The Three Cs- No, Wait, Four, We Cute

Lyra Karant

The Fourth C

Lyra was, in fact, not entirely mentally prepared for this event. She had come with an entire costume, which-- as it turned out-- was entirely out of her comfort zone, making her blush just at the thought of stepping out into public wearing something like this. The girls had insisted that she try it, which meant that she had to. After all, they were her teachers, and Lyra was nothing if not a dutiful student. They told her it would be fun. As she pulled at the stretchy fabric of her magical girl costume, she didn't feel like this was going to be fun. There was a definite feeling of shame as she actually was seen in this, which... well... gods, she did not want to do this now. Lyra was about one hundred percent sure Desiree had some input as to the design of this outfit, which would make sense given her proclivity to this sort of thing. It showed far more skin that Lyra enjoyed showing and would have generally considered acceptable.

However, they had arrived at Rose Garden via train, and on that train ride Lyra had received more stares in her life than ever before. It was uncomfortable at best, hard to handle at worst, and she absolutely made use of the fact that she could hide behind Jamie to see if some of the stares came away from her. By the time they got there, Lyra was ready to melt into a puddle of embarassment so big that she never wanted to do this again.

"Still can't believe you talked me into this..." she grumbled.

Their objective this night was threefold: costumes, carving and courage. The festival was more or less the same anywhere you went, but generally speaking they'd worked out what they were doing on the way over. There was the costume competition, the pumpkin carving, and the test of courage; they were going to have finished all three by the time the night was through in order to get done everything that they had planned to do. It was a reasonable expectation, as far as the rose mage was concerned, and she agreed with the plan. Most especially she was excited for the pumpkin carving since she'd never actually done that before and wanted to give it a real go.

Lyra turned to her friends, and smiled. "So. Where first?" she asked. Despite being dressed in a way she had never experienced before, she was still excited for this.

BIO | FLAME SLAYER | SKY SLAYER | BANK

Guns and Songs and Arcane Magics

The Faulkner siblings were all at least all dressed up in their own costumes. The amount of effort needed varied. Of course Blair took the most as she made herself look like a beautiful bunny girl with red bunny ears, a red bunny suit, black fishnet leggings, and a pair of red high heels upon her feet. Jamie just donned herself a Motor City racer suit that she managed to get her hands on and said she was a racer. Mysie on the other hand, decided they weren't doing much and put a hat on that they found at a little store and signed that they were a witch with their usual red and white dress and chunky heeled bootie. It worked at least.

Blair came up behind Lyra and wrapped her arm around her neck as she giggled. “You look adorable! You’ll have fun with us at this ‘Halloween shindig!’” She coos as Mysie pops a piece of bubblegum and looks around a bit. Blair had bet on the train that most people were looking at her with her getup rather than Lyra, but she wasn’t going to distract from that. When Lyra seemed ready to go, Blair lit up and clapped her hands together. “Costume contest!” She cries out before she grabs Lyra’s hand if she lets her, and drags her away towards where she was seeing the sign for the contest was.

Jamie takes a deep breath as she sees her sister taking the lead. Mysie was casually walking and popping her bubblegum along the way. This was actually their first time doing this whole festival thing, as well as celebrating this holiday known as Halloween. They were all excited to go and wanted to do all their things. “Next we should go to the courage test.” Jamie cries out, but then pauses. She looks to Mysie, who was staring ahead, seeming slightly bored as they walked. “Nah, Carving!” That got the youngest Faulkner’s bright emerald eyes to light up and look at their sibling with a small smile. Of course Jamie would put Mysie’s wish first before hers. The oldest and youngest looked over to Lyra, seeing if their mentee had any other suggestion first though, Mysie signing that. “Mysie asks if you have something you see you want to do Lyra?” She calls out, knowing there were other activities to do that Lyra may want to do after seeing them in person here.

