The festival of the moon and the sun
The 31st day of the 12th month.
As the sun was shining brightly at midday it created a created a pleasant atmosphere with the cold winter breeze, neither to cold nor to hot ‘an incredibly pleasant day for the festival’. The festival I was referring to was the festival of the moon (this world’s version of Christmas), celebrated on the last day of the year. ‘This year is even more special the festival is on the day of the moon’.
The days of the week in this world were named after the domains of the gods, with the week starting with the day of the sun followed by, war, sea, knowledge, earth, justice and finally ending on the day of the moon.
Every year for the festival of the moon the church would hold a fund raiser by selling various jams and jellies of the local fruits. Following that would be folk dance, theatre, singing performances to further raise money.
“AL! Stop daydreaming and come help me with this barrel.”
Snapping back to reality I looked at Henry who was struggling to move a ginormous barrel. Quickly coming to his side I saw him trying to tip the barrel to the side so that he could roll it to the church stall. I went to his side and told him “lets push on 3, ready 1, 2, 3……..ughh””ughhh”.
Even with me and Henry pushing together we still could not tip over the barrel. “The pulp might have compressed over the years, this things quite bottom heavy” I said, as I was about wash my hands of this, I could feel Henry staring at me.
“What!”
*Stare*
“I am not gonna do that”
*Stare*
“…..fine, you win, but just this once. ḀḎṑṈḮ(POWER)” with my massive increase in strength I once again tipped the barrel and this time I was able to tip it over after using all my strength.
What I spoke right now were dragon words, Dragons can change the world with mere words; that is there nature, dragon words is the way how they do it. Dragon words only work if they are spoken in the correct pronunciation and with proper intent and grammer, that being said the most important thing to use dragon words is the presence of dragon blood, though the specific reason remains unknown to me.
“hu, hu, hu, happy now?”
“Thanks Al”
“Yeah, yeah”
“Alfred, get the tables out”
“*sigh* okay.”
The rest of the day was spent like this getting the stall ready, putting up decorations, and watching the smaller kids. In the evening Tom, Henry and I went about the town to take part in the festivities, it’s usually us older boys that do the manual work to set up decorations and the stall, while the younger kids and the girls are the ones that sell stuff and perform ‘apparently this way they sell more’ thinking that. We 3 went about the town.
‘What should we do now, the plays, the stalls, or the attractions?’ “What do you guys wanna do?”
“The stalls seem nice.”(Tom)
“Yeah let’s get a bite to eat then look around.”(Henry)
Nodding my head we went to the main street where we bought some food, and then spent the rest of the time going around seeing the play, ‘isn’t it just Romeo and Juliet the good ending version.’, street performers one of whom was making flowers and birds out of water, a few that were dancing, singing and playing music.
By the time we reached back to the church it was already night-time and the moon was starting to rise. At the church stall we found Harold waiting for us (more specifically me). “Al, Central Square now.” With that Harold grabbed my hand practically dragged me to the central square.
Upon reaching the central square we spotted Mr Dolson standing upon a stage below which there was a crowd of people gathered around a large pool of water, with each holding a flower that resembled a white Water lily, the only difference being that they were glowing with a faint light reminiscent of moonlight, a Lunar Lily.
Harold paying no mind to the crowd that was now whispering amongst themselves while starring at us dragged me upon the stage and handed me off to Mr Dolson. “No need to be scared Alfred, now just as we rehearsed.” Nodding at him I walked to the front with of the stage shaking legs and held out my hands in prayer “oh moonlight give us your grace, your guidance.” As soon as I finished reciting the verse, the pool of water started glowing and the people around the pool started to gently place there flowers in the pool which in turn increased the brightness of the flowers, as soon as everyone had placed their flowers a beam of light came descending from the moon and bathed the pool in its grace, slowly dissolving every flower into the water which then in turn started glowing similar to the flowers.
As soon as the light from the moon faded, I who was maintaining my concentration to channel the miracle staggered and almost fell down but was caught by Mr Dolson who whispered to me” thank you and I am sorry for making you do this” turning my eyes towards him and seeing him in a worried expression I replied “no worries” and muttered “ṀḯἛỖὴ (rejuvenation)” with which I quickly recovered my strength and stood up.
Seeing the look better a smile appeared on Mr Dolson’s face “how about the 1st cup of Moondew for your troubles.”
“Yeah that would be nice” (Alfred)
Going down the stage, me and Mr Dolson went to pool and from the cups and ladle nearby scooped a ladle of moondew, with that in hand I went back to the church slowly sipping on the moondew along the way. Moondew is one of the primary reasons the festival of the moon is as popular as it is; moondew tastes different for everyone and this taste also changes every year, making this one of the reasons why most people agree that it is one of the most delicious drinks in the whole world.
‘It tastes a bit minty this year’ thinking about the taste of this year's moondew I was going home when I heard a small sound in the alleyway upon, curious I went near it to see a black cat curling around a much smaller cat as if protecting it from the cold. The smaller cat was wimpering while the bigger cat was there laying still, upon closer inspection you could see blood stains around the bigger cat.
“Don’t be afraid, little kitty” I said as I placed my hand on its back, and surprisingly enough as soon as I placed my hand on its head it stopped whimpering. Deciding to take the cat home I put it in my arms as I walked home giving the cat some moondew every now and then.
Reaching the church I went to my room and placed the kitten down on the bed and went and warmed up some condensed milk and some beaten egg whites for it. ‘ I remember one of my friends talking about giving this to his cat's litter.’
The next morning I went to Mr Dolson who was lying on the couch with his hands on his head.” Mr Dolson do you remember that you said that you would give me request?”
Groaning Mr Dolson replied “yes I do”
“Great, I want to keep this cat, can we?” I asked while holding out the cat that I was hiding behind my back.
Looking at me for a moment and then the cat and then at me again “*Sigh* Fine, but you’re paying for cat food.”
“Thank you so much Mr Dolson, you’re the best”
“It is okay Alfred but” glancing at the window he said “hurry up for the service.” “Yeah, I will, thanks once again.”
The service for the festival of the sun involved a large mass at noon along with a choir that lasted for about 2 hrs. The choir sang hymns from the testament of the sun and the book of panthea. The children that sang the choir were split into multiple groups in order to make it easier for them to learn and perform. The group I belonged to went In the middle, and overall I would say that our performance was about half way decent, not bad but not that great either.
After the service I feed the kitten and left it in Mr Dolson’s care who was now looking much better, I, Henry and Tom went to streets to look at the festivities. The troupe that was performing basically Romeo and Juliet, was now show casing a comedy, the decorations around the town had changed from lunar themed to solar themed, the water flower dude was now making butterflies and sparkles using light and the stalls were now advertising sun snow and other sun fruit snacks.
Sun snow is a dessert that can only be eaten on the festival of the sun (equivalent to new year’s day) unless you are very rich, the reason being that to make sun snow is made from sunfruits. Sunfuits are fruits that only ripen when the 1st daylight of the year hits them, anything other than that and they don’t ripen.
Grabbing a cone of sunsnow I had a thought’ isn’t it just sunfruit sorbet with moondew glazing.’ Spending the rest of the day roaming the streets and going home to feed the kitten every now and then is how we spent the rest of the day.
That night at the dinner table
“Weird”
“What’s weird Alfred?”(Henry)
“The doctrine of the moon is much more formal but their ceremony is much more relaxed on the other hand the doctrine of the sun is more relaxed but their ceremony is much more formal.”
“now that you mention it, yeah that is kinda weird.” (Henry)
fin
