The evening before the celebrations for the winter solstice began, Kazue, Moriko, and Mordecai ehat all delvers were at the trading post zone or invited down to the feasting hall he core. The stoown sitting above was far too cold for most and had a retively small number of buildings so far, making it unsuitable for hosting parties right now.

  There was a bit of a social divide betweewo locations, but this was one occasion where no oempted to rectify it. The Trionean soldiers and others who were less familiar to the dungeon were iown above. The buildings were warm and insuted, even if the traversal between them was not, and there was only so much trust to be had.

  There were some exceptions. Captain Ain Vitomir was io join the festivities in the feast hall below, but he deed to participate for long, making only one showing early in each day and then spending the rest with his men.

  After 'appropriating' some extra drink of course. It was the same quality as what was avaible to them already, but the soldiers e more for it having been supposedly exfiltrated from the dungeon's 'private' supply. No one saw any harm in helping the captain keep morale up.

  Their family home ihe crystal tree was more ihaown below it, and Mordecai had used the oning winter as an excuse to teach everyoher-warding runes. Rune crafting was an art most only practiced by those who already could use magic directly, but Mordecai had never met anyone who was truly incapable of toug magic. They might have been too io trust with magical knowledge, but being alive meant you had an interface with magid having a mi you had the tool to manipute it.

  So while Fuyuko was the least adept of the family at rune crafting, she was now learning the basics.

  Mordecai didn't expect her to ever be a master of the art, but he felt that this was a skill everyone whose path would lead them into dangers unknown should know the basics of. Being able to craft a rune slowly and with possible restarts was better than not being able to craft o all.

  The three days of the midwinter festival were full of feasting, drinking, music, dang, and gift-giving.

  Gift giving was mostly about personal gifts of course, but here they often held a sedary meaning regarding the goddesses of Amirume and Mericume.

  Those gifts which were the accumution of culture and civilization to create were sidered aowledgments of Lady Amirume. A gift like a book begins with the gathering of raw materials that are refined into usable materials such as paper and ink. These materials are then assembled and processed to not only bihem into one object, but to imprint upon the book knowledge, stories, or ideas.

  ifts may be useful or beautiful items that were hunted, fed, or otherwise gathered from the nd, and might be altered by hand from there, such as wood and ivory carvings. These gifts aowledged primal beauty and power, and thus aowledged Lady Mericume.

  Both of them were celebrated in musid dance of course, including some very difficult position types and dans.

  Amirume was best represented by stately, steady musid correspondingly ordered dance.

  Mericume, in turn, was generally represented by powerful drumbeats and wild, frenzied dang.

  The height of h both was to have music representing both pying currently while remaining in harmony and having matched yet opposed dancers.

  One of the easier versions of this was to have two bard-dancer pairs, where each bard has worked with their partnered dancer before. The music they pyed would then include a private code to give limited instrus to the dahe bards could more easily see both dancers and thus could guide them enough to avoid collision.

  Another fairly safe variation was to py a single position that tairong elements of both the steady beat and the wild beat while daook turns peting, each focused oher the orderly aspects or the chaotic aspects. This was more difficult than some dauals that peted this way as each daneeded to elevate the other at the same time. It also came with a subtle danger.

  When people get petitive it bee tempting to elevate oneself at the expense of the other. But to downpy or deride the aplishments of your peting partterly ruihe point of this dahat sort of ivity could slide its way into an expression or body nguage subsciously, making this a dance best avoided by any pairings with ill feelings between them.

  For to insult one dancer, however ily, was to insult the goddess they represeo insult one sister was to insult both. To insult a pair of goddesses during a celebration in their honor was uhough it was rare for this sort of slip to result in more than minor inveniences for the year.

  There was a more rarely performed form of dahat required skilled dancers who knew each other well. The dancer representing Amirume had rules that limited what steps and moves could follow another and often had sets that were essentially chraphed for the duration of the set.

