Summer Smash Celebration

Log Entry 77

Celestial Year 999, Summer 50, Night Morning?

The ceremony begins not long before sundown. Colorful banners decorate the village; long thin strips of fabric dyed in purples, reds, and greens that hang on lines between buildings. All residents of the village are gathered in the central space, young and old alike. All are dressed in their finest shawls, with ribbons woven through their braids and bells hung from their horns and ears. At the center is a truly massive bonfire, currently unlit, flanked by a raised platform of stone where Prince Rutherford awaits some unseen signal. There is an atmosphere of excited anticipation in the gathered crowd, the noise of quiet conversations and excited foals and parents attempting to keep said foals at their side. For all their differences, when seen like this, the Yaks seem very much like ponies.

I know little of what will happen next, nor when the festivities will begin. For the sake of posterity I shall do my utmost, without bias or interference, to record their—

The crowd has fallen silent and Prince Rutherford is about to speak. His words I shall transcribe verbatim, as well as I am able.

“Brothers! Sisters! All Yak of Yakyakistan, greatest Yak village!”

The crowd stomps and cheers, the pounding of their hooves shaking the earth as thoroughly as any quake, accompanied with the ringing jingle of their adorned bells.

“Tomorrow, long day comes again. Hot sun will melt snow and cook furs and not set for many many hours.”

The crowd boos.

“Sun mocks Yaks. Tries to force Yaks to live how it wants. Make Yaks beg. But Yaks not beg! Many years sun has tried; since long before time of even grandyak’s grandyak, yet never once has best clan bowed to sun’s threats!”

He stomps his hoof and several elder Yaks carrying torches join him on the platform.

“Like every year, we build big fire to prove sun not boss of us! Yaks not need sun! Yaks build own sun! Yaks build better sun! Stay up all night to prove Yaks not live at sun’s whims! In morning, sun will rise not in victory, but in shame! Once again proving Yak superiority! And every day forward, sun will stay out less and less until Yaks hold Long Night Festival and demand sun stay out longer! Together, Yaks keep sun ego in check and keep balance between ever-night and ever-day!”

Like a well-timed clock, as he finishes the sun quickly begins to set behind the distant western mountains and Rutherford spits upon the ground. Many in the crowd follow suit. “Yaks not relent! Yaks not bow! Light the bonfire! Light new sun! Smash darkness and sun’s pride!”

The crowd roars as the bonfire is lit, flames rushing up the prepared wood with a burst of light and heat that I can feel even from my seat near the back of the crowd. In an instant, the village is lit as bright as day despite the sun having set.

Rutherford yells over the excited crowd. “Now! Let the feast begin!”

With his declaration, the festivities begin in full. As one would expect from his statement, their celebration begins with a banquet.

In my journeys to document the customs of many different cultures, I have been in attendance to a wide variety of jollifications and revels, so I can say with confidence that no two cultures do them quite the same. For some, like the Seaponies, banquets are a very formal affair, with a strict code of conduct and a precise order for dishes to be consumed in. Ponies, comparingly, generally prefer more casual buffet-style dining, even in events as formal as the esteemed Grand Galloping Gala. The Yaks’ feast falls somewhere between these extremes. Theirs is closest in comparison to dining with the Minotaurs. Though they do not fight or brawl for the right to dine first, there is certainly a great deal of playfully aggressive jockeying for positions closest to their favored dishes. (Notably, there is a single smaller table clearly set aside for the foals, who tussle amongst themselves as much as the adults do, but with considerably less raw strength).

The selection of dishes is wide and varied, with all courses from appetizers to desserts brought forth at the same time. The fare has a distinct Northern flair, and featuring many unique dishes I have yet to experience elsewhere.

To start, there is a selection of cheeses, some nutty, some sharp, a few surprisingly sweet with small red berries embedded in the rind. New wheels of each are rolled out of the storehouse as they are ravenously consumed, some of them small enough to be carried while one notably pungent variety comes in a wheel so large it requires two grown Yaks to move safely. There is fish as well, served both fresh and preserved, smoked in maple wood and served with a thick, vinegary sauce. Popular among all ages is a sort of thick chowder, not quite a soup nor a stew, made of carrots and potatoes and other more regional tubers mashed together into a paste that straddles the line between needing to be eaten or drunk. It settles heavily in the stomach with a radiating warmth that lasts long after the last spoonful. I was drawn most particularly to a type of lichen and forbs salad, drizzled with a choice of tangy glazes made of pine and mint and garnished with dried and grated juniper berries. Desserts were numerous (though not as prevalent as I’d expect from a pony banquet) mainly focusing on vanilla and stacks of sweet, very dense cakes.

To drink there is a delightful selection of wines and spirits, a particularly popular favorite being a strong, nearly medicinal-level liquor distilled from a variety of evergreen saps. I sampled a thimbleful before resigning myself to soothing the icy burn with honeyed water and the chilled berry wine meant for the foals.

Following the food came music and traditional dances. I was introduced to the yovidaphone, a most curious instrument that somehow produced tones which sounded not quite like a pipe organ, accordion, or Prench horn, yet bore a melodic resemblance to all three. Accompanying it was a traditional dance which primarily involved lines of Yaks charging at one another, only to miss by the barest of margins before changing directions to charge again in a complex weave of motion.

