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

[prettypurpleparlor]

Lived.

[The answer is plain and direct, with no attempts at manipulation.]

[ungrieved]

I always been alive.

[Some part of him seems to find that almost funny, abstractly, or maybe just appealing in the sense of bitter irony. He’s always been alive - or maybe that’s it. Maybe there’s a difference, between being alive and living.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

Then why does her presence or absence change that? If you're alive, then you're alive- and you're here.

And if you want to try, here, there might be other ways to live than what you're used to.

[ungrieved]

Because I'll just go back. I'll just go back to being someone that no one wants to remember. You'll forget me, same as everyone else.

[It bursts out in a furious wrench in his chest, hands balling into fists.]

She forgot me. Everyone forgot me. Everyone forgets!

[prettypurpleparlor]

But not yet.

[For all her weariness, something in her tone is firm, almost fierce.]

There are people who lived and died five hundred years ago and now no one even remembers that they were ever alive, but they still were and that matters. Five hundred years in the future, we might all be the same. I don't want to forget you or be forgotten, but even if we all are someday what we still have now isn't any less important.

I can't promise to save everyone or fix everything or remember you forever- but I can promise to remember you for as long as I can, and help you as much as I can. Wherever you go back to, you're here now.

[ungrieved]

Then they'll take me out. They always take me out.

[Fingertips dig into the skin of his forearms now, leaving tiny red weals in the puckered gooseflesh. That's familiar. That's like the pulse of ghostly pain in his center, pitted and aching in a feeble echo of the agony that killed him.]

They'll shock me out so that no one ever remembers!

[prettypurpleparlor]

[Muffet watches the way he scratches at himself with concern, but doesn't try to get closer in case it frightens him again.]

Why?

[She keeps her voice calm and even, trying to provide a stable point for him to lean on.]

If you want to stop something from happening, it helps to understand why it does, so ask yourself: why would they do that to us... and how would they do it here? You said that there were doctors, that your father took her to- are any of those doctors here? Do you think we could be made to go to them, if we chose not to go?

[ungrieved]

ECT. Electric chair. We shock who we can't save.

[A brief trickle of a non sequitur, seemingly baseless, before he shakes his head like a dog shedding water from its coat. To little effect. There's no rational response to her rationality, so he settles for an irrational one.]

I don't know. I don't know!

[prettypurpleparlor]

So... it's not what you think, is it. It's what you feel- what you fear.

[There's no judgement to her response, only sympathy.]

That's another thing people do, they're frightened about things that have hurt them before. It's normal for you to be scared, there's no shame in it- but fear is a liar, you ought to remember. It tries so hard to keep you safe from real dangers that it reacts even when there isn't a true threat and that winds up hurting you even more, runs you ragged and leaves you too worn-out to do anything if something dangerous does turn up.

You don't have to toss it away, that would be reckless and unwise, but it's better not to let it drown out everything else. Just... take a moment, breathe deep and keep breathing. Focus on that.

[ungrieved]

I didn't - I wasn't scared before.

[It sounds like a lie. It isn't. He's not talking about how he got here, in this place, in this temple. It's before that concerns him.]

I hurt. I hurt and I cried, and Mom came, and I was scared but I didn't know why. I didn't know why, and no one knew why. Not even the doctors knew. They missed it too.

It didn't protect me then.

[prettypurpleparlor]

No, it didn't- and I don't think it's protecting you now, either. It tries, and I can't fault it for that, but in the end it isn't helping. So if the fear isn't helping, let's try to find something new, something that will.

[ungrieved]

That's what I am! I'm - I'm more than memory. I'm what might be. I'm everything no one wants to see, I'm -

[What is he, if he isn't that? That fear, that anxiety that won't ever go away? How do you relinquish something that followed you into the grave, and then onward? How do you let go of that which you've always possessed - that which has given you form and substance, perhaps not as particular as flesh, but just as potent?]

[prettypurpleparlor]

Perhaps it's what you've been, but I don't think it's all you are.

[She looks at him gently- in a way, more gently than he might view himself.]

What might be is a future, and the future isn't only fear, it's hope. You're a person, and that means that you're not just any one thing alone. People are complicated that way.

[ungrieved]

I'm not. Not really.

[He's never really been a person. He was too young to know what that meant, in the moments when he was. And then - then those moments were lost somewhere he could never get them back, no matter how he fought and struggled and screamed.]

And I - [A swallow. A glance away. It's hard to admit it to anyone, much less to her.] I don't know how to be one.

[prettypurpleparlor]

It's complicated, and strange, and it hurts quite a bit sometimes.

[Not an easy answer, but the honest one.]

But it's not something you have to figure out alone, if you don't want to.

[ungrieved]

Why? What’s the point?

[He’s changed as Mom has, certainly. He’s shifted. Grown to accommodate her fantasies, so that she could love him best - be proud of him and all his accomplishments at a school he never actually attended.]

[But it was for her. The entire time, it was for her.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

Because even if sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't- sometimes it's beautiful. Occasionally, it's both. Life is a risk, but if you don't take risks then there's no chance of reward either.

I suppose as one who knows, I can simply ask you- knowing the alternative to life, would you say it's any better? Or was it just... less eventful.

[Less pain. Less joy. Less everything, really.]

[ungrieved]

[...]

[The alternative. Lingering, hateful and ever present and despised and unwanted and ignored. Was it really worse than this? At least he knew his place. It wasn’t a good place, but it was one he could claim to understand inside and out. Like this, now, what is he? Drifting. Uncertain. Unknowing.]

Yes. And no. Both?

Neither. No - both. [He’s trying here okay.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

Better in some ways but worse in others, do you mean?

[She thinks what he's trying to say makes sense, even if he's having trouble saying it.]

[ungrieved]

What’s worse? Everything hurting, all at once, or just hurting once and feeling that forever?

[He hasn’t decided yet. Ideally he wouldn’t hurt at all, but he’s not naive enough to assume that’s possible for something like him. He’s something that doesn’t exist freely - not without someone or something aching because of t.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

I think... that might be something everyone would have their own opinion about. But from my view? Even if everything's hurting right now, it doesn't have to be forever. It might take a while for the pain to fade, or there might be new hurts to deal with, but there's at least the chance that there will be times when there's no pain, and that it will heal enough to go on.

[In the end, he's going to have to decide for himself, but she knows what she'd choose.]

I'd pick the former, myself.

[ungrieved]

You got the choice.

[No one consulted him on this. No one asked politely before they stole him away into this world of cold nights and horrible things that pretend they know you. Just as no one asked before he was snatched away the first time - ripped from the arms of a family he barely got to understand.]

[prettypurpleparlor]

Yes. I'm sorry that you didn't.

[Her response is plain and simple, but honest.]

They seem to be taking a lot of choices away from us, now.

[ungrieved]

Who? The Storyteller?

[Or is it just...the world? The world at large, and all its machinations?]

[prettypurpleparlor]

Whatever brought us here, I suppose. And whatever disaster happens to be happening at the moment. We keep having to carve out a little space in between catastrophes, just so we can all have a moment to breathe.

[If this keeps up too long, they'll all run down. But she knows how to keep going when she needs to. It's about holding onto the little moments here and there, the mundane things and peaceful seconds. And speaking of...]

You know, I did finish making that hat for you.