ironwood: (LANTERNS / glowing)
ɪʀᴏɴᴡᴏᴏᴅ ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ ᴇsʜᴀɪ ([personal profile] ironwood) wrote in [community profile] tushanshu_logs2015-02-21 01:16 am

[EVENT] Bonfire Night

Characters: ALL!
Date: February 21st
Location: Various.
Situation: It’s cold. Time to cuddle up and make bonfires for the warmth.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

As night falls the city’s lights take something of a unique turn. Instead of being lit by millions of paper lanterns, Keeliai is tonight lit by the flames and warmth of dozens if not hundreds of fires. Some of them are small, not much more than warming hearths in a barrel on a street, but others encompass squares and boulevards.

The fire lighting procession winds through the city’s streets, beginning at the first bonfire in Fire Sector. By the time full night has arrived, that procession is a snake illuminated by dozens of torches, parting from the main parade to light smaller fires in smaller streets. It ends, finally, in Central, in the Courtyard of Public Opinion, whose bonfire is second only to the initiating one in Fire Sector.

In some areas an exchange of goods arises, mostly in terms of woollens and other warm clothes and blankets. Though food is considered a public resource on this occasion, bartering small knickknacks, songs, stories and even other woollen items is not uncommon an exchange.

Meals are shared among kedan and Foreigners, commoners and emissaries--primarily stews, soups and other foods easily baked in the coals of the fires. Everyone brings food, and what isn’t contributed to the pot is nevertheless shared around after preparation. Although some bonfires are markedly wealthier than others, food and shelter is spread around to make sure everyone is safe and warm. No one goes cold and alone on this night.



LINKS
Fire Sector (main bonfire) | Water Sector | Metal Sector | Earth Sector | Wood Sector | Central Keeliai


OOC Notes
The five Bresilykian emissary NPC can be found moving from Sector to Sector and partaking in the various traditions of each, and so can be engaged anywhere, while the Keeliai NPCs generally are staying in their respective areas as detailed below. Please put the name of the NPC you're requesting in the subject line of your tag if you want to interact with them. Thank you!
denyamenti: (when the headlong light is loose)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-23 05:47 am (UTC)(link)
"I suppose if you must berate me for one or the other," Bakura said blandly, however his heart is clearly not in the familiar exchange of barbs. "At least for rudeness you can come up with some creative adjectives. Having only one stomach seems a fairly small range for insult."
unetrustworthy: (approaching)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-02-24 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm not berating you." Not this time, at least. Much as she hated to admit it...he wasn't really doing anything for her to berate. Aside from continue to be his charming, insufferable self. "I was stating a fact."
denyamenti: (in which I may be walking now)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-24 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
"So noted," he sighed, and they stared at each other for a moment longer until. When she didn't appear to be leaving, Bakura withdrew from his outer coat pocket a handful of wrapped candies -- the ones that Milyn had been handing out -- and offered them in the flat of his palm to her, if she wanted one.
unetrustworthy: (hmm...)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-02-24 03:37 am (UTC)(link)
She eyed the candies for a moment, but there was less of a wariness behind her gaze and more of a...curiosity.

"Where did those come from?"

Far from a refusal, she almost looked like she was consider accepting.
denyamenti: (tomorrow's dawn shall break the spell)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-24 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
"The chatty Healer was giving them out," Bakura answered. "In the Water Sector. When you eat one, they warm you from the inside. They work well enough for it."

He's already tested them out; perhaps in equal parts taking pity and poking fun at the thief, Milyn had given him a few more than usual, but he wasn't planning on staying out here long enough to need them all.
unetrustworthy: (pic#6421346)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-02-24 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, those. She'd heard about them. Even tried one earlier.

"...thank you." Surprisingly, the words weren't as difficult to say as she might have expected. Regardless of whatever she might feel for the boy, in that moment, common courtesy took over.

She took just a single candy, taking care to undo the rapper before discreetly popping it into her mouth. A rush of sweet flavor flooded her taste buds, and she actually shuddered from the sudden sugar.

"Magic?"

The candy wasn't warm, but it was supposed to make her warm. She had no other guess as to how it did that.
denyamenti: (with no more hope of life or ease)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-24 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
"Not magic," Bakura shook his head, unwrapping one of the candies himself and rolling it between his fingers for a moment while he spoke, so he wasn't trying to talk around it. The Ring had never stirred around Milyn, not even when she was in the midst of revivals, and he felt reasonably sure it would have, considering it had registered the magic used by Evastelei.

"Though I can't say I'd feel safe, the thought of that woman as a mage. She speaks without thinking, hardly a quality you'd want in someone who casts spells."
unetrustworthy: (looking to the left)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-02-24 04:40 am (UTC)(link)
She would have been inclined to agree...but that would have involved openly agreeing.

"Then how does it work?"
denyamenti: (than to promise where you cannot deliver)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-24 02:18 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't know," Bakura said with a shrug. There was no harm in admitting that but of ignorance. "But isn't the default around here that if it's not magic, it ends up being science of some sort?"

The scope of the science that Bakura knew was what he'd inherited from Ryou's knowledge, and most of it made moderate sense to the thief. He understood chemistry and biology and maths and physics. It wasn't like sciences hadn't been invented yet, in his time-- they were just thought of differently. Chemistry was medicine, biology were the rites of the dead, maths were currency and architecture, physics were just good sense of awareness of the world around them. The contexts were different, but the core of them were the same.

"You could always ask, if she doesn't talk you to sleep."
Edited (Hit enter key too soon ) 2015-02-24 14:28 (UTC)
unetrustworthy: (look out)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-02-25 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
For a split second, Midii was tempted to ask if he had meant that literally.

