OPEN | Blood And Ice

[northcliffpass]

Civil Blood

I. News from the West

The story of why gets twisted and distorted between its departure from the Crags and its arrival in Northcliff Pass, but the town criers maintain consistency on a few points: Althea of House Jessamy, Duchess of Black Rock, has at last thrown down the gauntlet against the Duke of Cliffside, and has called on her vassals to rally their bannermen. It seems there will be war within the borders of Maireglenne for the first time in a hundred years.

Given the state of the roads leading through the pass, it is understandable that the news is a few weeks’ stale by the time armed soldiers sporting Duke Galein’s colours march (or gallop, if they are astride a horse) past the village walls and garrison themselves on the festival grounds. Anyone objecting to this new arrangement is encouraged by the soldiers to bring their objections to the garrison commander (who, rumor has it, personally oversees the flogging of objectors himself).

Like it or not, the regiment is here to stay, at least until they receive orders instructing them otherwise. On the bright side, the soldiers did the hard work of clearing the pass for the season; travel between Northcliff Pass and the city of Cliffside just got a heck of a lot easier this winter.

II. Cold Snap

And it’s highly likely that those orders will be as delayed as the news, for the regiment has hardly been within the city walls a week before the temperatures plunge to dangerous lows. This is not the seasonal frigidity accompanied by blustery blizzards that encourage snowball fights and a bit of ice fishing down by Sands Creek, but a cold so biting and bitter that any prolonged period spent outside in it runs the very real risk of hypothermia and death. This is the kind of cold that leaves the air clean and clear, with nothing to impede the watery white light of the sun for the few hours it spends above the horizon each day before setting again; it cuts the lungs when inhaled and bites straight through to the bone. Many of the village’s poor are brought within the sturdy walls of the Town Hall and the chapel, because the alternative is finding them frozen solid in the streets.

The silver lining to this development is bare indeed; avoiding the cold means that, for a time at least, the village residents and soldiers are too preoccupied hunkering down to endure the cold to be at cross purposes.

III. A Howl in the Night

On the third night of the deep freeze, an animal’s piercing howl shatters the oppressive silence that has settled over the village.

It’s not a wolf’s howl; it is far too shrill and keening, and comes from a great distance away, that much is clear. The few villagers brave enough to risk exposure to the cold will find nothing of immediate danger within the city walls--but should they lift their eyes and look to the gossamer clouds near the summit of Gods’ Reach, they will glimpse the dark silhouette of a massive winged beast circling the mountaintop in search of a safe place to roost.

Comments

[bythegrace]

"Clearly," she repeats with just an edge of mocking. Her tone, an imitation of him, sounds a bit nasal with her thick accent. She does not miss the unease in his face, but she doesnt comment on it either. Instead, Johanna looks at his frost laden (and soon to be damp) outerwear with no small amount of disdain. She then reaches out and takes him by the forearm, all but dragging him away from the door. That he moves willingly is of little consequence.

She is clad in trousers, a long shirt, socks, and has a blanket draped around her shoulders like a shawl. It was clear she had hauled the thing, wholesale, from her bed when she rose to answer the door. Unlike him, she is not willing to part with a single piece of her "outfit."

Once they are far enough from the door that she cannot feel a chilly draft creeping in around the wood, she shifts her blanket shawl just so a draws him in for a hug, undoubtedly smothering him in more warmth than he can tolerate. (Which is fair, she thinks with a very slight vindictive edge, because she is still mad at him and he will have to put up with it because she is his best friend. That she is, in turn, suffering the chill of him inside her carefully cultivated warmth is, like his willingness to move, of no consequence and is summarily dismissed.)

"Technically, I suppose, you did make it but I would not suggest explaining technicalities to weather."

[mysteriumtremendum]

That embrace is somehow too much and not nearly enough all at once, which is par for the course when he is around Johanna. Adhemar is still in her arms for a moment, so startled by the sudden intimacy and the smell of her hair, then folds his arms around her waist, the curve of her back and shoulders.

