logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

characters: everyone.
location: the path from downtown beacon to the harbor; all over town.
date/time: february 16-21.
content: the forest spirits send off their friends to join the aurora. memory opals drop from the eerie green lights above.
warnings: n/a.

i had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.

For most of the day on February 16, all of the town's forest spirits can be found along the stretch of road between downtown and the harbor, clearly setting up for, uh, something. They're piling snow onto the pathway, creating a miles long sled trail that starts outside the Landmark Inn and ends at the very end of the harbor's dock. Not only that, but the forest spirits are also not super willing to explain what they're up to! They're busy, you lantern-havers.

By the time evening rolls around, the spirits have set up wooden railings alongside the snowy path, as well as a warming tent, hot chocolate booth, and announcer stand outside of the Landmark. Oh, and a starting banner for the race! It's dogsled time!

Throughout the event, Beacon's downtown and harbor areas will be completely overrun with forest spirits, all there to bear witness to this holiday celebration—this holiday is for them, though, not you weirdos with your naked faces. Point is, none of the spirits will be hostile at this time! They're more interested in interacting with each other than with Beacon's residents, though if pressed, a kind spirit might be willing to explain what's going on:

The aurora arrives in Beacon for about a week each year, and the forest spirits believe it to be "friends in the sky". The lights are old friends of theirs, it seems! And each night while the aurora shines above the town, the forest spirits send off a handful of friends to join the aurora! The spirits ready to join the aurora build sleds of their own and assemble mighty sled teams, sometimes comprised of dog spirits and sometimes... other stuff. Then, when the aurora is at its peak in the wee hours of the night, the sled teams will ride off one by one, racing down the snow-covered path all the way down to the harbor, where they'll finally rocket off the dock and out over the lake, picking up more and more speed as each team gallops wildly over the water before arcing up into the sky. Once the spirits are barely a speck, they'll hit the aurora and burst into a shower of light. Beautiful stuff!

See, since the aurora is made of light, forest spirits launched into it are killed on impact! Isn't that wonderful! The forest spirits seem to think so! What is death to a dead thing!

All of this information can be learned through handwaved/played-led interactions with the forest spirits during the event. They'll all be focused on saying goodbye to their friends and cheering them on as they stream through the sky, but they're happy to welcome lantern-havers to join in the celebrations. The hot chocolate is free and only tastes a little bit like mud, so. Enjoy!

•••
For the entire duration of the event, the aurora will dance in beautiful silence overhead, lighting up the whole town with its eerie green glow. Every so often, handfuls of opals will rain down like meteorites from the lights above, and these opals each contain the memory of someone currently in Beacon! They can be found all over town, landing on paths and atop buildings and maybe even rocketing straight through your ceiling to crash into your living room. Perhaps a forest spirit decided to hide some shiny rocks in your cereal box or under your pillow... Better hope the Postmaster General doesn't find your opals before you do, though. That spirits sure does love their rocks. Point is, who knows where the opals might turn up?

On that note, if you signed up for a random event, we'll be RNGing characters to receive these random events throughout the event! The event may happen in response to a toplevel on this event log, or we might turn up in your IC inbox... 👀 These events will be entirely random, meaning we could dole out any number of them at any time, so it'll be a fun surprise for all of us.

If you missed signups and would still like to toss your name in the ring, go right ahead! Signups will remain open throughout the event, though we can't promise everyone who signs up will get something.

And finally... Each day, we'll post a list of the forest spirits joining the aurora! What, did you want to know in advance? The forest spirits have never been a particularly organized bunch, so they're winging this—which means more surprises for you. :)

Enjoy the races and the lights and the opals, residents of Beacon, and remember: WHAT IS DEATH TO A DEAD THING!

QUICKNAV
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It wasn't like that. [Beat] I didn't get a sword until I was at least seven.

[That's not much better, but Jason doesn't really get that.]

Eventually. Things were pretty crazy for awhile.

