January Event: Setting Fire to the Sky

[lifeaftr_mods]

JANUARY EVENT: SETTING FIRE TO THE SKY

Who: Everyone!
What: The sun dies, and the creatures of the night emerge from the depths
When: January 21st - January 28th
Where: Everywhere! Ensō, Monsun, Chol, and the Islets
Warnings: Character death, possible body horror and violence. Please mark any additional warnings as needed!

So We Can Take the World Back From the Heart-Attacked

The night of the 21st, the sun begins to dim. It dips in the horizon, sinks to nestle itself in the center of Chol like a star falling in slow motion, where it begins to smolder quietly - massive, smoking, and hot, like a massive egg. The night grows colder, the sky reduced to an inky black. The surface of the surrounding water is still but for the occasional ripple, the odd, strangely subdued wave, with not even the hollow lights of distant stars to glint off its reflective waves.

The Jormun gather around the sunken, dying sun with their scaled hands on their weapons, their expressions grim. They fan out across the island of Chol with arms in hand. Their fortifications have settled around the island's center in a dense ball of bristling weapons. They have been preparing for this. They are ready to fight.

Are you? No island is safe. From the well-trodden mainland of Ensō and its islets to the stark dichotomy of Monsun to the craggy shores of Chol, all manner of strange things have begun to haul themselves, dripping, from the watery dark.

No more preparation. No more running.

From here on out, it is fight or die.

One Maniac At a Time, We Will Take It Back

As the Storyteller has promised, there is sanctuary in their temple on Ensō, which will keep out the worst of the creatures. It will not, however, protect characters from the cold and dark, and so they will have to keep themselves warm some other way.

The Jormun fight fiercely, but they do not fight alone. Aside from the help that the willing of your number have offered, you may glimpse the Storyteller battling alongside the rest in a flurry of strange, shifting animal shapes: a heavy-antlered reindeer, a shrieking owl with outstretched talons, a slavering grizzly bear with the Storyteller's signature tome strapped across a broad, furry back, to name but a few. Those creatures that the Storyteller defeats will burst into a flurry of paper and dark, spattering ink, rather than being felled in the conventional manner. How odd.

As this is an event with a high risk of death, the Storyteller will impose death penalties for one week only. However, deaths succumbed during the event will count towards the character's total.

Then I'll Raise You Like a Phoenix

Come the sunrise on the 28th, the sun will launch itself into the air with a victorious shriek, its wings trailing plumes of fire behind it. The phoenix takes flight, reborn from the ashes. The shores of Chol are littered with corpses, both shadowy and scaled, along with an even smattering of crumpled paper and splotched inkstains. Despite the triumph of the fight, it did not come without its costs. The Jormun gather their dead and prepare to mourn them quietly. Those who perished in the fight will not see the sunrise from this unique perspective, watching the murk of the night tint to soft, milky yellow and pink, and then to a glorious new day.

Munin will greet the survivors with a mixture of solemnity and relief, thanking them profusely for their help. There is not much more that her people can offer you, at this point - they must grieve their dead, and she must return to the sea to prove that she has cemented her worth as a leader in the eyes of the other Jormun - but that does not mean that your stories will part forever.

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 20th: Monthly Storytelling occurs as usual
[ ♆ ] January 21st: The dark arrives, the temperature drops further, and the first hostile creatures begin their assault
[ ♆ ] January 28th: The dark ends and the sun rises
[ ♆ ] January 30th: Those who perished are revived, suffering from a reduced death penalty

Event Specifics

[ ♆ ] If you have any questions, feel free to look over our OOC Info Post.
[ ♆ ] Feel free to make your own logs if necessary!
[ ♆ ] If your character perishes in this event, please let us know!
[ ♆ ] Item trades with the Jormun can be found on the OOC plotting post here! Even if you were only recently accepted, you are free to participate!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[bloodyashes]

[Asch comes back with a canteen of melted snow and a wrapped box tucked under one arm, and he sits rather unceremoniously beside Ardyn on the dais. If he yet finds anything disturbing about the fuckface, he's kept it from reaching the surface quite well.]

