northclifflogs | OPEN | this winter brings all the cold to the yard

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OPEN | this winter brings all the cold to the yard

𝕒 𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪 𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝

surprise!

I. Snow!

A mere week after the grisly discovery in the Deep Forest and the subsequent dispersal of the eerie spectral visitors, all Northcliff Pass residents wake one exceptionally frigid morning to find themselves buried under several feet of snow. It is of the light and fluffy variety--at least for now--which provides no shortage of entertainment for the village children, and means one is less likely to throw one's back out while trying to shovel it clear of doorways and the streets.

That is your first order of business, as it happens: free yourselves from your wintry entrapment. Or don't, if you've got enough food and drink squirrelled away in your tiny peasant house that you don't need to venture out into the elements. The world is your cold, shitty, socially stratified oyster; ditch your responsibilities, sleep in.

II. Fete! at ye olde tavern

All Souls' Day came and went, and nobody can really be blamed for forgetting about it what with the ghosts and the gloomy business of seeing to the bodies. All that aside the Hammer and Spoke seems especially welcoming that first wintry night, once all the snow shovelling is finished and the streets are clear enough for foot traffic again; lit lanterns glow warmly outside the door, and from within come the sounds of joyful music. Fiddles, whistles, a drum, and plenty of laughter; it seems the snow has stranded a troupe of minstrels in the village, which means at least two or three nights of great fun for village residents.

In truth it will take more than a few nights of drunk mischief to lift the pall cast across the village after the previous month's discoveries, but maybe that's why so many people gravitate to the light and levity and warmth of a party. After such a close call with so much death, it's good to remind oneself that there's joy in the world, too.

III. Cramped Quarters

The nights might be filled with good company, food, and drink, but during the day the village has to contend with another frustration: the roads in and out of Northcliff Pass are closed until the snow melts.

This is a common experience--in late December, January, and February. Not so much in November, when farmers are preparing to take their surplus harvest and livestock down the mountain to Cliffside, or when caravans with schedules to keep to are preparing to head east towards Woodsedge. (The only road clear in that direction is guaranteed to take them past Turn--something no one wants to risk.) Even a few late-season pilgrims have found themselves stuck between Gods' Reach at the summit of the mountain, and the creature comforts of Cliffside below.

There's nothing to be done for it, of course, except to endure the unusually crowded streets, the lack of vacancies at the tavern, and the occasional herd of sheep or goats picketed in very odd places.

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Another laugh, this one startled appreciation. "We were children," Dain says, as though Tuo might have forgotten. "Using that as justification feels far too much like blackmail. Besides, a home like this deserves to be taken traveling, and I..." He looks around the lit candles and the wood stove. "... well, it needs more attention than I can give."

It's odd, remembering that there was a time in Dain's life when his future had been joyfully decided for him.

Meanwhile: tea. The journey through the pass may have been easier if Dain knew milk and tea was waiting at the end of it. "Yes please," he says as he moves slowly toward an open seat. This also brings him a little closer to the bird, who seems to take up residence inside the wagon with Tuo, and Dain carefully extends a hand to let the little creature inspect it. It's only polite to introduce oneself to all of one's hosts.

Huh? He shakes his head, he's not sick... but he is absolutely going to slump down onto that stool. "I'm not, it- it-"

Faro gives a very deliberate and very angry point at the nearest pile of snow. It's the snow's fault he's worn out. His other hand he brings to his mouth to nip at the fingertips of his glove to pull it off and drop it onto his lap. Then he pulls off the glove under that glove in the same way, to reveal what he's brought her: a bright blue ribbon embroidered with a red apple and a brown horse, although the embroidering is hidden for a moment because it's wrapped around his palm. Can't lose it in the snow if it's tied on and under layers!

He shakes his hand a little to loosen the ribbon enough that he can catch it with his fingers and hold it out to her.

Waen is flashed a look of utter betrayal as Ben keeps trying to stumble away.

He'll remember this.

Alvi cocks his head to the side so that one intelligent corvid eye can examine Dain scrupulously. He makes no move to interact with the extended hand, which is probably for the best.

"He will warm up to you," Tuo says from where he stands by the stove, looking between the pair of them fondly. "Alvi is far warier of strangers than I am."

At length the kettle begins to whistle, and Tuo lifts it from the heat and dispenses hot water into two mugs. These, along with the milk, he transports to the low table beside the chairs, and sets things out neatly for Dain to make use of, or not, as he sees fit. Tuo himself is about to sit before he notices the coat and scarf that Dain still wears. "Oh," he starts, "let me hang those up--" Surely this won't be something Dain will object to.

