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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[ he takes a plenty big gulp of his drink, himself, as she works up to the question -- so, you know, nothing's stopping her from doing the same!! ]

Isn't it obvious? There wasn't time for that. We had an apocalypse to stop, and three days to do it.

And you don't think your presence would be useful?

[She glances at him. There goes that first glass, let's just slam em back one by one.]

That your death was the most strategic move?

[ SLAMMING THEM BACK, that's the way team science rolls! ]

I wasn't trying to die, Jesus. [ like, pls. that said, he doesn't sound particularly upset about it ] They couldn't get distracted, worrying about me. It was hard enough getting them this far.

And your death wouldn't distract them.

[Gently probing.]

Your expertise, your memories, all that you knew . . . that was worth the price of distraction.

That was worth finding our guy, yes.

[ sidestepping the question of how his siblings might be taking losing him -- again ]

They have a name, a face, hell, even his contact information. They know what's going to happen, when, and who causes it. Even got some of a motive, which I wasn't expecting.

[ shrugs! ]

If that isn't a head start, I don't know what is.

[Hmm.]

So you think they're set. That yes, you died, but on the other hand, at least your mission is complete, or near complete.

[Listen. It isn't that she thinks he let himself succumb on purpose, exactly, but-- well. Decades and decades living by yourself, with no human contact . . . she's shocked he never once took a rope and decided to end it all. But maybe the mere hope that he might somehow reach his siblings and fix things was enough to keep him going. And if that hope was fulfilled, if he'd worked hard enough to let them carry on his legacy, well . . .

Perhaps he hadn't gotten shot intentionally. But there are choices to be made, and perhaps, even subconsciously, Five had decided that it might just be easier to not be saved.

Hm.

All that being said: she isn't so stupid as to say that just yet. He'll deny it. Of course he will.]

Well, then. I suppose you can rest in peace, can't you?

Which was assigned which number? And more importantly: why do they all have alternate names?

Sure, something like that.

[ with irony. rest in peace, as if any of them can rest in peace in a place like this. but he can quell the fear that even all of this wasn't enough to save them -- that not only his death, but his life, were meaningless -- well enough. ]

You saw Diego and Allison. Two and three, respectively. And before you ask -- there's also Luther, Number One, Klaus, Number Four, and Vanya, Seven. Ben was Six, but he died before even I did. And those of us that wanted real names got them from our mom.

[It's like Christmas: a sudden rush of information unprompted and not bargained for, dropped on her so easily. She'd be a fool to expect it to happen again, but what a lovely gift on such an awful day.]

I see.

[Another pause-- and then, deciding to pump as much information as long as she can:]

You were famous, then? All se--

[Wait. She frowns, her eyes flickering down. There'd been--]

Six. All six of you. Which action figure wasn't there?

[ vanya. his ordinary, unpowered sister. always left out of the umbrella academy, of the limelight, of pretty much everything. people had barely known she existed until she wrote her book, but the price was what tenuous relationship she had with the rest of his siblings.

he says, ]

The Umbrella Academy. That's what we were called. [ then, ] You know, this is a lot of questions, with not a lot of information in return. Maybe I oughta pay your headstone a visit.

[She glances over sharply at that, something extra in her gaze and movement. I beg your pardon, that's what that gesture says, and she stares down at him for a few seconds. Assess the seriousness of his gaze, and then raises an eyebrow.]

Oh, Mr. Five, I do hope that wasn't meant as a threat.

[She drains her glass and gets to her feet. Beckons a finger, hop-to.]

Come along.

I wouldn't dream of threatening you.

[ challenging, though? absolutely. which is why he also swallows whatever had been left in his glass, and moves to follow rosalind. alrigHT, LET'S GO ]

[It's a simple grave. Much more simple than you'd expect Rosalind to have, frankly, but there it is. There's two candles (everything comes in twos for her), one burnt down and the other standing tall. There's only one token there so far, a drawing of a chemistry set that's more whimsical than realistic.]

Go on.

[Do it.]

[ he's brought pale candlesticks from the store with him, pulls one of his blazer pocket and lays it at her grave. and watches. he doesn't make a show of it, keeps his expression blank throughout the whole experience despite the intensity of the memory -- and it is intense, rosalind's emotions burning through with a fire that belies her usual controlled demeanor.

he watches, and he's quiet, and doesn't speak until a full beat after the memory ends. ]

Who was that?

[What a question. What is Robert? Oh, he's so many things. He's everything, frankly. From the instant they'd made contact, that one breathless, shocking night, her life had been changed. She'd gone from an independent creature to one side of a coin, a duo that would never, could never be shattered. He is-- was-- is her reason for waking in the morning, the guiding light of her life. Her joy, her grief, the focus of all her affections and exasperations. Her lover, her husband in everything but name, the source of all her motivations . . . oh, how could he not be? He is everything she is and more, kinder and more empathetic and more human, soft words and quiet assurances at the end of the day.

