[EVENT] THE TIES THAT BIND US

[khuimods]

Characters: Everyone!
Date: February 14-28
Location: All around Aifaran
Situation: The last two weeks of February celebrate Tine's Commemoration, a celebration of renewing friendships and signaling forgiveness.
Warnings/Rating: Shouldn't need any, but add to subject lines as needed!


During the last week of February, the mood shifts around the city. The tension over the missing Kin'nal girl eases some, and there's a lot of talk of renewal and remembrance. In the days leading up to the 14th, some shopkeepers begin reorganizing to make space to feature knotworks and related crafts, and photos on Xa Xa feature knots in process, some made by special artisans. If asked, they will say that all of this is in preparation for Tine's Commemoration, two weeks that are dedicated to renewing and recognizing friendships, forgiving past grievances, and recognizing our most important ties through an exchange of intricately tied knots.

There are specific knots and knot colors meant to signify different kinds of relationships. Friendship knots come in white and blue. White is for the bond of new friends, blue to recognize the joy of old friends. The blue knots typically are added together in a series, one made for each year of the friendship and tied to each other sequentially. More complicated knots are made when forgiving a grudge or past grievance, or to tell someone that they are considered family. While not a major focus of the exchange, there are also multi-colored knots for romantic relationships.

In recognition of this tradition's roots, there is also an ornate tassel knot made for those who have been lost. The color signifies if they have been lost to death (black, often laced with another color like blue for the sea) or the Dreaming (gray). Most have the person's name woven into them, either on a metal disc or a piece of fabric. Rather than being worn, these knots are hung by the door as a waysign: come home; your spirit may rest here.

Shops around the city sell these knots, but there are also ample opportunities to tie your own! The Tifaut in particular take this tradition to heart and have areas set up at several of the city's parks and civic centers, including one at the Dreaming Bridge. They teach knot-making and provide materials (with a suggested donation for those who can afford it), or you can bring your own cord! Making knots of recycled material, like old clothing or retired fishing rope, can add special meaning to the creation - some believe that doing so means sharing a part of yourself with the intended recipient.

Knots can be worn as jewelry or braided into hair (or sometimes hair itself gets tied, with one friend attending to the other's hairdo), and it's customary to keep them on your person throughout the month. While they can be given or exchanged all on their own, it isn't uncommon for knots to come with small gifts or trinkets as well. After February comes to a close, it's important to store the knots somewhere safe, often in a special box or bag with numerous pockets.

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OOC Notes: This is an open, game-wide event for your characters to participate in (or try and avoid, if they're that type) as much or little as they want to. New Dreamfolk are always popular integrations of these kinds of festivals in the city, so you can write yours attracting lots of positive attention if you'd like.

Provided below are some starters, but you can make your own too if none of these work for you!

Comments

[afoolsgold]

[Well, left in the company of a Fool, they are surely in good hands. Aren't they?

Having finished his gift for Devin some time ago, the Fool simply sits with his chin pillowed in one palm while he watches the imps finish their work, smiling in enchanted fascination at their antics. They're silly, and not very bright, but their dedication to finishing the knot is endearing. Once it looks nearly complete, he asks them dryly,] How do you intend to transport this knot to your master?

[powertotearer]

[Eiji sighs, then holds out his hand to help her up. If she'll take it.]

[annihilist]

Friendship isn't my color, Devin doesn't say, partly because that's not true and partly because it sounds stupid even in his head. He's not good at this sort of thing, and he knows it.

That is also a frustrating non-answer. "I'm led to believe that you only give those to someone who deserves it," Devin contends, shifting in such a way that his discomfort is more obvious.

[priforprince]

[ Yes! The knot is for Master! The imps chirp quite happily, knowing they are nearly finished. Both hold their breaths as the string passes through its final knot.......

AND THEN OH BOY, IT'S DONE

They jump up and down in their excitement, lifting the knot and parading it around the table, only for one of them to trip on some of the streaming string and they both fall over (squeak). This jolt helps them realize what it was the Fool had actually asked. How will they...Um....

