THe night of lost songs

What It Is:

• An ancient festival of sacrifice and vigilance.

• Once each year — typically on the coldest, darkest night (or the longest moonless night) — the people gather to offer songs to the silence,
  to pay their old debts
  and to keep the Hollow Ones appeased.

It is not a joyous festival.
It is solemn.
Grief-tinged.
Sacred.

It acknowledges:

• That the Worldsong is fragile.

• That some songs must be given freely, lest others be stolen.

• That vigilance is life itself.

The Ritual:

• Each family, clan, or traveling troupe composes a single new song that will never be sung again.

• These songs are often lullabies, laments, or simple melodies — humble offerings, not grand performances.

• At midnight, they gather at an edge:

  • a well,

  • a hollow tree,

  • the mouth of a cave,

  • or the border of a dark forest.

• Guardians — singers, drummers, spell-weavers — stand watch around the perimeter, weaving low protective magic through music.

• One by one, each singer steps forward, sings their song to the darkness, and lets it go —
  symbolically giving a piece of beauty to satisfy the hunger that once brought the Black Feast.

• Afterward, the village or camp sits in silence.
  Not even whispering.
  Listening to the night.
  If no strange echoes answer —
  they are safe for another year.

Warnings and Legends:

• Villages that refused the rite, thinking it old superstition, were sometimes found silent, emptied, or cursed —
  every child born unable to sing,
  every well tainted,
  every festival broken by unseen grief.

• Song-thieves (those who fake their offerings) are said to become Hollow themselves —
  unable to create, only to mimic and devour.

• Some stories tell of the rare fool who, instead of offering a humble song, sang a boast or a curse —
  and opened the Hollow Banquet early.

  The Woman Who Was Devoured by a Puppet

  (An old tale, whispered by firesides on the Night of Lost Songs.)

  There once was a woman in a green valley who longed for a child more than breath itself.
  For years she prayed and sang lullabies to the winds, even though no cradle rocked in her home.

  When the Night of Lost Songs came, she was meant to weave a song — one song, sung once, and surrendered to the darkness.
  But her heart was so proud of her sweet, clever melody,
  she could not bear to lose it.

  She taught it to her sister's children.
  She sang it as she spun wool.
  She whistled it when she walked among the fields.

  On the sacred night, she stepped to the old hollow well,
  bowed low,
  and sang her song —
  believing she had followed the rite true.

  But the well is deeper than it seems, and the Hollow Ones listen well.

  A spirit of the Undersilence heard her pride.
  He carried the broken offering to his kin,
  and they shaped an answer.

  On the next new moon, she found a puppet at her doorstep —
  a boy of wood and paint, blinking up at her with wide, eager eyes.

  "Mama," it said.

  Her heart broke with joy.
  She took him into her home and wrapped him in her arms.

  At first, he was a good child —
  but each night, he would sing back the forbidden song,
  twisting it slightly,
  drawing a little warmth from her bones.

  As the days passed, the woman grew thin and pale.
  Her songs faltered.
  Her hearth grew cold.
  Still, she clung to her wooden son, blind to the chill that clung to his smile.

  At last, on the seventh night,
  the puppet leaned close and whispered:

  "Thank you for the music, Mama.
  I have no more need of you."

  And he drank her last breath.

  When the villagers came to check on her,
  they found no woman, no cradle, no warmth —
  only a laughing boy with hair the color of driftwood,
  eyes burning like dying coals.

  He fled into the wilds,
  and some say he still walks there —
  a Hollow Child, singing false lullabies to lure new mothers into sorrow.

  Thus it is said:
  Sing your offering true, and let it go.
  Hold it back, and it will come back for you.