logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: AULD LANG SYNE

Entry tags:

EVENT LOG: AULD LANG SYNE

characters: everyone.
location: Everywhere
date/time: December 31-January 1
content: Another year gone by, and a sunny future ahead
warnings: n/a

Most of a year has passed since the World Eater was defeated and light began to trickle its way back in to the world. Spring brought new green growth, summer brought the first few pale flowers, and fall saw ever-longer days even as the crispness of frost returned to the air. Now, the longest nights of winter have passed (which still were shorter than those in that first spring), and as the sun rises on the new year, it does so with reassuring warmth that cuts through the ice and snow.

we've wandered far beneath the stars

Many left in those early days, lured by the chances to take the portal home, or to new worlds - and hopefully they made it successfully. The few who stayed behind in Beacon have worked hard on making the place into a home, or at least a solid base of operations for future work, whatever that might entail. Exploring has become easier thanks to the longer, brighter days, revealing a seemingly endless expanse of forest pockmarked by ruined, overgrown cities. Beacon stands at the center of it all, somehow harbors the brightest light, and so out at the edges of the explored areas, forest spirits still linger. They're generally friendly and curious, encouraged by stories spread by the spirits who fled Beacon and its sunlight in order to carry news of the lantern-folk and their success at bringing the aurora to the ground.

All right, so the story may not always be accurate, but it has been told.

And given the spirits still understand the emotional meaning to the start of a new year, counted not on a calendar they follow but on one they barely remember, they begin a strange sort of pilgrimage in those long winter nights. On the night of December 31 they swarm the darkened town of Beacon with whoops and hollers and gifts of ancient decayed (but possibly still viable) seed packets looted from broken cities, crude jewelry made of bones and shards of pottery, and something that looks a bit like it was probably modeled after bread, but are actually buns of baked clay. Before the sun rises, they depart again, leaving Beacon quiet in the snow except for the strange, eerie noises of ice breaking around the edges of the lake.

Should anyone, intentionally or by mistake, break one of these clay buns, they'll find there was something inside. Is your luck good or bad, or will their token object be too obscure to decipher?

and we ran into the night

You probably have your own way of celebrating, too. The portal works, and experimenting with it and the old lighthouse keeper's notes have provided a means to bring in gifts, food and drinks, and even sometimes living creatures, plants, or fungi, though things don't always go intended (an order for goats one day instead brought in a pair of these).

Those who live in Beacon have generally agreed not to bring in new people, but accidents sometimes happen. If you're new on the new year, this must all be awfully confusing, but if you've been here a month or so, maybe you've had time to settle in. It's certainly been made easier by those studying lantern repair over the last many months, as small dents and cracks can often be patched back up, usually with good success (but sometimes with temporary side effects).

Enjoy the new year from the shore of the lake, the warmth of The Invincible, or wherever you like - you've chosen to stay, at least for now, and Beacon isn't a bad place to call home.

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He'll get to answering that question in a moment, probably, but it doesn't seem like the most important thing right now. He looks the guy over warily, noting the differences. How long has it been since he turned up? Was he wandering the forest the whole time? Kept with the spirits, safe from the dangers nearer to town? Or is he starting to hallucinate old faces with new features?

Hopefully not the latter, but in this place, one never really knows.

"... Gregor? It's you, right?"

Gregor blinks. "Oh. Right. Yes." He's starting to remember a bit more, specifically that this is Rosinante, the other guy with the... not son. Child? Ward? Whatever. They've spoken before, lots of times, though it feels like it was years ago.

"Sorry to skip introductions." Not that sorry, he does it all the time, but in this case he didn't mean to spook anyone. "Still getting used to all this. Again." He sort of gestures to Beacon as a whole.

"I like what you've done with the place. Looks like you all finally figured out how to get the lights back on." There were other problems, he's sure, but if they're still around he'll hear about it eventually.

"Yeah, that took some doing," he says, then smiles and waves for Gregor to come find himself a seat on one of the benches. Seems like he's real after all. Damned portal.

"Launched a bomb at the World Eater back in spring as it was walking through the lake toward us. Finally got the sun back, little by little. You want a drink?" he then asks, as he reaches to top his own glass off from a tall bottle of thick, dark beer.

Gregor raises his eyebrows. "A bomb?" Color him impressed. "You have been busy, haven't you?" He sits.

Normally he'd turn down the drink because boy can he not handle it, but it's New Year's Eve (apparently), and he's dead again (apparently), and why the hell not? So he gives Rosinante a simple "Sure," and makes himself comfortable on the bench. Or he looks comfortable anyway, but it is still a bench.

A drink, then - and this is just the stuff for a cold winter night. Rosinante tips the rest of the bottle into a glass, then hands it over.

