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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[ Oh! Oh! Sora loves this memory! Adventure, a fight, jokes, a fight, some fun, a fight. He's the type to get in fights despite himself too, there's no judgment here. And hey, any excuse to visit Xayah is a good one. He does cherish that wingy big sister of his, after all. All in all, this memory is a jackpot.

So a day into the event, there'll be a tap on one of the windows of the greenhouse. Hey, Xayah! It's a visitor! He'll just wave through the window and grin! And possibly gesture to the little stone in his hand. Open up, Xayah! He's got a present for you! ]

Look whom the birds brought me~

[Xayah calls, but not from the inside of the greenhouse, but from the top. She's perched on the edge like a hawk, purple wings spread as she gets ready to jump down. She just wanted to give him a warning before she drops- it would be bad to give the guy a heart attack.

In two flaps of her wings, she lands on the ground, folding them behind her and giving Sora a smile,]

What brings you here?

[ Sora does jump a little bit as he looks up - hey, he thought she'd be inside! - but all is forgiven as he sees her drop down! Hi, Xayah! Sora is, as usual, delighted to see her. ]

Have you been in town recently? You know all those stones coming from the aurora? [ He's going to wave a stone in his hand. ] I think I have one that belongs to you. [ And he'll hand it over if she's willing to accept it! It's in a little paper packet labeled "XAYAH - Rakan? Bar fight. (Cool.)" ]

[Aside from Rakan, she's never seen a single person be this happy to see her. Most cover in fear and run away, or lunge at her. It's... nice. Feels nice. She offers a smile.]

Why would I? I have the best view of aurora from right up there, [she nods to the rooftop. Everything's crystal clear from up there.] And I have; a few others brought me some opals with memories they found of me. You found something too? [She didn't expect that.

Her curiosity wins over when he offers her the bag with her stone and her eyebrow quirks- bar fight? That's too broad of a spectrum- Rakan and she were in many bar fights before.]

I see you met Rakan.

[ He'll look up at her former perch, then nod in approval. That seems like a good a perch as any. (He'd like to get up there himself if he can!) ] Point taken.

[ Sora just doesn't know! He simply doesn't know about the murder stuff. It's possible that he wouldn't even care. He just knows that Xayah has a heart! Or at least he hasn't seen any evidence in the contrary. ]

Sure did. [ He scratches the back of his head. He seemed really cool! The kind of guy he'd also like to hang out with. ] Is it okay if we talk about him? I don't remember if we've ever talked about him before. I just want to know what he's like.

Wanna sit up there with me? I can lift you up.

[Wanna fly Sora? For real? It's not an offer that happens every day.

Whether she has a heart was always up for debate. She seemed to only show positive emotions around Rakan and anyone that showed interest in her cause and helped her out. Others were easily dismissed or shunned by her. Nami, Rengar, Ahri... her fellow Vastayans from different tribes that care little for what's going on with their homeland.]

Sure... I don't talk much about him because... hm. Not sure why. He just doesn't come up as a topic.

[More like- talking about him makes her remember him and then she misses him for days after.]

[ Sora is perfectly willing to jump up there himself, but he's so tempted to let her pull him up. Hey, getting carried is super fun! He lets Jason take him flying even though they both know he can fly too. Flight is nice, but there's a difference between floating and being carried. It's the support!

Eventually, though, he shakes his head. ] Nah, don't want to make you work. Let's sit!

[ And without further explanation, he jumps his own height and a half into the air, then pushes off in midair to land on the roof. He lands, then looks down at Xayah. ]

I think t's okay to not think about the people you like a lot, sometimes. Sometimes it hurts if you're far away. I get that. [ He hums. ] I still want to hear about Rakan, though. That way, he'll stay with me, too. If I can't meet him, then this is the next best thing.

Suit yourself, kid.

[She watches him jump up to the roof, not too surprised for the midair jump. Rakan does similar stuff, but it ends with him flying back and forth between shielding Xayah and kicking the enemy in the air. She waits for Sora to be on the safer side on the roof and then two flaps of her wings she joins him. Folding the wings behind her, Xayah moves to sit down on the edge, or more like crouch. She looks like a gargoyle, there. But she doesn't seem to care and just folds hands on top of her knees.]

What do you want to know?

[She asks because, by herself, Xayah doesn't know where to start. Beginning...?]

[ Gargoyles, huh. Sora has to hide a smile. He remembers some friendly gargoyles who lived at the top of a cathedral. It's nice to get the reminder of them. He sits down with her, letting his feet dangle off the edge, and thinks out loud to himself. ]

The beginning? Or maybe as close as you can. [ Sora nods to himself. ] Like, if I wanted to tell you about my friend Kairi, I'd start with... maybe the first thing I remember about her. [ He doesn't remember when or how she got there, but he knows that one day she wasn't there, and the next she was the new girl. That'd be good for a start. ] Something like that, maybe?

Beginning huh... [She looks up at the sky briefly and sighs.] A lot has happened...

