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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locked to steve harrington;;

[keenely]

nancy's memory;

[ you're in your bedroom, sitting crosslegged on the bed with a phone base on your lap, the receiver held too tight in your hand as you listen on to another long story about barbara holland and the way things used to be. the weight of it still hits hard, even though this isn't the first time you've gotten a call like this, barb's mom tearfully recounting a summer trip that you were lucky enough to join the small family on, as if you need a reminder of how much she meant to you.

she reminds you how sunny it was ( hot enough to cook an egg on the dashboard mr. holland commented at least once an hour on the drive ), and how the beach was so crowded but they managed to find a great place to set up their umbrella and towels to catch some sun and relax. how you were so scared to go into the ocean at first, but barb dragged you into the water and helped you get over it so quickly, in that way that only your best friend could manage. barb burned like a lobster, but still refused to get out of the water to reapply her sunscreen, because you're both having way too much fun trying to keep up with each small wave that passes by before paddling back out to catch the next one. mrs. holland goes on to talk about how she missed that about her, so much. how her barbara could be so practical one minute, and so stubborn the next. she reminds you about how much you used to make her daughter smile, used to make her feel so important, and included, and how her life wouldn't have been the same without your friendship.

mrs. holland chokes when she tries to thank you, again, for being so supportive through all of this, to both her and her husband. for not giving up on her barbara, like so many other people in hawkins have. she sounds angry when she expresses her denial of it all, like she's been lied to and it's unfair to her barbie to just give up.

she clears her throat around an apology, promises to make you that lasagna you love, the next time you and your nice boyfriend stop by for dinner.

your guilt is so intense that it's almost hard to breathe, like somebody's dropped an impossible weight on your chest and shoves against it until it's painful. you're not crying, but you almost wish you could just to express that in some way, get that toxic feeling out of your body.

you need to tell someone the truth, or at least the truth about how much this is killing you inside, but you know it all has to stay a secret. people can't know the truth about barbara holland, even her grieving parents. you know you have people that love you - your parents, your boyfriend, even one or two of your teachers - but there isn't enough support in the world to help you get through this. you're so sure you never will.

mrs. holland says goodbye with another thank you and you can't even manage to set the receiver down properly before the tears finally come, both hands pressing hard against your eyes as you gasp to catch your breath. the memory ends with your mom calling up the stairs that it's time for dinner, and you trying your hardest to shove all that emotion back down your throat before calling back that you'll be down in a minute, you're just finishing up a math assignment.

the math assignment you haven't actually started yet. shit. ]

[meanwhile, on the other side of town, nancy is standing in the middle of one of the many pathways leading out from the bonfire, a bright blue opal clutched in her hand as she cries in the aftermath of experiencing a memory that doesn't belong to her. not really. ]

& the reaction to steve's

[it was surreal watching herself at that halloween party from over a year ago, but she knows as soon as the memory kicks in what she's experiencing. she herself only remembers the night up to a certain point, her actual memory stopping during a dance to some silly song with steve and then deciding to grab a drink, then picking back up again when she woke up in her own bed with the kind of headache that makes you want to crawl into a hole and never come back out. so watching the scene play out further is morbidly fascinating, especially once she started feeling the worry and confusion behind watching herself get more and more drunk.

she accidentally spills jungle juice on her white shirt, then follows her to the bathroom, trying to apologize in earnest.

she listens to herself babble, drunk and sad, about how they're faking all of this. having fun, pretending everything is fine. partying, yeah, we're partying but the memory doesn't allow her to feel that same emotion she herself felt in that moment. instead she's experiencing that worry and confusion increase tenfold, right up until she hears her say like we're in love, and it's almost like she can literally feel her heart break. or burst, maybe, molten lava threatening to burn her from the inside out. like we're in love? she hears herself say, and the word bullshit echos a thousand times. it's dramatic, and she feels ridiculous as she leaves the bathroom and makes a beeline straight to her car. she feels embarrassed, upset, and can't stop wondering what the hell she did wrong. wondering how long she's felt that way.

surely it's her fault. she feels so sure of it, but none of it really makes sense right now.

she sits in her car for fifteen minutes trying to process it all before finally starting the engine and heading home. ]

[ it takes her a few minutes longer than she'd ever admit to get her emotions in check, but eventually she does, and she heads back home with a heavy heart, the opal slipped into her pocket for safe keeping. it's slow going - she's stuck in thought so it takes her a long while to actually find her way back home - but eventually she gets there, moving straight to the couch and sitting down on the edge of it, like she isn't willing to let herself get comfortable just yet.

fuck, she feels guilty. she always felt a little guilty for the confusing way they broke up, but now she feels so guilty she doesn't totally know what to do about it, beyond sitting there trying to process everything she just felt. there's also the fact that she was never meant to experience that conversation that way. it feels like a breach of privacy, and that alone makes her feel uncomfortable and almost desperate to apologize.

she wants to apologize for a lot of things, and she will, but. well. much easier said than done. ]

[fawcetted]

[ The opal is kind of pretty in an 'I'm sure someone at home's gonna like the look of it' kind of way, and Steve has every intention of just keeping it in his pocket until he gets back to the cabin, except then the craziest thing happens when touches it, and oh, boy — ]

Shit. Shitshitshit.

