event: a gentle festival

[thestewards]

we're all just working pieces trying to fit somewhere
We wander 'round in circles and we talk in squares

► The OOC plotting post for this event can be found here.

► Direct all questions to the mods at this link.

► All NPCs except for Queen Fayura can be met at this event. Use their top-levels in the plotting post if you'd like a thread with them for this event. For your convenience, you can reach out here: Allairavar, Verim, Loren, Niall, Grejor, and Raya. They may choose to wander into your threads should you not plan anything out with them, too.

PARTY PLANNING
Dawn arrives and brings with it another group of Strangers. Unlike the first group, you wake to a comfortable bed and cheery birdsong. Unlike the second group, you are expected. As you rise, a vase with spring flowers appears on the table beside your bed. Tucked beneath the vase, you find a message of welcome inviting you to join the Queen and her residence for breakfast.

Following directions given by footmen throughout the residence’s winding halls, you make your way toward breakfast, only to find that breakfast is a beautiful disaster.

Maids and footmen rush around you, choreographed by a red haired witch standing on a chair in the middle of the entry hall. She wears an apron and a look of fierce concentration. Beside her, a list floats in the air. Pinned to her hair, her Tiger Eye Jewel flashes and swirls with power. You suspect you should just sneak out, but she’s too observant.

“You there!”

You freeze. Maybe you had a mother with eyes in the back of her head who always knew where you were. Maybe that was a teacher or some other kind of mentor. Regardless, you know this voice. You know this tone. This is a person harried and pressed, and she probably doesn’t care that you haven’t eaten breakfast yet.

“Yes, you! Stranger!”

You turn toward her and abruptly find your arms full of banners. Closer inspection will reveal each flag sewn to the cord bears a different symbol: one for the Guilds (a hexagon with circles at each joint), the Ebon Council (a pair of Jewels side by side), and Fayura’s Court (a strange, spiraling spear against a mountain peak); a sun and a moon; a cloud flush with rain and lightning; and a sprouting plant.

“Make sure those get hung on the eaves outsi—no, I haven’t seen the Lady, Carlisle, but if you—”

A Blood male has distracted her, but you’re left with the distinct impression that if you don’t hang these banners, the Head Housekeeper will hunt you down (you would be correct). Not to worry: you’re not the only Stranger living in the residence, and it takes you little time to locate someone else with an equally bomb-blasted look on their face to help you help the residence prepare for the spring festival! There are flags to be hung, simple breads to be baked, stalls to be built in the Bazaar, and so much more. Your hands work, and so you work.


HOPE BLOOMS ETERNAL
At sundown, the festival begins in earnest: people take to the streets in every section of the city, pouring into the Old Town Bazaar with rosy cheeks and broad smiles. The spring festival will last for the next six days. Three days to celebrate, and three days to work.

All around the city, banners hang from and between homes and businesses. Some fluttering banners bear flags emblazoned with only the Guilds’ symbol or the Council’s or the Court’s, and there are far more Guild banners than any other—a result of the Strangers’ providing support to the Guilds no doubt. But mixed among them are flags bearing both the Queen’s mountain, too, just not as many, and the only place the Council’s flags hang are over Blood homes.

As you make your way through the Bazaar, you hear…

A young landen man: I’ve heard the Queen is going to honor the Earth Mother and Father Sky during planting in a few days, and—
His companion, an older woman: The Blood honor only death and their Darkness. What does she care for our beliefs?

A Blood farmer: …kind of gift. Don’t quite know what to make of a Queen giving anything.
A landen farmer: Anything to help the crops grow. The Guilds mean well, but the land is overworked.

An excited little girl: —ride the unicorn, mommy! There’s a unicorn and a dragon and a centaur and a—

Near the pavilion at the heart of the Bazaar, the landen Guilds have erected technological wonders. A carousel of glittering bronze and metal lights up the night with rainbow colors. Music spills out of it, cheerful and bright as its three rings turn in lazy revolutions. Unicorns and dragons and centaurs and mermaids stand as mounts for the young and old. Nearby, the Elektriline Guild prepares a light show, projecting fantastical shapes in dazzling colors on the sides of buildings and into the night sky itself. Around the park to the south of the Bazaar, the Transport Guild has set up a racing track for unicycles and tricycles.

