Player Plot: Remember Me

[notthatjason]

characters: Jason Grace & OPEN
location: (1) Harbor then (2) School
date/time: May 15 - 17
content: A small memorial event for those lost to the flood. Include a lantern/boat launch followed by a re-dedication of the Wall for the Remembered, now located in the school.
warnings: Likely discussions of loss/death what is death to a dead thing


1. Harbor
A few days after his network post, Jason can be found down at the harbor. Those that were here in September will definitely recognize it as a very similar set up to what Rastus had going when they did the memorial service then. He doesn’t have glowing stones, but he did bring down two torches from the bonfire and has rigged up a kind of tiki torch situation to light up the area for crafting. He has plenty of paper to craft into lanterns and boats. He’s made a few for those that might struggle, but there are plenty of supplies if you want to take the time to craft your own. There’s also other basic craft supplies -- markers, scissors, tape, and the like -- for making the boats or lanterns more decorated or personalized.

Jason encourages anyone who shows up to mourn or celebrate in their own way. This is intended as a way to honor the dead and missing, but if you don’t want to launch a boat you don’t have to -- perhaps you have another ceremony in mind.

2. School
After several boats have been launched, Jason will pick up one of the torches he brought to the harbor and lead whoever is around to the school. In the end, this seemed like the more accessible of the two locations he had debated. Prior to the memorial, Jason had spent some time sprucing up one of the classrooms and relocating the remains of The Wall for the Remembered, pictures and names moved onto a newly painted tree -- very similar to the one that used to reside in Town Hall.

Inside the classroom, there is one table set up with paints if people want to add names of those they just launched boats for -- Jason didn’t feel like it was right to add them all himself. There is a second table with snacks -- provided by the cafeteria spirit -- so the snacks are mostly what one might find in a school lunch, but hey there are pretty decent cookies. He’s also brought two torches to stay at the school: one in the entrance and one in the memorial room itself -- probably placed somewhere to give the wall the best light.

Once everyone is gathered, Jason will hold up the torch that he led everyone here with and speak: “Thank you all for helping with this and coming today. I can’t say I knew everyone who appeared in the most recent obituary shared with us, so I can’t exactly say anything personal here -- but I know that each loss has had an impact on at least one person in this room.” He pauses, a kind of moment of silence though he doesn’t say as such. After a moment he speaks again, “I know that our future here may be uncertain, but it’s important to take the time to remember those who have helped us even get this far. Tomorrow we can think about the future, but for right now let’s focus on those who are no longer with us -- whoever that may be for you.” He lowers the torch and steps away to give people their privacy and watch over the proceedings.

Comments

Rosinante | OTA

[callada]

How... how do boats

Rosinante is terrible at making boats.

He's tried, though, apparently. One crumpled, taped mess is in his hands, and a few more are at his feet. Somehow he's managed to cut himself in the process and so some of the tape and paper has gone into making a very makeshift bandage across the back of his hand and another wraps around a finger. Frustrated, he's about to give up, but instead turns to whoever is nearest. "Hey, are you any good at these? I never could get the hang of origami."

Launch

Successful or not, it doesn't much matter. As people cast their offerings out into the water, Rosinante stands at the edge where the lake just barely laps at the toes of his boots and watches them float off.

These people meant a lot to him. The first time they had lost this many was only a month or so after arrival and while he liked a number of them, he hadn't really come to know them the way he came to know these people that the little paper boats and lanterns now represent. Beacon will not be the same without them. So he breaks his customary silence and softly, just to himself, begins to sing.

((edit: yes, assume Beacon's auto-translate kicks in as always, who knows what language he'd be using tbh))

School

It's nice to see the memorial in place. He first checks to make sure the little tribute to Winters that he and Will had made sure to add has survived the flood. Most here never knew the man, which is itself a tragedy. Rosinante kneels down near where his name sits by the base of the memorial and places down a shotgun shell - hardly the bottle of booze he'd prefer to leave, but they're running low on supplies. It's still fitting in its own way, for he carries the man's shotgun across his back every time he ventures out into the woods.

