Birthday

A **birthday** is the date when a person was born. In many cultures, this is a happy occasion that celebrates a person's survival, to wish them a long and happy life ahead.

However, at an early age, the author was afraid of birthdays. To him, each birthday is a gate away from innocence and happiness, and a passage closer to the pain of adulthood and the cold darkness of death. By extension, it made him afraid of candles, birthday cakes, clocks, numbers, calendars, time, and faces (especially smiles) and numbers glowing in the dark, for those are symbols of death.

His fear of birthdays was reflected into his own fictional works.

This article also covers the traditions associated with birthdays and the unborn.

## In the Rabydosverse

### Bujanski traditions

Since the July massacres, many children in Bujan were afraid of reaching their thirteenth birthday, due to a fear of becoming as evil as the Terrans. Abusive and selfish behaviours by Maeranoi teenagers, shown during Wannaenid rule, became the stereotype of *all* teenagers in general, resulting in most Bujanski avoiding teenagers and punishing people for whatever wrongdoings they did during their adolescent years. Terran youths who lived during that time noted that many people left them to celebrate their sombre July birthdays alone: just themselves and a cake, as a collective punishment for what their people did.

To resolve this, provinces that protected Terrans set up support groups for teenagers who suffered from mental and emotional problems, and those who were undergoing penance. Some were surprised that many of the teenagers who took part in those groups were as friendly as adults, aware of how society viewed them over their age and wanting to do something better for themselves.

Bujanski Ontemazei also consider the thirteenth birthday as a sad event, because it meant the end of the joys of childhood. In such times, decorations were in a simple black and white, and the ritual dolls of Jambavan the bear were mourned and cremating as offerings to the bear god of children.

### Wonao traditions

In Wonao culture, the twenty-first birthday is the time a youth becomes an adult, so no alcohol is allowed to be consumed on the birthday. Using intoxicants on such a time is considered unlucky, as it may lead to addiction and death. Alcohol is permitted on any day that is not a birthday, until the thirtieth birthday, when it is allowed on the person's birthday from then on.

### Heronoi traditions

In Heronoja, kaxare are ghosts that look like birthday cakes. Being omens of death as in Josol, the number of candles on the kaxare represent how many years before a person will end up in the unending horrors of Valhalla. They appear when a birthday celebration is not properly observed, and they can eat people: the soul of a person being eaten by a kaxare *will* always end up in Valhalla. This caused some Norse people to celebrate their birthdays at night, both in defiance of a superstition, and so that the kaxare will bring them to Odin!

Traditionally, the eighteenth birthday is the day a young Heronoi becomes a man or a woman. Because the eighteenth birthday is seen as a very ominious time, Heronoi must celebrate their eighteenth birthday on the previous night. If they start a celebration on the exact day and after, it is believed that it will be unlucky, because it causes the Heronoi adult to become more reckless, to marry a reckless spouse, and end up having their children become reckless!

Gworofando and Wiresa share the same birthday, June 16. Being right at the haunted month, both of them are sometimes seen as unlucky, even though they had some spirits as friends. Years later into adulthood, they also married and made love on the same day, and nine months into the next year, their first children were born on March.

### Vozonid traditions

Zomjonor's Birthday is celebrated as a holy day to the Vozonid peoples on November.

Vozonids celebrate the day a kitten opens its eyes as its traditional "birthday", observed with prayers to the gods. A black kitten opening its eyes for the first time is seen as a sign of divine blessing.

In Josolchir mythology, the unshavi are cake-like spirits that herald a coming death, and the trojuse is a spirit of a bygone year and its debts. In neighbouring Azgo, the Milonor is a large red candle ghost.

### Malendor traditions

Lumbařiz's birthday was the new year of the Malendor Supercorporation. In Rukthan and formerly on Novantir, Lumbariz's birthday and the Malendor New Year was celebrated with offering the Seven Jellies (made from seven different berries) to his idols and eating them in family dinners.

In Novantirna mythology, an *ing* is a spirit of an unborn person, who appears either as a bald prince or a laughing baby in white. These innocuous spirits wander the worlds, drawn to birthdays and symbols of life. They are especially drawn towards anyone who celebrates a birthday alone, and they will steal the years from their victim, killing them.

## In the Rinnarverse

In Rinnarit mythology, a *meltajora* is a spirit of a baby that was yet to be born. They appear as a glowing pale person clad in princely robes, wandering the earth for one last tour before they will be placed into an embryo. Whoever who goes near a *meltajora* would be haunted by them, or they would have the years of their life sucked away, ensuring an early death.

## Trivia

* The author's birthday is 5 August, 1996.
* A "memento mori" is a symbol that represents death.