 The Paragon Wiki Archive documents the state of City of Heroes/Villains as it existed on December 1, 2012.
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Lighthouse/Background
Overview
Background stories such for NCsoft employee characters such as the one below are of questionable canon. As such, they are a slight gray area as content but are more canonical than that of the lay user.
This background is directly copied from the one posted by Lighthouse and is preserved here to avoid loss due to the forum pruning that occasionally happens on the official boards. At no time should any user other than the contents owner alter the below text.
Background
Here is a brief story with a background to the in-game persona of "Lighthouse". Enjoy![1]
The crash of the surf sent salt spray dancing into the air, moistening the rocks and steps of a broad, winding path along the sea. The path followed a long stretch of rocks outlining a point of land that jutted defiantly into the surrounding water. An overcast sky hung heavy and low on the horizon, grey with the endless clouds that clung to this intersection of land and sea.
Along this path two figures walked; a man and a woman, arm in arm. As they walked casually along the path, their idle conversation mixed with the steady roll of surf, the cries of shorebirds and the soft sigh of wind easing through tall grasses.
It was clear that the man was from the nearby military base. His somewhat rumpled khaki uniform and thick leather bomber jacket made that obvious. He was an aviator, and flew on one of the many airplanes that droned endlessly about the nearby runway. The woman could have been from any number of walks of life, with her long pleated skirt, small neat hat and warm wool coat typical of residents of the nearby towns or close by coastal city.
The pair followed the path as it turned up a small rise and came alongside a narrow dirt road that ran out along the promontory of land. The road continued into the distance where a tall pinnacle of stone and mortar jutted up from the rocky, windswept point. This man-made tower stood watch over the treacherous shore, warding away ships with its powerful, searching beam of light; the Lighthouse.
The man paused as they crested the rise, taking in the sight of the Lighthouse. It stood strikingly against the vista of grey skies and expanse of equally grey, lumpy sea. The sea’s thin edge of foam churning against the line of tumbled rock and narrow shore marched up to the Lighthouse’s base, drawing the man’s eye to contemplate it. The man had often seen the Lighthouse’s searchlight in the evenings and early mornings. He had seen it also from the air, as he sat huddled against the cold airframe of the bomber he flew on.
His mind slipped away from the conversation and the panoramic view to consider the tumultuous specter of war that loomed over the far side of the water. Thoughts raced along the many grim possibilities of war and what that might hold for him.
Sharp words brought his attention back to his walking companion. They turned their steps on to the road and started to trace their way inland to complete their walking diversion. The man cast a long glance back over his shoulder to take in the Lighthouse one more time.
Later, the man would look longingly at the Lighthouse from his seat on the bomber as they set out on their most dangerous operation yet. The tall stand of stone and mortar gradually disappeared as they moved through the clouds. The man hoped fervently that he would live to see it again.
While the man would never again see the Lighthouse, it was not from his demise. Somehow, his life was miraculously spared, even though his bomber was torn from the sky by pounding explosions of flak. As he fell he drifted, the wind impossibly loud in his ears, his sight blurred and spinning and his mind reeling with the enormity of his mortality. He found himself looking up, with clouds before him and dark smudges of smoke or planes or something twisting on the edges of his vision. All at once, everything seemed to come into crystal clarity and he turned to look at the rapidly approaching ground. It was a field on the edge of a thick tree line. The ground swam up at him and somehow it was like he was only stepping down off a tall, tall stool. He gently came to rest. As quickly as the clarity had come, it left. He felt the crushing hand of gravity suddenly make itself known, forcing him hard down onto the earth and into the inky blackness of unconsciousness.
In the days, months and years to follow, the man would often reflect back on that day and those long steps down to the ground from his parachute-less free fall. He would search out that clarity, that jelling of the instant, that endless second where he could almost walk outside of time’s boundaries to save himself or someone else. In those dark days after his fall, when he was taken as a prisoner and traveled far into lands he had never known, he had many opportunities to feel the tugging of this clarity.
His body seemed to know more of this clarity than his thinking mind. It seemed to thrive on it. Indeed his mortal form seemed trapped in the youthful vigor of the time just before his fall. As years passed he came to see how time wore more harshly at those around him but left him mostly untouched. What did seem to touch him, however, was trouble. It was like he was a well of gravity that pulled the trouble of others toward him. This only intensified as he tried to make his way further into the world. Through it all he came to better know this clarity of motion and time, to hone it through the saving of his own skin and then to rely on it. Despite the many opportunities to use this clarity for his own gain or to strike the upper hand, the man never used it that way. The clarity really only came through powerfully in the course of saving himself or someone close around him.
He felt almost insane for experiencing it, wondering at just how such could happen. When these thoughts engulfed him, he would sometimes reflect back to that Lighthouse with it’s expanse of stony bound sea, or it’s searching light cutting into the night. He would yearn to return to that place and the relative calm of that time. He marked it as the time before his fall; the bookmark of before the clarity. The time before his death. Or perhaps, it was a time before a second birth.