He leaves other gifts by other names - some of those blue flowers Daylight planted in the greenhouse go to several of the lost, including Daylight himself but also Maes, as well as Peter and Riku. He leaves a shotglass for Ambrose - again, tragically empty, but it's the thought that counts as the dead can't exactly drink. Others get their own various tributes.

He doesn't have much to say, and won't be seeking people out. Closure is hard enough to find, he can't imagine bothering other people. But he'll stay in case anyone wants to talk. He sets up at one of the cafeteria tables with his star chart, and begins adding the names on the bulletin to several of the stars in the sky.

Boats

[worthallthis]

Are they any good. They only do this sort of thing once a day, almost, and usually with more complicated designs. It's been some combination of baffling (because Rosinante has very good fine motor control for writing and maps and fighting), amusing (because it's Rosinante making a mess of folding paper), and frustrating (because Rosinante doesn't like being offered help) watching him work out of the corner of their eye. Being asked is a relief.

"I can show you," Soldat offers. "Or just make you some if you would rather that." They put the final fold on their current one and offer it to him. It's pretty perfectly made.

A pause. "Also. I have a real bandage for your hand. If you want."

[callada]

"I'm fine," he grumbles at that second offer. "Just show me how you do it."

It certainly isn't a lack of coordination that's causing the hangups here - Rosinante is good and careful with his hands, as demonstrated not just with his aim but also at how carefully he does his makeup, how delicately he paints Mary's fingernails. But especially for those latter two, mistakes are easy enough to correct when his hand slips, and if he drops a brush or a bottle of nail polish, oh well.

But these scissors, they're too small for his hands and they're not his friends. He's just as prone to cutting himself by mistake as he is to toppling over. Dropping a paper boat and accidentally falling on it in the process of trying to pick it up has happened more than once tonight. And he doesn't have the calm he needs - he's frustrated, he's grieving, and he's angry at all of this happening again. What's worse, drowning, or brutal evisceration? It sounds like an obvious choice but there can't be anything pleasant about being smashed into the rocks by something twenty times your strength and size, and churned to bone by the silt-laden water. These people did not go peacefully and while that's in no way his own fault and he knows it, his reaction is always to think of how he could have done better to save them.

It's not boding well for the boats he's struggling to make in the meantime.

[worthallthis]

Whereas this is basically an extension of Soldat's primary self-comfort activity, so it's helping them stay calm just by doing it. They sympathize with the grief and the frustration-- they've had plenty of moments of anger and upset over all this; two of their favorite people disappeared in the flood, and many others they'd been starting for forge connections with, and it's all such a pointless loss of life-- but those moments are not right now.

First things first: "Put the scissors down." Because those do appear to be the biggest problem, here. The paper is thick enough that it's hard to cut yourself on it, and if they take it slow, he should hopefully be okay. "Just fold. I'll show you the steps for an easy one."

They collect two fresh pieces of paper, and offer one to Rosinante.

[callada]

Fine, then - he sets the scissors down, and takes the piece of paper, ready to observe. At least that's something he's good at, even though paying close attention these days has gotten harder than he'd like to admit. It's hard to focus when every few minutes his mind wanders to wanting cigarettes that simply don't seem to exist anymore.

But he's suffered through worse things than tobacco withdrawal, so he just pushes that particular itch aside for what must be the thirtieth time today, and watches.

"Last time I only had the patience to make two of these. They weren't very good then either," he admits. But he'd had a lot more mental clarity at the time. Those two boats had been for people long gone, after all.

[worthallthis]

"I didn't even know what they were for, last time," Soldat muses, making a fold, waiting for Rosinante to copy them before making another. Step by slow step, so Rosinante can see clearly how it's done, and can take his time, too. Slow means more accurate, and also more calming. "It was just soothing to do. When someone finally explained, I thought I'd be in trouble for doing them for the wrong reason. But no one seemed to mind. I made at least twenty, in the end."

