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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Link's gaze rises towards the woman when he hears her approach. Not recognizing her, his first assumption is that this is just another random citizen of Highstorm who's come to enjoy the winter springs. It's what she calls him that makes him hold his breath, tense his body, and look at her with much more trepidation.

Could it be...? He's read by now that the woman he had sex with during the Oracle could change her shape. Nobody knew much more information than that, though, and in this moment Link can't even remember what her name was. He's been trying to forget all of that happened, ever since he saw the way Springstar exploited it to insult him whenever possible...

But if this is her, he can't and won't pretend not to care. Even as she starts to undress, Link does not look away; a fierceness is seeping into the way he looks at Kiritsubo, not aimed at her but aimed at something bigger and more intangible. What they did together, maybe, or the way it's started to haunt him. ]

Who are you?

[ If it's her, will she lie? Maybe there's no point in asking. But, he has to at least start with that. ]

[If he asked the citizens of Highstorm, Link might find them saying that she is just a random resident. She's been using this shape for that role, for shopping, exploring, cafe trips, and... some more interesting "after-dark" activities in the city of eternal night. It was useful, she'd learned, many many centuries ago, to keep a variety of "identities" handy. Not that she was pleased in the slightest that she'd needed to fall back on them.

Exhibitionism was one thing. That broadcast, though... It wasn't easy to anger her, not after all this time and not over things that would not stand the test of time. But she certainly was... annoyed.

She doesn't look it now, though, when she shamelessly strips off her robe and abandons it to begin wading into the steaming water, sighing happily at the sensation. The air around them is cold and sharp, making her nipples tighten and gooseflesh pepper her skin as she shivers, but the hot spring is welcoming and, careful not to wet her liquor bottle, she sinks smoothly beneath the surface, leaning back against the rocks with a sigh... and a smile.]

Kiritsubo.

[She answers easily, setting the bottle on the spring side beside her, as if they simply hadn't had the chance to exchange names in a completely normal situation.]

And you... ?

[ It's when she starts to wade into the spring that it finally registers in Link's head that she is naked. He looks away, but reluctantly; if this woman isn't the shapeshifter then it wouldn't be right to gawk, but if she is... well. That's not really her body, is it. So would it even be wrong for him to look? Is that why she strips down so casually to begin with? ]

...Link.

[ With the sound of her settling into the water, he dares to glance back. "Kiritsubo," she said... ]

It is you. The woman from the Oracle.

Nice to meet you, Link.

[Just another completely normal situation. Look at them, finally becoming "properly" acquainted! She says the default phrase with her lips curling up in the corners, cocking her head to the side before she belatedly hums in realization and moves to begin piling her burnished golden hair up atop her head to keep it out of the water, steam beading on honeyed skin. Perhaps he thinks she is careless with the body because it wasn't really hers... But he would be mistaken. It was as much hers as any of them were.

... Side note, this was a good hot spring- shame it only appeared at certain times of year. Then again, if it were around all the time then she wouldn't appreciate it as much, so. Fine. Moving to open the bottle of sake she'd brought with her, pulling one of the small glasses from the wrapping around its neck, she begins to pour.]

I certainly hope I wasn't the only woman you encountered in that labyrinth... But if you are asking if I am the one you made love to... Then "yes".

[She pulls the second small cup out and gestures with it, in a universal sign for "drink?"]

[ The confirmation makes his gentle deference disappear. He looks back at her now with a raised head and slightly furrowed eyebrows. For a few seconds, he seems to just be taking in her new appearance, from the tangle of straw-colored hair piled on top of her head to the outstretched cup.

Then, he pushes off the wall and wades slowly towards her to accept it. ]

What do you want? [ watching her pour sake into the cup. ] Or is this just a coincidence?

[Goodness, to think confirming the truth of things would garner such a look! She would pout... but she doesn't. It would feel a bit too put on, even for her. Her gaze is even and quiet as he seems to decide how he feels about her answer, simply waiting with the look of a woman who could honestly just wait forever, she was that patient, but...

He doesn't keep her waiting that long. Her smile returns, and she offers up the cup filled with high quality sake- her holiday gift, delivered by strange little pterodactyl things. What an odd place this Kenos was.]

