December Event - Long Nights, Bright Lights [Holiday Catchall]

[pumpkinhollow]

Long Nights,
Bright Lights

All Manner of Celebrations

Winter is hard for everyone, but none more so than the residents of an island that has been isolated by the cruel hands of fate. Where the rest of the Emerald Isles is able to rely on imports from other nations in warmer places, Marrow Isle has no resources but her own. All the while, her mettle continues to be tested against the horrors brought on by the curse.

It is for this reason that among all the holidays celebrated by the Mothers' children, Givingstide is particularly beloved. A warm and cozy festival based around wishing each other prosperity and love in the new year, the lengthening of days, embracing generosity even in the lean times, and celebrating the fact that the darkest part of the year is coming to an end. Set on the Winter Solstice, this gathering marks final day of darkening skies. While some observe the day in family homes, it's customary to join together in communal spaces.

Then, the following week, Mourner's Night is hosted in Fall's Promise Cemetery. A holiday dedicated to mourning the dead can feel a bit strange on an island where residents no longer die, but the tradition is kept up for all manner of reasons. Mourning those who died before the barrier, mourning the loss of offworld lives, and even mourning oneself are all entirely valid reasons one might attend. This year, as well, it is projected that there may be a special guest...

And of course, this year there are a number of festivities being hosted by the island's newly booming interfaith community. Chief among them, Hanukkah and several variations of Christmas will be celebrated around the same time. The Temple and the interfaith community encourage offworlders and locals alike to share and enjoy their festivities with the island in this most sacred time of year.

By Candlelight We Go

Check out the various festivities below!

Givingstide

The fireplace is lit at the Oak & Iron. A wreath of pine boughs hangs over the merry blaze, paper horses and snowflakes decorate the walls, and a table in the center of the room has been done up to look like a silver sleigh. As people file in, hot food and warm drinks begin coming out of the kitchen and bar, and gifts begin piling up on the sleigh table. (Ultimately, a fair amount of them end up on the floor around it.) Everyone greets each other warmly with hearty handshakes, firm hugs, and wishes of a blessed Givingstide. Perhaps if you have a clever eye, you may even see a horned figure drinking hot cocoa in the corner harmlessly, enjoying the atmosphere of good will and keeping watch over the party to prevent any troublemakers. And for once, just once, for the first time in so long on this frightful, forsaken island, there is true peace.

The tavern is warm. Orange firelight flickers, as if dancing with the shadows. Decorations of shimmering silver and hunter green, the colors of Givingstide, adorn the dark wood decor of the Oak & Iron. The stucco and timber walls of the dining hall safeguard those within from the bitter wind and snow. It's no Leeds gala--- the food is simple, but it is beautifully made. Roasted chicken, potatoes, onion soup, and fresh-baked bread. Slices of pumpkin pie are passed around for dessert. Hot cider with or without alcohol, mulled wine, coffee, and spiced tea are served with the meal. It isn't glamorous, but it's made with love and tastes like coming home somehow.

As dinner carries on, music begins to be played from the tavern stage, and Mayor Poe has Yorick assist her in doling out the gifts from the table. They read the tags and summon the recipients to the table to recieve them. You can open yours right there or at your table, and decide for yourself whether you care to announce the name of the giver to the room.

Once the gifts are distributed, the partygoers are left to their own devices, allowed time to laugh with friends, dance to music, drink to their hearts' content, sneak off to while away a private moment in one of the inn's sitting rooms, or head home for an early night. Regardless of your choice, let it be with a loved one. A friend, a partner, a member of your newfound family. Blessed Givingstide, and may your lantern ever stay lit.

Mourner's Night [cw: grief]

As the early dark of high winter begins to fall, people begin to gather on the streets. A somewhat odd sight, but this isn’t the first time that people have come together under lantern light for an event that is in defiance of the danger posed by darkness. They are bundled tightly, wearing mostly black if it is available in clothes warm enough, and many people have donned veils which cover their faces with black lace.

