The Yule Log

[ragnarsson]

who: The Norse and everyone else in the city!
what: The Norse celebrate Yule. Gods help everyone.
when: December 22nd, Winter Solstice
where: Somewhere outside
warnings: Alcohol, drugs, animal sacrifice, blood play, rough foreplay, sex. Will update if necessary.



The Yule celebration has gotten underway on the Winter Solstice and it promises to be a most interesting night. The Norse have gone all out with this affair to make sure it's going to be a success. First thing to be spotted is a bonfire, so big that you might want to be careful not to trip around it, because you'll fall right in. There's plenty of room for dancing too, if you feel like grooving to a beat that's a little more unusual than most.

The Yule celebration shares a lot of similarities with Christmas, so it's a good time for gift giving. There's little shoes on a table, mimicking the tradition where Odin would leave presents for good children by putting them in their shoes. Claim one as your own and maybe a friend will leave a gift inside one for you. Watch it though. Any grinches will be fed to the Yule Cat.

There's a table set up to the right of the bonfire with food, mostly of the hearty kind that the Norse seem to prefer, and of course, lots of alcohol. Please remember not to get into any drinking contests with the gods. They will observe no responsibility for what happens afterward.

There are also mushrooms for consumption, provided by everyone's favorite psychotic Viking, Ivar The Boneless. These ones are directly from his home world, which means they come with a variety of side effects. They have the ability to make a person hallucinate quite a bit. But they can also make people much more horny than usual. Lastly, there's the effect that hits some people in making them extremely violent. Sometimes one effect hits, sometimes more than one. In any case, anyone who consumes some is assured to have an...interesting time.

On a lighter note, there's mistletoe scattered around, hung from the trees and tent beams. Fun fact: the Vikings were the first one to use it for the tradition of kissing. Of course, they also believed it was a plant that was powerful enough to kill a god, so the kissing was ostensibly for protection.

At the height of the night, there will be an animal sacrifice done. A goat is slaughtered and the blood from it is gathered into a couple of bowls. If you'd really like to go all out like a Viking, paint your face in the still-warm blood, or drink a little bit of it. Otherwise, enjoy freshly seared chunks of goat as it bastes over the bonfire.

Have fun, drink, fight, and remember to make your ancestors proud!

Comments

[suckstobestrange]

Oh yes. Granted here it's more extracurricular than anything. [If he picked up on that unease, Stephen wasn't saying a word. Hell, he'd been stuck fixing more than enough magical problems to know that anyone worried about magic was entirely justified.

Just so long as they didn't go Salem With Trials everything was just peachy.]

In a way. It's not always so neat and easy as 'pay this much through ingredients, time, or sacrifice per spell' but the general idea is there. That there's a cost to be paid by the caster, and it tends to manifest itself differently for different types of magic.

[Well, if Ragnar thought the drinks were solved, Stephen was fine with it, focusing on his own instead for the moment.]

As for common? Well I'm fairly certain that finding a world without any magic at all would be exceedingly rare. The variable tends to be if the residents are capable of harnessing that magic themselves in some way, or if the magic is even able to be used in that manner. Which for my world, is... not entirely common? Skepticism stops a person from being able to cast or use magic objects, and as logic and reason are the watchwords of the era it's not as likely anymore.

Which is probably for the best, I spend more than enough time cleaning up after enough messes brought on by inexperience as it is.

[storradr]

What is -[he actually takes a moment to try to gather all the syllables together before attempting this word]- extracurricular?

[Usually, he could make a fairly good guess based on context and tone and what the word sounded similar to, but this one had him stumped. The consistent flow of ale before the sacrifice likely wasn't making his mind any sharper though.]

There are different types of magic? [He realizes as Stephen starts on his answer about whether or not magic was common in his world that he likely shouldn't have asked him to clarify magic type.

He's left really not sure what the answer actually was in regards to how common magic was, but he thought that it mostly sounded like 'not so much'.]

[suckstobestrange]

[Right. He has to be a bit more mindful of his slang, not everyone is familiar with the same things.]

Long story very short on this one, it's basically something you do as a leisure activity. Not required for survival or your job. I work at the hospital here, so magic is something that takes up my free time.

[Ragnar you poor drunk bastard, you got Stephen going on his favorite subject, how could you do that to yourself. Why would you do that to yourself. Especially when the sorcerer's had a few too many himself and might not realize the poor Viking wasn't prepared for all this information.]

Oh quite a few. Just sticking to Earth-based varieties or the list would never end, there's some larger clusters that most types tend to fall under. For example regional magic, it might be tied to a specific location depending on something like say a henge, shrine, or temple of some form. Then there's ancestral which tends to tap into lineage and bloodlines, nature magic which is fairly self-explanatory, alchemy which is a bit more involved and tends to act more like science at times-

[You brought this on yourself Ragnar.]

[storradr]

[He nodded, understanding now. Another word also caught his attention, one he'd been trying to remember earlier, 'hospital'. He hadn't been able to come up with it, so he'd simply gone with 'infirmary'. From what he understood they were close to the same thing. This man worked at the hospital. Interesting.

He was still nodding to himself when he tuned back into what Strange was saying, having simply let him ramble on.]

You said you worked at the hospital? How long have you done that? Do you see the people who have come here who have died? [He'd completely interrupted him, no shits given.]

[suckstobestrange]

[Stephen had, as was his way when he was drunk, gone off on a tangent of some manner while Ragnar was pondering. Something about the unreliable nature of some hyper-specific narrow Russian specialty that only really affected two or three magic users back home at most.