[callada]

The first couple of folds go well enough. Maybe it's actually helpful to talk to someone while doing this. Maybe the problem before was one of being too focused. Who knows. Rosinante can't answer for his problems, despite having lived with them all his life. Yes, he gets angry easily at things he shouldn't be angry at sometimes, and yes, his clumsiness can be borderline disastrous when it crops up, and no, he doesn't know why or what to do about it other than carry on.

And right now, carrying on is folding a dumb boat but maybe he'll get this one right. "You thought you'd get in trouble for making extra? People probably loved that. More they didn't have to fold."

[worthallthis]

"Didn't think of it that way at the time. I was only two weeks into being free." Free-ish. This place isn't exactly freedom, there's still purpose and work to do, but it's a hell of a lot closer to it than where they came from. "Everything was either orders or punishment."

Another fold, still taking it very slow. The boats aren't complicated; they're halfway done. "Learning this, making the little boats to sail on the lake, was the first thing I did just for me."

[callada]

"Glad you got to do that, then."

Lining this fold up right is harder than it looks. Unhappy with the result, he tries to even out the crease, keep the edges neat, and ends up slicing his thumb on the paper itself. He pulls his hand back with a wince, and tries not to feel too defeated.

"You said you had a bandage?"

[worthallthis]

"Yes." Soldat pauses in the work, motions for Rosinante to do the same, and digs into a pocket for the gauze and tape (and medical thread and needle) they always carry with them, these days. They consider very briefly trying to put the bandage on for him, but decide just as quickly that it wouldn't go over well at all, so they just offer the one of the packets in its plastic wrapper for him to take himself.

"Can finish when you're done bleeding," they suggest. The boat isn't ruined. The crease doesn't have to be perfect, and now it will just carry a little more of Rosinante with it, that's all.

[callada]

Just another normal injury. Cuts, scrapes, and bruises are the least-concerning results of his clumsiness. He takes the packet and presses the square of gauze to the cut, then tapes it down firmly. There, solved, and he picks the boat back up again.

"Good enough," he announces. He's just ready to move on and get this done with so he can set them loose in the water.

[worthallthis]

"It is. Having one or two folds not quite right won't ruin it. Here. I'll show you the last steps." And then maybe let Rosinante have theirs, too, in case he wants to send out more than one, so he doesn't have to go through the process again. It's not like Soldat can't make more practically in their sleep.

It's interesting how little the things that soothe Soldat do the same for Rosinante; they really must be extremely different people. And yet not in a way that makes him a bad person, just not the same.

Hopefully the last two folds happen without mishap.

[callada]

They do, which is fortunate. It seems his hands are willing to cooperate the tiny remainder of the way.

"Never thought making a shitty paper boat would be harder than perfect score at the range," he grunts. His aim is probably not great right now either, though. He recognizes part of his trouble is surely to do not just with the frustration and anger of their losses, but the lack of nicotine making it hard to focus.

At least it didn't defeat him entirely, though. Victory against paper, accomplished.

Launch

[flangirl]

Pudding, likewise, watches the boats and lanterns - and her little crane, already struggling, as it should - go as the tide carries them. She hears the others around her, shuffles of clothing, little prayers, soft conversations.

She is utterly stunned when she hears words she knows.

They're soft, but the entire shore is quiet and subdued, and when you hear your own language (really hear it, not the strangeness of Beacon's eerily perfect translations) for the first time in weeks of a foreign land...

She just stares, from a few yards away, as Rosinante sings, her eyes wide, her mouth a little slack.

Oh god, it feels like being home.

One hand comes up to cover her mouth as he finishes, as she feels herself tearing up - really tearing up. She shakes her head, quickly wiping her third eye with the back of her wrist under her bangs, before approaching.

"Rosinante..." The tears are still warm and fresh in her two visible eyes, and hell, there are more coming, but she manages to keep them at bay in the third. She doesn't need another disaster this month. "That was beautiful."

