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

[beleos]

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

Comments

[baltimores]

[ Nah, he's all good. Amos has a comfortable hold on all his books, though he does need both hands for them. It's not like he lives too far away...

He perks up at personal work — wondering if it's anything of the sort related to matters they had discussed earlier, and not even at all bothered that it might be something else... unsavoury. After all, why would it be—

But before he can ask, Bondrewd brings up the unsavoury matter in question, and Amos' blank smile fades. ]

... Yeah. You could put it like that.

[ His voice is quiet, at first. He coughs, and it reaches a normal speaking volume once again. ]

Don't get me wrong, it... I know you couldn't have known. [ Bondrewd wouldn't have hurt a child on purpose. ] I didn't know either. And I... it had to happen. He had to be put down. There was no other way. It just...

[ He stalls out. Actually, if Bondrewd could take some of his books off his hands so he can free one of his up again that'd be great; the request communicated via a one-two of suddenly tensed arm muscles and his haul being vaguely outstretched in Bondrewd's direction. ]

... Doesn't matter that I wish it hadn't happened. It did. It was handled. I'm fine.

[ Or, well, he thinks he is, because he often takes his emotions and stuffs them deep, deep down where he never has to acknowledge them.

So, clearly, he's fine! And that's that. ]

[dawnlord]

[ As Amos stumbles through the rationalization most people must undertake to make sense of their actions and accept the taboo of murdering a child, Bondrewd looks on in silence. Nonjudgmental and, in his own way, completely unphased by it; he remembers those who die when it comes to scientific pursuits, children included. And to be fair, he's never thought of children as humans when his work has had a need for the prolific existence. ]

There absolutely was another way — you could have just let him rampage. You were not asked to stop Mister Schneider.

[ He points it out with that empty, calm distinction that he possesses. A merciless calm, and a genial, deep tone; mechanical and direct, he points at the center of Amos's mass as if to call attention directly to him. Amos made that choice, and he hadn't needed to. ]

Not every monster needs to be stopped, Mister Burton. You terminated my observations long before they reached a satisfactory conclusion, but I do not hold that against you. My research continues on in other ways.

[ Mildly said! As he begins to take some of the man's burden and gather it into his own arms. ]

Why does hurting the child bother you more than hurting Mister Schneider?

[baltimores]

[ His head snaps up almost violently, looking at where he supposes Bondrewd's eyes are. Would be. Either way. You were not asked to stop Mister Schneider, and Amos is looking at Bondrewd like... like...

... He doesn't know. Someone insane, maybe, is his first reaction. But he says it so calmly, so... like him. Bondrewd points at him, and Amos' eyes, black from discord and stunned, follow that finger before relaxing.

This is just how Bondrewd is, he reminds himself. And he comes across as fucking weird to most people, too. But there is always a clear line of rationale from Bondrewd, and so Amos can relax. Mostly. Especially with his book load now lightened, allowing him to tuck the remaining ones under one of his arms.

He could lead the way back to his place, somewhere a bit warmer they can continue this conversation, but...

Mm. He doesn't know what to do with that question, so Amos just kind of stands there, staring at his books in Bondrewd's hands. ]

Kids're innocent. [ It's a mumbled answer at first, more inward than outward. ] They don't... They don't deserve the bad shit that happens to them. When you're an adult, I mean, sure. You don't want to have to hurt people, but if they're grown then, I dunno. It's almost like they've already had their chance. They've fucked up in some way; did something that landed them in that situation; had their chance at life. But it's not like that with kids. They're just kids.

[ He looks up again. Where Bondrewd's eyes must be. Probably. ]

Dark was going on a rampage, and I couldn't let him fuck up Highstorm like that. Just a matter of practicality. [ ... Sorry for messing up your data? He doesn't know. ] But Lucien? Lucien didn't deserve that.

[ Because he was, you know, a kid, and that loss actually hits. ]

[dawnlord]

What an inhumane way of thinking.

[ As with all things, Bondrewd's words come with a measure of curiosity. A distinct lack of judgment lives within him, replaced instead by wonder and a desire to learn — be the thing he's learning about be good or bad. It is entrancing, to uncover a little more of someone else's mind and discern what their thoughts are rooted in — Amos, it seems, has a belief that children are pure and adults are not. To Bondrewd, that is patently not true, but even if it was, it begs the question. ]

When does a child stop existing, to you? Is it at a certain age? Is it when they first commit a sin that is too great for their innocence to bear? What does innocence look like to you? Is innocence all that makes a child what they are? Are there not innocent adults?

[ The questions are rapid fire, as he reaches down to gently cup Amos's elbow and urge him to walk on. They can have a pleasantly informative conversation while the man leads him where the books need to be brought; Bondrewd's tail sways, counterbalancing his massive bulk and the crisp line of violet light upon his mask fragments briefly — an LED plate installed upon it ( thanks Samba Santa Quetzalcoatl ) to allow him to "emote" a little more. All that pops up is a question mark, though, surrounded by winking stars like he's particularly enthusiastic about this topic. ]

Lucien was part of Mister Schneider. To stop one, you simply had to hurt the other — it is not a matter of who deserves what, but what had to be done. You speak about practicality, but you refuse to apply it to those you perceive as "children" for some reason.

[baltimores]

[ Amos is thoroughly stunned into silence.

Right from the first words Bondrewd says, he's stunned. His eyes widen a little, lips slightly parted as Bondrewd elaborates. Goes on. Throws all of these questions about innocence at him, and shit, was Amos ever innocent in that case? It's all he can do but divert his gaze to the elbow Bondrewd has taken and start walking, as if on autopilot. West, and then north. Towards his house.

The question mark makes him think of a ship malfunctioning so badly it shuts down. Is that what this is? He's never seen it before — not on any ship he flew on, and not with Bondrewd. He... doesn't know what to do with this, but walk.

And eventually, ] I know I had to kill Lucien too. I did it. [ And for the first time had absolutely rocketed his discord up. Became a complete fucking mess. Started to literally unravel. There's a defensive edge to his tone, now. ] I applied it.

But I didn't want to.

[ It's nearly a growl. Amos looks to stop himself. Correct himself. This is just... how Bondrewd is... Right... ]

I don't know when I stopped being a kid. I don't think innocence has anything to do with it. Just... [ He waves his free hand, an agitated motion. He needs to cut it out. ] ... they don't deserve bad shit happening to them.

[ A beat. ]

And when we make the new world, I'm going to make sure that's the case.

[ His voice is flat. Final. Amos dreams of farms with fresh food and clean air and water, wide open spaces and an abundance of resources to go around for everyone. Everyone there, everyone who will come after.

But more than that, he dreams of a world where no kid gets hurt. Ever.

He tilts his head. ]

My place is just up the road here.