June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

[lifeaftr_mods]

JUNE AFTERMATH: MAGIC LANTERN STRANGE

Who: Everyone!
What: A celebration!
When: Evening of June 21st, and well into morning
Where: Ensō, E3 and E4
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Slide the Light Off You
As promised, the evening of the 21st finds the Jormun hosting a party on Ensō's largest beachfront. Near immediately, it should be clear that they've spared absolutely no expense when it comes to showing their story-walker brethren a good time.

Of course, they may also be...showing off a little. The stalls and comfortable seating supplied around multiple firepits appears to be a mishmash of Jormun built contraptions and items requested from the Storyteller- many may be delighted to see the variety of beach cushions and blankets, items the Jormun will be happy to let their story-walker friends take home at the end of the festivities. A veritable smorgasbord of food and drink is also readily available, from the kid-friendly options of brrshavak (a spicy drink with a taste akin to liquified chili pepper) and molkavarr (a rich chocolaty broth) to the alcoholic rakvrhak (a rich wine that tastes oddly plumlike). Do be warned, however, that the last is incredibly potent.

Large slabs of driftwood have been laid out to form impromptu tables, bristling with the Jormun's culinary expertise: fried squid, seaweed wraps, spicy pickled kelp, kebabs of roasted eel, hard-boiled snapling eggs, and so on. The vegetables and meats of the sea have been laid out for all to enjoy, so tuck in!

Throughout the evening the air will be filled with the sound of music, with multiple Jormun eager to show off their skill in instrumentation. Conch-shell horns, carved driftwood flutes, urchin-needle harps, and countless more contraptions engineered by a deep sea-dwelling people fill the air with the most peculiar but nonetheless not unpleasant sound. Most of the bands will be set up in the shallow waters, however, as their instruments are not made to be used in open air - try playing them above the surface of the water at your own risk.

Of course, there's plenty more to entertain even the most difficult of people.

You're Living the Strobe Light
Those interested in proving their strength and skill will be encouraged to enter one of the many tournaments across the shoreline. The tournaments vary, featuring such challenges as play fights with the schlacknorkcvic to prove who is the greatest warrior, timed events to see who can stay on a bucking tigershark for the longest, and even a tourney of brovonkosshk, a board game somewhat similar to chess. Don't see anything you're interested in? Make your own. If you can think it, the Jormun will happily accommodate it - impromptu challenges are the highlight of such evenings, after all, though the Jormun won't be taking any responsibility for the first poor soul that decides to usher in a drinking contest.

A small variety of walker games are also available. Jormun children are more than eager to play such games as hide-and-seek or red light, green light, while Connor Murphy will be bringing his Cards Against Humanity deck, for those ready to completely screw with the idea of a fourth wall. There's even a game of Spin the Bottle... except the bottle is being spun overhead like a mace. Being hit by said bottle requires you to do a stupidly ridiculous task, so perhaps it's best to avoid that particular adaptation...

And of course, there's the lightshow.

As mentioned previously, the main show of the evening is the show of brssticca: bursts of magical light beneath the water that will put any fireworks show to shame. The lights are safe to wade and swim through, do keep in mind that the phosphorescent algae tends to cling to the skin. And should you reach into those spiraling, fluorescent nebulae of patterns beneath the surface, some of the configurations of light may abruptly shatter like broken glass.

Additionally, skilled Jormun will be happy to assist those who care to dress up for the event with intricate applications of shellivthiss - a style of waterproof body paint that is not only bright, but luminescent. Something the Jormun may forget to mention, however, is how similar shellivthiss is to henna; should you decide to get all dolled up, except to shine bright light a diamond for weeks to come.

Lastly, those who wanted to bring their own adventures are welcome to as well! Supplying some dope roast? Bringing those sweet, sweet greens? Have some alcohol to supply? All is welcomed by the Jormun - and undoubtedly, your fellow adventurers as well.

You May Find Some Peace
Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the OOC Event Post, which has details regarding the event timeline!

---

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( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[lightlessfuture]

[ This world is - a dream, almost. A place filled with people of types they have never seen before. This place has a future, a past, a history weighted and a history yet to be made. The Knight's past and future have already been determined; this is merely an unexpected continuation.