I. Snow (Tuo's wagon in Northcliff Wood)

It is the work of an entire morning for Tuo to dig himself out of his wagon, and by the time he's created a small perimeter around the entryway he's far too exhausted to do more than rest. So rest he does, an artfully woven blanket draped around his shoulders and a warm mug of fragrant tea clasped between both his gloved hands.

He has tucked himself comfortably into the small doorway to his little home and is watching the edge of the woods, evidently content to daydream until something (or someone) happens along to interrupt him.

II. Fete! (The Second Night)

The peculiar puppeteer might lead a solitary, nomadic existence out of necessity, but he is drawn like a moth to flame by the prospect of lively music, laughter, and good company. Perhaps he even steps out a time or two to dance--it has been known to happen, though his dancing might better be described as capering--but what he is most interested in is seating himself near the minstrels, to better hear the lyrical ballads as the young soprano outdoes herself.

Once she is finished, he applauds with clear delight and hops up to fish some coin out of his change purse to tip her generously. ...At this rate, he is going to run out of money long before the pass is clear of snow again.

IV. Wildcard

(go nuts, I'll roll with whatever)

The hand Dain had extended to Alvi quickly retracts to fold over his coat -- a reflexive, unthinking reaction, accompanied by the smallest of flinching movements away from Tuo. "It's fine, I --"

But he stops, and consciously puts his hand down in his lap instead. It will grow very warm in here very quickly, and it's ludicrous to try and pretend otherwise. Dain takes a moment to steel himself, as long as he dares; then he gives Tuo a small and sheepish grin, and unwraps his scarf and shrugs off his coat.

It's not a story that belongs in Saaristomeri. But it's the story Dain has, and he can't simply pretend it doesn't exist. Tuo would discover the truth sooner or later, and it would be far better for him to hear it directly from Dain where explanations can be freely given.

She gives a mild shrug.

"Whenever you can. I've worked around this problem until now, I can do it longer."

Well, yeah, the snow has probably made him sick that's what the cold does. But Fíadh just lets that go, as he seems adamant about something while dragging his gloves off. So she stares and waits until he reveals an embroidered ribbon. Fíadh gently grasps it with her fingertips as she gazes over it wide-eyed. Delicately she runs her thumb over the figure of the horse, decided in her mind right now that obviously it's Lil' Gregor. It's probably a solid silent minute before she looks back to Faro.

"This is amazing."

Tuo goes abruptly still, like a deer that has just caught the scent of a wolf. His eyes drop from Dain's face to his clothing, taking in all the unmistakeable accoutrements, placing them in their upsetting context.

"You're a Shepherd."

It's not a question, or an accusation, not really. But already Tuo can feel his pulse racing beneath his skin, quick as a bird's in flight, and he looks around at all the subtle but undeniable marks of his heresy that colour the interior of his home: an apocryphal verse from scripture here, Night's initial lovingly illuminated there. No, it isn't his time yet, he hasn't even begun to accomplish the great and dreadful mission that has been his burden to bear since infancy--

"Anja," he starts, and if his voice breaks a little from emotion, surely he cannot be blamed for it, "I don't understand..!"

There isn't very much room in the wagon, or Dain would put a little distance between them, for Tuo's sake. Fear is an impulse dedicated to survival, to seeking safety by any means necessary, and distance can help someone to feel safe. Distance is often all Dain can give.

As it stands, he stays very still himself, hands in the air -- not quite above his head, but certainly where Tuo can see them, empty and palms up.

"You're safe with me," he says. Quiet, sure, and simple, appealing to emotion, not to logic, ending with a promise. "You will always be safe with me."

"You're safe with me. You will always be safe with me."

It's an effective appeal. Tuo does not relax, but he does not leap from his seat despite the tension in his limbs and the clearly visible whites of his eyes. Instead he stares back at his childhood friend, struggling to reconcile all the years of trust and affection that they carried together as children--a legacy inherited from their parents, no doubt--with the stridently diverging paths of their adolescence and adulthoods. For a moment Tuo feels acutely infuriated by his own naive stupidity, for having assumed that the man before him was the same gentle-hearted boy he had grown up alongside in Fiapori. And yet--

You will always be safe with me.

