northclifflogs | Event: August 1312

I. COME HITHER SWEET MAIDEN AND IGNITE MY FLAMES

Fíadh isn’t one to care about the elements, if you asked her on any given day what the weather was like five minutes ago she’d either shrug in apathy or tell you to leave her alone unless you want to buy something. But blocking out the misery of others is much harder for her to do, and it doesn’t take more than half a day for the groaning and moaning of the sopping locals to reach her notice.
It’s probably the fifth or sixth person that passes by cursing the rain that she finally storms out of her smithy, grabs that person by the shoulders and roughly steers them to the warmth of her forge before going back to her work. It doesn’t take long for the shop to accumulate a bit of a gathering, people chatting idly by the forge and damp clothes dripping off makeshift lines. Fíadh still keeps to herself, only shushing them every now and then if they get too loud for her liking, but if a few become brave enough to talk to her then that’s their risk to take now isn’t it?

II. WE HATH BUILT THIS CITY ON LUTE AND DRUM

At first it was just the misery of the rain, but all that quickly escalated with the mudslide. Now people are not only soaking but also out of house and home. The second Fíadh hears the news she gathers all the useful tools she can find within her shop and makes her way out into town (not before giving those still warming by her hearth a piercing glare and the warning “don’t touch anything”). Going from broken home to broken home, she’s helping however she can. Clearing debris, getting people to higher ground, boarding up quick fixes where it’s possible. However someone might find her, she’s doing some sort of work and if they want to they can certainly give her a hand.

III. LEAN UPON ME WHEN THOU ART DEVOID OF STRENGTH

It’s a couple days after the mudslide and the ground has settled about as well as it’s going to. Fíadh is wandering back and forth along the trajectory of the disaster down to the riverbed with a burlap sack in hand. She’s obviously searching, what for isn’t so obvious. Not until she spies a disruption in the smooth mud, a bit of painted wood poking up from the ground. She kneels down and begins to scoop away the mud until the object comes out in a soft sucking squelch.
It’s some sort of toy on wheels, it looks like maybe a dog or a cat although the mud covering it is obscuring most of its form. What it is doesn’t really matter, Fíadh knows that. What it means is everything. Someone will be missing this. She opens up her sack and gently places the toy in before getting back to her feet and resuming her search.

The rough handling results in a gasp and angry tensing of shoulders, the look on Ben's face homicidal until he finds himself parked in front of the fire and otherwise left alone.
It takes him a moment to process what just happened, and then he scowls at the woman, rubbing his arms from the damp but not exactly.... challenging the repositioning.

If someone else tries to crowd him, he'll leave. But as long as they're both keeping their surly silence, it could be worse.

After depositing her quarry in front of the fire a small wave of ease rolls over Fíadh, like an itch that's been scratched. There, she helped, now one less person in the world is feeling awful. Well, in theory. The man she grabbed doesn't actually look very pleased at the situation but that's his problem now isn't it. If he wants to go back into the cold, wet, rain then he certainly can.

Fíadh goes back to hammering on something sharpish and metal and allows the resounding 'ting-ting' to fill the empty space.

Looks like they're having ye goode old-fashioned no-talk-off.

On the one hand, Ben doesn't want to be here, he wants to go home where it's safe and he doesn't have to listen to the awful jarring sounds of metal-on-metal and deal with the presence of a surly stranger.
On the other hand, it's warm. And he's a southern fellow who does not like to be cold, which means the more he has to talk himself into going somewhere cold, the harder it is to actually do it.

"You're new," he observes after a time, realizing that the woman isn't too familiar to him, even if the shop is.

Oh. He's talking. To her.

All right. Not that this stops her from her work if he was hoping for a reprieve from the incessant ring-a-ling, but still she'll reply in-between hammering.

"I am."

There's quite a bit more hammering, and it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that she's already done with the conversation. But eventually she speaks again.

"My name is Fíadh," TING "Who are you?"

"Ben."

Her disinterest is strangely reassuring. He finds himself settling in a bit, looking into the fire, deliberating-- and then, well, why not.

"Ben Carver."

They're learning so much about each other.

Carver.

Carver, hm?

Fíadh wouldn't lie and say she understands the subtle philosophical sciences of surnames, but one like that seems like a pretty dead giveaway of an occupation. And after a certain escapade against a certain grindstone that ended in a certain mess of broken wood, she could use a Carver.

This internal dialogue passes through her mind, but of course her face remains impassive.

"... You do woodworking?"

