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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Not everyone is a secretive weirdo like you, Rosinante. And some people have trouble seeing small things close up. It's an old people (and aerial predator) thing.

He looks surprised at Rosinante producing one for him, though. "Huh. Well, thanks." He rears his head back a little, tilting it so that he can look at it through his good eye, then holds out a hand. "I hope it wasn't too bad."

The opal dropping onto his palm brings it all back clearly, and he blinks a few times, then smiles. "Azure. I haven't thought about that in turns." And, because it seems appropriate, he pulls his his sleeves to show Rosinante the consort's bracelet high up on his forearm-- he's lost a lot of mass there, since his youth. It's the same bracelet from the memory.

"You still have it," he says, as a small smile manages to show itself. "It really is nice. So that's... like your equivalent of marriage, right?"

Sort of? He knows there's more to it from what he's heard. Stone's society is pretty different from what's common in most human kingdoms, but of course it would be since he's not human. There's really no comparing it to anything he knows, actually, but that's the beauty of differences between cultures and species.

"I kept all my jewelry from when I was a young, stupid consort," Stone says, but fondly, as if talking about a favorite nephew or something, rather than himself. "I just stashed most of it around the court, because what did I need with jewelry at my age? This was just the only piece I wanted to die with." He traces the delicately rendered coils with a finger, then pulls his shirt and coat sleeves back down.

"A consort being chosen by a queen isn't exactly like marriage, the way I've seen most groundling cultures do it," he explains. "Consorts and queens stay paired, and it's a permanent bond-- I'd never take another queen after Azure. But consorts are encouraged to spread our bloodlines around to the Arbora as much as possible, as well. I had four clutches with Azure, and three more with the Arbora. And later in life, Azure and I had a favorite warrior we shared between us, but warriors are infertile, so no babies there." Which is normally a good thing, but Growl, a surprisingly soft-spoken older warrior, would have made a great father.

"Yeah, that's what I was imagining. Not just the two of you exclusively, but you always had each other."

Not a scenario he could ever imagine himself in, all that... multiple people stuff, but he's human and Stone isn't and so he's not exactly troubled that another species' culture does things differently. It sounds like it works for them.

"You had a lot of children, too. I know you mentioned that before but I didn't realize how many. Did you get to know them well?" Is that a weird question to ask? With clutches of eggs in a communal system maybe they end up raised by other people. He sure doesn't know.

Ironically, Raksura have live birth! Just... five at a time. Very small babies. "Most of them. The royal clutches in particular-- the ones likely to have future consorts and queens in them-- those were important for me to have a hand in." Stone rolls his shoulders in something like a shrug. If he'd had spines at the moment, it would have been a resettling motion. "Besides, I like taking care of the babies. It's one of the consort's duties I was actually good at. I'm quick at swatting down trouble-makers, but I never wanted the responsibility of being first consort, and I'm terrible at diplomacy. Babies are good, though."

"Huh. Sounds like chaos," he says with a chuckle. "Human kids are enough of a handful, and they don't have wings."

But it also sounds kind of nice. A gentle, pleasant sort of life. That's the sort of thing he wants for most people in his world and it seems far rarer than it ought to be. Peaceful kingdoms do exist, but the bulk are plagued with problems. It's strange to imagine living a life of peace and prosperity, focused on conversation and raising children.

"It helps that we have hordes of Arbora who do most of the caretaking, while us Aeriat-- the ones with wings-- while we eat our weight in meat and sleep a lot," Stone chuckles. "But since consorts aren't really supposed to fight or get into trouble, we're set on the babies often enough to help keep us busy. I take it humans don't do the communal family thing?" A lot of groundling cultures don't, but some do.

"Depends on the humans," he answers with a shrug. "I can't speak for the whole species. Every island is a little different. Some places might do that. Some places, kids get sent off to school or to learn crafts and don't see their parents for a couple years. I've been through villages where you have three or four generations under one roof. And that's just humans, but I'd guess longlegs and snake-necks and three-eyes might have just as much variation."

Then again, maybe not. The other near-human races aren't quite as numerous, so maybe they're less diverse in their customs. The only ones he typically sees are ones who left their home islands and joined the Marines anyway so they're already different from the rest of their people.

