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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"Is he one of them?" It surprises him that, without the continuous tradition, they might even know who is and who isn't. He hasn't got the slightest clue where his family comes from, they left Earth behind generations ago. He can only make vague guesses based on his name.

But then he doubts his people, whoever they were, were nearly so infamous.

"To be blunt, I'm surprised your government allowed any of them to survive." They seemed rather hell-bent on removing any traces of their enemies, and yet they left the enemies themselves alone?

"He is." And he'll leave it at that, just a simple acknowledgment, made unfortunate by Will's next statement. With Law's whole family dead, Law now included, that's another one of those surviving families wiped from the seas.

"I don't know how any of them did," he says with a shake of his head. "These days, it usually doesn't matter. There's the one who was a notorious pirate who was executed, but there's another who's a Vice Admiral. Back around the time of the war, though, it must have been really hard. I'm guessing they probably scattered, got good at hiding and assimilating."

He can only speculate, but that's what he did after all, right? He hid, and he assimilated. And outside the Red Line, his family name isn't recognized as anything more or less than just another name, so he doesn't bother concealing it.

Too late Will realizes that Law didn't exactly survive, now did he? Poor choice of words on his part.

"Perhaps they're not seen as a threat anymore, without... whatever it is that was destroyed." Whatever dangerous ideas or knowledge was lost. "Or perhaps the government doesn't want to bring any further attention to it by hunting them down." Or Rosinante's idea, which is probably most likely. "Could be a bit of all three."

And now for the awkward question: "The ones who won, who declared themselves to be gods... were those... ?"

A bit of all three is probably right, he agrees, but who can say. Actually, no, he knows there are people who can say, but Sengoku never did divulge secrets beyond what was necessary, probably for Rosinante's own safety. And the elders surely know, but that's knowledge that will only be passed to their successors.

He appreciates that Will doesn't voice the rest of that question. It's enough to go off of, left as it is, and so he nods and focuses on the cigarette in his hand, smoldering away.

Well, so much for overcoming paranoia. With a snap of his fingers, he seals their conversation to the two of them, just in case anyone else were to walk by. It feels safer that way.

"That's actually the reason I broke some of my cover, back then. Hadn't said a word in years except to call back in to base, make sure Sengoku knew I was still alive. But I found out what Law was because I overheard him talking to the other kids, and had to tell him to keep quiet about it, hide that part of his history and name so Doflamingo wouldn't find out. My brother would've killed him. He'd take it as a direct threat to his own aspirations, knowing there was a kid like that around."

But why? Aren't they just normal people, like everyone else? Apparently some people are still holding on to very, very old grudges. Not that he can't sort of relate to that, but still. A child? Everything he's learned about Doflamingo leads him to believe the man is a massive asshole of the highest order, so maybe it makes sense to him... but still.

"Why would he bother to continue that—" you don't normally call murder a "tradition"... "Why continue that way of thinking if most people don't even know of it?"

"Two reasons," he starts, but boy he's starting to think he needs something stronger than a cigarette if this conversation continues down this particular direction.

"One is that, you have to remember, he's not one of most people. I remember hearing this stuff as a kid, it's still repeated all the time. He's two years older than me, and he had more time to hear more of it and internalize it. He's smart, I'm sure he doesn't literally believe every detail, and we may not be nobility anymore, but he'd have no problem killing a kid just to make sure there won't be problems down the line. Especially because part of the myth is that some day they're going to rise back up and take revenge."

And as much as Rosinante doesn't want to believe in stories, he not-so-secretly hopes that part is actually true. Vengeance isn't necessarily justice, and he's no revolutionary, but the world would be a lot better off without Marie Geoise and its people, and that's simple fact.

