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!

QUICKNAV
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[ Vanitas doesn't answer him at first, there's no you're welcome, to follow. Instead, he stares are Bruce's expression, watching it as it moves from one thing to another. He wouldn't call it hesitancy so much as maybe a kind of trepidation— Bruce doesn't know what to expect from this innocuous little stone. But then, as Vanitas might have predicted, his whole face changes— like just the idea of this girl could have such a drastic effect on him.

Riku makes that face sometimes, when he thinks of Sora.

He waits; not out of any kind of patience, but because he's watching this play happen, trying to commit the way it looks to memory. Connecting this expression with the feeling— Vanitas never had any sort of experience that he could line the pieces up. ]

You love her?

[ He should maybe be jealous about it— jealous the way he'd felt over the idea of losing Riku to Naminé and Skyler— but those two things don't correlate in his head. Emotion is too fluid to be so simple, Vanitas knows that better than anyone. ]

[Does he love her? It's a question that sticks between the ribs- a knife that doesn't hurt, just promises to leave a mark. The opal rests in his hand and Bruce draws it into his lap, considers the question. Selina floods so many of his earliest memories, she's been an enormous part of who he is, how he managed to keep going. She's been the reason he's alive more than once.]

Yes.

[Bruce still isn't sure if it's that simple. It it's allowed to be so simple when everything else between them is so complicated. Love might never be enough for, not for either of them. But its worth can't be understated either.

But this is the first time he's spoken about her. The first time he'd held this thought aloud. Bruce doesn't soften further and he doesn't bow his head- he isn't ashamed of it. But there's something careful about the way he holds the question and all of it's possibilities.]

I think she feels the same way.

[ Vanitas watches him and thinks about the way his heart and clenched up talking to Selina, how the words had come so easily because they were fact. How he hadn't expected anything more or less than the way her breath punched out of her, how she nervously skirted the topic.

That little glimpse, it makes him wish that girl were here. Vanitas wants to know her, pick at the Darkness in her and align it with the jealousy he could see on her face.

His arms hang loose at his sides as he studies Bruce's averted face. ]

She didn't act like it.

[ The statement doesn't hold the mean needling it normally would, the one that finds a wound to pick at. He wants to understand, and he knows Bruce won't mislead him. ]

[This is a fair and accurate statement. Selina doesn't act like it- not obviously; moments of naked vulnerability are few and far between for them, and Bruce has known this to be true for all the years they've known each other. She isn't one of big declarations, but when she has made them, he believes her. Selina gives nothing away easily and he can understand that- respect it even.

That she doesn't 'act like it' doesn't trouble him.
After all, the words are just as applicable about Bruce.

The stone lowers to rest in his lap, and Bruce simply holds it for a moment, considers the curiosity on Vanitas's face. The interest in learning.]

Love can take many forms.
It isn't always the princes and princesses from stories.

[His feet press into the floor and Bruce climbs to his feet slowly, the opal still held between both hands.]

It does always require sacrifice.

[ Vanitas doesn't back down when Bruce rises to his feet, holding his ground and raising his chin to keep watching him. The fact is, princes and princesses are all Vanitas has as plain, true example of love. It isn't the same as friendship, he doesn't think— the interactions he's seen between friends and what he's seen elsewhere, what he felt in Quentin's memory, what he heard in Bruce's own. ]

There's no sense in giving your life for someone else.

[ Because that is the meaning of sacrifice Vanitas knows. The kind that had Xehanort destroy Kairi so Sora would act. The kind that made Sora throw his life away for that girl.

But when he reflects on it, that huge, overwhelming feeling— it's difficult. Nothing he has ever encountered feels like that. He understands more the way Bruce had wailed in the forest, glass cutting open his hand. The way Quentin had tried to pull the church down to get to Dr Solis. ]

[He doesn't stop to explain to Vanitas that sometimes, an action that primal isn't a decision at all. Sometimes the body moves on its own- compelled by the terror of watching someone you love be hurt, the idea they could be separated from you forever. He isn't sure if it's something Vanitas can understand yet, even though he's certain to have seen examples.]

