northclifflogs | Blue Blue Caravan

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Blue Blue Caravan

WHO: Wilde, Emery, Johanna and two open starters
WHAT: Stuck in NCP until the snow clears enough for him to gtfo
WHEN: Early - Mid February
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Screaming goats - may update as needed

Open

Market - Wilde had found a nice spot to unload the two-wheeled cart, unfolding its various panels to put his wares out for display. Various goat cheeses took up most of the display. Most were simple, but there were a few fancy ones with nuts and herbs and such mixed in. There was also a quantity of yarn skeins, soft as anything. Some were dyed in shades of green, red, or yellow, but most were plain.

Wilde had taken to relaxing on the wagon seat while Pehj had found a spot relatively dry and free of snow to stretch out, occasionally bleating at any passersby who looked like they might give him some dried fruits.
The Hammer and Spoke - It was getting easier to avoid the soldiers in town now that they had taken shelter in the mines, but Wilde was still on guard. He'd heard they acted like they had the run of the place, and frankly he wanted to avoid getting conscripted if they were on the prowl for hale young folk to fatten their ranks.

Fortunately, the inn was too crowded for him to stand out much. There wasn't much else for the townsfolk to do on these cold winter nights aside from the usual drinking, dice, and occasional brawl. Wilde kept out of the thick of it, but observed the goings-on with what might have been a wistful smile before whatever reverie he was in the middle of was interrupted by a few soldiers barging in.

The goatherd ordered another drink, and then abandoned his place at the bar as he slipped into a chair across from a stranger, setting the drink down as though he'd been asked to do so.

"Sorry," he murmured, never quite taking his eyes off the soldiers, "I won't stay long. I just didn't want to deal with- well."

He inclined his head to the soldiers who were already hassling the others sitting at the bar to go drink elsewhere.
For Emery -

Traveling in the mountains was always a gamble - but it was especially bad during the winter. Wilde had finally made it home, lighting the lanterns along the narrow, dangerous path that split off from the Pilgrim's Path and led to his homestead. In case there was anyone mad enough to be traveling in this snow (himself excluded). It wasn't uncommon for the faithful to make a bit of a detour to spend the night somewhere warm and dry or trade for supplies, but that was the extent of Wilde's company.

He wasn't particularly surprised to see someone coming up the path while he was out seeing to the Ladies of the House (four fat hens) who clucked disapprovingly at Wilde when he scattered the rest of their feed. He stepped around two young bucks who were playfighting, their horns locked and heads pressed together as they grunted and pawed at the snow, and opened the gate.

"Sorry," he said, "haven't had much time to clear the path. There's stew and a bit of bread if you're hun-"

He blinked, realizing his impromptu guest wasn't some random pilgrim, but someone from the town proper. The bloody magistrate to boot! Wilde promptly straightened, feeling a growing tension in his gut. Something must be amiss to risk coming up here.

"Er. Magistrate. Sir."
For Johanna -

One does not generally apply the term majestic to goats. That's because, in general, it doesn't really fit.

But no one would argue that there was a certain dignity to Wilde's flock. There had been several generations where his ancestors had bred them with the wild ibexes around the mountains, and then further selective breeding until you got the fine specimen that was currently standing on top of some poor soul's roof.

Pehj was a proud looking creature. From the curve of his horns to his sleek chestnut coat, he cut a striking sight, silhouetted against the gray light of early dawn.

And then he opened his mouth.

"AAAaaaaAAAAA!" screamed Pehj from the roof, echoing across the village. "AAaaaaAAAA aaaAAA AAAaaAAAAAAA!!!"

It hadn't taken Wilde long to find the creature. The snows were deep and there weren't exactly many goats of Pehj's size down from the mountains, so the trail from where he'd untied his reigns to his current perch had been pretty easy to follow.

"Get down from there!" Wilde hissed, gesticulating wildly. Pehj ignored him, and bleated somehow louder.

