{SE} In remembrance

A panther in the night, a fire burning bright. Ray chased after the hat, trying to help Neos grab it. When the wind shifted and placed it on her head, she felt a strong sense of wrongness. She was not meant to be wearing this. Ray quickly took it off and placed it in Neos outstretched hand. She thought about asking him about the hat but figured it was an Outlander thing. "The festival? It's a yearly tradition that takes place this time of year. I've heard it even takes place beyond Caido in other lands. The festival is a way of honoring and remembering those who have passed on and who we've lost. It's also a way of healing from grief, especially if the loss if recent. The way I see it, you're honoring your loved one and literally letting go of some of the pain of their loss so that you can focus only on the positive memories you have of them. But I think everyone views it a little differently." Ray explained. r a y The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. —Albert Camus

The worst thing about always being on the move...

Grabbing the hat, he leaned forward a bit to place it on his head, revealing how the roots of his hair was now becoming a dark-brown instead of the blue they were otherwise before becoming covered by the wide-brimmed yellow hat.

"...sounds like this place hasn't lost the point behind this holiday, unlike my home," he admitted before looking up towards the sky for a moment. "There was a holiday back home that ended up taking on two forms, depending on how urban or rural the area was." He glanced about for a second before asking, "Hey, you said your family has a shop around here? Think we can head there to get out of standing in the streets? I...can get admittedly long-winded with explaining things and would like chairs for us to sit in," he admitted with the last statement, a small chuckle entering his voice as well.

...is that no one believes the tales that emerge later on.

NEOS

A panther in the night, a fire burning bright. Ray noted the change in hair color but shrugged it off. Dyeing one's hair was something she saw often.  "Yah, it is nice that the purpose is still remembered. I'm not a fan of traditions that have no meaning. It feels almost fake to celebrate those ones." Ray explained. "Not that those traditions or bad or that they can't bring joy. I just have a hard time getting excited about them."  She added quickly, not wanting to insult the holiday back home that Neos was talking about. Ray chuckled. "Sure. It's just a block east of here. Come on." She agreed and began to show the way. It wasn't long before the two stood in front of a small shop with a sign that proudly stated Lunarium Herbs and Spices. "Ta da! Home sweet home." Ray said with with an exaggerated flourish.  "I just baked some cookies this morning if you want any. Come on in." She opened the door and gestured with her head for Neos to follow her in. r a y The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. —Albert Camus

The worst thing about always being on the move...

Neos ducked his head slightly as he entered, not wanting to risk the chance of bonking the top of his head against the top of the door frame, before straightening back up. He could smell the somewhat familiar scent of baked goods upon entering, but he didn't currently have his animalistic sense of smell that would allow him to tell how it was different from his personal norm.

"Thing is, I don't know if I want any, so I'm gonna have to make like a Ratt---er..." Neos had to take a second to think about what was similar to the small purple and white critter he knew, looking up towards the ceiling. Now, he knew that there was one or two brown creatures with furless tails that had snuck into the...

...oh, yeah. Those squeaky fucks.

"...like a rat and nibble at all of said cookies to see what I like." He invited himself to sit down in the nearest chair before saying, "And, oddly enough, how much the old traditions were 'forgotten' depended on how...ah, shit." Neos hit a mental roadblock as he started to explain what he meant earlier. He didn't know if the words 'urban' or 'rural' were known around here. Welp, one way to find out. "Before I start, are either of the words 'rural' or 'urban' known words around here?"

...is that no one believes the tales that emerge later on.

NEOS

A panther in the night, a fire burning bright. Ray chuckled, gesturing for Neos to sit at a table near the window. "Well you're welcome to grab a few of each and try them." She said quickly grabbing  a two plates and placing a chocolate, nut, oat, and sugar cookie each on the two plates and placing one down in front of Neos. Sitting down, she took a bite of one a she listened to him explain his home. Ray furrowed her brows as he brought up terms she'd never heard. "Urban, rural? No those aren't used here. What do they mean? Are they different places to live in your home?" She asked curiously. The certainly sounded at the very least like different ways of life, and Ray could see how that would alter traditions. r a y The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. —Albert Camus

The worst thing about always being on the move...

...aw, fuck, Neos thought to himself upon hearing that those words didn't really exist here, which was going to make explaining things a pain.

"...that's gonna make things a pain to explain," he muttered, resting his chin upon his woven-together hands, elbows resting on his legs just above his knees. "Especially since this world seems to lack something that would lean into the existence of more-urban areas, and that's the existence of 'technology'."