After the dances came tests of strength, where Yaks took turns smashing various stumps and stones into rubble. Despite my reluctance to interfere, I was goaded into participating under threat of causing undue insult. While I am no Podonis, I do like to consider myself reasonably fit and as such am satisfied that I managed to take home fifth place. Though it was fifth among the children’s competition. Even the losing bracket of the adults was able to crush boulders with a ferocity that I’ve seen even Earth ponies lack.

Hours have passed now and the celebration continues, but, like any party, eventually it begins to wind down and it is evident that that time has arrived. The platters are not picked clean, but they are thoroughly ravaged with only the less popular offerings remaining. The children are tired and the youngest are starting to droop. The musicians have played all their sets and even I am starting to recognize ones they’ve played before.

The only issue is that the sun has yet to rise.

Once again, Rutherford returns to his platform.

“Do not stop the celebration! Bring more food! More wood for fire! The sun has not risen so Yaks not done! Celebrate harder!”

A general cheer goes up, but it lacks the energy it had hours before. I do not know enough to speculate whether this is a normal, planned part of the celebration—a scripted “near failure” as many cultural celebrations have in dramatized reenactments of historical events—but the populace’s partying is visibly less enthusiastic than it has been. The musicians play, the dancers dance, and more food and drink is wheeled out, but there is an undercurrent to the actions like a damp cloth over a fire.

More hours have passed, and the festive atmosphere is all but gone. This is not normal. Something is clearly wrong and, in truth, even I too am beginning to become concerned and unsettled. While I know the truth that the motions of the sun and moon are orchestrated by Princess Celestia, that does not change the fact that my timepiece reads nearly eleven in the morning and there’s yet to be even a hint of the sunrise. One scarcely dares to imagine what manner of calamity could have pulled the princess from her most sacred of duties, and on the most noteworthy day for such, no less. I can only suspect how it must feel for the Yaks, lacking as they are in understanding of the true mechanisms behind the movement of the celestial bodies. For them, it must be as if some ineffable yet eternally-reliable cosmic event has simply failed to occur.

The crowd has begun to mutter, discontent and worry rumbling through them like oncoming thunder. If something is not done soon, I fear what they may do in their panic.

Prince Rutherford again ascends the stage. There is a hesitance to his movements, a cautious quaver to his voice that had been absent before. Still, he shouts as loudly as ever.

“This is test! Sun is challenging Yaks. Testing our resolve. Yaks must not quit now! Keep the fire going!”

A voice calls from the crowd, “Yaks out of wood! Night never gone this long before.”

“Then find more things to burn! Sacrifice them for the honor of the clan! Will not be the first generation in history to lose to the sun! Yaks strong! Feed the fire!”

His speech, short though it is, seems to rouse the crowd somewhat as they start hunting for more things to burn. Wooden scrap from the tests of strength comes first, then scraps of wood from private residences. Any personal woodpiles are quickly plundered. Then comes the empty plates and broken furniture, mainly tables that had buckled under drunken dances. Then the good tables, the chairs, platters still speckled with crumbs of cheese and bowls of chowder residue that hissed and spat as they boiled away. Even the colorful decorations are ripped off the walls and the—

I too found myself roped into the effort, pulled away from my writing to help ferry old blankets and worn rags to the fading bonfire.

It all burned so quickly. All the effort bought an extra hour, perhaps two. I cannot say for certain as my timepiece was lost in the chaos and I fear for the fate of the rest of my flammable belongings.

The crowd is flagging as we run out of burnables. Despite the worry that fills them with anxious energy, they’ve been awake all night and well into what was supposed to be noon. The children especially are starting to nod off, leaning against buildings or resting on their parents back or even dozing where they stand.

Only Prince Rutherford seems determined to keep going.

“More! Must keep going! Do not let sun win!”

“Yaks have nothing left to burn!”

“Yes do! Musicians! Throw in instruments!”

There is a shocked gasp from the crowd. The musicians, horrified expressions on their faces, clutch their beloved tools to their chests.

“Prince dares!? This yovidaphone been in Yak family for eight generations! What next? Would Prince have Yaks cut off braids and burn as well?!”

“Yingrid right! You throw something in!”

“No! You obey Prince! Beside, Prince have nothing to throw!”

A sleepy voice comes from the crowd, somehow rising above the general noise. It’s a young Yak— one I recognize: the same one who’d aided me on my first day— putting forth a valiant effort to keep her eyes open as she rides atop an elderly relative. “Prince house made of wood.”

The crowd goes silent, as she is not incorrect. Though most of the Yak homes are frozen mud or compacted snow, there is a single particularly large dwelling near the back which I had not been permitted to visit in my exploration constructed of large and sturdy logs.

The tone of the crowd's grumbling changes, much to the visible displeasure of Rutherford. “You- Yaks can’t throw royal loghouse into fire!” He stumbles over his words for a moment. “It’s too big!”

One particularly bold Yak reaches towards the fire and pulls out what had once been the leg of some table, now a hefty torch with one end still untouched by flame. “Then Yak will bring fire to loghouse!” And he begins to run.

The crowd parts around him, forming a corridor towards the loghouse. Rutherford bellows a noise of inarticulate anger and charges off the platform into a flying leap. He sticks his landing, halting the rogue Yak in his tracks, but the torch is sent flying out of their reach, spinning through the air and passing easily through the woven roof of one of the communal buildings that line the plaza.

A tragic loss, but no doubt one the community will be able to recover from so long as it does not spread to the other buildings.

“No! The pine syrup refinery! Everyyak ru—