aterat | Winter is not a season

Entry tags:

Winter is not a season

Who; Everyone (don't forget to tag in & tag around!)
What; The Winter Festival
Where; The circus complex and the park
When; Today & lasting for 1 week
Warnings; None, but if something needs a warning, please label as such!

Back in November, Ignis petitioned Halcyn for a Winter Festival. He requested snow, lots of lights, and an in ground hot tub or two or more.

Train/moogles/horses - There's also a small train to go ride around the city, and horses will again appear for sleigh rides. Moogles will be appearing/on hand to give directions to where things are if people get lost. They are also serving as sources of information in case someone doesn't know anything about a festival or activity. Just ask the moogle kupo!

Food/shopping - Ignis also learned of and requested that European style christmas markets (including Japanese ones) so all of the foods for those countries and all of the things/traditions that they are associated with will be available. Whatever country has what, feel free to learn about it, or whatever different world. Recipe books will be available for whatever place too so pick one up while you can because you might want to learn to cook it for yourself! (Sorry folks, Remy not included) Enjoy all the shopping and fooding even if you've never heard of that place, world or food before. So eat, drink and be merry!

Activities/things to do - Skiing, sledding, skating and tobogganing will be available and if you're really tough, maybe archery hunting in skis may appeal. Riding on a ski lift can be a relaxing thing to do as well. Snowboarding is available as well, but a few words of caution on that. There may be sledding moogles as you go, lots of trees to run into, balloons, and if you hit an igloo, there may be an angry moogle that throws a table at you. There are also snow chocobos and snow moogles along that path.

For those not so daring to go snowboarding, the snow moogles and snow chocobos will be around town in different spots so that they're not missed. And while they won't throw snowballs at you, your friends just might! And you can ride a horse to go see a model of a royal library. A word of caution however, as there may be monsters even if they're mostly slimecicles. There may be some Luminous Lamplings or Bongo Fandangos lurking about too.

Other activities/happenings - There will also be events and things for the Chinese New Year, such as lion dances, all sorts of traditional foods, decorations, fire works, firecrackers and kids might get red envelopes. Since it is now the Year of the Rabbit, adorable rabbit decorations of all sorts are everywhere. On the last day of this Winter event will be the Lantern Festival.

Something else to note - If you're feeling adventurous there's a place or two to get married! The Hunting Lodge is always open so you could married there too! Take a walk through some Christmas illuminations for romance, or just because they're pretty.

Other notes - People from home will appear this week too as it's a fourth wall event, so be on the lookout for them! And if all of this stuff doesn't work, feel free to choose your own wintry adventure!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A. Sleigh Ride?

The truth was deep down in her heart of hearts, Ivy was a romantic. There were things in her life she'd never gotten to do, normal things that people might have taken for granted. Or that they might have found silly to want to do. Ivy wasn't one to do silly things, or things without a purpose at all. She was someone that fit everything into a schedule and then didn't deviate from it in the slightest. And yet as she looked at the horses set up for sleigh rides she found herself kind of...interested in going on one.

Only vaguely. Or so she'd tell herself as she watched with her arms folded across her chest. A moogle came by and she blinked at the strange creature and shook her head at it's offer for help or directions.

"Oh, no, I was just heading to the market." Yup, that was definitely it. Or at least that was the story she was sticking to. She threaded the chain on her silver cross necklace through her long fingers and gave a small smile, showing just a brief glimpse of her fangs. "Thank you for the offer though." Even if it was the weirdest creature she had ever seen.

B. Market

Ivy had a basket full of different sorts of food items, different kinds of sausages, different vegetables, different cheeses, all sorts of things one might not usually think of finding at their usual market. Was she doing it specifically for her business? Yes. Yes, she was. Even in the midst of something that was meant to be purely fun Ivy Tamwood had found a way to make it work. She seems entirely focused on finding new and different ingredients too, so focused that she might not be paying complete attention to where she's going.

So if she bumps into you, well, it's her fault but she won't instantly admit that.

Eventually, she does find herself mildly distracted by a merchant offering up mulled win. She takes a mug of it and then turns to someone near by.

"How strong do you think it is?"

"Not nearly as strong as I am used to," came the honest answer from Rhy, who was sipping at his own cup quite contentedly. "We've a tradition of it back home, and this? This does not compare. At all. But alas, one must make do."

"No?" She swirled the mug in her hand and takes in the scent. "Mildly disappointing though you're right, sometimes we have to make due in these places." She took a sip and then shrugged. Definitely left some to be desired, but it could have been worse. "What's your tradition back home?"