They do not expect an afterlife or a reward for their long struggle; this is not what they view it as. It is what it is. They will take what comes. ]

YES

[ They pause for a moment, thinking, and then they offer the Drifter the brush, handle first. Gesturing with their other hand over their shoulder.

Their meaning is as clear as they can make it, without further words. If their friend would like to paint them, they would be happy to accept. ]

[hyperlit]

[It's not much consolation, in the end. We are all doomed, and we all walk ever closer to the end. There is not much else to say to that - to the inevitability of death, and the ephemeral nature of existence, particularly for ones such as they.]

[Perhaps the Knight is not sick in the way the Drifter is, but they are not a creature that anticipates a long and healthy life. Hence why they must fabricate the act of growing, instead of being allowed to flourish naturally.]

[It is not fair, but life has never been.]

[The Drifter accepts the brush with a single, startled blink, turning the brush over and over in their hands.]

what would you like

[They're trying this new thing where they ask people about themselves instead, and they're trying to get better at it.]

[lightlessfuture]

[ It is hard to grow when you were never meant to. Hard to picture a healthy, long life when you are not really a living being.

But the Knight cannot change their nature, born of void, bound into a mask and given form. Just like the Drifter is racked by illness which suffuses their entire life, reshapes them around it.

The Knight did not ask to be born. The Drifter did not ask to be sick, or chosen. But that is how it is.

Life has never been fair, indeed.

"What would you like?" Hmm. They think about it. Perhaps if they were somehow able to paint where they are asking the Drifter to, they would draw the dream sigils that they have grown familiar with. But... ]

WINGS-ARE-NICE

OTHER-PATTERNS-NICE-TOO

[ (Wings often are a sign of maturity, for many bugs. Except mantises, who lose them as they grow old, apparently. But they have wings themselves, albeit occasionally, so it makes sense to them.)

They shuffle around so they're not facing their friend, indicating where they'd like to be painted - on their back. There is an odd mark there; at the back of their neck, a four-pronged pointed, glowing brand that looks eerily similar to the symbol they'd indicated for 'king'.

But it's fine, probably?? ]

[hyperlit]

[Wings.]

[They think of the birds of the north. It is doubtful wings mean the same thing to the Knight, that the same association carries. The Drifter lifts the brush, its tip glistening, and then - ]

[Lowers it.]

something is already there

[The crown-like ring of sharp prongs, like thorns spiking the air. The Drifter tilts their head. King? The Knight? They'd never given that impression. And they...no, that wouldn't make much sense. But it's not like it's been painted on. It seems more...]

[Intrinsic. Deeper.]

[lightlessfuture]

[ They look back at the beeping of the sprite, quizzical at first and then - oh.

They can't see it, but they know what it has to be. The only thing that would show on them at all; a mark re-branded from an abandoned shell.

Technically, they are monarch of a dead kingdom, long abandoned by its true ruler. Not that they had paid much attention to it. ]

KEY-FOR-DOOR-TO-BIRTHPLACE

DOOR-SHUT

NEEDED-OPENING

[ They hesitate, and then, slow and somewhat reluctant: ]

BRAND-IS-FROM-FATHER

NOT-IMPORTANT

CAN-PAINT-OVER-IT

[ The King had made many children, after all, and thrown them away just as easily. Had fled his dying kingdom, after all the sacrifices he had asked from others. They don't see why they should hold his symbol in much importance. ]

[hyperlit]

[Father.]

[King.]

[And here the Drifter did not think it would get much worse. Desensitized to the atrocities of everyday existence in Buried Time as they are, it is...different. Things are always different, they have begun to learn, when it comes to children.]

[They did not always wonder so. This is a...relatively new development.]

[But a vital one.]

your father
a king?

[lightlessfuture]

[ They shuffle around to face the Drifter again, because it's polite to face who you're talking to (and vital, in this case). ]

YES

KING-FOUGHT-GOD

KING-BECAME-GOD

KING-MADE-KINGDOM

KINGDOM-GREW-SICK-FROM-OTHER-GOD

KING-MADE-MANY-VESSELS

DESTROYED-MANY

MADE-PERFECT-VESSEL

PERFECT-VESSEL-PRISON-FOR-OTHER-GOD

DID-NOT-WORK


[ It was hard to parse last time, so they break it down more slowly here. It sounds like a myth, a fairytale, except - well, it's part of how the Knight was made. ]

[hyperlit]

[The morality of gods is not the same as that of mortals. The Drifter knows this. The jackal had no qualms with picking and choosing which drifters would carry the burden of curing the world of the perfect Cell's creeping toxins; which would last until the very end of the journey, and which would falter so close to the end. It did not seem fair, but life was far from fair, and the illness that devours one alive is even less so.]

