Preparing for the Star Festival
I had plans to visit Corinna today so that I could order spare blue robes and a set of ceremonial robes. I initially ordered the ceremonial robes through Benno since they would take time to make, but apparently she needed to talk to me directly to discuss embroidery patterns, the type of sash, the payment, and so on.
This time, Corinna said I could bring my mother or sister with me. She was pregnant and could use the help taking measurements. Benno had measured me over my clothes before, but since it seemed that we would have a long business relationship with each other, she wanted to start getting proper measurements of me sooner rather than later. To that end, I was bringing Tuuli with me while Lutz stayed at home. Mom was a little sick, and although she wanted to come with us, Dad put his foot down.
“Ceremonial clothes use really good cloth, don’t they? I’ve never seen cloth that’s this soft and silky before!” Tuuli touched the cloth with sparkling eyes after taking off my clothes and measuring me. The workshop she worked at didn’t get orders for clothes that needed such fine cloth. In my case, I was using the high-quality cloth Benno gave the temple. It was originally white, but I had already given it to my Mom to dye blue at the dyeing workshop where she worked. It was now a deep blue resembling lapis lazuli, which matched the color of my hair well.
“Myne, you can put your clothes back on now. Tuuli, thank you for your help. The ceremonial robes will be embroidered with the words of a prayer. When the light shines on them, the gold and silver will shine beautifully.” On top of that, the front of the neck would have a crest sewn onto it. Most nobles used their family crests, but I was using my workshop’s crest since I didn’t have a family one.
“This is your crest, Myne?”
“Uh huh. This is a book. This is pen with a jar of ink. There’s also wood, symbolizing paper, and the flower hairpins I made. I thought up my own crest, but Benno made me add a lot of other things.”
“Come on, Myne. You probably made something weird that he had to fix.”
“...Mean. He just said it was too simple, that’s all.”
Corinna giggled at our conversation while spreading the blue cloth across the table. The lustrous piece of cloth covered the whole table, rippling like the ocean.
“In normal cases, the creation of ceremonial clothing begins with the selection of thread and weaving techniques to bring rise to certain designs on the cloth. But this time, we are using preexisting cloth because there is not enough time to begin from scratch. I believe I would like to embroider the cloth with thread of the same color such that a design arises when the light strikes it, but what design might you like, Myne?”
When asked what design I wanted woven directly into the cloth, I first thought of a kimono. Maybe she was talking about making a damask similar to the classical Japanese rinzu, often used in kimonos of the Edo period. Still, even considering that the outfit would be much smaller than an adult’s due to my short height, those robes needed large swaying sleeves that necessitated a large body of cloth. Embroidering it all wouldn’t take as long as weaving cloth from scratch, but it would still require a lot of work.
“Um, Mrs. Corinna. I actually haven’t looked closely at any pieces of ceremonial clothing before, and I don’t have any ideas for designs I might want. But if you’re going to be embroidering all this cloth, the simpler the better, I think.” I probably saw ceremonial clothing at my own baptism, but my memories were dominated by the praying pose and stumbling upon the book room. I remembered the bible that the High Priest had, but not the fancy clothes he’d been wearing.
“Myne, a noble’s ceremonial clothes can’t be simple!” Tuuli insisted. “They’ll look down on you for being a commoner and stuff.”
“But embroidering it all really will be a lot of work. Don’t you think a simple design would make it a lot easier?” As I desperately tried to calm Tuuli’s indignation, Corinna put a hand on her cheek.
“It would be nice if I could make simple embroidery appear elegant, as you made Tuuli’s baptism outfit appear fancy through simple adjustments. Do you perchance have any ideas on how to do that, Myne?” asked Corinna, leading me to search through my memories. A more broad design would necessitate less work than an intricate design that required precise sewing.
“...What about putting flowers on flowing water? Umm, like, the water would be curving lines like this, with flowers here and there. You can make the design look fancier while minimizing the actual embroidery done by putting more space between the water lines and scattering flower petals... Probably.” I drew wavy lines on my slate, making them thick at times and thin at others to approximate flowing water, then added flowers with five heart-shaped petals here and there before scattering a bunch of tiny hearts at random places.
“I believe that I will design a more elegant flower, but the flow of water is quite nice. I see that you truly are my brother’s Goddess of Water,” said Corinna with an amused smile, causing me to flinch. No matter how much Benno and I denied it, nobody would believe us if even his little sister Corinna was joking about it.
“...Um, Mrs. Corinna. How far has that rumor spread?”
“Otto is spreading it because he finds it hilarious, so I have no idea.”
