Every year in Etnfrandia, four festivals are celebrated: The Flower Festival at the Spring Equinox, The Summer Solstice, the Harvest Festival on the Autumnal Equinox, and the Winter Solstice. They are to the locals like Holidays, only there is no religion, only a religious rigor to the traditions of the events.
Fennorin Willowbirth
“An Etnfrandian’s Explanation of The Everglow Nation”
The Explorer’s Magazine
UE 2343
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UE 2368. 5 years pre-Recollection.
FENNORIN
There was something incredibly empty about crowds. They mingled and gathered and parted in a way that mathematics could predict, Fenn was certain, and the conversations were no less calculable. According to everyone, it was “a beautiful snow for a Winter Festival,” their fathers and mothers and children were well, and a whole lot of people wanted to know who was getting betrothed to whom. Their voices raised a muted din in the mist of snow, rhythmic over the sway of music.
Fenn observed through the screen of flakes wishing he could throw off the long, unfortunately elaborate robe of a Myc-Ceann, a Councilman’s son, that choked around his shirt collar. Light from trees of polished silver sparkled in the fruit suspended from their branches and glittered in the frost on his glasses. In the space encircled by the faux trees laid a maze of wooden booths, stone firepits, and woodcraft chairs. At the center of it all, a great white tree stood over the festival with crystals for leaves refracting light in every direction. Merrymakers danced beneath it to the graceful songs of winter. Their movements were complimentary, each playing a role in some greater dance, yet devoid of any true meaning. And there was Fenn peering at the rippling revelers, bearing a cloak that screamed “come chat with me about current events” of which he knew little, and watching dances of which he remembered nothing.
Another person passed him with a half-bow and wished him well, but Fenn could only hear, “Have a warm and lovely winter,” so many times before the words lost meaning. The pairing of a wish of warmth amidst the snow alongside the wish of beauty in a colorless season; it was ironic. He wondered why they wished it at all; whether it was the lack of beauty and warmth that had brought the greeting into being, or if perhaps there had been a time and place for elves where, as at the other end of the world, winters had been warm and summers cold.
Regardless, this winter was very cold.
From somewhere on Fenn’s left, a deep voice called, and Fenn turned to see the friendly smile of his step-brother-in-law–or was it just step-brother–his mother’s step son. Family. Somehow. The greeting made Fenn feel neither warmer nor lovelier, but it was a relief.
“You also, Edwend, Seavan.” He bobbed his head to the dark-haired elf who was half-a century his elder and the timid she-elf on his arm. At last, he’d found some folk who wouldn’t ask him about his father, or what vocation he was (not) pursuing, or similar smalltalk on vexing topics.
“I’m glad to see you made it. My brother and I were just debating if you would. After all, you haven’t been back a year yet, and you certainly skipped the Harvest. And let me tell you, that was a good party.” Edwend’s eyes twinkled with an honest mischief.
Fenn kept to himself that he doubted he would’ve enjoyed it and wrapped his grossly embroidered cloak tighter. “Well, I could only avoid public events for so long,” he said softly.
Edwend nodded knowingly. “You look like you need a warm drink. Come on.” He clasped Fenns shoulder, pushing him along.
When Edwend turned, Fenn caught his fist glimpse of Seavan’s profile and the telling roundness that was quickly betrayed by her slim Etnfrandian dress.
“Oh, congratulations,” he said by reflex.
“What do you mean?” Seavan smiled nervously.
Fenn winced. That was a human tradition. Etnfrandians congratulated at the birthing and weaning. “Sorry! Excuse me. It’s, erm, a very belated congratulations on a mutually advantageous match. I realize now it has likely been some time, but I never congratulated you both, so...”
Edwend guffawed and slapped Fenn’s shoulder. He was strong, a dancer, like his father. “Five years, Fenn, but that’s alright. Better late than never.”
Fenn straightened his glasses and wished for the hundredth time he could be huddled by the great hearth of Assandial Library, buried in a thick tome and the quiet company of a curator. Tomes were easier. Tomes didn’t have ritual and culture. Assandial was easier. He was supposed to be an outsider there.
Edwin chuckled on, shaking his head. They stopped in front of a fire in front of an elf in a wool cap ladling a steaming drink. “A pint for my brother here, good sir!”
“Ah, the young Willowbirth!” The elfman smiled cheerfully. “Beauteous Snow, everyone! Glad to see you at the festivities again, Myc-Ceann.”
