Light up the Night - [BACKDATED to 2/5]

[mamaterasu]

Who: Ammy + Anyone interested
What: Fireworks show for the Lunar New Year!
When: Evening of 2/5/19
Where: Monkey Compound
Warnings: None so far, tag as needed!



[It's about noon when a message is posted to the Message Rock, as well as over the Stones of Farspeech - an elegant writing in kanji with a translation below. The voice is foreign, not often heard and possibly lost from most peoples' memories, but it sounds...excited? There's definitely a chime-like laughter hidden in the depths of it.]

All interested in a beautiful sight, please show up at dusk at the Hana--eh...the Monkey Compound. Drinks - for the elders among you - and some snacks will be provided, but I encourage you all to pack a box lunch.

Those unable to attend...I'll try to make sure you see it. Thank you.

[How very enigmatic indeed.

Still, those that do show up as the sky begins to change into a purple-blue color, dotted with small, glittering stars, will see that the Monkey Compound has been done up a bit. There's a line of small, flowering cherry blossom trees creating a lovely arch by the entrance, and little paper tags have been hung from a few of the branches, holding pictures of a tiny boar, or piglet, and a prayer written on the opposite side in kanji.

Inside has a very, very pleasant air to it. Much different than what this place used to be. It's laid with fresh, clean, springy grass and flowers, and a bountiful garden off to one side, which looks a little barren...probably because most of the foods have been harvested and laid out neatly on a bushels of palm fronds. Fresh vegetables and fruits from Ammy's garden, ripe for the taking and eating, if you're more the rustic type. There's also fire-roasted fish, skewered on a stick and cooking nicely by a crackling bonfire. Eat, enjoy, converse with neighbors and friends alike! Drinks have indeed been provided for the adults, a large barrel of sake with a ladle to pour it into one of twelve dishes. And yes, a bowl of water has been added to the side to rinse them off.

The centerpiece is a very basic shrine put up with a folding wall, once white in color but painted over with a beautiful portrait of a boar rolling a round firework, and a tiny, ceramic figure on a boar topping a little rock pile. Below the statue is an offering of sake, a single sakura mochi, a grilled fish, and some flowers. That is where the wolf will be when you first spot her.

For...a moment, at least. Because once the sky grows truly dark, and the embers from the bonfire has crept to soft, orange glow, a whistle will wheeze its way through the sky as a streak of light soars up, and up...before it explodes in a puff of white sparks. Nothing exciting, more a call to attention.

A minute passes, then another, and the're movement by the far end of the compound as the wolf readies everything she needs. A few final touches--...there! All ready for the show to begin.

And what a show it is.

The fireworks are beautiful and vibrant, coloring the skies in a vast array of rainbow hues, dancing like they're actually alive. True artistry, and a blessing from the God of Explosions, Bakugami (and the local rabbit god, who provided a number to help make this work). An explosive force meant to open the gate for a blissful new year - full of color, full of life, and bountiful in all things that bring happiness and joy to those with good in their hearts.

Happy Lunar New Year. ♥]

Comments

[ideismo]

I was concerned for her at first, of course, but she's skilled with healing and knows how to use a sword. She's become rather competent over her time away; I got to see it for myself recently. She's learned a good amount of things that remaining in the castle wouldn't have taught her.

[The things he's telling Asgore aren't lies; none of it is untruthful. It just isn't complete, either - the full truth of the matter can remain on Terca Lumireis, where it belongs.

Besides, he could come to like recalling it like this.]

[journalname]

[Asgore will probably never question Alexei's version of events at all!]

I'm sure it was an excellent experience. It will probably make her a better ruler someday, to have gone out in the world herself. Staying only within the castle walls does not do anyone any good.

[ideismo]

[Fortunate for all of us, really. Partially because he won't exactly want to answer for himself unless he absolutely has to, and partially because that would require me to actually try to explain the most nonsensical parts of Vesperia's plot.]

Swordmaster Drake never did agree with that notion for some reason - he was her teacher with regards to blades - but he was always an odd fellow. Entirely too bound up in tradition like the rest of the Empire, if I had to guess - simply because we've done something a specific way for a thousand years doesn't mean it should be how we keep doing it.

[journalname]

Oh, I agree. Times do change - even if we had not moved underground, life is so different now than when I took the throne. I admit I do not always understand it very well, particularly the technology...

[Not that it's his job to entirely get how the Core works or anything. There's engineers for that. But everybody does seem to agree that he should have a better handle on the Internet.]

But it's better to try and keep up.

[ideismo]

I'm often one of those trying to push our Council to actually consider that... It's an uphill battle sometimes.

[...You know what, we're not going to talk about the Council.]

I have noticed that some of the technology in other worlds is a long ways beyond my own, however; I'm interested in it, in some ways, though it's a bit much in others.

[journalname]

I find the advances in communication interesting. We have things we can use to speak and write to each other across distances - like the stones here, but machines. I had one, but it's been gone for a long time now. I am not quite sure where I left it...

[This is why he never gets anybody's texts.]

[ideismo]

Really...

[He's still a little weirded out by the stones, honestly, he has a tendency to yell into them because it just feels weird to use them?]

