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!

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Comments

[pearlstrings]

[Bruce is not there to meet him, but he isn't far either. This isn't a choice so much as it is an inevitability. He isn't going to go running from Bonfire Square and draw even more attention for his trouble- so he chooses to leave the jar and it's contents tucked into a safe corner, where it won't be at the mercy of the wind even if it were strong enough to send the little thing tumbling.

The trouble is that he doesn't want to go home, and that he doesn't want to linger about in Beacon proper- where he could theoretically be subject to all kinds of small talk about the stones, about the aurora, about this world. So he makes his way to the post office instead and scales the wall. He settles on the rooftop there low enough to avoid drawing the eye and isn't sure, in the end, if he expected the reply that comes or not.

Bruce looks at his tablet, closes his eyes. And then he sends-]

I'll ask Rastus.

[webshoots]

Thank you.

[ he doesn't clarify if means the t-shirt — which he's sure bruce won't actually ask about — or the return of the opal. it is the latter: bruce could have kept it, although peter's not sure why he'd even want to; he could have left it somewhere else entirely and not informed peter; or he could have come to give it to peter and forced them into an interaction face-to-face.

the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks that that would perhaps be as equally uncomfortable for the both of them.

he wonders if bruce has any questions. it's unsettling, to know that someone's seen him at a— not his lowest point. that had been in the days after ben had died. in the days after gwen had died. after ben and kaine. in the days after his and mj's wedding was supposed to have taken place; and in the days — eternity — after may had been shot.

(he'd had a lot of low points.)

but it's still not his best look.

it's not a memory he cared to revisit very often. he had, countless times. he'd wondered, more than that, if there was something he could have done then to change things. it had felt, for so long, that their lives just repeated the same scenario over and over: they were together and they were happy; and then something happened and they weren't mary jane would leave — understandably — for la, for her career. it hurt but it was only fair. it wasn't fair to keep her in new york when she deserved to do better. to have better.

and then she'd come back and they'd fall into the same cycle of peter and mary jane watson, with spider-man as the elephant in the room. the ugly step-sister who kept on trying to ruin things.

it had taken peter a long time to admit that he couldn't do what he did, day-in and day-out, without mj. she was his rock and—

yeah, that was absolutely unfair on her at times.

at least she's not here, but boy does he have a lot of apologising to do when he gets home.

if he gets home.

(he's so lucky to have had her in his life.)

he thinks of making a joke — another one. it's exhausting here in beacon: spider-man is his way of destressing, of dealing with the emotions and thoughts and feelings he otherwise doesn't really know how to process. it's how he feels like he makes a difference, even if it's something as small as helping out a kid with his math homework to make sure he knows he's worth something and that he doesn't need to fall in with the wrong crowd.

beacon is neverending, relentless, unchanging and peter doesn't think he's ever spent this much time out of the mask since before he got bitten.

maybe he could acknowledge the issue, maybe he could just—

what would he say?
"sorry you had to experience an example of the absolute mess I consistently manage to make of my personal life"?
"glad you got to see one of the two women in my life who have managed to keep me together at all the times when I thought I was going to fall apart and not come back from it"?
"surprisingly, that's actually better than I remember it being"?
"may didn't actually die, my middle name is 'hyperbolic debbie downer'."? ]

I'm not going to ask if it beat watching reruns of Cheers because it's the only thing on TV at 2am.

[pearlstrings]

You don't need to thank me.

[He means it. Bruce doesn't think this is something that deserves gratitude, he thinks this is a very basic human kindness. That it's the least he, or anyone else, could do. But he's at a loss for what to say after that. If there's anything to say.

He doesn't know how not to think about Selina. How not to wonder if this might have been their future, a perpetual give and take that never managed to balance out. A relationship that couldn't find equilibrium against a city that needed help. It doesn't surprise him that Parker makes another joke and Bruce finds himself questioning for the first time whether Peter too is just a mask. If he's struggling to be this person when he's someone else entirely.

His back presses against the low wall and his eyes close.
It doesn't help him think as much as he wishes it would.]

It will always be selfish, won't it?

[webshoots]

Man, that's a loaded question. You're pretty good at those.

[ he sits there and stares at his tablet for a little while before replying. stares but doesn't really look at it. it's a question he's asked himself more times than he really cares to think about, so he thinks, just for a second, of the documentary that kid had been doing on spider-man — the one where he interviewed people from all around new york. manhattan.

it's not the same thing. it's not the same question — what do you think of spider-man? but it has echoes of it. peter parker had been asked what he thought of spider-man, and it had taken him a while to come up with an answer. ultimately, he'd decided he was mostly a good guy: he's human. he makes mistakes. he wants to save everyone but he knows he can't.

he hopes he's helping people, despite everything.

he knows he wouldn't be able to do that without the people in his life. it's not just may or mj, it's betty and jonah, too. it's robbie and randy and, inexplicably, it's fred. is it selfish? ]

I'm torn between saying yes and saying no. The actual answer's probably somewhere in the middle - you know, that whole thing about how virtually nothing's black and white?
I don't think it's selfish, but maybe hoping for a normal life is.
But for all of that, I think there's a lot of good that comes out of it, too.
...But maybe that's my way of making excuses.
I wouldn't be any of who I am without my aunt and without MJ. Or my friends or my coworkers.
Is it selfish to keep them in my life when they could get hurt? Have been hurt?
I'd love to say I try not to think about that, but honestly? I think about that more than anything else.

At the same time... It's not my choice alone, you know? No matter how often I wish it was.
You can't make that decision for anyone else.

Whoever's in your life - you're not forcing them to be in it. Probably. I mean, if you are, we've got bigger issues than wondering about whether it's selfish.
Appreciate and love them while you've got them. You won't have them forever.
I don't think that's selfish.