logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: GRAVES

EVENT LOG: GRAVES

EVENT LOG:
GRAVES

characters: everyone.
location: Bonfire Square.
date/time: July 12-19.
content: mysterious shrines appear and bring visions of death.
warnings: likely violence and potentially gore.

time to pay your respects.

It happens when no one is looking, when most of the town is asleep and the rest are inside. A makeshift cemetery has come to Beacon, taking up residence in the middle of Bonfire Square. Each monument, shrine, and altar is dedicated to someone who now resides here, a memorial of their previous life.

Some may be drawn by curiosity, others by fear, and some may simply have to pass through this strange graveyard to get to the Bonfire itself. Whenever a person gets near, the altars beckon with a mysterious urge— an urge to approach, and an urge to leave something behind. They will feel compelled to make offerings at the various shrines, but doing so has a curious effect; it causes one to experience the death of the person whose grave they've honored.

Whether you resist the compulsion or give in willingly (or something in between), you'll also have to wrestle with the fact that a grave exists for you. Will you let your death be known, or try your best to keep it secret? Destroying it sure won't work, as it will return— with a duplicate somewhere else in town.

However you choose to deal with this, one thing is hard to ignore— this a tangible reminder of your death, and the fact that it's probably permanent.

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One man, and you could not stand the shame of it . . .

[She doesn't understand. She can picture it well enough, why he, a man who patrols even in the afterlife, who monitors the wellbeing of population less than a hundred, would feel the shame of releasing a prisoner. Surely he's honorable, or at least rigorous within his understanding of the law. Rosalind can comprehend that. She's never held much for the law, but she's rigid in her own rules, so yes, she can comprehend the horror of breaking one.

But to kill yourself over it . . .]

How had he saved you?

( Javert doesn't answer right away. It takes him a moment, staring into the fire with his hands clasped in front of him, lost in his usual reverie before he admits, dejectedly, )

It was during an undercover operation. I had been captured and the insurgents that held me prisoner had plans to kill me. That man, that convict, he showed up and asked them for my life. He said he wanted to blow my brains out himself, and I thought for certain that was what he was going to do.

( He sighs a bit and looks at her, his expression one of profound humility. )

He and I have a long history, you see. He was a convict in Toulon when I was a prison guard. But that is not how we got to know each another. That didn't happen until many years later, in Montreuil, when he was a successful businessman and I, a newly appointed police officer. He was going by a different name at the time, but I had always suspected his real identity.

He was appointed mayor around the same time I was named inspector. It was inevitable that we would work together, and we did, peacefully, for three years. One day, however, he overrode my authority in an arrest, and I was so enraged that I denounced him to the Prefect of Police in Paris. I revealed the mayor was a convict.

Ever since then, I have been nothing but cruel to him. When he escaped prison, I pursued him. I tormented him for months, and so you see, there is no good reason for him to have saved my life.

And yet! When he had me in his grasp, with a gun in his pocket and a knife in his hand, that is exactly what he did. He cut me free and let me go. Later that night, he surrendered himself to me, but I did not arrest him.

I had thought about it, but I could not. He is a good man, better than anyone I have ever known. I was blind to it before, back in Montreuil, but I know it now with certainty. I thought he was an irredeemable villain, incapable of change and self-betterment, but I was wrong.

( He stares back down at the ground, hands wringing together anxiously before tugging on his whiskers again. It isn't just Valjean that has changed. He, too, has changed. It never used to be this hard, he never used to be this soft. )

I do not know how to do my job anymore.

[She listens silently, absorbing each detail carefully, not wanting to interrupt and misunderstand any aspect of this. And she understands.

Still not to the point of suicide. She could never, would never. But the shock of meeting someone who is so good despite the circumstances, despite logic dictating that they ought to be awful . . .

She knows that feeling. Hadn't she marveled over Robert for just that reason? Less sharply than this man's criminal, but she'd been in awe of his ability to be kind. She'd despaired over it, too, raged against it, but it was ever inexplicable.

Why would anyone do something kind for a world that had spurned them? That's the lesson that Rosalind takes from all of this. Why would Javert's criminal release him instead of taking revenge? It doesn't make sense.]

Would that I had an answer.

[She pauses for a few seconds, and then:]

My husband was the same way. Kind, even when he had no reason to be. It was what got us killed.

[Is she angry at him? Assuredly, and that's what propels her right now. Perhaps Javert has even heard her in the night, tossing and turning as she argues silently. Grief is on its heels, but she's ignoring that. She refuses to mourn, because mourning implies an acceptance of loss she won't acknowledge.]

I never understood it.

( Javert laughs humorlessly. He knows not what else he can do. He's practically driven himself mad just thinking about it, how a man like Jean Valjean could exist, and how he, Javert, is supposed to reconcile his duty to the law with his duty to the Lord.