We still rely on messengers; issuing orders or receiving current information on things that are happening can take days. Devices like that would be infinitely more useful, to say nothing of valuable.

[journalname]

They are very useful! Still not perfect, of course - they must be kept full of energy, and they require access to a...signal.

[please don't ask him to explain this]

I know how to use mine well enough, but that is about all. I hear that the newer ones can show you the person you are talking to, as if you were right there with them! [Okay, he does understand it a little better than that by virtue of knowing what TVs are, but referencing television will not help here.]

[ideismo]

That's... Well, it's highly impressive, to say the least.

[He doesn't know what to do with this knowledge, per se, but that's so goddamn cool?]

I understand networks of signals being synchronized to one another, such that the individual parts function well enough individually but can also be connected as a group... We haven't quite managed communication across connections like that, however.

[journalname]

My Royal Scientist, Alphys, has done a lot of work on the communications system. I think she has rather given up on explaining it all to me, but I trust her.

[a recurring mistake, apparently]

[ideismo]

Might I ask what she's like...?

[Hopefully she's more tolerable than Mordio, good lord.]

[journalname]

Her name is Alphys. She's...well, she has been very timid ever since we first met. I thought at first it was only around me, but we have known each other for a few years now, and I think that is just how she is.

[It had made him feel a little better. Awful, maybe? But he tries so hard to be approachable.]

But she is a very clever engineer! She created a robot so advanced that it has a soul! [He didn't question it back then, and he's since met actual real robots with souls, so uh he may just never find out about this ever?] Oh, a robot is...well, have you met Legion?

[ideismo]

[Legion... It takes a moment for it to click, but - ]

Ah - if it's what I'm thinking of, we don't have things quite so self-aware. But we do have mechanical things that can think for themselves with a little prompting. I designed one of them personally, its name is Heracles.

[journalname]

That is probably them, yes. We had never had anything like that before - certainly never anything self-aware.

[Although, hold up:]

After the Greek hero...?

[ideismo]

...Greek?

[The fuck is a Greek.]

[journalname]

[You might say it's Greek to him!]

A culture from my world. They have a story about a hero called Heracles...it's very strange, stories like that seem to exist in the exact same state in many different worlds, even if they have nothing else in common.

[ideismo]

[ayyyyyy.]

We name our important things after celestial bodies, actually. We have many fairly prominent places within the Empire named after stars, and even some of those who have seceded from us continue to name things in that way - there are guilds named for the Leviathan, for example, and for Brave Vesperia as well.

Heracles is one of our constellations. I don't know precisely who named it or decided what it stands for; I assume it was the ancients. But I do like the meaning behind it, and Heracles is important to me. So I found it appropriate to name it that.

[journalname]

Oh, how nice! It has been quite a while since I saw the stars in my world...I am not quite sure if the humans even have the same constellations as we did.

What is the meaning behind Heracles?

[ideismo]

Extraordinary strength, primarily. The wit, intelligence, and ingenuity to overcome that which strength can't. And the courage to see everything through.

As I said, it's important to me. I wanted its name to reflect that.

[journalname]

That is a nice meaning.

[Sounds like someone's better at naming things than, cough, certain people.]

The Heracles of my world's myth was a powerful hero descended from the gods, with strength far beyond any other human. I suppose that is still a little similar. [also there's all that stuff with Hera and him killing his wife and all but like. that's not important right now!]

[ideismo]

It sounds it, yes.

[This is all actually pretty cool, as far as he's concerned; he's always been interested in things like this, even before they actually became relevant to him in any way.]

Most of the stories behind the stars have been lost to most of us, I'm fairly sure; I know I certainly don't know them. But I'm sure the seafarers have a better idea of them than I do, seeing as they use them to navigate.

I think the only story that's still widespread among us is the one regarding the Goddess and her brother - the time the son and daughter of Terca Lumireis saved the world from destruction. Does your world have extensive mythology, then...?

[journalname]

Oh, yes, from many different cultures. Greek and Roman myths may be the most well-known, simply because of how much influence the Roman empire had in its day. Though, of course, that was a human empire.

[aren't they all]

Humanity has always been more populous than my kind.

[ideismo]

[Oh, that's... Hm.]

The monsters back home vastly outnumber us, to a point where most can't leave the cities; those that do are generally combat-trained in some way or another, or they're adept with magic of some sort. Our numbers have also been down since the war; even if we consider the Kritya to be close enough to us to count for some of our population, there are still very few of us by comparison.

The idea of multiple kingdoms, multiple civilizations and empires like that is a bit foreign to me.

[journalname]

Humans were the only ones to ever have such things in my world. We lost...a great many monsters in the war. Even before that, there was only one Kingdom of Monsters.

[.....]

From what I understand, there are hundreds of human countries now.

[ideismo]

I see...

[He'll turn his attention back to the trees at that, taking them in for a moment. They still bother him, but again, they're familiar.]

Our population has always been somewhat low. My world simply doesn't care much for having living beings on it in general, it seems; we've dealt with world-ending cataclysms a few times more than any place really should. We appoint people that are responsible for keeping humanity at peace, and to ensure that another cataclysm doesn't come to us, and to defend the world in the event that it does. That's been my position for the past fifteen years or so.