Voice; Fiddlesticks 24, early-ish morning. (slightly backdated)

[mtsilver_conquor]

Colour me curious, but what are winter festivals or holidays like on your world? Back home, today would be Shiwasu 10, or Tōji -longest night and the start of winter. It's also my birthday, but that's not the important thing; it's not a big number anyway. I don't know what Alola does for Tōji, so I'll tell you what my hometown did.

[The longer she talks, the more homesick she sounds. It likely doesn't help that today's her birthday, but well. Small detail's Eva's willing to overlook.] Masara had the rural traditions of feasting, food making, drinking, games dancing, battles. You know, the normal for a coastal town.

No snowball fights though; we'd have to go to the mountains for that and we never went in the lead up to Tōji because that was bad luck. But, we did have something better: Fire jumping under the stars to bring good luck. You'd start at dusk with it low, little more than a small coal pit so even kids could jump it with supervision, and work up to a boosted jump over a half-drum of flames, though they'd only let the adults do that one.

The day I turned twenty I did so many times mum had to drag me away from it by the ear, but - worth it. So worth it...

[She trails off before ending the transmission.]

Comments

[mtsilver_conquor]

[She can think of a few things and they're not exactly all g-rated.]

Spending it with loved ones for one and probably learning how Alola celebrated the longest night. What about you? What would you have done?

[knifewithnoname]

Maybe I would have been eating honeycakes... [She actually. Doesn't want to think about this, doesn't want to think of when she turned eleven or ten or nine. She wrinkles her nose.]

But if I did be being at home I would have been being at the Temple now, so I do know be knowing what they do be doing on birthdays.

[mtsilver_conquor]

Not that much of a fan?

[Though, honeycakes sound delicious...]

Probably something stuffy? It's a temple and they're not the kind of places people typically have parties outside of festivals.

[Now it's her turn to wrinkle her nose.] But I also don't know what temples are like in your world, so...

[knifewithnoname]

Neither do I be knowing. I did no be going there yet. [She shrugged.] What do temples be being like in your world?

[mtsilver_conquor]

[And cue chatterbox as Eva tries and fails to explain temples in her world.]It depends. Most of the time, they're actually just big, ornate shrines with a collection of buildings set on grounds considered sacred that people go to pray to the gods -sometimes, like with the one in Masara- you end up with one dedicated to a lot of different gods. Either way though, the atmosphere is... it's alive. Sacred. There's a history to them that means it's likely very, very old. I mean, sure, some places will hide koiru around to create or add to the atmosphere, but that's...

[She shrugs a bit and sorry, Litrtone; she's very much chatterbox who can't sum up anything right now.]

It's cheating, obviously, yet it adds to the experience of visiting a temple. I know the largest will often have a baby god-species there, because our gods are pokemon, and it seems like most people here have people-shaped ones.

[knifewithnoname]

Your gods do be being pokemon? [Despite the chattering she had followed most of it, it sounded different to what she knew the Temple in her world but closer to the smaller city temples or alters. Except generally those in her world were always outside except in very cold or rainy lands. Gauig was neither.]

Do a koiru be being a pokemon?

[mtsilver_conquor]

Yeah. It's... complicated. I believe in the gods yet I also know they're pokemon and that when I looked into the eyes of the young furīzā Kanna-san was returning to the wild, they're instinct and nature. Wild and beautiful.

[She holds nothing but respect and more than a little bit of awe for the pokemon.]

Yeah. It's this weird thing we think was once a crab-like creature, but now it's rather. Weird.

[knifewithnoname]

That do be being weird. It do all be being weird. [Everything Eva had just said. She sighed.]

Our gods do just be being... a presence. I do be guessing.