logsinthenight | 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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[He doesn't have to say much. She's never shared the memory of her father with anyone before, she's never even mentioned him. Aside from Rakan, of course. She thought invoking memories of him would hurt too much. But now, it feels rather comforting.]

He was. Both stern and gentle, wise. He used to tell me stories of our tribes and sing me old songs.

[He wishes he could say the same of his own dad. Not because Wess wasn't gentle, because he certainly wasn't, but the idea of learning old stories of his home was so odd. Before Leder had pointed out that Tazmily had no legends or tales of what happened fifty, a hundred, five hundred years ago, Duster hadn't thought much of that empty space.]

Like what kinds of stories? [Histories that weren't erased.]

[Curious... she never met humans that were interested in Vastayan stories. Crowley doesn't count, he's an oddity and she met him here. But this guy... looks like he could appreciate a nice tale. Perhaps it would sound like a myth or legend to him, but it's fine- he's not from her world after all.]

Stories about how Vastayans came to be. The big catastrophe where humans were almost extinct. The Vastaya, ancient animal spirits, took the humans in to protect them, gave them food, water, shelter, company. Through the ages, the wild magic they respected and lived by started granting them powers. The souls of humans and ancient animals combined into- [she opens her arms, pointing at herself.]

Not a human, but not a full animal either. A chimera, humans call us, survivors of the apocalypse and protectors of the wild. Vastayans is our true name.

Edited 2020-02-21 09:09 (UTC)

[A chimera

Duster jumps at that term - a word to describe experiments in combining every possible animal into something that shouldn't have existed in the first place. Xayah is not that.]

So this end of the world...was it a long time before you were born?

[If the village of Tazmily lasted long enough, would they have legends about Duster, about Lucas' journey, about the first princess of Osohe?]

[Her eyebrow quirks at the reaction- she's not sure what she said, but it seemed to leave some kind of impact on him.]

Yes. Thousand of years. The spirits helped humans survive the worst of it. Half of them remained as they are, the other half turned into Vastaya.

[She crosses her hands, scowling-]

Now, years after the catastrophe, humans had forgotten the fact that the spirits saved them, that the Vastaya are the ones responsible they still breathe. They hunt us down like animals, locks us up in cages, rip our magic away from us. My entire tribe disappeared overnight, with my father, because the greedy humans can't have enough power.

...Oh.

[He doesn't know how to respond to that. He can't think of a time when people on Tazmily caged other creatures. The Pigmasks caged animals and conducted experiments on them, but Xayah would definitely not like being compared to a wild beast.]

I'm...sorry.

[She shakes her head-]

You don't belong to my world, so you have nothing to apologize for.

[Him not belonging to her world is also what's keeping him safe from her going after him. She's always been wary of humans, regardless of where they are and what they did. After years and years of fighting against the hunters and shadow acolytes, the habit to be wary around them just doesn't die.]

But thank you, for bringing me the stone. It was nice... seeing my father like that again.

[For one small, eventful moment, Duster wonders if he’ll find an opal of his father among those scattered in the forest. Would it be a happy memory, maybe of him teaching Duster how to fish? A terrible one...?]

So far, it looks like it’s good memories of the people we’ve lost. I’ve found ones of my friends back home, but there should be more with your dad out there. [Let her have hope that she can see her father whenever she wants.]

[He probably could if he combed around the forest. If he asks her to help him, she'll come with him. Two sets of eyes are better than one (especially if one set also has wings and can get opals from unapproachable places).]

A blessing and a curse. [Reminders of what they left behind, loved ones they miss, in her case- the reasons why she fought as hard as she did.]

I'll keep this one with me all the time. Thank you.

[He smiles for the first time during this conversation.]

It's really nothing.

I'll be out here combing for more. If you want to help...

[That's good! Smiles are good.]

Sure, why not. Who knows what we'll find.

I'll grab some snacks for the spirits if we run into them to distract them. They are always so hungry.

[A wave of a hand.] Sounds good to me.

I'll be out around here first. There's bound to have been some near the greenhouse.

[He opens the door and heads out to the woods. It'll be a lot easier to find these opals with two people and all this light.]

EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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