"Sure have. Hell, you've been gone, hm. Over a year, maybe? Looks like you've made some changes too," he notes with a raised eyebrow, then sets his drink on the bench beside him to light a cigarette, cupping a hand around it to shield it from the breeze off the water. He really has to baby the things to light them with his fragile, flickering lighter, but the process is satisfyingly familiar now that he can attempt it. Safer than the lantern, too.

Over a year? That timeline's not far off, even if it's skewed a little. He accepts the glass and takes a drink.

"Not on purpose, and technically I'd already made these changes before. It's what sent me here the first time." He'd elaborate, maybe, but he's suddenly reminded of why he came over here.

"Do you have more of those?" And it looks like they've got a better way to light them now, too. How convenient.

Oh what a tragedy it would be if he were to run out of cigarettes. Thankfully even the weird ones the portal sometimes drags in are still smokeable. "Here," he says as he passes the whole pack to Gregor, then waves off any attempt to hand it back to him. "Got lots, and that'll get you started until you can pick up some more.

He offers the lighter as well, then has a draw from his own cigarette. "So, what, that makes this the second time? You went back in between?"

It's happened before, sure, but it's rare. Always a curiosity, even if there's still no actual reason he can understand behind it. Maybe the settings on the portal just like some people better than others.

He's not about to turn down a generous offer like that, so he keeps the pack without complaint. The lighter he turns down though; he's got his own and wants to know if it works.

"Second time I know of, anyway." It's a bit of a struggle to keep the flame alive, but eventually it catches. He sighs with visible relief as he breathes out the smoke. How exactly does he want to go about this next part?

"Went back is correct, if you want to call it that. I was dead and then I wasn't anymore, and apparently now I am again." He says it like it's the same level of inconvenience as missing a train. "It's strange, though, I was here for, what? A couple of months? But time hadn't passed when I woke up." He shrugs. "I'd think it was a dream if I hadn't come back."

"I remember meeting someone who did that. Came here, vanished, showed up later. But she didn't remember being here the first time," he says contemplatively, pausing for a sip of his beer.

"We've been trying to work out how to use the portal better. Some people have already gone through, hoping they'd find their way home, or to somewhere else. But I don't have any way to know if they got there or not. We haven't been trying to bring people in."

But things happen with strange technology they don't have a full command of, don't they? He's not sure if they're to blame or if the portal is set to keep trying, based on some program buried in some box in one of the labs. He's learned a lot in his time here but he's still no computer whiz, that's for certain. So it's no explanation, if Gregor was hoping for one, but he figures it's worth pointing out they're not intentionally dragging dead people here to wind up chained to a lantern on a strange world.

Huh. Another person who died and came back? Gregor would've liked a conversation there, but then she didn't remember being here, so there wouldn't have been all that much of a point.

He waves off the assurance that no one brought him here on purpose. "I didn't think you were. It probably just grabbed me since I'd been here before. Just not that common of an occurrence, so it seems out of place." And really he blames himself more than the portal. A murder takes two, but if he paid better attention he wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. A lesson he will apparently never learn.

"I think I'd rather just wait it out, instead of taking the portal route." He shrugs, breathing out smoke. "It worked last time."

"Probably best," he agrees. "Because in all honesty, we don't know if we're getting that part of it right. I guess the math looks solid, people should be going home, but what happens if you go home and you're dead with your soul stuck in a lantern?"

Actually, maybe Gregor knows that part through personal experience, and what was intended as a rhetorical question becomes a question he hopes there might be some answer to. He sets his glass down and looks over at the other man, one who went home, even if not via the portal, and actually remembered.

Gregor wouldn't know the first thing about the math looking solid, so he'll take Rosinante's word for it. Still, seems risky when there's a much surer option.

Speaking of which. He's taking a drink when he realizes that he's being looked at pointedly. Time to figure out how he wants to explain this.

"I don't know about souls, I honestly didn't believe in them before this. Part of me still doesn't." Maybe it's something else in the lantern. Life... force? That sounds even faker. "But as for the other thing..." Ah, to hell with it. What's the worst that could happen here?

"I would consider myself more of an exception than the rule. What happens to me probably won't happen to anyone else. I just have a tendency not to stay dead." He shrugs. "But I can tell you that I've never woken up with a lantern I didn't have before. So whatever that tells you."

To be fair, Rosinante doesn't know the first thing about the math either, but it's easy enough to parrot someone who presumably does.

"Not much," he admits with a shrug at the end of the not-story and all of its glaring holes. But given his own refusal to tell most people much about himself, it's not like he can really argue with the tactic.

"So you don't stay dead, and given you're here, you tend not to stay alive either," he says, unsure what to make of it. "There, you have no lantern, but here, you have one. What it sounds like is we probably shouldn't base too many assumptions on how the portal works off your experience."

Since, you know, not staying dead or alive isn't a normal problem to have. But that's fine, at this point he's long past being bothered by things that aren't normal anyway.