[But there are gods and then there are false idols that elevate themselves far above others - charlatans who don fluttering cloaks and walk on stilts and raise their beaks high, as though they believe themselves better than the rabble they command. War-makers and egg-breakers, who sacrificed young on altars to worship a deity that did not truly exist.]

[Know this: gods that facilitate the sacrifice of children are not gods at all.]

true gods
do not murder children in droves

[lightlessfuture]

[ The Knight has only a vague idea of what a god is; they are unable to really define it. Something - someone - that is worshipped. Something powerful beyond reckoning, perhaps incomprehensible.

They have none of the context - the cultural knowledge necessary - to fully understand what that worship means, what separates 'false' from 'true'. But they simply nod, because the way the Drifter talks - it seems like they know more about it. ]

KING-SAID

NO-COST-TOO-GREAT

[ There's a certain stiffness to signing the words that goes beyond simple clumsiness. The Knight clearly has a low opinion of their creator, for obvious reasons. ]

TO-SAVE-KINGDOM

ASKED-FOR-SACRIFICE

FROM-OTHERS

MADE-THEM-SEALS

FOR-PRISON

[ He had separated Hornet from her mother, had taken away Quirrel's mentor and teacher. (Lurien had nobody at all, and that was sad in its own way). Always, always, asking for others to give themselves for him. ]

KINGDOM-STILL-DIED

ALL-SACRIFICES

FOR-NOTHING

[ Would it have been better, if things had worked? Well. No. Nothing could justify such costs. But the Knight finds a sort of bitterness in the fact that it had not. The dreamers had slept, could only be woken by death - in defense of a kingdom that should not have been saved. In defense of a king who had abandoned them.

Their sibling had accepted their terrible fate in defense of a father who might have loved them, and yet still sacrificed them. ]

[hyperlit]

weak words
to justify to a cruel narrative

[The world is cruel, and the world does not stop being cruel merely because its targets are children. This they know and have learned in due time. This they were always aware of to a certain extent, distantly, without commitment, without true understanding of the gravity of those atrocities but merely the knowledge that they could not be justified. Smashed eggs and stolen history are one thing.]

[But meeting the avian hermit who had spirited away what few eggs he could - meeting those who had been direct victims of such tragedies driven by vile, violent fanatics - had taken the situation from the abstract to the tangible.]

[It had not made it more or less horrifying. It had merely made the Drifter more aware of those horrors.]

our god chose us
to walk the world
to destroy the Immortal Cell

she chose the weak and the dying
who had nothing but pain in their futures
and gave them purpose

[lightlessfuture]

[ The Knight doesn't...quite understand that devotion to a god. The best they can do is liken it to duty - to the white-armored corpse who had died defending the White Lady. Ogrim's still-lasting loyalty to his king. A lonely figure in a tall tower, ready to sacrifice their life for a city and monarch they loved. Hornet's relentless patrolling of ruins long abandoned. The Old Stag, still serving for as long as his body lasted.

(Hearing a desperate, painful cry from someone not made for it. Coming back to a city they had fled, to end things for good.)

But this worship is clearly important to the Drifter - intertwined with the path they chose to walk, so they feel they have to say something. ]

AM-HAPPY

YOUR-GOD-IS-BETTER

THAN-ONE-I-FOUGHT

[ Good in motives. Not kind, or merciful. A purpose is no cure for sickness; it is a way to keep going despite it.

(They don't fully comprehend that drive to do something before death, despite the similarities between them. But they know that it is - important, to their friend, and so they try, struggle though they might, to see it from their point of view.) ]

WHAT-IS-CELL

DID-YOU-DESTROY-IT

[ And, blunt as ever. But they really do want to know, even if their questions are not as well phrased as they could be. ]

[hyperlit]

[She was. The Drifter would not pretend they ever fully understood the jackal’s motives and means, but that specter of death was their only real guide aside from the Guardian’s familiar pink bulk. She did not call for the sacrifice of children. She did not preach about no costs being too great. She did not murder hatchlings indiscriminately.]

