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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[There's nothing unpleasant about this memory. It's set in a room shaped out of a living tree, full of the scents of clean, happy, sleepy babies and steady Arbora who look after them, and Moon, someone Stone clearly cares for deeply. The sounds are all of children playing or protesting in the distance, the chatter of happy teachers tending them, and the breathing of five-day-old infants in their arms.

The conversation is somehow less important than holding his great-great-great grandchildren on the palms of his hands, thinking about the generations before, the generations still to come. Moon worries. That's okay, Moon always worries. Stone will be steady for him. After raising so many of his own babies, he knows how this goes. He can't wait to do it again. The next generation will be the happiest, most-loved of all. There's the comforting feeling that his court, his family, will do just fine, even after he's gone.

If Quentin feels like returning the memory, Stone can be found lounging in full winged form in the village, taking in the closest thing to sunlight he's felt since he died. He takes up pretty much the entire lawn between the cabin cul de sacs, one wing actually spread out over the library roof.]

[Quentin is really just walking around. Looking at the light and trying to not pick up rocks with his bare hands because these are dreams. Memories. Of the people here, and the worlds they came from and his head is brimming with more memories than one timeline already.

But he picks up this one, either by accident or because it looks a little different than the rest.

Once the memory stops, he puts the opal in to the egg crate in his bag with a note on it Stone. Just in case he finds him.

Stone turns out to be the easiest person in the world to find, seeing as how he's sprawled across a pretty large area and Quentin comes to a hard stop at the edge of the lawn]

You look better.

[Stone peers down at him, smiles (without teeth, because his teeth are very big and very sharp in this form) then lifts one hand-- almost as big as Quentin is, tall-- to tap the top of his head with a knuckle, very gently.

Then he shifts back down to his groundling form, so he can talk.]

I feel better, too. Especially when there's actually some kind of light around here.

Yeah. It's kind of weird seeing the whole town and not just a few feet of it at a time.

[It's nice, too. To walk and not have to worry about tripping over things left on the ground, things that are too hard to see in the dark.

It's nice to see faces again, too.

Without the constant low-lighting from the lanterns.]

I get what you meant about holding babies in your hand now. You're huge.

Good to see you're not laughing still. And I can hold babies in my hands like this, too.

[He cups his hands, as if demonstrating, and he's smiling as he does so.]

Raksuran babies are very small. We make them five at a time.

Yeah, I remember you telling me that. Even before I was... I don't even know what that was? The laughing?

[That had been weird. Weird-er. Like anything in this place made any sense, anyway.]

I have something. The rocks? Some of them have memories, or dreams. I'm still not sure which, but. It's not mine and I think maybe it's yours?

[Careful not to touch the rock by pulling his sleeve down over his hand, Quentin holds out the one labelled Stone.]

Well, you weren't the only one, I spotted a few other people with the same problem at different times. All right, let's see what this is, then.

[He collects the little rock and considers the memory with a little grin.]

My great-great-great grandchildren. Yes, that's mine. I remember that, it was only about fifteen or twenty turns ago.

So I heard. Later, and not that you saw, but that I wasn't the only one feeling... off. Yeah, off is a good word for it.

[He's not going to mention the tentacles, though.]

I liked seeing that, it was nice. They looked cute. And lively, I mean, not just that they were alive, because obviously they were, but. Spirited.

Wait until you see them at two years old. Then they can actually run around and hit each other.

[Stone sounds both dry and fond.]

I've had more children than I can even keep straight, now. And more grandchildren and great-grandchildren than I can count. But I still love seeing the new ones.

Yeah, I know.

[Teddy at two had been a terror. Banishing a stick like a sword and hammering it at everything that stood still for long enough for his little legs to carry him there. Thank fuck there was only one.]

I--we-- there was a grandchild? Just before I wasn't there anymore, or. I still don't even know how timelines work, but before the end. There was a grandchild. She was-- perfect.

[Stone leans back a little to squint at Quentin.]

You had a grandchild? Am I misunderstanding human ages...?

[He looks barely old enough to have children of his own, let alone grandchildren.]

Oh no, I'm 26. Or, I think I'm 26, but. There was... a different timeline. I think I died when I was about eighty. I had a son, and he had kids. Shit, I mean, great-grandkid. Great-granddaughter.

[There's really no way to explain the timeline in the past that never really was. About how they lived a whole life in Fillory, 300 years in the past, and then Margo undid it all because of a letter Quentin sent from that timeline so it never happened. They never left.

About still remembering it.

So, he shrugs.]

Time works in mysterious ways sometimes. Where I'm from.

[Tim is in fact weird. Stone recalls a groundling spell that trapped some of his court in a well of slowed time. It's the whole dying thing he's interested in.]

So you died once, came back to be twenty-six again, and then died again to wind up here?

[You might have to explain, Quentin, or at least try. Stone is curious now.]

