Any Gembound walking up to this booth would find that it was a rather rudimentary one. The first thing any visitor would notice would be what appeared to be a flower settled atop many feathery-white coils; then, the smaller creature fluttering her wings with childlike eagerness. Moth-scales drifted off them as she made her way off of "Dad! Lyn!"'s apparently sleeping head to approach the visitors.

Her tail wagged nonstop as she introduced herself, "I'm Meissa—" and then she threw her head over her shoulder, fluffing her wings. "Dad! They're here—look!" A doggish grin split her face as she went to headbutt one of Lyn's legs and at last nudge him awake. His electric-blue eyes blinked awake, and he shifted to regard all the visitors.

Meissa, pleased with this development, spun back on her heels and bounded to the side.

Some fifty perfectly round, orange pumpkins were arranged into sloppy rows. The whole ensemble was placed a bit like a fence, running up and down the length of the coiled-up dragon. Each of their stems was perfectly trimmed-off to maintain ripeness for as long as possible.

"I call these... oranges! Dad and I grew a lot of these and brought them here," the fox-dragon chirruped, then shoved an "orange" off towards the nearest visitor. "They're really tasty, but you can cut cool stuff into them too." Her wings fanned out again. "Everybody can have one! If there's leftovers, maybe even everybody can have... two!"

This GM-run "booth" will be open for new participants until November 1st @ 11:59 PM EST. Interaction with it may come with rewards!

James approached the booth, curious as to what these orange things were. He sniffed at one of the pumpkins and yanked his head away in surprise when one was shoved at him.

"... It's sort of like one of the fruits in Eridanus," he mumbled, mostly to himself before craning his head and peering at Meissa and Lyn, "Oranges, you call them? Where did they come from?"

He picked one up by the stem, claiming it as his as he peered at it. Perhaps he'd enlist Comet's help to make shapes in these, though he didn't quite understand why. Decoration, perhaps? Who knew?

"How do you cut them?", he asked.

Little Talys was less little these days. He was looking less like a toddler and more like a ten year old, growing taller and taller but still maintaining the ruddy-faced curiosity of childhood. He'd been on his way through from Gemini, hoping to investigate the strange glow he'd noticed coming from Polaris, but he'd immediately gotten distracted by the flash of black and purple-pink and the massive field of orange.

The oranges distracted him a little bit, as he jogged over and cringed in the aftermath. His knees ached from the cold -- he'd been in more and more pain recently, and had yet to really sort out why. "Hey James!" he called, his voice a little more coherent, and waved excitedly before immediately starting to pick through the pumpkins. He grabbed one and started to lift it up, only to find that it weighed much more than he'd expected. He got it about an inch off the ground before he stumbled and dropped it (thankfully, pumpkins were rather hardy).

He clapped his hands together, and picked it up again, expecting the weight this time but still buckling slightly under it. He bore a cobbled-together grin -- Talys was still in the process of losing his baby teeth.

@james mostly

Comet had a booth to run, but she decided to spend this time with James, since it wouldn't do for her to work the whole festival and not get any fun in! It had taken a bit of searching around, but she finally found him, his brilliant colored wings a dead giveaway. He was at the booth selling "oranges", which were certainly a very fitting name for those orange fruits.

Wait a second... the animal running this booth was familiar! She remembered when she and James had fallen through the wall in Pegasus, and the flower that was in the middle of the lake was really the big white animal's tail! But she didn't comment on that part.

The wolf bumped her head against James's leg to let him know that she was here, and sat down. "Yeah! We can try carving some cool stuff."

EMRYS
and from here you look like ants in a row

Emrys has been quick to learn that breaking out of their chrysalis was the easy part. They knew where they were supposed to go, too, but everything was so new and interesting. And big-if it were not for the fact that they would need to get to Fornax sooner than later, they would have let themselves get lost in the caves long before.

But they had a purpose; even if they were a bit distracted from it right now. But, really, who could blame them? They had a curiosity to learn, and when they saw the bright colors, of course they were going to be lured to them.

The first thing they catch sight of are the ‘oranges’, and they do a strange little bounce when they see them, eyes lighting up when they notice. They pick up the pace a little, and gently choose a smaller one. They linger for a moment, wondering if they should eat it or take it on their journey to Forax. Or- maybe their siblings would know what to do?

They turn to look for either of them; and then, suddenly, they’re aware of how odd they must look, even with their tiny bounce. They haven’t said anything, and so far they haven’t seen anything that looks like their siblings. Or even like they do, for that matter; the thought of it makes them puff their chest out a little.

They just hope none of the other gembounds saw their moment of giddiness.

Plants were nice. Plants were pretty. That was probably why when Beast caught word of a big field filled with pretty gourds, he was quick to arrive.

Six legs rhythmically tapped through the festival, the tentacled hog wide-eyed as he looked around. Shifting tones from the glowing moss and gemstones illuminated the crowds all in cool, spooky tones. There were a lot of people here. And Beast was, safe to say, pretty shy around other gembound. The teenager barely even talked to anyone before. But if he got the chance to see some pretty "oranges" (as the creature in front claimed), he could tolerate it.