  Mericume's representative had no such restris. They were to dance wild and free around their partner, but they also o know their opposite's rule set. They o be able to anticipate their partner and move to both plement and trast their partner's move set.

  Part of the challenge here was that memorized daeps could be very plicated and. Amirume's dancer push their partner's skill by moving into ever more plicated sets, making it more difficult to match steps with the same speed.

  A perfect dance where both were equally challenged was rare, but could bring the blessings of the goddesses upon all who were present.

  This was also the time to honor Yu-kiang, the leviathan, elemental lord of water. There were many traditions to honor him with depending on location. Some take special care to purify and distill cups of perfect water that were drunk as part of a ritual. Others put their bodies on the line by swimming in freezing cold water for a brief while and some had special bathing or sh rituals. There was a surprising variety in just this se, ranging from quiet, private rituals where one focused o of bathing and the importance of water to rambunctious affairs where respected leaders were ambushed with barrels of water (or beer).

  On a more somber his festival was also a time to pay respects to Lord Yamaraja and Lady Kikoi Muerte. While the dead themselves were remembered during the autumn, here in the darkest part of the year it was time to honor those who guided and protected souls on their way to the afterlife and sometimes returhem to the world via reination.

  This was usually done in the form of simple rituals and prayers. There was no need for ostentation, for ih all were truly equal. Emperor, priest, soldier, crafter, and farmer; all were the same when it came time to be judged.

  True, most souls did not o pass before the eye of Lord Yamaraja. Not if they were truly in harmony with the edicts of their chosen patroy. But it was hard for any who was not a priest or champion to be certain of how well they have maintaiheir ideals.

  Over the course of three days, there lenty of time for everyoo pay homage to the deities of their choice as well as mingle and party and exge all their gifts.

  The dungeon had the role of host to py of course, and on both sides of the barrier between realms, but they did have one additional 'host' to help.

  Satsuki was teically a guest, but she khe rules of hospitality as well as anyone here did and knew how to ask after a guest's fort with enough siy to ehat the guest felt she truly cared while keeping her presence light enough to not intrude upon a private versatio able to eh more open versations enough for people to feel included and wele even when she diseo che someone else.

  This bance was a difficult thing, and ohat Mordecai was only passingly good at. He could do it well enough to generally not offend anyone, but he was not the master of the art that Satsuki was.

  Naturally, Satsuki was doing this mostly to eain herself and show off. However, she also had a small group of people she was teag amidst the festivities.

  Deidre was there of course; she o learn many things about life outside of what she'd been trapped in and spent much of her time with Satsuki now. Mordecai expected Deidre to slowly bee less overwhelmed by Satsuki as the kitsune woman did prefer partners with minds and wills of their own. He had no doubt that she'd train Deidre to steel herself against Satsuki's non-magical charms, and the magical ones would be lifted iime.

  Kazue was involved iraining because she was lightly enthralled by seeing Satsuki in a and she wao be able to perform these duties just as well. Her role was more senior apprentice or journeyman as she already knew how from her shrine maiden training and was seeking to hohe art.

  Carmil had more training than Kazue but less experiend was cajoled into practig the art as well.

  Fuyuko had little choi the matter; this art of the extra training she was receiving due to her social flub when they were holding court.

  Seeing Satsuki helping with the role of host motivated Orchid into peting with her distant aor, with Bridgette and Paltira assisting. This made things worse for Fuyuko as Orchid was one of her other trainers in social matters and rotated when she ying host so that she and Satsuki were not doing so at the same time, which was more helpful to the dungeon and thus was teically earning her more cim on rewards.

  Mordecai did enforce a small mercy for Fuyuko's sake; Satsuki and Orchid only got to train or use her for three hours a day, eaormally he wouldn't have given her any duties at all for a holiday, but there was er time than a like this to enforce the teags of social grace.