[Her eyes are locked on him for every single word of that. She feels as though she's holding her breath the entire time, too-- because it's so rare Rosalind doesn't have any idea what's to happen next. She's a genius, it comes with the territory. She doesn't know if he'll walk out; if he'll think her sinful, disgusting; if he'll tell others in his anger or horror.

He does none of those things. By some slim chance, by some miracle, he says precisely the perfect thing, and she doesn't know if that's better or not. Better, because it's what she wants; worse in that she doesn't know how to handle it.]

He did. Make me happy, I mean. Very much so.

[More than she'd ever thought possible. More than she'd ever dreamed another person could inspire in her.]

. . . I would tell you more of him, now that you know the truth. If you would like to hear it.

[It's not quite the question she wants to ask, but one thing at a time.]

I was thinking of asking for a book, but if one of us should sit on the egg, I'm not stopping them.

For a few (possibly disconcerting) moments, all Riku does is sort of stare, his eyes wide in either surprise or realization (truthfully, it's both). Because he's so private, he doesn't tend to pry into the pasts of others, he takes the friendship on the basis of what he knows about them at present.

Daylight just wants to know him better and Riku can't fault him that when he's just as curious about Day. Maybe he's lost sight of that, between learning to live with what he's lost and waiting for the next disaster to strike, while trying to be as prepared for it as possible.

"There's some stuff I can't talk about yet, but... yeah, I'd like that," Riku says, his expression going soft and fond. "Only if you're gonna share, too. Gets pretty awkward just talking about myself," he jokes.

After considering it for a moment, he offers, "My birthday's March seventh. Sora's was the twenty-eighth of the same month, so, for a few weeks, I was two years apart instead of one. Used to really rub it in when we were kids," his expression is momentarily a little pinched. He pushes his hand through his hair, and asks, "When's yours?"

"Painful doesn't seem like the right word for it." He hesitates, because so far he's been good about avoiding talking about it, but she saw this memory and so it seems like its as good a time as any. "She broke up with me recently," although technically since he'd been here awhile, Jason adds, "well a little before I wound up here."

So maybe it is a little painful. But he still has such fond memories of her and especially this moment. This is probably what people mean by bittersweet.

He returns his attention to the drawing. He imagines, like with any hobby, that everyone draws for different reasons. He likes Naminé's reason for drawing, though it makes his own feel a bit silly. "I just started drawing because it gave me something to focus on during lessons...but I did start to use it to make plans for the future. I've been drawing buildings and temples more recently than I have living people." Which might explain a bit about why his duck doesn't look quite right.

He looks so...

Happy.

Riku isn't so naive as to think this means Quentin's "all better" -- he might not have the names for what happens to people, like clinical depression or complicated grief, but he understands enough to know that sometimes things are a little bit brighter, and doesn't necessarily mean that Quentin's shadow isn't still clinging to his back.

"Wh," he starts to say, with an embarrassed chuckle, "You recognize the king? What, did you run into him?" Riku automatically reaches for the stone, though with his gloves on, it won't activate its effects upon contact, "You gonna tell me what you saw, or should I look for myself?"

[ ~~You. Me. CR meme tomorrow. We Battle.~~

It's enough for Sora to come back to the path, shoes tied and hands in his pockets, and besides the still red nose and eyes, he looks as fresh as a daisy. Despite his doubts about what he deserves or how he should feel or, like, whatever, he looks infinitely lighter for all of this.

At Jason's words, Sora opens his mouth, probably to follow up with his usual protests, that he needs to be stronger or better or at the very least he needs to try and accepting who he is. But then he pauses, looking at Jason seriously. ]

I do. I do have to be sorry about this. [ He sniffs, looks at the snow, then back up at Jason firmly. ] I keep thinking about how I've told you so much, but not about anything that's important. And then I keep pushing you away and giving you crap whenever you try to do something nice and, like, not only does it come out of the blue, I don't tell you what's up, or even give you a way to like... feel good about the fact that you try. I don't even think about that. It's just... been about me.

[ He frowns a little, but not in a disapproving way. He's just figured out a very wrong thing he's been doing, and he'd like to make it right. The frown is for how serious this is. ] You've been... really patient. Thank you.