The crowds around the quaint little romantic town was all collectively dressed in various costumes. Witches, Wizards, idols, ghosts, any degree of monsters, all different degrees of quality. The costumes were everything anyone could see. Children especially seemed to be dressed up where some parents didn’t. Jamie was getting a little self conscious now. Should they have not? No, Blair and Mysie wanted to do this, this would be fine! Besides, other adults were dressing up too! Even the older ones!

|| Words: 489 || Thread Total: 907/4000 || Job || Job Approval ||
|| Jamie - #a4a2a3 || Blair - #7cc6e4 || Mysie - #8ae47c ||
Tag: @Lyra Karant
Activities: 0/3

Lyra Karant

The Fourth C

In Blair's defence, Lyra absolutely wanted everyone else to look at anyone that wasn't her. This costume was not ideal for her or for her self-esteem, but that was ideal as far as the rose mage was concerned. Nope. Never, ever, ever doing this again. Lyra had already made her mind up on that particular fact. This was absolutely Blair's domain, and there would be no arguing with the headstrong songstress on this particular topic. Nope. Lyra didn't have it in her.

"N-no, I think your choices are all fine," Lyra replied sheepishly, absolutely unsure if it was in fact going to be fine. She didn't know, or in the more accurate case, didn't have much in terms of opinions. Deciding to go against them was off the table, but the real fact remianed that Lyra didn't really know much else to do at this point. What three activities had already been prompted were perfectly suitable to occupy, what, an hour or two? That was plenty of time to wander around, experience the entire event, and then if there was more content that they wanted to take in then there was enough time to fit that in before they had to catch the train home. That seemed like the most logical response to the situation that was rapidly unfolding.

But first: the looming pressure, dread and fear that was the costume contest.

Now, let's be real, Lyra's competition was Blair here - and this was a contest that the pink-haired girl did not want to win, at all, ever. Lyra's self-conscious streak was now currently an eleven out of two, putting her ability to think consciously and calmly firmly back on the train that had long departed the station.  Welp. This was in fact happening at this point.

With so many people already queueing up for the costume contest that was going on, Lyra got her first chance to size up the dozens of people that were entering - there was the entire spectrum of costuming from the sexy to the downright terrifying, with some serious things and some truely artisan work thrown in there. At this point, Lyra was more concerned for how well Blair would do; her chances were, at best, mediocre. Better to put someone in the spotlight that was not only used to the spotlight but looked good in it, too. This was not her place. That thought, repeated over and over and over again ad infinitum inside her mind, locked down the anxious brain that thought them.

"Blair, I, uh... I don't know if I can go on that stage," Lyra finally managed to stammer. There was a queue of people forming, and one by one they were being called up to show off their costume and wander off the stage. Lyra didn't know if she had that kind of energy left in her at this point. Nope. Probably not. This was actually starting to get a little terrifying.

For someone who had learned some seriously powerful magic in the last few months and faced down murderers with nothing but her wits, this seemed to be an incredibly odd nervous reaction. To be fair, it was the reaction of someone self-conscious and unaccustomed to having people look at her- not that she wanted that kind of attention. Leave it to the others. She didn't want it. It wasn't her scene, but at the same time she did not have a bone in her body that would let her disappoint the sisters; they had done a lot for her by this point and she couldn't bear the thought of letting them down. It was an absolutely difficult conundrum. Yet, there she stood, one arm behind her back, the other clutching her wrist and wringing it so much that it was starting to go red from friction burn. Could she handle this?

BIO | FLAME SLAYER | SKY SLAYER | BANK

Guns and Songs and Arcane Magics

Lyra being okay with what they were wanting to do for a while at the festival made Jamie smile as she nodded. “Don’t feel afraid to speak up if you do though, alright?” She says softly before following after Blair again. Jamie held back with Mysie, as they weren’t interested in doing the contest fully, more just supporting their sister as they waited. Mysie was signing in Sellan Sign language (SSL) to their older sibling, making Jamie laugh with amusement and what was signed. Mysie smirked devilishly as they pulled out their book, but Jamie seemed to stop the younger sibling and tried to shove the book back where Mysie hid it.

