Primrose giggled at the tickling sensation of getting her face painted. She and her brothers had been dressed in the prettiest clothes she had ever seen, and now they were getting their faces painted to be equally pretty. Shimri, who already had his face covered with good luck symbols, held Primrose’s chin firmly in place as he finished painting. The little fox kit wanted nothing more than to run around and play at the festival, but they still had to get their hair done and their jewelry fastened. “Mishi, why do we have to get dressed so pretty?”
“On the first day of the harvest festival, parents dress their children up as extravagantly as possible to show the quality of their fruit and the bountiful harvest they’ll have in the future. We are the fruit, and our future marriages are the harvest.” Shimri patiently explained as he braided beads and ornaments into her hair. “We also have to look good to get the attention of the mana when we bless the meats.”
Silvae didn’t have priests, churches, or a holy book. However, it did have a religion. The worship of mana was deeply rooted in society. Mana wasn’t just a force of nature like the wind or ocean waves. Mana could understand, it could accept and deny, and it had a will. That’s why pleasing the mana was so important, and why people offered prayers, rituals, and talismans to gain its favor.
“We’re gonna eat meat?” Paien, wearing a dark green toga covered in yellow flowers, asked while getting his own hair braided. His face and hands were covered in bright yellow markings meant for the oldest child. Shimri wore similar ones, but in blue, as they chose to act like cousins rather than brothers.
“No, we will bless it. They keep all the meat from this year’s slaughter in the town center where the mana spring is the strongest, and children who haven’t unlocked their magic yet go and perform a ritual to cleanse the meat with their pure mana. Then tomorrow, on the adults' night, they smoke it.” The children listened intently as they got ready, as did Norman. He had no idea about any of this; he just asked Savant what the children should wear and did what he was told.
He had to admit that their festival garbs came out great. They were colorful togas with embroidered patterns of plants, flowers, and grains. Shimri and Primrose had blue and red ones, while Paien had a green and yellow one. Pomeline had clearly put a lot of love and effort into them, as they all had their own flower motif and accents. He had to admit that he and Rowboat looked pretty silly in their regular clothes when standing next to the ornately dressed children. Ah, he wished he had a camera.
The sun had just set, but the harvest festival had just started. The town of Swaan was covered in lanterns and talismans, and illusion mages made animals of light leap between the buildings. Booths of all kinds lined every street, as did the hollering of the vendors. It reminded Norman of a town fair, except with a heavy focus on religion.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Norman had never believed in any god when he was back on Earth. He simply couldn’t comprehend believing in something he had no evidence of. Here, though, he was about as religious as the average Silvae native. He wasn’t anti-religion, he was pro-proof. Mana was something he could prove, and he could even prove that it had a will and a weird sense of sentience. If showing devotion meant that he wouldn’t earn its ire, he was more than happy to partake in whatever traditions the region had.
“Papa, treat!” Primrose tugged at his hair and pointed at a nearby booth selling buns filled with cream and candied fruits. It smelled so good that she wanted to run over there right away, but she was currently imprisoned in her Papa’s arms to stop her from doing just that.
“You can only buy two treats each. Are you sure you want to buy one this early? You can only have one more after that.” Norman knew the answer, but he tried his best to be educational anyway. His daughter didn’t understand the concept of saving things for later yet, or maybe she simply didn’t care. Whenever she had something, she’d use or eat it in a heartbeat.
A few minutes later, Primrose had a mouth full of candied oranges and a dollop of cream on her nose. So did Shimri, but he ate a lot more elegantly. Unlike the younger two, he could buy whatever he wanted with his allowance. He’d been saving up ever since he found out they were going to the festival, so he had quite a bit of pocket money. Pocket money he made his Uncle carry because of how scared he was to lose it.
“Papa, look! It’s Jasper’s big sister! Why is she dancing like that?” Paien pointed to an oni woman adorned in bangles and necklaces. She had just turned 16, but she was already taller than most human men. She danced on an ornate mat outside of her home, and she had a few fruits at her feet. Quite a few houses had a teenage girl dancing outside of them, all with a varying degree of food in front of them.
“It’s a festival tradition,” Shimri responded, sensing that his Uncle didn’t know either, “The oldest unmarried daughter of the family dances outside the house during the first day of the festival. If a boy her age likes her, he leaves an offering of food on the mat. The more he likes her, the sweeter the food is.” He explained between bites of his cream bread.
“Why isn’t Rose dancing, then? She’s suuuper pretty!” Primrose was the cutest girl Paien knew, so she would obviously get all the candy. Could boys dance too? He wanted to get his own candy.
“You only do it after you start menstruating.” Shimri explained before realizing that little kids would have no idea what that was and how little he wanted to explain it to them, “It’s when girls start wearing their dresses down to their ankles instead of to their knees.” Norman didn’t know how to feel about his daughter dancing to win the approval of a bunch of teenage boys, but he was glad he had at least eight to ten years until he had to think about it.
Little did he know, it was his son dancing that he had to worry about in a few years.
