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.

QUICKNAV
comms	\|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	\|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

"And you're right, but that's— never mind. We've lost each other, I think." He still feels like they're misunderstanding one another on some level, but he's no longer in the mood to pursue it. He tried using his own words, and then he tried using the ones he thought were easier to understand, and they're still basically nowhere. "Probably lost each other a long time ago. As you said, misunderstandings are inevitable. No sense arguing."

Were they arguing, even? Not from his perspective, but he's never sure where other people draw that line. He's also chronically unaware of (or more likely, willfully ignorant of) any awkward silences, so he'll just keep on going with something else.

"So what do you think it is now? Or know. Maybe you've solved that particular mystery."

He hadn't considered it an argument either, and he won't argue with Gregor wanting to put an end to it, so he just shrugs at those last couple sentences and lets it be. Files it all away under things to make sense of later, once he's had time to learn more about Gregor and his experiences, because none of that made enough sense to sort out right now. Patience, as always, is just as valuable a learning tool as anything else.

And anyway, there's no time for much else since Gregor continues on with the questions, but that's fine with him. It's a good night to just hang out and talk to whoever wants to come by, it's what he's here for.

"No, not solved completely. Some people who know about these things have said this is just another world, like the other ones up there," he says, nodding to the few stars visible through the thin layer of clouds drifting in off the lake. "If you had a spaceship you could take off from here and fly home, it just might take you a long time. I'm not sure they're right, though. Others have talked about parallel worlds. Like maybe this whole universe is just one mirror of another, and the portal is the way between them. Or dying is. I like that better because it seems like it might explain some of the differences between this place and life as I know it, but liking it doesn't mean it's true."

He listens to the explanation while finishing off his drink, setting the glass on the bench beside him. Probably shouldn't have another, all things considered.

"Neither idea is perfect, but the parallel worlds one, the multiverse theory. That might explain the girl who didn't remember being here the first time. If there are different iterations of worlds, then there are different iterations of people. You could've met two different ones. Doppelgangers or something."

He honestly isn't sure which theory he likes better. They both mean he's stuck here.

"That one also explains why the rules are different. Other planets have different gravity and such, but I wouldn't think life and death operate differently on each one."

Rosinante nods. "Right. I wasn't sure about that at first, since how would I know, only being familiar with one world. One planet. But none of the people who came here ever said anything like this is how death worked for them in their worlds. But then again, wouldn't that be true of magic? Why would magic be real on some planets and not others?"

A question that still plagues him. It feels like there must be some sort of magic at work in this world sometimes, even if it's at a very minimal level. Meanwhile, the magic brought by other people from their homes sure works here, and works well. But he had always learned that there was no such thing, back where he came from.

"Maybe it is real on all worlds." He considers for a brief moment, then continues. "Back home, we don't exactly advertise what we can do." Surely Rosinante will figure out what "we" means, right? Either way, Gregor is not explaining it.

"The old dangers aren't so much a problem anymore, not as many witch hunters left." He saw to that personally. "But at this stage in our history, suddenly revealing such a powerful tool to all humanity would be... not the best idea. It would flip the balance of power overnight, or so I'm told. Realistically we'd have to make a concerted effort just for the public to believe anything, but that's beside the point." And what is the point, exactly? He takes a draw off his cigarette before continuing, as if he wasn't just in the middle of something.

"All that's to say, maybe it does exist where you're from, and you're just not in the know. Or maybe it looks different to you. All magic is, it's just will and power. It can look like a lot of things."

"You might be right," he agrees as he watches his plume of smoke drift upward. "Especially about it existing where I'm from and me not realizing. People get good at hiding things. People make dumb mistakes too, though. So if it's real, it's rare."

Individuals can keep secrets. Entire regimes can't, though they can spend a lot of money and manpower to cover them up. In between, the average population of people can't do either one.

"I shouldn't discount it entirely just because I've never seen that, but I've never seen an island get up and start walking, either." Though maybe that's a bad comparison, given he's heard the legends about Zunesha like anyone with a basic interest in mythology has. Or anyone who's met a mink, for that matter, but they're also few and far between.

Odd comparison, but alright, he'll take it.