No wait, that's not how it happened. It was-- so, a few years ago, my friend was offered a quest by the Questing Cock in Fillory. And I, well, I guess I kind of took it over a little bit. But, on this quest, we had to find keys. Seven keys, to unlock the wellspring of all of magic at the end of the world.

[Quentin's hand flail around as he talks, gesturing his words and sentences, and to put emphasis on just the right things.]

The first key was for-- okay, so the first key doesn't matter but once we got to the third key-- no, okay so. The quest came in a book? But the book only showed one key quest at a time, like a story. The story of The Seven Golden Keys and the girl who wanted to find them. And the third key, was the Time Key. The book told us that it had something to do with a mosaic? That the girl had to solve the puzzle at the mosaic, and show the beauty of all life in the tiles on it?

[Except she didn't have to, because it had already been finished by the time she got there. Just like it had been done when Jane Chatwin needed the Key to make her the Watcherwoman in the Fillory books.

Maybe Quentin had naively thought it would be finished for them, too.]

And--and so while we were talking about this quest, a portal opened. In the clock that lead to Fillory. We stepped through and there it was-- the mosaic, except for how we were about 300 years in the past and in Fillory. This was our quest. It wasn't finished when we got there, but we solved it. In the end, and it took us about fifty years.

But... [Quentin's voice goes quieter as he looks out across Beacon.] by the time I had the Key, I didn't need it anymore. I was alone, and someone else came along who needed it more. So, I gave it to her and sent my friend a letter in the future, about where to find the Key in 250 years give or take.

She stopped by before we could walk in to the clock, before we could go back in time to even start the mosaic quest and so all of that never really happened-- but we still remember. That time, in the past. I don't know why.

[Stone enjoys a good story, and someone who gets really into telling it like that is even better. Reminds him of a few of the Arbora back home. He settles back on his heels to listen, looking intent and occasionally amused.]

Well I can't say I understand how any of that works, but it sounds pretty wild. So you lived a whole life that then never really happened, because when you came back it was just like you never left and you hadn't aged... and you still remember aging and having kids and grandkids.

[He shakes his head, impressed by the complexity of it all, at least.]

That has to be confusing.

It was, yeah. Confusing, and yeah... not good. It wasn't good for a while.

[Not that it's much better now. But hey, dealing with shit life throws at him is kind what Quentin does. He rubs his face.]

So, yeah. I might look young, but I remember growing old. Jesus, we got so old by the end. Not as old as you, but you know. Getting there. At least that's one thing I don't have to worry about anymore.

[Stone has to agree, looking wry.]

Being old is pretty awful. Well, this kind of old. You know, my species doesn't actually get the weak, losing weight, tired thing until we're about a year out from actually dying. So a year and a half ago, I was the biggest, strongest Aeriat in the court.

[He misses that.]

You only get a year?

[Quentin smiles, because-- wow, unfair.]

I remember growing old. The aches and pains, how everything just seemed to take forever. How time went faster. How a year seemed to just go by in the blink of an eye, that kind of thing. Just-- sleeping outside on the daybed? It was hell after, oh, I think after we turned fifty? Somewhere around that time, and sleeping outside would just murder my back.

[He stretches, for no other reason than because he can and it's still painless.]

That's one thing I don't miss.

One year of actually being old. We start to fade earlier. I went gray a hundred turns before I actually aged.

[He considers the idea of starting to actively hurt so early-- if Quentin lived into his 90s, and he started hurting at 50... shit, that's so terribly inefficient.]

I still sleep outside sometimes. I'd do it more if there were any decent trees around here. That sounds terrible.

I never went grey, just white. I remember it a little, the hair.

[For... no reason.]

You sleep in trees? Sure, I mean, like in a nest? And yes, it was, so getting to be twenty-six again was... a relief. In a way. To be young again. On the other hand, there's a lot of things that are easier when you're young.

No, in actual trees. A tree. We have something in the forests of the Reaches called mountain trees. One tree can be as big around as....

[He looks around the area, estimating.]

The entire bonfire square and all the buildings around it, all the way to the river on one side and the church on the other. Raksura live inside them, and we make garden platforms on the branches. They're plenty big enough for me to hang upside-down by my tail even inside.

[Shit, he misses the colony tree. Like a lot.]

You're like this huge, dragon-y ewok.

[Quentin says, sounding awed and a little amused. Where ever Stone came from, it sounds amazing and fantasy-like, and like somewhere with a ton of history. Somewhere where fairy tales might come from, except for the whole 'huge dragons' part.]

Sorry, that's just-- wow, I wished I could see it, you know? Just. You make it sound pretty good, like somewhere kind of cool and amazing.

[Stone makes a thoughtful rumble, and digs around in his pockets, then produces another opal.]

Here. This has an outside view of the colony tree in it. Moon and I were out on a platform, and there was another one on a nearby branch with Arbora working on it. You can kind of see the scale of these trees, that way.

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EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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