January Event: Fade to Black

[lifeaftr_mods]

JANUARY EVENT: FADE TO BLACK

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: Your true self comes to roost
When: January 21st - 23rd; January 25th - 28th
Where: All over!
Warnings: Dark subjects such as violence and self-destruction are likely to come to the forefront - please mark your content accordingly!

Down in that Darkness

This log is primarily for the Shadow and Light portions of the event, for ease and convenience. Your Shadow can be either the Persona-inspired sort - a "brutal, bitterly honest recreation of a character's worst flaws, darkest fears, and deepest secrets" - or the edgier, more laughable variant. The Lights, on the other hand, will do their utmost to convince their real selves of their best qualities, no matter how little they want to hear them.

Remember that the Shadows will be present from January 21st to January 23rd, and the Lights will be present from January 25th to January 28th.

On January 25th, we will post a separate log for Rejection Rooms!

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Some useful links, for reference:

[ ♆ ] OOC Event Post
[ ♆ ] Rejection Room Sign-Ups; remember to note your interest in these as soon as possible!
[ ♆ ] Deaths Page; death penalties have been reduced for the duration of this event, but still do let us know if your character dies regardless!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 20th: The monthly Storytelling occurs.
[ ♆ ] January 21st: Shadows of both initial variants appear.
[ ♆ ] January 23rd: Shadows of both initial variants disappear.
[ ♆ ] January 25th Lights and Rejection Rooms appear.
[ ♆ ] January 28th: Lights and Rejection Rooms dissipate. Those still trapped in their Rejection Rooms by the event's end will suffer a character death.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[thermalwind]

[His mind reels. He has a crazy idea as he stands up. This is all his negative traits, isn’t it? He looks to Alfor then back at the shadow now standing watching him with anger and sadness in his eyes.]

...compassion ...I think we went about this all wrong. [Keith looks again at his shadow and steps closer to Alfor. Voltron. The more he thinks about that he more sure he is about what he’s thinking. The first time he felt he truly becomes and didn’t have to fight. He drops his voice low.]

I don’t think it really is trying to fault me for anything. But I need your help. We have to drop our weapons at the last moment and catch him.

[The shadow snarls and launches forward cannon turning into a blade as he bears down on them. Keith faces his shadow squarely with his weapons up.] ...on my signal.

[alchemisted]

We have to what now...

[But questions or not, Alfor nods. From what he's seen of this future Paladin, he has no reason not to trust him. Especially in matters involving his own shadow. So he's on with this plan.

His sword levels, all defensive for the moment.]

Agreed.

[Catch him. Okay. He thinks he sees where the plan is going. He just hopes it works.]

[thermalwind]

Hold. [His shadow is closing the distance but he isn't afraid or, feeling a desire to oppose him. He holds himself steady. It feels like when he looked to the sun in the void and felt Black's mind settle over his.]

...hold.

[The distance gets shorter. He waits, all of his mistakes dancing with his triumphs in his mind's eye. They spin together as his double is close enough their blades will touch if he doesn't end this now.] Now.

[His weapons fall from his hands and he drops down, surging up to wrap his arms around his shadow self. Eyes gone yellow and violet widen in shock. Loose dark hair obscures his vision as he turns his head and presses it against his.]

All you know how to do is fight. It's all you know how to do and you expected to be rejected anyway. It's all you've ever known since dad was killed.

[He tightens his hold and keeps speaking. It's hard to get the words out but they need this. He and his shadow. He needs to admit these things to move forward. To himself, or Alfor, or anyone who could hear. This is his bad side, the side of himself he long accepted.] Voltron is the first time you've ever belonged to anything or anywhere. You're scared of that. Scared of what you could lose. You're afraid to need them. Afraid to need anything or to care because you're used to losing.

That's okay. I accepted all my bad traits a long time ago. [He laughs but there's no humor in it.] That's what people used to see and just that. Until, [He draws back slowly to meet his own eyes.] someone saw what we could be.

You don't have to fight...I accepted you a long time ago.