"It's quite rare where I'm from, or at least the sort that's enough to cause a problem." Anyone can curse an ex with bad luck for a week, it's another thing entirely to light fires with your mind. "It tends to run in families, so it's fairly easy for us to keep track of. That said, you're right, accidents happen, but most people in my world chalk it up to coincidence, or some other natural force. They're more likely to believe in a far-fetched conspiracy than what's right in front of them. Never underestimate the human ability to rationalize." Correctly or very incorrectly, as the case may be.

"But let's test the other option. Are there any people in your world with strange abilities at all?"

The question makes him spit out his cigarette - not forcefully, but he sure does lose it somewhere in the boat when he opens his mouth and it falls. Well... it probably isn't strong enough to set the whole thing on fire.

He coughs a little on the unexpected and very abruptly inhaled smoke, then laughs. "We didn't really get much chance to talk before, did we? Yeah. I know people with abilities. They're not magic, though."

Been a long time since he got to show off, so while it's absolutely not the most impressive power in the world, he can't resist snapping his fingers and cutting off the sound of the breeze and the strange pinging and booming of the ice on the lake.

And then he leans wayyy down to see if he can spot where the hell that cigarette went to, just so he can make sure it gets put out.

Gregor is so used to tuning out background city noise that it takes him a moment to notice what's changed. No sound. Either Rosinante's enveloped them in a pocket of silence, or he's silenced the whole lake. Fairly impressive either way, most people can't manage anything close to that.

"And you're sure that's not magic?" He makes a very small gesture, no more than twitching a finger up, and draws the fallen cigarette to his own left hand. He holds it out for Rosinante to take. "They look the same to me."

A quick ritual, and a result beyond the normal. Intent and power. Magic. It seems very straightforward to him.

The cigarette goes flying upward and his gaze follows it. The inevitable result is that somehow when trying to sit back up he instead pitches forward off the bench and tumbles face-first at Gregor's feet.

Ah, well, who needs grace. He clears his throat and sits himself upright on the floor, there, before scooting back onto the bench and claiming the cigarette.

"They might look the same, but they're not," he says, straightening his hat and then dusting off a sleeve. Then, with another snap of his fingers, the sounds abruptly come right back. "My powers are due to a change in my lineage factor that lets me dampen sound waves. I don't know all of the science behind the details, I'll admit that, but it's nothing mystical or unexplainable."

Gregor will overlook the gracelessness. Things happen sometimes. He'll just pretend he didn't see anything, though he is a bit concerned about this guy being on a boat. Thankfully it's not in the water.

"Hm, maybe it means something else where you're from, but magic doesn't have to be unexplainable. It's just a word we use for a certain kind of power. I'm sure there's some explanation behind it. Something about brain waves and physics, probably— science is not my field." As if that weren't obvious.

"I seem to remember some research in the '60s, but— that doesn't mean anything to you. Anyway, it never came to much, and as I said we're not very public. Hard to study things that don't want to be studied." And without a single break in step: "What's a lineage factor?"

So it sounds to him like the magic in Gregor's world does have a concrete explanation. And honestly, for other worlds' magic, that's something he's suspected as well, but he doesn't know enough about it to really even speculate. As soon as it became obvious that "magic" was in fact a real thing in some worlds, and in this one in turn, then it seemed there had to be a reason for it. He's no scientist, but he does lean hard toward logic for most things.

"You know what genetics is?" Maybe his is yet another world that uses that alternate word. "Same thing, from what everyone tells me here. Or, um. There's one with letters. I forget, some kind of acronym. Might start with a D." Because of course it does. It all comes back to them in the end, doesn't it?

Nah, that one has to be coincidence.

"DNA. Yes, I know about genetics." Sort of. "I know of it, anyway. I know what it is." Good enough for their purposes.

"So what you're saying is that there's something in your genetics that allows you to do that." He makes a vague gesture to indicate that. "I did say magic runs in families, that makes it genetic." Probably. "So once again I'm failing to see the difference here."

They might use different words for it, and they might think of it in different contexts, but it still sounds much the same to him. Magic and... whatever this is called. "What do you call it, actually?" He wonders if it works the same way, too.

Well, if he's learned anything here, it's that all sorts of worlds have different experiences, different words for things, and really who even knows what else. It's irritating to have his powers compared to magic when he's always known they're not, but some people are just bullheaded, and others define words differently, and it's looking like Gregor is leaning toward the latter (though probably a mix of both).

