The evening before the celebrations for the winter solstice began, Kazue, Moriko, and Mordecai ensured that all delvers were at the trading post zone or invited down to the feasting hall near the core. The stone town sitting above was far too cold for most and had a relatively small number of buildings so far, making it unsuitable for hosting parties right now.
There was a bit of a social divide between the two locations, but this was one occasion where no one attempted to rectify it. The Trionean soldiers and others who were less familiar to the dungeon were in the town above. The buildings were warm and insulated, even if the traversal between them was not, and there was only so much trust to be had.
There were some exceptions. Captain Alain Vitomir was invited to join the festivities in the feast hall below, but he declined to participate for long, making only one showing early in each day and then spending the rest with his men.
After 'appropriating' some extra drink of course. It was the same quality as what was available to them already, but the soldiers enjoyed it more for it having been supposedly exfiltrated from the dungeon's 'private' supply. No one saw any harm in helping the captain keep morale up.
Their family home inside the crystal tree was more insulated than the town below it, and Mordecai had used the oncoming winter as an excuse to teach everyone weather-warding runes. Rune crafting was an art most commonly practiced by those who already could use magic directly, but Mordecai had never met anyone who was truly incapable of touching magic. They might have been too inept to trust with magical knowledge, but being alive meant you had an interface with magic, and having a mind meant you had the tool to manipulate it.
So while Fuyuko was the least adept of the family at rune crafting, she was now learning the basics.
Mordecai didn't expect her to ever be a master of the art, but he felt that this was a skill everyone whose path would lead them into dangers unknown should know the basics of. Being able to craft a rune slowly and with possible restarts was better than not being able to craft one at all.
The three days of the midwinter festival were full of feasting, drinking, music, dancing, and gift-giving.
Gift giving was mostly about personal gifts of course, but here they often held a secondary meaning regarding the goddesses of Amirume and Mericume.
Those gifts which were the accumulation of culture and civilization to create were considered acknowledgments of Lady Amirume. A gift like a book begins with the gathering of raw materials that are refined into usable materials such as paper and ink. These materials are then assembled and processed to not only combine them into one object, but to imprint upon the book knowledge, stories, or ideas.
Other gifts may be useful or beautiful items that were hunted, foraged, or otherwise gathered from the land, and might be altered by hand from there, such as wood and ivory carvings. These gifts acknowledged primal beauty and power, and thus acknowledged Lady Mericume.
Both of them were celebrated in music and dance of course, including some very difficult composition types and dance forms.
Amirume was best represented by stately, steady music and correspondingly ordered dance.
Mericume, in turn, was generally represented by powerful drumbeats and wild, frenzied dancing.
The height of honoring both was to have music representing both playing concurrently while remaining in harmony and having matched yet opposed dancers.
One of the easier versions of this was to have two bard-dancer pairs, where each bard has worked with their partnered dancer before. The music they played would then include a private code to give limited instructions to the dancer. The bards could more easily see both dancers and thus could guide them enough to avoid collision.
Another fairly safe variation was to play a single composition that contained strong elements of both the steady beat and the wild beat while dancers took turns competing, each focused on either the orderly aspects or the chaotic aspects. This was more difficult than some dance rituals that competed this way as each dancer needed to elevate the other at the same time. It also came with a subtle danger.
When people get competitive it can become tempting to elevate oneself at the expense of the other. But to downplay or deride the accomplishments of your competing partner utterly ruined the point of this dance. That sort of negativity could slide its way into an expression or body language subconsciously, making this a dance best avoided by any pairings with ill feelings between them.
For to insult one dancer, however indirectly, was to insult the goddess they represented. To insult one sister was to insult both. To insult a pair of goddesses during a celebration in their honor was unwise, though it was rare for this sort of slip to result in more than minor inconveniences for the next year.
There was a more rarely performed form of dance that required skilled dancers who knew each other well. The dancer representing Amirume had rules that limited what steps and moves could follow another and often had sets that were essentially choreographed for the duration of the set.