"Well, we prefer spirits," he says with a smile. "No, actually some people prefer wine, but I'm a man of spirits, and you can definitely do spirits that have mulling spices in them. it's a delight."

And the intoxication is so much stronger.

"Really? I'd love to try some of that. I don't hate wine, but I've generally preferred spirits myself. They tend to not have the weird aftertaste. Plus," she shrugged. "Feels generic for a vampire to like wine."

"Wine is the drink most often of nobility back home. But of dinners, and formals that don't intend to get work done. Spirits are what lubricate high society functions," he says with a smile.

Though he looks intrigued at her statement. "Oh? Why do you say that?"

"Wine and champagne are the drinks of choice for the wealthy where I'm from. Wine only if it's aged and from a good winery." The more it cost the better. "My kind rely more on other things for lubricating the senses." Like the saliva that came with their bites, which acted like an even stronger version of a drug or drink.

"Human media had a bad habit of depicting vampires drinking blood from goblets. Kind of like you'd drink wine."

"Ah yes, vintage matters," he laughs and nods. That makes sense to him. Because it does matter.

But then he has to pause, think, and laugh.

"That would be hard to clean."

"Most people would say for the taste, but I'm pretty sure for the wealthy where I'm from it's more about being able to say it cost an arm and a leg."

Surprisingly that actually got a smile form her. "Vampires have perfected cleaning up blood. You might even say it's in our own blood. Those of us that still have it."

"Oh, it's for both. Some wines are better with more time. Others... Well, at some point you've just got expensive vinegar."

And that's always a shame.

"Oh? Do you have tips for getting it out of shirt cuffs? Sometimes I get myself too good with a needle."

"Expensive vinegar sounds like something I'd be happy to see some of the elites I know end up with. Definitely mother." Anything at all that might embarrass or annoy her mother was a positive in Ivy's book.

"Distilled white vinegar is a useful one."

"I admit, I've known some people to magic it onto others out of spite."

It's not a normal sort of water working, but it could be done with some mixed magics. Still, he's pleased to hear she has an idea.

"I shall have to have a supply. I got into the work later in life, and my fingers are nimble, so I have yet to build up the thicker fingers some people manage."

"If I could use magic I'd want that spell to do it." Just for her mother though. Just out of spite. It wouldn't be something she'd risk doing to her master though.

"You're a step above most already then. Most people don't pick up new skills or hobbies later in life. They just get stuck as they were."

Of course he'd picked up skills and hobbies. What he'd done back home hadn't been viable here.

"The work I used to do is beyond me here. So I am glad to get to learn. Especially things my family never would have allowed."

"Things your family wouldn't allow, mm?" She actually laughed heartily there, a rarity for someone as routinely serious as her. "I've been doing more and more of that lately here. Feels nice sometimes."

"Doesn't it?" Rhy asks with a smile. "To not live with the old expectations?"

"Yeah. Sometimes it makes me not want to leave this place. Not having to worry about what I'm expected to do and what my Master wants from me, what's coming in my future...." she shakes her head. "It's a relief."

A relief. Yes, he knows. Rhy considers briefly, whether it's worth revealing a thing? But would she see him differently then? Probably.

"Perhaps you should stay then. Perhaps they will let you stay."

"Is that something they can even decide?" She fiddled with the cross around her neck and shook her head. She shouldn't want to stay here. There were people back home she did miss and yet...it was nice being away from Piscary and the political world that vampire's always found themselves wrapped up in. "It feels selfish to want to stay."

"I don't know," Rhy admitted with a shrug. "I met a couple here who have decided they want to stay. Or so it seems to me."

Rhy himself knew he couldn't. His world needed him. But he'd take the time he could get.

"To be with each other? Romantic." There was a wistful quality to her voice, that was something she'd always wanted with someone but never quite gotten anywhere she'd been. "Maybe it's decent enough to assume it's possible."

"Romance is a thing that these places can give, when life itself cannot," he says with a warm smile. And that was all he thought was needed. He was happy with what he had.

"I hear that a lot from your husband. But I still get caught up in concerns from home." On if she deserved a happy relationship or could handle one.

Yes, he supposed he did too.

"I fear, I admit, for what my world will be when I am not there to be part of it."

She worried about that now and then herself, what might happen to her friends without her there and how things might go. She wasn't nearly as important to her world as he was to his though. "I can't blame you for that."

Winter is not a season

Ivy | The Hollows | OTA

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