[She's never told anyone her story like this, only bits and pieces when she snaps. Maybe it will do her some good.]

My tribe had disappeared. I left them for a few years to find myself and learn about things, and when I came back, they were all gone, without a trace. [It would've been different if there were bodies to prove her they were dead. This way, she had a painful hope to find them alive.] With nowhere to stay, I set off again, this time to try and find out what happened. At the same time shadow shrines also started appearing, so I was destroying those too and keeping forests alive.

[Her lips twitch.] After a few years, my path led me to one of the small villages. I had a relic to pick up there, kill a few shadow acolytes and be on my merry way. But... [her fingers curl into the fabric on her knees,] there, right in the middle of the village, there was some kind of... theatre show, I guess? A Vastayan, like myself, was singing old songs I knew as well. So I stayed to listen. When the show was over, I headed out. I wanted to stick around and learn more- it has been a while since I saw someone of my kind. But, duty called. There were shadow temples to be destroyed.

[Xayah sighs, wistfully-] That's when I was ambushed and Rakan, who was following me after his grand spectacle in the middle of the village, jumped to my aid. After we were done, I told him to go back, but he stubbornly kept following me. One thing led to another, [she laughs and pulls out a wrapped stone from underneath her wing,] and we ended up promising ourselves to each other.

[She opens then cloth and offers Sora bright purple opal,] Someone had stumbled upon that memory before. If you wish, you can see it. I don't think my words can do it justice.

[ Sora has heard the first part of this story - losing her family and wandering - but didn't realize she'd had company. He draws his feet up slowly and watches the aurora as he listens to her talk about Rakan, who seems... fun? A good contrast to her. She's not really an emotional type, except for the purported anger (??? still not seeing it), so to see her change her body language a little as she explains is very good.

He accepts the opal when she offers it and lets the memory wash over him, opening his eyes when it's done. ] I dunno. You were doing pretty well with the words. Good to have a name to a face, though.

[ He smiles at her when he passes it back. ] I can see why you like him. He seems like fun. Like... the type that makes people smile just by being there. [ It's sad, of course. They would have been so happy together if she'd lived longer. He's sorry she had to leave him, isn't sure what leaving him might have been like. ] Your life woulda been a lot different without him, wouldn't it?

[Rakan is, indeed, bright and fun. Someone people just gravitate towards. She felt that way the moment she first heard him sing (she tried to convince herself that she was being an idiot though and she didn't have time to get distracted).

She takes the opal back and wraps it up again.] Maybe. But some things are just better when experienced. [There was nothing in this world that could match that day. Xayah is sure that she will never find it.]

He's a bit of an airhead, [she chuckles with a nod,] but you're right. [It was hard getting used to the fact that she no longer has him by her side. A loner that she was, Rakan was her one and only support in her life after her tribe was gone. When she died and he was gone, it's as if someone pulled a rug from underneath her feet.]

Yes... I would've continued to travel by myself and ultimately die by myself. I wonder if that's better... [It would probably hurt Rakan less...]

... I get that. [ Sure, being around the Librarian all the time is bringing him around on the whole book thing, but he's still not convinced that he's a book guy. He just likes listening to people too much. They always have so much more energy when they're talking about something they care about. ]

It's not better. You're better because you met him and he's better because he met you. [ Sora nods firmly. It doesn't matter if she's dead or separated or whatever. ] You have that connection now, and it makes you strong. That's what I think.

I kept telling myself that while I was alive, [Xayah says with a soft sigh and looks up at the Aurora. It's been a while since she saw this much light and she's kind of basking in the feeling, even though it's a bit creepy.]

He says he found a cause in his life when he started traveling with me, but what if he didn't? He wouldn't have been in danger every waking hour, he'd find someone who he could start a family with instead of going face-first into danger with some rebel woman. He'd be singing and dancing, just like on the day I first met him.

[She shakes her head,] He'd push these doubts from my head when we are together. But here, by myself and in this perpetual darkness, I start to question things and myself...

[ This is hard. He isn't Rakan, obviously, and there isn't any way to reassure her in the same way Rakan would. He doesn't know what was in Rakan's heart, after all, and that's not his bond to strengthen. What they had was unique to them and no amount of good intentions are going to bring them to a point where he could do what Rakan would have.

Death is hard. Death is so, so hard. He remembers that. ]

He liked you a lot. I know that. There's a lot to like about you, Xayah... Do you remember? The things he said he liked about you? [ Non sequitur? Sort of! He's going somewhere with this. ]

[She's fine, really. She's slowly getting used to the fact that she probably won't see Rakan again. It was a terrifying thought in the past but now she's happy he's not dead, that he's not here. She will gladly burn in thousand fires to make sure he doesn't come here.]

My redeeming qualities are far few and in between. But thanks. [Her lips quirk.]

Hmm... that I'm dedicated. Stubborn. Hot. Smart. [She lists off just some regular stuff that are on top of her head right now. There are some other things but, she'd like to keep those to herself.]