Otto, you big idiot! Benno’s going to get so mad at you!
As I ate the lunch that Corinna ordered for me, she and Tuuli had a rousing discussion on what flowers to adorn the water flow with. I couldn’t keep up at all, since I didn’t know the names of too many flowers.
“Mrs. Corinna,” said Tuuli, “it looks like Mr. Benno wants to come inside...”
“Hate to interrupt your lunch, Corinna, but I’ve got something to give to Myne. Mind if I borrow her for a second?”
“Not at all. Myne finished eating long ago and has seemed bored ever since.”
Benno gestured me forward, so I jumped off my chair and walked to him. “Read this when you’re alone. That’s all. If you notice any solutions to the problems, do me a favor and speak up,” he said while handing me a sheet of paper. Once I had it, he casually lifted a hand in farewell and returned to the store. Um, what?
I looked around to make sure no one was close to me, then immediately opened up the folded piece of paper. On it was a list of problems Benno was in the process of struggling with.
“W-Wait, seriously? First there’s a list of insults and warnings for him to throw at me, and now there’s a list of problems for me to solve? I don’t want to deal with this...”
The list had everything from trivial things, like Otto being too happy about Corinna’s pregnancy to focus on his work, to business matters like the decoration, menu, service style, and prices of the Italian restaurant. I went through each problem one by one while thinking of answers for Benno. Then, I reached the final problem — and the blood drained from my face.
“Myne, what did he want? What’s on that paper?” I must have been standing in place for a long time, because Tuuli came over to peer at the letter with a worried expression. I hurriedly folded the paper, but then realized that Tuuli was illiterate and sighed in relief. The list of problems might as well have been lines of squiggles to her.
“It’s a work secret.” I quickly put the folded paper in my bag while evading Tuuli’s curiosity. I tried thinking of a solution to the final problem, but nothing came to me immediately.
Benno had said he would take Lutz to another city after securing a location for another workshop, and I never questioned that he would. It didn’t occur to me at all that Lutz’s dad might not give him permission to go. Lutz had faith in Benno just like I did. Every time he saw Benno coming back from another city, he asked with sparkling eyes if he had found a place for the workshop yet. Benno couldn’t just go and tell him that they could leave the day his father gave him permission. That would send irreparable ruptures through Lutz’s family life.
After all, Lutz didn’t know how to convince his dad to change his mind. As Tuuli and Corinna agreed on putting flowers for each season in the embroidery and shifted the discussion to whether to order them vertically or horizontally, I cradled my head alone.
“Y’know, it’s about time for the Star Festival.”
“Bwuh?! Wh-Where, what?”
Lutz spoke to me on the way to the temple, causing me to jump in surprise and look around. He narrowed his eyes and peered at me. It was enormously difficult for me to keep secrets from Lutz, since he had been managing my health for so long. That was definitely the only reason he was suspicious.
“What’s with you, Myne? Your head’s been in the clouds all day.”
“Not true! I just, um... What did you say again?”
Lutz sighed, having seen through my denial that my mind was somewhere else, and then repeated himself. “The Star Festival. It’s almost here. Want to go together this year?”
“The Star Festival...? Oh, that summer thing? It’s about playing with water, isn’t it?”
“Not exactly. We throw taue fruits at each other.”
Taue fruits were those tiny red fruits I saw back in the spring. They filled up with water in the summer, so much that they got to be the size of a fist. I understood it as kind of a natural water balloon, but I had never seen a swollen one myself.
“What kind of festival is the Star Festival, if it’s not just about playing with water?”
Since I had missed the festival every time and knew nothing about it, Lutz explained it for me. The Star Festival wasn’t about playing with water; it was a day where marriages were held. It was basically a wedding ceremony for all couples held in the lower city once a year, and the taue were thrown at those getting married.
“When second bell rings, everyone who isn’t in the wedding goes to the forest to pick up taues. The wedding starts on third bell and ends on fourth bell. That’s when all the new married couples start going home. Everyone else waits in the central plaza and hides with their taues.”
I mentally envisioned a huge group of people walking down the main road with water balloons in their hands. It was surreal. Beyond me, really. But it was commonplace for cultures to have wedding ceremonies that appeared odd from the outside. Back on Earth I had read books about wedding ceremonies where the attendees all had fistfights, or barged in on the marriage being consummated. I had even read about one culture where the lord of a region got to consummate all marriages. It would be wise to just think of the Star Festival as an oddity in a long string of oddities.
“So, once all the married couples reach the central plaza, a bell rings and the battle begins. We all start throwing our taues at the couples.
“What?! At the married couples?!”
