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

"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."

"THAT is a good question." Enjolras was no further to finding an answer there than anyone else might be. "The nature of this place has always been...strange, when it comes to magic from other worlds and how it applies here. I'm not certain how its own sense of that functions either." He'd accepted it, for the most part, as something that he paid for being able to help others, but now Midii mentioned the question, he was curious anyway.

"I do, yes. Mine allowed me to cast lightning. I flung it away when we were attacked by cultists. It saved my life, I think, just not in the expected way. Presumably there is, or at least, was, someone who can make them."

That was...yes, she could see how a skill like that would have come in handy at that particular moment.

"I would have been too afraid of electrocuting myself."

"It was interesting, how it worked. They managed to avoid me, somehow. Perhaps because I carried it. It was worrying after I dropped it, I admit." Enjolras shuddered at the memory. "I'd assumed well, there I was, about to be electrocuted, myself. Somehow, I managed to avoid it. Luck, maybe. I think a lot of what's happened to me here is luck."

"...I suppose that would rule me out, then."

"Out of luck, do you mean?"

The thought isn't so far from some of what Enjolras had wondered, several months, well technically, a year and several months, counting the time he'd been asleep. His own had always managed to come back, eventually, even after the worst things he had thought he never could endure. At least, to the point he was still managing things, here, despite all that he now had to miss.

For Midii, who had seen a home that was so different from reality, her best luck, as he judged it, anyway, must have been there, in the Dreaming. Besides that... No, he doubted she had ever had that much of it.

"I ought to see if there might be some way to pass it on when there's a great abundance. Better it be used than not, especially by a friend."

"Something like that, yeah."

In truth, Midii had had more luck in the last two years of her life than she gave the universe credit for. Being taken...coming to Keelai...meeting the people she had...it didn't feel like it right then, having lost most of them, but that chance for a second life? One of the luckiest things that could have ever happened to her.

She'd started over. She'd done good here; a chance to make up for her past transgressions. Before the emergence of Malicant and the Dream battles, she'd felt safe. She'd had someone to take care of (Riva), and for a brief time, she'd even fallen in love again.

"Is it...you know...safe?"

Not the magic itself. She trusted those who obviously knew how to wield it. Magic in the hands of beginners. That was what worried her.

Starting over was the one thing this place had constantly had going for it, so long as new arrivals tried to take the shot at it. Enjolras counted that as a certain blessing even as things had gone insane in front of him. He might not be happy here, sometimes, but...he was grateful for it all the same.

If it came to this or returning to...whatever of his body hadn't come here, to his friends, Enjolras would still take this, so long as he had something to do, and yes, people he counted as friends who made things worth it. There had been Taraja, and there were friends, different from anyone he might have conceived in Paris, and, much as he missed his brothers of the barricade, much as he missed work, and its immediacy, there was much to make him happy here.

He did blink at the question, all the same.

"I believe I'm safe. It IS the only sort of spell I know. I'm unsure, if anyone knew other spells, what those might do. Its rules seem to be rather odd, and based on where one learned it, perhaps."

She wasn't convinced.

"Magic...it's so unpredictable. It doesn't make sense."

"Not very often, no." Enjolras agreed. "I should have liked to have learnt more of it, when I realized that I could heal so easily with it. I might have been more use during the war had I had training but. I do know I will not be trying to learn anything like that on my own. It seems like a bad idea for all of those reasons. When controlled though..I think it can be a big help."

He paused, then, realizing how he sounded and he almost wanted to laugh. He'd gotten used to much here, that was certain.

"Not, of course, that it should be used all of the time. I preferred when I could help people in other ways." He admitted, looking a little sad. "I do somewhat miss the hospital but, well. I'm no doctor or healer. Just someone who knows a bit of first aid. THAT and being a foreigner do not seem to mix."

Coincidentally enough...healing magic might be one of the few types Midii was willing to learn. It seemed safe enough? If it was designed to help, then--in her mind--there was less of a chance for things to go wrong. Depending upon the spell, of course.

"I remember..." Though his statement about being a Foreigner brought to mind an event long ago. One she had almost forgotten. "...back when there were all those explosions. I think it was one of the first major attacks on the city. Or, at least, one of the first major attacks I'd witnessed.

