[closed] So as I aim for the deep seabed

[heavenly_earth]

Who: Neji and Kushina
When: December 5th
Where: Lake outside of Konoha
Notes: Never keep information from an Uzumaki- even unintentionally. There will be consequences.

( I'll breathe once again )

Lantern Sending Festival

[sunshinemods]

The Event Details as Relevant to Characters
Dates: December 17th-25th
Where: Sunagakure

Every year, Suna takes this week and turns it into a time to honor those they've lost over the course of the year. It's one of the only times during the year, Exams excluded, that Suna really welcomes people from outside the village, feeling that anyone is welcome to revere the dead, so long as they're respectful about it.

Every evening will see people sending lit lanterns out of the village, many of which will have letters to the dead. During the day beforehand, there is usually a rather vibrant festival air, where local treats can be gotten and games can be played. All of these close up after dark so as not to disgrace those doing a sending except for the food sellers, and it's not unheard of that child toys can be found in excess during this time as well.

The History Behind the Holiday
The holiday has rather interesting beginnings, as once upon a time it was just a local tradition to send up lanterns at funerals, with no big fanfare otherwise being given. Now, this holiday has taken on a day and a purpose, after the story of the man who lost everyone, and was given them back by the lady of reincarnation. Due to this, it's not unheard of that children are conceived during this holiday under the belief that they might be revived loved ones.

The Story
The story begins with a man, whose name is long forgotten, who had lost everyone to war and sickness. His three children, a son and two daughters, his wife, his brother, his nephew, and even his parents were all lost to him, leaving him with nothing but grief and sadness. It was a terrible year, and he did not know how he could recover from the last of his losses, his four-year-old daughter, the youngest of the children and the longest to survive. He strongly considered joining them.

Instead, he wrote a letter, spilling out his grief and sadness, detailing how much he missed them to every loved one lost in that year and the year before. He knew no one on this plane could read the words he wrote, but that did not mean that they might not reach the next. Thus, that day, when he would have sent up a paper lantern for his daughter's memory, he made it from that long, heart-rending letter, and sent that instead.

What he did not expect was for a woman to come to him later that night, wiping his tears and saying nothing at all, who took him into her arms and comforted away his sorrows. By morning she was gone, leaving only the memory of warmth behind. He thought he dreamed her, in his pain, and thought nothing more of it until she came to him, a child in her arms, and smiled a beautiful smile at him as she handed him the child. A boy, one who looked exactly as his dead son. When he looked up she was gone, leaving the child with him, and no matter how he searched, no one had heard of her.

Thus, on the same week as the year before, he sent up another lantern, and he was joyous that she came to him, staying with him until morning as his son slept in his bassinet nearby.

Just as the year before, she returned to him again later in the year, giving him a child. He did not recognize this one at first, for he had not known his dead wife as a child, but when he went digging through pictures he held of his family, that informed him of who his little girl was. Of course, the woman did not stay any more than she had the year before, and he, being too busy with two small children, could not search.

Instead, he focused, sending up no lanterns that year, save one in the spring for a neighbor which did nothing at all.

It was only when he sent up lanterns that week of winter that she ever came, to bring him a tiny babe in the form of someone once lost to him, and thus he called to her whenever he thought himself ready for more of his family to be returned to him.

At least, until the day when his lost were all with him again, and she no longer answered.

Still, he knew she got his letters, and thereafter sent them all the same so that she would know he did not forget to give her his gratitude for giving him something to live for again.