les jours tristes

This week's prompt is: Spring Festival, or the Lunar New Year, which begins on the 17th. This is one of our recurring prompts, and will run for three weeks, in order to cover the entirety of the festival. The coming year is the Year of the Fire Horse (Bing Wu), representing charismatic energy, decisive action, breakthroughs, and travel on the one hand, but also impulsivity, burning bridges, and scorched earth on the other. It's believed that the element and nature of the incoming animal changes the energy of life completely, for good or ill, and it's more beneficial if you're ready to meet it with a clean slate. To prepare for the coming year, homes are thoroughly cleansed, and the festival is celebrated with red decorations, elaborate meals, visits to family, and fireworks. You can take inspiration from any aspect of the festival or the element, nature, or myths associated with the Fire Horse.

As one of our recurring annual prompts, drabble sequences and drabble series are allowed. These formats are explained in this post, while the standard drabble formats are explained in the community rules.

You have until midnight your time on Friday, March 6, to answer this prompt. Note that this is a three-week period rather than the usual one week. Please post your fills of the prompt as separate entries to the community (i.e. not replies to this entry), tagged with the prompt tag. You may post multiple standalone drabbles per entry in addition to drabble sequences and series.

As a reminder, this community has no official presence elsewhere. You are encouraged to share the prompt on social media, if you so desire. It may take me a bit to create the AO3 collection, so please be patient.

Also, I'm going to go ahead and drop a link to the prompt suggestions post here. New suggestions are always, always welcome.