OPEN | let's change from the heart, let's shout

[nomorules]

Who: Anyone and everyone! That means you! Yes, you, c'mere.
Where: The stream and the lake.
When: July 12th, evening.
Rating: PG in case any of y'all get wild with that decorating.
Summary: Come and take part in a mini lantern ceremony, Wonderland-style. Mingle away, comrades!
The Story:





The evening of the 12th, visitors who feel like moseying their way to the stream where it empties out of the forest will be able to enjoy a summer celebration in the Japanese style. Outdoor lights illuminate the area, and tables hold all manner of art supplies and blank paper lanterns waiting to be decorated.

Didn't catch the network 411? Someone around will surely explain: it's a nod to toro nagashi, the paper lantern ceremony meant to guide the souls of the departed by decorating lanterns and setting them loose. Maybe you have a departed soul you'd like to remember, or a prayer to make. Maybe you'd just like to write a note message-in-a-bottle style. Maybe you just feel like taking the air and enjoying the sights. The choice is yours!

Either way, once the sun has set and lanterns have been decorated, the candles inside will be lit (remember fire safety, kids!), and the lanterns will be released into the water.

Gather at the lakeside afterward to watch them empty into the lake and enjoy the ambiance with some food and drink. Because we could all use a little more light in our lives, no?

Comments

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji notices Frisk as he's setting his own lantern into the water. He hesitates, then lets the lantern go before straightening up to move closer to where they're standing.]

You came.

[determinedest]

[They're just letting Zacharie's go, watching it drift across the dark sheen, when Souji approaches. He's familiar, now - a pale blur of his hair, and they don't even flinch anymore.]

Yeah. I, um...I wanted to remember everyone.

Everyone that's left.

[eatsyourscience]

[He nods. That had been the approach he'd taken, too.]

Are they okay at home...?

[Maybe they were people who'd had no life to go back to. Or maybe Frisk didn't know and the uncertainty prompted their inclusion.]

[determinedest]

Some of them.

[They sit back on their heels. Dustin's goes next. They...have no idea what his future might be like. If Eleven's with him, maybe he'll be okay.

They can only hope that he'll be okay.]

[eatsyourscience]

[He nods. It was the same for him. He'd written their names on a single lantern and he quietly admires the work Frisk put into their lanterns.]

A few I know aren't.

[He gestures at the lanterns bobbing in the water, shadowed by their reflections.]

What do you think of all of this?

[determinedest]

I think it's nice.

[That's the most generic praise possible for a ceremony like this. Solemn as it might be, it feels a little like a final goodbye that they never got to have, for many of the pictures they painted on their lanterns.]

Is this...do you do this back home?

[eatsyourscience]

Yes. Me and Ryuji are from the same place, so we know a lot of the same....observances.

[He can't call it a holiday or anything. Observance is the next best way to put it.]

Something like this is...cathartic. It's a way to physically let go of something that isn't physical.

[determinedest]

Yeah.

[It makes sense, in a way. A funeral feels more morbid, for those who haven't died. And as for those who have...

It's hard to say. They could always come back.]

It's a way to say goodbye.

[eatsyourscience]

But it feels really final. It kind of takes away hope that you'll see them again, doesn't it?

[determinedest]

I guess.

[Their gaze lingers on two lanterns in particular: one painted with the shape of a golden flower, its smile wide and slightly insincere, and one with a goatlike child, white-furred and wide-eyed, on its front.]

Maybe it's not really goodbye. It's just...

It's a "see you later, alligator."

[eatsyourscience]

[He smiles.]

Yeah. I think that's the best way of thinking of it this time.

[He looks at the same lanterns they're looking at.]

Who are they?

[determinedest]

Two of the same friend.

[Their thin shoulders lift in a small, slight shrug.]

He's back, actually. But the other hims are still gone.

[Are they separate people entirely? Do they count in their own right, or should they be pieced away from the whole? Does a memory of a separate timeline need to be parsed? Without sequential memory, do none of them count as the same Asriel?

...it's possible they shouldn't be considering concepts as complicated as that right now.]

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji's silent for a moment.]

Even if you knew a person at home, who they were here isn't exactly the same. If they leave and come back without any memory of Wonderland, it's almost like they're strangers.

[Getting to know someone more than once, someone who's important to him, has made him wary of returning friends. He's always happy to see them, in the rare cases when it happens, but that doesn't make it easier. And there's always the fear that it's not the same person he knew--that somehow, their timelines got mixed up and he'll find them completely different.]

[determinedest]

[That earns a small, solemn nod. This would be the third time, now, that they've had to re-introduce themself to him, and he's had to learn Wonderland's intricate ropes.

It never gets easier.]

I guess that's why it helps to say..."see you later." [They almost caught themself breaking the rule they just put down. Let's not break that promise that quickly, ha ha.]

To who they were before.

[eatsyourscience]

We should probably have been doing something like this since a long time ago.

[Wonderland didn't give them the chance to really say goodbye or any version of it. It was sometimes even days before they realized a person was gone.]

There are still several people from your world here, right? Would you rather they weren't?

[It's a double-edged sword in his mind. It's wonderful--really wonderful--to have the people he cares the most about there with him. It's selfish, but it means he can keep them at his side a little longer. But it's best for them to be at home, where they belong. Unless of course they had no home any longer.]

[determinedest]

[It's hard to say. They dwell on that silently for a moment, watching the lanterns drift out across the water's glassy sheen.

The answer they finally come up with isn't really an answer to his question at all:]

I wish they were happy.

[ * I just want everyone to be happy.]

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji thought he understood, even if it didn't directly answer his question. Maybe what it came down to wasn't whether or not they wanted their friends here as much as whether or not their friends wanted to be here.]

Do you want to be here?

[determinedest]

[That's another tough question to answer. That one's easier to deflect, though, because he's been here longer, and they have the excuse of being a more than slightly precocious kid.]

Do you?

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji's anniversary, two days before, had brought that exact question up for him. Among other things. Thinking about it again, he's distracted from the fact that his question has been brushed off, even if he recognizes it.

He has to be honest.]

I don't know anymore.

[determinedest]

[Their smile is rueful, and a little sad. They stare down at the water, the soft ripples spreading out from the placement of the lanterns in the water.]

...me too.

[eatsyourscience]

How long have you been here?

[determinedest]

Over a year.

[And he's...they remember it was his anniversary, recently. For how many years...? They lift their eyebrows fractionally as they glance up at him, trying to remember.]

...six years?

[eatsyourscience]

[He nods, and smiles just a little. They remembered.]

A couple days ago.

[He rests a hand on his hip, facing them.]

It doesn't feel like that long, but it also feels a lot longer. Do you think that's strange?

[determinedest]

I guess. Time doesn't move.

[They're technically fourteen now, but they...still don't feel older than they did before. But then, they didn't really feel like they were twelve, by the time every RESET was said and done. They felt older, older my lifetimes and eons.]

Doesn't seem fair.

To measure it by people who you lost.

[eatsyourscience]

It's not fair.

[But what about life is?]

But I'd rather lose them than not have known them.