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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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.

He's happy to not have to explain what it does or doesn't feel like at this point, because he just doesn't know how to put it into words. It's purely sensory, in fact, but feeling like literally nothing usually means he's done it right, and what else is there to say?

Gregor, meanwhile, has a very thorough answer, which he appreciates especially because it's easy to visualize. Sure, he's probably missing out on all the finer details of the actual experience, but it's got to be close enough.

"And you're just born with this. When did you start trying to use it?" he asks. "Did your parents tell you, or did you discover it on your own?"

A long time ago this would've been a sore subject, but not anymore, and especially not if he conveniently leaves out the details.

"I always knew it was there, but not the way I do now. Knowing and knowing are two different things. The relationship gets clearer over time. As for when I started, probably as soon as I understood words. Wouldn't you?" It would've been harder to keep him from trying, honestly.

"How do you get yours? You have to eat that fruit, but how do you get those?" Do people just give their children devil fruit? Are they bought? Do you have to just be insanely lucky and find one?

That all sounds reasonable enough, and he nods his agreement. Yeah, if he was born with his abilities he would've been one really quiet little kid. Quieter than he already was, anyway, from his vague recollection of padding around that too-big house that wanted to echo at every movement thanks to its pointlessly oversized rooms. Would've made the first year in the North Blue a little easier, certainly.

"They're not common," he says with a shrug. "But some are considered more valuable than others. People will hunt those ones down and sell them to the highest bidder, especially if they already have one. You can't eat two, that'll kill you. When I found mine, though, it was just by mistake. I was a dumb kid. Thought I was swiping something like a custard apple. I think it got mixed in with them. Looked pretty similar."

Yeah, he'll admit to casual theft at that age, because what eight year old hasn't tried to steal something pointless at least once just to see if they could? He'll leave out the part where he was starving, it's not relevant.

The idea's not strange to Gregor at all. Stealing something pointless just to see if you can is practically a rite of passage, as far as he sees it, and if you don't have anything to eat, it just means you're justified.

"So two is too many." He wonders briefly if you could mix them with other kinds of abilities, but even if it were possible to try, he wouldn't want to. "There's no hard and fast limit with magic, but you can certainly kill yourself biting off more than you can chew." Not that he'd know anything about that. Not that he's come close to doing it multiple times.

"Can each one only do one thing? Or give one ability, I guess. And why doesn't anyone cultivate them?" Unless they do? But then they wouldn't be nearly as rare as they sound.

"Each one's unique, so not only do they only do one type of thing, they're never the same as any other. But people manage to work out the rules of their modifications and see how broadly they can apply them, and some might be more limited than others to begin with. Lots more variation than I can really even summarize," he says with a shrug. "Some let people control forces like fire, some let people transform into animals, or give them senses and abilities an animal would have. But don't ask me how that works." He's sure never experienced turning into a giraffe. Probably has to do with some rapid cell rearrangement. Law probably has theories, because of course he would.

"Cultivation's tricky for reasons I don't understand. I know it's been tried, and that it fails. I've heard rumors of scientists trying to engineer them directly too, but I really don't know the first thing about it."

"Hm. Nature's way of balancing itself, I guess." Not that nature has a mind of its own, but the natural world does have a certain system of checks and balances, at least when it comes to living things. Competition tends to do that.

"It's a shame they only do one thing, but like you said, some people can get very creative with a single specialty." Which sort of makes it not a single specialty, but whatever. "When people turn into animals, do they stay the same size, or can they get smaller?" It's an oddly specific question but he's... probably going somewhere with it.

"Depends on the size the animal normally is, from what I've seen. But I haven't seen too many in the first place," he says. "You mean, like, if someone had a mouse devil fruit, would they be the size of a mouse when in that form? Probably."

Which is strange, regardless of what Gregor is thinking. Where does all the extra... body stuff go? Do the cells themselves shrink down? Way outside his wheelhouse. When Sengoku goes all golden Buddha, does he draw material in from around him to sustain the enormous size increase? Can't say he ever thought to ask, since the man didn't exactly go parading around like that, saving it only for dire circumstances.

"Probably doesn't work the same way, then. I've only ever seen that sort of thing done by growing more..." He spreads his hands. "Everything. And getting rid of it just brings them back to normal size."

He thinks for a second. "I guess they could just be getting rid of the excess, but cutting yourself down to mouse size sounds more than a little fatal." And like it would take way too long to be practical. "Either way, it's never looked like a very pleasant process to me. Not something I'm eager to try."

"But you've seen that sort of thing done before? How much bigger?"

This is definitely not a serious or important question, he just wants to know. The description of more everything gives too many wild possibilities. Hoping for a good story, he tops off his drink, then holds the bottle toward Gregor, ready to pour him another as well if he'd like.

"Unfortunately, yes." His left hand sort of drifts over to his right forearm. "Not outrageously big, really. Just a couple of feet taller. A lot of the growth was teeth. But I've never seen anyone turn into an elephant, or anything."

