[open] a homecoming

[matkalainen]

WHO: Emery, Pippa, Tuo, Kit + OPEN
WHAT: Some fellows return to Northcliff Pass after being elsewhere for a time, just to discover that everything is now ghosts, apparently.
WHEN: Early October, but before the fellowship thread in the event log.
WHERE: Various places around the village; Tuo's wagon; Kit's house.
NOTES: This is a placeholder post! Starters will be in the comments.

Comments

[amaurosisfugax]

"Truly, she did," Vervain says, and saying it, loses a little of the awestruck boy in favor of the solemn young priest he can sometimes be. "You were the only one around she had to argue with; she'd missed it."

It wasn't something Gram ever said to him outright, but he wasn't unobservant of the woman who'd raised him, nor what the rest of 'Thwaite said of their parson. She was woven too tight in the little town's fabric to be truly an outsider any longer, but they knew even so something in her was separate from them. Refined in a way they weren't. Different, without being wrong.

Much the same way Tuo had been. Was it any wonder the priest and the peregrine ended up at cheerful odds?

Ver clears his throat and gives a little shake of his head, smiling sheepishly to cover for his woolgathering. "I think she'd tell me I have to take up where she left off," he adds, finishing the thought. "Though I don't hold a candle to her and I'd rather listen to your stories anyway. So maybe I don't send word back to her about this."

A joke, that.

[matkalainen]

Humour is quite the versatile tool: the most effective at cutting the tension from an unexpected reunion, or deflecting serious inquiries away from one's secrets. Tuo has used it for both purposes, although with friends, always with care and tenderness. If he must lie to them (and he must), then he will do so gently if he has a choice.

He laughs, all lightness and whimsy, and remarks, "You've developed a rebel's spirit since I last saw you. An intriguing quality, for a priest." The homespun robes speak for themselves, nearly as much as the fabric that is folded carefully across Vervain's eyes. "Is that why you've so far from 'Thwaite, to this little corner of Maireglenne?"