As you approach the River Naiara, you see Sailor Tempesti standing at an ancient dock surrounded by the lanterns the visitors built earlier in the day. Each one has been carefully fitted onto a simple wooden raft just large enough to support their weight.
“Well, since we’re pretty close to sunset, I’d say it’s time to release the lanterns.” Carefully picking up the one closest to her feet, the senshi gently places it in the water. Just beneath the surface one of the crystals attached to the lantern begins to glow softly, propelling it steadily forward. “The lanterns were supposed to guide the dead but when the living raced down the river alongside them it symbolized moving forward into the new year…and finding it within themselves to face what came with courage, and to try to hold on to whatever light they could. I have no idea how to handle the bigger boats they used to race down this river, but the smaller ones were easier to figure out.”
Tied to the dock are a number of small, narrow, mismatched boats. Each is capable of easily supporting the weight of one person. Despite their age, it appears that the planet has repaired them in the course of its restoration work.
“OK, so over the past few weeks we’ve been hunting down any river boats that are in working order. Don’t worry, we’ve tested all of them and they’re safe.” Stepping downward, she gestures toward the nearest boat. “They’re pretty simple to maneuver. The outer designs are different, but it seems like they had a pretty standardized way to control them. This kind of boat, anyway. Some of the bigger ones are a bit more intimidating….Anyway! These have these crystals on the back that drive them forward so you just need to push this lever,” she points toward a small metal rod near the front of the boat, to the left of what appears to be a steering wheel. “Push it forward to go forward, pull it backward to go back. And this one,” she points toward a larger lever to the right, “You pull this one back to stop.”
Glancing at the group of lanterns behind her, Tempesti continues, “Just set your lantern in the water when you’re ready, the river will do the rest.”
Quote:
For the boat race, please roll 3d10. Each roll corresponds with a mini prompt from the list in the following post to determine how the race goes for them. The character with the highest total wins. In the event of a tie, I’ll use an RNG to determine the winner. (If they’re not comfortable maneuvering a boat on their own, non-human form Mauvians can let Bacchus steer if they dare.)
The next thread will be up on 02/03/2026 at about 8 PM Pacific time.
Feel free to continue interacting and/or rolling in previous threads, I'm perfectly fine handwaving things as needed but rolling ends on 02/05/2026.
Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2026 8:14 pm
Mini Prompts
1. You hit a small wave, causing it to bounce. It creates a sensation similar to a bump in a rollercoaster. The gondola recovers quickly and you experience a slight boost to your speed. (+1 to your total score)
2. A group of colorful waterfowl block your path, forcing you to slow down until they pass. (-1 to your total score)
3. A pair of dolphin-like animals speeds past you, the wake they create propels your gondola forward (+1 to your total score)
4. You hit a small eddy which gently spins your boat in the wrong direction. You are able to turn around with relative ease, but it slows you down for several seconds. (-1 to your total score)
5. You hit a small drop, giving you a slight boost to your speed. (+1 to your total score)
6. Your gondola hits a small sandbar, you are able to get it back on track but it slows you down briefly. (-2 to your total score)
7. As you pass a shrine by the side of the river the crystals propelling your boat begin to glow a bit more brightly, granting you a brief boost in speed. (+2 to your total score)
8. You reach a rocky stretch of the river, you manage not to hit any but maneuvering around them slows you down. (-1 to your total score)
9. As you pass between some rocks the water speed increases briefly, propelling you forward. (+1 to your total score)
10. A group of flying fish leaps out of the water around you, their scales flash brilliantly in the waning light, briefly disorienting you. (-1 to your total score)
This was increasingly becoming a bad time. The promise of alcohol at the end of it was at this point the only thing keeping that usual ghost of a smile on his face, and it was an uphill battle to maintain even that.
Still, this was the worst of it about to be over - right? The yanking off of the bandaid, probably with some sort of glorious catharsis on the other side. That was the purpose of these kinds of rituals: to soothe the gnawing pains of the living and transmogrify their grief into a sort of purifying fire.
He hoped.
Still, he didn't feel much of anything profound or significant when he reached down and placed his unadorned lantern on the water. He felt even less when it kindled its little light and began its journey, and he watched it go, not with any sort of purging of feeling, but with a ringing numbness. He had spent the last few months trying to make himself cry to absolutely no avail - simmering in envy when someone else had cried on him and wishing he could have that kind of honest relief - and by now he did not even make the futile effort of trying to summon the tears he knew wouldn't come.
A blank little light, with no name and no face and no meaning, was not a memorial to a death, but to his own guilt for it. Didn't seem right. Probably didn't deserve any kind of catharsis, acting on motives of that kind of selfishness.
The other little lantern - that mote of light - had not abandoned him this time, as it usually did. It seemed to sense that he would appreciate any kind of moral support, even in the form of a silent and unmoving glowing ember that sat as a weightless nothing on his shoulder.