There are very few coincidences in this life, lover boy.

[- He literally just told her his name, but.]

But when I caught a glimpse of you in the steam, it did attract me.

[She'll admit that, the wanting.]

After all... you've been quite the topic of conversation of late.

[Not just for fucking her (being fucked by her) either.]

...Please don't call me that.

[ Soft-spoken as he is, the unwavering stare he gives her as he rejects the pet name is not soft or meek. It's too informal, too familiar, for what they are in this moment, at the start of this very first conversation after the Oracle.

Link brings the sake cup to his mouth but does not take a sip, breathing in the sweet, bitter scent of the alcohol. ]

So, you want to talk, then. [ takes a small sip. he squints for a moment at the burn. ] The parts that aren't true... I don't even want to acknowledge. And the parts that are... well, it doesn't seem to matter what I have to say about it anyway.

[Hmm... Not a fan of nicknames. Shame. Kiritsubo does not immediately correct to or give him it, "Link", but... she gives a little shrug of a honey brown shoulder, a little nod, gesture enough to make it clear she was acknowledging the request.

She doesn't hesitate to drink, though. So if he were worried about that, it doesn't seem to be poison! (... Well, she could drink poison and be fine, usually, unless it had been calibrated specifically for youkai, but. No matter.)]

You don't think it matters?

[That phrasing seems to catch her attention, her falsely golden eyes sharp over the rim of her own cup.]

I do.

[ It's not the fact that it's a nickname, but the name itself. She called him "lover" back then, when neither of them knew they were being watched, and when Link wasn't in a state of mind to tell her not to even if they had known. In the media chaos that followed, where his devotion to Zelda was called into question by what they did together — it's hard not to wonder if that pet name had anything to do with it. And hearing her say it again, just now... that kneejerk resistance flared up in an instant, without Link even thinking about it.

That she doesn't press the issue helps. He sighs, nods back in gratitude, and takes another small sip of sake. ]

...I see. Alright.

Go ahead, then. I'll answer your questions.

Ah... You misunderstand me.

[Perfectly painted nails that had not so long ago traced lovingly, greedily, domineeringly over the delicate line of his cheekbone, the chiseled and scarred planes of his chest, now swirl slowly over the surface of the water, just threatening to break the surface tension.]

I am not interesting in asking specific questions.

[She could, she supposed, if that was the game, but, more than that... Her eyes seem to look right at him, all of him, open and strangely welcoming. Like no matter what he could possibly say... she wouldn't judge it at all. How he felt about the coverage, what rankled him, what made him proud, what he wished to deny or wished they had focused on instead...]

I am interested in what you have to say about it.

[ Such an open-ended invitation to talk is difficult for Link to grapple. He isn't open with his feelings on the best of days, nor is he very good at expressing himself in those rare moments when he's willing to verbalize them. As good as he is with a sword, as strong as his body is, as experienced as he's become battling evil creatures and demons... There's been little occasion to talk about what's going on inside his heart. And how could there be? There's no time to dwell on feelings when what his world needed from him was to act.

Still. Somehow, as he gazes at her, his expression continues to soften, until it starts to resemble resignation. He's so tired. ]

...I don't know what to say. I don't know what use there is in saying anything.

[ He looks down into his half-empty sake cup. ]

I guess it's the... the judgment. Springstar making me out to be a traitor and a hypocrite... Highstorm pretending to act nice, but treating me like I'm useless... I want to be angry, but what if they're all right?

[He looks down at his cup... and Kiritsubo's suddenly moves into his view, the rims clinking together in something like a toast. But instead of drawing away, pulling it back to drink... she lets it linger there, touching against his.]

What if they are?

[Her voice might sound carefree to the casual listener, but there is something heavier there, lurking beneath. Something that urges one to mull the words over just a bite more carefully, and not dismiss them despite how dismissive they seemed.]

What if to the people of Springstar you are a traitor... and what if to the people of Highstorm you seem yet useless?

[The clear sake swirls in her cup as she shifts it in a slight circle against his.]

- What then?

[ The shapeshifter surges forward, ostensibly to clink her glass against his in a toast whose purpose is beyond him, if it even has one — but she does not move away after. Her cup stays there, and so does she, floating in the water within arm's reach beside him.