Wilde searched around for a ladder. This was not, in fact, the most infuriating place Pehj had managed to park himself (he had once gotten about three quarters of the way up some ramparts - gravity for goats was not so much a law as a suggestion) but Wilde could already feel hot embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. The last thing he wanted this morning was the scrutiny of grouchy villagers woken from their beds by Pehj's temper tantrum.

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Wilde returned from mucking out the barn - it had needed it since he'd been stuck in Northcliff Pass for several days, but his priority when coming home had been milking the nannies. He was disheveled when he came in, bits of straw in his hair and after shrugging off his surcoat, he cleaned off his hands and face in a washbasin.

"Yet sprightly enough to make the journey here," he remarked, pointedly not mentioning it was the dead of winter. In the mountains. With a griffon who had a taste for human flesh flapping about.

"Something in the village must weigh on you. Is it the soldiers?"

There was, indeed, bread and stew. Rabbit, mushrooms, onions, carrots and parsnips. The rabbit meat was lean (to be expected in winter), but this was easily offset by the fact Wilde had cooked the whole thing with goatsmilk and cheese in the broth.

Surprisingly, there was also a bowl of chestnuts and dried fruit set out with the meal. He also poured a palmful of rock salt mixed with dried flowers into a metal offering bowl by the tallow candle. Old superstition, that if the Earth God deigned to dine with mortals they should feel welcomed. It also smelled pleasant, counteracting the ever present smell of of goat.

There's plenty in the village who would look sideways at the small offering bowl and question the piety of the one who set it out. Emery is a pious enough man, but he has lived in the world long enough to recognize that devotion to the gods comes in all different forms. If it was his place to question or cast judgment, he'd have walked a different path in life.

"Something in the village must weigh on you. Is it the soldiers?"

His reply is silence, for a moment or two, and in that time he serves himself some of the rabbit stew and gave himself a moment to think. There is no way to mince words about it unfortunately, and if Wilde hadn't heard the news yet, it was only a matter of time. "Lorne was flogged. For protecting someone, from one of the soldiers."

The rage in him still simmers below the surface, but despair tempers it. "I was elsewhere, visiting my middle son, when it happened. I should've been here."

Wilde looked astonished by this news, before his expression settled. There was still a tightness in his jaw, a crease in the brow.

So. That was it.

"Your middle son needs a father as much as Lorne," Wilde reasoned. "...And Lorne did what was right."

Lorne hadn't changed at all - as far as Wilde could remember, he'd always been a brave and compassionate person.

"Even if you were away, I suspect something of you was still with him through the ordeal."

Emery doesn't answer, at least not at first. He focuses on his stew, gazing down into it unseeingly after each bite. These are words that have been offered to him by his own children in the days since his son's flogging, words of compassion and understanding that he knows, were the tables turned, he would offer to anyone else. His son is a grown man, and he acted on his principles. He'd not been taught to behave any other way, nor to anticipate that the soldiers' commander might not respond in kind. That Brickenden might be unspeakably cruel in demanding his recompense.

Forcing Lance to hold the whip that has scarred Emery's son for the rest of his life--

"I should have been here," he repeats simply, softly, and rubs a hand across his beard. Then, "Apologies, Wilde, I shouldn't place any of this on your shoulders."

"You can't blame yourself for another man's cruelty," Wilde said. "Your son stood up to him as best he could. I doubt his options were many and the alternatives would have been ... much worse."

Wilde uncorked a jug of what must have been some kind of homebrewed cider. There was certainly a strong smell of apples wafting from it - accompanied by the much stronger smell of alcohol. He poured it into two wooden goblets.

"The world is full of people like Commander Brickenden. Men like you and Lorne are few and far between."

He raised the goblet, bowing his head briefly before downing the moonshine.

It's the strong scent of the apples that pulls him out of himself somewhat, and Emery reaches out to take the goblet as it's offered to him. Then Wilde speaks again and he chuckles some, a quiet and abashed sound that's accompanied by a downward glance at his drink.