Well, he was supposed to race the embodiment of his grief and his guilt. Probably this would have been fun under some other circumstances, and he did laugh, a little, when he received the escort of bright creatures in the water speeding him along. It was something in the same way that you might politely laugh at a supportive comment during a funeral - not insincere so much as it was useless - and gone quickly. It might have been better to embarrass himself as he'd done at the tournament, as it was always easier to laugh at himself than nearly anything else. But he managed this play-acting at transitioning towards a better future with competence if not aplomb, and disembarked feeling like no different version of himself and not less burdened by awareness.
He passed Grieve, as he went, and he paused as he looked at the many lanterns she was intending to shepherd down the river. An initial impulse to offer help was checked - this was the sort of thing that one ought to do alone, maybe, or with a better friend than he was - but still he hesitated, coming to a stop a few feet away from her.
He reached up and felt around in the flowers on his head to find that one sunset-colored bloom he'd tucked in among the white ones, which he tossed into the water to let it find its own way on the currents, perhaps to be churned up in the wake of someone else's racing gondola. <********' sucks," he said briefly as he looked down at all the lanterns in her care - not with mockery but with a sort of exhausted sympathy - and he gave her an apologetic little smile as he said it, as if to acknowledge that he had no right to offer her anything as hateful as his own pity.
He couldn't help it, though, when the alternative was wallowing in his own.
Arts-n-crafts and puzzle hunts were not arenas in which Alekto expected to shine, but boat racing - well, that wasn't entirely out of her wheelhouse. Some memorable girl scout summers with an oar in her hands came back to her with the pleasant film of nostalgia on them. She remembered, with a particular pang of fondness, the admiring glance of a girl with red pigtails when she had deftly navigated a particularly tricky eddy.
Alekto, however, seemed destined for even less glory than Clover ever was, and things started badly and ended worse, as she pursued her lantern with little shrieks of mingled delight and terror at the turbulence. This did not seem suited to the dignity either of the occasion or her own appearance, but it was hard to resist when she spent every moment terrified she was about to capsize.
Luckily, her tumultuous progress was slowed at last. Unluckily, it was by a stubborn sandbar, and by the time she managed to disengage from it, her gondola had slowed to a crawl, allowing her to finish the race - a glorified word for what she'd just done - to an anti-climax that seemed worthy of a sad kazoo.
Joy stood on the bank, reluctant to let the lantern go. Her badly-rendered seagull, its wings extended at uneven angles, did not seem like a creature meant to fly.
She could put that lantern down on the water and watch it go, but it would not be the releasing of any hold on her heart. If anything the idea only made that idea cling the harder, with cruel little fingers that dug in with stubborn refusal.
There were things, however, that she needed to let go. Maybe she could not relinquish all of them right now, but she'd become lax in her self-discipline. This was a hypocrisy that required rectifying, and she tried to do so as she bent to float the lantern gently on the surface, watching its light grow.
You have today and no guarantee of tomorrows. You have dreams and no hope of more. You are lucky to get what you have, and it's ungrateful to forget it for the sake of what you don't have and never will. This, too, will pass, and you will have a new grief to contend with.
You are not unique in this. This is the way of every living thing, and even he was alive once. Grief is the price of having loved anyone.
Love was a big word. She still wasn't sure it was right, even now. But she let it sit in her head as she assumed control of the boat, turning to smile at Tempesti and give her a little wave of pleasure and gratitude, her cheeks dimpling. The more you held an idea the easier it sat, and she held it with intention now.
It felt appropriate, then, that as she set out on that little voyage next to that seagull-lantern on the water, that it started rocky and uncertain, and ended in a glorious rush.
Resting back on her elbows, Grieve lounged in her chosen craft, surrounded by a flotilla of lanterns. For all her grimly morose mood when making them, the sight and feeling of traveling through the water among the bobbing lights brought the sort of comfort that she rarely dared to pursue.
These dead weren't going to the Cauldron, though. They'd already been and come back new and wholly human, raised as human, with Earth the only world they knew for far too long. The people they'd once been were not only gone, but were in the process of being lost in memory as well, overwritten by the new. Even to Grieve, who held so much of the past in her present existence, found old companions fading to the presence of their reincarnations.
There was guilt in that, she supposed, and it was the sort of guilt that didn't an answer or alleviation. Sometimes, the only thing to grasp firmly are the sins on your head, especially when there's no one else to give a s**t you've committed them.
At some point, the shrimpy ******** offered some kind of condolences and got a kick to the side of his boat for the effort. He'd probably get another kick once they were on land, too, but it'd probably be followed by a hug that'd hurt him even more.
Seeing a small shrine up ahead, Grieve let out a low, rockslide of a laugh and tapped the lever with her boot. As she passed, a brief bloom of light surrounded her, the crystal engine bright with the power boost.
She'd thought she remembered something about the things.
A drop lay ahead, just off to the side and she dipped a hand in the water to give the craft a bit of steering, laughing again as the boat dipped and sped along. With a glance at the others, struggling navigate, missing advantages, and just overall not being up to ********' snuff, Grieve thought she might just have this thing in the bag.
And then the ******** fish attacked.
Even worse, an asslicking Mau called out, "Looks like you got schooled!"