Booths with games line the streets. Knock down the glass bottles! Throw the ring around the spoke! Win prizes to dazzle your loved ones and delight your children!

While food has certainly been scarce, the bakeries and charcuteries have brought out their best fare at surprisingly reasonable prices. This is a time to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of spring, and celebrate the city will.

While the Blood dress in nice clothes, the landens bring out costumes. As is tradition, some dress as Father Sky, wearing crowns of gold and flowing robes of white. Others cloak themselves in the vestments of Mother Earth: wearing costumes of green and brown, painting vines over their faces to disguise themselves and crowning themselves in garlands of crocuses and tulips. Whispers through the Bazaar say the Queen is among them, disguised as Mother Earth.


SOWING THE FUTURE
The fourth morning of the festival, the entire city rises with the dawn. Over the past three days, a strange rumor wound its way through Draega: Fayura will join the planting to give a gift unique to the Queens of the Blood.

Members of the Ebon Council and the Guilds organize groups, directing the bodies of the entire city to go to this farm or that as they step out from behind Draega’s tall, protective walls. But before you are dismissed to help till the land or plant grain seeds, you join a larger crowd at a nearby farm. The Blood airwalk, standing above the landen crowds to gain a better view.

At the head of a recently tilled field, Queen Fayura stands with a landen farmer. He grasps his hat, wringing it fiercely in his hands as her Steward, Master of the Guard, and Consort stand guard behind her. Dressed in greens and browns, crowned in a garland of crocuses that drips dried stalks of wheat down her hair, she kneels before a bucket. She calls in a knife. When she speaks, she doesn’t raise her voice, but Craft projects it across the assembled onlookers. “Blood sings to blood. This is a gift: freely offered,” she says. “Freely given.” Bright red blood blooms across her palm as she drags the blade through skin. Vanishing the knife, she closes her fist and squeezes, allowing the blood to fall into the bucket of water and mix with it.

Her Consort heals her wound when she holds out her hand, and then he steps back. She rises, picking up the bucket and taking hold of the ladle on the ground beside it. Her voice lifts in song. Though the language is unrecognizable, the melody is beautiful and full of the vibrant hope of spring. She sings as she walks along the furrows, sprinkling bloodied water on the land. Blood and Strangers alike feel the pull of magic as something in the earth itself unfurls, shuddering awake at the call of the Queen’s blood.

For the next three days, nearly every man, woman, and child in Draega assists with the planting. Children do small, simple tasks, and the older children watch over the younger ones. The adults drag plows through the warming land and spread seeds in the furrows the plows create. Queen Fayura visits each field in turn, and planting doesn’t begin until she’s sprinkled her water over the earth. Throughout the day, her vibrant song echoes around the city, and a few Blood girls, too young to yet wear a Jewel, take up the song and hum along with it.

You would do well to help the farmers. You may not have a strong arm or strong back, but there’s planting to be done and people to organize, feed, and care for.


AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you’re spinning the dial on your own device, you’ll hear…

etiquette with evandra and aren
[Evandra's voice is a little bit rough and a little bit husky, the kind of voice that gives bad ideas to young men and headaches to fathers.] …do we make of a Warlord Prince’s reaction to his Queen’s blood?

[Aren, whose voice is typically chipper and bright, sounds today much more seriously than usual.] It’s a dangerous thing. Elemental, you might say. Like a storm. Every Prince is dangerous when his Lady’s blood spills.

[Evandra:] So, are we in danger when the Queen does whatever ritual she’s doing?

[Aren:] No. The Blood put great importance on, well, blood. It’s the memory’s river. Power sings in blood. It carries strength and Craft. I’ve never seen a Queen do anything like this before, but her Princes—and her court—treat it like ceremony. And it probably is.

the weather
[A soft-spoken man’s voice rumbles out of the Far-caster. He’s pleasant to listen to, with a soothing cadence to his voice.] …continued rains with intermittent sunshine over the next few days as the days grow steadily warmer. Remember that rains coming out of Askavi are dangerous to your health, and salves for lesions from exposure can be purchased from the Medicos at…

the news
[Garret speaks at his brisk pace, hurried and harried as though he has too much to say and not enough time to say it.] A new development in the story of the young landen man who shot and killed Councilwoman Vera last month: the Strangers have influenced the Queen to bring together a Tribunal not of other Queens—

[Wilt, as usual, is put upon and nasally.] As though there are many of those to go around.

