June Event - Cukey-Scary [The Cucumber Festival]

[pumpkinhollow]

**Plain text version here.

CUKEY-SCARY

Come one, come all!

The long-awaited festival to enjoy vegetables and welcome in the summer months has finally arrived - and this time, completely uninhibited by curses!

Pumpkin Hollow's streets are bright and bustling, adorned with green ribbons, baskets of flowers, and freshly arranged shop stalls to market their goods to the festival-goers as they mill about the streets surrounding the Festival Green. Cheering crowds watch performers perched upon stages, jaunty music played by thoroughly energized bands fills the air, and the smell of freshly-cut cucumbers is carried on the breeze.

Welcome to the Cucumber Festival, a sorely-missed holiday held exclusively on Marrow Isle. It is a festival begun at the town's inception to encourage the newly-established farming community, which was rapidly embraced from then on. Many smaller-scale gardeners dedicate vast amounts of energy in joining farmers to make the festival possible, and this year is more abundant than ever, thanks to the efforts of the new arrivals taking up the farming mantles. The merriment sprawls all over the Festival Green, and even further into the town.

One question yet remains: where to begin?

Cucumber Celebrations Commence!

Copious Cucumber Cuisine

With the cucumber harvest more bountiful this year than it'd ever been, the booths have a wide assortment of offerings - cucumber chips, fried pickles, bowls of salad, breads with chunks of vegetable in them, fritters, among the wide tide of other culinary delights. If you can make it with a cucumber, these people have!

Almost as abundant as the attendees are, the stalls and booths set up with cucumber-centric meals are easily found. much of it is cheap, even free in many cases, and scattered with them are other booths peddling artisan goods.

Challenges of Chance and Cheer

As much as Hollowites enjoy their food, there's rarely an opportunity that they pass up to incorporate games or rides into festivities, and the Cucumber Festival has an extremely wide variety to offer!

The Whirling Wyvern is a ride that stands shortly behind a neat arrangement of picnic tables. Rope fences wind around the ride, giving it a safe distance from any bystanders, and the surrounding area is littered with flour bags, densely stuffed to offer padding.

Watching it even briefly makes it very clear why the padding is needed: the platform, raised about two feet off the ground in the middle, begins to spin its seated riders, rotating faster and faster until they topple, roll, and fall off the sides, into the padding below. People can often be heard nearby making bets with friends to see who can stay on the longest. (It's not a recommended ride for anyone who's been drinking!)

Bumpermobiles is another ride, operating on enchantment instead of electricity and a switch, that may look familiar to some of Pumpkin Hollow's residents from more modern times! Though they lack the distinctive roofed building in favor of a section of paved road closed off with wooden beams, the small carts of the bumpermobiles resemble automobiles of the current time, outfitted with wide-edges to brace the impact they'll inevitably have on one-another! Each one seats two, but are able to be driven on their own, if you'd prefer to focus your conversations on heckling your fellow driver.

Hot Air Balloons are set up not on the Green, but just outside of it, taking a spot just off to the side that's unoccupied by booths or frequent foot-traffic. Each ride carries a maximum of three, not counting the operator, and gives any rider an impressive view of marrow isle for thirty minutes.

The Carousel stands in the center of the Festival Green, chiming cheerful music from the pillar in the center. Horses are joined by the addition of shimmering unicorns, beaked pegasi, and colorfully painted pony-drawn carts (which are crafted to be seats, for those who cannot climb on one of the other mounts).

The Wheel of Chance is a vertical wheel, perched between artisan's booths, offering low-stake prizes for a small payment! 5 Brass allows you to spin the wheel, offering one of ten available prizes:

1. a cucumber, covered in batter and fried, on a stick.
2. a goldfish in a decorative bowl.
3. a pair of pants, with several varieties to choose from.
4. a deck of playing cards.
5. a fine leather-bound notebook.
6. a set of six shot glasses.
7. a bottle of wine.
8. a basket of assorted fruits.
9. a glass-blown animal native to Marrow Isle, palm-sized, in assorted species and colors.
10. 10 Brass. Double your money!

(For any concerned about the wellbeing of the fish: the person operating the wheel assures the health of these goldfish, and that the bowls are simply for festival distribution. They do note, however, that you'll be on the hook, no pun intended, to provide the new home for the fish.)

The Cucumber Festival's Raffle is one of the most coveted opportunities to spend a small sum of brass and win one of the many prizes donated by the community, with all contributions going into community services and upkeep.