She loves him so much. She's loved him from the moment they'd met, and that had only grown the more time they spent together. They were never supposed to be parted and yet, impossibly, here she is.]

Robert.

[He looks so very much like Rosalind. Her twin, really, which is why she looks down at him and says:]

My intellectual equal, to begin with. Did you not sense anything from our deaths?

I sensed a lot of things from your deaths.

[ he says, which is another way of saying, that rosalind was sure feeling a lot at the time of her death. it's not a particularly judgy comment, any more than five is naturally judgy, as a rule. ]

He came from another dimension.

He did, yes. When he was twenty-two or so. It nearly killed him, and it would have, if I was less competent.

[She stares at the two candles for a few moments, frowning faintly. Then, much more smoothly:]

The mind isn't made to be forcibly put in another universe. It can drive you mad, if you're not careful. At best, you'll suffer delusions for a great deal of time.

So why'd he do it? [ then: ] No. Why'd you do it?

[ those are some fucking dangers to making a trip like that, and while he can imagine doing it himself, subjecting someone else to it is something else. ]

How'd you know about him, if he was in another universe?

It was a mutually agreed upon venture. I hardly twisted his arm into it.

[She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with the summer-tinged air, before exhaling slowly. Thinking of these things takes on a new meaning now, and it isn't that she's about to burst into tears, but it takes a moment.]

We'd been working on it since we were sixteen or so. That was when I'd come up with my initial research: that of atomic suspension via light waves. [That is to say: she can make things float, because fuck gravity.] I tested out the theories multiple times, and eventually, it worked, but--

[She smiles.]

Strange. I'd leave my experiment suspended over the evening, and wake to find it turned off. Or the opposite, over and over.

And on the other side, Robert grew ever more frustrated that he, too, would find his experiment in disarray. Like two people toying with switches for one lightbulb-- it took us quite a while to understand.

But once we had . . . well. You can make a crude morse code out of anything that can turn on and off.

[ he's quiet a minute, turning this over in his mind.

finally: ]

I get it now. You're him, and he's you. Same person, different universes.

[Despite the day, despite her grief, despite this strange little competition they have, fierce and sharp and prickly, despite all of that-- Rosalind laughs. It's short and sharp, more pleased than anything cruel.]

You're the first to figure that out in nearly two decades.

[Of course he is.]

Not surprising.

[ of course he is. ]

Doesn't sound like you had much other intelligent company, besides him. [ then, ] So you fell in love with each other. That tracks.

[ fell in love with....yourself.....that's so weirdly easy to see for you, rosalind ]

You'll keep that particular fact to yourself.

[It's sharp and swift and defensive, her tone a whiplash, like the crack of thunder after the sunshine. Her face is closed off again, her eyes so terribly cold as she stares down at him-- but can she be blamed?

It wasn't just a secret at home. It was the secret. It was a secret so awful that they'd never dreamed of revealing it. They'd spent ages perfecting how they were to treat one another in public, how they ought to act, what tones they could use, no smiles, no inside jokes, no intimacy, no touching, nothing but sterile coldness.

In England, maybe, they could have gotten away with it. Nobody would look twice at two people who were ostensibly siblings living together. But in Columbia . . . well. A few people knew the truth, didn't they? And their methods of punishment were far deadlier than a public disgrace.

She'd thought about it, once. A few weeks after the 1904 raffle. What would happen if they were discovered? Robert would be killed, she'd concluded. Or, no, perhaps not. Just locked away. Kept tortured and tormented, stripped and starved and hurt, but still alive, just as a reminder for Rosalind to be good. And Rosalind herself . . . perhaps she'd go to Fink. She has no doubt he'd like that. He'd always been obsessed with the two of them, dogging at their heels, always stepping in too close, hand lingering on hips, against shoulders, breath hot and his gaze so calculating, she'd hated him, she'd loathed him--

So yes. She probably would have been given to Fink, if not the two of them outright humiliated and killed in their joke of a raffle.]

[ her reaction is immediate, razor-sharp. she's aware, then, how people would see it; what they'd say, what they'd do. he gives her a long, level glare, mostly to show he's not cowed.

then he shrugs. ]

If you think I give enough of a damn about your memories to gossip about them, you're wrong.

[She stares at him for a few seconds, determining the honesty in his gaze. Whether or not she finds him the sort who would lie about such a thing, or if he truly won't tell.]

How saccharine.

[A beat, and it feels like an exhale, slow and steady. Not relaxing, per se, but at least not that sudden tension of before.]

But you do give a damn, I think. We wouldn't be having this conversation if you didn't. You would have left ages ago. So ask your questions, if you have them.

Edited (i wasn't DONE) 2019-07-25 03:30 (UTC)

[ ruining people in this way wasn't often in his purview with the commission, though not never. they preferred the clean, efficient kills, as did he.

he'd say there's no point or value to it here, but he just. wouldn't. ]

Was that machine the one you've told me about?

EVENT LOG: GRAVES

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