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
comms	\|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm going to take my hands away now, alright? The big reveal, [ peter says, half a grin pulling at the corners of his lips. it's a view he's seen countless times before and it never quite manages to stop being breathtaking. it only makes sense that he'd share it with her. there's a breath of a pause and peter glances down. it's so funny to think that he'd been scared of heights once upon a time.

he hums. it's a contemplative, teasing noise, then— ] No, I don't think you're ready.

[ I'm ready! I'm totally ready! the woman — mj says. he can feel her eyelashes fluttering against his gloves, and he shifts his pinky fingers slightly to allow a sliver of light to pass through. ]

You say you're ready, but you're not... [ the teasing tone remains. he thinks mj must have an inkling — the air is different up here: it's colder, windier, and the noise of the city below is distant enough that it's hard to believe they're in manhattan without seeing it.

(speaking of—) ] But after I went to trouble of getting us up here, [ he continues, slyly, before whipping his hands away from her face and dropping them to her shoulders to make sure she doesn't fall. ] —We're going to have to work together to get down. [ he finishes with a laugh. he thinks his words have got lost with the sharp inhale of breath mj takes as she takes in the view.

oh my god, peter! she exclaims, and he can't help but feel a little smug. it's just spider-man things, you know? he doesn't say that—

peter, this view— she says, it's— thank you for this, she finishes, cupping his face in her hand and pulling his cheek towards her lips.

(yep, there's that smug feeling again—.) the corners of his lips pull even further upwards into a grin and he tries to stay quiet, tries not to say anything, tries to just enjoy the moment, but then mj pulls away from him and leans forward. she inhales again, sharply, and there's a pause before she exhales loudly and audibly—

man!

and he laughs, again. ] There are brief and fleeting moments where my life is totally awesome, yes. [ he acknowledges, hands sliding from her shoulders down her back and resting on her hips.

she extends a hand and runs it through her hair, brushing her fringe up and away from her face and there's a fleeting thought that maybe he should have brought a hair tie.

"seriously, tiger! this is the greatest view of the city ever! it's all spread out down there, you know? so tiny and perfect, it looks like an entire world of possibility just waiting for us."

it's not the grandest moment — as far as these things go, it's quite a small moment: how many buildings and rooftops has peter taken mj to before? he's lost count, but each time it's like they find something new to love about their life together and the city.

he wishes he could take her out for expensive dinners, to fancy shows and to extravagant events, but he can't. what he can do is this, and he thinks that as long as they have these moments, their life is as perfect as he needs it to be. ]

Edited 2020-02-16 22:35 (UTC)

[This time he's ready, and Quentin picks the opal up with almost steady hands.

And is not disappointed. He's in a dream of some kind and it's not his own. He's never been that happy about heights, but there's something about the whole scene. When it plays out and loops around to start over and it makes Quentin's heart ache.

At least he's pretty sure who this is about and he heads to the Invincible to knock on Peter's door.]

Hey? You in there?

[ by now, quentin’s voice is familiar and peter doesn’t need to look through the peep hole in the door or even to open it to know who it is. ordinarily, he thinks that he’d be happier to hear quentin asking if he’s in there, but this time, he’s not sure that he is — he knows what the opals do and whilst he’s aware it could be worse, it’s not a reality he’s thrilled by.

(he supposes quentin could be visiting for any reason, and if he’s not— well, it’s better than the graves, at least. better than visions of their own deaths.

hopefully. )

gwen’s still staying on his couch and truthfully, he’s never been more grateful for the company: sure, jason knows more than anyone here about him, but he doesn’t know him in the way that gwen knows him simply by virtue of shared experiences and a shared history.

he answers the door with a rolled up blanket in one hand, a potentially convenient distraction from any conversations he doesn’t want to have. ]

—Hey, Quentin. [ a beat and a twitch of his lips. ] My hermiting’s a work in progress but yeah, I’m in here.

You're-- wait, what?

[Because it's only when Peter actually opens the door, and maybe Quentin really hadn't expected him to, but there he is. And he's holding a blanket?

That's-- what is that?

And then it hits him-- what can he, Quentin, say right now? I think I touched a rock and dreamed of you? There's really no good way to phrase that, that isn't going to sound vaguely weird and kind of stalker-ish.

