[EVENT] FESTIVAL OF SHADOW NIGHTS

[khuimods]

Characters: Anyone and everyone!
Date: Throughout October
Location: All over the archipelago
Situation: It's Goth Christmas, Khu Ioduan style baby
Warnings/Rating: Spoops and scares

"The Festival of Shadow Nights is technically only a week long event from October 20th (Kicked off with the Masquerade) until October 27th (ending with the Night Parade). However there is a certain enthusiasm for the holiday that is infectious and many people celebrate it throughout the entirety of the month."



STREET FAIRS

Street Fairs will be incredibly common throughout Aifaran. Business owners take advantage of this holiday season to sell their wares. The Erol'a stalls are particularly lavish as it's mating season for a number of crustaceans, and they have on display a huge variety of beautiful shells and delicious seafood. Gourds of all sorts are also in season (and always in particular abundance) so enjoy a large amount of foods and beverages containing squashes and melons. Games, beer and wine tastings, and artisan candies are also major additions to these street fairs.

GOURD FOLK

One can expect the rather bizarre occurrence of the Gourd Folk. Once believed scions of the Night Parade, these vines that have taken on the size and shape of a small, human child are, in fact, not quite so mysterious. The man behind the curtain was revealed, and it's Daemid mischief at its finest (for a given definition of "finest"). These pesky piskies are moving house and using a bit of their magic to do so. So, if you don't want a room full of acorn squash (and the subsequent invasion of Daemids), punt these pumpkins back into the patch from whence they came.

SPIRIT LANTERNS

A tradition of the Festival of Shadow Nights is the making and lighting of spirit lanterns. These are elaborately decorated lanterns can come in a variety of shapes, sizes and materials, from paper, to glass to seashells. Their candles have particularly unique properties - the flames burn a multitude of colours depending on the wax used. While the spirit lanterns are largely used for decoration, they have another purpose as well - to invite a brief visit from those marching in the Night Parade. Red lanterns repel the dead, and there is a certain taboo around hanging them outside private residences. The logic goes that since any dead that come in cannot actually harm you, you must have a guilty conscience and not want to be reminded of what you might have done to the unwanted spirit.

THE NIGHT PARADE [OCTOBER 27th]

The Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts is the culmination of the week of Shadow Nights. It is a parade no one attends. The streets are emptied before midnight as people go to their homes or take shelter in local pubs and cafes, for tonight the dead walk the earth. They parade through the streets, silent save for the the soft chime of bells that a few may carry. Spirit lanterns are lit and hung in windows or outside doors to welcome the dead inside for a brief visit, though bright red lanterns ward off the dead. These apparitions cannot be touched nor can they speak, at least not in any sound a person can hear, but leave out paper and ink and the stronger spirits can form brief messages or leave small tokens long lost or forgotten. These visits last at most a few hours before these ghosts must return to where they came from.

Comments

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis blinked. From her conversation with Jacen at the masquerade, his brother was alive, and here. Unless of course the two of them came from different times, just like some she had known had. The large black hound tipped her head, eyes curious.

You mourn one who lives now, she replied, Do you not care to see to the present? Or are you simply going to dwell on the past and future.

Skulduggery, Erskine and Anton had been able to see the present, and perhaps that's all that mattered, even if Anton was now dead.

[soloflight]

It was Jacen’s turn to blink. The wolf-goddess knew who he was? Or could she read minds, too? After all, they were communicating telepathically, although he’d decided to stop projecting his thoughts to her to avoid aggravating her.

“I see the present,” he responded slowly, trying to put his thoughts into words. “But I’ve not made peace with the past. I couldn’t save him, I saw him die and I—” He closed his eyes. “I just want to... say I’m sorry.”

He’d thought he’d come to terms with Anakin’s death, put it behind him, back on Yuuzhan’tar. But all it took was one look at the Anakin here and his wounds reopened. He was the big brother, he was supposed to protect him, but Anakin had died so he and the others could live, and it wasn’t fair.

[redlightgreenlight]

You do not need to make peace with the past to let go of it. She growled, eyes flashing in the darkness as she considered her next move.

Jacen's pain was a dull ache, a lack of forgiveness of himself more than anything else. The pain of a loss that couldn't be replaced, a very human sensation, yet one she could relate to. But she couldn't be friendly, or too kind in this guise.

Enjoy your life while you can, boy she growled, You never know when death will find you.

[soloflight]

Something about what she said took him aback, although he wasn't certain if it was her tone, or her actual words. Perhaps it was even the way her eyes flashed in the darkness, reminding him of the many times his mother affixed him with her powerful, rebuking stare.

"But how?" He pursed his lips into a thin line as he thought silently, How do you just let go? How would that be any different from forgetting? I don't want to forget.

At her words about death, though... he had to give her a wry smile. "I'm already dead, ma'am." A part of him had died on Myrkr. In the Embrace of Pain. In the Well of the World Brain. "I just haven't gotten around to lying down yet."