Here. Muffet said you could taste these.

[This accompanied by a wrapped package of cabbage rolls nudged at Ardyn's lap.]

[scourgingstars]

...She did, hm?

[That was strangely touching, but the desert-imposed selflessness made it hard to accept. Hresvelgr, on the other hand, ambled over to poke at the box with her beak curiously.]

You two should have them. We're liable to run low on resources, and I don't need to eat to survive.

[bloodyashes]

You get plain cabbage, Hraesvelgr, don't beg.

[Don't worry birb he brought something for you, too.]

Unless my sense of time is completely off, we're beyond the halfway point, aren't we? So it should be fine to spare a meal for you.

[Asch has, as usual, been keeping careful track of their resources.]

Especially since Ignis isn't back up to solid food yet, and might not be until sunrise. I'm more worried about running out of broth than I am these.

[scourgingstars]

...

[Ardyn went quiet at that, petting the black chocobo idly as the corruption in his eyes gave way to a distant, tired look.]

...Do you think he'll be alright?

[bloodyashes]

Given time. He's been getting steadily more responsive - you can usually tell when he's 'awake,' now, instead of actually sleeping.

[It's small progress, but progress.]

When you've recharged here, you should sit with him a while. He still responds best to touch, but I think he's starting to hear and process what people are saying again.

[scourgingstars]

I think...it might be better if I didn't. Things may be a bit more complicated than he or I initially realized.

[bloodyashes]

[Yeah, complicated like having feelings, Ardyn?]

Maybe, but that might also be exactly why he'd appreciate it.

[Asch isn't stupid; he knows the two of them are enemies in their world, because of the things Ardyn did in his desperation to finally die.]

You're the one who brought him back, too.

[scourgingstars]

It isn't that straightforward. Perhaps it was, before, but...things have changed. It matters strikingly little if I was the one who helped him or not.

[bloodyashes]

[Oh fine, Asch thinks with a sigh. He can tell when the stupid stubborn is kicking up and he doesn't really have the energy to fight it right now.]

Suit yourself. Eat your cabbage rolls.

[While he uses cabbage leaves to keep the chocobo out of his.

...To be fully fair, he definitely gave Ardyn a smaller-than-normal portion.]

[scourgingstars]

[fine he'll eat the damn cabbage rolls while Hresvelgr is practically in Asch's lap munching on cabbage herself.]

...At what point does this cease to balance out, Asch? What do I have to admit to having done for all of you to understand I'm not worth this attachment?

Because at this rate, I've more than likely done it.

[bloodyashes]

...It's not about what you've done in the past.

[There is no balancing it out. There's only the road in front of them.

As many times as it takes.]

It's not even about who you are, at this moment, or about who you could be. It's about the whole thing.

...And maybe a little bit about how my best self is the only one that knows how to be selfish.

[It's not about what Ardyn can give him. It's about taking it, given or no, and learning that trust again.

For both of them, probably.]

[scourgingstars]

[That was the problem, wasn't it? The whole thing, the bigger picture was one colored by haphazard splashes of black and wide gashes ripped into the canvas. Ruined, destroyed beyond all recognition, and unsalvageable.]

['Oh, what good is a world that only ever lets you down?']

The 'whole thing' isn't something worth being selfish about.

[bloodyashes]

[Only as good as the people in it.

And Ardyn, for all he is, is in the almost unique position of not having let Asch down even a little. Not even once.]

The 'whole thing' has already given me more than my own damn family.

[scourgingstars]

You've tragically low standards, then.

[bloodyashes]

Yeah.

[Just like. Not even going to deny it. His family's kind of fucky and hard for him to love in a concrete sense.]

I'd pick you over them. Even the usual you. Even with your face doing that.