From the streets, there is an informal procession. At intervals, there are men in uniform black military peacoats and black caps carrying tall poles with bright lanterns on top, swaying in the frigid air. Their faces are painted to look like skulls. Yorick is among them, as are Father Mulcahy and Darcy. The rest of the townsfolk are asked to follow along as they please, each bearing a long white candle stuck into a paper cup meant to catch its wax. The candles are in no danger of blowing out— the wind is eerily still.

The procession is largely silent. The people who do speak do so only in whispers. It winds through the streets of the town, converging on one of the main roads. Once it is clear of buildings, the front of the solemn parade becomes visible. A black funeral carriage, like one that may have once conveyed caskets, bearing lanterns at each corner. The two black horses are marked with skeletons using white chalk on their fur, and it is driven by a woman in black garb representative of deepest mourning. This is Fever, playing the role of Mortanne.

It has been a long time, what feels like ages, since the people of this town have had a funeral procession outside the context of Mourner's Night. But they remember well their traditions and follow them with reverence. This, for you outsiders, is a unique glimpse at something you might not otherwise see due to the effects of the barrier. Each and every person in town follows the trail left by carriage wheels in the fresh snow and arrives at Fall's Promise Cemetery.

Beyond the wrought iron gate, there is more silence. Locals gather around the graves of their friends and loved ones, saying silent prayers and spending time in contemplative remembrance. You see Dahlia stand outside the central mausoleum, looking grimly up at her own name carved into the stone.

LEEDS

Degas has made his way over to a grave. He is here as himself, not as a reverend, and he does not leave the side of the headstone he gravitated toward. Melly Clayton.

Meanwhile, Dr. West is loitering at the back near a gargoyle. For once even he is present. And far off in the shadows, a small figure looms outside the fringes of lantern light, looking off into the sea. Cherry red hairs catch the light occasionally. Elsie.

The candlelight vigil remains silent for a long time as people recall and honor their loved ones. Any sound of shuffling or movement is dampened further by soft, fluffy snow, creating a deep and heavy hush that is almost loud in its soundlessness. Perhaps, deep in the Season of Spirits, the presence of the fallen can be felt in the quiet dark.

Your mind drifts as the somber reverence beckons your mind to your memories. Who do you honor? A lost lover, a passed parent, someone you left behind in your life before? Or perhaps you honor yourself. You did die to get here, after all. And it’s probable that you aren’t the only one to think so.

In the distance, the bell tower chimes. Then, rising up from the snow, soft at first and then louder, a song. The locals are beginning to sing a hymn about Mortanne sharing carriage rides with passengers, reminiscing about their lives as her carriage drives them to the afterlife. Did you learn it from a local before the festival? Do you sing, hum, or remain silent?

As the song finally comes to a close, all at once the locals blow out their candles, leaving the graveyard in darkness aside from the lantern poles. The silence now broken, people shuffle along, meeting up to mingle and hug or heading home for an early night. Some of them are crying.

Throughout the festival, lingering at the outskirts, shrouded in both the deepest darkness and layers of mourner's black, is a woman whose pale hair occasionally catches light even under her elaborate lace veil. If you are someone with a special connection to death, or to winter, you may feel her eyes upon you.

Interfaith Holidays

On the 24th and 25th of December, touches of red and gold are added to the traditional Givingstide green and silver, and images of angels and stars take their place alongside horses and snowflakes. On the left side of the main congregation space, a table has been set up to give a wooden Nativity set and an advent wreath pride of place. A little book, kindly crafted by Pinhole Printing and Binding, has been put together for those unfamiliar to read the story of Christmas.

From December 25th to January 2nd, the majority of interfaith space is decked out in blue and silver, handmade Stars of David hung in each window, in celebration of Hanukkah. On the right side of the temple's congregation space, another helpful storybook by Pinhole rests alongside a brand new menorah, as the evenings have the space reserved for candle-lighting and gathering. Additionally, a frying booth for latkes and sufganiyot can be found at the Winter Market, typically manned by Cecil (though Gerry is almost certainly there as well).

