By Stenton Rugg
The normally staid chambers of the Royal Council were anything but ordinary this past Frostday, as murmurs turned into motions and motions into a full-blown debate on a matter rarely discussed in polite temporal circles: the nature of time itself.
The subject at hand? A bold, baffling, and—as some have said—beautiful proposal to introduce supplementary lunar-based timekeeping into the official civic calendar of the Kingdom of Eyehasseen.
The plan, brought forward by Councilor Thistleby Rune (Independent, Third District, known lunar sympathizer), suggests the addition of a parallel calendar system governed not by the sun and its equinoctial tethers, but by the Moon—our ancient, unblinking neighbor in the sky, ever gazing, ever waning.
“This is not about discarding the Royal Standard Calendar,” Rune clarified at the outset of his pitch, which included a hand-painted wheel chart, a water clock, and a semi-rhyming ode to “Mother Moon.” “It is about acknowledging the deeper rhythm, the secret tides that pull not just our seas, but our souls.”
According to the proposed model, the Eyehasseen year would continue to comprise its traditional twelve months—Deep Frost through Emberend—but in parallel, a second “Moon Path” calendar would quietly guide agricultural practices, religious festivals, and what Rune delicately referred to as “the more poetic dimensions of bureaucratic scheduling.”
Each lunar month, or glint, would begin at the new moon and conclude just before the next, totaling 29 or 30 days. Festivals and ceremonies tethered to agricultural cycles—such as the Planting Chant, the Harvest Howl, and Saint Crispin’s Night Watch—would migrate to their natural lunar alignments.
As expected, reactions from the assembled councilors were swift, passionate, and occasionally contradictory.
“I applaud the initiative,” said Councilwoman Brigette Moors. “A nation that respects the heavens is a nation that does not trip over its own feet. For too long, we have governed by mere mechanics. Let us once again be guided by mystery.”
Others were less convinced. “It is a logistical nightmare,” argued Chancellor of Timepieces, Thaddeus Primm. “Trains run on schedules, not cycles. Traders invoice by date, not moonface. And what of the tax filings, hmm? Try explaining to the Revenue Ministry that one filed on the Second Waxing of the Sixth Glint.”
Still, support came from unlikely quarters. The Guild of Gardeners and Rural Magicians (who are, by charter, apolitical but often opinionated) issued a supportive parchment hours later, noting that lunar cycles have long influenced planting success, mushroom behavior, and the willingness of goats to breed. A footnote added: “Also useful for trimming hedges.”
Opposition, however, remains firm from the Ministry of Schedule Enforcement, whose permanent secretary declared the notion “a perilous flirtation with temporal relativism.” An internal white paper leaked to the Times-Observer warns of “calendar confusion, festival congestion, and potential temporal overlap,” citing a simulation in which Candlemas occurred on the same day as Squirrel Census Day, resulting in “furious misinterpretation.”
In the public square, meanwhile, opinion has split along generational and, surprisingly, culinary lines.
Elder citizens—especially those raised under the wartime “Half-Moon Rationing Clock”—remember moon-based scheduling with both reverence and indigestion. “We only ate root vegetables during the Waning Gibbous,” recalled Mrs. Edna Tropple, 92, of Buckleford. “I still get twitchy when I see turnips.”
Younger citizens, however, many of whom have grown weary of what they call “clock tyranny,” appear more open. “It just feels right,” said Henwin Gratch, a cartographer’s apprentice with a tattoo of a waxing crescent on his collarbone. “Like, time should breathe.”
The cultural sector, ever quick to embrace the obscure, has already begun experimenting. The Eyehasseen Contemporary Theatre Guild has announced a new production titled Time is an Egg, to be staged only on nights of the full moon. And the Inverness Music Hall now offers “Lunar Lullaby Evenings”, where ticket prices fluctuate based on the Moon’s phase (cheapest at the new moon, costliest when full).
In academia, opinion is equally divided. Professors at St. Leo the Great University’s Department of Temporal Studies warn that dual calendars could lead to “perpetual misdating, compounded bureaucracy, and angry students showing up on the wrong moon.” However, their colleagues in Theology and Astronomy issued a joint letter praising the return to “sacred celestial markers as a salutary corrective to secular stopwatchism.”
To help determine feasibility, the Royal Council has tasked the Ministry of Temporal Integrity with conducting a 40-day study. The committee includes representatives from the Calendar Printing Guild, the Order of Liturgical Meteorologists, and one goat herder. Their interim findings will be released “on or around the First Waxing of the next Cold Glint,” depending on cloud cover.
In the meantime, shops across the capital are already cashing in. “Lunar Planners” are flying off the shelves, available in embossed leather, hand-stitched canvas, and—somewhat controversially—phases etched into edible wafers. There are even early reports that the Royal Mint is considering a limited-run silver coin marked not by date but by moon phase, to commemorate the debate.
One small but vocal protest group, calling itself The Clockkeepers’ Covenant, has begun nightly marches around the central square, chanting “Minutes Matter!” and waving cuckoo clocks. They vow to resist what they call the “great de-regulation of time,” and have lobbied for a constitutional amendment ensuring “one sun, one schedule.”
For his part, Councilor Rune remains unfazed by critics.
“Time was never ours to own,” he said during a late-evening interview beneath a waxy gibbous moon. “We borrowed it from the stars. This is merely a humble effort to return the library book.”
Whether the moons shall rise over Eyehasseen’s laws, or the clocks shall hold their dominion, remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: never before has the question of “what time is it?” demanded such soul-searching.