"That's kind of you to say," he answers, humbled and a bit embarrassed, then lifts his mug to his lips to drink from it. At the taste--and its potency--he raises his eyebrows some and then nods at the jug.

"It has quite a kick, this stuff. You brew it yourself?"

There was a huff that might have been a laugh from Wilde.

"Yes - old family recipe, you could say. It's made from apples, honey and whatever wild fruits we forage in the summer. It keeps the winter from getting too deep in the bones."

They also used it for stripping old paint, but Wilde neglected to mention that.

"Fortunately the thaw isn't far. The mountain paths will be safer then."

"Aye, that they will," Emery agrees. "You'll have pilgrims trekking past your homestead again before you know it, and probably stopping in for a tipple, once they catch wind of this." He lifts the mug again and smiles.

He finishes the rest of his stew in companionable silence across from Wilde--near cleans the bowl completely in fact, and seems a little surprised by his own appetite once he's finished. A little self-conscious, he admits, "Suppose the hike up here takes more out of me than it used to. I don't advise getting old, Wilde."

Getting to his feet, he glances about the room before offering, "Where should I wash this?" It's the least he can do after imposing.

Wilde shrugged.

"It may be age. It may also have been the snow. You seem hale enough."

He extended a hand for the dirty dishes. There was a stone basin with snow melting in it for just such a thing.

Outside, a bitter wind howled, rattling the windows. Wilde had stuffed old rags into the cracks, and drew the wool curtains to keep the draft out.

"Rest a while - when you feel up to making the trek, I saddle up Pehj. He'll get you back to the village safely."

Emery passes the bowl over to Wilde with a grateful nod, then glances in some surprise when a particularly fearsome gust of wind rattles the windows in their panes. "Hadn't looked like foul weather when I set out," he says and paces a few steps over to the window, stealing a brief glimpse beyond the curtains to assess the situation. Dark clouds heavy with snow blanket the sky a forbidding slate grey; it would not be safe for him to begin the journey back, only to be caught unawares in the midst of a blizzard.

A mistake fit for someone unaccustomed to life in the mountain pass, not the village magistrate. Recent events have left him rattled.

He grimaces and turns to look back at the young man whose hospitality he must trespass upon. "I don't wish to impose," he begins uncomfortably... but looks very much like he's got no choice in the matter.

Wilde scowls, though it seems directed at the approaching storm, not Emery.

"This high up, it's not unusual," he sets the dirty dishes in the basin, before gathering up his coat. "Make yourself comfortable - I need to make sure the yearlings got inside safely."

The older animals knew to take shelter - but there was always the stubborn goat or two, still getting a feel for their limits, who think they can brave a blizzard. Wilde steps out just as the snow begins to fall.

---

He returns nearly two hours later, his coat thick with snow and carrying a shivering young goat under his arm. He doesn't look much better off, his tan complexion a worrying grey and trying to hide the chatter in his teeth. He clearly didn't expect to be out so long.

"Lonnie managed to wedge herself between two rocks, little fool," he said by way of explanation. He set Lonnie down by Gerta who gave the poor, shivering creature a sniff before snuggling her warm, bristly bulk up to her.

"Saints," comes Emery's quiet oath, one he undoubtedly does not speak aloud often, "are you all right?"

The little goat, cold and frightened though she is, looks as though she will be well cared for in Gerta's company. In contrast her keeper looks ghostly pale beneath the layers of snow now melting into his hair and coat. Emery walks towards him with worry setting a deep furrow into his brow, for it is difficult for him not to believe that, had he not arrived at Wilde's homestead when he did, the young man might have finished up his work before the weather turned.

He says, "You look like you near caught your death out in that mess," and looks for all the world like someone who does not know how to function in a crisis unless he is empowered to help in some way. please Wilde let him help, it's either that or more hovering.

"I'm f-fine," Wilde chattered, trying to rub some feeling back into his hands.

It was such an obvious lie, and as much as he didn't mind Emery hovering, he didn't much care to be fussed over. He shucked off the the green leather surcoat, the fleece trim damp with melting snow. The red coat underneath was also soaked, and he shed it, draping it over the back of a chair he set near the fire to dry.