There are other kinds of sacrifice. Compromise- time, freedom.

[Bruce's weight shifts, turning their standoff into a crescent as he guides them down the hall. Like the many times before, he knows that Vanitas will follow. There's no worry or doubt. He moves towards the stairs, taking each one at a time in a quiet, unhurried way.]

Selina is a very good thief. She's lived on her own for a long time and done things her own way. She doesn't want to live in my home and come and go thinking about whether or not I notice. She wants to have her own reputation on her own terms and to make her own way without feeling like she owes me, or anyone else.

[ Bruce is right in thinking he wouldn't understand, because even as he goes on about other forms of sacrifice, Vanitas finds he hadn't considered any of those things. How could he, when he had nothing to give up to begin with? Not time, not material. And certainly nobody to give it to. All of him, in some way, was Xehanort's to own and direct, even if Vanitas slowly formed his own back bone.

He trails Bruce like a shadow. Selina sounds like someone Vanitas would know, even in his own world. If he let's himself really consider Bruce's words, he realizes that he kind of understands how she must feel. Wanting to be her own, unbeholden to anyone else.

Vanitas has only ever been defined by his others. Even now he isn't entirely sure who or what he is without triangulating himself around the two other parts of his heart. ]

I thought if you loved someone you wanted to be with them all the time.

I suppose that might be true for some, but people can want more than one thing.

[It speaks volumes to how much their relationship has evolved, but also how much Vanitas has changed; the tone of his voice is inquisitive and Bruce knows that there's genuine curiosity behind it, not just a desire to provoke. There was a time that the absence of understanding was like a loose thread in a coat- when all Vanitas wanted to do was pull at it, perhaps not even to see it unravel, but just for the simple sake of pulling.

He isn't the same person Bruce had met all those months ago.]

That's a kind of sacrifice too. I understand that she doesn't want to trade her independence just for a relationship with me. And she understands that there are things I want to do that would put her in danger.

It doesn't change our feelings for one another. But it changes the way we express them, and what we expect out of each other.

[ Vanitas listens, dutiful as any sort of student; tries to line up what Bruce is articulating against the feeling. Bruce hadn't been upset, when he said what he did, when Selina stuttered and immediately left the room. It would be a rejection in any other terms, and yet the little glow of light in Bruce's chest dictated differently.

Black and white, dark and light. Hatred and love should exist at opposite ends of the spectrum. And yet Quentin showed him pain, even talking about how warm love made him. Bruce tells him it doesn't always look the way the princes and the princesses do. In those rocks, Vanitas felt for the first time how it was to have that powerful sensation inside of him— but nothing in his lived experience can be compared to it.

Riku kissed him, but it didn't stop Vanitas from wanting to hurt him. Bruce offered him a home, and all he'd done was ache over the very idea. If love was supposed to feel good, then what is it that Vanitas feels?

He's quiet as he processes all of this— and then finally lets out a loud sigh, frustration weighing it's edges down and making it jagged and noisy when it hits the air. It doesn't make sense. Or rather, it's woven in a manner so complicated that his simplistic vision of the world strains in it's attempt at comprehension. ]

In my experience love is as complex as any other emotion.

[He doesn't expect Vanitas to latch onto the concepts readily- after all, how much experience has he had with the spectrum of human emotion? How much has he ever been allowed to feel, let alone to question? Maybe it's arrogant to try and explain it in the first place. Bruce doesn't have iron-clad control over his own desires and impulses. He still struggles to put a name and motivation to his emotions, to try and hem them in.

The museum stretches out ahead of them and Bruce leads them along a familiar pathway, bringing them nearer and nearer to the torchlight, watching as it illuminates windowsills and door frames.]

