6th September, 1895 — Harvest Festival, Irvingly

Ester stumbled from the casino, coming out into the midday daylight bleary-eyed and shocked by the sudden, bustling sight. The square was usually much sleepier, she had supposed – although strictly speaking, it had been a good ten years since she had lived here.

Perhaps none of this was actually here at all, and the colourful sights and fairground rides swimming in her vision were just part of a laudanum-induced hallucatination. She hadn’t slept last night, either – she never could, if she didn’t get enough – so instead had apparently wasted the night and the best part of the morning away with certain rakish company at the casino, and eventually holed up in a back room emptying the last few drops of a laudanum bottle onto her tongue.

It had been just enough, because even amidst these hordes of people and colour and noise her heartbeat was determinedly slow. Ester drifted, not entirely conscious of herself, through the scene onto a bench, or something she supposed was a bench – in fact, it was one of the revolving chairs of the pleasure wheel, on the furthest outskirts of the square. She had sat beside a (confused) stranger, to boot – but before she had put these pieces together, the wheel had started turning again and their chair had been lifted slowly into the air.

Their half of the wheel was near the top of the contraption when Ester spotted something she was sure was an opium hallucination, a hazy mist slowly spreading out through the square below them, as if consuming all the stalls and people in its wake. “Do you see that, or is it just me?” she wondered aloud, languidly. An odd change in the weather, wasn’t it?

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open to 1-3 people on nearby ferris wheel seats, let's escape the mist together (or not? xD)
~counts as a staff-led thread for the SWP~

  

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Nicodemus had been idly enjoying his time at the Harvest Festival. He had played some games and gone on some rides. He had settled into one of the seats on the ferris wheel when a much older woman sat beside him. He was now stuck with the woman for company though he didn't particularly mind. It was strange and she seemed strange but Nicodemus was capable of going with the flow.

"It looks like... fog?" He said, squinting at the sight in the distance.

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set by Lady!

She’d heard a rumor that Ida was back in Irvingly, and although false (which broke June’s heart because she missed her friend dearly), she’d decided not to waste the trip and visit the festival. It was a way to make her feel better for Ida not being home. Grace had been less than thrilled but hadn’t told her no, although under no circumstances was she getting in that wheel – she thought the whole contraption looked shoddy and was probably going to fall apart at a moment’s notice.

June had slipped on anyway, settling into a creaking chair beside a stranger who she deliberately angled away from purely so they would not accidentally touch. Everything was perfectly fine until the woman across from her spoke, and she turned to follow the tilt of her chin, her eyes instantly settling on the gauzy sheet of grey, low to the cobblestones.

“That…” She paused, just as the man across from her spoke, taking the words straight from her mouth. It did look like fog, in a sene. June leaned forward in her seat, her brows drawn tight. “Fog? No. Fog doesn’t move like that.” Though stranger things had happened in her lifetime.

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She had christened the young man sat beside her Thomas, although she was soberly aware he wasn’t her son – but there was something exquisitely uncanny about being back in Irvingly, where she had lived those last few unhappy years, losing all light and hope and will to remain there, looking for any way to escape –

Oh. She squinted down below at the square. Her fake Thomas and the discomfited blonde nearby were right, about something like a fog, but Ester had been onto something, dredging up old daydreams of escape, because... people were running, fleeing from that centre-point of the festival. Oddly, the figures she had first spotted had not emerged from the misted area; or was the mist spreading?

People, Ester noted, down there were yelling. And screaming. Without thinking about it, she gripped her fake son’s forearm tightly, as if she might protect him.

The wheel kept turning slow and leisurely, inching downwards. The question was, would there still be visible ground beneath them by the time they had descended?

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June wasn’t sure if she could feel scared or not, given that, as she followed the woman’s eyesight, she saw the crowd below them dispersing, the screams of people down below them being more apparent. Was there a monster? Or was it the mist that was causing the chaos? (Idly she wondered if Grace was still down there waiting for her, although June wouldn’t miss her stepmother one bit if she were to disappear somehow, someway.)

The wheel carried them onward, inexorable, its great spokes uncaring as they dipped lower toward whatever the hell was happening down there. June tore her eyes from the writhing grey below and fixed them on the strangers just across from her, finding that the woman was now tightly clutching the man like a lifeline. They must know each other.

“I don’t want to be set down in the middle of whatever’s happening.” June said, her voice much sharper than she intended it to be. She shifted in her seat as if she could will the wheel to switch its course and begin to go upward instead of lowering. “So what are our options?” They were limited, that much she knew.

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There was no way to really know what was happening from where they were. But there was a mist and people running from it. He was trying to think, his attention shifting to the woman as she gripped his arm. He supposed she must be terrified. After all, what was happening below them seemed ominous. "We could try climbing upwards," he suggested, looking up towards the top of the wheel. The entire thing was mobile but it would be better than being sent downwards. On the other hand, he didn't like the idea of staying in this one spot.

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set by Lady!

Her gaze moved upward as the other spoke, and she couldn’t help but echo him as she said, “Upward?” Her gaze darted to the thickening mist below, where shapes moved, although whether it was people or something else, it was impossible to tell. June snapped her gaze toward her sudden companions. “If it starts moving again, we’ll get stuck. Do you really think it’s safer up there?”

Juniper glanced up again, her eyes tracing the latticework above them. He had it easier than she did because her dress was so damn heavy, with all the layers of nonsense; maybe if she were to remove some of it, she’d have a better shot at not letting go and falling to her death. People would understand. It could be life and death for all she knew. But still, she didn't make a move to wiggle out of her clothes or her seat.

“What if we shot a spell to stop the wheel from turning?” June found herself asking because she really didn’t want to climb up the wheel. Irvinigly was a no magic zone, but the Ministry would have to make an exception during a time like this, right?

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