[Garret, continuing as though Wilt didn’t interrupt him:] —but of the landen man’s peers, both landen and Blood.

[Wilt, sighing:] That’s correct, Garret. It seems this Tribunal of three landens and three Blood will listen to the young man’s account, as well as the stories of other witnesses, and determine a suitable punishment. This will be presented to the Queen, and she will carry out the sentence.

[Garret:] Looking now to the warming weather and what that means for trade with the mercenary settlements outside of Draega—

Comments

[mollymocked]

"I don't think she'll go back on it, so much as she'll end up figuring out that her coinpurse is smaller than her hopes. She's not a bad person, so what she can't do won't be malicious or a big trick. I don't trust easy, but I trust that she's only trying to do what's right by her city and people. What kind of end that comes to depends on her, but the fact that people are still hearing her call despite the fact that she stopped after that first time tells me she's got a lot of power."

Molly's got a lot of feelings on Fay- most of them positive- but she's still a politician, and the 'Strangers' aren't her priority. In the end, she also doesn't have to pay up if she can't get them home, and given the way she reacted to him not blaming her for that, she's probably heard an earful from the other Strangers about it.

"I didn't really have anything else better going on when I said yes." He was sort of dying or dead at the time.

[burn_with_us]

"I just don't want to trade one dictator for another," Katniss says. There's no way she'll go through and tell all her secrets, especially not to someone who hasn't proven themselves to her yet, but that one isn't so much a secret.

"I don't want to make a deal to save my world and then end up screwing over another. I just want...I don't know what I want. I just want the fighting to stop. If that's what Fayura wants, I'm with her."

[mollymocked]

"That's very fair." He just left an Empire controlled by... Well, he only knows enough about King Dwendel to know he's a colonizing bastard and that's all he cares to know. He's not of the Empire, even if he lives there, but he's now of Draega, and that's a big matzo ball as Caleb would say.

Molly shoves his hands into the pockets of his ostentatious coat and looks around. "There's a fair bit of fighting to be stopped here, too. You've caught this place on a pleasant day, honestly. Lucky you."

[burn_with_us]

"Yeah, it looks like they're having a good day today," Katniss says. This kind of thing isn't what she's usually into, too much like the Capitol, but she thinks she can deal with it for one day. No one is making her the center of attention, after all, and that's all that Katniss cares about right now. Here in Draega, she's just a person. She's no more or less special than anyone else and she's not a Victor or of any special note.

"Have you found a place to get weapons here? I've seen the practice ones we have for training," Katniss says. "But I don't know where to get my hands on real ones."

Maybe someone who's been here longer has a better idea.

[mollymocked]

"Depends on how you feel about asking nicely." Molly is not really a fan, but when push came to shove, he needed another blade. He shifts his weight to one hip so she can see one of his scimitars- this one is uniform and not exceptionally pretty, which is only noteworthy in that it doesn't match his ostentatious regalia. "This? Not my first choice, but if I don't have two, I feel off-balance. The armory was kind enough to provide me with a second, since I only had one when I showed up. Bloody inconvenient, that."

Apparently, Fayura's powers have limits. Unsurprising, but irritating when you wake up to assassins in your bedroom and you're used to fighting with two blades. "Given that we're acting like unaffiliated mercenaries, arming us is in their best interest, so there's that, anyway. I'm sure some arsehole will fuck that up one day, but for now it's easy enough."

[burn_with_us]

Swords have never been her weapons but Katniss can admire a nicely-made one. A scimitar is something she doesn't ever remember being in either of her Games but it'd be wicked if it was. Cato had favored a broadsword and Clove had favored her knife. Johanna liked her axe, Finnick the trident. Every Victor has their weapon except Annie; Annie's weapon had been the steel will to survive, which is no small thing.