Blair was wiggling excitedly in line while Lyra was behind the redhead. When the pinkette spoke up, her emerald green eyes turned to face towards the mentee. She blinked as she was trying to process the words for a moment. “Why not? I’ll be on the stage with you!” She says with a smile, holding her hand out to the other female as she giggles ever so sweetly to her. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Get some adrenaline rushing through~”

Jamie and Mysie came up towards the two while they were in line, keeping a distance to show that they weren’t in line, only talking to the two. “Blair, chill out. Lyra? You can come over here next to Mysie and I if you don’t want to do the contest. No one’s going to force you to do something you don’t want. And if Blair keeps on insisting, I’ll pound her head in.” She held a fist up towards her younger sister, who stuck out her tongue and gave a winky face and a peace sign around the eye that was winking closed. Obviously trying to look cute. Jamie rolled her eyes as she looked away from her sister and back towards Lyra, wanting to be sure of the siblings' mentee and their comfort. Of course Blair wasn’t one to care too too much about that stuff, with Mysie slightly behind her. Jamie was the one who had to take the mother position and keep an eye on things like this.

The line was starting to move once more and Blair was getting excited, letting out a few notes coated with her slayer magic, which sent soft waves out around the area, giving a breeze at best. The age group that Blair and Lyra was in was being called for, so the redheaded girl made her way towards the stage. Jamie cleared her throat again. “If you want to go up there, better get on going, but you’re also more than welcome to jump out of line and come watch and support Blair out in the crowd. If you want to support her, that is.” Mysie nodded their head and already started to turn around to go to the crowd. People were cheering for those on stage.

Blair went up in the ‘cute but sexy’ group of costume goers and strutted her stuff as she walked across the stage. She even went as far as to take the mic from the host and started to sing a song into it.

“You are my sweetest love
That love I always want to hug
Because I really love you,
The world just has to know.”

Her voice rang as she sang to the crowd. The host wasn’t expecting the mic to be stolen like so, but the DJ managed to find a track that matched the song and they played along with her doings, especially since some people were dancing slightly to her melodic voice that rang through the speakers of the costume contest. In the crowd, Jamie was facepalming as she took a deep breath. They might get banned from this thing…

Soon, Blair’s song would end and she’d be shooed off the stage by the host, and maybe a security personnel before being handed a candy corn kernel. Blair blinked as she wasn’t sure what happened and made her way towards Jamie with the little candy corn in her fingers in front of her. “Blair…” Jamie hissed under her breath at the middle child of the siblings. Mysie was mimicking giggling by covering their mouth while they had a smug expression. Mysie was quick to whip out their iLac though and quickly typed on it before showing Lyra the words on the screen;


Jamie had held her hand out to Blair and was given the candy corn kernel near immediately. Jamie decided that she would be the one to keep the kernels safe and stuck it in her pocket. “Any other kernels we get, give them to me to hold onto, okay?” She questions, Blair and Mysie both nod to their older sister. Lyra technically didn’t need to follow through with Jamie’s orders, but Jamie wouldn’t mind if Lyra did or not anyways.

|| Words: 839 || Thread Total: 2391/4000 || Job || Job Approval ||
|| Jamie - #a4a2a3 || Blair - #7cc6e4 || Mysie - #8ae47c ||
Tag: @Lyra Karant
Enemies: ???

Lyra Karant

The Fourth C

Lyra's mind was, in fact, racing as she was forced to confront the reality of the fact that she would be on stage, with people looking at her. She did not function well as the centre of attention; she was typically speaking the person to stand on the sidelines, cheer for her friends, and make an absolute racket there. She was not destined to be the star of the show and did not want such accolade for herself. It was simply not in her nature to have all eyes on her; it made her shy away from everything, barely able to function. Bravery was one thing, but the stares of hundreds of people was not something that she was accustomed to. Nor did she wish to grow too used to it, either, judging by the fact that she was already looking over at Jamie longingly and weighing up her options for the day. Yes, she was already in line as per the rules of the contest, but she was already feeling the creep of existential dread starting to roll through her body and there was no way she was ready to get there. Yeah, no way in the nine hells could she do this.

"I'm sorry, Blair, I can't," Lyra said, and let the shame wash over her in crashing waves as she let go of the hand of the singer just in time to avoid the fate of having to go up on stage and speak. Fortunately, Blair very literally stole the show moments later, to the surprise of absolutely nobody who knew her well; she was an actual paid idol which meant that she could handle this. No kernel, but hey... well, she did try.