Mericume's representative had no such restrictions. They were to dance wild and free around their partner, but they also needed to know their opposite's rule set. They needed to be able to anticipate their partner and move to both complement and contrast their partner's move set.
Part of the challenge here was that memorized dance steps could be very complicated and. Amirume's dancer can push their partner's skill by moving into ever more complicated sets, making it more difficult to match steps with the same speed.
A perfect dance where both were equally challenged was rare, but could bring the blessings of the goddesses upon all who were present.
This was also the time to honor Yu-kiang, the leviathan, elemental lord of water. There were many traditions to honor him with depending on location. Some take special care to purify and distill cups of perfect water that were drunk as part of a ritual. Others put their bodies on the line by swimming in freezing cold water for a brief while and some had special bathing or showering rituals. There was a surprising variety in just this section, ranging from quiet, private rituals where one focused on the act of bathing and the importance of water to rambunctious affairs where respected leaders were ambushed with barrels of water (or beer).
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On a more somber note, this festival was also a time to pay respects to Lord Yamaraja and Lady Kikoi Muerte. While the dead themselves were remembered during the autumn, here in the darkest part of the year it was time to honor those who guided and protected souls on their way to the afterlife and sometimes returned them to the world via reincarnation.
This was usually done in the form of simple rituals and prayers. There was no need for ostentation, for in death all were truly equal. Emperor, priest, soldier, crafter, and farmer; all were the same when it came time to be judged.
True, most souls did not need to pass before the eye of Lord Yamaraja. Not if they were truly in harmony with the edicts of their chosen patron deity. But it was hard for any who was not a priest or champion to be certain of how well they have maintained their ideals.
Over the course of three days, there was plenty of time for everyone to pay homage to the deities of their choice as well as mingle and party and exchange all their gifts.
The dungeon had the role of host to play of course, and on both sides of the barrier between realms, but they did have one additional 'host' to help.
Satsuki was technically a guest, but she knew the rules of hospitality as well as anyone here did and knew how to ask after a guest's comfort with enough sincerity to ensure that the guest felt she truly cared while keeping her presence light enough to not intrude upon a private conversation, yet able to engage with more open conversations enough for people to feel included and welcome even when she disengaged to check on someone else.
This balance was a difficult thing, and one that Mordecai was only passingly good at. He could do it well enough to generally not offend anyone, but he was not the master of the art that Satsuki was.
Naturally, Satsuki was doing this mostly to entertain herself and show off. However, she also had a small group of people she was teaching amidst the festivities.
Deidre was there of course; she needed to learn many things about life outside of what she'd been trapped in and spent much of her time with Satsuki now. Mordecai expected Deidre to slowly become less overwhelmed by Satsuki as the kitsune woman did prefer partners with minds and wills of their own. He had no doubt that she'd train Deidre to steel herself against Satsuki's non-magical charms, and the magical ones would be lifted in due time.
Kazue was involved in the training because she was lightly enthralled by seeing Satsuki in action and she wanted to be able to perform these duties just as well. Her role was more senior apprentice or journeyman as she already knew how from her shrine maiden training and was seeking to hone the art.
Carmilla had more training than Kazue but less experience and was cajoled into practicing the art as well.
Fuyuko had little choice in the matter; this was part of the extra training she was receiving due to her social flub when they were holding court.
Seeing Satsuki helping with the role of host motivated Orchid into competing with her distant ancestor, with Bridgette and Paltira assisting. This made things worse for Fuyuko as Orchid was one of her other trainers in social matters and rotated when she was playing host so that she and Satsuki were not doing so at the same time, which was more helpful to the dungeon and thus was technically earning her more claim on rewards.
Mordecai did enforce a small mercy for Fuyuko's sake; Satsuki and Orchid only got to train or use her for three hours a day, each. Normally he wouldn't have given her any duties at all for a holiday, but there was no better time than an event like this to enforce the teachings of social grace.
