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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⟪ By the candles she stands, back to the door, praying, and praying, any praying, to find some kind of relief among all the darkness, all the sorrow. It isn't sure, if his voice is the answer, but she was keen to hear it nonetheless. They are both here, living and breathing, in the worst way possible.

She turns to face him at the question, confusion plain on her face. ⟫

A lie?

⟪ She pauses. ⟫

'tis the dragon you speak of, is it not?

[He doesn't realize that he had interrupted her prayers or that he might not be wanted here now. It's only when she's turning to face him that the thought crosses his mind. But there is too much adrenaline in him, too much anger, frustration and fear to keep him still.

It's obvious though she's seen his statue. She must know what it means.]

Aye, the dragon. Your god spoke my name, but was it anything but Snow?

Did your god not even know who I am?

Names are a fickle thing, Jon Snow.

⟪ And a deeply personal one, for her, but then he can't know that. She had spoken of it in Westeros, wielding slaverly like a weapon, many times, but not at the Wall –– at the Wall, it had been crucial to cloak herself in power, and it is what she'd done. So much so that some had called her Stannis' true queen, though of course, they did well to avoid either king or priestess when they did so.

Doesn't mean Melisandre was oblivious. ⟫

Mine own was Lot Seven, for a time. ⟪ She steps closer, reaching up to touch his cheek. Nothing more, just that, her feverish, burning skin to his. ⟫ God does not decide who you are born as. He may guide you, he may grant you blessings, such as the family who loved you. Loves you, still. Names are a temporary thing.

[Once again she caught him off guard with tales of her past. It was true, he couldn't understand what it was like to be a slave. He didn't have as terrible an upbringing as he believed in his earlier years, but even when confronted with her hardships now, it wasn't enough to silence the sense of betrayal he felt.

Names might mean little, but it wasn't simply the name that troubled him, it was no longer knowing who he was.]

I wanted to be a Stark as a boy, I wanted to be Jon Stark, but I was never one and I was never Jon Snow either. I don't know who I am.

[His father...his uncle had lied to him all of these years. For his protection, aye, but never once had he offered some measure of comfort about his mother. She wasn't a whore, she had wanted him, yet he said nothing.]

Everything was a lie.

A lie told to protect you. The three Baratheon brothers could not agree on a thing in their lives, but each one would have seen you killed, had they known.

⟪ This much she has learned, in Westeros. And none of them was fool enough to wait until Jon was a man grown, at that. King's blood is another thing she thinks –– was that what R'hllor had been trying to show her? Was this why Stannis had to die, her own failure to see?

She recalls the agony she felt as the false Mance Rayder had been burned, and that it had been Jon to aim the arrow, to end the suffering – both for the victim of the burning and for herself. It's ever one thing, to give a stranger to the flames. Jon Snow held no love for her, in her world, nor any trust, but still, he'd not been unkind, was not given to cruelties.

And here, it's all the same anyway. ⟫

Who do you want to be?

Even Stannis?

[It's more dry amusement that prompts him to ask that. He knew the answer without being told. He could remember Mance Rayder's face contorting as the flames consumed him, how desperately he tried not to scream or lose what little dignity he had left. Before he could break, Jon had killed him, as much a kingslayer as Jaime Lannister.

And apparently they nearly had more in common as well.

For the first time since learning the truth, his mind drifted to Daenerys. His aunt, the only other blood family he had, save for the Stark children. He shook his head, not ready to fully confront his feelings or see her image in front of his eyes.

There was shame there, because even in recognizing the truth, he still felt lust.]

I don't know anymore. Is there a choice now that we're dead? What's the point?

[That emptiness was returning, made worse by the revelation. He didn't want to feel a void, he wanted to feel something and have a sensation of being alive.]

⟪ Her eyes fall shut at the mention of his name, the heaviness coming back to her shoulders like a tidal wave. There is uncertainty, too, she isn't sure what she is mourning –– the messiah he never was, the king he may have become, the man she'd intimately known for a few years. Guilt, too, at the subject – Jon would have been slain as a babe, but so would Daenerys Targaryen, and while she has never met the girl, she knows of her.

Breaker of Chains. Stannis had not thought slavery to be just, no, but he would not have crossed the sea to free them. Folly it was for her to cross the Narrow Sea, it won't do her much good, she'll be as displaced as Melisandre herself. But if she sees it fast enough, there's a kingdom waiting for her elsewhere, and they love her dearly there. ⟫

The journey is not finished.

⟪ She hopes, prays. Her eyes meet his again, as she steps closer still, the heat of her radiating like that of a fire. At the Wall, the snow had melted around her. ⟫

We will have to make something of his blind world. And you'll make a name for yourself, of this I am certain.

[His eyes are dark and heavy as she approaches. That same familiar pulls stirs in him, remembering how it felt to touch her in his office and feel her heart beat beneath his palm. He could remember the sight of her, bare and confident in her desires. It had been disconcerting at the time, her power outweighing her beauty and the clear deadliness of her wasn't forgotten.

Only now, he isn't afraid. He welcomes that fire and light, needing to feed on something, to find the power inside himself that had been dormant under the weight of fatigue and burden. He had been a king, now he was nothing more than fodder in the war against the dead.

He didn't want to be empty, he didn't want to be and feel nothing.]

First we need to live.

[A gruff, simple statement. They died, but they didn't have to be dead.]

⟪ There is want in his eyes, plain as daylight, in a way it has never been there before. Certainly, he had been younger when she'd last seen him, and granted, she'd not looked his way in quite the manner yet. Times have changed, since, four years for him and a few weeks for her. An eternity, each in their own way, but perhaps this is what death is like.

At any rate, she shifts forward, as if to kiss him, but remembers where she is just before she breaks. ⟫

Will you join me in my chamber for tonight?

⟪ To feel something, anything, she doesn't say it, doesn't think she needs to. It would be safer to go to Rafe –– but then, Rafe is guarding his own grave, and Rafe wants people out of his head. What Melisandre wants, right now, is to leave Westeros. She can't do that alone. ⟫

[He knows that this is a bad idea, but somehow doing the right thing is too exhausting at this point. What did it lead to in the end? What was the point of holding to that suffocating honor now when he was dead? He was numb to so much, the only overwhelming emotion being rage. It needed to be expressed, to be released and let him feel alive.

He leans in, ready for her kiss, accepting it as he never had before, but she is the one to draw back. He could only nod, following her as she lead him towards his room.

No regret and no further thought, giving himself over to a decision he must have made before even coming to the chapel.]

⟪ ➻ here ⟫

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EVENT LOG: GRAVES

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