“Slow and steady wins the race.”
Speedy Gonzales* #quote
Seems I'm coming under the weather, not above it unfortunately. Illness is quite unpleasant. Anyway onto the flash fiction!
Zaiixi Day
Zaiixi Day was
the most important holiday in all the magical lands. It celebrates
the day that the sorceress Zaiixi came from her world to theirs and
brought magic with her by opening up a hole in her world to allow
magic to leak in like water. All magical creatures in their world
were ancestors of ones she brought when she came to their world. At
least that's what the Ancient Texts said.
The celebration
of this event actually spreads over the entire month before it and
even more extending into its own 'holiday season'. In some part
because of the absurd amount of decorations the wizards and witches
have to set up. And the requirement on decorations. Being on the same
level technologically with the more mundane lands in the other
dimensions such as Earth gives them access to lights or plastic
figures or trains and such. They can use these for the more mundane
holidays of the year but for the holiday of Zaiixi Day everything
must be magic because it is a holiday about magic. It is a
requirement that every decoration must be magical in some way,
usually enchanted. Pretty much every lawn has something levitating. A
trick that some wizards and witches often use to make their houses
really light up at night is to have decorations that have been
enchanted to be perpetually on fire without being damaged.
As for what the
decorations usually are a cliché decoration type is animated
figurines of magical creatures. Somebody usually has at least has one
enchanted plastic dragon flying around in circles on their roof.
(Apartment complexes or other residential buildings can be quite
spectacular compared to houses as usually every resident inside bands
together to decorate the entire building.) Other decorations can
including things like “standing spells” which are spells that
last quite awhile, or until deactivated and usually involve drawing
some symbols in the ground or floor or other surface. They stop when
the symbol is removed. An example would be a miniature thunderstorm
one or two feet in size. Wizards try to make ones like those turn
themselves temporarily off at night so they don't bother the
neighbors when they're asleep. Sometimes people make animated
sculptures dancing or performing in some other way. Sometimes people
spend much more than the usual month setting up decorations, some
spend the entire year.
People don't
put up any sculptures or representations of the sorceress Zaiixi
herself. That is an entire other division of the holiday culture
itself. The Ancient Texts actually don't specify anything about how
she looks except that she had obtained eternal youth and
extraordinary beauty. It did specify that she wore golden robes and a
red witch's hat. But instead of people taking liberty with her
appearances it became tradition for young women to dress as her for
the holiday season. The definition of age for 'young woman' was
eventually settled to be from sixteen to twenty six. Though after
twenty four and after it was pushing it. Some older women would dress
up to fake being young but this was frowned down upon and if the
woman was caught, which they usually were, they would be looked at
as, desperate, old crones and would probably have no shot at dating
for quite some time. Married women didn't dress up as Zaiixi lore never told of a husband.
The women's
fashion industry made a huge amount of its money off of makeup, robes
and hats as women dressed up to be Zaiixi for the season. The texts
only specified colors so the industry made thousands of different
kinds of robes and hats to sell. Each year they'd try to come out
with something new to outdate old costumes. One way a boy could get a
girlfriend is to offer whoever he wants a Zaiixi costume, the more
expensive the better, at the start of the season and tell her how
wonderful she would look in it. And if she accepts it they're pretty
much 'officially dating'. The majority of the couples started out
like this in the magical lands. The season of this magical holiday
was also nicknamed “the couples season”.
There are
various parties in the season. They come in a few variates. First off
there are spell parties. Normal, mundane parties are considered
against the holiday spirit. Spell parties are where everyone eats
dinner(or maybe some other meal but that's pretty rare as these are
usually held later in the day) in a circle on the floor or ground
around some object. This can be a stone, hunk of wood or doll or
something else. Throughout the night the partygoers cast spells on
the object. A few people try to use it to show off, but most people
use it just to try to be funny or to do something neat and
entertaining.
The most
famous spell party of all time involved an incredibly powerful wizard
who was also incredibly grumpy. He had decided to pass on casting a
spell but every one bugged him so much that he eventually snapped. He
said fine. The object they had at the party was an old-timey doll
owned by the granddaughter of the host of the party. The grumpy,
powerful wizard in his rage decided to summon an elder demon god from
another dimension to devour the doll. It did. But instead of being
traumatized the little granddaughter thought the elder demon god was
much more adorable and asked if she could keep him instead. The
grumpy wizard thought it was hilarious and cheered up. He said yes,
especially since he couldn't send the elder god back. The elder demon
god is now named Snookie and is enslaved to the granddaughter who is
currently in her thirties and having it work for charity picking up
litter.
Other
parties include illusion parties where participates try to dazzle or
scare each other with illusion spells and then there are shape
shifting parties where it is like a mundane world's costume party but
the people come shape shifted with magic into creatures or animals
for the night.
Various towns
and cities and such have their own unique events but there are two
seasonal event types that everyone has. First there are the creature
shows. This is where magical creature tamers show of their creatures
that they have been breeding and taming to the world on television.
Since Zaiixi brought these creatures into the world it thought only
fitting they are showcased to the world in shows throughout the
season. Next are the spell shows. Here wizards show off their spells
in various shows. National leagues exist and the winners from those
all come together to perform in one big show towards the end of the
season. One famous show had a witch going to prison afterward because
she caused a miniature earthquake endangering everyone. No one was
injured because the stadium was so well enforced for powerful spells
like that. She said that she planned for the safety measures but the
police didn't care. She replied. “Well doesn't matter, I still gave
you the best show you'll ever get!”
Zaiixi Day
itself is actually very calm and reserved in contrast to the
spectacular shows. One thing that Zaiixi also brought to this world
was many magical artifacts, wands and items plus the knowledge and
how to make more of them. So on this day families gather and give
each other gifts of magical items, no mundane items are ever given.
Large feasts are also held if the families can manage it. On this day
the young women always wear their Zaiixi costumes and although the
families are all giving the gifts to each other the young women
wearing the costumes are the ones to hand them out. If there's no one
in the right age to be costumed then whoever is giving their gift
hands it out. The presents are usually in boxes wrapped in paper with
pictures of magical creatures on it.
And at the end
of the day a special spell is cast. This spell unites the minds of
everyone in the family for a few short moments in a blissful trance,
not by any mind control technique, but by reminding them of all their
best memories together all while linking their minds. So after that
unity everyone departs and the next day the season closes and
everyone puts away the decorations and continues on with the rest of
the mundane year until the next holiday rolls around.
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