tushanshu_logs | [EVENT] Bonfire Night

[EVENT] Bonfire Night

Characters: ALL!
Date: February 21st
Location: Various.
Situation: It’s cold. Time to cuddle up and make bonfires for the warmth.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

As night falls the city’s lights take something of a unique turn. Instead of being lit by millions of paper lanterns, Keeliai is tonight lit by the flames and warmth of dozens if not hundreds of fires. Some of them are small, not much more than warming hearths in a barrel on a street, but others encompass squares and boulevards.

The fire lighting procession winds through the city’s streets, beginning at the first bonfire in Fire Sector. By the time full night has arrived, that procession is a snake illuminated by dozens of torches, parting from the main parade to light smaller fires in smaller streets. It ends, finally, in Central, in the Courtyard of Public Opinion, whose bonfire is second only to the initiating one in Fire Sector.

In some areas an exchange of goods arises, mostly in terms of woollens and other warm clothes and blankets. Though food is considered a public resource on this occasion, bartering small knickknacks, songs, stories and even other woollen items is not uncommon an exchange.

Meals are shared among kedan and Foreigners, commoners and emissaries--primarily stews, soups and other foods easily baked in the coals of the fires. Everyone brings food, and what isn’t contributed to the pot is nevertheless shared around after preparation. Although some bonfires are markedly wealthier than others, food and shelter is spread around to make sure everyone is safe and warm. No one goes cold and alone on this night.

LINKS
Fire Sector (main bonfire) | Water Sector | Metal Sector | Earth Sector | Wood Sector | Central Keeliai

OOC Notes
The five Bresilykian emissary NPC can be found moving from Sector to Sector and partaking in the various traditions of each, and so can be engaged anywhere, while the Keeliai NPCs generally are staying in their respective areas as detailed below. Please put the name of the NPC you're requesting in the subject line of your tag if you want to interact with them. Thank you!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The only home that had ever felt like home to her...had been her original home. With papa and Michel and the Twins. To a degree, she had grown comfortable with the people in Keelai, but it was never the same.

Maybe that was why she didn't have the same problems with the Hotel. To her, it was just a place. One more stop on her seemingly never-ending travels, big and small.

...though she did smile at the bathroom line: "The girls' line isn't so bad. But that could be because I go there late at night, when most other people are asleep."

Enjolras missed home, when he thought about it. The waves and winter market in his village, the libraries and cafes of Paris, the smell of ink on a freshly printed copy of Le National... They were simply things which could not be done here.

He did not consider himself overly sentimental and had managed well enough without those things, but there were times that he became nostalgic for the streets of Paris, the Musain and the Corinth and...maybe his home was there, among the people.

But here, with Combeferre, he HAD felt it for a while and tried with Taraja and, well, now that it was gone, it felt like he was trying to recreate the feeling, maybe. That was probably his real reason, deep down.

"That would be far more beneficial." He agreed, smiling.

"Just don't take that as an invitation to start using ours."

(Not that she figured he would. Probably.)

"Do you know, as interesting and as easy as it sounds, I think I will pass on the same.

[He actually laughs, tossing his head a little, while loose tendrils float in front of his face.]

I can see that causing quite the commotion somehow.

Midii was both old enough to understand why, but also experienced enough in conditions where gender separation wasn't always possible that it wouldn't have affected her, personally.

"For people who aren't used to it, yes. Plus, if the boys started using our bathrooms, then our lines will get longer. Which wouldn't be fair."

In Enjolras's world, one would never look at certain parts of a woman's anatomy if he were not her husband, after all. He had never paid it much mind before, other than to roll his eyes as his friends discussed beauties they had wooed, or to stop them when the detail got obscene.

He HAS had a few awkward moments here and there, but he's much more used to the casual nature of things here now. Sometimes he even goes out without wearing his coat. And he's seen plenty of ankles in his day, and shrugged them off. There are more important things to think about, after all.

"I can imagine the chaos now." And Enjolras really COULD see it blowing up a little. Those who were unused to shared nudity being struck with it firsthand, Those who were shy or ashamed for some reason... no, it simply would not work at all.

"Ah, your reasoning most of all, naturally. It WOULD defeat the purpose."

...it had probably always helped that, back then, Midii had still been a child. Her way of thinking regarding the opposite sex had been vastly different.

Even now, at fourteen, she was only just barely approaching a state of mind where it might have been more embarrassing than she'd once thought.

"Chaos is something we don't need right now. The last time I heard, we were still trying to smooth things over with the few locals who aren't happy we're still here."

THAT was an excellent explanation, really. One did do that, didn't they? Girls versus boys or SOMETHING? Enjolras wasn't up to date on how all of that worked though.

"No, we cannot have more, or have it coming from ourselves, can we?" He mused, pausing for a sip of cider. "We must be united now, the entire lot of us, more than ever."

He hoped that it would turn out to be that way.

She made a slight face at that. United, huh?

Easier said than done.

"...well, most of us."

"You don't think it can be done? "

He's glancing at her, raising a brow curiously.

"We did it once before."

For the most part.

She hadn't been on the front lines of battle, no, but Midii had been involved enough to know that not every single moment had been spent in total harmony with one another. And, on top of that...

"Different people. Different situation. There's no one, great big evil we have to fight or else." She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe we can. But there are definitely some people here I don't want to be around, no matter why we're all still here."

"Oh, really?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I would say a good number of us who fought it have remained. A different situation, yes, and some new people, but we still have a good number of those who fought here." Enjolras shrugged. "I am only saying that if we managed to drive off that, we can handle our current problems here as well.

They're different, so we need to learn more of them before making a move of any kind, but once we KNOW more information, I think we can find a solution. I cannot give up or in so easily as that, I suppose. Not when I have seen the impossible happen before my eyes.

