kenoslogs | I saw Mommy kissing Samba-Claus (KISS BINGO EDITION) 💋🌿

I saw Mommy kissing Samba-Claus (KISS BINGO EDITION) 💋🌿

QIASU (HIGHSTORM)

On December 15th, the marker of the latter half of Takiltu, Kenos comes together to celebrate unity and togetherness, to come together with friends and family, to be kind to others and share in one’s wealth - whether that comes in the form of knowledge, monetary gains, or the exchange of gifts and one’s time. This celebration is an amalgamation of many worlds’ winter festivals, and as such, is known in the two cities as the Year’s End Festival, or Qiasu as Highstorm calls it.

This part of Takiltu is when Highstorm truly starts to hit winter. Snow is a frequent occurrence, but it’s one that the city welcomes, since with the snow comes a few of the most beloved traditions of the city. By far the most popular is heading to Greenwood Yards. The gardens themselves may be either dormant or showing their simpler winter gardens, but you may have noticed an area by the bathhouses left in surprising amount of disrepair… This is because during the winter months, this area fills up with a natural outdoor hot spring! Take a swim under the moonlight, and even explore some of those ruined old manors, now with their first floors warmly flooded. It’s a tradition to bring in your favorite drinks and spend an evening sipping it in a parlor with friends, and to make new ones by sharing your drinks. Of course, do watch out for the ghosts. They’re mischievous more than malicious, but this is their favorite time of the year too!

You can also head to the Great Tree, which is decorated for the season with glittering glass orbs and is the current roost for the pale Moonbugs of Highstorm. Write a wish on a slip of paper and hold out your hands, and one of the Moonbugs will come sit within them. Whisper the wish to the Moonbug and it’ll take the paper and fly away to find someone to fulfill it. Of course, this also means that a Moonbug is likely to come find you! Besides it being good karma to fulfill the wish, you’ll be given a brief vision of the person whose wish you fulfilled and be blessed by the tree for the duration of the month depending upon your Aspect:

Advocate: People are more likely to buy you meals/rounds and every recipe you make turns out perfectly.
Exalt: Animals seem to think more kindly of you, and you'll find them much easier to befriend.
Harbinger: You're given a more silver tongue as your arguments seem to be better at persuading people.
Iconoclast: You won't be effected by cold weather in any way.
Savant: You heal much more rapidly from any injury and are generally the very picture of health.
Stargazer: Your indulgences (whatever they may be) are both easier to find and are of higher quality.

And of course, there’s one more well-known practice in Highstorm, though it’s more of a tradition of Kowloon’s… The Gävle family is a well-known family who has lived in Highstorm for a long time, and they brought a tradition of building a festive Yule goat made straw in the square outside of their businesses. However, it also happens to be outside of Yura Szczepanski’s home. He’ll never do it himself, of course, but if you manage to burn it down? He’ll reward you, obviously. It doesn’t make it any more legal, so those that try generally spend some time in a Highstorm jail, but it’s an enshrined enough practice at this point that not only has it burned down more often than it’s survived, but there’s even a betting pool in Kowloon for whether it survives or not.

Of course, if these traditions aren’t quite your vibe, you’ll also find the city just generally set up for a metropolitan winter. The Antiques & Baubles Market is rearranged to make room for a large ice-skating rink, Tasseography (the coffeeshop by the Tomes) has a seasonal special for a hot chocolate that will fortify you from the cold for a few hours (and make you fire resistant? Weird,), and the city also hosts a full-size gingerbread house that you can indeed take a bite from, to name a few things. Generally speaking, if it’s something you could do in a snowy city at home, you’ll probably find an equivalent somewhere in the city of moonlight.

Be warned, however, if you are visiting from out of town. Highstorm's reception seems just a touch bit chiller than the weather!

YEAR'S END FESTIVAL (SPRINGSTAR)

Springstar will never turn down a chance to celebrate, but eternally Highstorm’s opposite, this is the warmest time of year. With the sun always shining, some days can get near sweltering, but that just means you have a different set of traditions to have fun with it!