[callada]

He becomes aware part of the way through that he has gained an audience, but carries on as if he hasn't noticed. He'd expected a few people might stop and listen, if only because singing isn't something he typically does, especially not where others might be around to hear. The fact that it's Pudding who listens and speaks up, of course, means it's probably not such a personal surprise, for they barely know each other, but rather that she is genuinely moved.

It's a little embarrassing all the same, but he hides that well enough as he turns and glances down at her before shrugging. "Ah... Thanks," he says as he casts his eyes back out over the lake, feeling even more awkward as he realizes she's not just moved but actually in tears. "It's not the sea, but it's as close as we're going to get here."

[flangirl]

There are so many things Pudding wants to say. I know that song, she wants to burst, to explode with it, to tell this stranger that she's from the same place. Are you a Marine?, she wants to ask, because while there are certainly pirates who sing the same, she knows it's a military dirge, has heard it on recording and never in person. (But what if he is? She's a pirate.) There are things she can't put to words, sounds that die in her throat, and she can't - cannot - decided what's safe.

Does she even want him to know?

How much of her old self does she want to let flounder under the waves and disintegrate into dark foreign waters with her tiny, ink-smeared crane?

She shakes her head a little. She doesn't have to decide now. Right? Like Soldat said...

"I'm - where I come from," she starts, trying to find words that are enough but not too much. "My country is an archipelago. We're surrounded by ocean, and so much of our commerce and travel is by ship. I just - " Her tears well up enough to blur her vision, and she stops to wipe at them with the wrists of her sleeves. This is so much. "I can't even figure out what I'm trying to say."

[callada]

When he looks down at her again, it's with a patient, sympathetic sort of frown, and a slow nod. Everyone has been through so much lately - the deaths, the destruction, all of it hit like one long rolling series of waves and he hasn't decided yet if they've actually retreated or if this is just another trough between peaks. Being here as long has he has, he's starting to suspect the latter is just always true any time things seem safe and quiet. They're just waiting to drown in the next crash.

"There's no hurry," he says initially, then continues, figuring the topic is a safe one. Better than worrying about the meaning of death here, and mourning the sudden loss of so many at once. "Lotta people here are from worlds where there's too much land, and too many people. It's a relief to meet another person who's used to the ocean being on all sides. A lake you can't even go out on safely just isn't the same."

[flangirl]

Pudding nods almost frantically at that, at meeting another person who's used to being surrounded by water. "It's - the flood was so different." The words feel stupid on her tongue, but fuck, she's not used to being earnest and sad and scared. Well - not to feeling all of those things so enormously, so on the surface. "I've never been scared of water like that. And then this - with the portal in the lake - coming out of something so small and then sending our well-wishes back... It's just..." It makes her feel too big for the space and so much smaller than the ocean ever did, at the same time. A few more passes with her sleeves manage to get her eyes more or less dry, or at least no longer overflowed and streaming.

"Your song sounded like home."

She thinks that's safe to say. And fuck, she needs to say it.

[callada]

Sounded like home, huh? He doesn't expect he should take this literally. He's been stuck here on his own amidst all these people from Earth (and a tiny, rare handful of others) for a long time. He has begun to accept that Earth must just be a place so full of people that the odds are always in its favor, or that the idea that alternate-Earths exist is a legitimate one and that by apparently standing on one version of that world, this portal draws in others with ease might have something to it.

But that's all right. He's interested now. An archipelago is still better than - where had Jo said she was from? Or Gregor? Big, vast places that take days and weeks to cross even when moving at high speeds by things like cars and trains. The very thought makes him feel uncomfortable. That much land feels too alien. He'd even rather think of the vast emptiness of space he saw in Will's memories. At least it has something in common with the sea.

"Nobody's ever told me something like that before here," he admits. "Where are you from? Your world, I mean."

If Earth has archipelagos, at least part of it might be okay.

[flangirl]

Pudding hesitates. This would be a lie of a magnitude she's never told before. She's never had to lie about what planet, what universe she's from. It would be easy to just say Earth, because like Rosinante she's learned that there must be many different variations on the place, so who would doubt her? Earth must have islands somewhere. Or some version of it must! Who's to say?

