The Festival of Flowers

[ateratmods]

Who; EVERYONE
What; The Flower Festival!
Where; The Circus Complex
When; 5/23 - 5/29
Warnings; None! Please warn if your individual thread would typically require a content warning.

It’s a beautiful day week in the neighborhood! With the dawn on Sunday, 5/23, it becomes apparent what everyone has been preparing for. Many merchant stalls common to the market have relocated to the circus complex for the week, streets and parks throughout the city have been decorated with the finest fresh flowers of the season. There is laughter and music wherever you travel. Yes, to spite some of the darker events of recent days, the city is awash with the celebration of life! The real party is found in the Circus Complex and the surrounding park, though. Here can be found all the trappings of a spring festival: flowers, music, dancing, singing, food. Everyone is in high spirits (and there’s plenty of those to go around, too)!


THE FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS

Days in the park have never been as lovely in anyone's memory. Flowers of hundreds of colors line the paths and fill the fields. Minstrels have set up shop in various areas of green and vibrant colors, with baskets ready for coin. Children and adults alike, crowned with flower crowns at the entrance to the park, whirl in time with the music, and all is merry. Oh, and that flower crown? Yeah, you've all got one too. It seems it's required to even enter the park itself, or the Circus Complex. People are there, ready to greet you with a smile, a warm hello, and a party favor in the form of a woven crown. They come in a variety of colors, strangely coinciding with the color of your home apartment building and key, whatever that might mean.

The longer they're among the flowers, though, the less mysteries like the colors of the crowns seem to matter. The pollen of the flowers has a calming effect on anyone who smells them for long, and the more time spent in the park amid all the blooms the more likely someone is to want to participate. There are stickball games, frisbee, hopscotch, and even a game or two of soccer being played in the more open areas.

There's food to be found here as well, all kinds of food. There is roasted meat on sticks, pretzels and other bread easily carried while wandering, sweets, and just about any sort of spring fare you can imagine! It isn't just limited to the park, either. There are street vendors in every available spot in the Circus complex.

CHOCOBO BREEDERS WANTED

The big draw at the Circus itself, the building roughly 200 meters long which houses the track on which the great birds are raced in summer, is the Chocobo Breeders Forum. Breeders from far beyond the walls of the city, in the great expanse of plains, have brought their birds for view. Investors mill about, investing coin in promising future racers and some of the more divine birds anyone in Aterat has ever seen are on display. If you've accrued a bit of coin, you can even take ownership of a newly hatched chick, but those who do so should be warned: they aren't pets. These creatures will grow rapidly in the next 6 months or so into an 8-foot tall land bird with a voracious appetite for greens and an affinity for stealing sparkly things and hiding them.

Several breeders do have stalls in their stables for rent, though, and are more than willing to let them out to fellow breeders. They'll even give you lessons on how to train your new friends to ensure your bonds are strong, whether you plan on using them as beasts of burden, travel companions, or competitively.

(OOC: If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask)

GLADIATORS WANTED

Not to be outshown by overgrown birds, the Arena in the Circus Complex is also working to coax combatants into the frey. You see, next month it seems starts the season, advertisements suggest and callers near the gates attest. They call to anyone passing by who seems they could hold their own in a fight to join a trial match while they're visiting. The Arena has weapons at their disposal, should they have neglected to bring their own, and there are prizes based on crowd approval. The crowd bets of favorites, you see, and a portion of the prize fund goes to the winning combatants. You're able to compete in groups, duos, or singles, and the prizes are better the more challenging the fight.

These fights can be against NPC opponents, friendly matches between other visitors, or even against monsters!

(OOC: If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ASK)

FOR VISUAL REFERENCE

Comments

A different kind of language

[allagain]

Click!

Nearby, G'raha took a picture of the flowers before quickly jotting something down in a notebook.

"A fascinating question!" He lowered his notebook with a bright smile, his tail swishing gently with excitement. "The language of flowers is dependent on cultural context, and meanings will change and shift over time, just as the spoken and written word do. There is no reason to assume meanings would hold constant across worlds, but this too is true of speech, and yet we can still understand each other perfectly well here."

[gadaboutdetective]

Llewellyn blinked in surprise, definitely having not expected an answer. The enthusiasm for the topic is welcome though, so the detective returns the smile with a grin of his own as he listened. “Mm… I must say, you’re quite right about that! My era is quite different from those of other people I’ve known from similar worlds. Even a lot of words mean things that I wouldn’t have expected.” He enjoys making use of them when there seems like an occasion to.

“And I can actually verify that in other worlds they do mean other things. I uh— learned that in an unfortunate mixup.” His smile shifted to something a little more… awkward. Don’t give your significant other from another world flowers without checking to make sure that they didn’t have a different meaning. It’s not good depending on the flower. “I’m going to need to find out more about it in this world though, at least if I’m going to be much help with making arrangements and selections for people.”

[allagain]

G'raha nods along as Llewellyn speaks. He's certainly noticed that his own speaking patterns differ from many of the other people here, and that certain concepts vary.

"You are a florist, I presume?"

[gadaboutdetective]

“I’m learning to be, yes.” He responded with a small smile. “Trying new things this time around, I suppose.” Llewellyn added thoughtfully. The first world he’d been to he had spent more of his time trying to do what he’d done in his own world with a little dabbling once the right person encouraged him. Not that he was abandoning that here… The detective was just realizing that this was a fresh start, and maybe he should also enjoy opportunities that he hadn’t had before.

Though he was rather prone to having very random knowledge about very random subjects. Languages were a particular favourite, and so floriography had caught his interest over the years. Then branched into more of an interest in gardening as well.

But his focus shifted, remembering some of his manners he offered a hand. “I’m Llewellyn Watts-Maresh. I don’t believe we’ve met before, Mr…?”

[allagain]

"'Tis always good to expand one's base of knowledge," G'raha agreed. Perhaps he could learn the language of flowers himself, now that he finds himself with a surplus of free time and no impending doom to work to prevent.

He accepted the offered hand with a smile. "My name is G'raha Tia. 'Tia' is a title all its own, so you need not concern yourself with calling me 'mister.'"

[gadaboutdetective]

“I’ve always thought so.” He responded, glad to hear the other was like-minded on the subject. Llewellyn would be happy to assist with that endeavour should G’raha decide to pursue it.

For the moment though, he nodded and dropped the Mister easily enough given most people asked him to in these worlds. It had been a refreshing change from some of the expected formality of his own world. Though it was apparently not so much that as it was that G’raha had not her title. “G’raha Tia, then. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.” Of course, he was rather intrigued nosy with this other title the man apparently carried. “Mm… Do you mind if I ask what the title Tia means?”

[allagain]

"I don't mind at all. I could hardly expect you to be familiar with Seeker of the Sun culture. We are a tribal society. Nunh is the title given to the dominant male of the tribe, and all other men are Tia."

Dominant male, breeding male, same difference? G'raha's not embarrassed by or ashamed of how his culture works, but he's aware that it's a rather unusual way of doing things, and, well. The exact details of a Nunh's responsibilities just aren't something you just spring on someone, not in polite company. So delicately leaving it in the realm of implication it is.

[gadaboutdetective]

Perhaps not quite the same difference, but Llewellyn could hardly tell. It wasn’t as though his brain went there without proper prompting. “No, I confess I’ve not heard of your people before. Not surprising, I suppose, given we’re from very uh— different worlds.”

Even if he did understand, Llewellyn did tend to be open to other ideas and more respectful of other cultures and peoples compared to some of his colleagues from his own world. “So… The Nunh is the leader of your people?” He’s thinking more along the lines of king and less about breeding, G’raha.