The ivy-like vines that decorated the city in the beginning of the month (November) are now in full bloom, and you’re now likely to learn why the Meri consider them sacred. Wherever the flowers bloom, they encourage feelings of warmth and slightly higher inclination for physical contact within those that encounter their magical pollen*. Holding hands with someone by the flowers will give you feelings of liveliness and happiness, and for a few hours, the positive traits of the person you’re holding hands with become more prominent in you and vice versa. These effects do linger a bit longer, since for a month, you’ll also find that being around this person also gives you both a little boost in energy. It’s very sweet! This also comes with a bit of a further game, if you’re at all a frequenter of Psychagogía...

Madame Dee’s hosts a very popular competition simply called Kiss Bingo. Approach the booth set-up outside the brothel and touch your Shard to a special card, and names will appear upon it. From there, the rules are simple. Just give that person a kiss! It can be on their hand, their lips, their [redacted], all of it counts, and once you do, a little kiss mark will mark their name out. Get a bingo, and you can pick from a variety of prizes such as a ticket for a week’s worth of visits at a local buffet, a shopping spree at a nearby store, or a box seat for a day at the Coliseum. Of course, if you’re really an overachiever, fill out the whole card to get multiple prizes. Madame Dee might just give you a job!

With the promise of home that the Meri deeply believe in, they have their own gifting tradition. The Shard-Bearers know best that it’s possible to receive gifts from the Timestream, and for Year’s End, it’s tradition for the Tribune to pull out all the stops. For a week of the Festival, the Tribune works just outside of Heliopolis, and with the help of priests from the Church of Helios, reaches into the Timestream to produce a gift for anyone that comes to ask. This year, however, he's asked Quetzalcoatl and Samba's elves to deliver gifts, but you might not get anything you asked for (or maybe you did!) but they're all gifts the timestream spit out!

On rainy days (or simply the unbearably hot ones), you can also go to Starlight Park, which offers a reprieve from the weather. Inside the dome, you’ll find a idyllic, snowy valley where you can partake in all the natural joys of winter. There’s (highly) competitive snowball fights, sledding, and skiing to partake in, though you might be cautioned away from one slope. Head down that course and about halfway down, you’ll be chased by… a yeti? Luckily it doesn’t seem to be able to harm you, but it’s still shockingly fast and will catch you no matter how quickly you ski. You can also spend a bit of money to rent a yurt along the river for a relaxing and exceptionally cozy glamping experience. Some Yurts are even adorned with the sacred vines. You know, for no reason.

You’ll also find the Meri heading away from the city of Springstar a bit to head down to some of the beaches that surround Springstar. Being an island within an Island (capital ‘I’ meaning the Kenos kind of island), Takiltu is the traditional start of Springstar’s summer season and all the fun that comes with that. The beaches are bustling, but the cool and crystal-clear waters of the ocean surrounding the city make it worthwhile. Surfing, diving, and sailing are popular activities, but just make sure to stay within sight of the shore. It doesn’t take too long to hit the end of the Island and sailing outside the magical barrier that keeps Springstar floating in Kenos’s starscape generally isn’t survivable.

Just be mindful, if you're trying to escape Highstorm's chill for some summer fun, as attitudes are shifting toward bearers in general, and it might not be as easy as it once was.

NOTES

Weather summary for the second 30 days of Takiltu (NOV & DEC):

Highstorm is out of fall and into winter. While there are some milder days, snow (and heavy snow at that!) is getting more common.
Springstar is hot and humid, and it's not uncommon for brief thunderstorms to roll through in the afternoon.

Notable city changes:

Both cities have experienced changing attitudes toward shard-bearers. You will need to be mindful if you want to travel to a city that doesn't house your faction, as things might not be as easy when it comes to getting around.
Springstar has had an increase in attacks toward it's citizens, and they are often fatal and destructive. Rumors travel among Springstar's seedier types that these are escaping from Ryad, and they aren't being reigned in. That always comes with a flicker of worry.

CODING

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[ There's a little dusting of warmth from Gray as he takes her hand again, but a little bit of contentment too. Handholding... There are worse things in the world. ]

Ah. Aliens...

[ She'd be a lot more alarmed by this if she hadn't already heard of aliens existing in someone else's version of Earth. And what are all of them here if not aliens from other worlds??

(Still, she kind of wants to see her own home aliens with her own eyes. From a safe distance, in a peaceful context.) ]

Did you get to see the aliens yourself?

[Gray... Soft... 🥹 This is not helping his heterosexuality, unfortunately, but it's fine because he will continue to ignore that for a long time.

