taxfest log | open

[sterngaze]

Who: Alenroux residents and visitors!
What: It's Taxfest: an Abadaran holy day celebrating the local community on the day taxes are collected
Where: The settlement in Alenroux
When: Mid April (Pelu)
Warnings: None expected (Warn as appropriate in headers!)

A HOLY DAY FOR TAXES

Every spring, after last year’s profits have been tallied and Alenroux’s snowy winter has melted away, the time comes for the local citizens to bequeath a portion of their earnings back to the growing little town; it’s tax season.

Over the past century, a tradition has grown in the quaint little settlement, influenced by the local church of Abadar: the holy celebration of Taxfest. On this special day, citizens celebrate the town, each other, and the future they hope to build together. It is a day for business, but also for contemplation, as priests cite the public works the citizens’ past contributions have funded and speak on those planned in coming years.

The business of the day is conducted in person. Rather than mailing cheques, residents hand theirs directly to collectors who go door to door all throughout the day, each accompanied by one of the temple priests or acolytes, who observe to ensure the proceedings are respectful and just. Abadar’s clergy thank each citizen for their contributions, offer comfort to the poor, and hear any concerns or suggestions about how the money should be best used.

Throughout the day, tax collectors from the town can be seen accompanied by white-robed acolytes, or priests in yellow-trimmed raiment. Aside from these busy individuals, most of the town’s folk spend their day on leisure, having earned a respite from the last year’s labours.

EVENING AFTERNOON FESTIVITIES

Traditionally, the festivities of Taxfest would begin with sunset. Due to Alenroux’s 48-hour day–night cycles, however, business is typically concluded well before noon, and the day’s celebrations begin when the sun is still high in the sky. Just as the morning had been dedicated to reflection on the year’s efforts, so the rest of the day is spent in celebration. Local tradition dictates that partying hard on Taxfest both honours the work of the past year and brings good luck in the one to come, so locals and visitors alike are encouraged to let their hair down and enjoy themselves thoroughly.

Throughout the town, entertainment and refreshments are on offer, organized by the Abadar’s temple and provided by local businesses. Offerings vary by neighbourhood, and over the years different parts of town have become a little competitive over who can throw the best festival celebration. Priests officially begin the festivities with a brief dedication to Abadar, to Alenroux’s town and to its people, and the rest of the day is devoted solely to merriment.

On the town’s eastern side, a spacious park hosts a cheerful, whirling mass of dancers in groups or in pairs, dancing to the tunes of talented musicians from around town. Food and drink stalls line the perimeter, luring people from their revels with sweet and savoury scents.

One of the stalls, selling little sweet buns with coins stamped on them, swears it’s good luck to find someone bearing a coloured token matching one you find inside your own bun. (Not all the buns have tokens, of course, so better buy a few!) Those with matching tokens will feel more trust and closeness with their matched person for the rest of the festival.

A broad plaza on the town’s west side sports a slightly more carnival air, with entertainers and game stalls taking up much of the available space, some offering rather strange prizes. One of the games, involving a spinning wheel covered with paper balloons, advertises a free drink at the associated tavern for anyone who can hit five balloons without hitting any “bad” ones. Bad balloons will burst in a puff of coloured smoke, causing a minor magic effect lasting for the next hour:

• Higher or lower voice
• Slight intoxication
• Ability to blow smoke or bubbles
• Small objects you hold float away (for a while) if released
• Small objects you touch stick to you as though magnetic
• Other harmless, temporary effects (Pick your own!)

In front of Abadar’s church, the clergy themselves host a cheerful (if quite obviously religious) celebration with tables of food and a hearty ration of wine for everyone in attendance. This year, it seems the clergy member to bless the wine was over-zealous, as partaking may instill feelings of contemplation even in those disinclined to melancholy. Hymns to Abadar are sung, and everyone who attends is given a token for an extra wine ration, which can be traded in by those who attend a church service within the next month.

Comments

[sterngaze]

[D is really out here joining the list of people trying to send Liem to an early grave, not by injury, but by stress-induced heart attack. This would be a real achievement given that Liem’s normal pulse rests somewhere at a cool several beats per minute, but it gets distinctly livelier as D’s mouth slides up the trail of blood descending towards his chest. He doubts any amount of repression can prevent the other dhampir from noticing.

As D licks up his throat, Liem swallows, his hands clutching tight at his sides as if to prevent them from clutching at D instead. The handkerchief is now ruthlessly scrunched in his fist.]

I’m not in the habit of letting men put their mouth all over me in the street, [he says with breathless, suppressed irritation as D continues to loom over him. Liem lifts his hand again to grab D’s wrist, as if to move his hand away from his collar. (As if he were capable of doing this.) But he only holds it fast as his pale blue eyes stare into D’s carnelian ones.

At least this situation is so inescapably, frustratingly intimate that the contact must surely be reducing their discord.]

For my own sanity, if nothing else.

[damnpire]

[Sometimes, you just gotta fluster a very reserved man in a back alley. It is a little forward, and he'll undoubtedly feel pretty guilty about it later once the heightened vampiric senses have worn off.

But for now, his hand remains almost defiantly where it is, neither pushing forward or trying to pull away. The fingers hooked into the robe do loosen, however. He holds Liem's gaze without embarrassment or falter.]

You might invite me somewhere else next time.

[Next time as if there will be other times where he's drinking Liem's blood, or harassing him in an alley with weird vampire eros. Worse, the implication Liem can make it a private affair, too. Later, D will say this won't happen again. Unfortunately, he has been forced to do a lot of things here in Kenos against his will, or his common sense.

Maybe the next go around, Liem will be sipping his blood instead.]

[sterngaze]

[D really does just come out and say it. For Liem, who was trying to pretend that there was no chance of anything like this happening again, the observation (or… suggestion?) makes his pulse beat hard in his throat as D stares back at him. He cannot stop himself from imagining, at least briefly, what “invite me somewhere else” would entail.

Despite the allure coiling in his belly, urging him to say that there’s no need to wait for a “next time,” Liem is the one to look away first.]

If there is such a time, I’ll be sure to correct my mistake.

[Liem is taking refuge in the vague wording here to pretend that he might mean something other than inviting D somewhere private for sex, even though he’s under no illusions privately that this would be the case. He seems not just flustered, but actually a little embarrassed now. This back-alley interlude isn’t the kind of thing he’d previously imagined indulging in with D of all people.]

I’m sorry for expecting you to do this here.

[Releasing D’s wrist, he tugs his collar further closed again, willfully ignoring the ache between his thighs even though it hasn’t remotely subsided.]

That was unworthy of you.

[damnpire]

[Liem can rest easy because the invitation doesn't necessarily mean sex. With the way they had been going at it now, there's a high likely hood sex could happen, but ignoring that, perhaps their bloody adventure could be more private. They are both dingdongs.

For Liem's sake.

Once his arm is released, he brings it to himself and lowers it to his side, offering Liem composure space.] Don't apologize. [The last thing he needs as a monster (yes, Liem, he also has self-hatred UNFORTUNATELY) is to be given an unnecessary sorry.]

I should have suggested somewhere else. [...] Thank you for your help. I'm in your debt.

[Microdosing is still dosing.]