Anathain

Anathain.

There's only a single holiday like this in the whole year, in the whole freaking year, period. There's only one night during which you have fires light the sky up until they disappear in the horizon, and people throwing each other pints of beer over the flames, and the ability to kick someone in there if they really irritate you because no one will pay attention, being all drunk and all.

And bloody hell, no one knows how to throw a good Anathain feast like the Wood Elves of Alfantuath. Because y'know, it's all fine and well with the human hobby of trudging out towards the nearest village and tricking a drink out of a local farmer, simply to get out of the city, or with the Dwarvish habit of getting even more drunk than usual, or even with the strange and underdescriptively so customs of the Hill-Trolls of Nazgalharador. Such as visiting a temple. It was so strange, that the only reaction it merited from any person from another culture is a scoff.

Why so many races celebrated Anathain, no one knew. Some claimed it was a tradition followed even before evolution split humans, dwarves and elves apart. Some claimed it was pure coincidence. Some others, that it was proof of Alyavarra the Mother Goddess's existence. And finally, a few, but a few with a ridiculously wild imagination, claimed everyone simply liked it. Again, this was a belief that only reaffirmed the rest's belief in the minority's insanity.

Point being, no one knew how to have fun on Anathain unless they lived in Alfantuath. Riandh of Dunnadh, a Wood Elvish carpenter who's ridiculously, for a carpenter of all people, important to our story, could've told you that and wouldn't have doubted it for a milisecond. First, in the early morning, thousands upon thousands of young Wood Elvish couples would've gotten married in lavish ceremonies in just as lavish temples, because of some fad started years ago by a Wood Elvish prince with more pride than sense to delay a wedding for an entire year until Anathain, Midsummer's Eve, Westlight, the June Night and a dozen other names that've been given to it. The point being, everyone suddenly wanted to do as the prince had done because it seemed terribly romantic to them, getting married under the firelit June sky that supposedly fateful night when everyone went outside and looked for half- or wholly mythical plants, or organs of plants, such as a fern-blossom. Ferns, naturally, don't blossom. Anyone with some knowledge in biology could tell you that. But that's the point. Anathain is supposedly the only night you can find something like that. Not being able to find them is the whole fun part. But the point is: everyone likes to have a wedding on Anathain. It's fun. If you're rich, because a poor family won't be able to afford a wedding on Anathain... the only day when you can go wherever you want and take whatever food you find waiting. For free.

Tradition. Riandh loved tradition. It essentially meant that he could get drunk without having to sell off any of the stuff he... carpented? He wasn't too keen on his language. On any language. And especially not his language. Speaking Elvish without a desperately barbaric tone and more foreign than native words in a sentence was the right and the privilege of the rich. But you get the point. Riandh hated how some of his peers were stupid enough to oppose ancient traditions. Refuse to give someone his well-deserved, ancestor-allocated ripe meat and malt beer.

What kind of madman would do such a thing, such a sin against Elvenkind? It disawoved them the only day in the year they could look after themselves instead of everyone else.

Generally the morning ceremonies were followed by mass dancing. Riandh loved dancing, especially those simple dances that were traditionally danced on holidays. You know, none of that complex step stuff. You just trample the feet and get a huge "We're young, we're strong, we're going to put you humans who've conquered most of the lands we lived in once back in your places one day" feeling. Right, that was a jest. While dancing those simple traditional dances, you got a huge feel of community, of unity, of being part of a huge wide people. You felt that you could tell the whole world outside your country, your Alfantuath's borders - hell, not as much as that - just outside your horizon, your eyesight, you could tell that whole remaining world to get the hell out of your life. The dance, the people, and the community, that was all that mattered at the time.

You'd have mass mania. Appearances in the public by members of the royal family, possibly. And a surprising lack of any attempts on their lives.

Then, as night dawned, it'd be the shortest in the whole year, both by laws of nature and by laws of appearance.

You'd see, as a defiant attempt to show the sun she's not the only light in the darkness, hundreds of fires brightening the night sky, Elves dancing, drinking, eating, and most importantly, handing each other drinks and food. Don't misinterpret those words - they're not cynical in any way. They're true. Nothing brought the people of Alfantuath closer together than Anathain. Riandh was happy to see his people happy. It was a rare sight.

And now, there he was, in a small town called Taraidhen, south of Dunnadh, eating meat straight off the spit, and desperately trying to find his pint of ale. It was gone, he had trouble seeing after all the fun he had the day, and the only chance to find it now was a flawed attempt to touch his way around on the ground until he found it. He could still see the fires, though. Reaching out, touching the sky, mocking it... Anathain was the day the hominid races sort of demonstrated their achievements, almost intentionally insulting Heaven in the process. They tried showing Heaven just how much fun, in spite of all that Heaven could and would send on them, they could have.

"Looking for this?" he heard a high, female voice just straight in front of him. A second later he realized his being drunk must've confused him because it was impossible, the fire being straight ahead of him either way.

Riandh tried reaching out to retrieve the pint, but he missed. By a longshot. He placed his hand straight in the fire.

"Woah, woah, don't hurt yourself," smiled the raven-haired Elvish girl - who turned out to be next to him. He was catastrophically blinded, but it might've been the pain in his hand that allowed him to determine the aforementioned features. It might've awakened him a bit.

He felt the pint being simply pressed into his hands.

"Er, thanks," Riandh, with a head both aching and dizzy, tried speaking, but all that came out was a bit of an underdescriptive growl. He tried lifting the pint, but - fortunately - it didn't come up. He was too giddy to succeed at raising it.

"You're Riandh, aren't you? The carpenter, from Dunnadh? I've seen you at Kinnon and Riall's wedding."

He probably was there. He wasn't too sure. There were simply too many weddings he had been at today and drank at. This WAS Anathain, after all.

"I'm Kinnon's sister. Ayann."

Riandh desperately looked over his memory to search for any girls with the name Kinnon or at least with some similarity to this dark-haired she-elf. At least, ones he'd seen today. But in the very end, his head was increasingly heavy.

"This... isn't some attempt to collect a debt from me, is it? I haven't drunk too..." he gulped at this point, barely restraining himself from vomiting over the fact that he drank simply too much, "I haven't drunk too much - at their wedding, at least - have... I?"

He heard - he thought he did, at least - that he heard a laugh. And he hoped that he saw a smile and not a frown on her face.

"No, you dolt. I simply thought you might need help finding that ale of yours. And my advice - don't drink any more of it."

Riandh quite clearly saw her get up. And frankly, he was much too sure that'd be too much of a "I blew it" moment if he would've let her. Even if he was in a drunken stupor. Actually, that's exactly why he wasn't too willing to let such a well-begun conversation end so quickly. Any other girl, after all, would've not helped him find his ale.

"Ayann," he gulped out, "D'you want to dance?"