It's not that strange that she'd draw that conclusion, even without the telltale name-- his and Kit's business is hardly a secret, and Kit is hardly an introvert.
So Ben nods, with a little grunt in the affirmative.

Well, she's wrung that information out of him, but this interrogation is far from over. She's even stopped her hammering, straightening up and crossing her arms while giving Ben her full attention.

"... Could you make a grindstone cradle?"

He has to think about it. Ben has been woodworking for a while, but still doesn't have all the expertise he could.
"...maybe," he murmurs, glancing back at her, "...but Kit would make a better one."

She doesn't know any Kit, but Fíadh's reluctant to bring someone else into this. Mostly because that involves, you know, someone else.

"It doesn't have to be perfect. Just better than ... that."

She points across the shop to a darkened corner where a mess of metal and wood has been haphazardly shoved aside. If one squints, it looks like it once could have been a functioning grindstone.

"And I need it soon so I can get back to work."

Following her gesture with his gaze, Ben eventually goes to kneel and inspect the pile. He picks up one chunk and another, tries to see how they would fit together; he's never made one of these before, but it doesn't seem that difficult.

Setting the pieces back down, he nods and gets up again, making his way toward the road this time. "Give us a couple days," he mutters, beginning to take his leave.

"All right."

She thinks briefly to ask about payment, but if he's leaving already then they'll figure it out at a later point. Instead she looks back to her work at the anvil and picks it up to move to the forge.

As great as this conversation has been, it's time to get back to work and Fíadh isn't one for goodbyes.

I. Schlup Schlup

Not rain nor snow nor wind nor hail can stop the poor bastards of the Watch (all two of them) making their rounds, albeit now much, much more slowly. Lance looks like a cat being forced to wear booties as he high-steps through the mud, simultaneously energetic about never letting his feet remain long enough for his boots to soak through, and absolutely dead tired straight down to his soul.
He usually has at least a pleasant glance to spare for people, but at present it's hidden under his oilskin hood and the miserable glower of someone who has never had a day of rest in his life and didn't want one anyway, thanks.

II. Thud Thud

He doesn't live in the house anymore, and many won't even remember that he ever did, but it still belongs to Finian and therefore having part of the roof caved in is a problem. With Kit no doubt slammed by the sudden influx of necessary structural repairs around town, some things are left to the rest of them to figure out.
Lance and Finian are working on it together, a half-useless burlap tarp thrown over the hole which Lance holds in place atop the roof while Finian struggles to patch it from the inside. There's a quiet conversation occurring, a little louder than it normally might to be heard over the rain, but perhaps it's nice to see father and son interacting directly for once.

III. Wildcard

On top of his regular duties, Lance is generally around to help in anyone's moments of crisis.

Edited 2019-08-21 01:11 (UTC)

Arlene, lost in the middle of the small village she's been living in for the last several years, has been talking at no one in the heavy drizzle for the past several minutes, asking for help, hoping for someone to come across her. That changes when she hears the schlup schlup of heavy footfalls wading through puddles and muck.

One of the Watch, surely, but she can't tell who it is beyond that. Lance? Deron? Damn this rain.

"Excuse me?" she calls out. "I shouldn't have tried this, I -- I need some help."

She doesn't say I'm lost, partly because her pride won't let her, partly because it sounds ridiculous, and partly because she's said it a few times already when she was relatively sure no one was nearby to hear her.

"Arlene," comes the quiet exclamation, and the guardsman is at her side, bumping her arm lightly with his so she knows where to grip.
"Where are you trying to go?"

Arlene sags, relieved, and lowers her cane to rest on the ground so she can take Lance's arm.

"Colin," she answers. "I need more bread. Am I...?" She huffs, almost self-deprecatingly. "... anywhere near there?"

Spoilers: she's not. She's not anywhere near there. Given enough time, she might have been able to find her way back home, but there's no telling what illnesses she might have caught in the meantime.

Lance's slightly anxious silence is answer enough: no, they are nowhere near the bakery. But she's sensitive about the confusion, and he's not about to go out of his way to rub it in.
"I can... guide you there," he says instead, "if you like."

She grips Lance's arm tighter, out of gratitude and relief. "Thank you."

As they walk, feet splashing in the occasional unavoidable puddle, Arlene raises her head. "What is the village going to do," she asks, "if you come down ill and can't make rounds? This seems like it's going to go on forever."

He gives a quiet scoff of a laugh, barely enough to make a sound.

"It's happened before," he murmurs, "we'll make do." He doesn't like to say 'I'll probably just keep working' because it makes people frown, but that's the usually been the truth of the matter and is unlikely to change.

