Event | Summer Jubilee | June 22nd-28th

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL! With special guest appearance by Asti
Date: June 22nd-28th, 2014
Location: Keeliai, all sectors
Situation: To celebrate the six month hatching days of the baby turtles that coincides with the arrival of summer, the kedan are throwing a city wide party! And Asti gifts everyone with a happy dream to make up for the badness plaguing Keeliai lately.
Warnings/Rating: TBA

While the kedan have a complicated and extensive system of writing, a good portion of their folklore is oral tradition and there's one prominent tale that's being told over and over this week. Small variances in the tale do occur from telling to telling but the core of the story goes like this:

Long ago before there were any people in the world, the First Family was made in the sky. Sun, the Mother and Moon, the Father were happy but desired children of their own. They watched all the creatures in the oceans, on the land and in the air and wished they could also have a family but they could not, for they didn't know how and so they were sad. They drifted apart, with Mother the Sun only coming out for part of the time and Father the Moon sometimes disappearing from the sky. Not wanting to see them so saddened, the creatures in all the lands and seas and air gathered together and searched their respective domains for children to give into the sky. From the four corners of the world they came with four children: one for the Dawn, one for the Midday, one for the Dusk and one for the Night. Mother the Sun and Father the Moon were overjoyed! They thanked the creatures of the world and promised they would never again abandon their places in the sky and became the First Family. And for a time, all was well. But Dawn and Midday and Dusk and Night grew older and, as children are wont to do, started asking when they could leave their home in the sky to begin their own families. Their parents were afraid of feeling so alone again if that happened so each year they said, "next year, next year". Eventually the children grew tired of this answer and so, sneaking into the place of the Stars where everything that was known was kept and they cut the end off of Time. The next time that their mother and father went to deny then, the children cried "You cannot say next year, for next year does not exist anymore!" And the Sun and Moon were afraid that if the children went away, then Time would indeed run out and so they agreed that their children could have families of their own, if they stayed and became the Second Family. The children agreed and even today, it is said that they are still waiting for the end of Time to grow back so they can visit other places without everything ending.

OOC INFO & LINKS
Subheaders are for various parts of the event and the rest of the post (not in sub headers) is for general mingling and tagging! Questions relating to the event go HERE.

Adopt-A-Foreigner | The Ritual | Dream A Little Dream | Asti's Blessings | Barbecue | OOC Post

Comments

[wintershepherd]

Given how the ritual had been described, specifically the part about the object having to represent something that had made a large impact on them, Jack flushed to see that she was holding the locket.

"It is!" Even without his touch, the water was surprisingly cool for the ambient temperature; it felt good against his skin.

"The kedan talked me into this," he added, feeling a bit self conscious about going through with this, even though Zatanna was doing the same.

[backwordscompatible]

If Zatanna noticed the flush--and, let's be honest, she absolutely noticed--she didn't say anything about it. Yet. Her eyes did follow his, however, and when she realized what he was looking at, she smiled softly.

"I have you to thank for this, you know." With one hand, she opened the clasp. The song rang out into the air, and she closed her eyes for a moment and listened to the melody. "My dad's lullaby. It's the only thing I have to remember him by here."

[wintershepherd]

"You remember him by being you," Jack smiled in response. "Otherwise I'd never have been able to get that locket made. But I'm glad that it means so much to you."

[backwordscompatible]

"How could I not?"

She mirrored his expression, before her eyes lowered to the tiny object in his hand.

"I remember those. The...what were they called again?" Her Russian was slightly rusty.

[wintershepherd]

"A matryoshka, a Russian nesting doll," Jack replied, not minding the repeat. "I figured it was this or my staff and this... makes more sense to me."

Then he grinned slyly. "Also because I didn't want to freeze the fountain solid. Remember when I first arrived and did that by accident? You thought it would have been a great prank and I said that my pranks would be better than that."

[backwordscompatible]

"Oh, I remember. That's how we ended up having an impromptu snow-recliner ride through the city."

Their first not!date, back when there was still an emphasis on the not.

[wintershepherd]

"So nice to know I can still make an impression, even when dazed and confused on a magic turtle," Jack laughed. "It almost seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it?"

[backwordscompatible]

"It really does." She was torn between sighing wistfully and echoing the laughter, and settled for a mixture of both. "It's actually hard to think of the fact that there was a time in my life I didn't know you. Does that sound weird?"

[wintershepherd]

"It does, but I choose to take it as the good kind of weird," Jack teased her, glad for the lighter tone.

[backwordscompatible]

The good kind of weird.

She grinned at his particular choice of phrasing.

"That describes us pretty perfectly, wouldn't you say?"

[wintershepherd]

"That it does," he agreed. "So you done for this round of fountain dipping?"

He didn't say it, but the fountain was in the middle of the plaza and the sun was warm.

[backwordscompatible]

He didn't have to say it. She could feel the rays beating down on her back even as they spoke.

"Unless they were thinking of surprising us with a water show at the end." Which...honestly, you never knew for certain. "Had enough fresh air for today?"

[wintershepherd]

"For now," he replied. "We still have to come back later this evening, right? It should be cooler by then anyway."

[backwordscompatible]

"Sounds like fun. Maybe we could make a bonfire on the beach."

[wintershepherd]

"Works for me. Maybe even a little wave surfing. I might even go out past my waist," he added, since swimming had not come up as a topic between the two of them in almost a year.

[backwordscompatible]

It hadn't.

But the mere implication was enough to bring back memories of that last summer. Specifically why. It wasn't often that Zatanna felt embarrassed about her actions...even regretful...but that was definitely one mistake she never had any intentions of making ever again.

"We can take things as slow as you want."

[wintershepherd]

"I know," he was quick to reassure her. "I wasn't thinking that you wouldn't. Yeah, that was kind of a foot in mouth thing to say. Sorry."

[backwordscompatible]

"Don't you start apologizing again. You didn't do anything."

It had been her mistake, not his. She was even willing to own up to it.