[ He does get that, yeah. As much as this may be his one and only chance to ever see his friends - like, ever - he knows that he wouldn't wish Beacon on them. ]

And these are all things he said about you, right? Even when you made mistakes, or lost faith, or felt bad about yourself, right? [ Sora nods. ] That doesn't suddenly undo if you're far away from him. Those memories are still there. And even if you don't remember when he said them specifically... the confidence is there, right? That he said those things about you, and they're true. That's why it's important that you two met.

[Xayah gives Sora a very long look, her eyebrows raised. She didn't expect this kind of thing, encouraging introspective on her past life, from him. She didn't really think about her own life on her own at all, always trying to move forward and keep things going.

But one can't have that kind of conclusion and point of view without experiencing it himself.]

And you? Who sees all the good parts of you and makes sure you remember them?

[ He smiles as she thinks about it. He hopes that she takes that to heart, that it makes Rakan easier to think about. He truly thinks that Xayah is a good-hearted person and wants her to be a little more at peace.

He's about to say as much when she replies! And he grins, because the answer's easy. ]

My friends! My friends -

[ And then he really thinks about the question and looks away and up into the aurora because. Right. That. ]

My friends.

[ His best friends, Riku and Kairi. Who weren't his friends after all. And none of the good parts of him are really his. They were someone else. ]

Um. [ He shakes his head. Smile disappeared somewhere along the way. ] The soldier, um. Soldat? And, um. Jason. Naminé. [ He does smile a little at those names. They're good to him. ] They make me feel like I can be better. [ And to his credit, his voice doesn't crack on that. It's just a little quiet. ]

[Ah.

It's a slow and subtle understanding that dawns on her. You can surround yourself with people of all kinds, do everything under the sky, stand in the crowd of those you know and still feel lonely. She felt like that before Rakan filled in the hole that yearned for solace.

Sora is right, she was lucky to have met him, lucky to had him in her life. And while she wishes things were different for him, she can bring herself to regret the time spent with him.]

They are good, [she answers quietly.] I've known Soldier since I arrived here. Namine is nice too. [Her own voice drifts off after that. She knows- it's not enough. Het wing lifts and shifts up and she raises her hand, making a bit of space at her side-] Come. [He could use a hug. She could use a hug. And they are the rarest thing she gives to the others.]

[ He doesn't like to admit it, but yeah. Yeah, he's been separated from his friends for years and years by now, but death and Beacon introduced a new level of separation that he wasn't exactly prepared for. He's not really the type to feel disconnected from others, like Xayah does, tries his best to connect to others because he enjoys being close to others, but he does feel as though coming here pulled up its heart by the roots. It's been hard knowing he can't go back in more ways than one.

He loves his new friends. He really, really does, Xayah included. They're everything to him now. They kind of have to be. And in the end, aren't they all in the same boat?

Aw, Xayah. This is why he doesn't know about the temper, she's too sweet to him. He looks at her with a small "are you sure?" sort of look - he knows she's a bit reclusive - but then figures that she needs it as much as he does. So he'll just scoot on over, get his head under her wing, and go for that good side-hug. It's a comfy one, or at least he'll feel comfortable if she puts her head on his shoulder or vice versa. He's not really the type to guard his personal space. ]

They're all really nice. We should all hang out more. Get dinner. Go exploring. [ He sniffs. No, shut up, you're crying. ] There's so little time to be friends, here. We've gotta make the best of it.

[She doesn't know what Sora has been through, but she can guess it's a lot. Young people don't die just because. So she wishes she can offer more than just this odd side-hug. And yes, she's a bit reclusive and 'touch me and I might cut off your fingers' type of person, but- she offered, right? Which means it's alright.

Xayah leans against his side and looks up at Aurora again; she'll let him keep his pride and not point out the sniffing and crying. She'd hate if someone pointed it out for her.]

That's true. I can grow plants for dinner, but I can't cook. I was always more of a soldier and less of a housewife. But we can bake some potatoes. [Not... as appealing as some other stuff she's seen people prepare but she tries!]

Well, I've never grown plants in my life, but I am a pretty good cook.

[ Growing things was for his friends. Rabbit was a gardener. Cooking wasn't even a thing for him until the little chef came along and walked him through it. So many friends he owes so much to. That he's just never going to see again if they all fail.

It's good that he's getting all these gross thoughts out with a good friend by his side. Being alone would hurt worse than being embarrassed about having lonely thoughts, he thinks. ]

I don't think I've ever baked a potato more than a couple of times, but it's pretty easy, right? Just stab it with a fork and stick it in an oven? [ He pauses, sniffs. These are just little dribbly tears. He's sad, but it's bearable, and also he's excited by his next thought. Emotional multitasking! ] Or in a campfire! I mean, I know fire doesn't work here, but do you think Rastus would care if we baked potatoes in the bonfire for a while?

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EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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I somehow never got notif for this wtf

all good 8^)

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