EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

[inthenightmods]

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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Comments

for riku

[mind_blown]

“Why did you take me on this mission? It was clear you could’ve mopped them up alone.”

Jason’s voice is confused. It’s quiet, other than his question breaking the night air, as the sand swirls around their vehicle as they travel.

“Because I need your help, Jason,” Bruce responds vacantly, his voice starting to raise Jason’s suspicions, and he glances at him. It’s impossible to read his expression, given his helmet.

“Where are we going?” But his tone gives him away. He’s suspicious, and starting to grow angry at the lack of forthrightness from Bruce.

“Just over the next rise of dunes.”

“Where are we, Bruce?”

“Ethiopia.”

Jason feels the car slowing down as they start to move into a stop, as they cross the threshold Bruce had said. And the heat rises in his voice. How stupid does Bruce think he is?

“I know we’re in Ethiopia. I can read a GPS. Where in Ethiopia?”

The car stops, and Bruce steps out before he answer’s Jason’s question. But Jason sits in stunned silence as he realizes the truth of what’s just happened. As he steps out of the car, a growing pit of dread in his stomach, as Bruce starts to recount what he already knows.

He pulls his helmet off as Bruce starts to talk.

“The Magdala Valley…” A beat. “This is where you died.”

Jason thinks he’s going to be sick, and he’s so stunned that it gives Bruce the space to continue, when really he should have just punched him in the face then and there.

“If I close my eyes, I can still smell the cordite in the air around the ruined warehouse... on that bright, horrible day… your body already cold to the touch.”

Jason finds his voice. His voice is filled with all the venom and anger that had rendered him speechless just a moment before.

“You lied to me. This wasn’t about taking down those mercenaries.”

He gestures angrily at the ruins in front of them, the pitch in his voice raising to near hysterics.

“You wanted to bring me here, to the worst place in the world… And here I was starting to believe all your crap about trust and faith—“

Bruce interrupts him, unfazed by his growing anger. And it makes Jason angrier.

“Those killers were the mission, but this was… something else… Something I couldn’t ignore. I thought bringing you here could jog your memory—“

He pauses, an immense sadness weighing on his voice.

“Maybe retrieve a detail buried deep in your subconscious that could help piece together how you came back to life so I—“

“— Could apply it to getting Damian back.” Of course it was about Damian. It was always gonna be about him. But he’s so sick with anger, that he can only play at sympathizing. “Yeah, I get it.”

He didn’t get it. He was too busy trying to fight off every horrible memory that came with this place.

“Did it ever occur to you I might like keeping whatever the hell happened to me buried deep? If you cared about me, you wouldn’t want me to dredge up the one thing I’ve been trying to forget.”

His voice raises and he tosses his helmet to the ground, so close to just punching the source of his problems. The person who tricked him and brought him back to this place.

“I don’t want to remember the most horrific day of my life, all right? You may like wallowing in your tragedies, Bruce, but I’m done looking back.”

[equinoctials]

This is the first time Riku ever has cause to draw a definitive connection between Jason and Bruce. Prior to grasping this stone, Riku only could surmise one by the way he saw himself in Jason's efforts to protect Bruce. At a distance. From the shadows, the way Riku had tried to protect Sora, both by pushing him away and by trying to pave the path for him from his place in the dark.

He doesn't recognize ideas like Ethiopia except through the lens of Jay's experiences, he knows it's a place. That it's dry, like Vanitas's wasteland, the Keyblade Graveyard, like Agrabah and its endless oceans of sand. Magdala Valley.

Where you died. That could shock anyone. Why wouldn't it? Riku, who has died twice, who has never sampled resurrection at the church, still finds the concept of coming back shrouded in mystery, a taboo, a forbidden act that invites disaster, like leaping recklessly through time.
Yeah, I get it. That definitely strikes a chord with Riku, who one could say was first tested by his jealousy. Long after he's put away the opal, the sense of... of betrayal threads through him, it sits too close to how he feels whenever he--

But this isn't about Riku.

It's about Jason and... a version of Bruce. Even if his eyes don't totally recognize him, his heart does, and what doesn't make him immediately attribute one to the other is-- it's the existence of people like Eleven, or Eliot, or Skyler, people who to varying degrees are like someone else but for various reasons aren't exactly the same as he's met before.

He's reminded, most of all, of the damaged trust Riku had with his father.
Why?
Bruce is so much younger than that man in Jason's memory...

In the end, he sends a text, determined to return this memory, not to Bruce, but to Jason.
It's Riku. I have something that I think belongs to you.