Fenn greeted the older elf with a nod. If he said anything more, Fenn had stopped listening. He watched a group of elves move away from a booth with a skewer of roasted hazelnuts glazed with syrup. A youth nearly identical to one of the adults tarried at the booth, badgering the keeper for a second skewer. He smiled.
Something bumped his arm. He looked down to see a wooden mug full of steaming amber fluid. He couldn’t recall the Etnfrandian name of this drink just now, but he knew it to be a hot, sweet form of hard cider.
“Here you are.” Edwend said. “I’m overdue to meet Dysren and the rest of the family for a game of White Tail, but we’re just over here and would love for you to join us.”
He took a sip of the drink and let it warm him with its bite. It was strange to think that no one would be able to attain drunkenness. Not at an elven party. A she-elf in a rich blue cloak asked an elfman laughing with his friends to the dance floor. The young man blushed and followed her. The elves didn’t seem to need social lubrication. Most elves, anyway.
“This is kind of you.” He lifted his mug to his brother and hoped he was smiling in a natural way. “I’ll be sure to come by, but White Tail is a game played in pairs.” He wasn’t ready for the combined friendliness of everyone. Edwend and Seavan alone were good company, but a whole family he’d never known opening their arms to him… it had a strange way of making him feel even further from them all. They’d welcome a criminal the same if he said he was Sanwryn’s son. Actually, he supposed, they technically do.
His eyes were still on the couple now “waltzing” on the dance floor. He’d find a seat to the side where he could watch the partygoers, listen, and be seen without engaging with anyone. Edwend, not yet retearing, followed Fenn’s gaze to the floor.
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“Suite yourself, brother. And hey, who knows? Perhaps the White Vixen will take a nip at you, too.” Edwend winked and offered his arm to Seavan. “There was a pretty she-elf asking our mother about you earlier, you know.”
Fenn turned with a question on his tongue, but Edwend was leading Seavan away. He sighed out a cloud of steam and glanced around for a place to sit. Crowded tables of elves eating and playing games clogged the way to his left. The dance floor was in front of him, behind it a stage with a 5-man band currently playing a “waltz.” Next, they’d play a lullaby and end the current song cycle. Over to the right, craftsmen sold wares for the festival–jewelry, statues, instruments, paintings, drawings, decorations, and other tchotchkes.
In an otherwise open space he would’ve preferred to occupy, several stray groups stood on the fringes of the dance floor and edges of booths merely talking. A commotion sent him spinning. A girl chased a boy between tables, nearly knocking over an elder. Someone had spilled their ullyn in the commotion. Aha! That’s the name! Fenn sipped on his own, choosing to loiter near the fire where he had received his mug.
One of the children’s mothers began to scold half-heartedly. Fenn smiled, remembering similar circumstances in his own childhood. He and Gale used to run around the edge of the festival playing foxes and hares. Galendria. She’d probably been the one to ask after him.
The song changed, and a voice both familiar and strange floated over the crowd, calling out to him in a lullaby. He turned to face the sound. It was her. No longer a girl, but rather a she-elf in a velvety gown of softest white. She stood center-stage, her long brown hair collecting snowflakes that framed her face, flush with the cold. Her voice was pure as the crystals on the “tree” behind her. The crowds hushed as she sang, everyone entranced by the magic of her voice.
Close your eyes, my daughter, and you’ll awake a lovely vixen.
The moon alights your fur and true love will come.
I’ll keep you warm this winter, and he can have the next.
Only sleep in my den this winter, and you’ll awake a lovely vixen.
While cold howls like the wind of a storm, we will be at peace.
I’ll keep you warm this winter, and love can have the next.
No one breathed as the harpist plucked the last notes. It was as though the lullaby had put the whole land to sleep. As Galendria held her final poze, her eyes flicked across the crowd, landing on… him. Fenn was staring at her, his mouth agape and his drink half-raised to his mouth. A glint of recognition woke in her eyes and Fenn felt his face grow hot and the color leave him all at once. He must’ve been standing like that the whole song.
The withheld breath finally escaped him in a steaming fog over his cup that clouded his glasses. He took a swig of his drink and turned away, swiping with his gloves.
The vague sound of moving instruments told him they were changing bands. He watched from the corner of his eye as she thanked her accompanists, then shuffled across the emptying dance floor–straight to him.