For someone who gave the impression of a hermit farmer, Wilde sported quite a lot of tattoos. Most seemed almost like idle scribbles - looping lines and knots that bared no known significance. But one was much more detailed than the rest. Positioned just over his heart, depicted a skull and flute.

"There's blankets, upstairs. Clean. Just grab the whole lot. You'll need one as much as I will. The cold tends to creep in weather like this."

For now he needed a warm change of clothes and to boil some water.

The "upstairs" was more of a glorified loft. The wood floor was dry, old and creaked, though like the rest of the little cottage, everything was clean and well-kept. There was a bed, piled high with blankets and quilts just as Wilde said - all made from the heavenly soft wool his goats produced. There was also a loom, baskets of yarn, and scattered materials for making dyes set aside likely for spring and summer.

(There is quite a lot about this particular moment that informs Emery, with the sudden force of a battering ram*, that Wilde is no longer the precocious boy who trotted along at Lorne's heels when they were lads growing up in the village. Those marks speak to a grown man's experiences.)

"Right," he says, watches after Wilde as he goes to boil the water. Then he comes back to himself, rubs absently at his beard, and heads for the stairs. He rests his walking stick against the wall near the foot of them, then heads up into the loft.

The blankets are found without difficulty, and Emery is too much a habitually orderly person not to fold each one into a neat stack before he carries then back downstairs. He pauses when he catches sight of the dyeing materials and lingers over them with a practitioner's interest, then returns to the stairs and heads back down.

"Blankets," he announces, and carries them over to whatever surface looks cleanest to set them down.

--
(* it's the battering ram of repressed bisexuality)

Eleven years make quite the difference. Wilde changed out the rest of his wet things, and pulled on a fresh, clean pair of long braies and a plain tunic. But he also hadn't missed Emery's lingering look, and so the tunic was left mostly unlaced while Wilde dried off the damp, chilly goat nestled close to Gerta.

Wilde sidled up to Emery, "accidentally" bumping shoulders as he picked a blanket off the pile with an uttered thanks.

He watched him out the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his reaction, just to make sure it wasn't just his imagination or some sort of weird wishful thinking.

"Grab one for yourself," Wilde urged, before disappearing into the larder for some supplies. Nothing like warmed goatsmilk mixed with honey, ginger and cloves on a night like this.

He misses Wilde's (carefully calculated) approach, eyes having been drawn towards the windows as the wind rattles them in their frames again, but he turns when he feels the warmth of another human body touching his, however briefly.

"--oh," he starts, and then, "of course," at Wilde's words of thanks, and it takes him a fraction of a second longer than it should have to recognize that another man probably would have politely stepped aside to make more room. It's precisely what he would have done himself, and yet he hadn't, and the reason for why is not so mysterious to him as he'd like.

(It had not been that mysterious to him even three decades ago, when he and Bertram had huddled together for warmth in their lean-tos on the eve of that last skirmish between Cliffside and Black Rock, before they deserted the army.)

Wilde says, "Grab one for yourself," and Emery says, "Right," again, repeating himself both in word and in deed; because his eyes follow Wilde as he walks away until he disappears from sight. He exhales and reaches up to rub a hand across his eyes and the bridge of his nose, then picks up a blanket for himself and goes to one of the chairs near the fire. Once there he has to ease himself down into it, for the cold always causes the old injury in his left knee to act up. He stretches it out with a small sound of discomfort, but already the proximity to the fire is loosening the tight tendons and ligaments. (Would that a bit of fire could provide relief from other ailments--or desires he'd thought he'd left behind as juvenile fantasies.)

The cottage was pleasantly warm despite the raging blizzard, but even with its sturdy stone walls and bits of oil cloth stuffed into every crack Wilde could find, a draft would occasionally slip through - under the door or from some hidden cranny Wilde hadn't discovered yet.