[She sought to rinse the world clean of its blight. She simply needed a tool to make it happen.]

[The Drifter looks at their hand: gloved, creased, topped with clawlike nails. Worn fabric knobbed at the points where their callouses have become scar tissue.]

[Picture it: a foam-crusted sea of water, pure and absolute and far reaching, and a sky no longer baked red with the corpses of the dead and the dying.]

[They cannot truly know. They cannot know if it was a premonition, a promise, a gilded lie - or some delusion cooked into a dying brain, desperate to manufacture some meaning where none existed.]

[They simply have to have faith.]

i hope so

[lightlessfuture]

[ The Knight nods in response to that. What else can they say? They hope that the Drifter's world is healed, too, even if they are not. (The Knight, too, cannot see the future, though they have more knowledge of destroying their ancient enemy. They can only hope things have become better.)

They lean forward a little, acting on some impulse to raise their hand and compare the Drifter's with their own. Slender, segmented fingers that end in sharp points. Not so different, perhaps.

They seem - pleased, or fascinated. Or just curious. It's hard to tell. But they seem to enjoy this act of comparison, of finding things about the people they are attached to that are similar.

Almost absentmindedly, they doodle another little addition to the sigil they've laid out. It looks somewhat like a pointed mask with two horns. It's not something they explained the meaning of, before. ]

[hyperlit]

[The Drifter tilts their head, grateful for the distraction from the current tenor of their thoughts. It's better to dwell in the present than it is in the past - in that which they cannot change. There is little point in that. It will not change how things are; only acting now can alter things in a way that is tangible.]

[So they look to the new symbol the Knight has drawn in the sand, instead. It draws their eye in a different way.]

what does this one mean

[lightlessfuture]

[ They look at what they've drawn, then look at the Drifter again. They are - uncertain, how their friend will take it, considering what they have said of themselves.

But, well. They asked.

After a moment, they lift their hands to sign. ]

FAMILY

[ The Knight is, at heart, a lonely child. Seeking to make connection in whatever way they can. The similarities of their situations is something that resonates too deeply for them to ignore. ]

[hyperlit]

[Family.]

[That's an...unfamiliar concept, if they are honest with themself. They have experienced even something as small as kinship, as acknowledging a shared bond, only fleetingly. A drunk fetched up against the walls of a village. A drifter with a fur-ruffed cloak, sharing in solitude.]

[They have no metric for what family entails.]

never had one

[A shared race, a shared bloodline, or a shared occupation - but even those had been distant, unformed, flashes of something that stirred little more than a vague sort of curiosity.]

[lightlessfuture]

[ The Knight's view of family is...strange. They are bound to their siblings by - a call. A shared purpose. Painful regrets. Union, together, at last. A distant light, calling them into being.

But -- family is their half-sister, needle-sharp, warning them, testing them - and at the last, aiding them. Family is an old stag, holding onto hope for the future of a child he never met. A great hunter, wishing for the sum of his knowledge to be passed to a willing heir. A shaman still thinking of his sister, his aunt, his uncle. A mother willing to give up everything for her daughter.

They are not good enough with words to explain the feeling, beyond -- ]


MEANS-NOT-ONLY-ONE

HAVE-FAMILY-NOW

IF-YOU-WANT

[ If the Drifter doesn't want it, that too is fine; they will accept it.

But in part, they are trying to share that feeling with the Drifter, the warmth it makes them feel. ]

[hyperlit]

[It sounds like an official sort of...statement. Like becoming a drifter, and donning that garb and hiding your face and taking up old equipment, passed from drifter to drifter to drifter to drifter across the circuits of age and wear and temporal drift and nameless, unidentifiable bodies slumped against walls and moldering into the dirt.]

[Perhaps it is more like becoming a disciple; unofficial, and implicit. Not drawing a blade and kneeling and swearing fealty, but electing to follow a god when she walks the land.]

what does it mean

[Pardon the questions.]

[They just aren't really sure what family entails.]