But then his new friend was talking, and more questions were coming, which had him pausing in his grumblings to peer thoughtfully at him brows furrowing slightly as he nodded.]

I do, as an advisor. I've been there for... oh I started midway through March which I'm fairly certain would put it as... [Give him a moment, alcohol versus time is hard enough without translating to other calendars.] oh, early days of Einmánuður?

[He thinks anyways. It sounds basically right.]

Now when you say died, do you mean those who remember being brought here at the moment of their seeming death, or those who have died while here?

[storradr]

An advisor? What does an advisor do in a hospital?

[The automatic translation in Riverview was, by no stretch of the imagination, amazing, but like anything it had its limits. Proper names were certainly one and Viking months did not exactly line up with modern day months. As Stephen must have expected, March meant nothing to Ragnar, but the translation earned the man a look of genuine surprise. Impressive.]

So, almost a year now? Good.

I mean those who were brought here at the moment of their death... Why do you say 'seeming'? Are they brought here and... healed somehow? Not truly dead? Or have they still died?

[suckstobestrange]

Well in some ways it depends on what your specialty is. Mine was surgery before I became a sorcerer, so I spend most of my time focusing on the hospital surgeons and their patients. Making sure the care is to the level we expect, that everyone has the support they need to do the best work they can. Point surgeons in the right direction if they're in need of more information, make sure if they can't get along that they can at least work together.

And the mountain of paperwork that comes with anything anymore these days.

[He hates the paperwork just as much now as he ever did.]

'Seeming' because I cannot say for sure. We're told that these people are pulled from the moment of no return, however as I've not seen it, I don't want to say for certain one way or the other. What I do know is that those who are brought in as such tend to be very ill or injured, and I could see them being on the brink of death as we're told. They're given medical care whatever the case, and once they're well sent on their way like the rest of us were.

[storradr]

[Ragnar listened with quiet attentiveness as Stephen explained what he did, following most of it even if he'd never heard of 'surgery', which he simply assumed was a special kind of healing or method of healing.]

Does that mean they have not actually died? Does it also mean they cannot go back? [He finished his first drink and set the cup aside, looking a little less like an alcoholic with only one drink in hand.] From what I've been told, if we return, it is from the very moment we were taken. But that is not the case with those destined for death, so do they not have the option to return?

[suckstobestrange]

It's hard to say for sure- what one might think is the moment of death might not be- even just in my own world there are more accounts of men, women, even children, cheating death than I can count. It could be that some who think death is inevitable might fall into that category.

For those who don't... I suppose it is still their choice, to return and take their chances with whatever afterlife their world has, or to simply make a new life here.

[While Stephen did like the little life he had here, he knew he'd return home when the time came. He had a fight to finish, a duty to uphold for however long he might have to carry it.]

[storradr]

It is inevitable. [He sighs, frustrated that he couldn't explain himself better.] There are two others I know here.

My daughter... she will die of fever, she has told me so and my grown son, who is not yet born where I am from, has confirmed it. She cannot, or does not, return.

Can one change a future already set? [He didn't think so.]

[suckstobestrange]

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. [And for all he didn't know the man well, or his family (so he thought) he could feel empathy for a situation like that.

So he tried to bite back his usual snide asshole remarks about meddling in timelines, to give the man an actual answer for all he knew that it wouldn't be what he wanted to hear.]

It's... I've seen it done, at least back home. The caveat being that fate of that kind... by trying to change such a thing, a worse fate befalls the one you try and save. Or by trying to save one loved one, you lose another just as precious by result.

[Long story short the universe is a stubborn bitch.]

[storradr]

The will of the gods. Pointless to fight and impossible to avoid.

[Ragnar smiled softly at the explanation, a bittersweet, but very knowing smile. Stephen was just telling him what he already knew, but didn't want to accept.]

You are right. As much as I wish you were not.

I should be grateful to this place. It seems to be a place outside of time and outside of fate. I do not understand it, but I will take what it has to offer until I must return.

You will return to your home as well? Or do you think you will stay?

[suckstobestrange]

[Sometimes it was the way of things. Stephen could think of countless times when he didn't want to accept something, only could when it was thrown at him from an outside source. Truth was funny that way at times, and he was glad to see Ragnar seemed to be able to accept the idea, unpleasant as it was.]

It's a strange place to be sure, but it does seem to offer some blessings. [Like Ragnar's daughter having a chance at a life, for all it was here and not home. Loki and his evasive comments about ego-death before. Friends and loved ones who they might never have otherwise gotten to know.

Bonds were important, even those that were only in passing after all.]

I'll return. I like my life here, but the Earth needs me and I'm not going to shirk that duty. [For all there was a part of him that would like to stay, he wouldn't doom his world to do it.] If I stay, magic back home dies, and everything along with it in the long run.

[storradr]

[Of course, he accepted it. Where Ragnar was from, loss was almost a daily occurrence. Their existence was fragile and short and there were constant reminders of this all around them.

He nodded in agreement.] I have seen things here that I would have never dreamed possible. Things not even the gods would possess.

I must return as well. There are many things I still need to do. But if what I have heard is true, we return as if no time has passed and there is a chance we may return here.

[suckstobestrange]

I've heard as much as well from a variety of people, including some from my own world. It definitely does make things less stressful in that respect.

[He's got a life or death situation to get back to at some point.

He's not sure how it's going to go but like fuck he's gonna avoid it.]

[storradr]

Mm. But I am curious to experience some of the things I have been told will come to pass. I am curious to see if they are true.

[He paused, taking a long drink, deep in thought. His gaze moves back to Stephen suddenly.]

I do not know your name. I am Ragnar. Lothbrok.