Event Log: Regret This

[hadrielmods]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Regret This event
Where: Throughout the city
When: June 25th-July 3rd
Warnings: Sorrow is resurrected, and everyone is immediately full of regrets

Hope has finally managed another god resurrection, and the people have spoken! On June 25th, he musters his powers and brings Sorrow back to Hadriel. An orchard appears across the river, in the until now ruined part of the city, and Sorrow's temple is also restored. Hooray! One more god to make things a little more livable in this place.

Of course, it's not that easy. It never is. Along with Sorrow himself comes a wave of regret and guilt that blankets the city. All those affected will be inclined to not only be sad, but to linger over past regrets and things they feel guilty about. They can distract themselves with everyday tasks or whatever else they please, but they'll find that their thoughts drift back to these regrets regardless of what they do.

And of course, the best way to purge a guilty conscience is confession, right? On top of these persistent sad thoughts, people will feel the urge to tell others about them, to air their past mistakes or misdeeds and possibly receive some kind of forgiveness. So what if your neighbor doesn't care that you cheated on your final exams all through school? You have to tell someone, and they're right there. If it doesn't make you feel better, that probably means you haven't confessed to enough people yet, or maybe you just haven't found the right person. Better try again!

On July 3rd, Sorrow has settled in and this urge to confess your sins will die down, along with the constant regret. Let's hope you didn't confess anything too personal. Remember, you're gonna have to see some of these people every day.

► This log covers June 25th-July 3rd.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you somehow manage to end up regretfully dead, please remember to hit up our death post!

Comments

[whichend]

[ Arya says nothing to that, just looks at Gottlieb solemnly, almost softly. The probability might be low, but it's not nothing. She's not afraid of Gottlieb, but she's wary. She's wary with everyone because she has to be, and she's learned not to care if that offends people. She'd rather be disliked than dead.

Still, Arya faintly hopes that Gottlieb doesn't take it too personally. ]

We're all dangers to ourselves.

[ That's why she had to stop being herself, wasn't it? Stupid Arya Stark wouldn't have survived the War of Five Kings, couldn't have made it in Harrenhal or the House of Black and White. She was a snivelling, bratty sort of thing, the kind of girl who cried to easily and was far, far too idealistic. She had to die, just as much as the Tickler or King Joffrey deserved to die.

Of course heroes are stories. That's because they're dead. The people who do right are the ones who are killed first -- Lord Stark's execution was proof enough of that. Stories are likely different for Arya than they are for Gottlieb. In Westeros, the stories were once histories, just aged and changed through the telling -- Nymeria and Brave Danny Flint really existed, she's sure, but perhaps not quite as they did in their stories. ]

I don't think there's ever a reason.

[ Arya doesn't know what an extraterrestrial beast is. A kind of army? Of men, Arya assumes.

She still doesn't know why everyone had to die. Arya eventually assumed that it was the way of things, that death exists as a cycle. Kill or be killed. That sort of thing.

She snorts a little, at Gottlieb's mention of black and white. The world is literally black and white for a servant of Him of Many Faces. Arya still has the robe, black on one side and white on the other, with a hood that conceals the face of someone who is no one. ]

Perhaps. But at the end of it, it's just living or dying. That's all we've got.

[ Arya shrugs. ]

Cocoa.

[ She says, after some hesitation. Arya doesn't know what cocoa is. She's rather curious. ]

[verinumeri]

[ Given his brief horror over the realization of the respective characteristics of those quartered in this house when contrasted with hers, Hermann would not take it personally. Even without that. They hardly know one another. Again, practicality.

In a world without her sort of war, where most young children did not have to become soldiers and killers, they still tell them not to trust adults, strangers -- but this is entirely different and that comparison is a pale, weak one.

He would not be, is not offended. Instead: sad.

That a girl so young would need to live with such caution. That a girl so young and so clever, would so easily, so matter-of-factly say, We're all dangers to ourselves, and he must believe she has the experience for it, though could not know his specific meaning, his own experience. ]

Perhaps not a good one, no.

[ No good reason. They will have excuses, motivations. Oil or guns, money or land, power, power, power. Power and politics and it was all wholly disgusting. Man could be so much more and chose, again and again, to be the least.

Odd that she'd laugh at black and white, and really, the way she reduces it, it's another way of saying the same. Black and white, living and dying. Hermann considers her, his head slightly tilted, these long, measuring looks, not yet finding through them a solution, then nods, turning, stepping back to it.

It's whistling, only just, the pressure only just there. He lets it continue as he reaches above, opening a cabinet, rummaging. Hermann takes down a box, then continues looking, yes, of all things -- marshmallows. Newton had been thrilled.

As he removes the 'kettle'. ]

Does your world have, or has it discovered, evolution? I suspect not. I'll leave it at, humans are only animals, and so from one perspective, you are correct -- it's living and dying. We've got these big ideas about more, about meaning, because we're human, but we all die.

[ Pouring the water into a mug, he then spoons in cocoa and stirs. After a moment's thought -- wanting tea himself, but thinking perhaps, she'd be more at ease if he also had the cocoa -- he fixes himself a cup as well. ]

Yet, with those ideas, we've done incredible things. We've sent men to the moon. [ His voice a touch wistful, his back still to her. ] Isn't that -- animals up there, walking on the moon. I suppose it seems daft. Why do it? We'll die with or without it.