Stone looks delighted at the names of the (presumably) other species on Rosinate's world. Reminds him of home, because "groundling", "sealing", "treeling", and "swampling" are almost equally descriptive. "I have to ask, did the humans name those people, or did they name themselves?"

"You know, I'm not sure," he answers, frowning to himself as he gives it a few more seconds of thought. "We've called them that, and they've referred to themselves the same way, for all of known history. So I don't know who came up with it first. Those ones and a few others are the closest to humans out of all the races back home, just with a few obvious differences."

Of course, known history is sort of a short period of time. The downside of losing a century of knowledge and having some of the previous historical records lost or destroyed in the process - the collateral cultural damage comes up in unexpected ways sometimes.

"The differences I'm guessing they're named for," Stone says dryly. "While all the different peoples where I come from have their own cultural names, it's common to lump people together based on where they live. It's why I call you humans groundlings, you live on the ground, instead of in the sea or sky, or in a tree or a swamp. Are snake-necks and three-eyes like humans in culture, too, or just appearance?"

"I'm sure there are differences I'm not aware of," he admits. "The few I've met came to live with humans for their various reasons, so they probably don't maintain all of the traditions they might on their home islands. I know snakenecks and longlegs both value the length of those body parts, though - the longer the better. Longlegs dress to show their legs off, and snakenecks wear lots of necklaces, or have tattoos done, to make their necks a work of art."

Just a few examples. It's a big subject and he's no anthropologist, he just knows a mix of what he's been told and what little he's seen while in the Marines - or the very rare occasions he ran across any of these people in the North Blue later. Probably some of what he knows might even be exaggerated, or outright wrong, he realizes. It's too big a world for one person to see and really get to know all of, sadly.

And Stone isn't remotely an anthropologist, just well-traveled, and fond of comparing cultures (shit, maybe if he ever wrote it all down, he could be his species' verison of an anthropologist, not that he has any idea what that word even means). At the very least, he does take in the information about Rosinante's world with definite interest. "You've never been to any of their territories?" he guesses.

"No," he confirms. "Never had a reason to. I think they're mostly found in the Grand Line, which is an equatorial island belt I just never had much work in."

Well, other than the places he did have work in, but Marineford is right at the edge of the whole region, as is the Sabaody Archipelago, and between those islands and the whole of the North Blue he was kept plenty occupied.

"I would've liked to see more. Not now, I guess," he says with a shrug.

"That is one thing about passing on at the end of one's life," Stone allows. "Particularly a life as long as mine. I don't have many regrets about things I didn't do." There's really not much it would be possible to do in the Three Worlds that Stone didn't do. He shakes his head, looking amused. "Of course, it also means I'm not nearly as useful here as I could be. You should have seen me even ten years earlier."

"Younger and stronger, huh?" He smiles as he shrugs. "I'm glad we have you around to keep the rest of us in check."

He really is the community grandfather, or one of them, anyway. And it matters. The portal, however it works, opts too often for young people. To their credit a lot of them have more experience than he expects for people their age, but they all - and he includes himself in this - can benefit from the wisdom of someone who lived a much longer life and saw all it had to offer.

Stone chuckles and gives Rosinante's elbow a pat. "I'm sure I don't do that much. Most of you kids don't listen to your elders, anyway. And I can't even knock you groundlings down to prove a point like I could a stupid warrior."

"You could, but some of them would take it the wrong way," he says with a chuckle. Or they'd just get trampled. So, yeah, better not, but the mental image is a funny one.

"Anyway, it's still good to have your point of view around here. Age aside, people from different worlds, people who aren't humans, it's all valuable to have."

"Nice to be appreciated." Stone was absolutely appreciated in his home court-- even if he was also so familiar that making fun of him was still a thing that happened-- but there's nothing that stops him from enjoying it here, too. "Just don't let me get too arrogant about it, or anything."

"Ha. I'll make sure of it," he agrees. Not that he expects he'll need to hold Stone to it, but especially in light of what happened to him during those lantern problems, he appreciates the spirit of the request.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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