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The Park, Most of Sunday

Had the carnival changed? Retreated? No, but perhaps it had filled up even worse over the past twenty-four hours or so.

The look on that mustached man's face certainly exuded a certain amount of triumph as the lights went on again early on Sunday morning. He stabbed the ground with his cane and watched; if experience counted for anything, then there would be yet more pouring into his carnival today.

The feeding was good, here.

That scent of cotton candy rolled over the island once more, and the carnival's music touched what it could not.

It's a new day, Fandom. Come, enjoy it.

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"What are you doing?" For all her talk, she wasn't actually much for using Celia's more offensive, less spectral magic, and the closer he got, the less she liked it -- and unfortunately, it was starting to show.

He could see that she was vulnerable now, and that made Ichabod more confident. He reached out to place his hands on her shoulders, even though it felt strange. She didn't want him to, this wasn't the Celia he knew -- but if they were right, this was what would bring her back.

[good night!]

She reached up to push him away, already trying to wriggle out of his grasp. "What are you doing?" she repeated, sounding more panicked this time.

[niiiiight!]

Ichabod ignored her question. Forcing someone into a hug was worse than he had expected, and he clung to the thought that it was to help Celia. Holding on to her, he tried to pull her close into a hug.

Celia struggled for a moment longer, before going quiet and still in his arms. Her hair warmed from black to brown, and her eyes did the same, though she had them closed for now. The smoke that had been surrounding her dissipated, and Celia was left feeling utterly disoriented.

"...Ichabod?"

"Celia? Is that you?" He senses the difference, saw the change, but wasn't entirely sure yet that it wasn't just another illusion.

"Yes." Celia pulled back just enough to look up at him, bewildered. "What happened? What did I -- oh my god."

And now she was covering her mouth, horrorstruck. "Ichabod, I was horrible to you. I -- I don't know what happened."

"You weren't yourself," he said gently, now confident that she was the Celia he knew. He reached up to caress her hair comfortingly.

"But," Celia started, still clearly upset, "I...I don't know how it happened. I saw the fortune teller on Friday, and that was awful, and then I...became that other person."

She had never felt so ashamed of her gifts, so disgusted by what she'd done with them. To Ichabod, to Eleanor....

Oh, god. Eleanor.

Time enough to feel guilty, later. Right now, she still had questions. "How...did you just hug me back into consciousness?"

"According to various clues gathered in the library we concluded that hugging would bring those who had been affected by the carnival back," Ichabod explained. "It turned you into someone else."

Suddenly he pulled her back into a hug, hoping it expressed the feelings he couldn't quite put into words.

And this time, Celia hugged him back, clinging with a desperation she rarely let herself feel. “Thank you for bringing me back," she murmured. “And – and I’m so sorry, Ichabod. I’m so sorry.”

She wondered how much of that illusion of his father had been a product of his actual fear – which somehow the other-her had been able to access – and how much was just a projection of her own insecurity. It had all but confirmed everything she dreaded.

"It wasn't you," Ichabod repeated, holding on to her. He didn't want to think about his father, illusion or real, or what else the other Celia had done, and he certainly didn't want Celia to blame herself.

"Let's leave this place," he said. "and go back to the dorms."

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The Park, Most of Sunday

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