"Two. My brother is a psychopath. That part's important. His goals, which it sounds like were all thankfully thwarted, involved rearranging all of the underground trade networks to supply him with unlimited funds and power, taking over the kingdom our ancestors used to rule just because he wants it back but also because it would give him a legitimate position in the government, and beyond that I'm certain he was hoping to position himself to go even higher than that on some vengeance quest of his own. So a minor risk, like Law? He wouldn't even flinch at having him killed, or even doing it personally, partly just to not have to worry about it later, and partly because he probably gets off on the notion that one of them would have died at his hands in defiance of the myths, like that proves anything."

For a moment, Will regrets taking the conversation down this road. There's a lot of anger here, and while he normally wouldn't mind, it's uncomfortable to see it in someone he cares about. But maybe it's important that Rosinante gets some of this out of his system. Maybe it'll help. Somehow.

Or maybe it'll make things worse.

"We don't have to keep talking about him if you'd prefer not to." He at least wants to give Rosinante an out, if he wants it. "I know he's not a topic you're especially fond of. He sounds like, quite honestly, one of the worst people I've ever heard about." A psychopath, Rosinante said. Will's been called that himself before; psychopath, sociopath, an antisocial personality. There were times when he thought that might be accurate, but in his defense, Rosinante's brother is on an entirely different level.

Will reaches a hand across the table for one of Rosinante's. "I'm... sorry you had a monster for a brother." He isn't sure what else to say. He's gotten a little bit better at displaying his own emotions, but he's still far from an expert on dealing with these situations. How do you comfort someone about this? When not only was it all real, but they had to spend a while pretending to be alright with it? Hell, he doesn't know how to properly deal with his own anger, let alone anyone else's.

With a huff of a sigh, Rosinante nods his quiet thanks and takes Will's hand, then stuffs his cigarette back into his mouth so he can scratch at the side of his head, more out of frustration than any actual itch. It's been a long time since he's taken an opportunity to vent about much of anything, but this is one of those topics that will for sure get that anger flaring. A trip to the old gym and its punching bags might do him some good later today, that always helps in the rare times it's needed.

"Thanks. It's... fine. It's probably good for you to know these things, for context." If nothing else, it continues to fill in for Will why he and Law are so close and always will be, because he knows that probably has the potential to be awkward. Any life with him inevitably involves accepting that Law will be a part of that life too.

But Will has been good about that and so far the three of them have found some kind of balance, which he's constantly thankful for.

"I don't have much else to say about him, I guess. There's always more, but it's not important now. He's in prison with a sentence that should keep him there for life. And Impel Down is very secure. It's underwater and in one of the calm belts, so even if he somehow broke out, he's stuck."

Boy does he hope that's true, anyway. His sanity probably depends on it. But if that changes, at this point he may never know.

Will's honestly surprised to hear that Doflamingo didn't get a death sentence. They executed some pirate, why not him? It's a little disappointing, but not something that seems wise to draw attention to right now.

"Good. Let him rot." He guesses a high-security underwater prison is a close enough second.

It is helpful to get more context, though. He's only really heard Law's story in bits and pieces, and the more he hears the more concerning it gets. He's had his moments of jealousy, but it's gotten much better, and he can't exactly begrudge them their relationship. It sounds like they've been through a hell of a lot together.

"There's nothing you can't tell me at this point. We know the worst about each other already. If you want to talk about something, I'll be here. But there's nothing you have to tell me, either." Is that going too far? People are supposed to share just about everything with their partners, aren't they? But surely not if the only way to share it is to make yourself miserable.

"Thanks. And, believe me. If I didn't want to tell you something, I wouldn't. I'm really good at not talking." He's even feeling well enough for some very dry humor, apparently. The anger will always be there, but he can shove it aside for now.

"Same goes to you, by the way. If there's anything that ever comes up and you want to talk about it, I'll listen. If you'd rather not, then that's fine also." He has a feeling that Will doesn't need to hear this, because he always seems so self-assured, always speaks his mind when he wants to, but he wouldn't want to neglect making it clear and making him wonder.

He doesn't need to hear it, not really, but the sentiment doesn't go unappreciated. It's nice to be told.

