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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[ A laugh, good. Sora's glad he can return a memory of a friend to someone. Some of these memories are pretty brutal! Deliveries like these always brighten his day. ]

A warehouse, huh... Was that your job? Did you help run like, uh, a weird stuff hotel? [ A zoo doesn't seem like the right comparison, especially if Elle considers Fuzz a friend, but a boarding house doesn't come to mind, and Sora doesn't like to think a cool guy like Fuzz might be a refugee. ]

[ His wording of "a weird stuff hotel" gets a grin out of her, and Ellever stands up so that she can have a better conversation. Now that she's not really watching the spirits do their thing. ]

I mean, you're not wrong. [ She moves her head lightly from side to side, as if to say the same. ] I worked for my father's security company. But that's only a third of our warehouse. The rest of it's dedicated to housing all of the... unusual creatures we find that we don't think would be safe out in the wild. Or who might not be safe themselves. We've got a few things that killed people, for example, and we study them to learn more about where they may have come from.

[ The bunyip and the wendigo would have been put down and then caused who knows what in terms of a media hurricane. Or at least the bunyip. The wendigo probably would have just continued to rack up a kill count. ]

Our security gigs for celebrities pay for our research.

[ Sora's eyes widen. A bunch of supernatural monsters who live in a warehouse and she's friends with some of them. Cool. ]

Must have been pretty interesting growing up around all that. It's too bad that some of them are dangerous. Is there any way to talk to them, or do they just not know what's going on? [ That seems sad to Sora. Well, like, he's perfectly aware that they could also know the difference between good and bad but just not care, but that's sad to him for a different reason. ]

[ She folds her arms lightly across her chest, thoughtful. It's an interesting question that most people don't ask her. Most people don't care. Their concerns lie with aspects of the creatures that have to do with them, like their ability for destruction; not with the underpinnings. ]

The bunyip is like — she's like a grizzly bear. She's smart, but she's got a different kind of intelligence than the inwardly reflective kind. We keep her well-fed and that curbs most of her dangerous qualities. [ Ellever bites her lower lip as her thoughts shift. ] The wendigo? I'm... pretty sure it understands everything. But if it knows how to communicate with us, it's never done so beyond responding to a few basic commands. Trying to reason it away from hurting people's never worked. But we were trying to study it, all the same. It's fifteen feet tall, so it's something we have to think about a lot.

[ It eats a lot of meat, its living quarters is a significant part of the warehouse, and any time they have to clean the place — which is often, since it eats raw meat — there's an ever-present danger. ]

It's never been malicious toward me, though. We've always had an understanding. [ Ellever chuckles. ] As you said, growing up around them was interesting, but I just thought it was normal. I saw more of the Wendigo than other people.

[ Sora's got some interesting fixations, it's true. He'd just call it being interested in friends, though. And it sounds like Elle sure does have some interesting friends! ]

More of the Wendigo than other people... [ ... That's sad for a different reason. Sora's happy that she wasn't actually alone, felt like she was fine, but. ] Was there anyone around who you could just... talk about your problems with? Like, there was Fuzz, right? What about your dad?

[ Ellever blinks slowly, tries to figure out the best way to answer as she glances idly out at the other game booths. Her childhood is, as most are, complicated. When she was very young, it had seemed unfair. Later, as she'd gone out on expeditions, she'd started to feel more at ease with her life.

But by that point, she'd also been told who she is. What she is. ]

My dad did the best he could. He found me and raised me because he was afraid of what other people might do to me. [ She smiles faintly, shrugging. ] He wasn't really the "talk about your feelings" type. I had a few people, but... mostly I was on my own.

[ There was Circe, but as her last memory of the woman is putting a gun to her head? She's just going to leave her out of it. ]

[ What other people might do to her? Sora's going to be cautious about assuming too much, but either that's some regular old "people are not great usually" paranoia (which, okay, is fair), or there's something specific to Elle that would make people want to hurt her. Which, like... the first thing seems more likely, but he'll keep the second thing open as a possibility, even though he doesn't really like the sound of either. ]

That sounds really lonely. [ Sora swings his arms a bit, thinking, his pockets full of stones moving with his arms a little. ] It must be kind of weird being here and suddenly being surrounded by other people you're allowed to talk to. You said that, right? This place is a chance to meet people from lots of different worlds.

[ A slow, warm smile overtakes Ellever's expression, and she nods. ]

Yeah, it was lonely. [ There's just no getting around that, and, given that she likes Sora, she wants to be honest with him. ] When I became an adult, my dad let me go out and do whatever I wanted. So I've had a few decades of trying to get past all that. But I've never been super great at talking to regular old people. Not a big mystery.