"I stay alive just fine, thanks." Sort of. "Most of the time." This is, what, is he up to ten now? But then most people would be dead for good at his age, so it is what it is. "I've at least been alive a lot longer than not." Whatever that means.

"But you're right, you probably shouldn't take my experience as a baseline. Even where I'm from, I don't know anyone else who does what I do." Sure, a few people who are frustratingly difficult to kill, but no one who gets back up after. "And as far as I know, last time was the first time I wound up here, so coming here isn't a normal state of being for me. This is relatively new. I'm not entirely sure I like it, but I'm told there are far worse places."

Uh huh. Most of the time. Well, look, Rosinante doesn't really know, he's just making educated guesses here. If someone has regular experiences with not staying dead, then they have to die to get to that point, don't they?

"Yeah? Well, they're probably right. This place hasn't always been great, but we've worked to make it livable. It's not so bad these days. Soldat has a farm up and running, you should go see it when you get a chance. Nice to have food we can rely on in case something ever goes wrong with the portal. Oh, and Will has figured out how to repair lanterns, mostly. Just don't go throwing it in the lake and you'll probably be all right."

He wouldn't go as far as to say life here is especially luxurious or anything, but it's comfortable. They had to put a lot of time and effort, the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears to get there, but he's genuinely proud of the result. Maybe it's not quite what Gregor was hoping for, but there truly are far worse places, even in the worlds of the entirely-living.

"Sounds like you've gotten rather comfortable." He spends a few moments looking back toward town, noting the differences. The ones he remembers, anyway, and the ones they can see from here. It's a strange concept, people working to make a dead place livable instead of, well, trying to not be dead.

"Do you plan on staying here, then? Just making the most of it?" It's not a bad plan, just one he doesn't really understand. Didn't they all have things left to do? Which reminds him— enjoy the sudden topic change, Rosinante.

"Did you ever hear anything more about your—" Child. Son. Whatever. "That boy of yours?" Close enough.

He opens his mouth to answer Gregor's first question, then shuts it again before his cigarette can go tumbling from his lips. It precariously dangles there, until he takes it in hand and lets Gregor keep asking away.

Good thing, too, because the second question is unintentionally funny. "You really have been gone a long time," he says, smiling. "Law's here now. Only, he's about the same age as me. Won't let me call him a boy anymore. I'll introduce you sometime. He's over at the lab working on... something. I can't keep up. Some kind of medicine he was trying to isolate from the mushrooms Pudding has been growing. Some experiment that couldn't wait or it'd all go bad, I guess. I'm sure he'll come by later."

It's still awfully bittersweet to think that Law is here, when he should have had so many more years of life. But as things are, they've finally found themselves together again, able to explore and have adventures side by side, and that's all either of them really wanted in the end, isn't it?

"Oh." What does he say to that? He'd be sorry for the loss, except it's not a loss here, is it? "That's... unfortunate. At least he got to be an adult."

Rosinante doesn't even seem all that put off by it. Maybe it's not a big deal where they're from. Maybe this afterlife is better than the kid's actual life. Well, "kid". Most everyone's a kid from Gregor's perspective.

"I'm curious," when isn't he? "Was he the kind of person you expected?" He's aware it's kind of a sudden, deep question, but it came to his mind now, so now is when he's asking it. "He was rather young when you last saw him, if I remember correctly."

That's a hell of a question, but Rosinante has to figure it comes from a place of personal interest, considering Gregor has someone to look after also. How much does any one person change after so long in a usual situation, and how much might that change be magnified if they have to spend over a decade away from the person they care about most?

It's not like he has the answers. He's not sure he even wants to answer in the first place. It's not like he has anything especially bad to say, but Law is awfully private, and talking about something so personal without him present doesn't feel right. But the answer itself really isn't so bad, so after a moment's thought he goes ahead with it.

"He was thirteen. He spent that many years again figuring things out after I died," he says, looking out at the lake. "I didn't have expectations, though. I wondered a lot. But all I wanted was for him to live the life he wanted to live, whatever that meant for him. And that's what he did. Wish he hadn't died so young, though."

It's a nice answer, and it's an interesting answer, which was really all he was looking for in the first place. Well, alright, he had some personal interest here too.

"That's good of you, not putting your own expectations into the mix. It's hard not to." Or at least it's hard not to put some sort of hope onto the other person. Do better than I did. Don't make the same mistakes. Not that his own mistakes would be easy to replicate, but it's the spirit of the thing.

He smokes quietly for a moment.

"You might misunderstand what I'm about to say." He offers no explanation for that. "But I don't know what I'd do if mine wound up here, especially while he's still young. I'd like to think I taught him better than that, but I guess things happen. Life doesn't play fair. And a universe where he and I end up in the same afterlife, assuming that's what this is, is a very unfair universe."