MORE IMPORTANT THINGS ARE HAPPENING! Like a discussion.]

Yes. They fought the vampires for a few millennia.

[He does not say anything about it, of course, but this would mean D is at least two thousand years old.

Even though he is a lot older than that...... It's fine.]

[ M... Maybe D only saw the tail end of the vampire v. alien war. Though there's still some discrepancy, given that humans must have needed some time to move back in after the vampires' decline.

D's actual age is a mystery, but (sorry) Gray is interested in other things before that. ]

What were the aliens like? In my time, people imagined them as gray men with giant black eyes...

[ She uses her free hand to trace a giant circle accordingly on her face. ]

[Not the little gray men with giant black eyes....]

They were almost seven feet tall. [Definitely not the little men.] Their skin was blue and green, and they had four arms. They stood upright, like humans, and their bodies were made of mostly muscle. Their faces were elongated, like a horse, but concave in the middle. They had large eyes. [That much is the same, he guesses.] Their mouths were cruciform, and they had small teeth.

They wore armor and a helmet, and most carried a crossbow, a sword, a laser pistol, and a baton which could become a spear.

[Predators.............. Sorry for the horrific description.]

[ Oh. That sounds very not cute. Gray stares up at D as she tries to form an image from his description and only comes up with nightmare fuel. ]

I see...

[ What else is there to say about that?? Moving on to less important but still kind of important things, ]

Um, I'm not sure if my maths is correct. How old did you say you were?

[They were not cute, no... unfortunately. Sorry for your nightmare fuel, Gray!! She didn't deserve that. He could have lied. He should have just said they were little gray men.]

I didn't.

[The lack isn't on her, he just... never... told anyone how old he was because it's weird. IT'S WEIRD! Ten thousand years is weird when he looks like this.]

Are you sure you want to know?

[ That is a WEIRD ANSWER. She is no longer sure if she wants to know (even though she does kind of want to know).

From the lack of an immediate answer, she can probably assume that he's a lot older than he looks. Maybe it's a sensitive subject. If so, she doesn't want to tread on his comfort for the sake of her curiosity. She's used to people's histories being off-limits for discussion; this is a reminder that in some ways, she may have gotten a bit too lax with her conservative politeness. ]

If it isn't important, then you don't have to tell. You'll be the same person either way.

[Gray, baffled: This weird man is going to tell me he's millions of years old, isn't he?

For a short moment, he is silent while he quickly debates whether he wants to be honest. This stupid hand-holding is emboldening him with the idea no one here has the same understanding about him, or vampires, or anything else from the Frontier that someone actually from the Frontier would.

WHAT COULD IT HURT? Also, Gray is kind, and honest, and they are the same person, so he trusts her.]

I've been alive for almost ten thousand years.

[He is not as old as the Sacred Ancestor, at least, even if his freakish aura has the same sort of primordial feeling.]

Eh...

[ Ten thousand... Ten? Thousand??

Once upon a time, Gray had difficulty holding more than one hundred people in her head; seeing more than that all at once when she got to London was so overwhelming that her brain would often choose to shut down rather than process it, for at least a month. This is kind of like that. Living to one hundred years old is already hard for her to imagine. She can't even begin to envision what ten thousand years would be like.

Hold on... (math noises) ]

Then -- you were born around my time?

[ Squeezes his hand really hard... sorry. ]

[Girl math is deciding you realize a cute boy is actually aware of your own timeline when he tells you he's ancient history. He does not mind the squeezing. Hayame broke his hand, and he was alright with it, so it's fine.]

Something like that.

[Give or take some years. Annoying! He doesn't look a day over eighteen! Which is more funny knowing many dhampirs on the Frontier are often very old and decrepit-looking, though their ages far exceeds a normal human's own.

The medical torture made him special. :')]

The Earth was a very different time then for the world I came from.

[ Medical torture aka the Hollywood secrets... Also you can call it girl math but is it WRONG??

The squeezing of D's hand slowly relents with the passing of shock from Gray's system. Even if he's from an alternate timeline, or universe, or whatever it is, knowing that they're from roughly the same era manages to make him more relatable. It's very possible that if she were dropped into his version of 2004, she'd think it was an alien world (metaphorical), but at least now she has a measuring stick.