"My weapon was the bow. I was damned good at it. I can use a knife, if I have to, but the bow...I could do things with a bow no one else could. Saved my life more than once. I need to go to the Armory and find one. I can fletch my own arrows if I have to but I don't know how to make a good bow. Every time I've tried, it's too weak and the draw is bad."

[mollymocked]

"Then a bow you shall have," he says like he can make that happen. He can't, though he has some reputation with Fayura's court that he supposes he can use for pull, if the matter isn't settled easily. He has his reasons for wanting to help, and he's not even remotely secretive about it.

"I don't like the idea of anyone not having a way to defend themselves around here and these-" he holds up the green Jewel around his neck, shaped like a crescent moon that has been bent into a bow with silver filigree making up the string and detailings, "-these work wonders 'til you run into some arsehole with those Muter things. I didn't have much magic before I came here and I'm not going to wholly rely on it now that I am."

[burn_with_us]

"I don't like trusting the magic. I only wear this one," Katniss says, digging her little pin with the summer sky jewel out of her pocket. It's in the shape of a bird, which she likes, but it's not her mockingjay. It's right but wrong in every way that matters.

"I depend on my eyes and ears, my aim and my body. That's it. I don't rely on other things to get me through."

[mollymocked]

She's a smart girl- like Beau in her own way. Well, Beau without privilege. Beau if she were raised in a more hard knocks sort of way- fought because she needed to survive, rather than fought just to say she could do it. The parts of Beau he likes and none of the parts he doesn't.

Oh yeah, he likes this one. He doesn't know when he started collecting teenagers, but that's what Fayura presented him with. Survivalist teens. And he's technically two. If you can take care of yourself, who cares how old you are?

"I like you. You know where you're head's at. That's good. That'll get you far here."

[burn_with_us]

"You can only trust yourself. It's when you start trusting other people that you get in trouble," Katniss admits. This guy, modifications withstanding, seems like he's pretty nice but that can always be deceiving. She'd thought Finnick was completely a Capitol playboy and he'd played the whole Capitol. She'd thought Peeta was just a soft boy who felt sorry for her and he played the Games better than she did, in some ways. She's not as good at the people thing as she is at hunting or running.

"I trust what I can do with my own two hands. It's when you start having to make alliances that you compromise yourself, you know? I don't like having to do that. I don't like having to go back on my word and I don't like having to rely on other people keeping theirs."

[mollymocked]

Oh, the loner type. Molly chuckles a bit- she's not wrong in a lot of ways, but he's not inclined to agree with it. "Well, that's one way to think about it if you don't mind being alone. And it can get awful when you've only got yourself."

He hates being alone. He's never had to be except the once and just the memory of it makes him want to slam the door on it and never consider it again. "I tend to think of it like... You've got to trust people where you can and don't trust them where you can't, 'cause if you don't trust anyone, then you're just... miserable and alone and you've got nothing to support you if what you can do on your own isn't enough."

[burn_with_us]

Katniss laughs softly. It's a lot of nonsense, what he says, but she can find the truth within it and she can respect that. In a lot of ways, it's like talking to Effie. She's flamboyant and bright but underneath, she's just a person, and Katniss cares for her in her own way.

"There's...I have a few people I can trust. My sister. My friend Finnick. Peeta. Haymitch. I think that's enough people. None of them are here, though."

[mollymocked]

"What a coincidence. None of mine are here either, save one. He's not very sociable either."

Honestly, he feels like he has to shove this girl at Caleb and see what happens. They can be clearly damaged and uncomfortable together. It'll be great. That's a problem for future Mollymauk, however. "Do you drink? I feel like you've earned an ale at the very least from all this hard work you've put in showing off."

The legal drinking age in Exandria is 'can you drink without vomiting.' And Molly's answer to any kind of victory, even if it's just victory over crooked carnival games is ale.

[burn_with_us]

“No, I’ve never drunk. One of my friends is an alcoholic and it’s enough to put me off even trying the stuff. I guess you can’t get addicted from one drink, though.”

Even Haymitch had to build up to his considerable tolerance. One drink shouldn’t keep her from having a clear head.

“What do you recommend? The only thing we had back home was illegal white lightning. It could take paint off.”

