kenoslogs | taxfest log

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taxfest log | open

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.

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[For all that he was frustrating her, denying her the seemingly very simple task of paying money, Hayame was not out to disrespect Brother Markus- however he might interpret this afterwards or how confused he was now. When he tries to explain, she bites her tongue, and when he leaves, she provides a slight nod of a bow.

But her tail flicks again once he is gone, pleased that she is now dealing with someone who she is sure will be far more reasonable.]

I am indeed dissatisfied.

[She confirms it simply, as if the reason should be obvious when she has not made it clear at all in words. Nodding firmly, as if content that would solve the issue, she goes back to what she had been trying to do before, pulling the largest denomination coins she can find out of the pouch to start stacking them in her palm.]

You pay taxes with coin here and not rice or beans, yes? I have coins. How many of them are required?

[Even had Hayame not said anything, the way she begins preemptively removing coin from her purse makes it clear that she intends to pay something today, regardless of what is expected. Liem thinks he understands where the disconnect stems from; the town, of course, would not regard a newly-woken shard-bearer as someone from whom to exact taxes, and Hayame clearly doesn’t appreciate being “overlooked.”]

It depends upon your income for the previous year. The reason Brother Markus was saying you aren’t expected to pay is because you had no income over that period, being rather asleep.

[If Liem had to guess, he’d say the local government probably didn’t even maintain a file for Hayame and Claude, given that they’d been asleep for over a century. Probably the current administration hadn’t expected them to wake up any time soon, and had been caught off-guard when the shard-bearers all woke up when tax season was already in full swing.]

Did a tax collector not pass by your home today? They would have been the one to speak with, ideally.

[Her income. By instinct, she first thinks "what income?", but that instinct is... it is over a hundred years old now. Apparently. For her, it is... it is still fair past a year. So much has happened in that time. She went from living in a stable, as she always had, to living in a home, something which she would never have imagined possible. She went from being alone, to having "friends"... then maybe not, then maybe some. To having a lover, the almost even more unbelievable thing. From being shunned and by many of her fellows to being celebrated by the citizenry for things she had not even known they would see.

She forgets sometimes. Where she is. Sometimes, even what or who she is. But now, as she struggles to find her footing in this new face on the world they had known, clinging to what she could...]

Unfortunately, I was out earlier, or I would have seen to it then. ... I assume Claude simply saw little issue with being exempt.

[And why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't anyone? It's not like she is a fool, she does not think any peasant enjoys paying taxes to their liege lord. Still... there is a sullenness, an anxiousness in her that most people who did not know her well would not be able to detect. Liem has seen it before, though. He might know it. He might understand why it takes her a long moment to continue.]

... But I want to pay. All the-

[She almost says "humans". It might even be obvious she almost says "humans", the first syllable nearly escapes her. Yet, no, that's not right, it's not "human", it's--]

... All the people who live here pay them. So I do not see why we cannot just calculate what I should pay based on what I made the last year before all this madness.

[Was it so silly? To wish that badly to do something so mundane just because she had always been the thing paid tax and tariff on, not the one paying? Maybe it was. But at least taxes made sense, unlike floating cities, mad scientists, and strangers in power.]

[In fairness, Liem can absolutely relate to Hayame here, even if his reasons are completely different. Having lived in Springstar rather than Alenroux, Liem had already filed his taxes by the time the Advocate Oracle beckoned, but if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t simply be ok with handwaving the issue entirely. Maybe peasants don’t enjoy paying taxes to their lord, but Liem definitely does get a sense of fulfilment from paying taxes in his position as a decently well-off member of the clergy. Also, it’s a religious obligation for him, so he could never be fine with skipping it.]

If you didn’t pay any taxes for that year, you should absolutely be able to pay them now.

[It’s not exactly what she asked, but if Hayame wants to pay taxes like a normal free citizen, this is certainly one way to do so.]

Likely not today, though. Those records would have to be retrieved from an archive, I expect—probably in Heliopolis, since that’s where your income was coming from. The tax rate from that year was lower, as well, compared to the present.

[If she actually owned her house, she could at least pay property taxes, but since she’s just a tenant, Liem is footing that bill already. Digging up income tax information from over a century ago will necessarily be a little more complicated.]

I’m happy to help you sort it out, but it will likely take longer than a single afternoon.

[It starts out like she wants to hear. She can still pay, they can base it on the last year she was awake… as absurd as that is to think of, as a concept or as a sentence. But of course… bureaucracy conspires to get in her way the second she starts to feel relieved.

