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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He sets it down, watching as it starts to glisten as it slowly melts.

"Yes." He doesn't really want to elaborate, but he also can't help but mention, "I don't remember any of it. I lost months, I think."

He's not really sure, and no one had wanted to talk about it, which was just as well as far as he was concerned.

"I'm sorry. I lost a lot of time, too." Like, all of it. They offer, with some sympathy and probably more understanding than Kuai probably expects: "Might be better not to remember. Ain't exactly been a picnic getting my memories back. I killed a lot of people." Which, objectively, they knew. They know what mission success feels like. But remembering details is... pretty shitty. Probably only what they deserve, but still shitty.

That's not at all what he expected, looking up at Soldat as if he might be taunting him. But it seems genuine. So. A similar situation then.

"Perhaps not, but not remembering doesn't make me less culpable." no matter what Bo' Rai Cho might say. He shouldn't have let it happen in the first place, so everything that happened after was also his fault even if he was basically unconscious the entire time.

"Do you mean with these rocks, or are you remembering things naturally?"

While Soldat is absolutely capable of mockery, they're not doing it now. Memories and mind control are both damn serious subjects. "Both," they admit, looking away, down at Kuai's opal. "Some from the hallucinations, some from these rocks, some from things that hit me the wrong way." The right way? Eh. Wrong way works. "People who owned me, before. They wiped me before and after every mission. Fried the memories out. Only have pieces now, bits that came back since I died. And what in those." A little nod at Kuai's opal.

"Repeatedly?" Eugh, well that's a whole new level of awful. A repeated cycle of losing yourself again and again sounds like a nightmare.

"Uncovering pieces of yourself. I'm not sure what the best way to do that is, but it's likely not by other people seeing your memories and returning them to you. Assuming people even return them."

He's pretty sure there's some that aren't. Blackmail? He's too honest and lawful to even consider it so he can't fathom how people would use these things against them, but he's not so naive to think they wouldn't.

"Did you break free of them? Or is that why you're here?"

"No. At least. Not really. Didn't complete my last mission. But then I died right after, so." Not actually sure what they would have done, if that hadn't happened. Gone back to HYDRA and accepted punishment? Gone on the run? Let ~~the target~~ ~~Captain America~~ Steve bring them in? It's a mystery they honestly hadn't thought about much.

It's hard to blackmail somebody who would openly and honestly tell anyone just about anything, so long as they ask the right question. There are other ways to use memories to torment someone, though, whether though holding them hostage (when they're new memories) or through selectively revealing bad ones at just the wrong time. Soldat can think of plenty of ways.

But at the same time: "I've had several returned so far. I've been looking for them myself-- found three. Got a piece of a memory back from yours, too."

"Hm." He muses, watching the icy coating he's encased the opal in as it shifts while melting, reflecting the light and distorting the shimmering stone. "I suppose something good came of it then. It's certainly something I think about often, but not with any fondness."

Mostly that in his darkest moments of despair he'd regretted letting himself be dragged away to recover. Perhaps it would have been better in the long run had he died then. But that's not what happened, and now in the finality of death, with the benefit of hindsight, he's glad he persevered.

"I'm not really sure what to do with this. If I hurl it into the ocean it might wash ashore later. But I definitely do not want it."

"Maybe it'd be better if you didn't think about it so often," Soldat suggests, as gently as they're able. Which is mostly just calm and quiet. "I try not to think too much about mine. Rather think about people here and now, you know?"

They hold out the metal hand. "Here. I can crush it. I already crushed two of mine." And one of Javert's, and one of Misty's, and one of Will's. They are very good at crushing memory opals.

"It would be, but sometimes I cannot help it." Even he can't meditate away everything. Though boy does he try.

"There's something symbolic about that, crushing memories that are no longer wanted." He picks the opal up, clenching his fist around it so that the ice shatters off leaving only the stone behind. Granted touching it again forces the memory to play out again, but hopefully for the last time as he sets it almost gently on Soldat's palm.

