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!

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It wasn't necessary, but confirmation does help. "Noted," he responds and walks over to the edge of the lake, peering downward. The ice won't be able to hold his weight, but it should not be so deep as to cause difficulties in exiting.

"I believe there is a bucket in one of the storage cabins. I can scoop it out from the lake without touching it."

"That's not a bad idea. Mind grabbing it? If it's not too far away."

It's cool, he can wait. The sight of the aurora overhead is so incredibly beautiful that he's happy to just be outside, even in the cold.

Without rushing, which incurs the risk of tripping over the terrain, a spirit, or the fallen stones, he enters the shack he recalls having marked in his notes to have such supplies, and - as a pleasant surprise - finds that the organization of supples had not been tampered. Apparently the spirits were too busy with their festivities to add little difficulties to his week.

Minimus takes one of the smaller metal buckets, his chrome lantern in his other hand, and returns to the beach.

“Keep watch over this,” and he places his lantern next to Rosinante and steps of the edge of the shore. He sinks a few feet, which is nothing to him much like the temperature of the icy water. Still, it’s dangerous for his circuitry to remain for long, so with careful guidance, he scoops the large offending stone along with a few pebbles.

He lifts the heavy weight with one arm with ease and hoists into onto land. Then, certain that it’s stable, he pulls himself out of the water.

"Hey, thanks." That's super helpful, and he spends a moment scraping away pebbles with his boot to try and provide a semi-flat surface well away from the lantern that the rock can't get lost in. "Here, dump it out there."

Since he surely doesn't even want to reach in and grab it. Ice cold lake water? It probably wouldn't be that harmful, it's just a single bucketful and not the lake itself, but why bother when this ought to be simpler.

Assuming that's done, though, he stoops to pick up the stone and see what it is. To his surprise, the memory unfolds into one distinctly non-human. His own senses are different, he feels differently when at one point he shifts his weight, leaning against the person beside him who is certainly more like Daylight than any human. actually, even more like Minimus, isn't he? In fact, when the Ambus library is brought up, the owner of this memory is confirmed, for that can't be coincidence.

The view out over the desert shows a vast, shocking amount of land. It's almost the opposite of the view he would have seen once as a very small child had he ever been allowed near the cliffside, for below that would have been an endless sea rather than all this sand.

He doesn't have the context for what's going on in their discussion, but it resonates. Ideas of lost nobility and respect are certainly ones he's familiar with. When he comes out of it, he blinks slowly, focuses on retaining the information as he stares out blankly at the water, and then turns toward Minimus.

"I think... this must be yours," he says, offering it. "I don't know much about your world or your people, but there aren't many like you here."

Minimus' optics flash briefly - an approximation for a blink. A coincidence that Rosinante found one belonging to him. Was it a scene from pre-war Cybertron? Likely he found a scene where he walked in the streets, a scene unfamiliar to organics, one of metal men, silver buildings, and a shining road. It could have likely have been one of the war, judging by how he stares out into the water. Autobots and Decepticons on the battlefield, Minimus among the other minesweepers. Or it could have been from the perspective of Ultra Magnus during the war.

"That should be a safe assumption, unless it belongs to Daylight." He reaches out for the opal and holds it tightly, preparing himself for just another of the everyday memories that had melded into other similar memories or lost due to information creep.

It's a memory he rare recalls, but not due to its unimportance. This was not their last trip to the outer regions. Not even the last time they went together. It wasn't a life changing event.

But things were different afterwards.

Minimus shakes his head when he returns to the present. He unscrews a small knob at the side of his hip, pulling out a subspace compartment to deposit said opal, far from his hands.

"Yes, I...remember that." He hopes Rosinante returns the favor and won't share the information with everyone else. No one would treat him seriously with rumors of his supposed sentimentality.

"Do you mind if I ask - who was that?"

Someone Minimus is very close to, or was once, perhaps. He doesn't know the guy well at all and if his question is declined he won't be hurt. It's hard to share personal things with someone you know at a distance but haven't really spoken to, obviously - hard for Rosinante anyway. But he's interested. The lives of the people here are so different from his own and he can't help but wonder a little bit about who they were back in their own homes.

It was a simple answer. It didn't have to be so difficult to find the will to speak his name. A large hurdle in his vocal box to overcome.

"Dominus Ambus."

How strange, to explain who he was. Everyone forged and constructed before the war knew of him. Those that were created during the earlier half had heard of him or read his works. The exceptions would have been latter-wave MTOs, taught only the basics of functioning and warfare, and those like Cyclonus and Tailgate who were cut off from Cybertron before he came online.

"My sparkbrother, and one of Cybertron's most influential thinkers."

"I don't know the first thing about your world," he admits. "So a sparkbrother, is that someone who was born, or created, at the same time as you? Or does it come later?"

Must be the former, right? If they share a name. But maybe in their culture, part of the name comes later in life, like a title.

"We were both born from the same Spark on a sparkfield. I've heard that organics would describe this phenomenon as a 'twins', thought my brother and I had the rare change to be nearly identical in our appearance." There were no other Cybertronians in that memory. If there were, he could have mentioned that many had a small number of matching characteristics, while some had nothing in common apart from their relative sizes. How lucky that he could be mistaken for his brother in the dark.

"No one is related if they were born at different times. They could be adopted into a House, but are not considered sparkbrothers. They may choose to define a relationship as one between brothers, but not many become that close early in their lives."

"All right. So more like biological family than, say, brothers in arms," he says with a nod. "Sorry you had to leave him behind."

Since, you know. Presumably twins are especially close. He and his own brother have been compared so many times as looking alike, and for a time they certainly had been very close, but that was back when they were kids and didn't have much of anyone else to depend on. They couldn't be more unlike each other, otherwise.

Not technically a biological family, but Minimus supposes that's the nearest equivalent in human terms. Organic families have their own complex structure.

"We were already separated when the Great War began. I would say that he left first, suddenly disappearing like that." His bites his lip - the truth of what happened to Dominus is so recent that death was more easily acceptable in this terrible planet.

"What happened?" he asks after a brief, hesitant pause.

Not everyone here is willing to openly share their past - obviously, for he's one of the least prone to doing so. But he's here to listen to those who will. They have interesting stories and he's curious, especially about someone like Minimus who he hasn't had the opportunity to really get to know yet. This seems like a good time to try.

The details are unknown. In another split timeline, Minimus would know exactly how this came to be and come to more horrifying realizations on his fate. Yet even now, he knows what happened in the end: torture.

"We were in the middle of a civil war. Disappearances were not unusual. Dominus was different because he was known. Cybertronians were familiar with his work, so his disappearance so happened to garner some attention."

"I see." What a shame, losing someone in a war and not knowing what happened. Rosinante has been at least fortunate in that most of his fellow Marines who were lost in one battle or another at least had an explicit cause. There's little mystery when cannons start firing out at sea.

"It must be hard. At least you have good memories of him."

Minimus makes a small, sure sound of agreement. These memories were millions of years old, but they existed. He did enjoy his time spent with his brother before they drifted apart. Before Minimus found it too tiring to be around his own brother.

"Memories are all we have of many of those we knew. I hope you find better memories of your own past." One where he was not tasked with taking down his brother's organization.

"Thanks, I suppose. I don't really need stones for that, though. Wish they weren't just scattered around all of town."

If a memory like the one Minimus found is out there, what others might people stumble across? There are an abundance he would never want anyone to know. This one is slightly more tolerable than some, but even so it exposes too much. At least he can hope they won't hold much meaning or interest to most people here. He can recover them, and they will be forgotten by those who had found them. People tend to focus more on themselves than on others.

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EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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