Paltira played a slightly different support role, which Fuyuko preferred learning and which was just as useful in some ways. While Orchid socialized and asked questions, Paltira listened. He then saw to it that any expressed needs were seen to, mostly by passing on the information. This also required paying attention to verify that food and drink were brought where they were supposed to be.
This required a particular type of situational awareness and it could be draining to maintain that sort of vigilance. It was also the same sort of situational awareness one wants on the battlefield; never too focused on one thing yet never losing focus on your primary concern.
Moriko had no interest in learning how to be that sort of host, and Mordecai had figured out a long time ago how much energy he was willing to invest in learning the art. They both still socialized and mingled, but they took advantage of the number of inhabitants willing to see after people's needs and those of their guests who wanted to go that extra length to not do more. That left them with more free time, some of which Mordecai spent teaching Moriko how to perform the rare and difficult. It would require a long while before she was ready to tackle performing it during the festival, but they had the natural coordination. Moriko just needed some practice learning how to adapt around the ordered part of the dance, which Mordecai had more practice at. He might follow Ozuran, but the Lord of Shadows had a similar affinity for order to that of his aunt's, making this the more natural fit for Mordecai.
The reason for Mordecai's experience was present at the festival however, and by the end of the third day, her ego felt a need to show off. Satsuki promised Moriko to help train her, but she wanted one thing in return.
To demonstrate the dance in its entirety, with Mordecai.
After making sure Kazue and Moriko had no objections, Mordecai accepted but added a twist. Satsuki already mostly looked the part of Mericume, so Mordecai shape-shifted to take on the form of a blond, female kitsune. She only had seven tails still in this form, but she was able to add a pair of floating golden flames to represent the final two that Amirume would have.
Satsuki's smile showed her teeth a little too sharply to be entirely happy. By Mordecai taking on the role of Amirume completely, Satsuki was denied any chance of flirting during the dance. They would be representing the sisters as completely as mortals could.
Still, she could not let herself do anything less than her best, as Mericume was her patron.
Mordecai brought up memories of the music played the last time the two of them performed this dance and created sheet music based on it for their musicians.
The two of them did not start off perfectly in harmony, it had been too long even for them, but it did not take long for both to find their rhythm. Once they were in harmony, the world disappeared into the flow of their dance, the sun and the moon in perfect balance until the musicians had to draw the song to an end.
They ended with a low, flourished bow to each other as the last notes faded away, and both of them literally glowed with soft radiance. Mordecai carried the golden luminance of the sun while Satsuki cast the pale glow of the moons.
The mark of the goddesses' blessing began to fade after a moment, and as they rose Mordecai resumed his normal appearance and gave Satsuki a smile. "Well done, as always," he said, then hesitated before continuing with, "Satsuki, things have changed between us, but there is an offer I made to you once before. Kazue and Moriko are good with my offering it again; if you need a home, you will always have a place here, no matter how things stand between us."
He was expecting surprise on her part, he was not expecting her to suddenly tear up like that, and Mordecai spent the next few minutes holding her while she recovered herself.
"Thank you, my dear," she said when she'd straightened back up, "and I might even take you up on that someday. But I think that once Deidre is settled back with herself, I will be off wandering again for a while."
Her response did not surprise him, Satsuki always had trouble staying in one place, but the offer was sincere.
There was, however, one more surprise in store for the evening.
A few hours after the dance had ended, an adorable, fluffy white snow owl rode the winds into the Azeria dungeon territory while radiating a rather familiar spiky, angry aura. Kazue, Moriko, and Mordecai had reached the entrance to the underground portion of the dungeon by the time the owl dove down to the ground and changed into a familiar teen kitsune witch while still moving.
"YOU!" Shizoku yelled, pointing at Mordecai, "This is your fault! You and your stupid rabbit boy messenger! Triplets! I am going to have faerie-touched, half-rabbit, triplet aunts who are FOURTEEN years younger than me! Gah, that's so embarrassing. Did I mention the faerie-touched triplets part?"
Well, this was going to be interesting.