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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» IN THE DEEP DARK HILLS OF EASTERN KENTUCKY ( DEATH )

[ultimatums]

[ you can watch here if you don't want to read my ramblings. the video includes all the content after 'so you go in', although obviously raylan is in worse shape because he was shot in the chest, not the hip. ]

The only thing you can think with any clarity is that you have to get inside. The rest of them don't matter, the rest of the world doesn't matter, you just have to get inside. It had been one shot, from inside the building, and then a tattering racket of them, Dickie in the car screaming, "Don't shoot!" and Doyle calling, "Ceasefire!"

Whatever they say between each other as Doyle approaches doesn't catch in your brain because you're down, on the ground in the dirt, wetness under the hand on your chest, and then your light is blocked. Doyle cocks his gun and you think This is it, the way you'd think about the weather. Dickie in the car screaming, unscathed again, he should have died, should have been shot, but if it wasn't you who'd killed him then what would be the point? Then he would have died for nothing.

He should have died for what he did to Helen.

Doyle's going to spray your brain matter everywhere. He says, "This bullet's been on its way for twenty years," and then there's a hole in his head, the sound of the shot echoing through the holler, and Dickie screaming again.

He should be dead for what he did to Helen.

The Marshals are coming, the Marshals are here, cars and sirens and Art's voice: "Raylan? You okay?"

There's sweat on your brow as you're standing up. Art's looking at you with concern and you nod, brush it off, shrug your jacket over the wetness that you won't look at, won't think about, not until you get inside. You tell him, "I've been better. It's good to see you, Art." And then, "We got at least two inside. One being Loretta McCready."

So you go in.

Loretta is near-hysterical inside, but the gun she's pointing at Mags is steady. She only starts to seem like a child again when she's crying, fourteen years old and she just misses her daddy. Shooting Mags won't bring him back. Shooting Dickie wouldn't bring Helen back. And Helen, well, she wouldn't have wanted that.

Helen, crucially, doesn't currently want anything.

There's some sense of relief when you get a hand on Loretta's shoulder, to steer her out of the room. When Tim has her gun and she's under Rachel's wing, and she's going, and she's gone, and you can feel the sweat dripping down your forehead and the blood coagulating in your chest, in your body. You tell her, as a courtesy, that her son is dead. Doyle, with a bullet in his head. That her other son is in custody. Dickie, in the car, screaming. Dickie, in the woods, screaming, your gun to his head, he'd been sobbing, "You don't have to do this, Raylan," and in the end you didn't, you didn't, but right now you know you won't leave this house, and maybe you should have.

Mags says, "You like a drink?"

"Apple pie?"

"Ease the pain."

So you sit down with Mags, and you get your drink. Whatever proof she makes her moonshine, it's enough to make you grit your teeth when you swallow, but it does ease the pain. There's no hesitation, no waiting for her to drink first – you're dying, now, you know you are and she knows you are, so what use would she have in poison?

You shake hands, end the feud. The way it should have ended, years ago, when you swung your bat at Dickie's knee and knocked his kneecap clean out. The way it should have ended, years ago. If it had been like that, if it had been different, if you hadn't done that to Dickie and extended an argument in its dying years when you were a kid, then maybe Helen—

Mags' hand around yours is tight, suddenly, a pincer grip. She says, "It was already in the glass. Not in the jar." All you can do is watch. Hold her hand. She has faith, somehow. She'll see her boys again, understand the mystery. You think about your momma, about Helen, about every person you've ever lost. You think about your father, still alive, goddamn him. Whatever's coming next, you won't see them again, you're sure of that. There's no place for you in eternity, and you were always going to die here anyway. You think about your momma. You think about Winona, the baby, your baby, the baby you'll never see. Mags breathes her last and slouches in her seat, and a bubble of blood pops at the corner of your mouth and dribbles over your lip, and you hope it's a girl, and then you're on the boat.