[So you know. There's that.]

whoops hi episode ignis spoilers

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn quickly brushed a hand over his face, as if making sure the miasma had disappeared for now. After a pause in which Hresvelgr moved to snuggle up next to her owner for warmth, he finally admitted:]

...It was my fault. I-...I was there. It was because of 'the usual me' that Ignis lost his sight.

WHOOPS

[bloodyashes]

[...There's more to it than that, he's sure, details left out. But Ardyn confiding anything at all, of his own free will, even to distract from the more emotional parts of the conversation... He'll take it.]

I don't really find that surprising, given everything else.

[scourgingstars]

I don't know if it's some effect of the island or if the Storyteller did something, but...I forgot. I suspect we both did.

[Ardyn shook his head, raking a hand through his hair.]

You can't-...don't you care? I'm a dangerous lunatic that is going to end up killing you or worse if you keep this up. I cornered him into an unwinnable fight, I'll not even begin to detail what I've done to Prompto, and I...

...I won't last much longer the way I am now, Asch. I don't want to hurt anyone else, but I won't have the luxury of caring that much soon enough.

cw: descriptions of emotional/psychological abuse

[bloodyashes]

And I will still choose you, you dumb bastard.

[Ardyn doesn't, apparently, even understand how low Asch's standards are.]

Yes, even as many times as you repeat at me that it's only going to get me hurt - I'm staying, because even if you hurt me, it's -

[A shaky breath. He realizes that he's also starting to run his hand through his hair, stops, and looks at it briefly like he's about to laugh. Oh, Score, but they really are the same, aren't they?]

- you're not hurting me and saying, 'it's for your own good,' or 'I'm doing this to protect you,' or using it to push me into things and then pretending it didn't ever happen once I do what you want. You're not lying and pretending to be good for me, you just are what you are.

[scourgingstars]

So why not just find someone that's actually good for you? Someone who won't hurt you on a whim because he thinks you in the way or worse, kill you if it might prove entertaining for a few brief seconds?

I don't...understand you. Any of you. No matter how I try, it's like reading a language I can't comprehend.

[bloodyashes]

[And that -

Deep breath, because he can only be honest, even if it hurts to admit.]

Because I don't trust myself to find someone like that. People who are too kind, too good to me - those are the people I find myself suspecting of wanting to stab me in the back at any time.

[Because you, Ardyn, are not the only one who has trouble understanding basic human things like trust and kindness.]

And I'm trying, anyway, to teach myself again that people like that actually exist, but when it's too much and I'm anxious or upset or just plain tired of working so damn hard to trust people even a little, you are the person who feels safe for me.

[scourgingstars]

...I'm not.

[But the argument he'd been winding up to have drained out of his tone, Ardyn looking anywhere but at Asch as he responded.]

I'm the furthest from 'safe' a single person can be. I'll twist that misplaced trust and break it apart piece by piece, just to prove that trust itself is unsustainable. And I'm telling you this now, as this person, because the monster I became is going to say anything to get you to let him do that.

[bloodyashes]

We'll cross that bridge when we damn well come to it.

[He nudges Ardyn's knee with his own. Look at him. See this conviction, that of a chosen saviour who has made his decision and won't back down from it. You had it once.]

But even if that happens, I still won't hurt you, or betray you. Not even at the cost of my life.

[scourgingstars]

[He'd seen that look before--too many times, in every reflection. It was the determination to leap over a mountain mindless of the consequences of crashing back to the ground. The kind of thing that could only end in disaster, and there was nothing Ardyn could do about it.]

...I don't believe you. [But he put an arm over Asch's shoulders all the same, awkward and uncertain.]

and now this icon actually is appropriate

[bloodyashes]

[For a moment Asch does freeze, from sheer surprise that Ardyn actually initiated contact without someone dying or having a panic attack or something to prompt it.

...And then he immediately scoots closer, wedging himself into Ardyn's armpit as though the man has any body warmth to give, and his shoulders relax.]

I know you don't. But I'm still willing to walk this road even if it keeps going in circles around that.