We can do near anything, with the range of people and talents here. I sliced off the head of our dark lord and others did much the same thing, with weapons, or talents, or whatever else, produced with the power of our minds and the Dreaming. The Dreaming is still a part of this world. Those ARE the factors that we need and they are in common."

As for those she doesn't want to be around, it's understandable, and he is nodding.

"Well, you need not be close friends with everyone, or even acquaintances. I don't know many of the people here, myself. Unity...we could never have it on all levels. I think that would be patently ridiculous. But in the broad terms...I still see it happening, somehow. And I am told that we are still here because we chose to be. At least, I know that I was asked."

That was the main difference between them. He had the ability to believe such things. To make such things happen.

Were it anyone else, Midii might have shrugged the notion off. But...Enjorlas did have a point, begrudged as she might have been to admit it. Many faces were new, but some of them were only new because she had never bothered to get to know them before. And the better they all worked together, the easier things would be. Teamwork had helped them defeat Malicant. Teamwork would get them through this next patch.

"...I did choose to stay. You're right." If only because she still didn't believe she had a home to go back to. Certainly not the same family she'd spent time with in the Dream realm. "But not everybody had the chance to make that choice."

Maybe so. Enjolras had never been one for inaction when there were so many things left that needed to be worked for made to happen. He did have all hopes that teamwork would do a lot for all of them. Cooperation in everything was a bit too much but he suspected they could get things down to a system, maybe voting?, of voicing opinions and making sure that all who wished it were heard. If they could function as one unit based on that, they would be doing fairly well.

"I suppose not." He allowed. "Some were pulled out of here before the fighting, and then returned here, weren't they?"

She nodded.

"And some were pulled after the fighting." She knew because of the particular questions they asked.

"Our new arrivals, yes." Enjolras had met Sokka's friend Aang that way, and there had been a medieval Lady he'd talked with over the network. It would be foolish to presume there weren't others it had happened to.

"In terms of them...Yes, they seem to have simply ended here the same as we did, you are right. But those of us who had been here, I mean. I think the question fell to all of us. It's strange, isn't it? Eshai's spell IS deactivated by now, is it not?"

"I don't know. I might be willing to believe in magic now, but I still have no idea how it actually works."

"No..." He shakes his head. "I learned a healing spell in that library a few landfalls ago. And I've used it but...I still have no idea how THAT works, let alone all of this. A mystery I'd be very much interested in learning about, let me tell you. I suppose, if nothing else, it IS something to explore."

Both eyebrows rose. Genuinely surprised. This...was new to her. After everything, she was somehow still surprised by things like this.

"Wait. You used magic?"

"A tiny bit of it." Enjolras answered. "It seemed a good idea at the time, to learn a skill that might help others. I can hardly save a life but I can staunch bloodflow, close up some smaller wounds... I was at the hospital, as a sort of aide before everything came down to the battle and..."

He shrugs. "Well, it felt right. Luckily I didn't ask 'Asti' for it." There are air quotes around 'Asti', yes, one of the things Enjolras has picked up here that serve so many purposes. "Because it came from the monks and the library, I've kept it."

...right.

The boons.

She had almost forgotten about them. Until the next time she came across something written in English. Or kedanese. The memory of that knowledge still carried within her, to the point where she might be able to recognize either language when she saw it. Maybe even pick out a few words here or there. But no longer was she fluent, and having lost that frustrated her even more than the thought of someone other than Asti falsely giving her that gift in the first place.

(Which, for Midii, was truly saying something.)

"...I didn't keep mind." Her lips pressed together tightly. Feelings, mixed. "But...I don't understand. Your world had as much magic in it as mine. How can you do magic here? Or at all?"

"It's a good question." Enjolras hadn't asked about that before, assuming that because of where it had come from, something on the level of the Dreaming itself had changed quite a bit.

"I'm glad to be rid of my boon itself, the lighting up I could do, for a time, but the skills I actually learned remained. Perhaps that is because I did learn them, instead of receiving? Of course, I've not healed anything since we woke." He admitted.

"But I feel the ability there, even though it's slight. I imagine it would happen much the way it has so far. I reach inside, and I apply it. I do not think I would be able to take it home with me, of course, but here...the laws of this world seem to be a little strange at best. I had a..."

What was Marius again, to him?

"A...friend who had learned a good deal more magic from that, when Mademoiselle Sabriel was here. I had hoped to learn from her as well, but did not manage to be baptized before she was called to depart from here. They say bits of the Dreaming itself may be manipulat..able now too. I would imagine that helps, but the natural laws themselves..." He shook his head. "I cannot begin to understand how science and magic function on their own. "

So that much was similar to her and the languages. There was no more instinctive, automatic understanding, but what she had used in an attempt to continue learning, she had kept."

"Neither can I. Well...the science, yes." One of the difference between them. He came from a world before many of these technological developments. She had come with a familiarity to them already. "But not the magic. Are you saying anybody could learn how to use it?"

"I would think that some magics can be learned."

From personal experience, Enjolras had seen that sometimes, it simply seemed to happen.

"It must depend on where we are too, who might be teaching it. I would not, say, expect to learn how to restore things here, but I suspect there are...more chances to learn than we know about, maybe? Or different types of magic, with different rules? It is so strange." He added, shaking his head.

"I would have liked to have gained a bit more but it seems limited to that particular library or place within the Dreaming. That said, I have seen a few people," Javert had shared that mark of magic that Marius wore, "able to learn, even those from home, and more advanced than I am. Though, that was a long time ago too."

"But where does the power come from?"

She wasn't doubting him. She was genuinely curious. And thinking back to a previous Christmas.

"Do you remember when we all got those presents from the Emperor? Those amulets...the ones that had magic in them. I got one that would have given me the power to fly."

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