But...no, he was most likely only insulting the healer. Which she considered incredibly rude, given just how much Milyn had helped them all. Hadn't she been the one to care for them all that time? Sure, she was a little...cheerful for Midii's preference, but she was one of the few whom she held no ill will towards whatsoever.

"I don't think that'll happen."
denyamenti: (only because of my faith)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-25 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Then make sure you never get stuck in a room where you can't get up and leave," Bakura harrumphed, but that was as vitriolic toward the Healer as he seemed to be.

"But the candy works, whatever the method. That's all I was interested in," he said, tucking his own into his mouth.
unetrustworthy: (know-it-all)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-02-26 01:52 am (UTC)(link)
He was...very persistent on the idea, wasn't he?

I wonder...

(...nah, couldn't be.)

"How can you not want to know how something like that works? You would really just accept it like that?"
denyamenti: (bring the linen and the myrrh)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-26 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
Her words actually causes him to stop for a moment, because her question threw into stark relief that no, that wasn't typical for him. Bakura had always been curious, or nosy (depending on the person describing) about most things. Not just their use, but their purpose, why something did this, why a person said that.

On one hand, there was always the aspect that one day he might use whatever he learned to his advantage, but on the other, it was just a desire to learn something.

Yet that drive had been missing lately, since his unwilling return to Keeliai, and although he'd known --distantly, abstractly, in the back of his mind -- that it wasn't there, having the change called out so plainly was still a surprise. He just didn't care now, and it wasn't a voluntary disregard.

Even having it challenged didn't spark anything.

"... so it seems, anymore."
unetrustworthy: (pic#6421345)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-02-27 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
For what it was worth, the question hadn't stemmed from any personal observations about him before that day. In fact, the question wasn't personal at all; she would have asked exactly the same of anybody who made a similar claim. He was far from the first, after all, and the thought of so many people being so content with questions unanswered...or chalking up a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation to simply magic...

"Why?"
denyamenti: (on the foundations of a house)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-02-27 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Bakura assumed that Midii was asking in general and so responded in kind, keeping the response vague enough to be apply to many.

"Wanting to learn something just for the sake of learning it, not because it's something that you need, takes a specific kind of energy. It's more demanding; people always work better under pressure, it's how they are. That is why it's easier to learn a language when it's the only one around you and you need to communicate. It turns into... a kind of hunger, that you need to always feed."

He shrugged, then decided that analogy was close enough to the truth. "Sometimes, people simply don't want to expend the energy and would rather put it towards other things-- other times, they don't have that energy left. It's not always so easy as just saying 'this is why' and leaving it at that."
unetrustworthy: (helpless)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-03-01 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
"I..." Her lips pressed together. The expression on her face distant and bemused. It wasn't an act. "...I don't get it."

She understood what he meant, of course, because a lot of what he said was true. Learning did take energy. It took focus and time and other things that people didn't always have to spare. Small, seemingly insignificant trivias, or minute facts spewed out at random that are then immediately tucked away in the back of one's brain. Never to be used again.

She understood that part, but not necessarily what it had to do with the candies. Something relevant to them, in the present.

...although, to a lesser degree, she also couldn't understand how somebody couldn't want to learn anything and everything about this world that they could.

"How do you know it's something you need until you learn it? What if you needed to know at a later time, but didn't because you brushed the thought off too quickly before?"
denyamenti: (in which I may be walking now)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-03-02 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"You don't," Bakura answered with a laconic shrug. "Because there isn't a way to know that in advance, which is why so many people burn out on trying to learn everything. You can't predict it, so you just get very good at lying to yourself that something won't be important down the road."

And that was really what it came down to, in his opinion. Those who chose not to pursue information when they had the choice weren't apathetic about it, they were actively working against themselves. But sometimes it was necessary.
unetrustworthy: (pulling back hair)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-03-04 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
She still didn't see it that way.

...but--and this was, perhaps, a sign of actual growing maturity on her part--she did understand his perspective now. A little.

"I won't burn out."

It wasn't a brag. It wasn't even a statement. The way her eyes darted to one side...it was as if she were trying to convince herself as much as him.
denyamenti: (it is time that I wrote my will)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-03-04 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
"Perhaps you won't," Bakura answered, which in its neutrality was perhaps the closest thing to agreement that anyone could get out of the thief lately. I thought the same for a long time...

"Perhaps you'll have the right combination of skill and fortune."
unetrustworthy: (brushing hair back)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-03-04 12:47 pm (UTC)(link)
The former, yes. The latter...well, she'd never had much luck in her life before. Maybe she was due.

"Luck has nothing to do with it. I won't burn out because I can't."
denyamenti: /suspecting (the cards they have lied)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-03-09 04:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"And merely saying that makes it true?" Bakura shot back caustically. "I have sobering news for you, little girl, it does not. But by all means, continue parading about."
unetrustworthy: (pic#6421341)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-03-10 02:39 am (UTC)(link)
She almost snapped back...but managed to catch herself in time. Mostly. The glare still made it out, but she had time to filter her words first.

"...think what you want of me. I don't care."

So long as you don't think of me as an easy target.
denyamenti: (tomorrow's dawn shall break the spell)

[personal profile] denyamenti 2015-03-10 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
Bakura uttered a wordless scoff, as if to say, like I need your permission for that, and made a dismissive shooing motion. Even being nice(ish) to Midii seemed to be a bust; he was right when he had the idea to ignore her completely.
unetrustworthy: (first glimpse)

[personal profile] unetrustworthy 2015-03-10 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
Taking that as her cue, she got up to leave.

Nice talk.

(...though, ironically, by their standards? It was.)