He would have to turn to her. Speak to her. Sure, they had been friends once, but now? No better than strangers.
“Well let Western Wanderer rise in the East! You really have returned to the public, Fenn!” Her voice was full of mirth now, the pure magic of the song gone. She stood upright in her slim, elegant dress accompanied by gold jewelry hanging from her ears. To this ensemble she’d added a lined cloak of fair blue, its hood bunching her hair into loose waves. Her voice may have been mirthful, but her bearing was gracious and regal. This was no child.
“Fyr-Ceann Silverstem,” Fenn bowed with his arms at his sides, “a truly exquisite performance. Most…” He trailed off. There was a proper compliment for an occasion when something had reached new heights in the elvish standard of beauty. This land had many words for beauty. Which one is it?
“Um, Myc-Ceann…” Her voice pinched with discomfort.
He snapped up from his bow. “Sorry!” It was more yelp than apology. They were equals in standing, technically, and within a year in age. He shouldn’t bow.
She crossed her arms and twisted her mouth into an amused smile. “Warm winter to you, too.”
He closed his eyes. He knew he was blushing now. “Yes, and lovely.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. This lady hardly seemed like the same elfling he’d known. The one that’d chased him around the Winter Festival in his boyhood. He supposed the mirth was familiar.
She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “You were going to say something about my performance?”
“Oh right!” He toyed with his mug. “Well, I was, but I can’t remember the words, so I’ll just call it most magical.”
She furrowed her brow. “Magical?”
He grimaced. That was not a word used to describe anything that wasn’t literally magical here. “I meant enchanting… but…” That meant literally magical as well. “That was wrong also.”
She sighed, shaking her head with a smirk. “Thank you.”
Fenn swished his glass. “So, you became a performer?”
“Yes, but I believe you knew that already. I spoke of this dream often.”
Fenn nodded absently. She’d always been singing something when they were kids.Yes, and her coming-of-age demonstration had been a concert.
“What about you?” she leaned in, as though trying to get a good look at his face. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”
He shrank away from the often-asked question. “What do you mean?”
“I assume that since you’re home again, you probably have to pick a real art now, right? Or at least a job?”
He couldn’t shrink any further physically, but inside he drew so far away that he could no longer recognize her. Fenn had returned to do more research for a short time, but his father had been pushing him to contribute to their culture. He did need to think of an “art” to use to officially “come of age” if he was going to be here a few years. It was embarrassing enough that he had never had the ceremony. He’d left before it. But with her, he wished to discuss none of this.
“Fyr-Ceann Gale,” a young elfman cut in on their poor excuse for conversation, “that was a performance more worthy of praise than the sun’s own light! I’m inspired by the beauty of your art.”
That was the thing to say! The elfman was around their age with a well-fitted tunic and coy smile. Another man was approaching from the other side of Gale, and several others were in the vicinity stealing glances at her. Fenn pushed his glasses up his nose to hide his cringe. She was inadvertently making him their rival in the bidding war for her attention.
Galendria smiled brightly at the one speaking to her. “Such a pretty compliment, Nilum. I appreciate it. Has the snow alighted well on you?”
“Oh yes, and I see it alights well on you.” He turned a shade of pink. “Actually, I was wondering if you had already chosen your dance partners for the evening?”
Galendria smiled graciously. Fenn didn’t stay for her answer. His childhood memory had plenty of people waiting to congratulate her properly and keep her company, and he didn’t feel inclined to speak with any of them. That was a level of socializing that made observing a game of White Tail sound perfectly delightful. He retreated to one of the crowded tables where his step-father and family played, sitting with his back to the dancers.
There was some happiness there, watching the boys bicker and try and tell each other how to play so that they would fall into each other’s traps. It all seemed far from him, veiled by the curtain of misty snow, occurring in a land far from him, though he was the one who had returned. After the second match, when they tried to line him up for the next game, he excused himself, leaving his cloak in hopes his father would see it and assume he was nearby.
When his boots eventually stopped where he intended, he sighed out in relief. A blanket of snow covered both tree and earth, needle and stone, in a muffled quiet–a profound emptiness. He sat on a familiar stone and opened his notebook. This was a proper holiday, even if it lacked a hearth. Quiet. With true and honest emptiness. He would have to return to the hidden emptiness of the crowd eventually, if not at this festival, then the next one. But here was peace.