By contrast, Blair was good. Even Lyra knew how powerful her voice was, literally and figuratively; never let it be forgotten that Luminous Rose was the home of music amongst the guilds and the sheer audible power that the Rose carried could have leveled cities if they tried. Between their clout and the fact that there was a lot of aural manipulation going on, it was strong. Such being the case, Blair was damn good at what she did. It was enough for Lyra to be stuck to listen for a short while. However, it was insufficient to burn out the embarassment that she felt.

The lesson: Next time, don't wear the weird outfits that people want to dress you in.

It was moments later that Lyra received her shining saviour in the form of an iLac message, from the one person who was chaos incarnate - and yet, somehow, had the best idea out of all of them. Pumpkins. Those were safe, not people, non-judgemental, and did not have wandering eyes. Lyra nodded, her cheeks still burning a brilliant shade of crimson as she tried to pull herself together. This time, she didn't hesitate, because at least she knew what was about to happen.

In the near distance, there were rows of tables set up, with broad orange and black patterned plastic tablecloths, with a pumpkin for each folding chair that sat before the table and a pair of knives - one large, one small, so that the cuts could be made for each pumpkin. Rows of staff patrolled the area so that they could render assistance to whoever needed it, with people of all ages currently undertaking the task. Children were accompanied by their parents and huddled around their creations, with a mountain of finished and abandoned pumpkins nearby, flickering with magical light to illuminate them from the inside out. This was most certainly the right place. Compared to the costume contest, this looked a lot tamer and was only audibly backed by the chatter of families and friends. It looked much more manageable.

"Look, there's some chairs over there," Lyra said, pointing at a fully vacant table; there was plenty of space for the four of them if they wished to sit together.

Now, the hard part: what to carve?

BIO | FLAME SLAYER | SKY SLAYER | BANK

Guns and Songs and Arcane Magics

Blair had pouted briefly before shrugging her shoulders. She didn’t mind too much that Lyra didn’t want to go on stage. Jamie held out her hand towards the pinkette, so if she took it, she would be led to where the siblings would be standing. “Blair would have upstaged you anyways.” Jamie snorted towards the woman as the red headed singer indeed stole the show. The return of the middle sister had little effect on the oldest, besides the glare after taking the kernel. As Mysie seemed to talk to the mentee, Jamie put a hand on her hip.

Mysie seemed to smirk when Lyra accepted their proposal to go and carve pumpkins. They motioned with their hand to get Lyra to follow them. As Lyra found a table, Mysie seemed to follow and flop themselves into a chair near Lyra. The sisters sat near the two, but away from the pumpkins. Mysie looked at them and signed something with their hands. In Stella Sign Language, Mysie asked if the sisters would participate with them.

"I'm not touching that, it's gross." Blair says as she looks towards other contestants and their gutting of pumpkins.

Jamie softly snorted as she shook her head.  "I'm not an artist. So it'd be a mess."

Mysie rolled their emerald green eyes and picked up their iLac before typing on it;


The short haired Faulkner purposely didn’t let their sisters see the text, waiting for Lyra’s response, before they took the phone back and typed more. It took them a quick second for them to erase what they said before putting more down and letting Lyra read it again.


The little redhead was snickering silently as they sat there and picked up a knife and started to get into the pumpkins top to start gutting it. A fat digital clock was put on the table with 00:30:00 on it, instantly going down to 00:29:59 as soon as a button was pressed. Mysie glanced at it before they went back to work gutting the pumpkin. It took a bit, but Mysie was able to get the guts out and used a pen that they materialized from their book of spells to mark up the pumpkin for how they were going to do the carving. To help with getting the shape down, Mysie used Blairs guild tattoo on her right hand.

Jamie and Blair were sitting back and just watching Lyra and Mysie as they carved their pumpkins. Mysie was using their magic to help them carve some of the pumpkin. There was nothing in the rules that said that one couldn’t do that, so of course the youngest Faulkner was going to abuse this. The only thing was Mysie was still carving along with it. By the time the timer went off, Mysie had most of the Luminous Rose guild symbol carved out that it didn’t fully matter that it wasn’t completely carved. It still looked great. They turned the pumpkin around and smirked as they were proud of their creation.

