider."

Zara's spell clashes with another spell already ready to work, already primed with a bunk. Normally she'd have little chance, but she is powerful!

Is she powerful enough?

She pushes her own glamour into it, fiercely determined.

The crowd is jostling, the noise thick and painful, she is still a sluagh. And the magic she works again ,it's like budging setting concrete. The pie hurls and smashes into the count... but the magics in it? What should have been death and doom... turn into something else...

the Jester Count coughs and hacks.... and then drops to his knees.

Everyone gasps in surprise...

Hisssssssss.

And the intruder curses "No.. it was to be much worse than that..." he turns and tries to flee "much worse"

Everyone else , it seems, is confused

"HIM! HE WOULD SHED BLOOD ON CARNIVAL!" Athena points, her voice bold and clear.

A Regal Queen is a prepared queen, and Athena's blessing , as is true of many magics, returns what what was given as the Queen gives the order "Seal the gates, let no one leave! Capture the swine who has such poor taste as to wear the Corona garb ! We will exact a cure from this wretch!" It should be noted, that Valerie has always liked using words like Wretch, but her class mates laughed at her. Here? Now? It works

The Masque of the Corona Death had a head start, and only now may most respond. MOST....

As the knight in the jesteroutfit was there, he had chance to react and bells jangling, he gives chase with a hopscotch, closing the gap. He has no arms, but he moves as if he did to avenge his lord and obey the queen.

Another knight is in play... One dressed as a lame greek god but who is not lame at all and HE has read Poe since he was 8!

Athena goes to the Jester's side, checking on him.

"Careful.. I know not what..how it might spread.." He coughs from his mask "It was meant to kill me... in hours, by the time carnival ended. I don't think it will but I .."