Not at all, I don't even remember it.

[Just the aftermath of a whole lot of dead people.]

Which does not absolve me of blame, but it's difficult to atone for what you don't know.

Sora takes in a deep breath and holds it, looking up at the aurora. "Like, did they have a goal? Or were just, uh, a traveling camp? I guess?" He shakes his head. "Guess I wonder why anyone would wanna outlive their friends, is all. Must be an important reason."

Which is a super grim thing to say, and he winces internally as he says it... but hey, if not now and here, then where?

[The underhanded manipulation of their meeting is totally lost on Kuai. He saw only two people reuniting after a long while and not knowing what to say to each other. Perhaps they had fought long ago, something was off about it, but being someone unused to subterfuge he often can't spot it.]

I see.

Did whatever you were planning work? The reason for making your presence known to him.

[He might not have been able to grasp what was going on fully, but he understood enough to know there was a purpose for being there beyond a reunion between two brothers.]

New Jersey's got good pizza. But don't tell anyone from New York I said that, [ Ellever jokes, grinning. She's never been good at picking favorites and squints up at the beautiful sky, thinking. It does give her an idea, as she watches the bands of color dance overhead. ]

From outside the US I liked Scotland the best. We didn't even find anything. [ She has to sigh — a tiny sigh, disappointed — as she says it. ] I dug up a bunch of information about Nessie. You know Nessie, right? I didn't have high hopes because of all the confirmed fraud photos, but... I wanted her to be real.

[ What she would have done with the information, she doesn't know. Just log it away under the TRUE category and leave it at that, leave Nessie to have her loch in peace. ]

We did a lot of trekking around, a lot of trawling the loch, a bunch of tests, nothing. But the scenery was so beautiful. It drizzled the whole time. I understand why someone would think Nessie was real. The whole place felt timeless.

Enormous, yeah. I mean, it's the size of a whole island. Bet it's the biggest living creature in the world.

[And they have some very large ones. Such as:]

I also know for a fact there's an island of giants, called Elbaf. Never been there either, but I know giants are something like twenty times my height, so I guess that's why it's not so hard for me to believe there's an island-sized elephant.

"Heh. Maybe so," Jason admits. He knows that his memories only get stranger or, as Soldat put it, more fantastical from there. "It was worth a shot though I think...so you're welcome," he adds. He had wanted to be helpful after all.

He sits down across the table, spreading out his paper and concentrating on that instead of anything else.

It's nice to have something like this to relax, to be almost meditative. And the fact there's someone else there makes him feel less like he's hiding away and ignoring everything. If they bury their emotions together, then it doesn't count right?

Right.

So he sits there, diligently and patiently following everything that Bucky shows him. Kuai won't be winning any prizes for his origami skills, but it does wonders for his mental health, which is what really matters.

[~~Yus~~

Jason blinks in surprise, but listen patiently as Sora justifies his need for an apology.]

We're friends. [And he's not sure what to add to that, since that says a lot in his mind. But he adds.] I don't feel like you've been giving me crap or pushing me away. [Sora was nothing compared to Nico.] Not to mention, even if you were, I think given the circumstances it's not necessarily wrong.

[Jason considers something.]

Is that why you're always trying to get me to talk about myself? So you don't feel like it's just about you? [Cause he didn't feel that way at all, but he was wanting to understand what Sora was going through right now.]

"I understand," he says, nodding. "And I agree that the lack of information is our biggest weakness right now. If what you did was specific to a weakness of hers, then you're right, maybe it isn't relevant. But - maybe it's worth keeping in mind, too. What exactly was needed to reduce her to pieces?"

He probably should've been more specific with his questioning, but it was still a broadly helpful answer. Dismantling a very large creature is, perhaps, not that unlike taking down an organization from within - both are only going to happen if you know exactly where to strike. His job had always been to gather that information, while the others did the actual striking, so he's entirely in agreement with what Jason says.

He's not entirely sure, but he has a guess. "They often went after monsters and beasts of legend. Either protecting humans or just because Artemis is the kind of goddess that likes to hunt."