There's no way for Link to keep his gaze averted now. Eyes wide and lips hanging slightly agape, he stares at her. The questions challenge an explanation that he had given almost half-heartedly. Despite prefacing them with a moody off-handed comment about how it didn't matter what he had to say about it all, those few questions pressure him into suddenly feeling like it does. ]

What — what then...?

[ Echoing because he does not have an immediate answer. It feels like an absurd thing to ask, so absurd that even when he stops to think about it, he does not know what to say. ]

What are... What are you talking about? I'm... Wh-What good am I, if I'm...

[ Useless. Faithless. Selfish. ]

Why am I even here if... if I'm...

[Kiritsubo stares back at him. Last time, those eyes had been wide and innocent, a beautiful Hyrulian teal. This time, they are almond-shaped and burnished gold, wise and sultry. But it is still Kiritsubo staring through them, waiting for his answer.]

What good are you to who?

[Her head cocks, sending differently colored and styled hair slipping damp along a shoulder that is a slightly different shape, a drastically different color. He reacts as if it were obvious... and she reacts as if it is simply not so.]

You have left Meridian... So you have left your world behind. What duty from that place do you let bind you still... ?

...

[ Motionless and wordless, Link stares at her. She asked him to give her his unfiltered thoughts... she had posed the most open of questions... and it had somehow narrowed into the most pointed and targeted of question of all. He does not know what to say, and that makes him feel like he's being interrogated. Which is a feeling that's plagued him during most of these types of conversations That's all anyone wants to do anymore — demand explanations and answers and justifications that he either doesn't have... or doesn't know how to express. ]

I... I didn't say anything about my world.

[ Technically true, and the only defense he can come up with. Kiritsubo assumed he was talking about Hyrule. It was a correct assumption, but an assumption all the same.

He turns away from her, frowning. ]

...I don't understand what you're asking. It's normal not to want to hear people say the things they've been saying about me.

[Link reacts defensively... But Kiritsubo does not look or sound at all as if she is attacking him, her expression open and merely curious, completely naked and unarmed. Why should she have to, after all? He can do that all on his own, it seems.]

It's normal enough.

[Sure. He turns away... but though the water ripples slightly behind him, though the last time he had been facing away from her slim, pale arms had elegantly, possessively wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him into her softness... Nothing happens. Yet.]

But in my experience... When the things people say just are not true at all... They do not pain one nearly as much as they seem to wound you.

[She sounds sympathetic, but not pitying, straddling that fine line.]

So what is it you need, I wonder... ?

[ The ripples expanding from behind his back make him glance down at the water's surface, but he doesn't turn back around. Her voice sounds so different now, compared to the way she spoke to him during the Oracle...

He's still holding the sake cup in his hands, above the water. Link feels a sudden urge to give it back to her and leave, but he doesn't want to turn around. ]

Why do you care? [ he asks, instead. his tone isn't confrontational, despite the question itself expressing some degree of resistance. ] You're just curious about me, aren't you. You think the way I feel is... interesting?

Of course I am curious about you.

[She isn't about to say she isn't in an attempt to placate him. It would be a lie, for one, and though Kiritsubo was many things, she was not an outright liar. But the way he phrases it, just curious... That part is incorrect.

A dark-skinned hand, shaped differently than the pale one that had held him before, gently splays over the back of his shoulderblade, a light touch that is intimate, but not overtly sexual despite her nakedness.]

Despite how we met... Despite what I was willing to let you do... You surprised me.

[And when you could「see」all that she could... you treasured surprises.]

Is it strange, that I should have care for a man who treated me well... ?

[ The touch of a person's hand on his back makes him flinch, a reflexive reaction rooted in his discomfort with the topic of discussion. He doesn't know what to think of this woman, or what she wants (surely she must want something from him?), or what to say about any of it. She wants him to talk about himself, but Link struggles to open up even on good days, to trusted friends. These days are not good days, and Kiritsubo is not a trusted friend. ]

Caring and being curious... are different.

[ He murmurs. Not outright rejecting her, but being stuck on the issue of why. ]

...It didn't feel right to push you around. No man should treat a woman roughly, especially not at time like that. And a stranger, too...