Going to that floating chunk of city in the sky. Finding a tax administrator. Looking up previous records. Calculating conversion rates. Eventually putting the coin in the hands of someone else… As grateful as she is that he offers to help her with the process, Hayame surely cannot be faulted for sounding frustrated when she snaps,]

Will you just-

[She cuts herself off at first, aware that her frustration is not with Liem but with their entire situation, with how the simple thing she had hoped to find a strange pleasure or control in was turning out to be so difficult. He is worth reigning in her temper for, even though some (many) are not, and so she inhales sharply through her nose…

And lets it out, trying, despite how (near comically) furrowed her brow is and how stiff her frown.]

Just hold out your hand.

[A beat later,]

Please.

[Liem’s entire existence is so entrenched in the depths of bureaucracy that he almost doesn’t notice it anymore, unless the workings involved are particularly inefficient or obstructive. He has trouble imagining a world where Hayame might be able to do as she so plainly wishes, and simply hand over an amount on the spot.

He presses his lips together, staring up into Hayame’s scowling face. There is no reason for her to be handing him coinage right now. He might have born the title of Taxmaster in his own county, but he is not a tax collector, and he has no present authority to submit Hayame’s taxes on her behalf. It’s not like he could do anything with money if she gave some to him now.

But he observes her frown and offers her his hand, palm up.]

[Hayame's entire existence, on the other hand... had never known the intricacies of bureaucracy. Not directly. She had heard her stable master's customers haggle in front of her, as if she was deaf and dumb as an actual horse, and she had heard the occasional talk from the fringes of Exhibition Day banquets or a grooms' gathering of the domain lord raising taxes, trouble with the guardhouse inspectors needing bribes, that sort of thing...

But bureaucracy was something jinba were not concerned with. And not... because they didn't "have" to be. It's not like she had always dreamed of paying taxes, but when confronted with the festivities, denied the simple-seeming act that all of her neighbors (strangers, now) were taking part in, she just...

Her brow is still furrowed, but her frown eases in the corner when Liem relents. Everyone else was giving their taxes to the priests from the church he had helped build... and he was a priest of Abadar... it makes perfect sense to her that he should count just as well as any of the others receiving coin today. And he is receiving them now, one by one, as she piles the largest denomination she has in her purse onto his palm with a murmur of,]

Just tell me when it is enough.

[... Approximate guess is fine.]

And then give me your other hand.

[Even though Hayame definitely is still operating under some false assumptions, probably due to not being at home when the actual tax collector passed by, Liem offers no objections when she moves to start counting money out into his palm. By his reckoning, she’s frustrated enough that what she really wants now is to just be allowed to do what she set out to in the first place—not to hear explanations about how she can’t pay her taxes to a priest regardless. If he’s going to take the time to help her pay her taxes properly, he’ll need to wait until later anyway, so he may as well just hold onto her money for the time being, if that makes her happy.

Eventually, he holds up his free hand to forestall her placing any further coins in his possession.]

This is likely around the correct amount.

[Though he’s not going to claim that it’s exactly right, the amount in his hand now is close to what he ended up paying in taxes, not including his property taxes for the year. If anything, he thinks it might actually be a little too much—but since he’s not intending to actually keep her money, he’s not too worried about getting the amount wrong. He’s basically just treating it as a deposit for the time being.

But what does she need his other hand for? Even as he holds it out for her, he seems a little puzzled.]

[One coin after the other goes into Liem's pale palm, silent but for the clink of metal on metal, until he signals that she can stop. Only then does she nod, pulling back her fingers to focus momentarily on retying the purse strings, putting it back on the pouch-heavy belt that she wore around her "waist".

That leaves Liem, holding out his other hand.

Hayame's teeth bite into her lip as her lips turn downwards, but this time... The frown on her face looks very different, when accompanied by a blush growing somewhat obviously on her cheeks. Her own hand moves to brush back her mane-- apparently, over the years of her repose, the hair she had shorn off in the Harbinger Oracle had grown back out. Liem's had, too- he looked like a... well, he had a beard again. So had Claude, when they woke back up. And now-

Now she has to do what she actually intended to when she made that demand.

Her canines dig in sharper to her lip, but then release. Her eyes dart around, as if to make sure if anyone else is in their immediate vicinity, or looking in their direction. ... They are not totally alone. Once, that would have stopped her in her tracks. But this place was not like her own world, the people did not believe what she had been brought up to believe, and she...

Hayame doesn't give a verbal reason for why she suddenly steps closer and takes his hand delicately in hers. Though she accidentally looms over Liem for a moment, she then bows her upper half downward and raises his hand to meet somewhere in the middle, dark lashes of her one visible eye brushing ruddy cheek as she turns his wrist gently, allowing her to press a gallant seeming kiss to the back of his knuckles.]

[Despite having participated in many, many years’ worth of Taxfests before, Liem has no idea what to expect when Hayame moves forward to reach for his other hand. Familiar holiday or no, Kenos is still an entire world away from the place and the traditions he knew. He doesn’t expect its quirks to follow him here—not to this little town in an alien world, and with Hayame of all people.

But when she turns his hand, lifting it as she stoops down towards his knuckles, Liem suddenly feels his own face begin to heat. The flush on Hayame’s cheeks takes on clear relevance as her warm lips press against his skin.]

Oh—

[Surprised, Liem stands there with his other hand tucked against his chest, still clutching the currency Hayame gave him. The kiss is of the sort he might expect to receive from a vassal, or maybe a suitor—but she is neither, for all that she makes the gesture look beguilingly elegant.

It seems like she has acquired her own ideas about what participating in Taxfest means. After a speechless moment, unsure how to proceed, he twitches his expression into a faint smile.]

Had I not arrived, would you have given that to Brother Markus, too?

[Hayame had never kissed even a hand, just a year ago. She had never received one. Now... now she knows how. Unfortunately? for Liem, her only experience in this field is... being patiently courted. Courting, herself, attempting to convey her feelings when words failed her, as they often did. Whether intentional or not, it brings a certain tenderness and consideration to the action, a lingering moment in which she is simply close, waiting for his reaction...

Surely he is not blushing. That must be a trick of her own gaze, heated with a bit of embarrassment. So she... there is no need to jerk back as if burned, or to be ashamed. (Right?) The question makes her cheeks ruddier, though, her gaze drifting to the side as she answers, breath warm over his knuckles,]

... If he had taken my taxes as I asked, I suppose I would have been obligated. It is auspicious tradition, on this day, is it not?

[She should... She does release him, then, with a last little lift upwards of his hand in hers as if bringing a ceremony to a close. She does not step back, though, her hand freed now to needlessly tuck her hair back again.]

... But this was a far preferable outcome.

[Others she had seen doing it...]

- It is still valid on the hand, yes? If the placement is important...

[She could manage the cheek, she is mostly sure.]

[Despite the faint blush that may still be lingering on his cheeks, Liem retains enough dignity to reclaim his hand without any particular hurry, once Hayame releases it. Leaning on the distraction of the funds she’s given (lent) him, he finds an empty pocket in his robe to deposit the coins into, making sure there isn’t anything else inside that might confuse the amount later. Fortunately, Liem doesn’t have a habit of carrying loose change around in his pockets, so this is simple enough.]

It certainly was regarded that way in my own country. I suppose Alenroux must have a similar tradition, though I didn’t volunteer any such details when I was instructing my acolytes about Taxfest prior to the Repose.

[Now that he’s seen evidence that the tradition exists here as well, the coincidence does seem a little strange. Perhaps not any stranger than multiple alternate versions of the same people and places existing throughout reality, though. This really could just be a quirky coincidence.

He will choose to regard it as a compliment that Hayame views kissing him to be preferable to kissing Brother Markus.]

I would think, unless the tradition is quite different here, that the hand should be just fine.

[Only psychopaths would carry around loose change.

But now that her hand has released his, it feels... empty, in a way she had not expected. Though she doesn't mean to, her one uncovered eye darts down to her fingers, the palm that does not have another's pressed against it. Perhaps it was a symptom of how she had been... "arranged" throughout the Repose, waking to find herself in bed with Claude where she remembered falling asleep but... In different clothes. With different hair. With her hand clasping his- supposedly something someone had done "for them" as they slumbered, but now...

After over a hundred godsdamned years, somehow... it felt strange now. Not holding someone's hand.

... Surely that strange impression will fade. She uses her fingers to fuss at her coin pouch a moment instead, as if she had tied it back incorrectly the last time. It keeps them busy.]

... Well, I suppose you are not the only one who is experiencing some... traditions, now.

[Now that the ceremony of paying taxes (sort of) and kissing a priest of Abadar (sort of) were complete, she allows herself to descend back into a mutter of complaint, tail flicking out as she jerks a thumb towards her home near the Church. Where once it was slightly visible... the place is somewhat shrouded from view now, because the fruit trees she had planted had grown strong in their "absence".]

I managed to clear out most of it, but I keep finding strange little... braid things, tied all over the house.

Ah…

[Choosing to politely overlook Hayame’s fussing, Liem instead considers the bizarre experience that had been his awakening at the end of the Repose, only scant weeks ago. At the time, he had been too overwhelmed to really dwell on it; there had been too much to become accustomed too, and too much to do. Now, though, he has to admit that Hayame is not the only one to find things strange since waking up.]

Yes, I would expect that must be a bit off-putting, to say the least.

[He doesn’t wish to imagine waking up to find that people had enjoyed the run of his home for the past century while he’d been in deep slumber. It’s bad enough that he woke up in a glass coffin and found out that his house was now floating way up in the sky.]

My caretakers may have chosen to let my beard grow in, but at least I haven’t found any unfamiliar knickknacks hiding in my personal residence. They were all confined to… [—he grimaces briefly—] the altar.

[Hayame... is the same, in some ways, even though she does not easily have the vocabulary to articulate it, most of her attempts ending in frustration, in dark silences, or in disappearing into the woods in the hopes that amongst the trees she could pretend that time had not passed, that those she had known were not dead, and that the world she had come ton know as a home had not changed.

... She could not, but.]

... It is strange.

[She will admit that. Even if she had not... seen it, sleeping away, she was now very well aware that strangers, strange people, had been in and out of her home, something she had kept so very private and guarded before the Repose, still somewhat awkward even with her few friends about how best to entertain them, interact, or invite them over. Liem's words bring her halved gaze back to his face, to the hair on it... that she does not find as off-putting as she did the first time she saw it.]

... Claude woke up similarly. Apparently one of the centaurs who watched over us considered it more fitting for a man to have an entire bush on his face.

[And Hrid, unlike a jinba, came from a land of magic... He was still alive, if not fatter and greyer. She would have words with him after having to wake up to a man who looked almost like a stranger at first blink, her lover's thin beard confined to the edges of his jaw having taken over his entire lower face. But for now... She has an opportunity. She will not be a coward about it. It does take her a moment to straighten back up, but when she does... it is to gesture again, open-palmed this time, towards the grove-shrouded house's direction.]

If you are not busy... perhaps we could take a brief respite?

[... There was much that could be discussed. Whether it was beards, things she had left in the care of his church's priests, or things she had been asked to do in Alenroux that she did not wish to do without him.]

[The fact that Hayame refers to her own lover’s beard as a “bush” does not give Liem any confidence that her opinions on facial hair have changed since the last time he went bearded around her, many months (and years) ago. Still, perhaps being more accustomed to the view has at least made her more willing to tolerate it without voicing her displeasure openly. Even if Liem might not share the same dislike of facial hair that she obviously feels, he wishes he could shave his off without feeling beholden to the attitudes of an entire community that seems accustomed to the sight of him with it.

Perhaps not all that coincidentally, the man to have begun that trend among his clergy is still alive and well also, though also fatter and greyer than Liem recalled him being. He hadn’t anticipated this might be a danger when he’d accepted a dwarf as one of his acolytes.]

I was just considering doing so, actually.

[After the hours he’d spent accompanying tax collectors and preparing for the afternoon’s festival, Liem could certainly use a break. The chance to do it somewhere private and away from wandering townsfolk is even more appealing.]

It would be nice to get out of the sun for a while.

[… Look, it’s not her fault Liem looked far better clean-shaven. Or that, having grown used to Claude’s facial hair as it was, growing tolerant of that much, it was a shock to wake up beside a man with a great bushy beard. Thankfully her lover had shaved down already, so if her friend required a razor…

Well. More importantly,]

… Then please, allow me to host.

[She should have done it more… before all this mess. She should have done a lot of things. Turning her head towards the grove she sets a leisurely pace for them, along a familiar path with now unfamiliar surroundings.]

It is far shadier now. Perhaps more to your liking?

[She gestures next to the trees as they approach and then step into the protection of leaves and branch, passing a rather large and wyvern-shaped clearing on the way. Naira was out with Claude astride towards Skysong for the day, but the mount had taken that spot of her own Repose for her continued sleeping purposes. There are a few scales glistening in the half-dead grass.]

I had planted a few fruit trees just for… for sustenance, but in our absence they have grown stronger than I ever thought to see.

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