He gets a better idea of what answer Sora is after though, he wants to know why Thalia might have left everyone she knew for these Hunters. "I think each Hunter has their own reason. It's a pretty serious sacrifice after all. Thalia...she did it to avoid being part of a prophecy. I don't remember the exact prophecy, Thalia and Percy both told me about parts of it, but it had something to do with a demigod of the Big Three reaching 16 and making a choice that would either save or destroy Olympus. Thalia didn't want to have to make that choice and she was lucky enough to have a third option since she was a girl. She took the oath and never turned 16."

it is disgustingly cheesy, so yeah.

( He considers the question for a moment, his head bowed in silent contemplation. He's no longer looking at the aurora, but at the way his hands fiddle with the handle of his lantern, broken in one spot. A piece of it had chipped off during his fall, but he doesn't pay any mind to that. Rosalind's statement leaves him whirling, and he glances back up at her, alarmed and bewildered. What prostitute? He can think of none notable enough to mention. )

Who are you talking about?

[Did it work, ultimately? He has to actually think on that. So much of what he had been trying to do for those long years was erased in a moment by Vergo. But enough got back to Sengoku, to Tsuru who hunted his brother ruthlessly with the intel on his location.

Besides, yes. He did infiltrate the group for years. Clearly, it worked and he's being as hard on himself as he always does. He levels his eyes with Kuai's, then nods slowly.]

My brother is a criminal. He made me his second-in-command when I returned to his side. I'd say it worked better than I had expected.

[She frowns back at him, more uncertain than displeased.]

The-- the woman. The one you arrested. You told me . . .

[Hmm. The uncertainty leaves her face, and now she looks at him carefully, watching him to see how he reacts.]

Her name was Fantine. She had fought with a man, and you'd come upon them. You assumed her guilty because of what she was, and tried to arrest her, but Valjean-- still the mayor at that point-- intervened. And then . . . I'm not certain how, I was more interested in you than them, but Valjean took her child after she died, and raised it as his own.

You've no memory of this?

Vanitas can, in fact, read, though it's never something he's thought to dwell on. While his emotional understanding of the world is horribly altered, he was a full person, once upon a time. That person had never been the best at anything, always just short of recognition and always alone, but within Vanitas are the building blocks of a whole individual.

But he's never really stopped to sit and read before. It was never something that he was encouraged to do. His life was training, and sleeping, and training some more. Everything was listlessly staring into the blue sky, the night sky, the long smudge of a horizon. Even here, he's never gone out of his way to seek it out. It just never occurred to him.

He arches up an eyebrow, canting his head. "You want to give me more information about your life." It's a question, phrased as an incredulous statement. They both know that Vanitas will routinely use this information to his cruel advantage. He's done it to Quentin before. Vanitas is a little surprised he's offering it up so freely.

[Why are people so adamant against contributing to the safe running of the community?? Yes, there is no rule demanding that she help, but he feels that's just common decency.]

Very well. I will take the responsibility of picking up all of the opals and returning them. Where do you live?

[And then Jason answers in all seriousness. Masaomi's smile just about bursts out the sides of his face.]

Can I introduce you to a couple more major troopers? I think you'd get along.

[ Sora snickers at that. ] Your secret's safe with me. [ So he can't tell Bucky that Elle likes one New Jersey thing more than New York? It's okay! He will have the satisfaction forever.

Nessie! I knew it, I was gonna ask you about her. [ Once Sora was capable of critical thought, he'd found Nessie somewhere in the corner of Skyler's memories. That story always stuck out to him, not because of the mystery or anything, but because he'd always wondered if she'd felt lonely out there. Especially if she was a dinosaur? Last of her kind. ]

If she's there... I hope she's kind of a private lady. The type who doesn't want to be found. [ There are people out there like that. ] Maybe she's there, you know? And just kinda shy. She could be the one making it seem so mysterious. That could be her way of reaching out to people and making them happy. [ It's... very optimistic, but Sora wants to think positively about these things! ] Maybe you made a friend and you just didn't know.

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EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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