EVENT LOG: GRAVES

[inthenightmods]

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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Comments

hodie mecvm eris in paradiso ♦ death

[nonscriptum]

[ The air is hot and sticky, a humidity thick with the scent of lush jungle and plant life, sweat beading down the back of his neck as birds call far behind them, below them. At the edge of a cliff and a disadvantage Nate (for once) knows better than to push his luck, doing his best to defuse the volatility.

He thought he'd talked them down.

Foolishly, perhaps, but negotiations have never been Nate's strong suit and the best he is capable of doing is providing a genuine, honest case for their lives - for Sam's life. More than anything he wants this over with, wants to loosen the noose around his brother's neck and pay his debt for him after everything Sam suffered in prison. Fifteen years behind bars, and God, Nate owes him. He owes him everything.

Fifteen years since he's seen Rafe Adler in person, and it has to be at gunpoint. The mercenaries behind him are vigilant, their leader - Nadine, and Christ she can throw a punch - impassive and tense, waiting. Impatient. Nate knows he and Sam have been a thorn in their collective sides since the grift at the auction and she would like nothing better than to throw them off of the nearest outcrop, but Rafe is wallowing in their helplessness and Nate knows it's deserved.

Sam interrupts him, tries to stop him from mentioning the debt, the prison break, the Butcher of Panama and his threat should Samuel Drake not retrieve the treasure in return for his liberty, and Rafe looks at him as though he's suddenly grown two heads. ]

What the Hell are you talking about, Nate? Hector Alcázar died in a shoot-out in Argentina like six months ago. I'm the one who got Samuel out.

[ It hits him slowly, confusion first. Looking to Sam while Sam refuses to look at him, and a broad smile stretches across Rafe's face as he realizes something that Nate doesn't - not yet. His tone shifts for the conversational and the words roll in ceaselessly as Nate stares, struck dumb. Numbed to his core he listens in stunned silence as what he knows is picked apart and he can barely hear Rafe for the sudden rushing of wind in his ears, blood or anger or both.

Sam wasn't in prison for fifteen years. It was thirteen. Thirteen, and two spent in Rafe's company, researching Henry Avery, keeping distance, never making contact. Never reaching out despite knowing where Nate was. Letting Nate think he was dead, feeding him some bullshit story about a drug lord and a break out that never happened but Nate was too stupid to check, didn't think to not trust his brother, the family he thought he failed a decade and a half ago.

He denies the story and Rafe shrugs, gesturing at Sam and his brother turns with that telltale face, the same hangdog expression he used to give Nate when they were kids, when he was trying to make up for something. "Nate-" he starts and the name feels foreign when Sam has only ever called him Nathan, and he pushes him away, suddenly feeling sick after everything he ran roughshod over to get them here. Somewhere beyond the pounding in his head, back in the conversation, Rafe laughs.

He had pushed Elena away for this. Pushed Sully away, so desperate to make amends for something that had never truly been his fault in the first place, and Nate only scrabbles his way back into forming sentences when Rafe lifts his gun in Sam's direction. Wanting nothing more than to clock his brother across the jaw he tries again, deciding he can beg Sam for a reason later, when they're still alive and kicking. Nate steps in. ]

Hey, you miss one clue, and you can kiss that treasure goodbye. You said it yourself; you keep running into dead ends. Why don't you face it, Rafe. You need us.

[ For one long, excruciating second Rafe seems to contemplate the offer, and Nate almost thinks he'll take it. The Colt lowers- ]

Yeah, you're right. You're half-right.

[ -and then trains on Nate. ]

I just need Sam.

[ It happens too quickly. Nate protests with an arm outstretched as that dispassionate gaze settles on him, Sam moves in without warning, the gun discharges. For the briefest of instants Nate shut his eyes in acceptance, expecting a bullet that never finds its mark. It clips Sam's shoulder as his brother darts between them and the sudden jerk, the impact, checks Nate in the chest hard. He falls back and the weightlessness is familiar even as his stomach lurches, like missing a step at the top of a stair.

The landscape around him rushes past in a blur of green before he can grab a hold of something, anything, and with a sickening sound his forehead cracks against the cliffside before everything goes dark. ]

[originallutece]

[It's the betrayal that makes her sick. Not the fall-- although that, too, sickening weightlessness and the helpless feeling, she's never done well with helplessness, and this is nothing but that-- but that awful shock.

Like a bucket of ice poured over her head. Like lightning in its swiftness, striking right at the base of her throat, and he wouldn't-- Sam and Robert blur together, and he wouldn't, she thinks, staring at the man in horror, he wouldn't, how could he? It's them against the world, it always has been, how could he ever-- he wouldn't, and yet he looks so ashamed and she knows the truth.

What happens afterwards is almost a relief. Painful, oh, yes, horrifyingly so, the sharp crack as their skull hits rock, as the world goes black and the body tumbles down, oh, god, yes, that hurts so badly. But better physical pain than emotional.

(It's a rock she'd left, for the record. A remarkably smooth rock with a hole in it, perhaps natural and perhaps not, that she'd given as an offering. She'd set it just at the base, and now she regrets it, she really does).]

[callada]

[This is actually helpful in some small way, this scene. Rosinante has already met Rafe - a dismissive, sarcastic man who left a sour initial impression. It's worth knowing the two share a history.

As for who is in the right here and who isn't, it's impossible to say. Nate felt betrayed, that was clear (and by his brother, what a fine coincidence) but he and Rafe both seem like they're not fully on the side of the law if they're running about in jungles, looting treasure. The man is a pirate without an ocean.

No real sympathy, then, just observation. He turns to leave, and hopes Nate enjoys the cup of whiskey left behind for him.]

[fogey]

[ it's a slim white candle that five leaves here. a fairly anonymous gift, but it's not impossible that nate may have seen him with them, this week. ]

[hardwearing]

[ Wash never intended to leave an offering -- he's been actively fighting the compulsion as much as possible, but every now and then he slips and quite frankly, he's not well enough equipped to keep dropping bullets all over the cemetery. He's started carrying a pocketful of little paper flowers just in case.

This time he's out for a run when the urge hits him out of nowhere, so strong that he has to skid to a stop in front of the weathered cross marker. It isn't until the flower is already out of his pocket and he's approached to drop it that he can see the inscription on the base. This is Nate's grave.

Shit.

There's a sharp burst of panic as he tries to snatch his hand back but just drops the flower anyway, watches it flutter to the dirt with wide horrified eyes. Somehow it's worse that he's spying on his friend's death without asking permission -- nobody seems to want theirs seen, but he's sure Nate wouldn't. It's too late, though.

When it passes Wash staggers back from the headstone, breathing fast and shallow from the rush of the fall. He can't even say "at least it didn't hurt" because the death itself wasn't the worst part of that experience. No, it was the shattering of everything he'd believed, his trust violated, the sense of loss and betrayal. Fuck everyone on that cliff, honestly. Wash feels like Sam comes off worse than Rafe, but he didn't recognize Nate's brother... he has met Rafe.

Shit redux.

He honestly doesn't know how to deal with this, if he should admit what he saw or not, if Nate would be angry with him... what's the right move?

For now he's just going to continue his run. ]