[ He has to sit down, regain his bearings and remember how to breathe; really, remember how to be him. The memory is so vivid, so real, it's like he ceased to become Steve Harrington. No, actually. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense how it works, only that it did.

His throat is tight and there's a kind of wetness in his eyes when he touches his cheek, and he's got no idea what he's feeling except that it's remorseful and understanding, like he's missing something so deeply, the emptiness of it starts to take on its own weight; it's real messed up. For the first time since the pool party at his parents house, everything that brought him to this point falls into place and he begins to understand the way Nancy Wheeler feels better than she could possibly describe it to him, if she ever decided to.

He's never lost anyone before, no one who really made a huge impact on his life anyway, and his friends at school were jerks like Tommy H. and Carol Perkins. ... they weren't exactly life-long friendships or anything. But he thinks of losing Nancy or Robin or Dustin that way and he's not sure what he'd do if it happened. Maybe he'd feel angry about having to keep it a secret too.

The walk home feels like no time has passed, his feet moving on their own accord while the memory repeats itself in his head. By the time he gets to the door of their shared cabin, Steve hesitates to push it forward and step inside. He's got no idea if he should tell her or not, or what to say if he does. (And of course he's going to tell her, that isn't a real question.) How do you even begin a conversation like that?

He can't linger out here like a fucking idiot for the rest of the night however, can he, and it's the simple practicality of the question that eventually steers Steve forward. It almost scares the shit out of him to find Nancy already home, sitting in their common space, like maybe she knows what he saw and she's expecting him.

He swallows but no sound comes out of his mouth. ]

[keenely]

[ nancy's not exactly ready for steve to come home when he does, but she doesn't seem too shocked when he gets there. she mostly just looks... sad. she's very good at looking like a guilty puppy even in situations where she has nothing to feel guilty for, let alone when she actually feels incredibly guilty about something. it's a weird kind of weight, trying to wrap her head around the memory she saw and how it felt, but just the fact that she saw it at all might be the worst part of it. because that's not how she should have found out the truth of things, if she was ever meant to at all. it's not as if she ever came to terms with that giant blank spot in her memory, even all the time that's passed hasn't changed that, but still. to say it feels like an invasion of privacy, despite the fact that was was a part of that moment, is an understatement.

so they're both kind of stuck in the same awkward loop of a moment, and nancy really isn't sure what to say either, so instead she just reaches into her pocket to take out the opal she picked up, and sets it down on the coffee table in front of her. which... doesn't explain anything, but she's hoping maybe it does? in a passive way. unless he hasn't encountered one at all, in which case, shit. ]

I never would have touched it, if I knew what it was. I feel like I went behind your back or something, but I wasn't trying to. [ her mouth presses shut as she huffs a sigh through her nose, almost like she's steeling herself? because if he's mad then she deserves it, even if she's not ready for it. ] We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but I think maybe we should.

[fawcetted]

[ Before Steve can even begin to wonder what Nancy might have seen in her opal, he pulls out the one in his pocket and moves forward, placing it next to hers. They look so harmless sitting there, just a couple of dark, glossy stones anyone could have picked up from the beach or something. Souvenirs. Paperweights at best.

He shakes his head and sits at the edge of the coffee table, across from her. He resists the urge to run a hand through his hair, a nervous tic of his. ]

No — Nance. [ At least his voice works again. He leans forward, rests his elbows on the tops of his thighs, head bent down for a moment. ] Don't apologize or anything, okay? I mean ... shit. [ He lifts his head. ] The same thing happened to me, I had no idea what it was or what it could do. I just knew it was yours.

[keenely]

[ nancy sits up a little straighter once he's sitting across from here, not from any kind of fear or feeling uncomfortable, but she's maybe unwilling to event remotely crowd into his personal space right now, not when that weird guilt is still sitting in her chest. she also looks a little confused for a moment, thinking that maybe he saw the party from her point of view, which... how? she hardly remembers any of it. but it doesn't take her long to realize there are probably different memories set in different stones. somehow. ]

Should we talk about it? I feel like we should talk about it. [ her tone is only half confident in that, just as uncertain as him about how they should go about that. it's awkward and sad and difficult and heavy. so many things. she's glad she understands things better now, but the how still feels wrong ] The stone I picked up showed me the memory of that party, last Halloween. The hour or two I was missing from it all. It- showed me what it was like, but from your perspective.