He closes his eyes and lifts both hands to cover his mouth and nose, then curls the fingers of one hand around the opposite wrist to still their trembling. His blood is awash with adrenaline with no outlet for the frantic energy. "Even if I were not," he admits, breaking the long silence, "there is precious little I could do about it now." His smile is thin, then. Resigned to whatever Dain chooses to do.

He reaches for the coat again, to take it and hang it up, if Dain will part with it. The simple, familiar courtesy will give him something to with himself, at least.

Dain lets the coat go. There's no reason to keep it now.

The trouble here is he doesn't know what to say next. That's an old, familiar, well-worn trail -- there's so much he can't say, and so many growing friendships that ended the moment they learned who Dain was. Even if one has nothing to hide, friendship with someone in the church is a prickly proposition most would rather have nothing to do with. But Tuo... isn't most people, and the conversation won't simply end here in as polite a manner as possible.

For a moment, Dain indulges in the image of spending an evening confiding in his old friend every single surge of disquiet during his lessons, every single time someone on the Path of Light said something wrong, every time he'd had to bite his tongue, every time he'd laughed without thinking and nearly betrayed himself. But in all those years, he's never said out loud what his true intentions are, and it still feels dangerous to do that regardless of what language he's using.

The silence stretches a little past Tuo's resigned reply; then Dain smiles. "How about this? An answer for an answer. I'll tell you more about why, if you tell me what made you leave Griston so suddenly."

I. You can take your snow and shove it

Just wonderful. It's a good thing he'd set the dough to prove overnight due to the cold, because he'd have no time to mix up today's bread otherwise. Shoveling the snow takes priority because there is no point in having bread to sell if no one can get to the bakery. It's not just the short way from the bakery to the main roadways in the marketplace, but all around the chicken coop in the back. Colin lights the oven and gets to work while it heats.

In the back, the chickens are glad to see him. He stirs their bedding and adds pine shavings while they eat. The rooster is taking good care of them, not that the neighbors are going to be especially pleased with him. He collects eggs and heads inside.

II. We gather together singing songs by Sublime

Colin has started spending more time in the tavern now, rather more at ease now than usual, though still more inclined to listen and laugh than talk. Certainly any time the visiting minstrels are performing, he is listening raptly as far from the center of the action as possible. Anyone feeling something strongly might catch his eye, but generally, he tries to leave well enough alone. While he hasn't found a way to turn off his empathic abilities, he doesn't have to pursue anything--unless something in you wants help, or wants to share, even if you are unwilling to act on it.

III. And all our local reggae bands are white

It's maddening that the roads are closed so early in the year, when Camilla is due so soon. Usually he can make it to Cliffside for an early holiday, and this year it was going to be particularly important. Her first child had the good sense to be born in the summer. Not so this one.

In the absolute stir-craziness of this wretched weather, he puts up a sign outside the bakery--Plaice your bettes on whether my sister will have a boy or a girl. Inside, in addition to the baked goods, there are two jars, one labeled "boy" and the other "girl." Both have coins in them.

IV. Wildcarde

Why not both!!

Lance nods, the former reason being common enough that it's not worth asking after. The latter, however, makes him a little nervous, if only because a part of him is worried this will herald a slew of newcomers all looking to get a piece of the mysteries. There's no way the town could support that.

"I see," he says quietly. "Is it... is that something you investigate normally?"

The door to the little shop opens and Colin waves a small amount of white linen in greeting. Once he's inside, the door is shut tightly.

"Doing all right?" he asks.

I. Go out there? Are you crazy? That's what Kit is for.

II. Dragged along to the party by his well-meaning "business partner", Ben contents himself with a mug of mulled wine as he watches the festivities from a little table in the corner. For all that he is perpetually sour, he does at least seem a little calmer than usual, listening raptly to the musicians and enjoying the protection of Kit being right there to field any incoming attempts at socializing.
This could be worse.

III. (closed to Kit) "It's too early," he already complained when the snow first started to fall, and now he sits by the window in grumpy resignation, watching as the town is covered in a white shroud from which he knows full well they won't emerge for half a year.
Back in Fairport winters were sensible. Even in Cliffside they didn't really start until December. This place is like a wintry prison that opens its gates for about three months to let the inmates see some sunlight, then closes them again.
Forehead pressed against the glass, he resembles a child wishing they could go out and play.

Edited 2019-11-25 22:46 (UTC)

After a few of Elena's attempts at sabotaging the new minstrel band Colin was very much enjoying, a chair gets pulled up at her table and Colin is wordlessly dealing playing cards between the two of them.