"I'll probably say whatever it is regardless of my feelings on it. I'm not especially good at not talking." As if Rosinante doesn't already know that. Their back and forth teasing takes some of the tension out of the air, though it was already beginning to dissipate.

"But it's good to hear, at any rate."

"It's refreshing to have someone around who always just speaks his mind, after too many years as one more liar in a group of them," he says with a shake of his head and the slight hint of a smile. "You really start to miss being able to just have a normal conversation with someone when every word or gesture has to be calculated."

Which actually brings a funny sort of thought to mind, as he looks over at Will. "I'm gonna lose all my practice, aren't I? All I've got left now are people I'm honest with. That's... weird."

"Glad to be of service." He might leave out details here and there on subjects he'd rather avoid, but the one sin he is not very guilty of is deception. Cultivating his manner of speech doesn't count. Probably.

"You could practice by making up extravagant lies, but I can't promise I'll believe them." Could be a hilarious exercise, though. "Though really, anything you've said today could be a lie and I wouldn't know. You're free to try and sneak them into conversations, as long as it's nothing important. Keep us all alert."

He might be joking, but he also might not be.

"It would sure keep you guessing," he says with a smile as he finally lets go of Will's hand, drops their bubble of silence with a snap of his fingers, and leans back comfortably, having successfully come back to a more casual tone of conversation.

And immediately falls to the floor with his limbs sprawled everywhere, but given his habit here of sitting on a pillow on account of the too-low tables, he's right back up in a moment. It does leave him rubbing the back of his head, though.

"Oof. Uh. No, as funny as that would be, I'll pass. Doesn't seem right," he says, because even if it sounds harmless, he can already see possibilities where it could go wrong. After all, he doesn't want to betray anyone's trust for a dumb joke. "Though I guess we could always make a game of it somehow. Some kind of true or false thing. Maybe you could even pick up a new skill in case we end up meeting people from the portal who are more trouble than the truth's worth."

Will winces as Rosinante goes tumbling back, but at least he recovers quickly.

The suggestion about a new skill makes him grin. "What, you want to teach me how to lie? As if I'm not enough of a problem?" Listen, he knows what he's about. "I must say I'm intrigued by how you plan to make a game of it. Did you have something in mind? Trying to fool one another with so-called facts?"

It could be fun. They don't know everything about one another, after all, and even less about one another's homes. Will thinks he could probably make up plausible-enough sounding science, if nothing else.

"Not a problem for me," he teases, as if that's all that matters. These days, it sort of feels like that is, though. Not too many left to complain about it.

"Anyway, yeah. There's always drinking games, if nothing else. Stuff like two truths and a lie. Wouldn't have to play to get drunk, though, we could make up whatever rules we wanted. Best out of ten, loser makes us both lunch," he says as an option. "Or we use something other than alcohol. Your pick, you're the one who's going to lose."

"Oh, is that so?" And now it's inevitable, because Rosinante has turned it into a competition. And if there's one thing Will can't resist, it's a challenge. "Fine. Best of ten, loser has to do everything the winner wants for the rest of the day."

Is that such a bad punishment? Perhaps not. Perhaps he's setting up a win-win situation. But this is a lying competition, might as well start it off by cheating.

"Right, you're on. This should be educational." Sounds like win-win to him, for sure. Especially because if Will does lose, Rosinante is about the least punishing sort of person for a debt like that one.

Figuring he'll start things off, he thinks a moment, staring at his cigarette as he does so. When he gives his list of options, he delivers them all perfectly casually, without any obvious tells. But for a first round, he hopes the statements themselves won't be too hard to guess at.

"When I was twelve, I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. I learned to shoot starting at fourteen, and when I was sixteen, I started smoking."

The veterinarian thing throws Will for a second. Do they have those in Rosinante's world? They have animals, so surely they have animal doctors. It just never occurred to him, probably because animals don't usually occur to him. A symptom of living in space, and then in a world where everything used to be forest spirits.

