July Mini Event - Seaside Sway

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Community Bulletin

Main Nav | Permanent Bulletin | Calendar |

It’s the end of July. Summer is peaking, hitting its stride. In the forest, frogs sing and fireflies dance through the night, and dragonflies go about their business in the sun. In town, farmers roll up their sleeves and young ladies swap out their many layers for breezy floral gowns. And on the beach, swimmers take to the sea for water at its warmest and young crabs climb up from the sun-drenched sand. Kora’s glory at its finest!

For about a week now, a flier has been up on the community bulletin board. :

Midsummer Beach Festival!

Join us on July 21st and 22nd for our annual beach bash!

Organized by the Temple of Sacred Roots in tandem with Town Hall, all townsfolk are invited to join in for seaside festivities in honor of the height of summer. Activities will include:

• Live music (Sign-ups for performers will be available at Empty Pockets Music Bar)
• Locally made strawberry wine from last summer’s strawberries
• Beach pit barbecues for lunch on both days
• A hot food banquet for dinner on the 21st
• A fish fry breakfast on the 22nd
• Paper lantern float
• Beach games
• Tents and bed rolls for beach camping

We look forward to seeing you there!

And, as promised, the festival opens up on the afternoon of July 21st, where the smell of barbecue rises up from Tawny Beach. Tables sit on wooden plinths to avoid sinking in the sand, bearing fresh summer fruit and drinks. Pork, fish, and lamb roast in a sand pit. Enchanted barrels covered in magic frost keep frozen treats like orange juice shaved ice and strawberry sorbet cold. A station for assembling little wood-and-paper floating lanterns can be seen off in the distance and Cormac and the Banshees are setting up for their opening set. Tents and bed rolls have been set up toward the Marina. Literally everything is decorated with thin golden coins on strands of twine, sea shells, and sea glass. In the center of it all, stones have been laid into the shape of a massive compass rose, whose center houses the makings of a bonfire.

Those who were here last year will recognize that this festival is much larger than last year’s, and was not preceded with desperate pleas from Town Hall for help providing food and decor. It speaks plainly to the health of the town now. Even with all that has been going on, the growing population and renewed sense of community and purpose have improved matters around the island considerably.

Near the tent area, a family of crabs (one red, one blue, and three purple) can be observed. The small purple ones are poking each other with sticks. The Limoncello has made port, and Royal and his crew are splitting helper duty with the staff of Town Hall, and are dancing and partying the rest of the time. All is as it should be. For once, there is no dangerous surprise lurking in the shadows.

So, what’s on your agenda? During the day, volleyball, swimming, and a game that involves throwing small fabric sacks of dry lentils into wooden hoops in the sand can be enjoyed, alongside a plethora of frozen treats. At night, food and wine and lemonade are served at the banquet tables and lively music plays on the temporary wooden stage for dancing by firelight. There is also the lantern float, which encourages participants to send a glowing lantern out on the water in honor of the lost and the distant, ending the first night in a moment of peaceful sobriety. You may also notice a charming stranger milling around, cozying up to Royal, and drinking after nightfall--- a woman with dark olive skin, raven hair that soaks up the firelight, and rum brown eyes who wears a billowing blue dress and (whenever she hasn’t placed it onto someone else’s head for fun) a wide-brimmed black hat.

Then, at night, camp on the beach under the stars or head home by additional lantern light. The festivities will continue until the following afternoon! Feel free to share your beach fit in the fashion show thread below, as well. Enjoy!

Comments

Kora, the Goddess of Summer and Sea

[psalmofseasons]

It's Kora's peak season, which means she gets one opportunity to slip through the barrier using the height of her power and her connection to her favored. She chooses after nightfall at the beach festival.

She keeps herself fairly inconspicuous but can be seen latched onto Royal's arm, drinking and people-watching, and occasionally sticking her hat onto a skeleton or a drunk person to see how long it takes them to notice they have a hat now. It always makes its way back to her eventually.

Aside from the fact that her dark hair seems to soak up and shimmer with the bonfire light, there is nothing unusual or divine about her. If you don't recognize her from the temple, she may even escape your notice.

