A young girl was sitting by herself in the middle of a very large library, looking over some scrolls. The bells struck five, which was picked you by the strange ears on top of her head. Along with her human ears, she had a pair of fox-like ears among her brown hair, shimmering silver. She was Dessa Khyla-Imagi Deruyah, a member of the Mufiyan tribe. About seventeen, she was considered insane by those who did not know her well, and hyper by all.
She stood up, showing her fox tail, also shimmering silver from her tailbone nearly to the floor. Her feet were more like paws then anything else, wrapped in the same shimmering sliver fur as her ears and tail; this was not unusual for her culture. All of them have animal traits, from wolfs or hawks, or even snake traits can be shown. She wore her usual tan shirt and short skirt with a tan choker and a blue/green checkerboard pattern around the bottom of her skirt and shirt.
She rolled up the scrolls, and figuring no one would mind if she borrowed them for a bit, took them with her. She made her way out side, to the town center for the ceremony, Sudeo.
Sudeo was held every fall at the equinox in celebration of the harvest. And so the cold nights would come and bring them grand views of the stars and the dead. She was one of the three dancers in the ceremony, along with her sisters, symbolizing Mohka (the Sun), Mehla (the Moon), Thyma (the Stars) and Hyshma (Life). She was to represent Thyma and Mehla, with her older sister, Seruyah, being Mohka, and her younger, Neomancia, being Hyshma.
As she appeared in the plaza of her small town she looked at the pile of wood and spare articles that was set up for the bonfire. She moved to a table where she picked up a tambourine that she would be playing for a short while. While doing so she look around at the stalls set up, full of food and games she remembered as very fun, it was more of a festival then an actual ceremony. The night would start with the three sisters bringing the monument to an altar in the front of the fire to honor all they valued of the previous and coming months.
Soon night fell and the sisters were dressed for the ceremony. They held up a small Asiatic monument for their ancestors; it looked like a large dollhouse, and was lightweight. They marched down the aisle, with Seruyah carrying most of the weight, and gently laid it down in front of the altar. Then they backed away and bowed to it with all the people watching them perform their duty. Dessa then approached and walked behind it to read the usual rites and a sermon. (Being in the native tongue of her people, I will not write the sermon here, for it loses most, if not all of it's meaning in the translation.) The bell then sounded, ending the sermon and beginning the festivities.
Dessa was about to join in when she had an odd feeling that she could not explain. She would had ignored it, had something not happened soon after…