Side-Write: Day of Mercy (Patreon)

Happy New Year! Well, imminent new year. I did wonder how the people in the world of PWO would count and celebrate their years, and that led pretty easily into this month's exploration of the setting. I'm still trying to practice happier stories, and I think this was a decent way to keep pushing for that. It came out a much more reasonable length, too.

As ever, this isn't strictly canon, but an exploration of what may be in this world. Still, I do hope you enjoy!

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I heard that, long ago, the new year would begin in the middle of winter. It's strange to imagine. We always celebrate the new year in the early summer, with the Day of Mercy.

It's another one of those holidays that's all about remembering our past. Taking the time to remind ourselves how good we've got it, and to teach our young about our history. I know it was how I learned about death, when I was still so young I barely understood anything.

Mother and I were getting dressed in black, while my father put on all his green clothing. I asked why, and my mother said it was because "daddy went to the wrong part of town a few years ago." My father took a moment to clarify: "I was killed a while back, hon. If it weren't for the Mercy of the Gods, I wouldn't be around anymore. So you two are mourning me today." Then he had to explain the word "mourning" to me. It meant that I would be sad I'd never get to see him again. I started crying, and they assured me it was just pretend.

Once we were all ready, we made our way to the nearest city gate. We still lived outside the wall then, so my mother and I passed through a great, milling crowd of people in green to get inside, so we could pretend we lived inside the walls. There, everyone was dressed in black, besides the people in green still filtering through to outside. Them, and one woman dressed in white.

The idea was basically like this: everyone that had died at least once would wear green, and everyone that had never died would wear black. We'd sort ourselves out and reenact the events of the first Day of Mercy, as our way of remembering it. But apparently, after a few generations, someone thought it wasn't quite right to only recognize whether someone had died or not. There should be a way to recognize the people who had never died, and whose parents had never died before giving birth to them, ever. So that we could see, if the Day of Mercy had never come, just how many of us would be left.

Of course, it's more complicated than that. Even this woman in white would have a hard time surviving without a whole city protecting her. And it wasn't like there'd only be one living person out of all those present either, there were other people in white at other gates. I think they try to spread them out so there's at least one at each gate. My parents said there used to be at least half a dozen of them at each gate, each year, but they were dwindling. Now that I'm an adult, there aren't even enough for one at every gate anymore. Probably for the best, really. I heard there was getting to be a little inbreeding just trying to maintain their population, so better to let it go.

Anyway, we all arranged ourselves as the time drew near. The last stragglers in green passed through the gate, which swung shut, and all the people in black arranged themselves to either side of the road, crowding back into the smaller roads and alleys. The city guard helped keep the middle of the road clear, save for the woman in white, who stood in the middle. Then there was a bit of hubbub when a man in black insisted on pushing into the center: he carried a baby swaddled in white. I heard some people around me mumble suspiciously. There was nobody stopping people from dressing in white and taking the role, but there were plenty of people with too much time on their hands that liked to track lineages and that sort of thing. This man would hear no end of it if he couldn't prove his child was the descendant of an unbroken line later.

Finally, without any real direction, the people began to sing. I didn't know the words, so I just sort of shouted the melody and mumbled some of the words belatedly. It was a song of mourning. We have several traditional songs of mourning we only sing at two times: when someone actually dies for good, and on the first day of the new year. My mother held my paw tight as we swayed with the crowd, and I remember feeling smothered by the heat and musk of so many people, clad in black and packed tightly together under the midday sun.

Then, at noon, our song was interrupted by a great pounding at the city gate. Some of the children jumped and giggled a little, which seemed loud in the sudden silence as the singing cut off. Slowly, the woman in white and the man with the baby approached the gate. My mother leaned down to explain as they walked. This was all reenacting the day, long ago, that we discovered that our long and terrible struggle was finally ending. Countless people had been dying day by day, and everyone that was left had already lost people they loved to the monsters. Everyone had someone they mourned, someone that had died as recently as this very morning.

The woman stood before the gate, watched by the silent masses in black, and she shouted over the gate: "who's there?"

A man's voice answered her, his voice clear and proud. "It's me. I have returned."

The woman stepped back. "That's impossible. You're a monster, pretending to be the one I love!" This part didn't have a clear script, it tended to be different every year, since it had happened in many places, in many ways, on that day. Apparently some people had their own family scripts for their ancestors on that day, though.

The man begged. "Please. I'm tired, and hungry, and I lost my clothes. I don't know how I'm alive, but I am. Open the gate!"

The woman was silent.

The man on the other side pressed on: "I've known you since you were a girl. I gave you a dress with a blue ribbon. Do you--"

"Open the gate!" A child interrupted him among those dressed in black. "My mom's out there!"

The people laughed, and the woman in white bowed her head. "...Very well. I fear we may all die, but I will open the gate." It wasn't usually part of the script for someone else to butt in, but it happened often enough with a lot of kids in the crowd. The woman touched the gate, which was symbolic more than anything, since it was so heavy it took four men in black to actually unbar and open it.

Finally, the gate swung open, revealing the massive crowd of people in green. Many wore green clothes, even if it was only a scrap of green over normal clothes of brown, but some decorated themselves with leaves, grasses, or the like. My mother had explained that when people first came back, many of them scraped together coverings made out of vegetation, while many came home naked. Today, nudity was frowned upon, though I think there were a few in the crowd that might have only been wearing leaves.

The woman in white stared at them for several seconds... then ran away, together with the man and the baby. She cried out, "the dead have returned!"

The crowds in black let loose a sudden, deafening cheer, and the people in green surged in behind the ones in white. Many of them turned off to embrace their loved ones when they spotted them in the crowds, but there were so many people that many had little choice but to just keep marching deeper into the town. We didn't even see my father in all the bustle, not until after the feast.

The ceremony was over now, but there was still one more tradition: to celebrate the return of the dead and the beginning of our new lives, we had a great feast. Many people preferred to retreat to their homes and celebrate privately, but Mother and I joined the crowds heading for the center of town. There, we heated food in cans, or failing that, shoddy metal dishes, to commemorate the hardship of those times. There was no fresh food on the first Day of Mercy, only old canned food scavenged from the wreckage of the world before ours. So people would simply put a can above the fire to heat it up and eat the contents, and we would mimic that for our new year's feast.

In this way, we remind ourselves of the horrors our ancestors faced, the lowest point in the history of our people, and how grateful we should be for the Mercy of the Gods. Everything we have today, we have because we are able to keep living despite all the terrible things in this world that wish to kill us. And when we look at those few people in white, we remember that almost none of us would even be here today without that blessing.

It's a bittersweet holiday, but a fitting theme for the death of the old year and the birth of the new. Our calendars begin with that day, because it is when we were finally able to start forging our own lives, history, and destiny again. To us, mourning and hope go hand in hand.