And for those that celebrate the pagan Yuletide, an outdoor altar can be found on the town's festival gazebo, protected from the elements but still amid nature. Plenty of places for indoor merriment can be found for those who observe it--- the Oak & Iron has discounted drinks from the Solstice till New Years! Skål!

Hand in hand, we put the darkness to our backs and step into the light. Rejoice, spring cometh.

Comments

Felix Gaeta | Battlestar Galactica | OTA

[not_a_traitor]

but at least we all will be together [givingstide]

Gaeta has decided that he frakking hates this time of year.

It's not because he's a grump about the holidays. Truly. He liked a good Saturnalia celebration as much as the next person, back when it was an actual event and not a strained attempt at normalcy during the years after the attacks. No, he hates everything just because it's so unbearably cold. Even the chill at the Dance of Celestine was pushing it, and now, with everything below freezing for weeks on end, Gaeta's turned into an outright recluse.

But. If it's not the holidays, just the weather, he supposes he ought to try and drag himself out for Givingstide. Especially since he does have some presents to distribute. (Most of which feel woefully inadequate -- how do you even give gifts in a place of abundance like this? He's spent years exchanging things like five-year-old magazines and tubes of toothpaste, properly mended socks and half-cups of real coffee. Nobody here would appreciate something that basic.)

Catch him by the fire with his food and mulled wine, slowly shedding a comically large number of layers as he begins to thaw out. His mood will thaw out soon enough, too, we promise.


from now on we'll have to muddle through somehow [mourner's night]

He wasn't planning on joining the procession -- see above re: recluse -- but when it passes by the apartments on Goldleaf Street, the sight tugs hard at the old wounds crisscrossing his heart.

There's a reason Gaeta doesn't talk much about his life before Marrow Isle. If he ever gave himself real room to grieve, he's certain, it'd metastasize until that's all he was anymore. Grief made manifest. He'd start weeping and never be able to stop. Useless, helpless, uncontrollable. What would even be the point of him then? And a whole holiday given over to grief? No. He should keep his shields up and stay inside.

...

Gaeta wraps himself in his customary layers and falls in step with the procession, silently accepting a candle from one of the villagers.

Still, he tries to keep everything as small and contained as he can on the approach to the graveyard. It feels like every inch of him is drawn so tight with the effort that he's shaking with more than the cold. Moving among the headstones, he doesn't know where to go, what to do, what to say. It's different than sending out those lanterns during the beach party, or tacking a photograph on Galactica's memorial wall. Remembrance is not the same as mourning.

So all he does is stand, and breathe, and try not to weep, as precarious as standing on the edge of a canyon.

Mourner's Night

[graveling]

Angel sees Gaeta. During the procession and afterward in the graveyard. He decides on an approach, quietly meandering through the stones.

"Hey. Can I ask a favor?"

[not_a_traitor]

Good. There's the excuse he needed to pull his back straight -- literally; Angel will be able to see him plant his cane and snap into an approximation of military posture -- and concentrate on something besides all the frost in his own brain.

"Hey," he greets him. "Of course. What do you need?"

[graveling]

"Part of the whole walking corpse thing is that I can't cry. Could I bother you to do some for me?"

The question is asked with complete earnestness, no sarcasm or pointedness about it.

(Angel has felt like shit lately, being unable to cry with Eddie gone.)

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta freezes.

It'd be easier without the earnestness, honestly. He could snort, roll his eyes, say something pointed right back. But the fact that Angel clearly means it roots Gaeta to the ground, like he's become another granite statue among the headstones in the cemetery.

A long, long couple of seconds pass before he breaks eye contact. He attempts to focus on a gravestone a few feet behind and to the left of Angel. "I, um," he tries. "Don't know if that's a good idea, sir."

[graveling]

"I'm no 'sir'. I'm just another lost soul here, trying to mourn." Gaeta knows, he's heard what Angel is mourning. Yes, Eddie's alive out there somewhere. But he's not here with Angel.