It is a relief to know that he is not alone, even if it does not provide much of a reassurance. )

What a pair we make.

( He understands the feeling completely, of wanting to ignore her feelings. Of letting anger simmer inside her instead of grief. Maybe that is why he's never felt compelled to talk to her about her nightmares. It's not his place, and Javert would not know what words to say. )

I've always thought that kindness was easy, but that is not so. It is perhaps the most difficult thing I have ever done.

( He clasps his hands together, then utters softly, )

If your husband was kind, he, too, must have been a good man.

A better person than me by far.

[It's soft, and far from self-pitying. She even smiles faintly, not so much happy as simply remembering. It is somewhat comforting to be acknowledged like this: that though it doesn't make anything better, at the very least they can understand one another on this level.]

He would stop us in the street sometimes just to indulge it. Getting candy for a child, or juggling to make a group of them laugh . . . to try and make me laugh. He was ridiculous.

[A few seconds, and then she focuses back on Javert.]

What was he like, your criminal? In the time you worked with him, you must have gotten to know him a fair bit.

Ah, well.

( The question throws him off balance a little. What does he know about Valjean, other than what he gleaned from police reports? He considers it for a moment, his expression serene and thoughtful. )

He was— not too dissimilar, I would say. He was always insufferably gentle. Every time he thought I was working too hard, he would fret. And when I was critical of myself, he would be encouraging.

( It annoyed him, of course. Not just because he thought the man was a outlaw, but because Javert hates being coddled. He frowns a bit, then continues roughly, )

Nearly all of his business fortune went to charity. The town prospered greatly from this, as you can imagine. There was very little crime in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Most of time as inspector was usually spent settling disputes about rain gutters and other such frivolities.

[She listens, and she does not laugh, because that would be both cruel and wildly misunderstood. She doesn't have the urge to laugh because she pities him or finds him inadequate. She bites back a laugh because this man, this criminal, the words Javert uses with him, he sounds like--

Insufferably gentle, and she'd hated Robert for his softness, his kindness, Rosie you cannot possibly be so callous, I know you, he would be encouraging, just as Javert says, Rosie we have to fix this, earnest eyes and then all steel, because Robert was kind but he was not damp, and when pleas hadn't worked he'd blackmailed her, because doing the right thing was more important than anything, even his beloved, even the woman for whom he'd given up everything.]

It sounds incurably dull.

[And restful, which may be the point. She doesn't say it sneeringly, but rather gently, something not quite a joke.]

. . . what was his name?

( Javert very nearly scoffs. She's right, it was incurably dull, and that is why Javert spent so much of his time looking into Valjean's background. Stalking Madeleine everywhere he went hoping that he might catch him in the act of something damning.

He was the only one alive who knew who Valjean really was. Maybe that's why, when Rosalind asks for his name, Javert stiffens in hesitation. Dare he say it? What is the harm? It is not as if Valjean is here. And Javert doesn't know if he can lie on his behalf again. )

His name — ( He begins, licking his lips, which suddenly feel very dry. ) His real name is Jean Valjean.

( He says it softly, with no small amount of admiration and respect. Javert must not have noticed this, for he doesn't make any attempt to change the subject or clear his throat. Instead, he just sits silently, staring at the fire for a moment before asking, )

And what of your husband? What was his name?

Robert. Robert Lutece.

[Robert and Rosalind, and she only ever called him his full name, but the nicknames he'd come up for her . . . Rosie my Rosie, only ever in private, but he adores being sweet like that.

It would be easy to get lost in that. She might even tell Javert a bit more, although not to excess. But it's hard not to notice how stiff he goes when he says Valjean's name. How he says the name, the intensity with which those two words are uttered.

She wants to know more. But pressing too hard will make him retreat, and anyway, that isn't their way.]

Mm. One area in which his kindliness did not extend: his name. He had a friend who would never fail to get under his nerves when he called him by a nickname. A rival would do the same, albeit for much pettier purposes. Robbie sounds childish, he would tell me, and he wasn't wrong, but he'd get so petulant about it.

( Javert won't know how to explain it even if he tried. It's all so new to him — this traitorous heart, these feelings. Even now, he's at a loss for what to do. He looks up at Rosalind, fumbling for a moment before clearing his throat. )

I can scarcely blame him. A gentleman deserves to be called by his proper name.

( He doesn't know what else to say. Personal conversation has always been a difficult thing for Javert, and companionship even more so. Before Rosalind has a chance to say anything more, he stands and grips his lantern tight in his hand. )

Excuse me, madame, I should not take up more of your time.

[It's an abrupt end to the conversation, but perhaps he's right. Besides: she discovered a great deal about him in a short amount of time, and she ought to be satisfied with that. So she bites back her disappointment and nods, letting him go.

They'll talk later. She's certain of it.]

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EVENT LOG: GRAVES

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