[graveling]

Oh, it's easy for Angel to recognize her. He waits for a quiet moment and waves as he makes his way over, a silent check-in to be sure he's welcome to talk to her.

Is he doing a good job, Momma?

[psalmofseasons]

"Hey you." She winks at him, and holds a finger up to her lips. Don't blow my cover. "You try the barbecue yet? The lamb is spicy. To die for."

[graveling]

"Consider how a lot of us ended up here, and we did die for the chance to eat it." But he gladly helps himself to a portion of the lamb, nodding his head a couple times in lieu of a smile. She'll get it. "Some more than others."

[preacher_in_reticence]

Degas spends most of the day pretending that he hasn't noticed her. Avoiding acquiring her hat, absolutely not staring. It's only after dark that he brings a glass of rum over as a libation offering conversation starter.

"Evening."

[psalmofseasons]

"Evening! Ah--- the ticket to my heart." She gladly takes the rum as soon as he holds it out towards her. "How you been doing? I heard you took a vacation. The festival looks great, by the way, amazing work."

[preacher_in_reticence]

"Angel and Mulcahy did most of the work. Angel, the ritual aspects, Mulcahy much of the organization and planning. The secular stuff." He gives her a serious little look. "You and your sisters need to stay hands-off with that one. It'll be pretty bad, otherwise."

[suenoimposible]

Don's feeling a bit disoriented at the moment. She admittedly never had much of a drinking tolerance, being one who didn't care much for alcohol. But... the strawberry wine had such a sweet aroma and she simply couldn't resist having a bit too much with such a good flavor...

Trying to collect herself a bit, she straightens out her swimsuit and adjusts the second hat on her h- W-wait, did she always have a second hat? To think she'd been so oblivious to have missed such a thing... Did she somehow steal from someone and forget??? She'd heard of such things happening as a result of drunken mischief! She must put such an event right immediately!

Perhaps she could ask this stranger first? Mayhap she could point to the owner of this accessory.

"H-hic! M-miss, I believe I hath confused another's hat for mine own and am searching for its rightful owner. Dost thou know of any whom are missing hats?" Don can't help but feel a bit ashamed to ask such a thing, to think she'd unknowingly taken someone elses belongings, truly a villainous act she hath committed.

[psalmofseasons]

"I was wondering how long it'd take you to notice." Kora smirks, taking the hat and replacing it on her own head. "I put it on top of your current hat because I thought it'd look cute on you. I was right."

[suenoimposible]

Don's somewhat pensive expression turns more to that of surprise upon hearing of such. W-wait, 'tis but a joke? She'd thought she'd stolen such a thing! "Ah! I'd not even realized thou hath placed such an accessory on mine head.... It appears I hath been had! I must admit, 'tis quite the fashionable hat thou hath stacked upon mine. Such a thing is befitting of a Cinq Association Director in mine world."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar doesn't recognize her exactly, but something about her draws his eye, repeatedly. It isn't just that she's beautiful, but since he can't articulate what else it is, that's the word that keeps coming to his mind.

After the third time he spots her slip her hat onto someone else, he decides he's going to idly, innocently wander by with a glass in his hand and see if she'll put it on him.

[psalmofseasons]

Kora sees exactly what he's doing, but takes the bait anyway, putting the hat onto him as delicately as she can. It's gonna look so cute with his hair, guaranteed.

[hate_gettin_older]

He turns around, grinning, and hey what do you know, the hat does look cute with his hair.

"Hey, scuse me," he says, putting a hand up to the brim of the hat, "think maybe you dropped this?"

[yournewsidekick]

Up on the bluffs, something pink glimmers.

Nimona's been here too many times to count: a pink mote drifting outside a window, the outsider looking in. Normally, the view comes with a longing that aches so bad she wants to shift a dozen times in a row just to make it go away. But it's different now. She doesn't feel an ache; she doesn't feel... anything, really. She doesn't want to be down there at the party, and she's kinda weirdly resentful of everybody who does.

So she's belly-down on one of the rocks with her cheek propped against one palm, glaring half-heartedly at the beach. Idly, she toys with the locket chain around her neck.

[psalmofseasons]

Normally, the sound of someone approaching on the Bluffs would be obvious. Crunching rocks and grass, where the two meet, and the scrape of boots on the craggy surface. This time, there is only a salty breeze coming up off the sea, before a lady in a dress parks her butt right next to Nimona.

