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Samhain, Marcella Belanades

It's gonna be a dark and narrow road It's gonna be a fire It's gonna be a heat you've never known

- The Wasteland, Chelsea Wolfe

We who are old, old and gay, O so old! Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told: Give to these children, new from the world, Silence and love; And the long dew-dropping hours of the night, And the stars above

In Camelot, the king’s men have spent the Yuletide festival hard at work. For the last six days and six nights they’ve harvested willow, stripping, treating, and weaving it into these strands like cords that they later used to construct an effigy made in the image of King Arthur. Christians praise this tradition as an homage to Christ, the son of God who was crucified and died for their sins. Constructed in the courtyard of Pendragon Hold, the wicker king overlooks the city as was before in age old tradition as the city streets below spill wine into gutters, drunk on merriment and foreboding fear that winter’s due is upon them.

Adornments are brought forth, just as they decorated their trees with symbols of evergreen - so too do they adorn the wicker man with trinkets to be carried over into the next world. The Christians praise these tokens as gifts meant for God, the twinkling celestial artifacts likened to the stars that shone over Bethlehem at the birth of their savior - and as is the Yuletide tradition, with death comes the promise of new life. The ash tree that serves at their yule log has burned all the while, keeping at bay the malignancies of the world

At long last their Yule King is brought forward, the false king who has spent the last six days and six nights treated as a rule king. Kept too drunk to stand, force fed hordes of fresh meat and yule treats, Breas Ó Croidheagan is pushed towards the wicker king. It’s hinged door swings wide as he is deposited inside of the wicker man while the people of Camelot sing age-old hymns that have roots far older than the Christian’s Christ. Words of praise long adopted by the foreign religion, only druids and those who have kept the old ways all this time see themselves reflected in this blatantly pagan tradition.

While the priests attending the festival praise their lord and savior, Jesus Christ and use this as a moment to commemorate both his birth and death, the druids see an effigy of the Green Man, built high and tall and towering over the city. As the fires are lit the cries of Breas Ó Croidheagan can be heard for miles, the smell of his burning flesh cuts through the evergreens, the willow, and the offerings tossed upon the blaze. King Arthur remains in his hold, but Gwydre is front and center for the celebration, his voice the loudest before the audience, declaring the beginning of a great hunt. The prince is gathering the best hunters in the realm and promising them glory, at the conclusion of the burning, Gwydre will depart from the capital. Those sensitive to the veil hear horses calling out from the sky, the cackle of three, and feel the cutting chill that inches frost against burning wicker.

ooc info below the cut:

#avalon.event

“For I have promised to do the battle to the uttermost, by faith of my body, while me lasteth the life, and therefore I had liefer to die with honour than to live with shame ; and if it were possible for me to die an hundred times, I had liefer to die oft than yield me to thee; for though I lack weapon, I shall lack no worship, and if thou slay me weaponless that shall be thy shame.”

The close of the feast of the dead had come at last, in the great hall of Pendragon Hold the knights and nobles of Avalon were gathered together to break bread one final time before the long winter swept across the land. Outside snow already began to fall, an unusual sign this early in the year but one that some whispered would mean a bountiful spring. From casks below wine flowed through the night, outside the gates a fire raged and spirits were high. Even Arthur was present, sitting on his throne with Queen Guinevere on one side, and Excalibur upon the other.

Only Maolmórdha Fáelán and her children abstain from celebration, refusing to drink, or eat, and attending the ceremony only because tradition demanded it. It is Fergus Epos of the house of paladins that speaks first, his tongue loose from wine as he splatters cold stone with scarlet lacquer. A gold chalice could not contain the arrogance that swirled within, and as he spoke he lamented the Fáelán’s considerable losses - and how each should mourn the future of their once great and noble house. Overhead an eagle cries in mourning, remembering the child that she also lost. Maolmórdha opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted by the loud slam of the doors to the great hall as they swing open.

It is Gwydre, King Arthur’s sole heir who appears, dragging behind him a man by the root of his hair. “Father,” he proclaims, eyes set upon the only person in the room who truly matters. Gwydre has the look of innocence, but any who’ve fought beside him know there is nothing further from the truth. People say he is too young to inherit the throne, but they forget that Arthur was almost half his age when he took the seat of Camelot. Silence falls across the throne room, broken only momentarily by the berserker Ruairí Caerwyn “- what is the meaning of this?” Battered and beaten, Gwydre’s captive is tossed to the ground, landing effortlessly at Arthur’s feet. He is not dressed in any finery, but the clothes of one who had sweat and worked tirelessly through long days.

“This one works in the kitchens,” Gwydre threw a small leather bound satchel in front of the man - his eyes widened with fear as the herbs landed in front of him. Anyone could see how the parcel was marked: runes filled with warning. This was a resource of the druids, a dark one. “Aconite. He wished to poison the king! It’s a marvel you aren’t all dead already. Tis’ a swift death, but painful.” Gwydre swaggered about the man who could not have been beyond his twentieth year, Gwydre drew his sword next and placed it upon the servant’s throat before he stopped to stand between the cook and the king. “First it turns your face to stone, working its way through your blood and bones as your limbs are petrified; it twists you, contorts you, until at last it reaches your chest.” Gwydre lowered his blade, his sword aimed at the cook’s chest. He turns and there is mischief in his smile, they are in a room full of people but he speaks only to the king. “Shall I kill him, father?”

Silence falls across the court, Arthur is a paramount, surely he would never let such a crime go unanswered, but neither could anyone possibly count on the word of a man whose lips were red from either blood or wine. Arthur rose and issued a single command, “Move aside, boy.”

Excalibur leaves its scabbard and in every corner of the room it sings through the dark, taking in all the light as even torches flicker in its presence. Arthur raises his sword but Ser Brunor comes to stand between them. He wears the coat of his father, murdered by wolves long ago. “Arthur- my King.” He steals the words that are on the lips of every knight who kneeled before Arthur’s blade. “This man is innocent, can you not see it on his face? Look at how he cowers, this druid is no threat, and did even one of us find ourselves ill?” Brunor addressed the court, talented, bright, ambitious. Brunor’s family is not as powerful as it once was, but they are a proud one.

Fergus Epos spoke first, “More likely he was laying in wait,” the paladin pointed out, “hoping to kill us all when we were asleep - or when we were too drunk to notice.” Fergus had grown up alongside Uther, he’d been a second father to Arthur when the boy was still growing into a king. “Kill him your grace, and punish this impudent knight for speaking out on this assassin’s behalf.”

“No!” Brunor bellowed, though Arthur only pressed forward, weary, eyes like a milky sea as his feet labored and dragged with every step. “Sire-” Brunor said, he drew his sword. “I cannot let you harm this man, he’s innocent!” A clamor erupted through the hold as every sword in the keep found its intended hand, though Arthur only raised his own.

“Do you accept the consequences of this man’s actions?” Arthur asked, his brow pointed and curved. The razor sharp tip of Excalibur’s blade bit the stones where it met. Brunor did not waiver, or shake. He instead stood firm, resolute.

“I do, now please. Let him go.” Brunor pleaded and Arthur nodded, his hand fell and waved dismissively at the cook. He got up from the place where he fell and hurled himself towards the door, towards the cold, towards the waiting bitter snow that piled outside the doors, welcoming him with open arms.

A moment of silence passed across the hold, a heartbeat of stillness. Then a great clash of blade upon blade as Arthur swung his great sword with but a single arm, bringing Brunor to his knees as the knight braced the flat of his sword against the palm of his hand.

“Let all who look upon this day see,” Gwydre spoke, “for they who wish to die for the pleasure of a crowd, whose lives amount to the sum total of their sins, under the grace of God, and the almighty above. Look to the dead men, the corpses, the slaughtered sows, the rot of pious men, and reap what you sowed.” Arthur’s strength was unmatched, his body turned and pivoted unnaturally - born to fight as Excalibur swung wildly from his palm. Not as a sword but an extension of his arm. Brunor’s magic died upon the edge of his blade before at last his sword broke and scattered across the stones. A knight in his prime, one of the greatest upon the table, and even now he stood no chance against the greatest of kings. Arthur raised the fabled sword that seals the darkness above his head, shock and fear dot Brunor’s face as he kneels in the broken place where his blade scattered. The throne room erupts, knights and nobles alike rush to stop the man who has taken this all too far. Gwydre speaks over them all, grinning beside his father’s throne. “Let all who look upon this day see: the justice of the once and future king.”

Brunor’s head rolls across stone long before anyone can reach Arthur, he looks to the crowd, to the shock that befell them each. “Who among you would take his place?” The king asked, silence punctuates the distance between the greatest warrior of Avalon and all the rest. This is what it means to be a Pendragon, and to hold Excalibur in your hands. “The celebration is over.” Arthur says at last when none answer his demand, “Be gone.”

OOC INFO BELOW THE CUT

#avalon.plot #avalon.event #avalon.samhain

As the last of the Yule log burns away to embers, so too does the last of the Yuletide’s festivities come to an end. The darkest night of winter is behind them now, but as the days get longer the people of Avalon must still contend with brutal conditions that are the worst in any living memory. Drifts pile high enough to bury trees, to bury homes, and many are forgoing their fields in favour of the high walls, and warm hearths of places like Caiseal, Maum, Seascann, Tearman, and Camelot. Storms punctuate the landscape as the weather has only worsened since the burning of the wicker man and the False King over the solstice, unusual thunderclouds said to carry riders on beast-like mounts roam over the Gray Tops and the borders of the Hartwood, bringing with them a chill so brutal that everything the storm touches is frozen through. The passage through to Essetir has become impassable, and more and more of the secret pathways to the Otherworld have been buried or sealed. Most notable, the pathways at the Dowth.

Even across the Veil the storms are felt, where the Otherworld is subject to constant seasonal change, winter has fallen even there as well. Deserts of sand have turned to a white blanket of tundra, eternally churning seas have frozen solid, villages in the skies have crystallized as the sun itself has grown cold. No fair folk have emerged from Titania’s realm, and any who once knew the path to it have since come to lose their way as the Queen of the Fairy Realm has shut her gates.

The king also remains shut tight within his hold while Gwydre and his men linger in the countryside; hunting man and beast alike. Rumours of the prince’s practices run amuck, in the name of the king, Gwydre is looking for anyone with connections to Doyle ó Murchadha, or anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts. The druid was accused over Samhain of attempting to assassinate the king, and several other high ranking members of the court. A member of each great noble house accompanies Gwydre, a ranger, a bard, a paladin, and a berserker. With Excalibur’s blessing, they can wander freely through the druids’ wards, through the secret passages of the Otherworld, and with the king’s authority have razed whole villages in their pursuits.

ooc information below the cut:

#avalon.event #avalon.yuletide

"Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness.”

In Avalon, the Yuletide festival has begun.

For twelve days and twelve nights the sun stands still and the yule log burns. Christians, Druids, and Pagans of all kinds mark the death of the year with their long standing traditions. Druidic practices that date back thousands of years muddle with the more recent coming of Christ as the fresh meat and year-long fermented wine is made readily available to the masses. In the wilds druids harvest mistletoe and holly with golden scythes as maidens dance around the center, catching sprigs and branches before they can touch the ground. Divided among them, the symbolic elements of the evergreen are used to decorate their homes and hovels as a means of embodying both the Mother Goddess, and the Oak King. Their protection wards off malignant spirits and evil elements: flood, fire, and lightning.

In the wilds of the world pine trees are decorated with stellar objects, pinecones, and berries, adopted too by the many people who live in the cities and villages of Avalon. The pine never loses its green and represents the ability of everlasting life, ordained with symbols of the sun, the stars, and the moon - elements that each remain sacred to the druids. The cairns of the druids capture the last, dwindling light of the sun and release the souls that have made their way to the sacred passages of the world - sending them unto the Gods and Goddesses for their final judgment.

Originating first on Tearmann, the tradition of the yule log has its roots in Viking tradition. A large ash tree is felled and the log set ablaze, stoked and kept alive for the duration of the yule festival in the hopes that the sun will return and warm the world once more. Gifts are given among the people of imitation fruit representing fertility, dolls, the long standing tradition of sacrifice, and candles to represent the bonfires set about Avalon.

In Camelot, a false king is chosen and celebrated through the duration of the festival, brought forward the night of the winter solstice and in his drunken stupor offered before the Gods as a tribute to end the longest, coldest night of the year.

ooc information below the cut.

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