lifeaftr | June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

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June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

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!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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It makes it easier. It hurts less.

[It's not a cure. It helps. She can't claim to do much, but looking after this kindhearted man who escaped his fate is something she wants to do. He has Chara and their sibling-she's just offering her unique backup services in their absence or if he feels lonely.]

When someone's heart reaches yours, it feels better. I'll try to do that for you.

Probably best you don't try that.

[The memory is still too raw, whenever he revisits it: two souls brought into collusion, the tenor of Chara's thoughts crashing up against his own with meteoric impact and leaving them both straining, burning alive beneath the nuclear weight of two tones of twisting, spooling, unbearable - ]

[He glances out at the waves, one hand curling into a fist over his chest, as though that might shield his heart.]

My heart's kinda on the heavier side.

[Heavier is an association she understands in an instant. It's heavier because he was hurt. Because he was alone. Because he was stuck in a lab, a hospital, for years and years, until he escaped. Until he was strong enough to find a way out and continue living.

Even if he still has to rely on the pills she hoped he didn't need to see a future that looks so bright when she stares at him. She's felt the weight of hopelessness and anger in the scientists-heard the seething pain of a man she feared and understands what heavy means. How the negativity and anger and sadness can force you down. Drown you.

She holds out both hands, fully expecting him to not take them, but offering it all the same.]

That's okay. That kind of thing can make you very sad and hurt a lot-I know about things like that.

[But when someone's there to hold your hand when your vision fails. When they're by your side, no matter how sick you get. When they don't give up on you, even when you run and run-it's better. Feels warmer. Heals the bits and pieces of her she didn't notice were breaking up, until he grabbed her hand.

Until she put flowers in her hair.

Until he let her be someone else.

Until they made flower crowns together.

Until they blew bubbles until the sun went down.

Until he said her heart was pretty.

Until he became her anchor.]

I want to reach you.

[How do you explain this to a child, when he couldn't have understood it when he was her age? Maybe because she's smarter than he was at that point; it isn't hard to be. But all the same - that bleedover of the nightmares in his head to someone else's isn't something he'd wish on anyone else.]

It's not something anyone should get near, kid. It's like if you get...sick. Really sick, and it spreads.

[It's not a perfect metaphor by far, but how else is he supposed to explain it?]

It shouldn't spread.

[She wants to say it doesn't matter. If it's the same kind of disease coursing through her body, then it won't change anything. She can't fathom any illness beyond the one that destroyed her world. But the way he's talking-it must be something else. Worse? Something that attacks your heart and makes it heavy instead of messed up.]

Does it hurt you?

[Does it matter?]

[He shrugs, a vague lift of his shoulders. The water here should scare him, but it doesn't. It's too abstracted by its suspected additional properties, the way it constrains them and fritzes their electronics beyond repair. It's not like choking in nameless rivers, clawing to reach the surface only to vomit up mouthfuls of your own blood.]

I've lived with it for my entire life. I can keep living with it.

[But he'll die before he willingly, knowingly spreads it - It - to someone else.]

[There's no response to her actual question, if it hurts, and she can only assume it does. That his medicine doesn't keep that pain at bay. That it's something he puts up with constantly, through broken arms and music lessons.]

I think that your heart-that it's very strong. It's good. I can tell things like that.

[Despite his illness, definitely. She doesn't say I'm sorry because sometimes that's your lot in life and sorry won't change that. It's not a cure. It doesn't offer relief. They're just words from people who know they can't help and even if she can't either, she-

Wants to reach him, if he needs it. When he'll absolutely need it because it's hard to deal with that alone and she can only be grateful there's an equally strong child looking out for him in the interim.]

It's okay to say 'it hurts'. You can say that to someone like me.

But if I say it, you might try to fix it.

[She cares, an awful lot. She's a kid with an awful big heart, and it doesn't seem to bother her that this might come at her own expense. It's the kind of unselfish thing that not many kids would be capable of out of nowhere.]

[Well. Maybe not out of nowhere.]

[It's not fair to her - to treat her like she doesn't get it. She knows full well what it means, when some people are just born wrong.]

[But he also knows that she knows the feeling - not wanting someone to be alone in dealing with something that you yourself understand entirely too intimately.]

[It's something she wants to deny, to put his mind at ease, but saying I won't means she won't try to hold his hand or reach out and hope that a part of him stays with her. It probably won't. It doesn't work that way here. She can't passively take in memories and thoughts like she used to and it's for the best that it's on occasion-when someone is curled up by the fire, grieving her missing piece and-

She fidgets. Hooking her fingers together, picking at the mixture of sand and frosting and whatever nonsense is stuck to them.]