So.

Quentin clears his throat and just--]

Did you see the lights outside?

Hermit-ing. To hermit. A habit favoured a hermit, sometimes known as an eremite... [ peter answers, waving his free hand distractedly, a touch awkwardly. quentin clears his throat and asks if peter's seen the lights, and peter thinks — no, hopes more than thinks — that maybe that's why quentin's here after all.

just to talk about the lights.

he can do that.

his body posture relaxes and he looks, reflexively, over his shoulder towards the window of his room. ] Yeah. [ a breath of a pause; a look back at quentin. ] I've never seen anything like it, not in person.

Me neither.

[About the lights.

Not about hermits, because there were a lot of really strange people in Fillory and Mayakovsky wasn't really all that great either. And he was a hermit. Not by choice, but still.]

So. Uh, so I found a dream outside and it has you in it. And a woman. With red hair. And I don't even know why I'd dream about that, because it's really not-- I don't-- okay, so. But I found a rock and I think the rocks have dreams in them. Other people's dreams. Because I found a few and you're only in one of them.

[Jesus Christ, he sounds like a crazy person, but just pulling the rock out seems-- wrong. What if Peter touches it and it explodes or something.]

[ "and a woman with red hair", quentin says, and peter looks startled at first, then unsure and then, finally— like he doesn't know what to think. ] MJ, [ he half-whispers, half-mumbles the name, all on autopilot. he runs a hand through his hair and looks away from quentin, down at the blanket in his other hand.

(he should put it down.)

he turns away from quentin and leaves the door slightly ajar, an unspoken invitation for quentin to enter. he replays quentin's words in his mind: I found a dream outside, and he thinks that it could have been worse. he has dreams and nightmares about mj all the time, dream implies that it was pleasant, at least—.

peter coughs and dumps the rolled-up blanket back down on the sofa he'd picked it up from, and then sits down next to it. he inhales, then forces his lips into a quick smile. ] If you hadn't said woman, I'd have thought you were talking about my lawyer. [ beat. ] He's a strangely attractive redhead... [ and not so much peter's lawyer as spider-man's, but that's a matter of semantics. ]

Yeah. [Whispered, but still M.J. That's what the dream said, that's what Peter said in this dream. While overlooking the city, from somewhere way up high, with the wind throwing... M.J.'s hair back over her shoulder in pale, red waves.]

That's what it said. M.J. And you were in it. You were showing her something, something beautiful and--

[Quentin stops himself, and he pulls his shirt down over his hands and pulls out the opal, showing it to Peter.]

You told me about her. In the church? When... when Eliot died. You told me about her. She seems nice.

I— [ he starts and then he catches himself, expression pulling into a brief, bemused frown.

he'd mentioned the wedding, hadn't he? or the total failure of. and then he'd mentioned gwen, but he hadn't mentioned names. did quentin think mj was dead? he doesn't think he'd been very clear about it, which had been fine at the time, because he didn't think the matter of names was going to end up at all relevant. he didn't think the specifics of who he'd imagined marrying and who he'd end up proposing to would matter at any point.

and on the one hand, he's glad he hadn't mentioned names, because now gwen's here and boy, would that be a story and a half to try and explain. "alternate version of my dead girlfriend, yes. ...yes, it's a little bit weird but don't worry, they're not similar enough that it causes issues, also age gaps aren't really—."

(he takes the opal then, and oh. then. or that? he's not sure. he remembers it — it was before he'd made one of the worst decisions of his life, before he'd taken his mask off on national tv and told the world that peter parker was spider-man. before aunt may had been shot and before he'd had to plead with doctor strange to help.

before everything went wrong.

sometimes he can't believe it's taken this long for things to start feeling right again.)

"she's not dead, by the way." is what he half thinks of saying, but instead what he manages is: ] Oh. [ a longer pause, then punctuated by a smile, quick and fond and wistful whilst quentin's words register: she seems nice. ] Yeah. She's one of the best people I've ever met. [ another breath of a pause, and peter splays his hands. then, he shifts his weight and seems momentarily unsure of what he wants to say next. ]

You know, [ he admits, ] I've tried not to talk about her too much to anyone in Beacon — because if I talk about her, I have to think about the fact that I'm not at home and I don't know what's happening.