While Emery brooded, Wilde mixed the milk, honey, and spices in a saucepan, warming it over the fire until it was just shy of bubbling.

He was sure he wasn't mistaken at this point, though he doubted that's what Emery had in mind when he trudged up here. But chasing ghosts left you seeing them in the strangest places - Wilde certainly had no place to judge. Emery's cheekbones and mannerisms had left his own mind wandering to better days with Captain Arvid. Maybe they both weren't thinking clearly.

When he'd finished and poured, Wilde stood unnecessarily close at Emery's side, proffering the cup.

"You do seem tense," he noted. "Is this a problem?"

Whatever 'this' was, or was going to be.

Whatever 'this' was now, it would undoubtedly become something he could never share with his family, or bring to confession at the vicarage when he attended matins and vespers. Even if he does the sensible thing, even if he feigns ignorance of or obliviousness to the intent behind Wilde's close proximity, the skin that he has left carefully exposed, that quiet question, "Is this a problem?" Very little would change, for it's his awareness of the thing that matters.

It's always been isolating, and terribly lonely, and so would it be the most unforgivable thing in the world if he sought to alleviate that for a little while?

He pushes himself carefully up from the chair and reaches out to take the mug from Wilde. Their fingers, and his mouth twists into a bittersweet sort of smile. "I ought to be the one asking that question, I should think," he answers, quietly abashed, and breathes in the comforting aroma of the milk and spices. "Seeing as I'm the one taking advantage of your hospitality." (The hospitality of a very young man, his son's childhood friend; that goes without saying.)

He looks up from the mug to meet Wilde's eyes, searching his expression for--something, and takes the most cautious of steps forward into his orbit.

Wilde's inquisitive expression gentled into a soft, wistful smile as their fingers brushed, his own lingering against Emery's until the cup is finally taken from him.

"Well," Wilde shrugged, "there's nothing for it on a night like this."

As excuses went, it was a pretty paltry one, but if Emery was going to grapple to rationalize this, Wilde might as well toss him a rope. He leaned up against the arm of the chair, not quite sitting, not quite standing and his gaze drifting over Emery's face, down to linger on the the laces of his jerkin.

"It's not like I offer this to every pilgrim off the path," he added.

As far as jerkins go, it's a nice one, made of durable, good quality fabric that someone of Emery's station would be expected to have access to. The colour of it has faded, though, from the vibrant red that it probably was once upon a time, to something more like mauve. The threads that keep it closed are frayed some at their edges.

"It's not like I offer this to every pilgrim off the path."

At that he chuckles once, the corners of his eyes crinkling fondly. "I'd never have presumed," he replies, lifts up the mug for a drink, then lowers it again and sets it aside. For a moment his hand hovers, as though he's uncertain of where to put it, before allowing his fingers to gently rest against Wilde's on the arm of the chair. The tips of his fingers are callused from hours spent with a quill in hand, stained slightly from ink, but long accustomed to delicate work. And there is a delicacy to how his touch lingers against Wilde's skin, as though prepared to withdraw quickly.

He purses his lips, and then, "Wilde, if I've got it wrong..." He trails off into unguarded silence, waiting.

Wilde curled his palm upwards, and drew Emery's hand to his chest.

"You haven't," he reassured. It was easier to talk about it like this - without putting it into exact words. No sense scaring Emery off.

He guided his hand down the open tunic, along the bare skin of his chest before finally settling it on a sturdy thigh. Wilde was built lean and nimble, but there was an undeniable sturdiness to him, and Emery's hand was lovely and warm.

"When you're ready, we can head upstairs," he said gently, barely audible over the wind buffeting the cottage which stood resolute against the storm.

Well, there was no misunderstanding that, was there? Emery's dark eyes follow the path his fingers take as Wilde guides them across his bare chest, looking up only his hand comes to rest on Wilde's thigh. He carefully slides his hand upwards towards Wilde's hip, and in the back of his mind he's heartened to note that beneath the fabric of his braies, Wilde feels warm again.

"Lead the way."

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Blue Blue Caravan

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