Without allowing time for the implied insult of that to sink in, he just keeps going. "That's no offense to you and yours, of course. I'm not saying you were bad people, I don't even believe in that. I'm just saying that if there's any justice to anything... well, there probably isn't, is there?" He doesn't exactly believe in that, either.

"All that's to say that you're probably handling this far better than I would."

"Thanks, I think."

Whatever's going on in Gregor's mind to produce that kind of response, it's something awfully opaque. At least, the details of it are. On the surface, the internal conflict and the struggle to accept the concept of his kid's early death are readable enough. Besides, Rosinante knows there's something odd going on in that world with Gregor's ability to die, live, and die again, so the fact that he's missing some details is not exactly a surprise, it just makes it a little harder to follow everything he just heard. That struggle is evident enough in his expression, as he searches Gregor's eyes for meaning to add to the words.

But he doesn't find much, so he'll just have to carry on responding to the parts he does follow, and maybe some of the rest will become clearer in the end.

"You've seen a different side of life than most people have, I know that. Especially as you've come here twice. Living, dying, living again and then dying again probably gives a unique perspective." He's putting it charitably, mostly because he doesn't like this notion that there is no justice in anything. Not the first time he's heard someone say that, though, either.

"Given all that, misunderstanding might be inevitable. But I wouldn't want your kid to wind up here while young, either. The few kids we had here already were pretty heartbreaking to think about. Nobody wants kids to be put in circumstances like that." Or if some people do, they're people he sure doesn't care to meet unless he's bringing them to a secure facility in cuffs. But. He waves his cigarette to indicate that's not really his main point here.

"I just have to ask. What are you trying to suggest, that only bad people wind up here? Or some equivalent, if you don't believe in 'bad'?"

"Hm, yeah, that got away from me a little bit, didn't it?" And normally he'd just leave it there because he's not in the habit of explaining himself, but since Rosinante actually asked him point-blank:

"Not exactly, no. I think everything is basically chaos, so in reality this place probably didn't have any criteria for who it dragged in. No moral one, anyway. But assuming it did, assuming it was some sort of heaven or hell situation, I'd be displeased to learn that the universe, or whatever gods, deemed us equal." Is that still too vague?

"It's just a hypothetical. I'm in no position to judge you as better or worse than anybody else." And a small correction: "It's not that I don't believe in the concept of bad. It's subjective, but it exists. I just don't think there are specifically 'bad people' and 'good people'. It's a lot more grey than that. There's just people, and they make choices."

"You sound like you're trying very hard to talk your way in circles around something, if you think this is meaningless, but if it has meaning then at the very least we shouldn't be equals," he says dryly.

Because, you know, how exactly is he supposed to take that other than negatively? He doesn't dislike Gregor, he thought they got along well enough the first time around, so where's all this coming from? The whole thing about there not being judgment and all is like him furiously trying to cover his own tracks in the snow, which is a funny thing to do if you're also trying to say there were never tracks in the first place.

Still too vague. Well.

"You're right, we probably shouldn't be." He doesn't know Rosinante's life. "And I'm sure we're not."

Gregor takes another drink. He hasn't had that much, it's not getting to him already, is it? He sighs.

"I've already explained my stance on the matter, but for simplicity's sake: I'm one of the bad ones. He isn't. Whatever I deserve, he doesn't." He pinches the bridge of his nose, suddenly feeling his years more than usual. Does death always make him this introspective? It's annoying.

"So I don't know how I'd react if I met him here. It's hard not to think of this place as an afterlife, isn't it? Maybe not for you, but what else is it? It's hard not to think of this as something deserved, especially now that I've been here twice. Though clearly it's not, because here you are." He gestures to not just Rosinante, but the town as a whole. What few people are left. "I doubt you and I would belong in the same circle of hell."

And just in case that was still too vague (it's possible), he finishes it succinctly: "People like me deserve worse than this, and people like him— like you, probably, deserve better. But there is no order to the universe, and so here we are." He takes a long draw off his cigarette. "And I don't know how I feel about that."

It's almost enough to make Rosinante roll his eyes, but he's not drunk enough to be that rude. There's a lot of judgment going on here for someone who claims he doesn't judge, a lot of "good" and "bad" for someone who claims not to believe in those things, and plenty of other contradictions he's already sort of lost the thread of, but he'll blame that on the beer. It's good beer, and this is not his first one of the night.

"As I see it," he starts, then pauses for a draw from his cigarette, "everyone here is equal. Some did bad things in life, some didn't. Some decided to make a new start, be something different. Others, maybe they didn't have to, maybe they're content with who they are and have always been. If this is an afterlife, which is what I thought at first too, then it's one where people don't have to be or deserve any particular thing. It's all what you make of it from this point on."

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