The Festival of Spring

As each new year dawns, young floral sprites emerge from their seedlings while their older peers return from a winter spent in human form so as to survive the cold. It is during these first few weeks that people begin to join the fey in arranging the Festival of Serenity, also known as the Spring Festival or Festival of Spring. As the third week of the season begins, people flock to Orion's Trinity Square and Resta City's Gilded Keep to commune with the local fey in gratitude for their contributions to the lives of mortals. As the bridges between mortal and fey life, the floral sprites play host to all manner of celebrants, serving tea and sweets while serenading them with their otherworldly voices and playing hide-and-seek with the children.

This tradition dates back to First Age Terris, in which the first bond was formed between elves and eversprites. When the lenoff and dwarof clans still clashed over a forest that was very much considered Crane's experimental region, the fey creatures he designed suffered the most. The ancestors of the dwarves in particular once hunted them for sustenance. It was the lenoff clan's peaceful coexistence with the fey that ultimately led to their dominance over the forest. While the dwarof were driven deeper into the earth, the lenoff shared the surface with these creatures in joyful harmony. It is said that this cooperative relationship between races was what initially drew Serenity's attention when she first laid eyes on Comalan.

The relationship between elves and the fey became the basis for Serenity's growing sympathy for the creatures that Chaos and Crane created. It is for this reason that the protection of magical creatures became enshrined in the Doctrine of Tranquility, marking any sin against them as the most grievous. This association between Serenity and the fey carried over into Resta's traditions when its citizens began to welcome Serene worship. This is the source of the floral sprites' role in the holiday.

When the floral sprites were first discovered in Coronos, they were met with indifference until their magical transformations were discovered. This began the practice of capturing floral sprites and other fey creatures by mages wishing to study their magical properties. Seeing humans as far too violent to approach, the fey began to go into hiding. The positive association between humans and elves caused this mistrust to extend to elvenkind as well and, as a result, mortals went for over forty years without seeing a single magical creature.

When common knowledge of the fey began to refer to them as extinct, an acolyte named Beatrice Whitetree made the first contact between humanity and floral sprites in decades. By then, Coronos and Necros had become Resta and Serene worship had become common in the region. This acolyte was among the first Blackstone Monastery trained in the Tranquility Doctrine, which made her encounter in Flora Field a most fateful one. While wandering among the flowers, she began to feel sick with an allergy to one of the flowers there.

Despite their fear, the sprites were unwilling to watch a human die. It was for this reason that they came out of hiding to heal Beatrice. When she came to, she told them stories she had learned in the Monastery in gratitude. Displaying her faith in Serenity reminded the sprites of the elves who once showed kindness to the fey and convinced them that humanity had changed. With Beatrice as their advocate, the floral sprites formed a connection with human society, offering their magical knowledge in exchange for the right to exist in peace.

This new arrangement brought the fey back into the light of day all over the continent and a festival was declared in Tanis in celebration. There, the elves and fey ate and drank as peers for the first time in a raucous party that created lasting memories for all involved. The floral sprites who attended this first festival introduced it into Restan tradition the very next year. This event has become far more restrained in recent years than in the first celebration, but the significance remains the same. The Spring Festival is a yearly reminder that the differences between mortal and fey only have to divide those with room for hatred in their hearts.