[ a beat and peter huffs a breath that's almost a laugh. ] And I know how it sounds: oh, yeah, I've totally got a girlfriend. You wouldn't know her, she lives in another universe.

[Quentin quirks a small smile, because--dude, this is a valid explanation. Margo once had to explain that her boyfriend was a fish with attachment issues and lycanthropy and for most of a semester, Quentin's girlfriend really had been in another world. They kept missing each other, going from earth to Fillory and back.

That's not counting the time he had to kill her, and she ended up living like a Shadeless Niffin in the tattoo on his back, constantly screaming in his head to let her go.

So. None of this sounds weird.]

I get that. I don't really talk about the ones I left behind either. I don't think any of us do.

[Except for Eliot, who Quentin had probably talked about too much, in his grief-and-wine soaked bender and wow, isn't that going to be a conversation to look forward to if Eliot ever finds out.

Quentin just shrugs and rakes his hair out of his face.]

What ever it was, it was nice. It looked nice.

You'd like her. [ he says, in the tone of voice that says of course you'd like her. everyone likes her, how could someone not? and then he takes a breath, the corners of his lips quirk and he laughs again. ] Do you want to know the really ridiculous part? Not the bit where we're currently stuck in what's probably a pocket dimension masquerading as the afterlife and she's on Earth, but—. [ beat. ] I was almost stupid enough to think I was too good to meet her. My aunt and her aunt tried to get us to meet for ages, and I kept— [ he waves a hand ], blowing her off.

My aunt's the most incredible woman I've ever met, but I thought that any woman she thought was the right one for me would be, I don't know — dull. Not that there's anything wrong with that — my definition of interesting is listening to an audiobook on magnetic fields, but somehow I managed to think that my aunt didn't know me at all.

[ he pauses again and then his gaze drops. he feels, suddenly, like he knows more about quentin than quentin knows about him. sure, some of that was thanks to circumstances — thanks to quentin's string of unbelievably awful luck in beacon and his propensity, almost, for being an open book.

peter thinks that he tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, but he's aware, too, that he's cagier about a lot of things than he really means to be. he knows it's unfair, and he knows that it can be more than frustrating. he tends to get called out on it more at home than he does here, but that's probably because no-one knows him enough here to call him out on it.

then, he thinks that maybe quentin thinks that mj is gwen, because he'd told quentin more about gwen than he had mj, because somehow that was easier.

(geez.)

the loss was harder, because gwen was dead and there was no getting away from that, whilst they still might get home and he'll be home with mj, but talking about gwen was easier. gwen was, ostensibly, his past and he wanted so much for mj to be his present and his future.

he skips past the what of the memory to instead say— ]

I did tell you about her in the church, but she's—. [ he admits as he spreads his hands and seems to find them incredibly fascinating for a moment. ] She said no the first time I proposed. Then she said yes and I left her at the altar. [ he waves a hand. it's not a dismissive gesture because there's nothing dismissive about that, but it takes him a second to add: ] There'd been a reason, but it wasn't — you know. It's complicated.

But that— [ he gestures at the opal ], was before. [ beat. ] We fixed things a little while before I ended up here.

[It's hard to know just what kind of face to make, because Peter gets through a lot of emotions in a short amount of time. It's about lost love and about the woman in the dream.

It's about family and it's about how Peter, maybe, sees himself. And Quentin gets that, about feeling too good. Not to a person, not someone interesting and he's never been set up in his life. Probably because his dad knows even fewer people than Quentin does, and because Quentin's mom is... was. Too busy with her wife to really pay much attention to Quentin unless he was breaking things.

But he gets the feeling of looking at other people and thinking them beneath him.

Quentin, who could do advanced math in fourth grade, who was fluid in Klingon and Elfish by 12 and who was forever and always the smartest person in the room?

Yeah, he gets that feeling. And the feeling of being so utterly wrong it's kind of painfully embarrassing.]

She's... the one you miss. And really, it's always complicated. Eliot, he-- told me no, too. So, I get it.

[And Quentin grins, lips twitching up in a smile.]

Hey, magnet fields are cool.