[not_a_traitor]

Helpless, a little shaky: "I know."

Breathe, he tells himself. Despite the cold, he can still breathe. But can he carry the weight of one more person without cracking? He doesn't know.

"I'm just." He swallows. "Not sure I'm the best person to ask."

Mourner's Night

[pumpkinhollowites]

"Holding it in doesn't help. Or so I've heard."

The comment comes from someone else on the fringes, a pallid woman with dark hair and a somber expression, wearing a white dress.

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta looks over. He swallows hard, trying to clear some of the tightness in his throat, and shapes a wan smile.

"Yeah, I've heard that too," he says. He's trying for his usual dry humor, but it falls flat.

[pumpkinhollowites]

"Merrick used to preach about how Mourner's Night isn't for the dead. At least, before, it wasn't. Now, with how haunted the island is, you get ghosts hoping to be remembered a little. But. It's for the living, to get to mourn."

She steps closer to him, feet leaving no tracks in the snow. Why is she barefoot, though?

[not_a_traitor]

She looked vaguely familiar from a distance. Gaeta assumed it was the familiarity that comes with a crowd of people in a small town: faces you recognize from a trip to the grocery store, distant neighbors you nod hello to in passing. But as she comes closer, he realizes that isn't it at all.

The bare feet, and the lack of tracks, confirm it.

"...Linette Brenning?"

[pumpkinhollowites]

She responds to the sound of her name with a startled smile, considering Gaeta briefly before speaking.

"That's me, yes. Who are you, sir?"

[not_a_traitor]

"Felix Gaeta." He pulls himself a little straighter. "Um, Lieutenant Felix Gaeta of the Colonial Fleet. I'm one of the off-worlders."

Having been a ghost a couple times himself by now, it's not as great a shock as it might've been once, seeing someone dead walking around as if they were alive. (At least, his mind doesn't have the sharp, instinctual flinch of Cylon anymore.) But if Linette wanted him to focus on his own grief -- well, that's not happening anymore.

"And I've been trying to help research what led to the barrier. Including your family's part in it."

givingstide

[medekh]

Artemy can't help but stare a bit at a man taking off that many layers. Certainly it is cold out, yes, but it is not that cold out. Is it? He is used to the cold, being from the Steppe and all, so only his typical layers suffice, which he already shed his winter coat by the door.

"I must ask, where do you put all of those layers when you aren't wearing them?" He can't help but ask, hopefully good natured enough that the other man will realize Artemy intends it as nothing but a joke.

[not_a_traitor]

"On the couch," he deadpans. It's a little muffled as he finishes unwinding his scarf. "They make a great set of throw pillows."

Finally free of his layers, he puffs a couple warm breaths of air into his hands and rubs them together. "Maybe I'll try turning them into a quilt next."

[medekh]

"A quilt would be useful." Artemy agrees. "Surely there'd be enough cloth."

He doesn't want to rub it in too much, so he'll shift the subject, "Have you looked at the arrangement of food yet? Anything look good?"

It's a mild subject, sure, but agreeable as anything. And Artemy is hungry, he's sure his conversation partner likely is as well, all things considered.

[not_a_traitor]

"Honestly? All of it," he says with a small laugh. "I'm -- maybe not the best judge of what's good and what isn't, though. I was living off processed algae for a while. Everything tastes good now."

And he's been on the island for nine solid months. Will he ever stop marveling at actual food? Probably not.

[medekh]

Artemy pauses.

He looks at the ground.

He's processing the information he's been told.

He looks back up at Gaeta.

"Why would you eat processed algae?"

Sorry he

He has to ask because processed implies that you were preparing it to eat instead of just eating rotting food out of the garbage and at that point there's perfectly good garbage cans. Who knows. You might even find some stale toast in the garbage. That would be better right. Right?

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta shrugs. "Because it's well tolerated once you break it down enough, the protein count was high enough and complete enough to be a viable replacement for animal protein, and it's easy to grow without a lot of hydroponic equipment."

