The Burying of the Breath

The burying of the Breath is an ancient centauric agricultural ritual practised throughout the grasslands of Tirandhyl. Performed each year during the early days of the Mist Season, the ritual marks the beginning of the sungrain cycle and the reawakening of the Harvest Singers, the symbiotic creatures vital to pollination and pest control. At sunrise, centaur herders and planters gather in silence at the edges of their fields. Wearing simple reed-woven sashes and ash-stripes on their faces, they carry Anakyron Rootsoaked in springwater and crushed songpetals. With slow, deliberate movements, they bury the roots in shallow corners of the land, one for each of the cardinal directions, while whispering short breath-prayers into the soil. These prayers are not formal chants but improvised murmurs: apologies, hopes, family names, old regrets... offered freely and anonymously to the land. It is said that the Harvest Singers can 'taste' these memories through the scent of the root and decided whether to return. After the final root is buried, a moment of stillness follows. If the ceremony has been accepted, the first faint hums of the Harvest Singers begin to rise from the burrows beneath the soil. These harmonics build through the morning, culminating in a dawnsong that enveplops the plains in a soft, pulsing drone. To outsiders, the ritual appears simple. But to Centaurs, The Buring of the Breath is both practical and sacred. It reflects the balance between control and surrender, work and faith; between coaxing life and letting it come freely. Some clans have passed the rite unchanged for over five hundred years. Others have adapted, weaving in new plantings and songforms. But all agree on one thing: no good harvest ever came from silent soil.