Beneath the knot, string still pouring over one of their heads, they look at each other. How will they. Um.

One raises a hand with an idea. Just like they just did! But without the tripping! ]

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki stares at that hand like she's expecting it to grow snake fangs. Why would someone who wants to dismantle her barricade...

She won't risk it. She begins picking herself up instead, one knee at a time. ]

Well, this was clearly a flawed design. I'll regroup with a superior approach.

B

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis did not much feel like joining the festivities, so she was hiding in her room. She had, however, acquired a few strings of cording to make knots. Three of the ornate tassel knots sat on the small bedside table, all grey with various accent colors. One with red, one with white, and the last with black, though no names accompanied them. What she planned to do with the rest beyond what she had already done, she had no idea. Her fluffy, white cat sprawled out on her bed, sleeping, but his tail twitched and his ears shifted when he heard the footsteps coming up the hall. She looked up, checking to see who might be approaching as he released a curious mew and jumped off the bed.

[afoolsgold]

He is discomforted, and the Fool isn't making this any easier for him. To be fair, he isn't intentionally trying to make it difficult, either.

"Have you not been a friend to me?" he ventures instead with raised eyebrows and a careful look at Devin's face. "You've aided me when I've needed help, sought to right wrongs when you've seen them. We have, the both of us, shared details of our pasts with each other, without question or judgment."

He offers it out again. "Please," he entreats quietly.

[annihilist]

The Fool doesn't know yet the magnitude of what he's offering and asking. A few others from Keeliai do now, and even them Devin doesn't call friends aloud. It's not that he doesn't consider them to be, more or less, but the vampire has isolated himself so much for the past six or seven decades that he's not sure what friendship is supposed to look like any longer.

But the Fool is right about all of those things, and if that's the bar of what friendship means (for him or objectively, it doesn't really matter), he can't duck out of this with a lie. It's fitting, he thinks, that this festival is about knots; it has certainly gotten him tangled up.

There may as well be a chasm between them, despite being right in front of each other. Slowly, almost hesitatingly, Devin takes the white cord from the Fool and holds it carefully. "I wasn't aware that added up to being a friend," Devin replies quietly, looking down at the knot. The statement is uncharacteristically honest, absent any edge though the tension hasn't ebbed from his shoulders.

[annihilist]

Before he even reached her room, Devin could tell that someone was inside. There was the cat - apparently the Dreaming had seen fit to bring Anani back, too - and one person. It was probably Valdis, if he had to guess, but there was no guarantee. Anani did what he wanted.

The vampire paused in front of the door, hesitating briefly before he knocked. "Valdis?"

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis recognized the strange lack of normal soul energy before Devin even said her name. She didn't move, not sure if she was ready to interact with him one on one again. Their parting hadn't been either amicable or uncivil, but her hesitation lingered. Anani mewed loudly at the door, rubbing against it and looking at her expectantly. When she continued to hesitate, the cat reared up on his hind legs and batted at the door handle, putting his paws on the lever and pulling on it so the door opened.

These two need to have a positive thread at some point. :)

[ninjainviolet]

[ Whoops. She's spotted by one ninja. Although, Sheena doesn't think much of it at first, since others have been moving chairs to empty places at tables.

That is, until Hibiki moves in a direction decidedly away from the area.

Curious, Sheena starts to quietly follow. ]

they do they do

[priforprince]

[ Hibiki is being very matter-of-fact about this whole business. The chair, and she with it, are headed more towards the residential area of the building...

...where a whole lot of its brother and sister chairs are waiting for it, piled up outside of a door in a makeshift wall of sorts. Hibiki heads for this pile, preparing to figure out the best place to add to this masterwork of construction. ]

[powertotearer]

[Eiji sighs and lets her get up on her own, if that's what she wants.]

If you really don't want to be part of this, why not just stay in your room?

[priforprince]

An intruder co-occupies it.