"Technically, I suppose, you did make it but I would not suggest explaining technicalities to weather."

He makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a sigh, and, "I am surprisingly reluctant to tempt fate in this manner a second time." He draws back just enough to look down at her face, attempting to glean to the best of his ability just how furious she is with him before pushing his luck further.

"Thank you," he begins again after a pause, "for opening the door."

[bythegrace]

She hums, her expression just slightly disapproving, but that only lasts a moment before she relents. The sigh she lets out is put upon and accompanied by a dry look.

"It is too cold to keep you out," she says, honestly, and then shrugs. The motion is almost entirely absorbed by the blanket. "But I am mad enough I am not offering you a drink. That you will get yourself."

[mysteriumtremendum]

"But I am mad enough I am not offering you a drink. That you will get yourself."

He deserves that, in truth, and so elects not to push her buttons, tempting though the prospect is. (He must no longer be on the cusp of hypothermia, if this proclivity has returned.) Adhemar allows his arms to slip from around her and steps back. "What would you like?" he asks--referring to the drink, of course. He assumes he won't be drinking alone.

[bythegrace]

The moment he vacates her space she draws the blanket around herself again, leaving no open space for any chill to creep in. Her dry expression takes a note of approval and she inclines her head toward the kettle on the table. The hearth was burning still, the flames a bit high to hang a kettle over, but he could deal with that.

She had made spiced wine earlier, had let it simmer all day, but even the smells of the spices in the red wine hadn't been enough to overtake the smell of juniper from the stills. It was cold now, or as cold as it could be sitting out in her apartment, but it would heat quickly enough.

Now, however, as she moves to take a seat at her table and watches him, she is struck by indecision. It is nice to have him back, of course, he is the person she talks to most. She is mad, still, even though his travels were not his fault. But now there are soldiers here and the thought makes her annoyed--he will probably return to his rooms at the vicarage to avoid scrutiny, which is stupid, because it is far too cold to walk out into.

Damn, she is worrying about him. It must be the season.

"You are staying until dawn," she informs him bluntly. "I am not about to argue with the weather or you. I will worry too much if you leave before day."

[mysteriumtremendum]

Adhemar sees to the fire pragmatically; a precise gesture with one hand and a sapping of energy from the air, and the intensity of the flames lessen just enough that neither he nor the wine will be burned when he hangs the kettle over it. In short order the aromatic spices from the kettle waft upwards, pleasantly warm and familiar.

"...I will worry too much if you leave before day."

Abruptly he looks back at her, at the stubborn set of her jaw and her eyes as they follow him around her home. For a moment that's all he does, look back at her with an expression as inscrutable as hers is determined; he's not startled, precisely, but caught off-guard, and instinct keeps him unreadable when some part of him knows, truthfully, that he should not respond this way. Not to her, not anymore.

A pause as he gathers his thoughts. Then, "I never intended to worry you." It's approaching an apology, but not quite there yet; more out of ignorance that one might be required than a stubborn refusal to provide one.

[bythegrace]

It is not an apology but, then again, she didn't ask for one. She watches him without any consideration that it might be unnerving or rude to watch someone so hawkishly in her own home. If he minds, it doesn't show on his face. She considers keeping the conversation light, or as light as anything can be in this world, but discussing weather or wine is not generally her forte.

The kettle begins to steam, the white wisps rise and curl against the ceiling, and she nods her head at the fire.

"It should be done," she tells him and, without fanfare, immediately follows it with: "Did you already hear about the soldiers?"

[mysteriumtremendum]

At her instruction he turns away from her scrutinizing stare and removes the kettle from the heat, fetches two mugs, and pours the mulled wine into both of them. He doesn't spill a drop, not even when she mentions the heavily armed contingent of soldiers now garrisoned within the parish's walls.

"I heard about the fighting near the border," he replies, then walks carefully over to Johanna and offers one of the mugs out to her. "I didn't realize whatever petty game the lords are playing would bring an army into the village."