Each ticket costs 20 Brass, and each person may purchase up to 5 tickets. There will be three drawings total, granting a small prize, a medium prize, and a grand prize to each winner. One person cannot win more than one prize; if the same person draws a second prize after their first, it will be re-rolled.

To purchase a raffle ticket, please reply to the Pumpkin Hollow mod account comment with RAFFLE TICKETS as the title, also linked here, stating how many tickets your character will be buying. On JUNE 14TH, ticket purchasing will be closed, and the prizes will be rolled!

The prizes are as follows:

1. 1st (small): a telescope, with elegant engravings in the metal, donated by Elias Coldwood.
2. 2nd (medium): a set of two enchanted tea puppies, one glass and one metal, donated by Neil West.
3. 3rd (grand prize): a basket-hilt sword, well-weighted, masterfully crafted, and delightfully ornate, donated by Dahlia Leeds.

Contestants Convene for Competition

Of course, what's a festival without a little bit of friendly competition! Over the week of celebrations, the Cucumber Festival hosts the following activities for any and all participants interested in joining in the fun.

The Cucumber Growing Competition is a celebration of the farmers who made all this possible, as well as a flexing of gardening prowess. Each cucumber is measured in weight, length, and color! The prize for the best cucumber in show is simply a ribbon, but among the Pumpkin Hollow farmers, it's quite a statement to have. Career farmers, hobby gardeners, and onlookers alike gather to see the town's farmers' handiwork!

The Cooking Competition follows directly after the Cucumber Growing Competition. While the larger of the vegetables don't make for very good foods, sacrificing flavor for size, the rest of the entries are cut up and used for a variety of dishes. Chefs of all varieties are encouraged to participate to show their culinary prowess!

The Great Turnip Smash-Off is a cheeky jab at the prior year's failed festival. Wielding any tools they like, including but not limited to one's hands themselves, each contestant is allotted three minutes to destroy as many turnips as they possibly can. The prize for the cucumber festival's first annual turnip slayer is a small trophy for bragging rights!

The Water Walk is a fun sport for all ages! Lined up in rows with metal spoons full of water, the participants must walk carefully to the end of the "racetrack" to a small glass of water, with a line denoted on the side at the middle. The first person to fill their glass to or above that mark wins!

The Variety Show occurs throughout the week, offering the stage to many people of assorted talents. The first day is booked up for magicians (sleight of hand, specifically - mages are politely requested to refrain from participation), and on the following Monday, a "feat of strength" competition will showcase the might of those strongest in Pumpkin Hollow! The other days are yet to be filled, and several festival attendants are waiting with clipboards to accept submissions. Many newcomers have talents they've never seen before, so new submissions of the musical, magical, or other remarkable talent alike are not only welcome, but strongly encouraged!

Carnival Complications

Of course, not all things can go entirely peacefully in Pumpkin Hollow's festivities, and the Cucumber Festival has never been exempt from this. Though the prior years' incident was far more disruptive to the festival's celebrations, several things begin to crop up over the span of the week.

Capricious Crashers

As the festival goes on, it seems that some poltergeists have seen fit to invite themselves to the party. Two games are affected, with varying results.

The Whack-a-Mole Game, during the first night, becomes the first item to start experiencing a mild haunting. Though the specters only make themselves known when the participant is alone, there's a distinct feeling of guilt that comes with each smack, not unlike stepping on a cat's tail without realizing it. Instead of the triumphant jingle that the machine lets out when the game is complete, a stark silence settles in, as though the entire festival has frozen in time. Only then does a whisper, no louder than a breeze, brush past your ear.

Rolling a D3, the spirits haunting the whack-a-mole machine will tell you the following:

1. a secret that isn't yours to have about someone in town.
2. a piece of gossip, a shocking recent happening that may or may not be getting around in whispers.
3. a lie, carefully crafted to impact the way you see one of your fellow townsfolk.

(Mod Note: the information given is always going to be about someone nearby. When tagging into someone's top-level with the Whack-a-Mole Game who's got secrets or gossip, provide a piece of information about your character that the spirits might've said! Additionally, feel free to request a piece of information about an NPC, major or minor. For a lie, anything goes. Have fun with it!)

The Candle-Shooting Game is the next to become haunted, though the haunting is significantly more straightforward. In an act of simple mischief, the flame will occasionally withstand blasts from the water gun that should have surely snuffed it, or the flame will go out just as you line your shot up. These spirits are aiming to ruin this particular game, but not your night.