[ Adding two marshmallows to each, he holds them by the handles in his left hand as he moves back, then leans to set them on the 'coffee' table.

Now he sits, finally. With his cane between his legs, his hands fold over the handle, and his face is wistful, too. ]

Oh, it's daft, but it's incredible, too. We built planes to fly through the sky. Then we die -- but we flew, and future generations carry on the work.

[ One hand lifts from his cane, reaching for a cup. ]

[whichend]

[ Arya doesn't think she always saw the world in such black and white terms. But she doesn't truly remember. She knows that Arya Stark's head was full of fantasies about exploring the world, about going to the citadel and the wall and even Dorne. But since then, Arya's life has become little more than a fight for survival. In that struggle, she can't help but perceive the world as an exercise in life and death. All men must die. Those were the words of a man she once called friend, and later, those were the words of the order that both sheltered her and harmed her.

She understands Gottlieb's point, however. Her perspective is a bleak one, at odds with the lively, curious girl she used to be. But it's not safe to be that girl anymore. Gottlieb can decide for himself which one is better, but life has made Arya practical, so she opts for the one that's safer.

Despite all that, she smiles a little at Gottlieb's story. She doesn't understand all of it, but she recognizes the wistfulness. It's almost like optimism. She hasn't seen this side of Gottlieb before -- he almost reminds her of Sansa, a romantic, in love with his flying in the same way she was in love with her stories.

Arya knows she will not kill this man. How could she, after seeing this? After she confesses to killing and he brings her a drink? Arya ought to thank him, but she's too shy. Instead, she doesn't wipe that half-smile from her face as quickly as she's usually wont to do. It's something.

Arya takes the cup but doesn't take a sip. She'll wait for Gottlieb to go first, out of instinct. Trust is not something that comes naturally. ]

What does the moon feel like?

[ It might not be the smartest of questions, but it's one Arya wants to ask. She knows she'll never go to the moon, after all. ]

[verinumeri]

[ This sort of talk is easier, comes easier. He had not, did not, does not know how to hold her confession, where to put it, where it belongs, how he should speak to her, knowing it -- dragging behind it the heavier, philosophical questions of justification, of what makes a child, of the shades between black and white.

Her expression's encouraging. She's interested, or looks like it, or will humor it, even if it's not life or death -- though he'd think it the very most of the former. The very most of living, a living beyond one's self, a bigger purpose. Perhaps that sort of thing was a luxury. Mankind dreamed fuller dreams when it was not starving, not in bloody wars, but then, the Cold War -- more importantly, it's almost like a smile.

And she doesn't ask a stupid question. He probably isn't the best teacher, really. He'd probably say there are stupid questions. Her isn't. It distracts him enough that he doesn't realize she's paused, but he's already reaching for his cup, blowing on the surface before taking a sip. It gives him time to consider. ]

Now, that's not a simple question. [ Smiling, thoughtful, around the rim. ]

You know, there are a lot of theories as to how the moon was formed. Most favor giant-impact, that the Earth collided with an immense body in space, and all the debris -- well, the point really is, it's rock, like and not like Earth rock. I won't get into the composition. Astronauts, the men we sent up there, described it as a lot of dark grey, fine, powdery dust, pebbles, rocks, boulders, lifeless. The dust clings, because there's no air molecules separating it.

What tends to stick in the imagination, I think, is that you can't walk normally on the moon, and you can't survive without a protective suit. See --

[ Another sip and he's setting the mug down, then reaching into his pocket, rummaging, finally coming up with a stick of chalk. Leaning, he squints, tilts his head, then begins to draw upside down on the table's surface. As they're essentially sitting across from one another.

First, he starts with the bulky suit, the iconic helmet. ]

Mind, they prioritized life support over mobility, these aren't the suits they'd theoretically use in my time, now, but this is about the looks of they wore for the first moon landing.

[ Theoretically in his time -- it wouldn't happen. The world's sapped, drained. No one's heading into space in the near or far future, not when the extraterrestrial concern had been centered on the seas.

Long before that certainty, Hermann had known he'd never go to the moon, too.

(In fact, when he dreamed, right up until it was impossible -- he'd thought, perhaps Mars.) ]

this is so late I'm so sorry orz

[whichend]

[ Arya listens attentively to Gottlieb's story, settling in, relaxing a little. To him, this sort of thing might be science, completely in the realm of the factual, but to Arya it sounds more like the stories Old Nan used to tell her. Fantastic, wonderful, impossible. Arya's personality has changed drastically since she left Winterfell. She grew up, her innocence lost with the stroke of a sword. But this sort of thing brings out what's left of Arya the child. As she relaxes, she settles back into the couch and curls her knees up to her chest. She traces what Gottlieb is saying on her knee -- a small circle for the earth, another for the moon, then jabs at her kneecap hard to imitate the explosion.

Her brow furrows when Gottlieb says it's just lifeless rock. How could that be? How could there be no life on something that shines so bright? ]

Perhaps they weren't looking in the right places for life. The astro-nauts.

[ Arya leans in towards the table, examining Gottlieb's drawing carefully. She chuckles a little. It's kind of silly-looking. ]

People wore that? For true?

[ But if it meant they could fly, Arya supposes it's worth it. ]