The Festival of Awakening
This annual festival, celebrated by the commoners of Valorn, takes place on the first day of
Spring's Planting to celebrate the renewal of life and the awakening of nature after Wind's Change slumber.
The Festival Rituals:
The Empty Table Sacrifice
Before dawn on the festival day, every household would clear their dining table completely, leaving it bare. These empty tables represent the barren state of the earth before spring's rebirth. The cleared tables are then carried in a solemn procession to the village center and stacked into a large pyre.
At sunrise, the pyre of empty tables is set ablaze, symbolizing the sacrifice of winter's dormancy. As the flames consume the emptiness, they give way to the abundance spring will bring.
The Awakening Call
After the pyre burns down, the village children would gather and venture into the nearby forests and fields. There, they use drums, whistles, and their voices to sound the "Awakening Call" - a joyful, rambunctious noise meant to rouse the slumbering animals from hibernation.
Legends say the louder the Call, the more plentiful the awakened spring creatures will be. The children compete to see whose calls can summon the first bird songs, the first scurrying rabbits, and the first butterfly sightings of the season.
The festival involves no feasting, as the renewal of spring itself is considered nourishment enough after winter's famine. When the first spring blooms appear, they are gathered and woven into crowns that the villagers wear for the remainder of the day's celebrations of music, dancing, and revelry over winter's end.
Warrior by the hand of Topaz, mint farmer by birth.