Nominally Ninja

A holiday when you give some kind of present, almost always food, to someone you care about to show you’re thinking of them. It’s rarely celebrated with any festivals, but parties are known to be held on one of the three days of the tradition, and candy is by far the most popular gift because of the story behind it.

It’s a widely accepted practice to exchange gifts on these three days, with the progression going as such: The first day is for men to give gifts, the second day is for women to give gifts, and the last day is for couples and families to spend together.

This holiday began with the Akimichi, and they brought it to Konoha with them when they joined the village. It’s based on a story from early in the clan as to how they first created the pills that they use to fuel their jutsu, and spread quickly to the other villagers as a cheerful event to show affection after other clans witnessed the Akimichi doing it.

One day, long ago, there was a couple. They were a happy pair and had been wed just the autumn before a long, harsh winter. Hunting had been hard in that time, but the husband, young and strong, had still managed to bring home game for meals no matter how long it took him. Still, his wife, a beautiful woman with deft hands in the kitchen, often worried when he was gone for days.

This time he was gone for nearly a week and she couldn’t wait any longer to go find him. Packing up a thermos with hot soup, she had a pocket full of the candies she’d made in expectation of him coming home. If nothing else, she could offer them as an apology for not having faith in his hunting skills if all was well. This was her thought, and thus with her scarf securely covering her face against the biting wind, she set out to find her man.

And find him she did, after a day of searching, only to be horrified that he’d been trapped in an avalanche while she sat warm at home, and breaths barely left him any longer. His lips were blue and his skin washed out, with only the condensation of his breath reassuring her that half buried or not, he was definitely alive.

It was probably the dead game tucked around him that saved him, she was sure, and she promised herself that she’d do something special for him as soon as she got him home. First, however, she had to get him home, and she was a small woman who wouldn’t be able to carry him on her own.

First, she tried shaking him, after carefully unburying him, but it did nothing. Next, she tried to lend him the warmth of the soup she’d carried with her, but it was frozen solid inside the thermos. It was useless. Last, and finally, she considered the candies, which she knew tended to invigorate him when she fed them to him in the past, though this was a new recipe...

So she fed him one of the candies, and it worked! He woke! She was so happy, and they made their way back home though he was understandably chilled through and needed to lean on her heavily, and stayed put until the thaw thereafter.

Suffice to say, they celebrated her excellent instincts and the anniversary of his survival every year after.

All about the trade, people are welcomed in for games of skill and a chance to purchase hard to get goods from all over the southern island network.

The events consist of competitions in various weapon skills and flexibility. It is known that shinobi participate and they’re welcome to join. There is also an annual seafood cook-off that tends to draw in people from all over the coast.

Wave’s spring festival came about as a tribute to getting their shipments back after being cut off by harsh waters every winter. Admittedly, they no longer need to uphold this tradition since the building of their bridge some years before, but it has always been a profitable week. It’s something the small economy of the country still needs. The games came about as a way to lure in both commerce and customers for that commerce.

Iwa tends to have early and long winters, so this week-long festival serves the dual purpose of using up things that can’t be preserved for the winter, both meat and vegetable, as well as for tasting the alcoholic beverages that are ready from the year before.

Feasting and more feasting, with a side of drinking, is the high point of this festival, and it’s the only time Iwa actually welcomes visitors instead of merely tolerating them or rebuffing their presence.

This started as simply a local tradition where neighbors traded between themselves and family groups made sure to get everything they needed for the winter for equal goods, at some point it exploded into a proper feast, then after that into a festival. The addition of alcoholic beverages came last but is by far the best-appreciated part, and many come to Iwa to try out their fermented goods, as well as take a few bottles home with them.

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 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 become revived loved ones.

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 like 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.