He then glances up towards the ceiling for a few moments, allowing his hands to rest on his knees, before finally saying, "This is probably gonna be the easiest, if not the best, way to explain this difference...wait."

He put the board that he had been drawing on on the table in front of himself, moving the drawing he was working on under a small stack of other papers before applying his pencil to it to begin drawing a rough image of what he saw as an urban city, with a scattering of buildings that were more than a few floors tall and seemed rectangular and buildings that looked far more sturdy and uniform than what he had seen in his time on Caido so far. "A few things about an urban area, as far as I know it, is an area of land that has a lot of people either working or living in it," he began, waving Ray over to watch what he was drawing. "Because of how strong such buildings tend to be in these areas, it wasn't uncommon to see buildings that were...five? six? stories tall, maybe even more at times. Haulani's coming closer and closer to becoming an urban area, but it ain't there yet..."

He then looked up towards her with a sympathetic smile, realizing this was going to be an info dump, before asking, "Any questions so far before I continue?"

...is that no one believes the tales that emerge later on.

NEOS

A panther in the night, a fire burning bright. Ray approached as Neos called her over, placing her chair on his end of the table. She looked over his shoulder as he began to draw and watched with obvious curiosity. As he explained what an urban place was, Ray tried to grasp the concept. "So, its a tightly packed place with lots of buildings? And some buildings are built on top of each other to make one incredibly tall building? That somehow doesn't collapse on itself?" She clarified with slight disbelief. The idea of people practically living on top of each other and buildings being stacked seeming nigh impossible. How did they not crush each other? r a y The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. —Albert Camus

The worst thing about always being on the move...

"There's far more too it than that, but that's a super-simple way to look at it. However, in my home world and one other in it that puts this shown to absolute shame, it has become a growing necessity," he said with a frown before closing his eyes and resting his chin on folded hands, elbows resting on the table. "...about 20 years ago, when I first made the willing jump to banish myself from the world I called home, there was about...6 billion people on Earth," he tried to recall, it had been so long since he heard the exact number, after all. "I wouldn't be surprised if there was about...10 billion by now. And there's only so much of the planet in existence."

He opened his eyes before looking Ray, a look of sorrow on his face. "Humanity was growing at a rapid pace thanks to the existence of advanced technology, which can best be described as magic that is explained and has become repeatable and can be created without the use of magic." He then glanced around, before pointing at one or two of the sources of flickering flaming lights in the house. "A simple example I will share is this, how often do you candles to light the rooms of the house? What if you can envision a light that required neither fire or magic to illuminate those same rooms, a light that was instead powered by the same energy that creates lightning bolts flying across the sky?"

...is that no one believes the tales that emerge later on.

NEOS

A panther in the night, a fire burning bright. Ray rubbed her temples lightly with her thumbs. "Six million, ten million people? Magic like affects without the use of magic? Your home world must be very crowded." Her voice had clear wonder and confusion in it. It was hard for the Torchline native to imagine such a world. It stretched the boundaries of her imagination itself. When Neos said he'd willingly left, Ray opened her mouth to ask why. But they had only recently met and that seemed like far too personal a question to ask a mere acquaintance. "So urban areas are the even more densely populated areas on your already heavily populated planet? Are rural the opposite then? Do they too have the magic without magic thing?" She asked instead. r a y The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. —Albert Camus

The worst thing about always being on the move...

"Not million," Neos corrected, a sympathetic smile still on his face. "A billion is ten times as large as a million, and yeah, while there's usually less of it in more rural areas, there's still the ever---" Neos stopped himself mid-sentence before looking down at the sheet he had been drawing on. He moved the board that the papers were on to the side, placed the pencil upon it...

...then THUNK was the sound that emerged when he hit his face against the table. His voice broke into an impossibly-high pitch as he muttered something extremely incoherent under his breath into the table, staying there for a few seconds before sitting back up and rubbing his face for a moment. Thankfully, it didn't look like he broke the table in the process nor did he seem phased by the action, suggesting that this was an admittedly-frequent action he's done before. "Argh, why can't I stop going on these Arceus-damned tangents while I'm here," he asked himself in an almost-yelling tone with a frustrated groan in his throat.

"The point I was trying, and failing, to make earlier," Neos started again after collecting himself, "was that depending on what kind of area you were living in, the same holiday, 'Halloween' or the 'Day of the Dead' as it was called in my home world, seemed to have become two separate traditions." He then glanced back towards the table, moving the board and papers in front of himself before drawing a scene as he spoke. "The rural areas had traditions fairly similar to what I've been seeing here, such as with the Festival of Lights. The many families would also make miniature temporary shrines for that day for the people they wanted to remember on that day, which would sometimes just consist of a chair with that person's picture on it at times...and for a day, pretend that they were back on the world, even if only in spirit."