[ His voice trails off into hesitation. Slowly, his head starts to turn, as if he may look over his shoulder at her, but then the rest of his body follows. ]

If I'd started to hurt you, I... probably wouldn't have been able to keep going.

[He turns, and Kiritsubo does not shy away. Not from his gaze, or what he might be trying to find in hers, and not from the idea of being seen more fully, having come out of the water slightly to approach him from behind, steam and droplets rolling slow and glistening over heavy, honeyed curves. Over the same tattoos and glint of nipple ring he would recognize despite the different body.]

But you didn't. And you did.

[He did not hurt her. Despite the urges of the room to dominate, despite the superior position she had granted him, almost goading him into taking rather than sharing... He had shared. And he had kept going.]

So where are you now, Link?

[Had he given her his name? She knows it. She asks that, in the same genuinely open way that offered not a single hint of judgement no matter what the answer was. She did not mean "Zenith" or "Meridian", "Highstorm" or "Springstar"...]

I am here, curious and caring about the answer.

[ His eyes are unavoidably drawn towards her body when he finds her much closer than he'd thought when he turned around. Yes — her face and hair and eyes might be different, but those tattoos are impossible to forget. The sparkle of the piercing makes him think about pulling on it, about the way it felt and tasted against his tongue, and he forces himself to look her in the eyes again. ]

...I'm here, in Highstorm. With you. Aligned with the Zenith now...

[ he holds up his empty sake cup. ]

...drinking alcohol. I'm... nowhere. It doesn't matter. I don't know what else to say.

[Kiritsubo does nothing to encourage his eyes to leave her breasts, no snap of her fingers or clearing of the throat. After all, he had taken such good care of them before, had he not? (If she had her way, he might again. Occasionally she did crave a more tender touch- she had moods.) But once he finds her eyes again...]

... That is fine.

[They reflect only him. Strangely, almost nothing of herself is there to see. They see only what is, with no bias or preconceptions. If she wished, though...]

Do you wish to know what I「see」in you, Link?

[She takes a sip from her glass, letting the flavor of the liquor linger on her tongue.]

I'm quite a decent fortune teller.

[ Link swallows, feeling relieved for her to have dropped the issue — at least, as far as he can tell. His situation is so complicated, and his feelings on it even moreso. It's always been difficult to explain himself — because he doesn't fully understand it either. If anyone ever encouraged him to express his feelings, they have long since left that dusty, dark room where all his memories of his old life were once kept. His father, his sister, friends, teachers... Was there once a time when Link was encouraged to talk about himself? To voice his doubts and regrets and fears?

If there was, those people are all dead. Long dead. Whispers in the back of his mind, present but as invisible as a breeze. ]

What you... see?

[ Fortune-teller...? He's never had his fortune told before. Whatever it is that would actually entail... ]

Like... seeing into the future? You can do that?

I am no prophet.

[She says that firmly, first, unwilling to ever let someone believe that she could directly see events in the future in some sort of clear, sure way. Not just because it would be a lie, but because it was a responsibility she did not wish for. If she had ever wished for the sight she did have, she does not and has not ever said, but.]

But I can「see」the karma on your skin, the touch others have left upon you, and the powers that swirl around you.

[It could be frustratingly vague, mysterious, or even befuddling to someone unused to interpreting such signs, but she had centuries of experience. Even those could not prevent something from occasionally only making sense in retrospect, but...

It was something that could bring great comfort.

Or great anxiety.

The choice, therefore, whether to accept or not... it is his.]

[ There wasn't any particular answer he was expecting, but the answer that he does is tantalizingly cryptic.

The karma on his skin... that world, karma. He recently learned what it means. The concept does not exist in Hyrule, but it makes a surprising amount of sense. Or maybe, he just likes the idea. For someone like Link, who knows the kind of tribulations he's been through across multiple lifetimes but feels that he hasn't accomplished anything across all those centuries... the existence of karma is almost comforting.

He looks down at the water, considering. Then he holds the sake cup out to her again. ]

...Is it too much to ask to say yes, and want a refill? [ The question comes with a slight smile. For the first time, he's looking at Kiritsubo without any apprehension.

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

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