There's nothing about her that screams "goddess" right away. She just looks like a normal person. But there's a strange tinge of familiarity to her presence, as if she's someone Nimona has known her whole life. (Hasn't she? How many summers has she lived through? How many seas has she swam through as a fish or shark and been as one with the waters? How many authority figures has she defied? Kora has been in Nimona's life for so long.)

She pokes Nimona's shoulder and makes a raspberry with her mouth. "Hey stinker. Bad night?"

The way she talks to Nimona is strange. So familiar, so affectionate, both teasing and sensitive. Maybe there's a reason they're called Mothers.

[yournewsidekick]

She throws a glare up at the stranger getting in her space -- then pauses, her fingers drifting to a halt against the locket's chain.

No. Not a stranger. Nimona doesn't know how, but she knows she knows this person. It's like how she knows the exact way a particular color of summer sunlight refracts off the water; like what the world looks like on the other side of the Kingdom's wall. And the way she talks --

Nobody's ever spoken to Nimona like that. Not even Siffleur, back on the Serena Eterna, when he told her quietly what it was like to have a mother.

But alas, like every grumpy teenager in every universe, the surliness descends again pretty quick. "I'm fine," she mutters, like a liar, and looks back over the cliff.

[closureisformovies]

Alice would like to argue that she's not drunk, thank you, she's just a bit tipsy, you'll know if she gets actually wankered and this is not it. And, to the credit of this unspoken declaration, she does actually notice almost immediately after the hat appears on her head.

"Wha— hey!"

[psalmofseasons]

Kora laughs at the reaction, head thrown back in sheer delight. "Aaaagh, I'm busted! I just thought it'd look cute on you. I was right, by the way."

[closureisformovies]

Alice's external confidence takes a second to kick in as she both processes the woman at hand and the compliment, before she recovers with, "Pfft, I mean, obviously, I look cute in everything."

[goodweather]

Phil, who has been so occupied with settling into the new household, handling the radio show, and handling the weather, and so has yet to even set foot into the Temple aside from reminding himself that he should visit the Temple every time he passes it, does not recognize her at all. To him, she only pings as some other come-from-away that he hasn't met yet. (He doesn't read her as a local only because she's hanging onto Royal's arm.)

Phil is normally pretty spiffy in his apparel. He's dressed down now; not in swimwear, because he's not dunking these wings in saltwater again, but in breezy summer clothes.

And he's standing around looking a little lost, holding a broad-brimmed black hat. This isn't his. He isn't sure how it got on his head.

[psalmofseasons]

"Not much of a hat guy, eh?" Kora seems to appear from nowhere beside him. "That's a shame, you were really working it."

[goodweather]

He whirls around, startled. “Aah—? Oh. Uh.” He clears his throat.

“Believe me, I’m a vain bird and I like a good hat just fine, but I’m not sure how I ended up with this. I don’t think I’m drunk enough to start stealing clothes, hah.” He holds it out towards her. “Is it yours?”

[restingslasherface]

Jean has chosen to wear the Page of Kora's Avatar; it seemed appropriate, and in any event it's comfortable for the weather. They are, to their own surprise, having a pretty good and relaxed time. The sword is perhaps inappropriate, but they've peacebonded it, because it comes with the Page and cannot therefore be easily removed. Jean is also not yet aware that the peace knot will do exactly nothing if they actually need to draw it, but that's a lesson for later, perhaps.

They have not yet noticed Kora, but they do have a small cup of rum and lime juice, and they are, for the moment, by themself.

[psalmofseasons]

"Hey, busy bee," Kora says as she comes up behind them. "Been a minute. You look sharp."

[xiaoxiuya]

Despite receiving some no-doubt excellent advice against it from Anzu, Shen Qingqiu has nevertheless gotten into the booze. He knows, okay? He knows he'll regret it later, but he needs something to take the pressure off his golden core right now. Shen Qingqiu has always been terrible at delaying his own gratification...and right now he'd do almost anything to still the pounding in his head. And if it can help him stop pointlessly dwelling on the things he can't remember right now, but knows he must have seen...so much the better.