Once Beast had picked out a suitable orange from the bunch-- after a prance around the field, of course-- the creature stood directly over it, squatted down... and unhinged a massive, drooling beak from his stomach to pick it up. Not exactly the most conventional method of grabbing things, but it worked. He dragged it some ways away before plunking it down and starting to scrape at the skin with a hoof. "Cut, cut, cut!" the stomach beak sang.

And then their attention was sharply taken away (hoof nearly squishing the pumpkin in neglect) when a massive, towering monster entered his view. It's pitch black, feline form towered over the two-foot-or-so hybrid-- even from this distance he could feel the strength coming from it. A puffed-out collar of tentacles ringed it's head, where two orange pinpricks gleaned over the field. It was a Valkhound.

But Beast only saw a potential friend.

Look at that little bounce! The gentle way they picked up an orange! Maybe they could even talk about plants. This person seemed like friend material, yes-they-did. So what if they were several times larger than him and covered in tentacles? He had tentacles too, and everyone's a little different, y'know?

So the little Beast ran over and tried to start a conversation for, essentially, the first time in his life.

"H... Hello!" Despite the friendly gleam in his eyes and feeler reached up in greeting, the sound actually came from somewhere on the hexapod's torso. "You like the oranges too, yes? I like oranges! My name is Beast, what is yours?"

Beast is attempting to strike conversation with @Emrys

EMRYS
and from here you look like ants in a row

It’s so focused on it’s own ‘orange’ at first, lifting a paw to nudge it, that it doesn’t quite realize that it’s being watched. As it inspects the orange object in front of it, it decides that it’s siblings can have the aftermath. If it ever actually figures out how to cut a shape into it, that is. For now, though, it gives the pumpkin another little nudge, just enough that it leans back a little.

Really, it feels like it could stay there and do that for a while. It can’t, reasonably, and it knows that. But the pumpkin is curious, and maybe there’s a little satisfaction when it doesn’t accidentally break the pumpkin.

It’s so caught up in it’s pumpkin-bullying that it doesn’t notice Beast running over at first. He speaks, and it’s head jolts up to pay attention to the much smaller gembound. A friend? They seem like a friend, from the look in their eyes and their feeler reached up in greeting. Speaking is still hard for it, the words are new and feel strange in its mouth, but it tries.

”Oranges…nice? I like them.”

There’s a bit of hesitation when it says it, like it’s not sure that’s how it’s supposed to be said. The question of it’s name causes it to pause for a moment. It hadn’t really thought about it, the idea of having an identity being the last thing on its mind currently. But now, maybe it isn’t quite a bad idea?

”Emrys.” It’s a simple name, the first one it can think of, but there’s that sense of giddiness again. It doesn’t do another bounce, stays sitting this time, but it’s tempting. Just as tempting as trying to figure out more about Beast is. It realizes, a second later, that it may be it’s turn to ask something.

”How do you cut these?”

@Beast

Thalia, eyes wide, trooped in behind James but just ahead of Pride. She stopped to stare at Lyn, transfixed, the spectacle of shimmering white scales and flower petal-like tail both beautiful and fascinating to her. Meissa, too, was a vision of beauty, all color and iridescence gilded gold.

"Oranges..." she breathed, awed, but her full attention was on the creatures offering them.

She stepped forward, after a moment, away from Pride and toward the strangers. "I'm Thalia-... Who are you?" she offered, and it seemed a question to everyone present that she hadn't already met.

Meissa vibrated where she stood, "yeah! Just like those fruits! But, they're magical fruit..." Oh, she loved Eridanus and all its green. Yes, Pegasus had a lot of green, too, but that Cave was a different kind of green, alright? She indicated toward Lyn anyways, puffing out her chest, "Dad made most of them, but I helped!" A paw stretched out to show off the very 'orange' that James had claimed.

She widened her eyes a little bit at the upright toddler trying to hoist a pumpkin up, but was distracted again by the prospect of carving. "Oh! You put a hole in the top and scoop all the goop out. The seeds are really good." The fox-dragon tugged at a smaller pumpkin to indicate, though she miscalculated the thickness of the rind. Instead, she kind of uselessly clawed at it. "It's, um, kind of hard to do it."

Especially without hands.

If she noticed the wary look that Lyn gave her after seeing Emrys, she didn't show her acknowledgement; she was too preoccupied with rolling a pumpkin towards Comet and chirruping in offering: "take one!"

Oh, and that other upright-thing (wow!) "I'm Meissa! That's my dad! It's nice to meet you, uh—Th... Thalia? Thalia!" She offered a pumpkin to the faun too, a doggish grin on her face, "here you go!"

After claiming their pumpkins, James, Talys, Emrys, and Beast have all received a strange, new ability: the special event spell, Jack-o-Spawn!

Other and new participants that accept Meissa's pumpkin offerings will also receive this spell.

@James @Talys @Comet @Emrys @Beast @Thalia

James perked up at the appearance of Talys, and then at the appearance of his daughter. He perked up and dragged Comet over with a wing, their pumpkins in front of them.

"Talys! It's so wonderful to see you again," he trilled happily, fluffing his feathers up in glee, "Talys, this is my daughter, Comet! Comet, this is Talys!"

He tugged his pumpkin closer, looking down at it and wondering what to do with it, humming softly. If only he had hands... and a knife.

Well, now he had neither. A quick search had proved that anything remotely sharp had been discarded, most likely so that the pumpkins weren't damaged by anything on the ground.