logsinthenight | 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.

QUICKNAV
comms	\|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

valjean takes his revenge
clip from the musical

( The hallucination begins in a wine shop, with Javert tied to a table, his wrists and neck wrapped with a rope, holding him down by the middle before tying together at the ankles. There are others in the room as well, a group of young men who look tired and famished, but fierce and determined. They are all armed with swords, muskets, and pistols. The leader of the group takes one and lays it down on the table, declaring, "The last man to leave this room will blow out the spy's brains!"

Javert, himself, is nothing but calm. He listens as the younger men go on about where he should be killed, his demeanor unresponsive and serene until the voice of an older man cuts in and asks, "Do you think I deserve a reward?" Enjolras says, "Certainly." "Well, I have one to ask." "What?" "To blow out that man's brains myself."

Javert looks at him. This, here, is the man he has known for twenty-nine years. Twelve years at the bagne in Toulon, where Valjean was a convict and Javert was a prison guard, and seventeen while Javert hunted him down, determined to send him back to prison for recidivism and breaking parole. Given their history, and everything Javert has done to torment him, he only says, "That is appropriate."

He is led out of the wine shop by the older man, past the barricade and into an empty street. Valjean puts the pistol under his arm and pulls out a knife, which Javert taunts him about, saying that it suits him better. Valjean doesn't say anything. He just closes the distance between them, cutting the rope around Javert's neck, wrists, and feet, and says simply, "You are free."

Javert can hardly believe it. He stands there stupefied and paralyzed, unable to move or think as Valjean tells him his address. If he should survive the upcoming battle, he says, that is where Javert will find him, so that he may arrest him. "Go on."

As if it is that simple. Javert resumes his military-like posture, arms folded across his chest as he turns and begins the slow process of walking away. His mind is already in turmoil, caught somewhere between annoyance and admiration for Valjean. He turns back to him and says, "You irritate me. Kill me instead." Valjean tells him, "Go away."

He does as the older man asks, walking toward the markets as the sound of a pistol goes off somewhere behind him. It's all the proof the young insurgents will need, to know that Valjean has finally killed the spy Javert. )

javert's suicide
clip from the musical
clip from the miniseries

( Several hours and scenes later, Javert finds seated at the writing desk of the police station. With paper in front of him and pen in hand, he writes a note to the prefect of police titled "Some Observations for the Benefit of the Service." These are to be his last words, which not only cover the lapses in police protocol, but also that of the immoral prisoner treatment. He signs his name at the bottom, dating it for the 7th of June, 1832, and leaves it there on the table for his colleagues to find.

Then he returns to the Seine, to the bridge between the Palais de Justice and Notre Dame. Between law and religion, where Javert's mind is currently trapped. Valjean is alive, and it is Javert's duty to go to him and arrest him.

But he finds he cannot. For the first time in his life, he cannot do his job. He cannot send a good man back to prison, a man who saved his life when he should have taken it, who was kind to him when Javert has only been cruel.

A seed of affection takes root inside him, filling his heart with admiration and respect, and he finds it nearly intolerable. His heart has never once felt compassion or love. He has always been alone, and that has never been a problem for him until now. Now, there's nowhere for him to go, no one for him to turn to.

He steps up on the parapet and looks down into the void, into the turbulent, unforgiving waters of the Seine. To jump in at this point would be a death sentence. Javert knows that. As a police officer, he knows how many bodies they have had to fish out of these waters. But that is just as well, because Javert deserves it and more. Resigning from the police force is not going to be enough, not for an infraction like this.

He stares into the river for several long minutes, steeling himself for the cold and the jump. The darkness is nothing at all like Beacon. It's colder, darker, and even more hopeless, and when Javert finally plunges himself into the water, he finds out just how much. There's a burning in his eyes and lungs, and he can feel his body being dragged further and further down by the current. His pain is all-encompassing, struggling to breathe and fight until there's simply no power left in him. )

the aftermath

( When the hallucination breaks, Javert is on his knees in front of the victim, kneeling down with his hands on their shoulders. He doesn't look concerned so much as irritated, shaking them awake as he scowls deeply. )

You fool! What do you think you're doing?

( He's been patrolling the cemetery a lot, keeping an eye out for anyone that might be sniffing about his grave. He doesn't need anyone to see that, the worst and lowest moment of his life. )

[ Beside the grave Nate leaves a small drawing on a scrap of paper, a delicate fleur-de-lis in graphite. ]

⟪ Melisandre leaves him a piece of paper folded into the shape of flame. If he unfolds it, he'll find a prayer written on it in curved, strangely medieval letters. ⟫

EVENT LOG: GRAVES

death, cw: suicide

+1 sketch

(( offering only ))