The scene he had drawn was that of a group of people sitting in chairs foreign in appearance, they seemed lacking in padding, but the chairs did seemed more molded to a person's general shape for comfort in that way. The people were holding hands while sitting except for the two next to an empty chair with a photograph of someone resting upright in it. Those two people were holding on to the sides of the back of the chair and it looked like they were all singing. "There was a belief that, on that day, the veil between the spiritual world and the physical world thinned enough for the souls of the dead to return to among us for the night before returning to their world for the remainder of the year...and with all the Ghost-ty---er, ghostly creatures back home, I don't exactly blame them for thinking that."

...is that no one believes the tales that emerge later on.

NEOS

A panther in the night, a fire burning bright. "A billion? That's too many people." Ray said, shaking her head with wide eyes. She startled when Neos all but slammed his face into the table. "Are you ok?!" She exclaimed, hovering worriedly. Ray then caught his words about a ranting habit. She burst out into laughter, clutching her stomach lightly. Finally getting a handle on her laughter, she wiped her eyes.  "It's not the worst habit to have. And it's interesting to hear about other worlds." Ray tried to reassure him. She truly did enjoy hearing about his home world and how vastly different it was from Caido. Ray listened intently as Neos finally got to his point. "That really is unique. I wonder if in the future Caido will have similarly split traditions. And it does seem like the 'veil' as you call it thins. People always try to find explanations for what they don't understand.  We're lucky that Ludo is as blatant as they are. Otherwise we'd probably be coming up with all manner of theories too." Ray then paused with a chuckle. "I think we both went on tangents actually. Weren't we supposed to be discussing lantern designs?" r a y The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. —Albert Camus

The worst thing about always being on the move...

"...yes, yes, we did get off topic," Neos said with a small chuckle at being reminded of the whole reason he went onto the massive tangent he did. "And by the way, I left when there were 6 billion about 25 years ago. Imagine how packed things may have gotten since I left. Places of nature and more rural areas are likely decreasing at a rapid rate because of it and also causing many, many other problems."

He shifted his gaze away for a moment before returning it back toward Ray. "Best to drop that for now before I go into another Bune---er..." Neos stopped himself to bring a finger to his mouth in thought. "...damn, I don't know what the counterpart animal for here would be for that phrase."

Shaking his head, he lightly clapped at his cheeks once with open palms as he shut his eyes tight for a moment. "Right, lanterns, focus," he scolded at himself before glancing towards the one lantern between them that even had any real progress made, Ray's. "Since you got a pretty good start with yours, let's finish that up first before we start on the monster that mine will probably be. Sound good?"

...is that no one believes the tales that emerge later on.

NEOS

A panther in the night, a fire burning bright. Ray had to stifle a chuckle as Neos almost launched into another tangent. "Yes, lanterns. I still need some color in mine. I have a few ideas but I'm struggling with which to go with. Part of me thinks covering the cut outs in a thin colored piece of paper might be a good idea. That way light still shines through but it'll be tinted with whichever color I choose. But I could also go over the designs already present with a bit of paint. What do you think?" She asked curiously. Ray had been debating which method to use ever since she finished the groundwork of her lantern. r a y The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. —Albert Camus

The worst thing about always being on the move...

Neos looked over the lantern design, elbows on table and chin resting on intertwined hands, in thought of what to do with the color. "I don't know if this world has anything akin to a paint thinner, which is something that can be added to a specific amount of paint to make it more translucent but still keep its color, without causing the paint to become runny. If it does, that might be useable for this."

He then shrugged before laying his arms on the table, crossed over one another at the wrists. "You could also use watercolors to paint it, but I'd highly advise letting it dry fully after completely painting one side before moving on to another side. You could mess up the colors if you don't."

He glanced over towards his own sheets, quickly making a few small doodles on one of them. One of them showed him and another almost-identical figure in a clearly-bloody fight, fangs and claws visible on both of the seeming twins. The shading suggested they were in a darkened area, and the figure representing Neos looked to have literally thrown a sphere of light at the twin, who was firing a bolt of lightning from his hand towards Neos. Both of them had slashes visible across their faces and over various parts of their matching attire, blood staining both of them. "...something to remember, though many choose not to. All important to the forming of your life deserve to be remembered...if not also respected."

He had admittedly muttered to himself that line, but it was just loud enough to be heard.

...is that no one believes the tales that emerge later on.

NEOS