EVENT LOG: AULD LANG SYNE

[nextnightmods]

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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Comments

[callada]

"Hard to know," he agrees. "Long as we don't have another flood like the one that swept half of town into the lake."

But now he really feels like some rural oldtimer, talking about the weather, and laughs at himself for doing it. "Oh well. Hey, I have something for you too, it's back at the Invincible," he says, and motions with a thumb pointed in the building's direction.

[worthallthis]

"We're more prepared for a flood this time," Soldat says. Because they are. Also, they're more spread out, and both the farm and the lab are on higher ground than Beacon proper, so hauling the handful of people remaining out to safe locations won't be as hard as trying to keep track of all those people before.

It's not talking about the weather like rural oldtimers if it's a potential life and death situation.

They shake themselves out of that line of conversation, though, when Rosinante does, and look back at the big building. "That's where yours is, too. Guess we can exchange, yeah?"

[callada]

"Convenient," he says as he waves for Soldat to follow. Might as well head over there, at least it's warmer. He stuffs his hands in his pockets on the way, because even with gloves on, the chill finds its way through the fabric.

"And yeah, I saw the spirits earlier," he says as he walks, noting Soldat had mentioned them early on. "I was starting to think we wouldn't see them again."

[worthallthis]

"I thought they'd all gone away," Soldat admits. They have their warming rubies still in their right pocket, so that hand? Nice and cozy. The metal one, of course, doesn't need to be kept warm. "I thought. I wonder if any of them want to stay," they say, changing the course of their sentence mid-thought. "If all they need is somewhere constantly in the darkness, if they did."

It's probably not going to happen, the spirits have never had any problem just... leaving. But they kind of want to ask around, now, anyway. Maybe they can go down into the underwater lab. Or the mines. Anywhere the sun doesn't touch.

[callada]

"Dunno. Maybe. Some of them like people well enough, maybe they'd enjoy it. You'd have to... Well, maybe they don't change, now."

Into green-eyes, that's the worry. Inviting spirits to stick around means inviting that potential risk. But with the World Eater gone, no longer driving them to madness, maybe they won't.

He doesn't voice his darker concern, that as long as spirits still exist in good numbers, some of them may still eventually evolve into even bigger problems. Doesn't want to kill the holiday mood, especially when Soldat is so happy to see those strange little creatures again. And Rosinante too can't help but feel a sort of warm nostalgia at their presence, after all the help so many of them gave in the end.