[alchemisted]

[Alfor nods, waiting. He trusts Keith in this. He may have only met Keith a short while ago, but something about the other paladin inspires that faith in him. Perhaps even more after watching him face down himself just now.

Or maybe it's simply that following a black paladin is the natural order of things as well.

Alfor focuses, letting his bayard fall and moving to help make sure that Keith has the shadow version quite secured.

And Alfor listens, quiet now, letting Keith speak his truth.]

[thermalwind]

[The shadow sags in his grip. Slowly he winds his arms around Keith in turn, breathing in deep as his weapons tumble to the ground and vanish.]

Okay...okay.

[He turns to darkness and vanishes, leaving Keith and Alfor holding empty air. He stares at where he'd been then looking up at Alfor.] Thanks.

Sometimes I get so stuck in fighting, I forget what's really important. See the whole picture. Not just what's in front of you.

[alchemisted]

And you did see it.

[Alfor comments as he straightens up and steps back. Saw and solved. He nods to himself.

A Black Paladin. No doubt about that, is there? For a moment he looks at Keith silently, as though he's settling something in his own mind.]

Then... there should be no cause for it to return.

[thermalwind]

No. I know myself and accept it. Good and bad. [He bends down and retrieves his blade and Bayard. He looks at the Bayard. It snaps briefly into the cannon before it ripples back into a sword. Keith smiles quietly and stores the Bayard back on his belt.

His Marmora Blade goes right back into the sheathe against the small of his back. Settled once more he turns to Alfor.]

At least we know how they’re dealt with. As long as we support each other we can weather this. [He looks up as Kosmo slinks out of the bushes and presses his full weight against his side. He drops his hand down and scratches just behind his ears.] Run into yours yet?

[alchemisted]

A noble quality.

[Keith is young still -- not that Alfor is exactly old, but he's older than Keith anyway -- but there's a certain aura about the other paladin that's impossible to miss. Alfor can see how a team would follow him into battle.

The question about his shadow has him grimacing.]

Yes. I'm afraid I lost track of him after a rather unpleasant conversation. I was hoping to track him down before he did another I'd regret.

[thermalwind]

[Keith glances around to see if he can spot any flash of someone moving around near them. He finds nothing.]

I'll help you track him down. Where did you last spot him? [He had met his shadow and faced him like he promised. There's a peace in that he hadn't thought about. It's okay to be scared. Hunk was so often scared and still kept fighting.

He'd admired him before. Now he sees what Alfor means as he circles their small space.

There truly is something noble about those who can face themselves and embrace the worst in themselves. He'll tell that to Hunk sometime.]

[alchemisted]

Not far from the cottage I've been calling home.

[Though with a frown, Alfor admits.] I fear that was a while ago.

[So who knows how far he may have roamed by now.] When I last saw him, he mostly seemed interested in saying terrible things rather than causing physical harm. ...I suppose that's not much better.

[He sighs, and wonders a bit if he'll be quite as effective as Keith at neutralizing this shadow of his.]

[thermalwind]

So not far from where the rest of us are staying.

[He mulls that over. Alfor's shadow hangs out and says things instead of fight. As far as he understands him, it sort of makes sense?]

Let's head that way and see if we can pick up his trail. We'll figure out exactly how to deal with him. Once we see him.

[alchemisted]

[No attacking yet, but the words were cutting. This shadow version of his self seems well-versed on the future that Alfor has recently learned he will be facing once he finds his way back to his own world and his own time.

And that thought alone is enough to have him falling quiet, nodding in agreement as he follows along with Keith. It's after a stretch of quiet moments that he finally speaks up.]

The time that you are from, everything that's happened there -- it's a consequence of my blindness to the motivations of a man I thought my friend... my leader. I fear the things my shadow has to say about that much are all too true.

[thermalwind]

[He turns and walks away back towards the islets. The silence is soothing after the confrontation with himself. Yet, they have a task ahead of them and just as he's about to ask Alfor more, the king speaks up.

Keith listens to him with a neutral expression on his face. His brows come down and he shakes his head. No. He's had a lot of time to sit and think...and distantly he got to see what happened in a campfire memory as he told the old tale Coran had told them.]