"Then I'm glad I can help." They've found the perfect spot on the palm, and roll the opal there, gears tightening in wrist and fingers, until they close over the opal and tighten. There's a tiny cracking sound, then a series of crunches as their fingers get tighter and tighter. Finally, Soldat opens their hand and tips harmless, sparkly crumbs off the metal plates.

They shake the last bits of dust away. "I could show you another origami animal," they offer after a moment, not looking at Kuai again yet. "That helps me when I'm upset."

It really is kind of therapeutic watching that memory be crushed into fine powder. The memory will remain with him always, but at least some small fragment of it was destroyed.

"I would like that, yes." His voice is soft, not wanting to admit just how much seeing himself in that state had affected him. Soldat obviously knew, if he was offering something to take his mind off it.

Kuai really did need the distraction. It wouldn't take much for his thoughts to turn dark: he'd done such terrible things, who was he to try and help anyone here? But he couldn't think like that or he'd spiral into despair again. He'd been down that path, he knew where it led. At least being reminded of that made him glad to have learned from the experience, even if he couldn't really move past it.

"What others do you know?"

It's nice to be able to help someone else, even at something as small as smashing a rock. Soldat offers a little smile and tilts a head for Kuai to come with them to the general store for some fresh paper. It's just across the square, at least. "I can make the crane, fox, frog, lion, and owl. And a star, I worked that one out myself. It's not as good, but it's still pretty. If you used the right colors."

"The one you were trying to replicate from the Night Market?" If so that's quite impressive, it had looked incredibly complex. As for Kuai he'd made a few more cranes, that he'd traded to the pawn shop vendor, so even something that was meant to be relaxing had turned practical in the end.

He liked that.

"An owl? That sounds good. It doesn't truly seem like a forest here without their sounds. I'm used to that, back home."

"It's not as nice at that one, but it's not bad." Soldat is kind of quietly pleased at having worked it out, if not as pleased as they would be had it been closer to the original. They'd gone through a lot of paper trying. "I'll show you the owl, then."

They happen to have one in a pocket, in fact. In the hopefully unlikely case of Owl Friend leaving them, like the other spirits. It's not the last day yet, but it's close, so they're starting to hope. They pluck the owl out to offer Kuai, to show him what they'll be making, before stepping into the store for some of the square paper. "Pick a color, Kuai."

He delicately takes the little paper owl, turning it over in his hands to see the folds. It looks equally as complicated as the crane, so hopefully it would be good to take his mind off... well, everything.

Shockingly he doesn't go for blue. Owls are generally brown, so brown it is. He's not very imaginative when it comes to these sorts of things. He grabs a few sheets, it'll probably take more than one try to get this down.

"Being able to replicate it at all is impressive. You should be proud."

"You didn't see me cussing at paper for hours," Soldat says dryly, and takes one sheet in red-- their own signature color-- and another in purple, so they can make two in case Kuai needs to see it twice. It's not that they're creative, they just don't really tie the paper color to the animals in question. It's all just paper with lots if nice, neat angles in it.

They wave at the vendor in thanks, then head out across the square to the Invincible and actual tables. This always works better when they have actual tables. "My spirit friend. They have an owl head. It's kind of why I asked Misty to show me this one."

"You're not supposed to tell anyone about that. No one needs to know how many times I failed in training, it's the results that matter." Not that he fails. Ever.

Moving on.

"The one you've been talking to this whole time? They've been very helpful so far, have you shown them this?"

"Not yet. I'm. Saving it." If Owl Friend stays, they will get it. If Owl Friend leaves, they will also get it, just a day sooner. Soldat is holding out for the staying, of course. "I think they'll like it, though." They push open the door to the Invincible and find a table near one of the still-boarded-up windows.

He sits down across the table, spreading out his paper and concentrating on that instead of anything else.

It's nice to have something like this to relax, to be almost meditative. And the fact there's someone else there makes him feel less like he's hiding away and ignoring everything. If they bury their emotions together, then it doesn't count right?

Right.

So he sits there, diligently and patiently following everything that Bucky shows him. Kuai won't be winning any prizes for his origami skills, but it does wonders for his mental health, which is what really matters.

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EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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Owl Friend. D:

I know ;.;

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