Cards and Consequences

On the outskirts of the festival, there is a strange building set up. Just a small shack, decorated with celestial trappings and a mysterious air. Above the door, a sign painted black with gold lettering says "HOUSE OF CARDS". Is it a funhouse? A fortune teller? No one's sure who set it up. Perhaps another effort of Captain Tuttle or something.

There is a sign on the double doors that make up the entrance, which reads, "Admission is free, but you must enter in pairs." And true to its word, the doors will not open unless two different people take each door's handle. Otherwise it is definitively locked.

So, choose a companion and go explore! What's the worst that could happen? All you have to do is open the door.

| CONTENT WARNINGS: mild manipulation, unreality, snakes, possible character death. |

Comments

[decrypter]

Despite herself, she can feel a smile twitching at her lips, a little chuckle half stifled. It wouldn't do to be talking to herself out in the open, but that's so like them - to be vaguely annoyed about bugs. Things that live in the dirt. Messy things like that. But that's how she knows her memories are true, when the echoes speak of Phil and endless, endless summer that didn't even have the decency to cling to the skin and the lungs. A true summer presses down and can be felt, not an endless unchanging cycle.

Closer towards their voice, because it's louder in this direction, at the same steady pace as a sunrise. Her cane taps against stone, and oh, this must be a graveyard, for how the place sounds and feels. How fitting, that she is chasing down a remembrance here. Why did Darcy call her here? Was it merely what suited best?

[saltwaterlungs]

"Sit if you want," Darcy offers. Never has their envisioning been so lifelike as Helena navigating the world how she used to, needing sometimes those small guides and nudges to the world she couldn't see.

"I wonder if there'll be cicadas. If there is I might actually lock myself in a cellar, I'll never sleep," they glance back over in her direction, expression soft and tired but neutral.

"That's a joke. If I get possessed again people will tell by me getting eight hours of sleep. Maybe I should dig myself a grave and see if that helps."

[decrypter]

Oh, Darcy. Even if cicadas were screaming around her, she'd take it as joyful, the sound of a world she had been cut apart from for so long. Closer and closer now, and if that voice is in a grave, she'd step into it, to feel near. The sun is rising, and she can feel the rays, breathe the air. Nearer and nearer.

(Exactly as Darcy remembers her. The clothes may have changed, the cane may have changed, the round glasses on her face not original, but still perfectly as useless as ever. That same cast to her eyes, the same color of her hair.)

Her fingertips brush against cool stone, as she continues on this path. Speak, speak - she could almost envision them there with her. Pulling her forward, asking her to be here now. A place where she doesn't have to be brave, hiding her tears and her worries and her pains at being so, so alone again. If she has memories, if she has voices, is that not a kindness?

[saltwaterlungs]

The sun to their back, they could not have known Orpheus better than in this moment. Of course he turned around. Darcy holds a slice of apple in their mouth, eyes at her lips, acid and sweetness.

"You wouldn't need that though, you'd know me anywhere. I'd walk past and you'd be like- 'Darcy wouldn't walk like that' and then. I don't know. Use that thing that pings people."

It's not a very good impression of Helena.

"Then when I came back I could have my head in your lap again. And I'd say 'Helena, je t'aime', and you'd smile, and I'd be okay again."

[decrypter]

She is named, she is known - and Helena smiles, bright and open. Echo, memory, whatever they truly are, she is graced with the words she might have journeyed into the abyss itself to hear again. All at once, it does not matter that someone might hear her, when she can dream a little more, just enough to almost feel them there.

"Darcy."

Helena's hand extended, towards where she thinks that dream presence may be. Nothing may happen, she knows, but she reaches regardless.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Like that."

Darcy still doesn't smile, not yet. It's taunting her now, the hand offered that they'll never be able to hold again. And yet in the golden light of morning, there is nothing more that they want to do. The thought for just a second that she might be here thumps their heart from their chest, and a small voice at the back of their head screams-

You are not looking at a spirit.

Slowly, Darcy takes Helena's hand, palm to palm.

[decrypter]

Helena is warm, as warm as Darcy remembers her, with a heartbeat that thumps in her blood and the softness of a scholar's hands that have never swung a sword. And Darcy's hand is what she remembers - the temperature, the calluses, the shape of it.

It is not the first time memory has latched onto her so deeply that she mistook sensation for reality. But, she hopes. She still, in the deepest pit, in the farthest reaches, has hope. If somehow, anything was afforded to her, it was hope, steadfast and honest.

(She had prayed, in that cell. Endlessly casting out tethers into the great beyond. Asked the angel Michael to set his hand on Darcy's shoulder, guide and guardian, if he would hear a prayer from someone of the wrong faith. Rendered merely a soul asking for benevolence in greatest trial.)

