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

after death

[itsaname]

[ A tall, muscular man stands with his hands in his pockets, gray eyes watching whoever just left an offering at his grave. His typically solemn expression has shifted slightly. He doesn't appear angry, wary, surprised, or even relieved. Instead, he looks faintly disappointed. ]

I'm too late to stop you.

[ It's not a question. ]

[evulsed]

[ He didn't get this man's name when they met the first time, over the canned peaches that Vanitas had walked away from. So convinced of his own understanding of things, of the reality of his own situation, shrugging off the help he'd been offered. If he'd known, he might not have stopped at this grave at all. The embarrassment of figuratively throwing it in his face, when the doctor had proven to him that the solution had been as simple as food and drink was more than Vanitas was willing to deal with.

He can still feel the bite of the rope and the pounding of pain, the distended ache of loneliness. It feeds into him, pools in his darkness, adding fuel to the fire Vanitas has been tending with each memorial he visits, a high he can't stop chasing. When he turns his eyes on the man, luminous and too-bright, he doesn't look troubled or scared, the way someone else his age probably should.

Instead, his gaze carves the man like he's seeing him for the first time. ]

What are you?

[itsaname]

[ It's not a normal stare. But then, this isn't a normal teenager.

What had tugged at the edge of Shadow's senses when they first met solidifies now. He looks at the young man, gray eyes meeting bright gold, and it's like staring into a black hole. There's no sign of light. No sign of joy, or hope, or serenity, or love. There's pain, and there's rage, and there's sorrow. And there's something else, too. Another figure with no form at all that both is and isn't the stranger; a figure made of curling darkness and red eyes.

Something inside Shadow cries out for him to step back, as though he's about to tip over the edge into an abyss. Shadow doesn't move. Perhaps it's foolish of him. But then, he hasn't felt real fear since he died on the tree. ]

I don't know. [ It's quiet, and it's honest. ] I know what my parents were. I don't know about me.

[ Then, as he continues to look into both gold and red eyes: ]

You're not human.

[ There's no judgment in his tone, nor does Shadow sound accusatory. But again, it's not a question. ]

[evulsed]

[ It gives Vanitas a fierce stab of self satisfaction to hear that. He remembers how lost and confused he'd felt in the beginning, not know who or what he was, or why he existed. But these days, he knows— and this man, older than him in ways that Vanitas gets the impression he can't understand, doesn't. But even so, disappointment swiftly follow. It isn't compassion, or camaraderie, but more the sense of a lost opportunity.

Regardless, he's easily distracted by the observation, by the attention being redirected to Vanitas himself. Instead of getting defensive, something in his expression lights up, wicked and gleeful. ]

Very good. You're smarter than you look.

[itsaname]

[ Other people might take that as an insult. It's certainly aimed to be one. But it's something that Shadow has heard many, many times before. It's something that he even encouraged once upon a time. It was easier to let people think of him as big and stupid; that way, they never expected anything more than an ability to move heavy objects.

Laura was the first to expect more from him. And instead of getting angry, Shadow's lips quirk up slightly in the ghost of a smile. ]

I've heard that before.

[ The smile fades quickly. Shadow takes a moment to look again at the darkness within the young man. Maybe he's a god. Maybe he's not. Either way, Shadow does something that might be very, very stupid: he takes a step forward, and he holds out his hand for the teenager to shake. ]

I'm Shadow.

[evulsed]

[ There are others from his world that are able to suss out, at first glance, where someone falls on the spectrum of light and darkness. Vanitas doesn't have that gift. The void of his own existence demands that he fill it with anything he can get his hands on, and his teachings dictate that chief among them are the most negative of feelings. Grief, and anger, and jealousy— all of them are emotions Vanitas spills out into the universe in order to eat back up in an endless cycle of anguish.

But by his very nature, he craves that other half of him. He wants the Light to ease his pain. Even if by now, he's decided it's something he'll never have, it doesn't stamp out the wanting.

Nobody has ever offered him their hand before, just like nobody has taken that first step toward him, knowing full well what he is. A little thrill of excitement goes through him, and while Vanitas can only equate it to the anticipation of a fight, in actuality it's as simple as genuine surprise. Without an ounce of hesitancy, he reaches out to take Shadow's hand.

Everyone, in some form another, has Light in them. They are by their very nature, opposite to Vanitas. The pure of heart shine the brightest: people like Ventus, or Kairi. Vanitas has been so close to them that he's felt the way they can throw all the shadows back. Then there are people like Sora, or Riku, who choose it so steadfastly that it doesn't matter how insidious the darkness is, they only soak it up and make it their own, like a sunrise or a sunset.

Vanitas doesn't know how he could have possibly missed it before.

Maybe it's because it isn't the same as the light Vanitas is familiar with. Maybe it's that somehow, that great well of despair festers inside of Shadow, the one Vanitas had cleaved to so hungrily in the vision.

Their palms meet and Vanitas' expression changes immediately. The darkness in him surges, turning covetously toward Shadow. Vanitas' pupils blow and his grip tightens, reflexive and crushing, on Shadow's hand. The desire to put his unoccupied fist right into Shadow's sternum and take that light-filled heart for his own is almost overwhelming. ]