Rumetzen,
It’d be hard to describe all you’ve done as the head admin of this site and as a writer and member of this community, and I thank you for everything you have brought - and for just being great, in general. I hope this is to your liking - and I apologize, because it's not really the best it could've been.
This started as a disjointed idea I had about Last Light - how different alien cultures celebrate winter - but it quickly became something more general, and a bit of a way to attempt to worldbuild. I'd like for this to be a collaborative log when it's posted.
Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this. A wholehearted Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or Season's Greetings to you!
Summer’s heat is gone, buried in Autumn’s fallen leaves. But the sun may still peek through its thin, fleeting clouds, and the harvest season’s chill, biting as it may seem, is not enough to permeate the ground.
Here comes Winter, then, to stomp out Summer’s last remaining embers; its ruthless cold digs deep into the earth, and its thick grey clouds cocoon the soil in ice and lifeless snow…
Winter was a season of death and long hibernation; a time on Earth when frozen-over ponds and snow-covered meadows fell silent, the trees shook off the last of their leaves and stood bare, and humans retreated into their homes and did anything they could to keep themselves warm: from, in days of old, piling on furs and feeding fires in simple, cold cabins of logs and plaster to, in more contemporary times, wrapping themselves in blankets and turning up thermostats in pre-built houses and stacked apartments locked tight against nature with the rubber foam in their walls. But even with the comforts brought on by modernity, winter always remained inhospitable, bleak — often even deadly.
But the hardship of winter also gave rise to humanity’s most beloved celebrations, throughout the world; festivals and feasts honoring the gods, religious rituals and celebrations of light, all times of great joy and good will. Such festivities were the brightest and the warmest of the year (and the most anticipated by some, especially in modern times), despite taking place during the harshest months — and perhaps there was purpose in that. An abundance of joy and good spirits made survival in undesirable conditions the slightest bit less perfunctory; gathering with neighbors and loved ones was sure to make one feel the slightest bit less alone; and laughter and movement and alcohol could do wonders to make one feel the slightest bit warmer, the slightest bit more protected against the ravages of the outdoors.
It would almost be odd, then, if despite the circumstances the residents of the Last Place didn’t celebrate at all. Though it experienced no seasons, it was surrounded by miles of cold vacuum, the closest stars frigid, blue, otherworldly. And although the Holders passively provided their bodily warmth and some charity (or charities) had taken it upon themselves to erect rudimentary space heaters at intervals in the streets of certain districts with high cold-blooded populations, inhabitants of the universe’s sole refuge were rarely seen outdoors. Those who had to venture out usually did it bundled in their warmest clothing, hands hidden away in felt mittens, crocheted tentacle-warmers, or front jacket pockets, faces and necks wrapped up in as many scarves as were necessary — that is, if they possessed no natural defenses against the elements.
And of course; the very act of living in the Last Place was symbolic of an ultimate hardship, that very few felt the desire to discuss. Many of those who called the islands home had watched from arks as their planets had been swallowed whole by creeping darkness and the stars they had seen rise and set every day of their lives had fallen too quickly to entropy, and would live with that image forever. Everything that their people had ever accomplished was gone, with no hope to rebuild or start over on the same planet. And though the Last Place was spacious, comfortable and seen by many as the ultimate fresh start, nothing could replace a home that no longer existed.
And in such an environment, one would be forgiven if they surrendered and allowed themselves to sink into despair. Many had; many still would. It was an inevitability. But the opposite was also true. As many people as had lost hope would find solace in friends old and new, neighbors, and family; and in the bitterness of deep space, surrounded by a dying universe, the joyful mood once reserved for helping to survive the winter months would be conserved year-round, by the many multitudes of people who called the Last Place their home.
The Coal-Hearted, as they came to be called, were the only surviving remnants of a people who’d taken to enhancing themselves with technology earlier than most in their galaxy. They were also the oldest of their kind, and the technology used to enhance them was fittingly dated. Steam hissed from the base joints of their limbs as they walked, and most of their prosthetics had suffered heavy rusting and damage over thousands of years. Their organic, unchanged heads were tiny compared to what comprised their bodies: coal-burning combustion chambers beneath massive boilers manufactured to still roughly resemble a chest and shoulders, all sporting a tiny chimney on their backs.
Old age had caught up to the flesh of the Coal-Hearted, and they had welcomed it — but they still maintained an unparalleled optimism, contagious in all those they encountered. They had never feared death; they knew their bodies would live on without them, to the benefit of whoever needed them next. Most had already started putting their hearts of coal to good use. It was not uncommon for a Coal-Heart to offer themself to common people as a space heater or an oven; and those who weren’t intimidated by their size and appearance obliged. Huddling around a Coal-Heart became a social event, and all who had tried cakes or pies baked in a Coal-Heart’s furnace (including the Coal-Hearts themselves) found them uniquely delectable.
The workers of the Foundry had never been observed showing emotion. Not even the arthropods of the Last Place could decipher their expressions as they scuttled to and fro and tirelessly carried out their duty. But some came to the conclusion that they did what they did out of love and care for the people they served, and their work was just their way of showing the deep compassion in all of their hearts. True or not, this outlook caught on — and the Foundry remained respected and appreciated by all who encountered them.
The iron-masked warrior monks of Umundujioh were small in number but hard to miss as they made their rounds every morning in the Upper Outskirts. Average citizens would watch them as they passed — some would even join as they strode through the streets in lockstep and prayed at the edge of the main island overlooking the rest of the city. Those who understood their words gave thanks to the Holders, the nebula and the stars suspended in the firmament above, and the foundation beneath their feat with them, then spent the required seven minutes standing in meditation with their hands clasped, letting the beauty of the sky wash over them even without a mask to reflect it with. But without a monastery, the monks spent the rest of their time in the ancient stronghold in the center of the district that had been repurposed as a community center, either honing their skills in martial arts or studying the fragments of scripture their order were able to save in their haste to escape.
But one day of each week, the monks were allowed to venture freely through the city — and those that did always went bearing gifts of warm sweet rice cakes and good tidings to the citizens they encountered. They would pray for and with any Withstanders who allowed them to, frequent small shops and cafés, and humor the small children brave enough to approach them by answering their multitude of questions or joining them in their games.
The traditions of the Withstanders were only known to themselves and their own kind, but whatever practices they once had were overshadowed by their sworn duty to preserve the Last Place. It was believed that they had always been this way, and had acted in a similar fashion on their homeworld; and perhaps it was their previous home’s destruction that fueled the renewed passion they felt to defend their new one at all costs. Such single-minded guardians would have no time to rest and engage in festivities or frivolities — and perhaps that was their own way of surviving the hardship, of braving the cold.
The cold-blooded Buhhur of the Swamp usually elected to stay inside when not at work as plumbers or window-washers, but their characteristic humorlessness was often broken in private and among their own. In karaoke bars in the amphibian districts of the City. aspiring vocalists who’d had a bit too much alcohol cycled into their implanted water circulation systems inflated their throat-sacs and loudly improvised lyrics to classic folk songs to croaks of approval and toe-padded table-smacking from their rowdy friends, as old folks chuckled silently over their card games and mused on how little things had changed.
And of course, the humans of Earth still celebrated their own holidays, in the ways that their families had for generations before them. Traditions were preserved, but yet more were enriched: small aspects of the human race’s myriad of cultures were incorporated by some people’s non-human friends and neighbors, and new traditions, however small, were borrowed or incorporated from humans and their various oddities. And in this sense, lost worlds were kept alive — the small details of life on them, the things that mattered, would live on forever.