[bythegrace]

He is careful and precise and very tidy. Johanna is few of these things but she appreciates them in others and has a very slightly amused lilt to her expression as she extends a hand beyond her blanket wrap and takes the mug. She takes a sip of the spiced wine and makes a flat sort of sound in her throat, one that is neither a disagreement nor an agreement, merely acknowledgement.

"One can hope it is petty, they will be gone quickly then," she says and lets the mug steam before her, unwilling to set it on the table while she waits for it to cool.

"They are loud, grating, and surly--fortunately my house must look like a mill to them, I haven't had a soul come to bother me. Apart from you."

[mysteriumtremendum]

There is one free chair at the table, which he slides into while she speaks; any additional chairs might suggest company that she undoubtedly doesn't have. It has been to his benefit that she is isolated, for there have been fewer eyes to observe the slight idiosyncrasies between his vocational self and private self while in her company. Now the thought gives him pause.

"You don't go into the village often." It's not a question.

[bythegrace]

"I don't," she agrees and it has a note of challenge to it as she peers at him over the edge of her mug. She is uncertain why she feels the need to defend herself, why that statement has raised her hackles, and that uncertainty just feeds that small note of irritation.

"They're fine enough," she adds before he can speak again. "But I don't care for crowds."

That is a lie and a bold-faced one. She has come from a place with a much greater population that this sleepy village. She thrived there and had loved conversing on the street, arguing and chatting with people...but that was in Haugenne. This is not Haugenne and people in Maireglene are not quite as open and boisterous.

She doesn't know how to speak to these people, so she has opted to avoid it when she can.

"Between you and that young mad, I've quite enough friends I think."

[mysteriumtremendum]

He has not wished to speak of it directly, lacking both the experience and the vocabulary for such things, but she has provided him an avenue for exploration and he can't avoid it. Already it wears on him when his mind is idle (which is not often, but it does happen), and if these unanswered questions keep distracting him, it is only a matter of time before his carefully constructed performance for the rest of the village begins to slip.

He turns the mug of mulled wine slowly between his hands, regarding it as he asks his question. "Is that what we are?" When he lifts his eyes to look at her, his gaze is uncharacteristically unguarded. "Friends?" Friends who fuck on a mountaintop after desecrating a saint's shrine.

[bythegrace]

It is not a question she expects and, unfortunately, some of the meaning in it does not register with her all at once. Her brows lift dramatically as he looks over the cup at her and, for just a flicker of a moment, she feels a pressure in her chest, like a vice squeezing her heart and lungs. For a moment, she is concerned that he is breaking off their friendship--the thought lingers just long enough that she starts to answer him.

"Non--non-non--Nous sommes amis--"

She speaks her native language faster than Glennich and it gives her answer a greater sense of urgency than it might've otherwise had. She was correcting him, disallowing him from calling off their friendship, but it was in the wrong language. She caught herself quickly and, as she combed for the words in Glennich the subtleties of his questions registered and she paused. Her expression was tinged with equal parts frustration and relief.

He was asking what they had become and that was an easier question. Unfortunately, Glennich lacked a few of the words she would have liked to use.

"Do you know--paramour?" she asks and shifts her mug to one hand unconsciously, freeing the other to gesture and, in this case, snap her fingers as she concentrated and tried to find the nearest synonym. "Comment dites-vous...? Lover?"

It was not a perfect match, it lacked the illicit thrill, the implied delight and appeal of the Haugenne equivalent, but it was a close as she knew. (That it also let her contextualize them, that it set Adhemar apart from the memory of her husband, was lost in translation.)

"We are friends," she adds with more vehemence, her gaze locking on him again and her finger pointing at him in time. This is not a topic up for debate, whatever they had become. He could demand they cease dallying and she would respect that, but she would openly mourn if he refused to remain her friend. Pathetic as it was, he was all she had here.

"Friends and paramour are not exclusive."