A pause.

Rueful, "Or... do you mean why we were eating algae in the first place instead of literally anything else."

wildcard as discussed

[liesdontfindyou]

CT genuinely isn't sure she remembers the last winter holiday celebration she actually took part in. Or— no, the agents at the Project did take the excuse to get drunk and put on some terrible old movie, but there's no seasons on a spacefaring, climate controlled, military frigate and there's no gifts when you don't get enough shore leave to buy anything. Plus every colony's idea of the holiday is different, and you couldn't just stop running missions, and then she was on the run, and... so on, so forth. Either way, this is the first real holiday season she's seen in years and frankly she hasn't known what to do with it.

Easier, ultimately, for her to handle most of it in private with the few people she's come to— trust. In Gaeta's case, that means meeting up at the library, a gift tucked in the bag she always brings when she swings by for research and the like.

When she sees him, she raises a hand in a wave.

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta's on his break, tucked at a table that's a little out of the way from the others. He brightens as soon as he spots CT and returns the wave.

"Hey," he says once she's close enough that he won't break any quiet in the library rules. "Good to see you -- happy Givingstide. How's it going?"

[liesdontfindyou]

"Happy Givingstide. It's— actually going quite well, it's been fairly quiet all things considered. People seem to be keeping with the spirit of the season, for the most part."

Which means work is no worse than it ever is and she has, on the whole, had a fairly even month.

She slides into a seat and tucks her bag in her lap. "Though it has been a long time since I saw anything like a normal winter, let alone holidays."

[not_a_traitor]

"Right?" He chuckles, wry. "This might be the first time I've seen snow in four years. Even on New Caprica, it just rained during the winter, mostly."

Honestly, he can't say he's enjoying the experience. At least the library's well heated.

"Glad it's going well, though. Um -- " He starts to rummage through one of his pockets. "I found something that... well, I would've given you anyway, but considering the spirit of the season..."

Gaeta unearths a small envelope to set on the table.

[liesdontfindyou]

"Mm. It didn't snow at all on my colony—or, at least, not where I lived. We didn't have the climate for it. The only time I've seen any that wasn't on a screen was somewhere we stopped on an assignment."

Found something is a specific enough choice of words to make CT brow furrow curiously, as he goes on, her gaze lingering on Gaeta a second longer before she actually reaches to pick up the envelope.

She really couldn't say what she expects before opening it, but as she tips the old tags into her hand, the cool metal still familiar against the skin, it does somehow make sense.

Her expression is probably hard to read in those first few moments, and even CT herself would fail to shed it any light. The chain dangles over the edge of her fingers, tinkling quietly against the tabletop, and she runs her thumb over the debossed text.

"...you know, in hindsight, them not using our real names even on our tags should've been a red flag," she comments with a subdued laugh, before sliding a button on the side that makes the USB extend from within the body of the tags. "Every bit of data I gathered on that program is in here. Hidden under my medical records, where no one would think to look. I left them behind for Texas, took another copy with me. This is..."

Conflicting, in some ways—hard not to think of Texas, first, the mistake that had been. But... vindicating, in others. It's back in her hands, now. And if she ever makes it home, alive but no longer sure how much she can rely on Needles either...

She closes her fingers around the tags and smiles. "...thank you, Felix."

[not_a_traitor]

"You're welcome." Softly.

He'd thought the tags felt a little heavy when he picked them up, but assumed it had something to do with the alloy. He hadn't realized they included a set of digital data, too -- especially not the same set CT risked her life for, over and over, until death caught up with her. The flash of surprise he feels when she reveals the hidden drive vanishes in a burst of relief: nobody else bought them first.

"I found them at Calloway's. I -- didn't know about the data in them; I just wanted to make sure they got to the right person." He rubs a thumb over the brass ball chain just visible at his shirt collar, then huffs a small laugh. "And knowing how he tends to gouge people if he digs up something personal, I didn't want you spending all your Brass on them either."