Jamie clapped and looked over to Lyra’s to see what she made. “You two worked well on your pumpkins, they look great.” She smiles as she walks up between the two of them and ruffles their hairs before she notices something across the way from the pumpkin carving. As she did that, a staff member came up and gave a candy corn kernel to everyone who participated. Mysie handed theirs to Jamie, letting her hold onto it like Blair did.

“Hey Jamie! Do you want to… ‘test your courage’ or whatever?” Blair snorts as she points towards the sign across the aisle. It was pointing towards a maze. Jamie smirks as she glances towards Blair.

“I bet I can beat it.” She chuckles as she lets go of her youngest sibling and their mentee before she makes her way towards the entrance. “Lyra, make sure they don’t cause trouble in my absence.” She tells her before she jogs into the maze. Jamie was great at mazes, her homecity where she grew up in, in Stella, was nothing but a maze. She made marks in the dirt at corners to let her know when she got to a place as a marker, so if she found a circle, she knew to erase the mark and try the other way. There were decorations of various ghosts and other ghouls, people dressed up as monsters and ‘villains’ to scare the haunted maze participants. One of the rules was to not harm the scare actors. That was almost hard for the redhead to do. It was near reflex to punch them, she managed it regardless though.

Be it by sheer luck, or by the fact that she saw a few people go a certain way, Jamie managed to get her way to the end of the maze. They stood before the gate to the test of courage. A grin was on her lips as she made her way forward. As she entered through the gate, she felt a wave of her magic disappearing again, just like in the Neutral Grounds when she went to get her iLac with her siblings. Was that supposed to be fearful? It wasn’t too bad in her opinion.

She continued forth in the maze before she was met with the sounds of high pitch clapping sounds. Like the sound of pinchers snapping together. She froze as she knew what that sound was. She didn’t want to go forth and look. They were crabs. The crustaceans that torment the gunslingers dreams sometimes and terrified her to no end. The first time she saw them in Bosco, it freaked her out to no end. Bosco! She ignored the crabs like crazy then! It was for her siblings sake, at least then, so they could get the hell away from Stella, but she could do this! She could face her crab fear once more!

The pinching noise came closer and she quickly moved her feet. Rounding the corner had her face to face with many crabs. She shuttered and quickly was making her way through the crab isle, running as fast as she could. As hse continued through the courage part of the maze, she nearly tripped a few times. This was absolutely garbage! There were also some ghost illusions happening, but those didn’t seem to bother Jamie. It was the crabs that were getting to the gunslinger more. How did this even know she was afraid of crabs anyways?! Her one irrational fear, being used against her! Was it the gate at the entrance of the Test of Courage maze?! That was the only thing that she could think of! As she passed by a perpendicular part of the maze with a 3 way trail, she spotted something. Risking the crabs following after her, Jamie quickly turned herself around till she got to the corner. What more would she see than the exit!

She cheered in joy as she quickly ran away from the crabs and right towards the exit, literally collapsing at the end after she felt her magic return to her. She kept her head down as she was catching her breath. She couldn’t have her sibling and mentee see her like this.

What did she start doing after she managed to wipe her tears away? Laugh. She started laughing. She stood up as she saw Mysie leading Lyra and Blair to her. The youngest sibling signed something to her, and Jamie grinned. “Yeah! I got a little bored in there and started racing the things for fun! That’s why I’m a little out of breath!” She calls out as she walks casually back towards the trio, wrapping her arm around Mysie’s shoulder. “Let's go sightseeing around the festival before we get home.” She raised an eyebrow towards Lyra before a staff member came up to her and handed her another candy corn kernel. “You want to join us still, Lyra?” The racecar driver costume wearing gunslinger questions with a grin. Her eyes were only slightly red from her crying a moment ago, but she hoped it wouldn’t affect them much since she said she was running.

|| Words: 1395 || Thread Total: 4456/4000 || Event || Event Approval ||
|| Jamie - #a4a2a3 || Blair - #7cc6e4 || Mysie - #8ae47c ||
Tag: @Lyra Karant
Activities: 3/3 Candy Corn Kernels

Costume Contest
Pumpkin Carving
Test of Courage

- All in costumes