Wait.

"You have elephants in your world, right?"

"That's the..." he starts, about to describe an elephant to make sure he's thinking of the right thing, when he actually fully hears the description. A lot of the growth was teeth. All right then.

After that split second of horror, he continues. "Big ears and trunk? There's stories about one of those, that's where the minks live, I guess, in the city on its back. Never seen it myself."

Big ears and trunk, yes. He's about to say as much when the rest of it comes. City. Minks. Rosinante has never even seen it, but just heard legends. That's... hm.

"Well, the first part of that is right. But elephants where I'm from, they're not anywhere close to big enough to support a city." Even a city full of minks, which are, to be fair, relatively small. "They're, I don't know, nine? Ten feet tall? Big, but not that big."

"Oh. Not that big at all," he says with a shrug. He's that tall, and he knows plenty of taller people.

"So you've seen people get as big as slightly taller people. What's this about teeth?" he asks, despite everything telling him he really probably shouldn't.

Alright, fair enough. To someone about the height, if not the full size, of an elephant, the animals must not seem all that large.

"People in my world top out at about seven, and even that's fairly rare." He doesn't feel like explaining that even in his world of shorter people, he's still short. He feels that well enough next to Rosinante. "And the teeth... what about them? He had a lot."

As a kind of demonstration, Gregor rolls up his right sleeve to show an older set of scars, what appear to be the tooth marks of something very large. Something with an uneven number of teeth on either side of its long jaw, which appears to have bitten him on the forearm.

"Damn. No kidding."

Still not the strangest thing he's seen, as he was again picturing something much worse, but he's had plenty of time to recognize that his world seems to be an exception compared to most, plus the things he's seen here added a real layer of grotesque possibilities on top of that. Hearing that "a lot of the growth was teeth" made him think of something absolutely covered in them.

But he's not going to be totally dismissive. Whatever that guy actually ended up looking like, being bitten by him doesn't look like it was any fun.

"And you must've been after this guy, right? Doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd run across by accident."

"Well, sort of." Gregor frowns. It's a long story if he really wants to get into it, so he decides to pick out the part that gets the point across.

"It was a preemptive strike on his part. I had no idea who I was looking at until he started trying to maul me." Hmm, but that's just the bare basics. He's realized that context goes a long way in this conversation, and for this, Rosinante has none of it.

"I told you we prefer to keep a low profile. It's hard to do that when someone uses magic to commit obvious crimes, like turning into a monster and tearing people apart. The police aren't equipped to handle things like that, because that's not supposed to be possible. So yes, I was looking for the one responsible, but he found me first." That's still leaving out quite a lot, but it's not as if Rosinante asked for his entire life story, so that should be good enough.

"Yeah. Kind of remember you saying you did stuff like that." But it's been long enough and he's had way more pressing things on his mind in that time where he wasn't exactly set on memorizing the details. Helps to have the refresher, especially if Gregor ends up staying a while this time.

"Makes for a hell of a scar. I'm almost jealous."

Like he doesn't have plenty. Some of them are even teeth, but none look anything quite like that.

"Don't be, not until you see the worst part." He pulls his sleeve up further, showing off what's essentially a jagged ring around his elbow. Whatever wound this was, it's obvious it was stitched at some point.

"Someone took disarming a bit too literally." Did he just make a horrible pun? Joss would be proud. The kid's awful sense of humor is rubbing off on him. "Almost lost it, actually. But you're right, it makes for a hell of a scar." He rolls his sleeve back down. It's cold out, isn't it?

"You've got to have some interesting ones, too, don't you? I don't remember what you said you did, but you don't look like the type of person who doesn't get into trouble." Whatever that means.

Ouch. Rosinante winces visibly. Yeah, he'll pass on losing an arm, or nearly so. Looking cool does not make up for that.

And apparently he's come to look like someone who gets into trouble sometimes? It's not wrong, and he's not going to pick the comment apart right now, but still. Maybe it's the whole drinking and smoking while sitting out here in a dry boat in the cold for fun thing. Probably doesn't give the impression of someone who's perfectly straight-laced at all times.

"Marines," he says. "Which I've come to learn means different things in different places, but in my world, World Government military. Individual countries have their own armies and navies as needed, and we take on international threats. Mostly at sea, because mostly that's what we've got. That kind of work definitely comes with its share of scars, you're right. Been stabbed, been shot, been bitten by a couple real big fish."

"Ah, military." Not what he expected, somehow. Maybe it's the clumsiness, but then that's not something you can really train out of someone, is it? He's not really sure what he was expecting, anyway.

"You don't have the kind of attitude a lot of the military people where I'm from have." The military people now, at least, but he hates doing the old 'back in my day' routine. It's not really a fair comparison anymore. "Though I guess not all of them have it, and you said yours was different anyway. Sort of like a world police force? Which begs the question, are the real big fish considered an international threat, or were those just incidental?"

EVENT LOG: AULD LANG SYNE

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