[lightlessfuture]

[ The Knight thinks about this for a long moment. This is an important question, so it deserves a proper answer.

The words are slow in coming - in writing this time. Because the Knight has to ponder it too - what does family mean? What does it mean to them? How can they convey it?

means that

you are precious to others

they think of you

they look for you when you are gone

welcome you when you are here

always connected even when far away, separate

will remember you

will always know you

even if you change, still know

Their meaning of family is - somewhat distorted by their duty to their siblings. They probably don't have a family member that hasn't tried to kill them (maybe the White Lady). But it still means something, it means - connection. Not being lonely. Knowing that someone knows who you are and does not need to be told. When you are spoken of, they will recognise it.

An intrinsic bond. Like drifters recognising drifters, a little. But more personal than that - an acknowledgement of a person, not a title. The person is what matters.

There are many drifters, it seems, but there is only one of their friend. ]

[hyperlit]

[Is that not how they already...]

[They'd never considered it; the fact that they've assigned this meaning to others before, without really intending to. It is how they picture Ren, who calls their skin pretty, who says they have a good heart, who can hear them in ways that so few can. Perhaps that was presumptuous of them. Perhaps they ought to have asked.]

[The Knight is asking now, in a manner of speaking. They're explaining. That is something the Drifter can well appreciate.]

did not know
that was the word for it

[Should they have asked?]

[lightlessfuture]

[ The Knight doesn't want to assume - doesn't want to assign meaning if it isn't first acknowledged by another. It is why they ask now; their longing for connection is different from the Drifter's acceptance of solitude.

(Because declaring such a connection between themselves and another is an imposition, and that would bring them too close to the person who made them.)

family means many different things

used in many different ways

by others

just what it means to me

There are many, many symbols for a family, many ways of writing it. They have traveled enough to understand this.

But the curved horns, that representation of their sibling, that is a symbol unique to their interpretation. It means family only to them, only to the people they tell. ]

[hyperlit]

[They have to consider it carefully. It is not whether or not they want to that factors in - want has very little to do with it, for if it is something the Knight so obviously craves, then it is simple as declaring it so. It is a gauging of costs and benefits, not for the Drifter themself, but for the tiny creature who wishes to refer to them as someone close to them.]

sick
dying
will not last forever
a species most do not welcome

[Those are all variables that, like it or not, are present. They must be taken into consideration.]

if these are acceptable
then is it what you want?

[lightlessfuture]

[ They tilt their head, clearly reading what the Drifter lays out in front of them - simple facts of existence for their friend, but something that makes their soul ache.

(They could argue or rebuke such things, perhaps say it was unfair, but it would be pointless to do, they think. Some things are simply -- intrinsic. The Drifter wears those scars of their existence like the Knight wears their own past; things that are so worn in that they have ceased to become anything to react to.)

But ultimately, it doesn't matter if something doesn't last forever. Nothing lasts forever - they know that very, very well.

What matters is that it was here at all.

So to the Drifter's question -- they nod firmly, without hesitation. Not bothering to speak with their hands, instead using them to clasp one of the Drifter's hands in both their own. ]

[hyperlit]

[It is a simple answer to a complicated question, and the direct nature of it appeals to them. They can’t claim they have any notion as to what this might mean for the future - what it is that family means, in regards to day to day life, or much of anything at all. And they just consider, also, that the Knight must be truly desperate on some level, of the Drifter is the best they can do.]

[To deny it would be worse. So they nod, as though sealing a contract.]

[There is never any fanfare.]

ok

[lightlessfuture]

[ Someday, perhaps, the Drifter will reveal these thoughts, and the Knight will tell them that they care not at all about the colour of the Drifter's skin or their sickness or their frailty. That their request to call the Drifter family is because they find them 'worthless' in the way that someone irreplaceable and precious is above any scale of worth entirely, and had nothing to do with desperation at all, and if they had what few family remained to them here they would still ask the Drifter regardless--

But they have not, and so those words remain uncommunicated.

They release the Drifter's hand after a moment, and then they gesture at the brush again, turning their back.

They would still like to be painted, after all. Though after a moment they rearrange their cloak around their neck, to hide that glowing brand that marks them. Clearly a little self-conscious about it. ]