Yeah. [ it's weird, hearing it come from someone else. he's not really said it because it didn't need saying — it just is. peter parker misses mary jane watson, fact of life. ] But at the same time, I think I'm lucky, you know? Because I don't know what I'd do if she was here.

[ he stops, just for a second, gaze flickering back to quentin and he thinks of eliot, thinks of how important they are to each other. ] I think I'd lose it. [ a beat and the corners of peter's lips twist, just a little. he's thought about it, time and time again — every time the ferry arrives at the shore, he feels a pit of dread in his stomach and he wonders what if this time is the time that mj walks off that ferry.

he thinks he's gotten a glimpse of that answer with gwen, but it's just that: a glimpse.

it's a moment before he adds anything to that, because quentin has eliot here. he had him and he lost him and he has him again, and peter's seen what that had done to him, and peter's not sure if he'd find having mj here at all would be worse than losing her here. ] I don't have the answer and for once in my life, I'm actually okay with that. You — with Eliot, here? I don't know how you do it.

[ the easy answer is "because he has to", peter supposes, but that doesn't make it easy.

but back to the magnetic fields— ] —Oh, sure, but do you also think magnetic fields have the potential to be romantic? Because I did at 22.

You wouldn't.

[Quentin says that with more certainty than he feels, but still. Peter wouldn't lose it. He'd do what every last one of them had been force to through circumstance and bad luck, and the knowledge that people you care deeply about, people you love will die and there's nothing you can do about it.]

Maybe you'd understand why I sometimes want to set the world on fire? Not, you know, literally [yes, literally] but. You'd find a way to deal with it, because you don't get a choice not to.

[He shrugs, how does he do it? Maybe it's the force of habit, when it comes down to it. Because this wasn't the first time he'd seen Eliot die. This wasn't even close to the first time he'd lost someone he loved so deeply that losing them made his heart feel like a raw and open wound for months.] I don't get a choice either. He's-- he was here and then he wasn't and now. Now he's back.

[Not the same as before, no. This Eliot never pulled a gun and tried to kill a monster so Quentin wouldn't spend eternity in a dark hole at the end of the world, a babysitter to before-mentioned monster so it wouldn't try to escape in to the world.

This Eliot never did that, and this Eliot was never possessed by the Monster. Doesn't have blood on his hands, well--not as much and not as innocent. And he doesn't remember Quentin dying to save him either, so maybe it's a good trade-off in the end.]

No, never. But I did learn sleight of hand and magic tricks to impress a girl. Not magic-magic, but you know. Street magic, card tricks and disappearing coins.

[ there are a whole host of responses on the tip of peter's tongue, the primary of which is: you don't know that. he knows how he'd reacted when ben had been killed; he knows how he'd reacted when gwen had died. he knows how he'd reacted when he thought may was going to die.

none of the reactions were anything that he'd describe as approaching good. maybe not even healthy. but admitting as much is veering a little too close to uncomfortable conversational topics, and peter's already done a degree of sharing.

there's a momentary silence then, one where peter's eyebrows pull together and his lips twitch and then he laughs. sleight of hand, really? he'd always been too distracted by chemistry sets and physics books to give much thought to magic, although that hadn't been due to any lack of trying on ben's part.

(that, and getting him to go to a mets game for the first time.) ]

There is a lot I want to say to that, but given my own history at attempting to impress anyone, I think I'm legally obligated to refrain from commenting.

[ a pause. ]

—Did you have a stage name? And a hat and bow tie?

I didn't preform as a magician. I just learned the tricks to it, to counting cards, making the coin seem like it wasn't even there. It's all just insane amounts of practice and dexterous fingers.

[Quentin had had time, so much time, on his hands. It's not as if he went to parties or anywhere else for that matter. And even though he loved the Fillory books, even he had his limits on how many times in a row he could re-read them.

And so, magic tricks. To impress Julia, who loved magic almost as much as Quentin did. Or she did until puberty hit her hard and she found that there could be more to life than drawing maps of a fictional fairy tale world and watching Quentin make a coin disappear.]

It didn't work, by the way. She wasn't all that impressed by it and it's a horrible way to start a conversation. Hey, do you wanna see a magic trick is just another way to make sure people don't talk to you for the rest of the night.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

—quentin

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject