the year of the pig // (belated) lunar new year festival

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[color=#7E354D]BAI SHI
" my own illusion come to be "

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[color=#7E354D] it was time, by now, to get ththe decorations up for the lunar new year festival, for the chinese new year. truth be told, they were far behind, and half of their family was missing or dead and the other half weren't on the best talking terms or they just didnt all have enough time to gather together.

bai shi paused in their den to collect their mind, the serpent in their fox form, standing on their back legs with a branch of leaves clenched in their jaws, sweeping the dust from their den, humming songs to themselves as they went about cleaning out the 'bad luck and bad memories', their eyes wandering to the red leathers on the floor of their den, draped over their nest.

they smiled internally, shaking their pale fur out after they finished cleaning to very gingerly resume their dragon body and use their four claws to grasp a haphazard spring of ferns and dip it into a pot of ink they had discovered in the den while cleaning. they began to write slowly and deliberately on the dyed leathers, scrawling a poem about the spring that was coming. they would tack these couplets on the entrance to their den, using stones and shards to impale the wall since they hadn't been able to find glue to paste them.

in the Chinese tongue, the couplets translated into 'yíng xīn chūn jiāng shān jǐn xiù' on the leather to the left of the door, 'cí jiù suì shì tài huī huáng' on the leather to the right of the door, and 'chūn yì àng rán on the leather about the door, which translated into its English equivalent of 'Ring in the spring; landscape is splendid. Ring out the past; everything is glorious. A Refreshed Spring.'

their gaze would fall to the jars of fireflies that they had caught, gaze warm as they looked over the red dyed containers and jars that had been found in the neutral grounds, leftovers from former ages. they had been lucky to find a few old paper lanterns from those times, mostly intact and merely needed candles that they traded for. they would go about the territory and hang up the jars and lanterns in glee, staking a lantern above the entrance to their den, the largest in the territory, also where the feast would be held.

they hadn't been able to find anything similar to the firecrackers of their memories and instead intended to use the fireflies that night to manipulate them with their air elemental to make designs in the sky. they had stories to tell tonight, a few of their favorites from their own childhood. they had gone about setting up red envelopes with the names of the roseblood members, as well as their own family members. the ones that were missing, would have their envelopes set out on a river at a later time so that they might reach them in their own homes or in the spirit realm. money was traditionally stored in these red-dyed crudely folded envelopes, but since there was no agreed upon currency, bai had taken the time to trade for items that they knew each member would enjoy.

the envelopes would be given out later, when the 'firecrackers' lit up the sky and they had everyone watch. but first was waiting for everyone to arrive, the den decorated in soft downy things that would combat the chill of the desert night, the ceiling of the building giving a wide and beautiful view of the sky for viewing pleasure. the tables and low crumbled walls were decorated with many different foods and sweets, namely steamed fishes that they had traveled far to get. they had been lucky to find things that they could craft into messy 'dumplings' set in a clay pot of water in the desert sun ... easy boiling. the hardest things to make were similar items to spring rolls and glutinous rice balls, the spring rolls just mercilessly ground wild fowl and veggies wrapped up in edible leaves that they had foraged for. they couldn't be fried, left in the sun to dry. the rice balls ... picked rice left to sit in water in the dying sun just clumped together in the haphazard shape of balls. now ... they waited patiently, excited to share their cultural tradition with their new family.