There's a silence as Gray falls into thought. She remembers D mentioning that he and Lefty had been together since around the same age that Gray had been given Add. The comfort she feels in knowing that D had at least had one constant friend for those ten thousand years is quickly offset by the knowledge that Lefty is no more — at least not in an active way, now that D's left arm is gone.

It's a horribly sad thought. Feel her depresso... ]

Is it difficult... living for that long?

[GRAY FINDS HIM RELATABLE... 🥹 Despite his 2004 being a husk of a world full of nuclear radiation... and vampires. It's fine.

Left was forever a pain in his ass, but it had been someone conversing with him, at least, no matter how atrocious. His brain is now full of silence. He's never not been lonely technically, but now he's truly alone.]

Yes, very.

[There is no point in lying, and he doesn't want to lie to Gray. He has no reason to seem better. This is not a place where pretending to be unaffected by time is appropriate. Time is suffering. Having eternal life and a compassionate heart is suffering.]

[ He may only be 10% relatable, but still 10 whole %? Considering all of his everything, that ain't too bad.

Him confirming the difficulty of his long life isn't surprising to her, and only reinforces her thought that the loss of Lefty must be harder than he lets on. It isn't something either of them can do anything about. Still, her heart bleeds for him.

She squeezes his hand in both of hers now. It's a tiny gesture next to twelve thousand years, but it's all she has at the moment. ]

Thank you. I think I understand you a lot better now.

[ Not everyone is open to talking about their history, especially if it's a difficult one. ]

...

[Maybe he can buy a memory-altering spell later so he can wipe her memory of knowing he is a sad, old, pathetic creature (no).

He returns the gesture in a gentle, acknowledging way, mostly giving her the opportunity to squeeze his hand instead. Telling her hadn't been as difficult as it seemed, but boy does it still leave the sour taste of having her Know him at what feels like his most inhuman. There isn't necessarily a word for this, yet it still bleeds slightly through to her.

An understanding of Othering himself, of being on the side he doesn't want to be.]

If it ever bothers you, I don't have to stay.

[ Gray blinks hard at his offer. Frowns. He'd said similar things when he'd first agreed to (been bullied into) staying at the Dokja household. Always trying to leave at the first thought that he might be an imposition. Gray shakes her head firmly, her grip on his hand turning into a vise. ]

It doesn't bother me. I can't imagine it ever would.

[ If it did, she'd be in big trouble considering 50% of the household is sad old pathetic creatures. And while D's age is a shock, it truly doesn't bother her. She tries to put a reason to it. ]

... Add is over a thousand years old, you know.

[ A muffled Hey! That's a thousand years young! from within her cloak. ]

[Okay, well, so he's not going to leave, he guesses. Hate that he will not live in the woods just so Gray is not sad about it. The immediacy of his relenting and resignation.

The edges of his face soften, but the brightening doesn't really reach it because he's so emotionally constipated. Luckily for Gray, she can feel the warmth of amusement from him regardless.]

He is just a baby.

[He says this with the straightest face. IN COMPARISON...!]

[ Thank god she can feel his amusement, because it means she can take his comment as a joke. She laughs over Add's surprised clang. First he's old, and now he's a baby... ]

He's the same to me either way. And so are you.

[ They're all weirdos here... What's a little 12k year gap to add to it? ]

I'd miss having Erebus around too. He's so cute.

[ With all respect to Slow Dancer, it's nice having a horse around that will not bite anyone or break windows. ]

[A thousand year old baby!

Now she is saying embarrassingly soft things to him, a person who doesn't deserve it. At least the conversation is mostly about Erebus for the second.]

I think he likes your company.

[This is not what Eustace wanted D to say (later), but it's fine. EREBUS ENJOYS HER COMPANY.......... D continues to not say anything about himself. Gray is probably loved because someone bothered to ask Erebus his name for once.]

I'll let you get back to what you were doing.

[He has held her hostage WAY too long.]

[ What she was doing... What was she doing? She remembers with a shock. ]

That's right! I need to get to the shop!

[ Put toast in her mouth and call her late to work. She gives D a hasty little bow before finally letting go of his hand and turning to jog away with a frantic clatter of Add's cage. ]

I'll see you later!

[ Bye... So much happened here and she has to go to her part-time job like it's just another day. ]

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I saw Mommy kissing Samba-Claus (KISS BINGO EDITION) 💋🌿

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