"Call what, our abilities in general? Just, abilities. Powers. They come from eating devil fruit, since those can modify lineage factors, but then you have to learn to make use of them. It's not always intuitive, and the better you understand the science behind your particular power, the better you're able to use it, usually," he explains, feeling equally bullheaded after how the conversation has gone so far. Oh, it's a good conversation, an interesting one, but he sticks to 'lineage factor' and insists on pointing out once again that it's based on science when he doesn't necessarily have to do either.

It's definitely a mix of both, though even he's not one to harp on something when it's clearly been proven false.

"Well, there's the difference. A difference, anyway." Alright so maybe he's not completely letting it go. It hasn't completely been proven false yet. "We don't get ours from eating anything, we're just born with it. Technically everyone is, to an extent, but most of them can't manage more than a parlor trick or two, at most. The real power is innate." Aside from that, though—

"You do have to learn how to use it properly, how to use it at all, and the more you know about how the world works, the easier things get. Someone trying to heal a wound does much better if they work with the body's natural healing instead of without it. That requires some foreknowledge." So he's not saying it's the same thing, but he's basically saying it's practically the same thing.

"Of course I'll admit it's more intuitive than not. That's what makes it nearly impossible to teach; everyone's experience with it is completely different. All you can really be taught are generalizations, and the rest you have to figure out yourself."

There are definite parallels. He's stubborn, but he's not going to absolutely deny things for the sake of denial, as if not being magic somehow makes his powers better than magical ones.

"Sounds to me like the way your world defines magic is different from how it's defined in my world," he says with a shrug. "A lot of it sounds similar, but there are plenty of differences, too. Sounds like it'd be really interesting if someone managed to really work out what's going on with powers in your world, but that wouldn't change them into science if that's not how you guys think about it."

"Science and magic are on a continuum." He's been talking so much that he didn't realize his cigarette has burned low. He takes one last drag before stubbing it out. "With things explained on one side, and things not explained on the other. But that's just how it looks to me; if magic is something impossible, something that can't be explained, then you're right. They're not the same."

But if Rosinante thought that would be the end of this discussion, it most certainly is not. Gregor still has a thousand other questions.

"So how does your power work? Is it an internal thing, or an external thing? Do you just think about it, or do you have to do that?" He mimics the act of snapping before giving him the weirdest one: "What does it feel like?"

Well, at least he's used to spending a lot of time with other people who are endlessly curious about things. For once, he's found one who's apparently on the magical end of the spectrum, and maybe that's a good thing. A different type of opinion, different experiences. But it sure is even more alien to him than anything Will says about physics, or Law says about medicine.

"I used to have to think about it more, when I had less experience," he says, starting with the simplest of the questions first. "Now it depends on what I need to do. Usually it's no harder than thinking about the diameter of the barrier I want, or focusing for a second on what I'm trying to mute, if it's not myself. That's the easiest, just making me the only target. ... Never thought it really felt like anything, though. It's the sounds that stop." Which maybe means it's an external thing, but he's not exactly sure if that's the right answer to that particular question.

Also in around half a day he'll learn newer answers to these things when messing with water, but until then, Gregor will have to make do with whatever he gets here and now.

But before Gregor can ask more questions, he's curious too. "What about you and your magic? What does that feel like?"

He's pleased with the detailed answer, and pleasantly surprised by the questions; usually he's the one asking them all. It's not that he likes talking about himself, he just appreciates when someone else wants to learn. Not that he has any issue with talking, clearly.

"It doesn't feel like anything?" That one's more rhetorical. He's not sure how you'd connect to something you can't feel, but then maybe connection isn't how that works.

"It's difficult to explain, because it's different for everyone. It's a bridge between you and everything else, so it depends on how you interpret the world around you. For most people that translates to some sort of energy transfer, heat or electricity, because that's what you'd think it would feel like." Most people now, anyway, in an age when the transfer of energy is just a given concept.

"For me, it's a river." He almost leaves it there, but Rosinante probably wants as detailed of an answer as he gave, so it's only fair to explain. "Water flows in one direction, unless there's something to block it, and then it has to go around. So if you want to change its course, all you have to do is stick your hand in. The more water you want to change the direction of, the more you need to divert the current, but everything continues on whether you touch it or not." He's talking a bit with his hands now, making small gestures that may or may not seem to correlate to what he's saying.

"If you put in enough effort, you can shift the course of the river permanently. If you try especially hard, you can reverse the current itself. It's about as easy or as hard as it sounds." And surely all of that makes perfect sense.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject