monthly mingle: THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: the festival of light
when: The month of January.
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

festival of light

In the days leading up to January 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: The Festival of Light. This holiday is in celebration of the end of the Quarantine's short-lived winter and serves to welcome the new year. The traditions associated with The Festival of Light involve fireworks every weekend of the month, a days-long formal ball that with an open invitation to everyone in the city, and lighting magical candles and incense with loved ones and new friends alike.

a celebration of the end of winter and the new year

As the Capitol World stops blocking the path between the sun and its moon, the snow melts and the rains of early spring begin to fall and the residents of the Quarantine gather together to celebrate the new year. New beginnings are honored as the sky is lit with fireworks to banish the cold and dark of winter, and residents share the light and warmth of the new year with each other by sharing candles and incense with fellow residents. These traditions are steeped in magic, like many other things in Riverview, and have certain magical emotional effects on participants. Additionally, over the weekend of January 5th - 8th, the Government will be hosting a formal ball to welcome the New Year, which is open to all residents and offers food, drink, dancing, and other activities, as well as places to stay the night and relax or 'relax' with friends.

i. fireworks

One of the main traditions of the Festival of Light is to brighten the sky to welcome the new year, and as always, the Government of Riverview and various other city entities including businesses and various organizations and clubs, have gone all out to light up the sky. Each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the month of January, residents can gather outside on the beaches or park, or indoors at various observation lounges set up on city rooftops for the occasion, to watch elaborate, beautiful fireworks displays.

Outdoor observation is facilitated by use of rented forced-air umbrellas that make viewing the fireworks without having to squint into the rain or peer out from under a traditional umbrellas easy. Curl up with a friend or lover under an umbrella to watch the fireworks displays. Temporary indoor observation lounges have also been set up on most of the rooftops of buildings in the city, if the outdoors isn't your thing. The lounges can range from simple transparent-roofed spaces with rustic benches and hot cocoa to elaborate, fancy bars or restaurants with food service, music, and dancing. Some of the lounges may even have themes, whether they're 18+ adult or just quirky. Let your imagination run wild - if you can think of it, someone in the city's probably set one up.

ii. lighting up

Throughout the city, residents will find booths and special sections in their favorite stores set up with stands displaying magical incense and candles in a wide variety of colors. These are traditional trappings of the Festival of Light, the original and ancient tradition that's built up into the modern celebration as residents know it. Most prolific are the candles - ranging from tiny tea lights to large pillar candles, they are inscribed with the word 'glow' in a variety of different alien languages, including some that residents might recognize. The incense comes in small variety of dusky, earthen colors, each with a different scent and effect, all clearly labeled.

Candles are meant to be lit with one or more other people, and when this tradition is observed properly with a candle inscribed 'glow' - the wick lit by two or more people at the same time, and held together between them for a minimum of 30 seconds - every participant will feel and see certain magical effects. As the candle is held between the participants, they will start to see each other's skin glow, seemingly lit from inside, and as the glow increases, all participants will start to feel an emotional lightness. Stress and despair will slowly dissipate, giving the participants a temporary feeling of absolute contentment, warm and happy. The effects last from 5 minutes to a full 24 hours, depending on the number of people who participate and the length of time the candle is held between participants (more participants or longer timespans will increase the length of the effect), and effects are cumulative - lighting a large number of candles with different people will cause the effect to draw out for longer.

Incense is something usually lit in private, at home or a small gathering at a friend's house, and in recent years as the celebration has become a bit more modernized and commercialized, at the Glow Ball. There are a few varieties of incense with different psychological effects, all of which are pleasant and take strongest effect when the incense is lit with one or more other people, and enjoyed long enough for the whole stick to burn down. Orange and yellow incense will increase feelings of affection and openness, sienna red incense will do the same but also induce arousal; blue-grey incense will make it easier to share and ease grief and sadness, while grey-purple will lull participants into an easy sleep with pleasant dreams.

iii. glow ball

Every year during the Festival of Light, the Government of Riverview hosts a formal ball called the Glow Ball on the first weekend of the month - this year, it spans from nightfall on Friday January 5th until dawn on Monday January 8th. The ball is a relatively new custom, but has quickly skyrocketed to one of the most anticipated events of many residents' year. Similar to the castle-themed maze during Hygge, the Glow Ball is hosted inside a beautiful golden palace erected in the City Center that is much larger on the inside than it appears to be on the outside. While there is no specific theme to the ball, many residents take it as an opportunity to really glow in a wide variety of ways, all up to each person's imagination.

The palace is magically-augmented to be lavish, comfortable, and fully-stocked at all times, and features a banquet hall with ample and frequently-replenished food, a bar and lounge area for attendees to get a drink and sit for a while, a beautiful grand ballroom as well as several smaller ballrooms with different styles of music, a swimming pool with hot tubs, a garden, and smaller private vestibules that feature a pillow lounge, incense selection, and a small bedroom where residents can rest or enjoy each others' company in private.

NOTE: New characters are welcome to join in with the party, even if they haven't had time to prepare. Any new arrivals who come to the party in the clothing they arrived in will be whisked up by a fussy light golem or attendant who will fit them with a nice set of clothing for the evening so they can enjoy the festivities.

dinner and dancing

The banquet hall is ringed with tables that offer a buffet food catered to the time of day - breakfast in the morning, light food in the afternoon, lavish dinners in the evening, and desserts, coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, and snacks available all night. With ample seating at group tables, residents can share a meal with friends new and old. The bar and lounge has several large free bars staffed by glowing, ethereal light golems that never tire and never get an order wrong, and offers seating at tables and in cozy dimly-lit booths. Riverview's drinking age is 14 years old.

The grand ballroom is themed golden this year, with the walls tiled in gold and featuring a dance floor of white marble veined with gold. The grand ballroom has classical, traditional dance music playing for those who want a classy formal dance. There are four wing ballrooms that feature different genres of music for residents who enjoy alternate types of dancing, with the genres consistently rotating - whether you like punk, country, rock, pop, or any other type of music from any planet or country, it's likely to be playing in a wing ballroom at some point. Schedules are posted outside of each door and there are four genres per wing ballroom per day.

swimming and gardens

Another feature of the Glow Ball is the beautiful swimming pool - warm enough to be comfortable but cool enough to be refreshing, the outdoor pool has both flower petals and the season's glow candles floating on it, a champagne service offered by light golems, and tables to sit and enjoy a drink and conversation while drying off. There are also small hot tubs ringing the swimming pool where residents can soak away the aches and pains of the day. The pool offers change rooms where speaking a magical incantation (helpfully posted on the door) will change the occupant's formal clothing into an equivalent swimsuit, and will change it back (and dry the occupant) after the dip has been taken.

The gardens are also available for any attendees who want to get a bit of fresh air. With beautiful flower-lined winding paths under a perpetually starry sky and ample candles hanging from the trees and edging the paths for visibility, the gardens are a scenic and relaxing place to take some time away from the light and get some air.

privacy

For residents who want a little private time or want to spend more than just an evening at the ball, there are small private vestibules scattered throughout the palace. Featuring a lounge area with pillows and lap tables for eating, and a comfortable queen-size bed, each room also has a vanity whose drawers hold both suitable pajamas for sleeping in and (in 18+ rooms only) supplies for intimacy ranging from massage oils to packaged toys. And most importantly, each room is fully stocked with a selection of the season's incenses for use in private.

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during the Festival of Light, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: Jakub Grygier; image ii: Shutterstock; image iii & iv: credit unknown

navigation

Comments

[valr]

[Oh, Kara knows that look, and though she doesn't really soften, there's something almost apologetic in her expression.]

It's opulent.

[And really, Kara doesn't have a whole lot of experience with this kind of thing either. She's been to fancy parties but she's always there for business, not pleasure, and feasts on Asgard are a different beast altogehter.]

Start small. [She leans forward, picking up a plate and carefully selecting a couple of little appetizers; prosciutto wrapped figs, tomato and goats cheese on crispbread, a tiny mushroom tart. Then she offers it to Chyler.] Might as well eat, if you showed up.

[childofaxios]

Thank you. [ She's still not used to adults who are gentle, any value of gentle. Her parents, maybe, but they had the limited softness of Marines who loved their children and wanted to keep them alive. This place... She hates it, and she hates how much she wishes she didn't, in small moments.

Chyler takes the plate, then just... keeps holding it. Because heyo what is eating in front of someone without permission. ]

[valr]

Eat, soldier. It's alright.

[It's not hard to guess where the hesitation might come from, in someone who's so young and so obviously military. Kara can slip into that role if she needs to.]

[childofaxios]

[ It feels stupid, the wave of emotion that hits Chyler at those words. A stranger telling her to eat.

(It's not the order, it's not the order at all. It's hearing Soldier. It's alright.)

She looks down at the plate, trying to get herself under control enough to actually follow through on the permission she's been granted. That would be just what she needs, to choke herself because her throat has decided to close up.

Instead of eating, she says: ] You're in the service?

[valr]

In a way.

[Kara hasn't been part of any organised military since the eighteenth century; she's just a ghost, a hand pulling someone out of the mud, a bullet taking down an enemy, but she doesn't belong to anyone.]

I was a shield maiden.

[It's a very old phrase, she isn't sure if it'll be familiar to this woman, who looks human but could easily be from somewhere else.]

[childofaxios]

[ That gets Chyler to look up, almost eye-to-eye with Kara. It's something to put her focus on other than her feelings. It's something to learn, something that sounds almost familiar but not quite. Something heard once and mostly forgotten. ]

What does that mean?

[ Chyler's never been shy about asking questions. ]

[valr]

[Back home, Kara rarely talks about what she is, who she is, but there's no need for hiding here.]

You know Earth?

[It's easier to have a reference point, to see how deep she needs to go into an explanation.]

[childofaxios]

Yes. I've never been there.

[ She knows the basics that come with being taught in military schools about the importance of Earth as the center of the galaxy, as it were. The history of the Unified Earth Government. Mythologies... not so much a priority. ]

[valr]

[That would be ridiculous, to Kara, if she hadn't spent several weeks here already. There are bigger things than her world.]

I was born around the tenth century, anno domini, my people were the Norse, called Vikings. I fought with sword and shield and ax.

[childofaxios]

[ Very, very, very rarely, Chyler’s mouth moves one step faster than her filter. It’s the trial of being a teenager, one she’s really only ever faced with fellow cadets. Around adults, well, it’s “yes” or “no” or “no excuse” and very little else.

Here, though, talking to Kara, she has one of those rare rare moments. ]

You never wore that on a battlefield. [ Cue: look of absolute horror. ] I didn’t—no disrespect meant.

[valr]

[The comment is so sudden and so unexpected that Kara barks out a laugh, more startled by that than by what Chyler says. She doesn't laugh very often.]

Got no need for armor, these days.

[childofaxios]

[ Oh thank god, she laughed. Chyler lets out the breath she was holding. ]

Because of this place? You could join the Perimeter Guard.

[ She can’t conceive of a world without battle. It’s part of what makes this whole moon feel like a lie, its people like liars. ]

Have you been here a long time?

[valr]

[Kara shakes her head.]

Only a month. [This a little harder to just casually talk about than where she was born, but:] I'm not human, haven't been for a long time. Gods are real, on my Earth, I serve mine.

[childofaxios]

[ Chyler's lips part, incredulity there but unspoken.

She's inside a gold palace that somehow is bigger on the inside, on a moon in a universe she didn't know could exist. She met a man who could turn into animals, animals she's also never seen before.

She's seen monsters in her own world.

The possibilities, the things that could be real keep spreading out around her endlessly, like the invasion at Corbulo was the first stone thrown in a still pond.

She sounds a little bit like she's trying to convince herself, when she speaks. ]

You're shield maiden to the gods.

[valr]

[Eh, close enough, especially when this is clearly a lot to take in, so Kara nods.]

I'm a valkyrie.

[There are books here, and the internet, this way Chyler can take her own time with the information and find out more if she wants.]

Been a soldier my whole life, almost a thousand years.

[Warrior was the more accurate term when she was younger, and she's been a knight more than once, but solider fits, these days.]

[childofaxios]

[ Valkyrie. Chyler almost repeats it under her breath, but she doesn't want Kara to hear her doing it. She knows that word. She's heard it. She's definitely going to look it up once she's back in the safety of her room.

A thousand years of life--the prospect is dizzying. She doesn't see good odds for living past fifty, if she's on the front lines. (For a moment, just a moment, she manages to forget she's already dead.) ]

But not here?

[valr]

The war here is over.

[It was an awful thing when it happened, she can feel that in her bones, the death that swept through this world and those nearby. But it's gone now, and that leaves Kara without much.]

Security work is what they got me doing. It ain't awful.

[childofaxios]

[ Chyler purses her lips and doesn't say anything for several long moments. It's a face that says "you're wrong" even though Chyler doesn't mean it to. She doesn't think she's obvious. There are times when she's genuinely hard to read, mostly when she's keeping her temper in check. When you have that much anger, control is a necessity.

Besides, it means you can keep the rage to use when it counts.

If this were a conversation with an officer, she would simply say, Yes, sir. She isn't sure she has that option here. So she improvises. ]

I suppose.

[valr]

[Kara is quite sure what to make of that, and it's obvious in the little tilt of her head.]

Don't think so?

[She's curious, rather than challenging.]

[childofaxios]

[ She considers her reply, sorting her possible responses, narrowing down, honing, refining in the space of a few quiet seconds. ]

I think wars don't end. They change.

[valr]

[That's very astute of her.]

Depends on the war. [If there's no one left to fight, that's one way to truly end it.] Maybe it's changed, maybe it'll restart, but I can't feel it now. Can't feel it on the horizon, either.

[And she would, if it was coming.]

[childofaxios]

[ Chyler wonders what it's like not to feel war. She feels it all around her, all the time. It was all around her on Mamore. It was all around her in a different shape at Corbulo. Here--maybe that's the vacancy. Maybe that's the thing that drives her half-crazy at night when the silence seems so loud it might as well be screaming.

A colony without war. ]

Better to be prepared. [ But there's a fractional tell, just a moment of emptiness in her eyes. She doesn't know who she is without war. ]

[valr]

[Chyler is too young too look like that, but Kara knows war doesn't care about how old someone is. She was younger than Chyler when she first picked up a sword, barely out of her teens when she died, and things haven't changed. It's a luxury, when war only touches adults.]

They give you work here?

[childofaxios]

Perimeter Guard. I have to complete their basic training. [ Their basic training. With an implied and scornful but it's only two weeks. ]

forgot to hit send..........

[valr]

[Kara isn't quite sure what exactly that scorn is, whether it's for what the training entails or the fact that Chyler is likely far ahead of whatever the perimeter guard requires, but it doesn't matter all that much.]

You find yourself with free time, I've been thinking about exploring, could use a second set of eyes.

[It's the sort of thing she'd usually do alone, but she doesn't think she'd mind Chyler's company.]