"There were people everywhere. I was far enough away that I wasn't hurt too bad, so I did what I could to help. And...it didn't matter. That I wasn't a local, or that I was only twelve at the time. If help is needed that badly, it'll be accepted."

"The explosions..." Enjolras shuddered. Bossuet had been directly involved in them, in terms of being injured and those of them who had been at their cafe in Wood had seen quite a bit. "Had it not been for Temeraire, I do not think any of us could have done much for getting people out." He mused, the ghost of a smile crossing his face with the memory. It had not been a pleasant memory exactly, but he was still glad the damage had been lessened then.

"I think that was about when I decided that I should start helping. I knew a bit from the clinic so treating minor wounds or helping the actual medical staff seemed the best thing to do for everyone involved." He added, "No, it didn't matter at all, then. Maybe that is why this feels so odd. But then, we have nights like tonight." He added, thinking of the talk he'd had with Sokka on the subject of ways to bring the Kedan around.

"I WOULD hate not being able to do something in a case like that. But you ARE right in that they probably WOULD accept that. I hope there are no mass disasters coming, but I do still want to help where I can. I hope there will be chances for it not involving life or death before so long, and hopefully, not requiring the other sort of magic. Much as I like the idea of having it to fight with, I think the reality would be rougher. I've seen enough people harmed, in part, because of things I've said. I doubt that I could live with myself well if it was something I had DONE, especially accidentally."

No more mass disasters, perhaps, but...

...they had been offered a chance to stay for a reason. It certainly hadn't been the local kedan's idea, judging by initial re-welcoming receptions. And Midii had a hard time believing that it was meant to be a reward for those who had nothing left to go back home to. Not when new people were still arriving.

She was convinced there was more to the story. Because there was always more to the story.

And she wanted to be as prepared as possible. If that meant learning a bit of magic, well...

"The only way to guarantee that nobody's ever hurt because of you is to do nothing. Say nothing." If I had stayed home with Papa and the boys, then the soldiers wouldn't have been killed. But then we would have had no money for food and medicine. "I'm...not sure I can do that."

Even that day, her first instinct hadn't been to hide. (Well, okay, she'd hid under the table while the explosions were going off.) Once Robin had gotten her out, she'd headed for the nearest immobilized victim. Administering what little first aid she knew. And it had helped.

(It had also earned her Robin's--and, subsequently--Damian's trust and respect. Not that she was ever given the chance to find that out.)

Each time the subject came up, she continued to think back to that day.

"They can either send us away for good, or let us help like...I think we're supposed to."

Enjolras wondered, sometimes, if part of why he'd moved so quickly was due, in part, to being confused and jolted into thinking he was back at the barricade and responsible for everyone in the vicinity. He hadn't fully registered that he'd been speaking to a DRAGON right away so it was anyone's guess what he'd have done in his right mind.

And, yes, it did matter the most what had happened after, now didn't it? That was when it counted, after all. As Midii spoke, he slowly nodded, wondering, for perhaps the millionth time, how she had possibly come to understand so much already. Even though he'd been told an answer, when she spoke of home, it was one thing to intellectually know what had happened, and another to get it on that gut level.

"You speak the truth again. I think if there had been less doing and saying nothing at home, we might have ended a bit differently. And helping here, like we're supposed to...maybe that IS still why. I don't remember my choice being especially hard, the way it ought have been."

She saw everything like a puzzle. What she didn't know, she deduced based on what made the most sense.

(Which didn't necessarily meant she was right.)

And what made sense to her? She had been brought to Keelai to fight a battle. The battle was won. She was given a choice to go home and chose to stay...but, soon after, more people were being brought to Keelai. With as much information as she had been given upon her initial arrival.

It fit. What else could it be?

"There's an expression I've heard people use before. Something about having perfect vision when looking to the past, only."

In a lot of ways, Enjolras worked best with that sort of influence. Logic was, at least, useful a decent percentage of the time as opposed to blindly guessing and throwing himself into things. So, as far as that went, it made Midii a good person to consult, when things were on his mind.

"Ah yes. Hindsight having a perfect score on the scale where vision is apparently measured." Try as he might, the exact expression didn't come to mind, though Enjolras had heard it, anyway. "As it was, then, we made our best estimation, based on what we considered, and the promises we'd garnered. It WOULD be useful to be able to glimpse everything all the same though, wouldn't it?"

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