Every now and again a feelings like sadness, or joy, is distinct- the way that you know some people to be all light, the way that you're all dark. But most emotions are a combination of things; envy and resentment, anger and fear.

A grey area.

Hate isn't that complicated.

[ He disagrees, riding the shiver of frustration over the whole concept. ]

Or anger, or fear. I feel them and they exist.

What's the point of love, if it just makes you feel all the same things?

[ He almost sounds sullen about it, as if maybe his idea of the world has been tipped suddenly on it's axis&mdah; and then, just as suddenly, the whole concept feels exhausting. For so long, he was striving toward the lofty goal of no longer experiencing pain. Of joining his heart to Ventus, because his Master told him forging the x-Blade was the only way to make his suffering end.

But here, he has the x-Blade, and it gives him no solace. Now, he's felt that fleeting softness of love and discovered that it comes as a double edged sword. Vanitas exhales, his gaze dropping to follow the click of Bruce's shoes on the marble. When he speaks again, it's quiet; more to himself. ]

I'd rather feel nothing at all.

But that's what I mean.

[They step into the great foyer and the door creaks as if it's announcing their presence. Bruce hasn't decided yet if he wants to take measures to correct it, to oil the hinges and make the comings and goings a subtle affair. Or if he wants to leave it as it is, as a kind of early warning system. The museum is, after all, public property. Anyone could come by, and there's no social expectations around ownership to discourage visitors.]

What is hate?

[There's something about the pitch of his voice that suggests that he isn't giving an academic lecture. This is a very personal subject, with very personal experiences. Bruce's responsibility to Gotham, the things he wants to do and the things he has to sacrifice in order to do that, require a kind of constant scrutiny. A constant self-awareness.]

Maybe it's directed pain. What causes pain? Sadness? And then a desire for revenge against the one who caused it- anger. Maybe it starts with fear, or resentment, or envy. It could come from a sense of injustice, actual or otherwise.

[They make their way towards the kitchen, a kind of focal point for so many of these moments with Vanitas. Bruce looks back over his shoulder and lifts both hands, visibly intertwining the fingers of each.]

Hate is a combination of emotions, an overlap. Love is like that too.

I think you feel other things first, before you know love is there. For me, it was knowing that I wanted to see her more often. And then that I wanted her to be safe. That I wanted her to be happy, more than I cared about my own happiness.

[ All of this almost hurts his head— but if he were the kind of person to run away from things, he wouldn't be where he is today. All he's ever done is charge at the world head on, like a juggernaut. This really isn't any different. And Bruce, as he explains, it makes Vanitas' mind whirl as he aligns his lived reality with what the other guy is saying. If he considers it, then it's not so far off. Vanitas didn't hate first— he felt other things. Loneliness, and sadness, and fear. Things Xehanort told him to cast out to make way for pain, to strengthen his darkness.

Wanting others to be happy, wanting others to be safe. These concepts are mostly foreign to Vanitas— at least, they had been before he lived here. He'd seen them in other people, it was what his Master used to manipulate the playing field, but wanting to keep another from harm...

Vanitas' eyes cut away from Bruce, suddenly, as he realizes that those sensations aren't exactly as strange to him as they once were. ]

That's the kind of thing that gets people killed.

[ He says, and the words burn his tongue as they come out, because he's died for someone here, too, hasn't he? ]

Yes. [He can admit that without strings. Love does cause pain. It is the reason some people are killed. How many lives in Gotham have been snuffed out as a matter of leverage or in some short-sighted desire for payback? It's a cycle of losses with no beginning and no end, where the attachments that keep a person human are also their greatest weaknesses. Selina was shot, paralyzed, simply because he loved her. Jim Gordon had been murdered because Bruce killed Nyssa's father. Vanitas is right to critique bonds like that, they are liabilities.]

But so does anger. So does rage, or despair, or greed.

[Bruce rounds the small island in their makeshift kitchen, and over the top of it, their eyes meet.]

Everything is a risk. But love is a choice.

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EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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