"...Is this a dream?"

Her smile dims some, expression so easily read. Helena fears, but she wishes so dearly. She'll take the risk, even if this Darcy is only in her heart.

[saltwaterlungs]

Helena doesn't get to ask much more than that. The moment Darcy's hand touches hers, they leap for her, not considering much more than 'how do I make my body touch hers as quickly as possible'. The hand goes to their mouth for a kiss and in the same motion, at top volume, like steam hissing from a kettle or a boiler exploding-

"MARRY ME."

[decrypter]

A flood of emotions rips through her, joy and relief and wonder mingled with that heart fluttering feeling that comes from Darcy's kiss on her hand, their presence mixed with hers, so near, so real and something she cannot mistake for any echo. And then something that sends every thought careening to a halt, her cheeks while she probably gapes stupidly, all her words temporarily abandoned.

Helena finds one, at least.

"What?"

Darcy can't keep doing this. They can't keep leaping over all the ideas of courtship because one looked better than all those ahead. And yet, here they are.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Forget I said anything!" Darcy reaches for her face to pull her in for a kiss, so immensely grateful to just feel her. Breakfast be damned, there's too much to feel in this moment to do anything other than kiss her, with relief and gratitude that they're together again. Finally, finally, their love is back with them. Married, not married- Darcy would take Helena breaking up with them over her not being there at all. It doesn't matter, only she does.

[decrypter]

She's about to argue that one cannot forget such words, but it's all swept away and discarded when they kiss her, the most relieving thing in the world to kiss them back. No words are needed for this, for this moment, the desperate outcry of I thought I lost you that gets poured out from one's soul. Somehow in this, she's ended up throwing her arms around them as well, careful to not hit Darcy with her cane but unwilling to be farther apart.

The sun has risen, and Helena is not alone, and she loves and is loved.

[saltwaterlungs]

Forget a grave, Darcy wants to bury theirself in her warmth. Hands go to her cheek and waist, they kiss her like it's their last chance to breathe before going under again. Darcy knew that she would be waiting, knew that seeing her like that behind bars wasn't going to be the last way they saw her. Be it faith in God or just in Helena, the sun was going to shine on them once more. They kiss her face, her cheek, shift her glasses just a little to kiss her brow.

"Mon coeur," they rasp, repeating it softer and softer as they nestle into her neck.

[decrypter]

Her arms don't let go, keeping them near even as they bow their head. Perhaps it will all be all right now, if they are not alone - if that hope can kindle, catch to a fire. They are not lost.

"I prayed for you." It is a whisper. "I prayed you'd be safe."

And they had been. Carried to a new shore, instead of being lost. Alive, here with her. Miracles do take place, despite the world's stubborn determination to say to her they do not.

[saltwaterlungs]

Helena was the last thing that Darcy couldn't go on without. With her return, as the sun rising, Darcy breaks open. No more brave faces. No more begging their Geist for numbness. No more aching for want of her, to have her near again. Darcy sobs into her neck, trembling hand going to her face, her hair, trying to feel for her hand. They wonder if this is how Mary felt to see the empty tomb, seven sorrows lifted from their heart like swords drawn out from their flesh. They wail, all the grief of losing her finally catching up now in the moment they have her again.

"Lena-" they plead, "oh God- thank God-" and they mean it.

[decrypter]

In this space, she weeps too. All the tears she hadn't let herself cry for a while, up and brimming - the absence of fear is so different she cannot help but weep, taking their hand and squeezing tight. I'm here, I'm here - all the stress flooding through and leaving her. But she is held, she isn't trembling from cold. They are on solid ground, and the birds sing, and she can breathe in a living world.

When the tears pass, she's still there, her hand letting go only so it can drift up to Darcy's face, gently wiping away some of their tears.

"My love."

Despite the redness around her eyes, she cracks into a smile, fond and sweet.

"I must have made you wait for me."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Months- I- I waited for you for months-" Darcy holds Lena's hand to their face, "I waited for you. I knew you were- you had to be-"

They just hope Helena didn't spend that whole time in the cell, looking so wilted and scared.

"You never left my mind. Not once, not for anyone."

[decrypter]

The feeling that gives her, that she was away for months and yet Darcy waited for her, as true and vigilant as Helena might have been for them, is such that it nearly overwhelms her. She lets out a shaky exhale, trying to figure out how best to put her words.

"It was so dark. But I didn't give up. I couldn't."