No. He'll only have your perspective of the events. You did the best you could given the circumstances. ...and the future has proven you more than right in what you did. You gave us a distant chance to make it all right.

Without sending the lions away Zarkon would have had the Black Lion and there would have been no successor to challenge him for it. That's just one way your decision gave us hope.

[alchemisted]

[That may be the problem. Alfor hasn't lived through those events. He only has what he's been told and the gaps that his imagination has filled in for him -- with the worst possible imaginings, usually.]

Still. To even allow it to get that far. I should have been more insistent that experimentation with the rift cease. I should have seen what it was doing to Zarkon. And Honerva.

[Because even in his own time, he's seen the changes in Honerva so starkly. Her work on the Rift is consuming her.]

I am glad that you've found the Lions. And that they've found you, that you've succeeded where I could not.

[thermalwind]

[Again he falls silent. In their early days as Paladins, he had argued for doing more. Always the first to want to fight because as a lone fighter that's all he know worked.

He took the missions very seriously but Shiro and his mother taught him the long term. Experience failing the team, also taught him that. He thinks over what responsibilities Alfor has on his plate and the long term effect them had Zarkon turned on them. Again he shakes his head.]

All of you are leaders of your people. You came together in friendship and harmony but you also have to look after them. You can't claim full responsibility for how another leader handles his job. You can't put all this on your own shoulders. It's five paladins, not one.

Everyone missed the problem. We can look back and see how it all went wrong because we have the benefit of knowing how it played out. It's never that simple in the moment.

Even if you'd had glimpses of the future. You'd have had trouble deciding what to do.

[alchemisted]

[Keith has caught Alfor's attention again and again. A Black Paladin indeed, saying things like that.

The Altean smiles and lets his gaze wander away from Keith as he considers.] That is true. We always see the past clearer than the future.

[It's something to think about, certainly.]

It is strange to know what is waiting for me when I eventually return.

[thermalwind]

Yeah, seeing or hearing about the future messes you up a bit.

[It changed so much for him, he thinks. Tonight he'll sink into Shiro's arms and be grateful it hadn't cost them everything.]

...you'll make it through this. It's true it ended bad, but you left a legacy behind. People remember Voltron and think of hope and safety. That means a lot to so many people.

[His eyes are bright. Voltron's legacy touched him too.] There wasn't just the bad. There was so much good.

[alchemisted]

Still, I'm grateful to know. Even if that knowledge is temporary.

[He'd rather the truth, no matter what it may be. He is glad to not be blind to what his daughter has gone through, even if it wounds him to know it too.]

Hope. [He echoes and manages a faint smile.] There are worse legacies to leave behind than that. Thank you, Keith.

[thermalwind]

We all help each other. It's the Paladin way, right? [He smiles briefly and pauses at the brief to the islets. He could come at this with his sword out. But he won't. Instead, he waits, moving aside from Alford to walk ahead of him.]

If he does decide to fight, better he face you directly. He might make some smart assed remark about following if I do it.

[alchemisted]

I suppose it is at that, yes.

[Teamwork and all that. Alfor feels... better. He does glance back at Keith, lifting an eyebrow.]

He can remark as he likes. There is strength and wisdom in choosing to follow rather than lead at times. And you are a Black Paladin, Keith. It's very clear to see why the Black Lion would have chosen you.

[That said. He is ready to be the one to face himself down, in this instance. It's his own troubles, after all.]

[thermalwind]

[He keeps hearing it's clear why Black chose him but that's something different from hearing it from their creator. Black is special to him these days. He misses that connection between him and the ancient storm that is Black. When he saw through Black's eyes and let himself trust in the Lion as it trusted him it felt like he was riding the lightning.

His eyes widen in surprise and he grins, it lights up his whole face. He lightly thumps Alfor in the shoulder, a gesture he picked up here.]

And it's really obvious why Red chose you. I agree with you. Sometimes following is smarter. ...in this case, it's your story and I'm your support. I have the facts he and you lack. I'll use them for your sake.