September 2021 - Power

[staymods]

Power

It happens early one September morning. As the sun shines onto the recently repaired solar panels, power abruptly flickers to life within the Town Hall. Given that power is only supplied for a couple hours every night normally, constant power to the building is a big change.

Mauri looks impressed by the change. "Well. I didn't expect all of you to become electricians so quickly." He says it with a touch of amusement to his voice though. Even if he's not saying direct praise, he is definitely proud of everyone for working so hard.

The addition of power full-time also means that the cold storage section of the food storage building is up and running too. And with the nip in the air at night and how the crops in the farm are close to ripe, it's not a moment too soon. Preparations for fall and winter will need to start before too long, if everyone is going to want enough food around to comfortably survive the winter.

Gravekeeping

Improvements to the island have been made, but there's still a lot to do before winter arrives. Defenses need to be sured up, firewood needs to be cut, food needs to be dried and stored, and much, much more. Winters are harsh in Finland, and going into them unprepared is a surefire way to spend the winter cold and hungry. At best.

But even with everything else left to do, Mauri is going to approach the Otherworlders in early September with another task. He's been tending to the graveyard over the summer, but there is still a lot of cleaning left to do. While it's not vital to survival- he will reassure everyone that the souls of the dead have long since passed on, and that this is more to honor them than as a form of protection- cleaning up the graveyard before winter would be a good way for the Otherworlders to show that they respect those who lived here before them. He only asks once too, and won't badger the Otherworlders to do it after that one request is made.

Will you help? Or will you focus your efforts on preparing for winter?

Comments

[argentlarvae]

... they only grow where something dead is.

[So unless you want to bury like, dead fish or cats or--]

I got these from the graveyard.

[maidofmistakes]

Whoa... Really? Does it work for bones if we put what's left of the fish we eat there as fertilizer?

[argentlarvae]

I don't think so. These aren't exactly the same as lignis but the lignis flowers in my country break down the souls of dead things, so it has to be the entire body.

[maidofmistakes]

That sounds kind of scary when you put it that way. Is that what gives them whatever healing properties they have?

[argentlarvae]

Does it? Lots of plants break down the bodies of dead things, that's why we use them as fertilizer.

[maidofmistakes]

Yeah, but souls and bodies are different, aren't they? And if somebody dies... like, really messed up and missing body parts, does that mean their soul is messed up, too?

[argentlarvae]

That's why you bury all of someone together, if you can. So their soul's intact when it goes back to the cycle. [time for burial customs with cyan????]

Do you... not do that, in your country?

[maidofmistakes]

I mean, they usually do where I was on Earth, though a lot of people get cremated since it takes up less space. But back home, we sent our dead to burn up in the sun since it would return them to Rao. The sun was everything to us back home -- after all, without the sun, we wouldn't have life, right?

[argentlarvae]

... you... sent your dead to the sun? How do they get there? How do their souls get back?

[maidofmistakes]

We had technology that could take people around space in ships. And their souls go to the sun. The sun is Rao, our god, because all life comes from the sun. You see, on Krypton, religion and science were really tied into each other. They're basically almost one and the same. I get the impression it's not that way on Earth.

[argentlarvae]

But if their souls go to the sun, how do they come back to fuel life on the earth? That's what happens to souls where I'm from. [He isn't actually sure what "science" means.]

[maidofmistakes]

Life comes from the sun. The sun gives us energy! Just like... okay, think of if you bury something dead as fertilizer, like those bags of fish parts they sell. That's fuelling life, but even with that, nothing would grow without the sun. We all need the sun -- if it ever went out, the world would go cold and die quickly. And for Kryptonians, our bodies react differently to other suns. That's why the sun is so important. It's why we talk about light and brightness all the time.

...or, uh. Why I do, I guess there isn't anybody else here to do it, huh.

[argentlarvae]

One day we should all tell stories about what our countries are like. I don't think any two people here are from the same place.

[maidofmistakes]

Yeah, and there aren't very many of us. I mean, there weren't before, either, but now there's only five...

[argentlarvae]

Are there? I guess... I hadn't really noticed. [Cyan's friendly, but he's been keeping to himself.]

[maidofmistakes]

I hope they just went back home. We'd have heard if something happened to them here.