@Evelynn Decipio

August 31st, '25

Summer Camp Fireworks Spectacular

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	Time, dragging when watched and flying when reached for, did its most to mend the convoluted rift between Evelynn and Pericles. Leaving the details a mystery to their mutuals, the two had stopped speaking from October to the following February. The months from reunition to summer vacation were spent regaining common ground. Gradually, albeit assuredly, they resumed a form of normalcy. March saw them back to sharing meals and partnering in class as though the journal and T. Ruth incidents were nothing more than memories. They had held their breath for April, during which her mother's contract was set to end, yet the deadline came and went without taking Eve along. By May, they were once more sharing morning jogs around the grounds and evening romps beyond the woodline. June reared its head, bogging them in end-of-year exams, and dread hung over Pericles like a dark cloud. He feared his friend may not return come September. One would think this would drive him to absorb as much time as they had left, and yet, from the moment they entered their tent, he had become scarcer than ever. Even when the carnie crew closed up for the night, he was seldom seen in the Grand Finale, often delegating himself to miscellaneous tasks until the lights went low. It was a far cry from the former camp- he had looked forward to socializing or dozing by the central fire, then. It couldn't have been Eve he was avoiding, if his choice to stay alongside her at the Derby was anything to go by. But when invited to the games one week later, the mage had almost seemed perplexed. He apologized with the explanation that he was obligated to Reparo duty across multiple game stations. In exchange, Gragnok had offered a personal tour of various rides' inner-workings, and Pericles' intrigue for magical mechanisms made the trade a fair one. He didn't think all too deeply on the invitation, surmising there was something on the prize list Eve was after. When she asked to share a ferris wheel ride on the final night of camp, however, the connection clicked. "I-...." It was the start of another refusal- have to give the closing announcements with Dee. Simultaneously, both question and answer surged to the forefront of his thoughts. The reason someone somber as Eve was suddenly interested in frivolous things, like games and fair rides, was because she was trying to make time. Time they may soon be out of. ".... would like that," he corrected, and Pericles smiled, though the light of it didn't reach his eye. From a young age, the heir had been taught that self-presentation was power. How one carried themselves, who they spent time with, what they said aloud, all contributed or detracted from the ideal image. One couldn't control the world, but they could control how they appeared. Identity was armor. Only, in order to be friends with Eve, Pericles had to accept the risk of no longer having his thoughts to himself. It was a vulnerability he deemed worthwhile. Dee hadn't minded taking the stage alone, and Pear gladly left her to it, taking wing from behind the stage to the wheel. Eve had unsurprisingly calculated her timing just right, establishing a spot at the front of the line before the fireworks were set to start. He joined her with that same strained smile and regarded the wheel like an execution block, waiting for the worst of his thoughts to be realized. Was this it? Would her muggle mother pull her from school, just as Bex, and Finn, and countless others had been taken beyond his grasp? Had she not wanted to watch the fireworks with their friends so that she could give him a goodbye? In an effort to postpone his anxieties, once they settled into a two-person gondola, Pericles had begun enthusiastically divulging what he had learned. "It's a simple function, but brilliant." He sat to her right, one arm propped on the cart's rim as the other pointed out different areas of the ride. "Instead of a motor, the operator utilizes the Circumrota charm on the central axle, which rotates the entire structure. Balancing enchantments on the spokes there, and there, prevent the different-sized carts from destabilizing it. The carousel works much the same. It's the artistry of them, though, that gets overlooked. Did you know these seats were hand-sewn? Even the animals were painted without magic...."
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