But aside from that, there's another detail that jumps out. He has to rely on the details, Rosinante didn't give him much else to work with. Maybe this was a bad idea after all.

"Sixteen? Surely you started smoking before that." Even Will was smoking before that. Not long before, but still.

"No, sixteen it is," he says with a shrug. "Right in that weird transition period in my life where I decided blending in with everyone else might be worth trying instead of keeping away from them all the time. Except I still did plenty of that too. Never really wanted to work with animals as a job, though, especially not that young. At twelve I wasn't really... up for thinking that long-term, yet."

If his teenage years were weird, preteen years were even weirder. In any case, he doesn't fault Will at all for answering the way he did, it was a good guess.

"Besides, I remember my brother found cigarettes back when we were younger and I thought they smelled really gross. Put me off 'em for a few years extra," he says, shaking his head. It's sort of a funny memory to be honest, Doflamingo strutting around like an idiot with cigarettes at ten. Those years were awful, but there were still parts that make him laugh if only because they were so ridiculous.

"Well, damn." Will's idea of the exact timeline of Rosinante's young life isn't perfect. He knows some major events, but the details are hazy. This isn't off to a great start for him, but at least it's only the first round. Maybe hazy details can work for him as well as against him.

"I suppose that makes it my turn." He thinks for a moment, then folds his hands on the table. "We'll keep to the same theme: I lost two fingers when I was nine. I received my first degree at fifteen. I was seventeen the first time I hit someone in the face."

If confidence is the secret to being a good liar, he's got that down. It remains to be seen if he's any good at coming up with lies, however.

"Right," he says, mulling it over. He knows about the fingers, and wouldn't be even a little surprised if Will had gotten one of his very impressive degrees that early. The last is a different sort of detail that hasn't come up before, and immediately he distrusts it.

But it's not like he knows the exact ages for these things. Any one of them could be off by a single year and it would technically be a lie. So it probably depends on how bent Will is on making him lose this.

Best go with his gut.

"The last one's false. Maybe you hit someone earlier than that, or maybe you're just not enough of a fighter to want to throw a punch unless it's with your words." Time to see how far off he is.

"As much as I appreciate the confidence, even I can't earn a first degree in a year." And fifteen would've been only a year after the incident that let him start learning in the first place. "I put in the bit about the punch to throw you off. And for the record, I injured my hand far more than anyone's face."

The first— and last&mdash time he resorted to violence of that particular sort. Afterward, any questions about his legitimacy were handled with the more verbal kind.

"So it appears we're even." He frowns. "Though I suppose that was less a test of lying and more a test of how well you've memorized my history. Perhaps I should avoid things based on date. You know, to give you a chance."

"Could've been a very basic degree," he points out, as if that changes anything. "And you're selling yourself short. People have tells when they know they're lying. They hesitate, they smile, maybe they talk too fast. You threw me off, just like you wanted."

Lying, after all, is a lot more than just saying words that aren't true. Will probably isn't as bad at it as he thinks, when he sets his mind to it. He just doesn't bother most of the time, instead.

"No dates, then. I agree. So," he begins, pausing to have a draw from the cigarette, "I've never gone skinny dipping, back home I have an authorization that lets me requisition grenade launchers any time I like, and I've only won..." he pauses, thinking and nodding a few times as if counting in his head, "Damn, guess it's four games of poker. Funny how many infiltration jobs wind up putting me in front of a deck of cards at some point."

"Selling myself short? I'd never dream of it." But his confidence is not as all-encompassing as usual. He's uncertain on this one.

The level of detail Rosinante puts into the poker 'fact' makes Will wonder if it isn't fake. It's awfully specific, which makes him distrust it. Or is that just his paranoia getting in the way? Is Rosinante trying to throw him off, like he did? But then, to have never gone skinny dipping in a world full of water? Strangely enough, he doesn't question the part about grenade launchers. That seems to track.

Well, he's got to pick something.

"It's the first one, and if not, then I feel very sad for you."

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