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

[evocation]

[Kyna pulls her foot back, wrinkling her nose, feeling suddenly stupid.]

Sorry, I didn't mean... I wasn't trying to, um...

[She falters, struggling to gather her words again. It isn't unusual for her to screw up like this, even though she's gotten better at this sort of thing.]

I didn't mean to be an asshole. I just don't want you to... Sell yourself short, I guess?

[Does that make sense? She hopes it makes sense.]

[preseance]

No, no, I know.

( he puts his hand atop hers and squeezes gently. )

You weren't bein' an asshole. I'd tell you plain if that's how I took it. It's just, part of what soldierin' means to me, an' it ain't your fault for not knowin'.

( he might call it survivor's guilt if he had cause to know the term. an' it is, really. you live when your buddy dies. someone gets shot or shelled or throws themselves on a goddamn grenade — )

But I know what I did in the war, an' I'm at peace with the differences I made. I don't need to take more credit than's my due.

[evocation]

Okay.

[She turns her hand under his and laces their fingers together. She still thinks maybe he's going easy on her, but she'll take it. Maybe he won't mind if she keeps being nosy about Reggie, instead.]

How did you and Reggie meet?

[preseance]

( that gets a bit of a laugh, rememberin'. he'd been sweepin' the shop floor when reggie came on in, an' he remembers lookin' up an' seein' that smile an' lookin' immediately behind him to see who in the hell it was directed at only to realize it was no one else but him. )

Ah, I apprenticed under a fella named Ezra, learnin' carpentry in New York. Reggie's Ma'd ordered some furniture be made. She was a doctor, an' colored besides so she'd been turned away at a few other places, but Ezra weren't about that. He took on her order. Reggie came to pick everything up when it was finished, an' the two of us got to talkin'. Soon as he found out I didn't know a soul besides Ezra in Brooklyn, he wanted to take me out on the town. We'd hang out at Cafe Society an' listen to the musicians there an' drink Coke an' smoke. Lord, we saw so many folks — Miss Ella Fitzgerald, John Kirby an' his sextet... Hell, Buck Clayton half a dozen times.

( at the time, it'd been like steppin' into a new world of wonder and beauty. there was a lotta ugliness to be had too — cafe society was the first an' probably still the only club in new york that weren't segregated by race, an' more than once they took shit for their acquaintance on the street. but reggie had this way about him, an' a manner of turnin' enemies to friends without them scarce realizin' it was happenin' on account'a him bein' hell an' gone smarter than most of them. )

His folks died in a car accident in '40, an' he an' I moved back to Agathine a spell while their estate got sorted out. Once it was settled, he went to Britain to see his grandparents an' I guess somewhere in there he got tangled up in the War. He never talked about it much, an' he died in '42. Few days before I shipped out on our first operation in Italy.

[evocation]

[Oh boy. Kyna is certainly not well-spoken enough to give lessons on racial sensitivity, but that is... probably not a term she should let him keep using. She gives his hand a gentle little squeeze. Suddenly she is painfully aware that were they back home, Gene would be older than her grandfather, probably.]

Uh... So... People don't really say...

[She clears her throat awkwardly.]

They don't say colored anymore. It's kind of...

[Come on, Kyna. Pick a good word.]

...insensitive?

[preseance]

( he tips his head to one side, considerin'. he appreciates bein' told plain, an' nods acceptance to it. future's about progress, after all, an' lord knows that the language surroundin' all manner of social issues is bound to change. )

There a better word?

( one he can use in its place, at least. )

[evocation]

Just... Whatever they are?

[She wrinkles her nose.]

Like black, or Asian, or... you know.

[Wow, this racial politics lesson sure is going great.]

[preseance]

That changed a lot in your time, then?

( because lordy, that'd be right up there with curin' polio. )

[evocation]

[She laughs a little, awkwardly.]

Oh, yeah. There was a whole movement and everything. Segregation isn't a thing anymore.

[preseance]

( that garners a soft, small 'hm' of noise. )

Army too?

( what a world. he knows the future'll be plagued by much of the same problems as the past. human nature is immutable. but. it's the little things like this that're givin' him hope. )

[evocation]

[She smirks, voice teasing.]

Yeah. There are even girls in the Army now. With like, guns and shit.

[preseance]

( — okay, that gets a laugh. he knows she's pokin' fun at the era, but hell, he does too sometimes. )

Hey, there are plenty of lady officers in the WAC. An' I know more'n'my fair share of 'em on the front lines of the War, too. The Russians even got gals flyin' planes an' workin' as snipers on the Eastern front.

[evocation]

[And, teasing in full swing, she nudges his leg again.]

Damn, that's like... progressive.

[preseance]

( oh don't you start with him, missy. despite the heaviness of their conversation an' all its details an' her now knowin' not only how he died, but the secret that generations of his family have lived an' fell protectin'. he feels lighter. )

Just about, doesn't it? But I'm glad to hear it. Really, I am.

[evocation]

Good.

[And then, still playful, but just a little softer:]

So, were you and Reggie, like... You know...

[preseance]

( the shutdown is near immediate, his expression flickers into careful neutrality an' the language of his body — easy an' open up until this point, shifts to somethin' altogether on-edge. it's one thing to joke about progress, but. he's still very much a man of his time, an' in his time, that manner of implication's somethin' that could see him slapped with a dishonorable discharge or even shot. it'd be a fool who'd deprive their company of a medic for that manner of thing, but. plenty of those in war, an' he an' alex had been so, so careful. even on shared furlough, if they'd been at the same billet they'd leave bars at different times or take different roads to it, an' even then they ain't never had time for more than kisses stolen in the dark.

it takes him an obvious, tangible effort to. uncoil. ease down, breathe. he knows kyna didn't mean anythin' by it, an' if there ain't no segregation an' ladies can serve as front line fighters an' all that other stuff, it stands to reason that men inclined towards men or women inclined towards women wouldn't be much different. he lets out a breath an' some of the tension goes with it, which ain't nothin'. )

No. He weren't about that.

[evocation]

[That's an... interesting way to answer that. He said Reggie wasn't about that, but he didn't say anything about himself.]

Hey, you know it's okay if you are, right? No one's going to think anything of it.

[She hesitates.]

I mean, it's okay if you're not, too. Or if you don't want to talk about it. Or, um... You know.

[preseance]

( this is. not how he was expecting this conversation to go. he coughs a little, ducking his head. lordy, how did they get into this particular conversation? )

I, uh. ( help him. ) I — I reckon I don't much have a preference one way or another.

( porque no los dos? )

[evocation]

[She tilts her head at that, smiling a little.]

Yeah, me neither.

[preseance]

( so this is how the future is, apparently??

gene just. tries for a smile that ain't a small amount of grimace, an' ducks his head. )

We definitely don't talk about that in my day.

[evocation]

[Kyna bursts out laughing.]

Are you gonna blush?

[preseance]

( in a sort of soft, despairing voice, )

I do not blush.

( not. much. )

[evocation]

Bullshit. You're totally the type that blushes.

[preseance]

( lord have mercy on his soul. rip eugene percival hicks, born 1924, died too damn young for this absolute malarkey. )

Ma'am, I am just about certain any capacity I had for blushin' got beat right outta me in Brooklyn but you are welcome to try.

[evocation]

He says, to the girl from Brooklyn. I bet that's what Wash thought, too.