“Yep. The husband protects the wife while they run away. It’s like testing his worth as a man. Most of the couples end up hit with a lot of fruit and throw some back while running around the city sopping wet.”
The festival was more bizarre than I had expected. Japan itself had some odd marriage traditions, like exchanging strange gifts, but it all had meaning. Maybe there was some deep symbolic meaning to a city-wide water balloon fight that I just didn’t get, like the seeds of the fruit symbolizing fertility or something.
“But y’see, the people who throw the taue fruit the hardest are the people who didn’t manage to get married that year. They hunt after the couples like crazy every time. It’s messed up, but pretty funny too.”
Aaah, I can understand that. Feelings of empathy arose in my heart. Even back in my Urano days, there was barely any romance in my life. Dating, marriage, it was all outside of my world. I could understand very well the desire to throw fruit at newlyweds leaving a church with happy smiles on their faces.
“...Okay, I understand the festival now, Lutz. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Uh... You sure got real motivated real fast. Anyway, once all the couples get chased away, we all eat the celebratory food prepared at the plaza. That’s when kids go home, happy to have eaten so much. They’re not allowed to go back out, no matter what. ’Cause that’s when the beer comes out and it’s time for an adults-only festival.”
As one might expect from a festival with “star” in the name, the most important part of it took place at night. Once the kids were driven out of the picture, the newlyweds returned and were enthusiastically celebrated while the unmarried people sought out romantic partners. According to Lutz, that was always a source of frustration for those born in summer, as they had their adulthood ceremony taking place not long after the Star Festival.
“Do you think the kids from the orphanage go to the festival too?”
“Who knows? Don’t think I’ve ever seen them there. Actually... do you think you’ll be busy at the temple? I remember something about a ceremony in fall you gotta go to. You sure we can go to the Star Festival together?” asked Lutz with worry, but I didn’t have an answer for him. Given that the mass wedding was held in the temple, it was very possible I would have work to do.
“...I’m not sure, but I’ll ask the High Priest.”
When we arrived at the temple, Lutz left to go back to the store. After seeing him off, I changed in my room and started writing a request to meet the High Priest while asking Fran about the Star Festival.
“Fran, have you ever participated in the Star Festival?”
“Star Festival is an incorrect term. It is the Starbind Ceremony. Is it not a ceremony where marriages are blessed?”
Fran explained that in the temple, it was called the Starbind Ceremony, and that it was deeply rooted within religious history, honoring the God of Darkness blessing the marriage between the God of Life and the Goddess of Earth. It was originally held at night, a time when it was easier to receive the God of Darkness’s divine protection, and even now it was held at night in the Noble’s Quarter. The ceremony for nobles and commoners used to be held at the same time, but when the population grew too large for that, the commoners began holding their ceremony during the day.
“If the God of Darkness’s blessings are relevant here, shouldn’t it be held during the winter, when the nights are longer?”
“Sister Myne, the God of Darkness permitted the marriage in the summer, and as there is the Offering Ceremony in the winter, there would be no priests to offer blessings.”
Fran’s explanation was understandable, and honestly, the thought of a wedding in the middle of the winter gave me literal chills. I had suggested it myself, but on second thought, it would be hard to attend a wedding when buried in the snow.
“Now that I think about it, reaching the temple in the middle of a blizzard would be unreasonable, and considering how new families will need to prepare their homes for winter, marrying before the fall is practical. It’s nice that since everyone has the same anniversary, no husbands have to worry about mixing things up and ticking off their wife.”
And with that, I finished the letter. “Fran, could you deliver this letter to the High Priest? I want to ask him about what the orphanage does during the Starbind Ceremony and what I might need to do myself.”
Despite the fact that I was meeting the High Priest every morning to do paperwork, even the slightest of consultations needed advance notice through letters. It was a pain, but I was gradually getting used to it. There were a lot of minor questions I had that could be resolved in a single reply to a letter. In any case, both Fran and the High Priest firmly told me not to speak recklessly when other people were around.
I had been prepared to wait several days for the meeting, but the moment the High Priest read over the letter, he cradled his head and beckoned me into the hidden room. I meekly followed him there, not really understanding why my request for a meeting had frustrated him.
“You don’t mind meeting me without advance notice?” I asked right after entering the hidden room, only to be met with a sharp glare. Normally he would simply offer harsh criticism with a collected expression, but in this room he would lecture me with his frosty wrath. I preferred to be in his normal room when he was mad.
“You fool. The Starbind Ceremony is the day after tomorrow. It would be over by the time I sent a letter of invitation.”
“Someone just said it was soon, so I thought I had more time...”
“I had been postponing it due to the fact we were progressing steadily through my built-up paperwork, but I see that your education can wait no longer.”
If he wasn’t certain before, the High Priest now knew for a fact that my ignorance of all temple matters remained as consistent as ever. That was bad. I felt danger crackling in the air. It was a well-known rumor between priests in the orphanage that becoming the High Priest’s attendant meant undergoing extreme blood-curdling training, and I got the feeling that I was about to learn first hand whether that was true. I looked away, and out of the corner of my eye saw the High Priest shaking his head with exasperation.
“Good grief. To answer your question, the Starbind Ceremony is a ceremony for adults. As you are still an apprentice, you cannot participate. Stay at the orphanage, and as director, keep careful watch so that no orphans leave. Many citizens will enter and leave the temple during the ceremony. As there will be blue priests servicing the weddings in order to receive donations in return, you must absolutely ensure that not a single orphan interrupts.”
He told me to stay in the orphanage, which made me panic a little. I wanted to participate in the Star Festival and throw taues, not stay stuck up in the orphanage all day.
“Um, I want to participate in the lower city’s Star Festival instead. Is that okay?”
“And the lower city’s Star Festival is?” The High Priest raised an eyebrow slightly.
“It’s a festival where kids go to the forest to collect taue fruit in the morning, then throw them at each other in the afternoon.”
“...What in the world? How does that have anything to do with the Starbind Ceremony?”
“I don’t really know. I couldn’t go last year due to a Devouring fever, and I couldn’t go any of the years before that since I was never healthy back in those days, so I’ve never participated. I’ve really been looking forward to going for the first time this year, so...”
The High Priest’s eyebrows furrowed deeply. It was an expression teetering between rejection and sympathy, him wanting to tell me no but sympathizing with how I had never been able to participate before now.
“...Would it really be so bad for me to go? I think it would actually be a lot quieter here if you let all the orphanage kids go out for the festival.”
“That would be fine during the morning, but what about the afternoon? There will be fruits flung everywhere, will there not? Sending the orphans out to the city during that time will cause unnecessary conflict. The blue priests will be going to the Noble’s Quarter in the afternoon and there needs to be someone to bear responsibility.”
It seemed that once the morning ceremony ended, the blue priests and their attendants left the temple to attend the Starbind Ceremony in the Noble’s Quarter. I clapped my hands together with a sudden realization. ...If nobody’s around who would care, can’t we just play in the temple grounds?
“High Priest, what would you say to everyone at the orphanage gathering fruit in the morning, then throwing them at each other exclusively within the orphanage? I want the kids to experience the festival as well. I was looking forward to it myself, too...”
The High Priest lowered his eyes in thought, then slowly raised his gaze back up to me. “Clean up after yourselves thoroughly. If you don’t cause enough of a stir for the citizens to notice, you may do as you like.”
“I thank you ever so much.”
As soon as noon came, we held a briefing session in the orphanage. We could do as we liked so long as the blue priests didn’t find us, so after finishing their chapel cleaning early in the morning, they would change into their forest clothes and wait for Lutz and me. Once we were there, we would stealthily sneak out and head to the forest to gather taues.
The orphans were overjoyed since they normally spent the day of the festival stuck in the orphanage, but the gray priests couldn’t go with them since they needed to prepare carriages for the blue priests and stand guard at the gate. They watched the excited kids with envy.
“All of those jobs last only until the festival ends, correct? The throwing will begin when the blue priests and their attendants leave for the Noble’s Quarter, so we can start once everyone’s finished their jobs. It’ll be better if everyone has fun together. You can all wait until the priests have finished their jobs, can’t you?” I asked the kids, and they all nodded hard in reply.
“Uh huh! We’ll wait!”
“I’ll bring lots of extra fruit for the people who couldn’t come.”
The busy gray priests and the kids ultimately came to a compromise, where the kids agreed to wait to start the throwing and the gray priests prepared food for dinner. Unbelievably, they normally went without dinner on the day of the Starbind Ceremony, since they didn’t get food without nobles there.
“I’ll ask my chef to make plenty of food for all.”
After returning to my room, I told Hugo and Ella through Fran that they could leave work on fourth bell on the day of the Starbind Ceremony, but in return I wanted them to make dinner on top of lunch. It seemed that Hugo was an unwed adult and thus had a burning desire to participate in the festival. Fran told me he that he was determined to finish his work as soon as possible.
...I missed my own opportunity to throw fruit at newlyweds, but as long as the kids in the orphanage got to have fun, that was fine by me.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login