And to Helena, where the concept of darkness is more abstract, deep and terrorizing and despair, the word is not used lightly. She got out, though. She found light, and stable ground, and the arms of someone so faithful she doesn't know what to do except twist her head and kiss them on the hat.

"I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere, not by choice." There's more strength in that. Helena may be so exhausted from fighting, but she'll fight to stay where she is, if she truly, truly must. "I'm not leaving you."

An inhale, and then, despite it all, a touch of amused warmth.

"Would you like to try greeting me again?"

[saltwaterlungs]

"I know you wouldn't. You're unconquerable," Darcy knows that deep strength that far outstrips their own in muscles, that stubborn force of will that kept her going. Having her here now is...

Then Darcy is very quickly reminded of their lack of game, again, and they sniff to try and regain some composure.

Taking her hand, they kiss her palm at the swell of the base of her thumb, then take a moment to think of what to say.

"Madmoiselle, welcome back to the land of the living. I've waited for you, ma Ulysse, and now you're back with me."

[decrypter]

"Please don't ask me to shoot an arrow through axe shafts to prove my identity to you."

She draws back only enough to rub at her face with her other hand, trying to clean up some of the tears even as the hand in Darcy's turns to hold.

"There's so much to ask you. So much to sort out, people to meet, places to go, but...it'll all get figured out, I'm sure."

And because she cannot help herself:

"Just make sure that when you introduce me to others, you don't skip ahead and introduce me as your fiancee."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Don't need to, I'd know you anywhere."

Darcy coughs a little to clear the choke in their throat, and winces at her last comment, a low rumbling in their ears as the Scream tries to soothe their embarrassment.

"Sorry- it was stupid, I mean it, please just- forget I said anything. I'm not going to mention it to anyone."

[decrypter]

If Helena could see, perhaps her eyes would flick down in embarrassment. As it is, she just shuts them, feeling a prickle of heat on her face. Now it's her turn to feel a little flustered, and she has no friendly Scream to aid her.

"It....it wasn't stupid, it just...caught me off guard..." Oh, this is nearly as bad as when Darcy was trying to ask to court her. "I...let me say something?"

[saltwaterlungs]

"It was a little stupid," Darcy grumbles, but huffs.

"Go ahead."

[decrypter]

"Thank you."

She breathes a little easier then, still holding Darcy's hand, and sorts her words into the correct order.

"Darcy, you are someone who feels your emotions passionately. This is a virtue, not a flaw, and it's something I've always known about you. That it leads you to speak sometimes without thought is inevitable, but it is something I have come to expect and understand. It means that if you say something spontaneously, it - I can't just forget it, because you feel it. Or felt it. And I don't wish to cast your thoughts to the side. It's only..."

Oh, how to put this.

"Something like that is something I'm inevitably going to take perhaps more seriously than you meant it. And..." Helena exhales. "It's not something I can joke about. I just can't." She's not doing this right. She isn't, and it's going to be a disaster. "There's...there's steps and things that have to be done and you need to be certain. That's...that's what I wanted to say."

[saltwaterlungs]

"I did mean it."

The protest is quiet and firm.

"It was stupid but. I meant it."

They feel churlish for arguing it, like a bad-tempered animal struggling against being brought to heel. Helena has given a soft no, they ought to take it, as they take all her words.

But.

"I've thought about you every day you weren't here. I don't like anyone better. I can't like anyone better. If there's someone I could like better I don't want to like them better. You're it for me. You could get divorced and remarry and anything and I wouldn't want anyone else. I'm certain, Lena. I am certain as gravity and taxes and death. I've spent months terrified of the idea that I'd never see you again, I can't... please. I know it's stupid and I go too fast and I'm a fucking lot to deal with, but... think about it. Tell me you'll think about it."

[decrypter]

She's quiet for a long moment after that. Oh, how she longs to throw herself into such vows, write her own happy ever after and wave off any doubts she ever had, any iron clad feelings about her future that were proven so wrong. But, this isn't right. This isn't what she wants, not really, not something rushed when she's come back from the unknown. Even in her most down to earth dreams, there was the idea that things had been considered. It might just be frivolous of her to want more. Yet, Helena can't shake that sense.

"...I'll think about it. But you need to think about it too. I know we skipped around on the steps somewhat, but...I don't want to skip the ones we don't have to. It matters to me, very much, to know that it's not just your big feelings, but...me."

To allow them the space to reconsider. To court, like Helena had asked to do. To make so, so sure that Darcy wasn't stepping into a situation they would regret. And it's awkward and difficult to say all of this, but so many people, Darcy included, have nudged her in the direction of speaking her feelings more. Even if they're not pleasant ones.