  Paltira pyed a slightly different support role, which Fuyuko preferred learning and which was just as useful in some ways. While Orchid socialized and asked questions, Paltira listened. He then saw to it that any expressed needs were seen to, mostly by passing on the information. This also required paying attention to verify that food and drink were brought where they were supposed to be.

  This required a particur type of situational awareness and it could be draining to maintain that sort of vigi was also the same sort of situational awareness one wants otlefield; oo focused ohi never losing focus on your primary .

  Moriko had no i in learning how to be that sort of host, and Mordecai had figured out a long time ago how muergy he was willing to i in learning the art. They both still socialized and mingled, but they took advantage of the number of inhabitants willing to see after people's needs and those of their guests who wao go that extra length to not do more. That left them with more free time, some of which Mordecai spent teag Moriko how to perform the rare and difficult. It would require a long while before she was ready to tackle perf it during the festival, but they had the natural coordination. Moriko just needed some practice learning how to adapt around the ordered part of the dance, which Mordecai had more practice at. He might follow Ozuran, but the Lord of Shadows had a simir affinity for order to that of his aunt's, making this the more natural fit for Mordecai.

  The reason for Mordecai's experience resent at the festival however, and by the end of the third day, her ego felt a o show off. Satsuki promised Moriko to help train her, but she wanted ohing iurn.

  To demonstrate the dan its ey, with Mordecai.

  After making sure Kazue and Moriko had no objes, Mordecai accepted but added a twist. Satsuki already mostly looked the part of Mericume, so Mordecai shape-shifted to take on the form of a blond, female kitsune. She only had seven tails still in this form, but she was able to add a pair of floating goldeo represent the final two that Amirume would have.

  Satsuki's smile showed her teeth a little too sharply to be entirely happy. By Mordecai taking on the role of Amirume pletely, Satsuki was denied any ce of flirting during the dahey would be representing the sisters as pletely as mortals could.

  Still, she could not let herself do anythihan her best, as Mericume was her patron.

  Mordecai brought up memories of the music pyed the st time the two of them performed this dand created sheet music based on it for their musis.

  The two of them did not start off perfectly in harmony, it had been too long even for them, but it did not take long for both to find their rhythm. Ohey were in harmony, the world disappeared into the flow of their dahe sun and the moon in perfect bail the musis had to draw the song to an end.

  They ended with a low, flourished bow to each other as the st notes faded away, and both of them literally glowed with soft radiance. Mordecai carried the golden luminance of the sun while Satsuki cast the pale glow of the moons.

  The mark of the goddesses' blessing began to fade after a moment, and as they rose Mordecai resumed his normal appearand gave Satsuki a smile. "Well done, as always," he said, theated before tinuing with, "Satsuki, things have ged between us, but there is an offer I made to you once before. Kazue and Morikood with my it again; if you need a home, you will always have a pce here, no matter how things staween us."

  He was expeg surprise on her part, he was not expeg her to suddenly tear up like that, and Mordecai spent the few minutes holding her while she recovered herself.

  "Thank you, my dear," she said when she'd straightened back up, "and I might even take you up on that someday. But I think that once Deidre is settled back with herself, I will be off wandering again for a while."

  Her response did not surprise him, Satsuki always had trouble staying in one pce, but the offer was sincere.

  There was, however, one more surprise in store for the evening.

  A few hours after the dance had ended, an adorable, fluffy white snow owl rode the winds into the Azeria duerritory while radiating a rather familiar spiky, angry aura. Kazue, Moriko, and Mordecai had reached the entrao the underground portion of the dungeon by the time the owl dove down to the ground and ged into a familiar teen kitsuch while still moving.

  "YOU!" Shizoku yelled, pointing at Mordecai, "This is your fault! You and your stupid rabbit boy messeriplets! I am going to have faerie-touched, half-rabbit, triplet aunts who are FOURTEEN years youhan me! Gah, that's so embarrassing. Did I mention the faerie-touched triplets part?"

  Well, this was going to be iing.

  Zagaroth