[ She has a roommate. It makes her unhappy. ]

[powertotearer]

Right now?

[priforprince]

I don't keep track of him.

[ So perhaps she could go back to her room. But then he might show up later. And that would be irritating. Not on a personal level - in other circumstances she feels he might make decent company - but it's the idea of the thing.

And the idea of the thing is always the most important part. ]

[consumeation]

A

[Kei has seen many traditions on many planets, but this one is new. The city abounds with excitement, and has for some days, but it's the explanation of the meanings at one of the stalls where you can learn to tie your own knots that draws him in. One for those who had been lost...

He's been increasingly unsure how the battle on Earth ended. He hasn't been able to sense Belial's presence, hasn't been able to see him or reach out to him or detect him in any way in the past three weeks. He's tested his powers - all of Belial's are predictably gone, as they had been for some days before he arrived. As are much of his own, also predictably with the part of him that produced them being gone. He's not sure whether to be grateful or dismayed that the medical facilities here think they can treat him. By now it's been made clear to him that this isn't Earth, nor any planet he knows of. Possibly not even in the universe he came from.

"You'll return back to the moment you came from."

...so he'd been told. He was fairly certain he was dead in the moment he came from. He would have gladly, willingly given his life for Belial, and still would.

That wasn't what tore at him. Belial had hidden from him, reappeared only to dispose of him as something useless and laugh at his continued efforts to prove himself. Part of him still held onto the hope that that was possible; part of him knew it was an impossible task. In knowing he didn't have long to live he'd gone half-mad with the need to know he was important to Belial, clinging to that belief even as it was continually ripped away from him.

But here, intolerably far from all of that, the knowledge that he is, was, and would always be nothing was slowly, insidiously seeping back into him.

Even while he was in thought, he was watching the demonstration in front of him, and as it ends he begins making his own knot.]

B

[Later that day, Kei can be found carrying home an ornate tassel knot, black laced with red, without a name on it. He doesn't know enough about what happened to say that Belial is dead, but "lost" is certainly correct enough.]

[powertotearer]

Then if he's not there, go there. And if he comes back, just...I guess, find somewhere else.

Just don't...don't impose on others just because you don't want to put up with something.

[sanzulines]

It is, but at least the meaning of it is commendable. You seem to have a talent for this sort of thing.

[ Kid accepts the knot necklace as offered. ]

I don't suppose you could make an identical matching one?

[denyamenti]

[ Bakura's also been lured by the reputedly good not-coffee, sardonically amused by Conan's confusion. ]

Easier just to accept it and ditch it later.

A

[denyamenti]

Bakura's figured out that it's a lot easier to accept the knots people keep shoving under his nose and pocket them to be disposed of (or given to Pepper later) than to try and refuse them on the spot.

Devin... clearly has not figured out this strategy yet.

"You look like you'd rather be on a roasting spit."

B.

[denyamenti]

Not again...

[ Bakura has had people trying to press multicoloured knots into his hands all day, and he's getting a little exasperated by it. Thus when he sees someone else heading his direction, he grabs the nearest person by the arm and orders shortly: ]

Pretend we're having an important conversation. Start talking about anything, it doesn't matter what.

[sanzulines]

Kid had initially thought that the knot-tying booth was a great idea! But it quickly became evident that the young shinigami didn't do learning so well, and expected his work to be perfect on the first try.

Which is why he's presently sliding off the chair in a heap on the ground, muttering tearfully about how his knot isn't symmetrical and therefore horrible and pathetic, ad nauseam.

[denyamenti]

Bakura's attended the outdoor Hall location for the purpose of observing the local bigwigs, not for any real interest in the knot-tying theme of the day. He's at least got a spool of soft thread in front of him, idly parting and stringing the strands together, but his attention is entirely on the Alliance officials.

[consumeation]

[Well that's. Surprising. But Kei can roll with it well enough.]

Have you ever thought about painting with bibirus? They would make interesting impressions on the canvas. Of course, you'd have to be sure the paint was non-toxic.