Curses in a dozen of space's dead languages filled the air.
Watching Alekto get in her boat, Creedence gave the vessel a little pat and decided...Alekto was going to be someone else's problem for a bit. It's not like Creedence could save her from drowning. Plus there weren't like, icebergs or anything to run into. So while she was sure the senshi of screams was gonna be in trouble here, and could probably use a genius technician and navigator, this was going to have to be another learning experience.
Because Creedence wanted to win this b***h.
Leaping into a likely looking vessel she immediately dubbed The Shrike, the cat gave the lever an aggressive bap and seated herself at the prow. "Let's goooooo!"
Captain Clearwater set forth with a WHOA!!
"WHOA!" With a burst of light from the engine, The Shrike sped forward with its "captain" cackling wildly and whooping as it jumped ahead. And then started...spinning.
"Wait wait wait waitwaitwait!" She began bapping then toggling the lever back and forth to get the stupid thing back on course, exhaling and then straightening herself. Looking around she wondered if anyone saw that and noticed that Alekto was...bouncing off waves like it was a rodeo. Which was pretty cool, actually, but the senshi was way behind.
Well ahead was that yellow orc, but Creedence was happy to see the tough looking senshi being attacked by a school of fish which had to be soooo embarrassing!
Always happy to help humiliate the inherently cool, she called out, "Looks like you got schooled!"
Nearing the end of the course, Creedence felt a brief crop under her ship and burst of speed. Sadly, she wasn't the winner, but at the very least she wasn't the biggest loser.
With a smug look, she waited for Alekto to finish.
The mauvian climbed into his boat and looked at the controls. He'd watched Tempesti and nodded, he was fairly confident he was going to be able to control the boat with her instructions. He was curious though she'd mentioned larger boats were more complicated and was curious. He'd made a mental note to ask her about them later, since he did kind of want to see if he could help.
As he steered the boat he frowned when the boat nudged into an eddy and started spinning until he was headed back the way he came. His ear twitched as he looked kind of disappointed, maybe he was too confident in this.
Thankfully it didn't take that long to turn back around, as his boat puttered down the little river he hummed trying to channel his inner Sailor Mickey giving a whistle as he got the boat going in the correct direction. He did however, hit a small drop down and gave a quick murrep when the boat went faster.
There was a grin, oh good. This was going a lot better~! He thought as he continued on. It didn't take long though before his tail poofed out when suddenly there were fish flying at him. He gave a hiss ears pinned back. It was startling and a bit blinding if he was honest. He was squinting his eyes when the fish finally finished leaping out of the water and distracting him.
4. You hit a small eddy which gently spins your boat in the wrong direction. You are able to turn around with relative ease, but it slows you down for several seconds. (-1 to your total score)
5. You hit a small drop, giving you a slight boost to your speed. (+1 to your total score)
10. A group of flying fish leaps out of the water around you, their scales flash brilliantly in the waning light, briefly disorienting you. (-1 to your total score)
The Saturn knight stretched after he climbed into the boat, he wasn't sure driving a boat while sleepy was a fantastic idea but it was fine. This was totally fine. He was on a magical world, no way anything super crazy would happen. It didn't take him long to get the boat started, though he did stare at the controls longer than he'd like to admit after Temptesti went over the directions.
As he puttered down the river he found himself facing a flock of waterfowl that were rather colorful. He nudged the boat's speed down until it just kind of slowly floated along fairly lackadaisical like as he watched the fine feathered fiends take their time crossing in front of him. Though he was on their river so he supposed it was only fair they held him up.
When the waterfowl were gone and he was able to get some speed back the knight couldn't help but fight a yawn and rub his eyes. It was such a calming ride, though he wished that another person was allowed on board, he'd just went with snowball and sat in the back letting the cat drive. He found himself slowly nodding off and startled awake when there was a soft 'thud' and he realized he'd brushed against an eddy. The good news was he wasn't stuck, the bad news was -- he was now facing the wrong way on the river.
There was a sigh as he turned the boat around and managed to get going back the correct way. But at least he was awake now, muttering under his breath as he steered the ship he realized he was coming to a rather rocky patch of water.
"I swear how'd I let myself be talked into this?"
Niflhel was doing his best to navigate around the rocks carefully, he'd reduced his speed with the boat as well. Once he was out of the minefield of rocks he relaxed a little bit. Hopefully it wouldn't take long till he was able to get back onto land.
2. A group of colorful waterfowl block your path, forcing you to slow down until they pass. (-1 to your total score)
4. You hit a small eddy which gently spins your boat in the wrong direction. You are able to turn around with relative ease, but it slows you down for several seconds. (-1 to your total score)
8. You reach a rocky stretch of the river, you manage not to hit any but maneuvering around them slows you down. (-1 to your total score)
1. You hit a small wave, causing it to bounce. It creates a sensation similar to a bump in a rollercoaster. The gondola recovers quickly and you experience a slight boost to your speed. (+1 to your total score)
10. A group of flying fish leaps out of the water around you, their scales flash brilliantly in the waning light, briefly disorienting you. (-1 to your total score)