[ She shrugs. It is what it is. There's no going back to change it. She could have had a much worse childhood as a ward of the government, getting poked with experimental technology. Or as a permanent fixture of the Binding. ]

Talking to people here is great, though. [ Ellever chuckles. ] Present company included, of course.

[ D'aw, Sora likes Elle too. His eyebrows raise at her admission, surprised. He thought he was her age! Well... they... might still be around the same age? Eh, technicalities. Sora's good with tabling that thought for right now. ]

Well, thanks. I like to think so. [ He rocks back and forth on his feet. ] Maybe it's 'cause I keep talking a bunch, but I don't think you're bad at this? At the whole talking to other people thing. Or maybe it's just hard to see how far you've gotten?

[ Ellever makes a thoughtful, indistinct noise in the back of her throat. Trying to make small talk with people when she'd been alive had been a struggle. Part of her odd wardrobe had been a personal choice, but maybe some of it had been trying to keep people at bay. ]

I guess it would be. I think it's easier here in Beacon, anyway. We all have a lot of... basic things in common. We all have the same struggles. Or a lot of similar struggles, at the very least. Makes it easy to strike up a random conversation if we have to.

[ Her smile broadens, and she shrugs. ]

But you are good at talking to people.

[ It also might be that Sora's weirdness meter's perpetually stuck at "well, okay then" at this point, but he likes to think that he isn't totally unaffected by things. It's good to be soft, after all. Helps keep him humble. More open to liking people like Elle, even if they might not think they quite fit in. ]

That's true. [ It's a big thing to have in common, too. It's more or less an even playing ground, even if the circumstances are really... bad. Kind of hard to get a conversation started about that specifically, which is what Sora would prefer if only because he's always worried about others, but that's pretty understandable. Better to just make sure no one's drowning in their own thoughts. ]

I... well, if you say so. [ Hey, he's trying harder these days to take compliments at face value. He'll take it. ] I just like it. Reminds me of what I used to do back home. Well, uh, more like the stuff I like to do the most. [ He can feel a ramble coming on, hoo boy. He's just the type to enjoy listening to people. ] Maybe that's what I shoulda said when you asked what I did in my spare time, huh?

[ Listening has always been Ellever's preference where other people are concerned, once she'd gotten old enough to focus. Her head tilts slightly to the side. ]

Talking to people? Did you do a lot of that?

[ So much of her own life is secret that she's always lacked the proper stepping stones of conversation. Eventually, the other person would ask something she awkwardly couldn't answer or would have to lie about. But Sora seems to enjoy asking questions and listening, and he asks good and helpful questions. She isn't surprised to hear that a hobby of his lines up with that. ]

[ That's a bit of a newer thing for Sora - having to avoid topics. At least it's more for where he's concerned? He's always been more more interested in that, anyway. ]

Used to. More now that I'm here than the last couple of years. [ That's a little depressing. Let's go farther back. ] I used to travel a lot? Go to other places, meet people. I was... sort of on a mission, but we always ended up trying to solve local problems, too. I guess I got into the habit of trying to listen to people first before charging in. Saves a bunch of time to know everyone's priorities. [ That, and it always seemed like people just needed someone to talk to. Sora doesn't mind being that person, even if he can't do much else. ]

Mmm, that's true. [ If you know where a person's going to default their attention, you can better predict any important situation. Ellever had used the same principle when she'd worked in Zier Security. ] Very smart of you.

Did you like to travel?

[ There's a particularly loud noise on the starting line, which draws Ellever's wary attention before she focuses back on Sora. She smiles, thinking back on her trips with the research team. Quite often they had no time to linger, but they weren't so whirlwind that she couldn't admire her surroundings or get an interesting meal. ]

I did a lot of traveling. It was one of my favorite things to do, honestly. I enjoyed seeing new cultures, different scenery, new people. Anything new after being cooped up for so long.

[ Sora's just going to laugh and keep that huge fierce doubt about that to himself, thanks very much. He is not smart, like at all. All he does is listen, and maybe punch things the right way accidentally. Everything else is faith and luck.

Sora jumps a little at that too, but laughs as he looks with her. Fortunately, he doesn't startle at those things too badly. ]

I do! I mean... I liked being able to see new things. Meet new people. [ He grins. He misses that freedom, or perhaps the ability to make friends across borders. To be able to look up at the stars, and point at one, and say, there. There. I know someone there. It's not scary. That's where my friends live. ]

Where'd you end up going? Overseas anywhere? [ He remembers that she was cooped up from their last conversation, but he doesn't really know the details. He figures it'll come up in time. If she's ready. ]

[ That's one thing, Ellever reflects, that Beacon lacks. They can travel, but literally take their lives into their hands when they do. It's just not the same. She glances up at the endlessly inky black sky as she considers her answer. ]

I've been to most of the States. Nepal. China. Ireland. Scotland. A few parts of Mexico.

