Shu (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
singlemilletgrain) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
vivala2025-07-02 04:29 pm
singlemilletgrain) wrote in vivala2025-07-02 04:29 pm
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乙巳 005: 小暑
[video broadcast]
[Is it time for another Yanese festival? Shu bows to the video feed with her usual greeting.]
Hello, Corsairs. We are in the midst of difficult times, once more. I am glad that our aims have succeeded thus far, but it seems as if the fighting will become more pitched shortly.
Perhaps some levity is in order. In Yanese culture... [here we go again] the middle of the seventh month of the Lunar Year is called the Hungry Ghost Festival. The correct word would be preta or 餓鬼. It isn't the best translation, but there is a folk belief that the spirits of the ancestors return during this time and need to be honored, then escorted back to the afterlife. Normally, this is a very solemn affair, but of course, as ancestral veneration is not a part of your cultures, we can focus on the merriment.
Please join me this evening. We will make paper lanterns and paper boats and escort them down the river to the beyond.
If that is not to your liking... [there is a faint twinkle in her eyes] Perhaps we may share some ghost stories.
[action, by a River Somewhere That Is Definitely a Real River in this setting]
[The days are long in the summer. When the first rays of the sun begin to glimmer golden red as it descends below the horizon, Shu appears with quite a large number of candles, folding paper, and calligraphy pens.]
We guide the souls of the ancestors back to the beyond. The flowing water is the barrier between life and death. The river escorts them. We honor them with a few words and we write our hopes for them upon these lanterns.
The ancestors, of course, do not have to be your actual ancestors.
[action, for Turtles]
[It is high time that they keep their appointment andhear embarrassing stories about Donnie when he was a wee turtlekin share a meal together. Having some experience now with Raph's bottomless pit of an appetite and his, ah... completely undiscerning palate, Shu has thought long and hard about how best to improve his experience with food. The feast she has prepared is slightly different: instead of being set out family style, she plans to bring out one dish at a time so as to guide the direction of the meal more closely.
Of course, he is equally as likely to just inhale everything as he is to learn anything, but one can only try one's best.
She leaves the door unlocked for them. They are welcome to come in and out whenever they please, even if she has never actually said this.]
[Is it time for another Yanese festival? Shu bows to the video feed with her usual greeting.]
Hello, Corsairs. We are in the midst of difficult times, once more. I am glad that our aims have succeeded thus far, but it seems as if the fighting will become more pitched shortly.
Perhaps some levity is in order. In Yanese culture... [here we go again] the middle of the seventh month of the Lunar Year is called the Hungry Ghost Festival. The correct word would be preta or 餓鬼. It isn't the best translation, but there is a folk belief that the spirits of the ancestors return during this time and need to be honored, then escorted back to the afterlife. Normally, this is a very solemn affair, but of course, as ancestral veneration is not a part of your cultures, we can focus on the merriment.
Please join me this evening. We will make paper lanterns and paper boats and escort them down the river to the beyond.
If that is not to your liking... [there is a faint twinkle in her eyes] Perhaps we may share some ghost stories.
[action, by a River Somewhere That Is Definitely a Real River in this setting]
[The days are long in the summer. When the first rays of the sun begin to glimmer golden red as it descends below the horizon, Shu appears with quite a large number of candles, folding paper, and calligraphy pens.]
We guide the souls of the ancestors back to the beyond. The flowing water is the barrier between life and death. The river escorts them. We honor them with a few words and we write our hopes for them upon these lanterns.
The ancestors, of course, do not have to be your actual ancestors.
[action, for Turtles]
[It is high time that they keep their appointment and
Of course, he is equally as likely to just inhale everything as he is to learn anything, but one can only try one's best.
She leaves the door unlocked for them. They are welcome to come in and out whenever they please, even if she has never actually said this.]
no subject
[The fading sunlight and the slow glimmer of strange stars above, and the distant flicker of the lantern ships moving on, and in the middle... Herself. All of herself.]
[There is... A chance. A small one. Perhaps it's delusion-- a dream, or raw imagination, active and making up for lost time after so long denied. Or, perhaps, Shu can see it as well. For a moment, as Natalia slowly sinks back to seated, she could swear she feels something, sees something resembling a giant pearl fall out of her chest and into her hand.]
[As the moon rises she, without really thinking, blank-faced, tear-tracks still down her cheeks, lifts that hand up to the moonlight, so the image in her mind, and the phantom not-phantom weight in her hand, matches that distant orb.]
... Should this... have gone on that ship as well? This... Pearl...?
no subject
So she furrows her brow and lifts her hand a tad bit away from Natalia's. Something it doesn't feel like she ought to touch this object.]
I... am not sure.
I think that is something only you can answer. Whether you keep it with you or whether you let it go.
no subject
[Swallows that pearl whole.]
[It's with an air of exhaustion that she continues.]
I... Likely should not have asked the question of you. Thank you, for answering anyway.
... I suppose it is too late to ask, but if you wanted to build a ship...?
no subject
Even Shu's unflappable countenance is frozen momentarily in an expression of stupefaction as she observes this. ...Luckily it is dark. Also luckily, she recovers quickly. Hopefully, before Natalia can notice, she has returned to her supportive, encouraging state, though she might have to turn to the side and cough once or twice.]
Er.
[...Ok, a third time.]
Ahem. No, think nothing of it. I... pray that the choices you make tonight will relieve you of some of your burden.
As for myself... I would guide you all through this before I attend to my own needs. Do not fret. I have done this for many years.
no subject
[Regardless. She stands up, a bit green about the gills but otherwise little the worse for wear.]
... It is still a favor I would repay, if I can.
no subject
...Then I will not decline.
Would you like to fold a boat with me?