Rosaviole

Sprinkle the ground with flowers, adorn the doorways with garlands - For all the young days spent suffering in cramped libraries and reeking halls cannot compare to what old halls and libraries await you. Advice, like youth, is wasted on the young.
-Andantino the Poeticule , "Free, Each and All"

A holiday observed on Firstleaf 23, celebrating the coming of Rose and Violet to the city and the introduction of their namesake flowers to the region, where they bloom later in the year than elsewhere.
One week before the summer solstice.

History

Traditionally, the last week of traditional classes at the university, representing the three months the "sisters" deliberated on the first student body. The period of entry application ended on Firstleaf 23, followed by 90 days of deliberation before the first 100 students were admitted access to the island, where they lived communally within newly constructed buildings meant to house them. The holiday of Rosaviole in Dayne-on-the-Loch (Firstleaf 23) traditionally marks the last week of traditional classes at the university - a week of testing and meriting, celebration and more. Since most students will need to travel a great distance upon graduation, the first day of summer marks the best time to set out on most journeys.

Execution

The city is almost choked with flowers - wreaths are hanged, roses strung along balconies, and loose petals thrown from the gates of the city. A sign of civility and wealth by the gentry is to donate lavish amounts of the flowers to the church as well as display them in grotesque magnitude on their homes and properties. Merchants tend to prefer the violet to the rose, and all of Old Orchard turns purple at the end of spring.
The Countess Julia Copperbell has purchased and donated several thousand roses from the Vestals of the Maiden - a religious group of flower growers, effectively sustaining their small convent.  Much of the gentry in the area, eager to find entry to Copperbell's court, replicate these donations.
A fond myth among the lower class is that of "suffocation by petal," a commonly held belief that if a noble person or wealthy merchant dies in the week leading up to the summer solstice, it was while rolling around in great mounds of petals. There is usually an implication of perversion in utterings of this rumor, usually emboldened by the fact that the Vestals of the Maiden can be seen delivering many of the largest displays of flowers to the homes of the wealthy.

Holiday - Secular

Celebrated Firstleaf 23 every year.

Primary Related Location

Dayne-on-the-Loch

Related Organizations

• The University of Rose and Violet on the Loch