Finian's smile is usually contagious, but even he notices when it doesn't catch. Still, he's caught Fiadh watching him once or twice, and so at some point in the evening he comes over to her with his mug, which he raises in a cheerful little toast.

"Thank you," he says, "for whatever you all did. To make the ghosts stop."

It's too bad about the snowfall, but some of the mushrooms Finian spotted the other day and has intended to come back for should still be there, hopefully not yet killed by the cold. It's for this reason that he's in the woods, all dressed up in his winter cloak and hood, and it's in stopping where he remembers the mushrooms being to dig through the snow that he notices something that wasn't there before: a wagon, with a person in the door.

"Hail," he says, straightening up with a wave of his gloved hand, "sorry, didn't realize there'd be someone here."

"Ooh!"
Finian tugs his hood down off his curls as he traipses in, pausing just inside the doorway to shake the snow off his boots with a big grin. "Your sister in Cliffside?" Certainly not Pippa, though that would be adorable.

"Can I have a meat pie please, and, um," he pauses with a coin hovering over the jars, his smile growing more distant as he's wracked with indecision.

It's always weird how everyone but he and Camilla forgets they're not actually members of Emery's family, as if the Keanes are better off erased. Not that it's easy, or even possible, to be offended by Finian.

"Her last one was a boy," he says helpfully. There is a slightly larger number of coins in the 'girl' jar for that reason. He wraps a meat pie and passes it to Finian.

"Thank you," Finian says, passing over the appropriate coinage for the pie, but he continues to scrutinize the jars.

"I don't know," he murmurs, taking a bite, "that doesn't mean anything, necessarily. Babies do what they want."

Dain's coat joins Tuo's on a hook next to the small entrance to his wagon; he's momentarily transfixed by the sight of their clothes like that, side by side in a Saaristomeren home, exactly as their parents had expected them to be a lifetime ago. What would that life have looked like? How long would they have been married? Who would their wife had been? They could never have had children of their own, but perhaps, somehow--

"... I'll tell you more about why, if you tell me what made you leave Griston so suddenly."

"I was forced," he replies quietly, his fingers dropping from the sleeve of Dain's coat to rest at his side. He turns to look back at his friend, his expression drawn and without his usual wry artifice. "By the priests and laysisters. I was forced to leave." At that, he moves quietly back to his seat and folds himself into it, then reaches in silence to pour a bit of milk into his mug, and then into Dain's.

That there is no lengthy story to accompany such a revelation is telling; the truth is difficult to extract from Tuo, but when he delivers it, he doesn't soften the blow.

The determined figure marching out into the woods catches and holds Tuo's drowsy attention, and when the young man notices him and waves, he lifts up a hand to wave in response. Apologies, Finian--he'd be more sprightly under other circumstances.

"It seems I am here until further notice," he replies, his tone as light and bemused as is possible for one who has just worked himself ragged shovelling an impressive amount of snow. He turns his gaze up towards the milky grey cloud cover, squinting a little. "Winter came early for your little village, this year."

This is deeply concerning, and fortunately, Colin was able to discreetly find a better hiding place for some of his...experimental possessions, like the bog wood bowl, as well as the opportunity to dump the half-frozen rainwater into the creek without being noticed. He doesn't know if any of these things are red flags for Shepherds, but it's better to be safe than sorry. He's fairly certain that the selenite amulet Detlef gave him wouldn't out him as a Profane, just as someone mildly superstitious, and worries that if he suddenly started hiding it, people would notice, so it remains on the outside of his clothes whenever he is indoors.

The one thing he fortunately doesn't have to worry about hiding is how bloody anxious the presence of a Shepherd makes him. His late sister's association with the Vice was so public that it almost gives him credentials for being nervous around Shepherds. Not that he thinks he could hide it if he tried.

It's early in the morning when some trampled snow that froze solid overnight causes Colin's feet to go flying over his head. He lands hard on his ass. Fortunately, he's been outside long enough that his ass is mostly numb from the cold. His bag of winter berries, on the other hand, lands beside him and spills open, sending red berries everywhere. Colin flips to his hands and knees and starts tracking them down before people step on them.

Edited 2019-11-26 00:06 (UTC)

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Page 3 of 10

OPEN | this winter brings all the cold to the yard

𝕒 𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪 𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝

I. Snow!

II. Fete! at ye olde tavern

III. Cramped Quarters

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Ben

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