[ Enough places that she has to seriously think about it, and misses a few. ]

...I've been fortunate, really. [ And she knows it. ] Most of those places weren't long trips, but, like you said. Seeing new things, meeting a few new people.

[ Low whistle. That's quite the list. Sora never traveled while he was on Earth. Not that there wasn't the opportunity, but... ]

Did you have a favorite? I don't... [ He shakes his head. ] I've only really seen New Jersey. [ Which is... directly contradictory to the thing he just said about traveling, but he wants her to go on about something she's seen. He's so curious about Earth, despite having lived there pretty much. All? Half? Of his life. ]

New Jersey's got good pizza. But don't tell anyone from New York I said that, [ Ellever jokes, grinning. She's never been good at picking favorites and squints up at the beautiful sky, thinking. It does give her an idea, as she watches the bands of color dance overhead. ]

From outside the US I liked Scotland the best. We didn't even find anything. [ She has to sigh — a tiny sigh, disappointed — as she says it. ] I dug up a bunch of information about Nessie. You know Nessie, right? I didn't have high hopes because of all the confirmed fraud photos, but... I wanted her to be real.

[ What she would have done with the information, she doesn't know. Just log it away under the TRUE category and leave it at that, leave Nessie to have her loch in peace. ]

We did a lot of trekking around, a lot of trawling the loch, a bunch of tests, nothing. But the scenery was so beautiful. It drizzled the whole time. I understand why someone would think Nessie was real. The whole place felt timeless.

[ Sora snickers at that. ] Your secret's safe with me. [ So he can't tell Bucky that Elle likes one New Jersey thing more than New York? It's okay! He will have the satisfaction forever.

Nessie! I knew it, I was gonna ask you about her. [ Once Sora was capable of critical thought, he'd found Nessie somewhere in the corner of Skyler's memories. That story always stuck out to him, not because of the mystery or anything, but because he'd always wondered if she'd felt lonely out there. Especially if she was a dinosaur? Last of her kind. ]

If she's there... I hope she's kind of a private lady. The type who doesn't want to be found. [ There are people out there like that. ] Maybe she's there, you know? And just kinda shy. She could be the one making it seem so mysterious. That could be her way of reaching out to people and making them happy. [ It's... very optimistic, but Sora wants to think positively about these things! ] Maybe you made a friend and you just didn't know.

It's possible. [ She shrugs. ] If she is real, I hope she's like you said. Private. I don't want her to get... captured or anything. My tentative theory was that there are a bunch of them, but they're small and don't interact with each other much. Who knows.

[ For every successful trip Ellever's had, she's had at least two that never went anywhere. But maybe she just didn't have enough time in one place. Maybe it would require a lifetime to find Nessie. ]

I doubt she likes me, though, if she's there. [ Ellever smiles wryly. ] We flooded her loch with sound waves to try and find her. [ Then, curiously, ] You were gonna ask me about her, huh? Is she your favorite cryptid?

Oh, that's even better. Then they all have company. [ Phew! That's a load off his mind. (He does wince at the mention of those soundwaves though. Geez, that'd be kinda noisy! There is, he supposes, the very strong chance that Nessie just saw her as yet another nosy tourist... but if they're never going to know, he'd much rather think positively about it.) ]

Favorite? Um. I guess she's one I've always been curious about? Like, I'm not really an urban legend kind of person, but... I guess I like the idea that there could be something else out there? Just right around the corner. And... I guess once I got older, I sort of started wondering if they were lonely, if they were real. And Nessie always seemed like she got the short end of the stick, stuck in a loch with no way out. Just hiding all the time.

[ At that admission, Ellever's expression softens. ]

Oh! Don't worry about that. There's actually a way out that connects to the sea. It's like a... rocky underwater chasm. People used to theorize that Nessie used it to go in and out for feeding or... whatever she filled her time with.

[ It had been a convenient point to place the sound receptors on, on the third day of experiments, because of its small size; nothing could get by without them noticing. Alas, all they'd seen was a bunch of fish. ]

Or, there's one where I'm from, [ she adds, a moment later. ] But probably one in yours too. Scotland's very craggy. Full of moss. And really cute cows. And... fried food.

Really? Then she's not trapped. I'm glad. [ And he really truly does brighten at the idea! Honestly, that's made his day better by a lot. Not that it was particularly gloomy, but hey, he could probably use the reminder that things can be good in a place like Beacon. ]

Sounds like our Earths are pretty close, aren't they? [ He smiles, thinking about Scotland, trying to imagine it. The closest he's ever been to Scotland is completely across the English border in London, and that was, again, in another life. ] Bet there's a chasm there too.

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EVENT LOG: THE NIGHT WE MET

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