I don't know how, but-

[There's something she's missing-the difference between them and why his heavy heart is more dangerous than hers. Why it 'spreads', but that doesn't mean he isn't hurting. That he's not lonely. That his heart doesn't sometimes crack under the weight of it, when he feels something ache with only the silence around him to listen to his problems.]

I want to be with you. Maybe-that's all. If it hurts, I want to hold your hand and you can squeeze it for a long time. I won't leave.

[If he were a better man - ]

[Well, there's his first problem. Entertaining that thought is useless, because a better man wouldn't be here right now. A better, more moral, more compassionate, more selfless person, he would've seen the truth in what Alex had to say and done what needed doing long before now. Long before being caught in a world where death is impermanent, and even the backdoor out has been slammed irreparably shut. Possibly forever.]

And what about you, hm?

[She's a kid with a heart bigger than it should be; bigger than any one child should bear.]

[No wonder Chara likes her.]

Seems like a heavy thing for a kid to carry all on her own.

[Don't turn this around on her. He's the one with some of spreadable, painful, incurable thing ravaging through him. And even if the minor possibility occurred where it happened to leak out, she could handle it. It doesn't matter if she gets it. She's already a lost cause and he has a chance.]

You've been alone for that sort of thing.

[The worse thought is imagining him without someone to turn to, even if it's for the simplest, dumbest reason-squeezing someone's hand, getting them to count out one, two, three when his mind's too fuzzy to work-She'd rather be there.]

I don't want you to be. So it's okay. I'll be okay.

You know it's not your job to make that better. Right?

[A gentle reminder, in case she was forgetting. He was ruined long before she came along - straight from the cradle, in fact. Maybe even sooner. Call it a disease, call it a curse, call it bad luck, call it whatever the hell you want. The bottom line is that it's not something he thinks is fixable.]

[Even by someone with the best of intentions.]

[The moment he says that-

A burst of energy surges through her. It's not her job to make it better. It's not her job to ensure he isn't lonely.]

It's not a job.

[It's not like some part time elfmart work and as kind as that reminder is-that it's not her job, she already knows that. Because it was never a job. It's something she has to do because she cares about him, because she wants to see him smile and hold hands with the kids in his house without worry. Because he deserves to sit around and play stringed instruments and blow up loud surprises and not fret over being lonely during it all.]

'Don't feel like you have to be alone just because you're good at it.'

[It's recited from memory, said in a tone that makes it clear this didn't originate in her.]

I think you're good at being alone too, but it's 'not a job'-I want to be with you. That's how it is.

[Just because you're good at it.]

[It's not just that he's good at it. It's that it's - better, isn't it? Isn't he less of a threat this way? Isn't he less of a danger to himself and to others, like this? Isn't he easier to dismiss, easier to contain, easier to deal with calmly and efficiently, when he isn't worming his way into other people's hearts?]

[For how long will she insist on this kind of thing? Until his face is sheathed behind white and he reaches for her, hands straining to wring her fragile neck? Until she starts having nightmares, too?]

[Only an idiot would. Only an absolute idiot like him would imagine that he could get away with this and just...slip out and away, without any fucking problems. Can't waltz out of existence anymore, can you? That ship has sailed. That plan is gone. Can't go piggybacking off of any more children's suicidal ideations.]

[Wishes he could smile. Wishes he could feel it, twisting the corners of his mouth until they hurt.]

Why?

Because you make me happy. I want you to be happy too.

[The little reasons all culminate into that singular purpose. It won't matter if his medicine keeps him alive for years, if he's consumed by loneliness. It's a terrible thought and she doesn't want to entertain it. She knows what it's like to sit alone in her room, waiting to see if people wanted to use her today. What it's like to be alone when no one wanted her anymore, what it was like to travel the city, knowing there she was completely and utterly alone.

How it felt to have someone that wanted to be with her-to just hold her hand. No strings attached, no ulterior motive.

If he doesn't move away, she's going to slowly move her hand to the top of his head and, you know, pet him. Lup didn't mind. Cats don't mind. It'll make Tim happy, maybe. That's Step 1.]

You make my heart feel warm when you say 'hey, kiddo' and hold my hand. That's why.