But. She bites her lip, breaks eye contact. "That's..."

She doesn't want to lie anymore.

"It's kind of complicated."

Everything inside her head has gotten so fucking complicated.

[callada]

That's even more interesting, given she's broadcasting every sign of not wanting to answer, and that's another thing he hasn't encountered before here. The only thing complicated about it is that for some reason, she doesn't want to say.

This isn't the time or place to grill someone, but it's something he'll certainly remember. For now, he shrugs as if it's no big deal. "Sorry. Hard to think about home so soon after arriving here," he says, allowing her that cover if she wants to take it. He can't be too hard on someone given the catastrophe they've just survived.

"Do you sing at all?"

[flangirl]

She hears that cover for what it is. And it would be easy to take it, but - the fact that he offered it (and she can tell it's a conscious offer)... makes her not want to.

She doesn't know if she can trust him, exactly, but she knows he understands.

Her throat works audibly as she swallows, hands absently pulling a lock of hair from behind her shoulder for her to worry fingers through. (Isn't that an ancient as hell habit...) "It's more - there's a lot of... conflict. And I don't know if I'd want someone else from home to know, if they came here."

Not a lie at all. Misdirection, a little. But it feels... it feels good to tell the truth, even if the truth is cagey.

A long breath blows out without her even thinking about it. Tension, just melting off when she's not working her hands around a complex knot of ribbons and razor wire anymore. And with it, the weight on the back of her neck goes too, and it's easy to lift her head and make eye contact again.

"...Sometimes," she answers the second question more easily. "Mama likes me to sing older songs for her friends, but I'm... hm. I guess you could say we have different tastes." Mama prefers Pudding singing in her soft little doll persona, more parts of her act, more ways to seem darling and innocent and sweet. Pudding would much rather sing along with Soul King in her room, alone.

[callada]

Never mind the offer of a change of topic, then. It seems she's willing to talk after all, if maybe a little carefully.

"Well, if you're not from Earth you're probably in good shape. That's where most people here seem like they come from. There's really only just a couple of us now who aren't."

And it seems safe to assume she's not from Earth, if she's nervous about even talking about which world she came from Earth has so many people that it must be easy to hide among all of them. Or that's the impression he gets, anyway, from the stories he hears here - and he does like hearing them.

He also certainly understands the feeling of being worried someone from home might show up and turn his own life chaotic in ways he's not comfortable with, but Rosinante figures he's set himself up to be pretty fortunate. Here, people know him as kind, respectable, and hard-working. He's a good, honest, loyal soldier who died fighting to save a kid's life. If someone showed up and it was his word against theirs, surely they would believe him, as it's all rooted mostly in truth and how could they know any different?

[flangirl]

Pudding laughs softly, bringing up a hand to hide her open mouth. What a statement. What utterly strange luck, indeed - of course, Rosinante is right; the odds of coming from the same world, when that world isn't Earth, is so small. Yet, here they are.

"Well, there's Fjord and - "

She stops abruptly, all mirth and half the color falling out of her face, and ducks her head, feeling hideous inside more than out.

"I. I'm sorry. I didn't know Fjord's friend, and I don't know if you did. I shouldn't talk so casually about him here."

[callada]

"It's all right," he says, though there's a heaviness to it. "People die here. No point in being ignorant of that."

It is sure as hell unpleasant, but so be it. In a way, he wonders if they somehow were left here for the decades the spirits have been around if they too would adopt that sentiment of death being meaningless. He'd like to think he never would become so callous, but he is not perfect.

"I've met others from other worlds, too. Most of them aren't here now. Doctor Ingram, though, he's from up in those stars somewhere. And Stone, he's from... I can't remember what his world is called, but it's full of people like him. Raksurans. Basically dragons."

Stone isn't here right now, so Stone can't correct him on the use of that word. Seems he's accepted it anyway. Big flying reptile? Dragon.