[mollymocked]

"What a coincidence. One of my friends is also an alcoholic and has created mixtures of various liquors that ought to be illegal. I don't know how she's still alive." He's impressed and a little terrified at Nott's constitution.

"But unless you're drowning something in your cups, a couple of drinks have never actually harmed anyone, especially if you don't go with the shite that'll get you fucked up. I mean I don't recommend that, but not everyone likes getting fucked up, and I, for one, would like to keep enjoying the festivities. I'll drink the harder stuff once night falls."

He gives her a flamboyant wave to indicate 'after you.' "We'll just... hunt down something sweet. It'll make you a little... float-y and relaxed, not much else."

[burn_with_us]

"As long as I'll still be walking, I think I can manage something sweet and a little floaty," Katniss says. She doesn't want to reject a nice offer out of hand but she is incredibly wary about the idea of drinking something alcoholic and suddenly not having control of herself.

"A lot of people do it to cope, I think. That's why my friend drank so much. I just try not to think about the things that bother me but he just had to drown them all out."

[mollymocked]

"Nott does it because she's scared of everything. She takes that whole 'liquid courage' thing very seriously." And she's not wrong- it does make her bolder. He's seen her go from a shaking mess to wanting to kill trolls with a few swigs.

Molly skips ahead so he pivot on his heels and walk backwards in front of her. "Me? I drink because it's fun, because it tastes good, because most people have the best conversations when they're soused out of their bloody minds. There is absolutely no need to make a friendly social activity into something miserable. Especially when you can just put problems out of your head. It's actually really easy. I don't know why more people don't do it. The past is a burden no one needs to carry."

[burn_with_us]

Katniss huffs out a laugh. The latter seems like a good reason to drink, especially since she's terrible at carrying on conversations. She'd rather be alone in the woods than at a party and she can understand people needing a little something to steel themselves for it. She doesn't think that's Haymitch's reason but it's got to help when dealing with the Capitol.

"I guess if it tastes good, there's no harm in one or two. I've just never even seen liquor that remotely tasted good. The only thing we get in our District is white lightning that could take paint off the walls and peel your toenails. It's not something I'm going to willingly ingest unless I need to be knocked out because of pain."

[mollymocked]

"None of that. It's fruit wines or something strong that tastes like it's been sitting in a barrel for months getting nice and ripe." Molly does not know how alcohol works, exactly, but he has tasted many liquors that tasted faintly of the barrel they were tapped from, and that's not a bad thing.

His backwards walk takes him just past a vendor who must have overheard him (because he's loud), who quickly beckons them over. "You want something strong and tasty, do you? I've got something."

Molly grins like he just won a fortune in a card game. "How fortunate. I've got the coin. Two of your best, if you would." The vendor obliges and when he gives a price, Molly overpays for the drinks and says nothing of it, offering one of the frothy tankards to her. "Sip, don't shoot. I've got a feeling this one has to be savored."

He takes a sip of his own and it tastes divine. There's a taste of burnt charcoal mixed with some very strong liquor and an aftertaste that feels like the taste in your mouth when your breathe in forest air after it's been raining. "Oh that's nice."

[burn_with_us]

Katniss takes a tentative sip and, true to Molly's word, it doesn't taste bad. It's definitely not the paint thinner that Haymitch drinks and while that swill is good for sterilizing wounds, it's not much in the way of taste. This is different. It has an earthy, warm taste to it that reminds her of something Peeta might make.

Everything seems to remind her of Peeta these days.

"You weren't wrong. This is a lot better than anything I've ever seen before," Katniss says. She lifts her mug to Molly. "To good taste, I guess?"

[mollymocked]

Molly taps his against hers, as gently as he can to avoid spillage. "Oh, always. And to further luck in all your endeavors this fine festival."

He holds his mug up so he can use his other hand to grandly bow, flipping his coat a bit. "And with your tastes expanded and your afternoon improved by my presence, I must be off. Take care to enjoy that and if you feel a little tipsy, try not to pass out in the gutter."

And with that... Wonderful advice, Molly saunters off in a direction, sipping on his alcohol and shouting happily at vendors and passers-by alike. He's a weird one.