[It raises his eyebrows some, but he lets it lie. If she doesn't mind the fact that his hair is...as much a mess as the rest of him. Smelling of sea salt and cigarettes, matted in the way that it gets when he forgets to shower and shave most days.]

[I want you to be happy, as though that's even remotely fucking tenable. As though he's not wrung empty, wrung dry, a hollow goddamn half-shell of a human being walking around and acting like he can be vaguely functional like he's got any right to claim that he knows the people that he does these people who are kind and polite and give him the time of day when he so clearly painfully utterly obviously doesn't deserve it ]

[He breathes out.]

[Hates it hates himself for what he says the way he does the way he can't - ]

What if there are some things you can't fix?

[Guilt is an emotion that comes to her in occasional waves, when she thinks about-

Stuff she doesn't want to deal with right now, while she's patting down his messy hair, trying to untangle and pick at bits of it with her fingers. Cats treat themselves better than this, Tim.

There are some things you can't fix and that sense of false hope isn't something she wants to give another person. She wants to help, thinks she can, in this one, single instance where loneliness is the source. She can't cure his disease or help injuries in any feasible way.

Her voice drops, in case prying ears are around, because they don't need to know this, but-]

I thought 'it won't go away' and 'it won't stop hurting'-for a very long time. That's how it was.

[A problem she pushed away and ignored because there was no point in facing it in an empty world.]

Then Seto saved me and said he wanted to be with me and-

[She sort of pats his hand down again, giving up on whatever stupid tangles are there. It builds character.]

I felt 'fixed'. When you hear words like that, it feels very good.

[It's easy, maybe, if you're a kid. You can tell yourself that if someone wants you to be okay, you can be, and that's...okay. Or if you will it as such, if you trust that pure power of will alone will be able to make you okay, then maybe it can be.]

It doesn't work like that all the time.

[Not for me.]

[There really is no breaking this to her gently, is there?]

Not for...everyone.

[It's harder than she thought to convince him, which isn't surprising considering his life and how things may have been. Saying and showing are two different things and only one really holds any weight at the end of the day.

There are many situations she'll give up on and push to the side for other people to handle, but not this. Absolutely not.]

I'll learn a lot of words and one of them will feel like a hug. I know-

[Any words she can think of to start ebbing away the pain of being alone. I want to be with you doesn't work, so she goes down her list of comforting phrases.]

Greetings, pumpkin. [Pause] You're dope and cool. Do you want to hold hands?

[This probably isn’t the right thing to do. Breaking down the inconsistencies in child logic, teaching her cynicism when she already know the world can be cold and grim and uncaring. What’s this meant to accomplish? It certainly isn’t making her feel better.]

[Figures that he’d be terrible with kids - objectively awful, and of course he’s surrounded by them.]

Who taught you those ones?

[Change...change the subject. Think of something else instead.]

[Did it work? Is there some kind of mystical elf power that got through to him, with those few words alone? She's taking his curiosity as confirmation this might be helping. The temporary distraction is working for now and she's more than happy to share that info.]

Taako, Lup, Chara-lots of people talk to me here. So I'll find nice words that'll make you happy.

[I’m never happy.]

[She’s too young to know what “anhedonia” means. Maybe even too young to grasp the concept. How do you explain to someone how it feels, for everything to just be...gray? It’s not sadness, really, or even grief. It’s nothing at all. How does one make that clear to a child?]

[You don’t.]

They told you their name.

They told me a long time ago.

[Back when it was a secret she had to keep close to her heart and the only reminder of it was the faded gold star on the temple wall. It's weird to say it, after months of talking about Kidwun, but it's what they want. Ask and thee shall receive. Tim probably knew from day one.]

Do you have a 'true name' too?

[They like her, and they’ve always liked her - but he still blinks, brow creasing. They must have trusted her an awful lot. But then, just because he knew out of circumstance, out of convenience, that doesn’t mean he knows anything about how Chara acts when they’re not dealing with a liability.]

[He reaches up, unconsciously, fingering the lump beneath his shirt. Doesn’t look at it. Doesn’t slip it out into view.]

[Right now? It’s just enough to know it’s there.]

Me? Nah. I’m too boring for that.

[All that means is that he's been using his true name all along. It has nothing to do with being exciting or boring. He's not hiding behind another one for the sake of being someone else, even temporarily.]

You don't have to be someone else. You can use a name as a nickname. I heard about that.

[And when it occurs to her that he's might not know what that is, she takes a step back to get the full Tim view and lands on the illustrious-]

Mit.

June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

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