He gives her a little nudge with his elbow as they step around a particularly deep puddle. "Maybe we'll finish paving the road someday," he muses, "...like in Cliffside."

I. Bakery - Outside

The leak in the roof has mostly affected the upper floor, and it's remedied (as much as it can be) with a series of buckets. Colin has to take them out quite a distance, sometimes outside the city walls, in order to dump them out without contributing to the puddles outside.

(It's one of the buckets he leaves outside that fills up with pure rainwater, entirely pure from the sky. He can't throw all of it out. Simply touching it enhances his senses, soothes the abrasions on his spirit. Maybe it will soothe others.)

At one point, he can be seen up on the roof, laying down a canvas tarpaulin over the hole in the roof. He's drenched to the bone, but somehow in no hurry to get off the roof. The trouble happens when he's stepping away from it and slips, sliding down the roof and barely catching himself on the edge of the roof. He likes the rain well enough, but at the rate it's pouring off the roof and onto him, it's a lot less pleasant. The chickens gathering under his feet and clucking at him in alarm don't lift a finger to help.

II. Bakery - Inside

It takes rather longer than usual to bake anything, with all the humidity. It's not long after the loaves are out that their crusts become more chewy than crispy. Keeping moisture out of the flour and yeast is the most difficult task, especially since he winds up having to make a second batch later in the day.

III. Chapel

When the bakery closes at suppertime, Colin is tired, but manages to make his way to the Hammer and Spoke. He still doesn't like crowds, and even told Faro that he'd like not to meet there anymore, but he feels like he needs to keep some sort of lookout. Or at least, he should learn how to dampen the effects of his abilities so crowds don't bother him as much. Block things out. Tune into one person at a time. But with the rain so heavy, it's all giving him a headache.

So instead, he sits in the chapel. He looks like he is praying, but instead, he is listening. To the emotions of those around him, and to the rain.

IV. Wildcard

Edited 2019-08-22 21:14 (UTC)

Fíadh has been out on her self-appointed route looking for people who need assistance. So far it's been fairly fruitful, likely in the fact that she simply ... just starts doing things and people are too confused, wary, or grateful to tell her otherwise. She's passing by the bakery when she sees a man on the roof, seeming to try and cover any leaks. Smart. He doesn't look in distress, and she makes to continue on.

But then there's a muffled sound of a tumble. Turning back it's like the change happened in a split second. First the man was standing upright, suddenly he's hanging from the edge.

Well, now that's a problem. Not a deadly one, but still something unpleasant.

Fíadh quickly makes her way over to the dangling man and reaches up to try and grab him. Years of strength training, don't fail her now. Once she feels like she has him grabbed in a secure enough fashion she speaks.

"Let go."

Colin is surprised when, while dangling from his own roof, someone catches hold of him. Then it's a woman's voice speaking, which makes it even more surreal. Below, the chickens are stirred up, still upset lest the man who feeds them become a pancake right before lunch, but they give Fíadh space to maneuver. Colin isn't entirely convinced that a woman has the strength to catch him, but the decision is made for him; his fingers slip, and he is falling.

Well down he goes, but Fíadh's ready for it. She tightens her grip around the man's waist not unlike one would hold a toddler. Does it look silly? Probably. But is it secure? Absolutely. There's a small sharp drop before she steadies her arms and slowly lowers him to his feet. Once he has his proper footing she removes her hands and gives him a once-over.

"You're all right?"

Water is running down Colin's face, his hair and clothes stuck to his skin, his shoes like enclosed puddles. Fingers scrape water away from his eyes and he looks up at his rescuer. The woman is tall and built like a house, which is why she felt so solid and reassuring on the way down. He nods.

"Thank you. I didn't fancy breaking an ankle. Come inside, I'll get you a cup of something hot and a free onion tart."

Fíadh's immediate reaction is to decline, and the words begin at a purse of her lips. But then a traitorous growl escapes her stomach, and the recognition of discomfort spreads through her entire body. She's drenched, she's cold, she's tired, she's hungry. This man is offering warmth and food. Ignoring her disdain for social obligations, she'd simply be an idiot to refuse.

She gives a curt nod in agreement before following him in.

Once inside, Colin sets a chair by the fire and puts the kettle on.

"Sit," he encourages. The prettiest onion tart is selected and brought to Fíadh. Then he darts upstairs to his room and comes back with two large towels. By that time, the water is boiling, and he fills two mugs with it, plus barley and honey.

"What's your name?" he asks as he passes her a towel.

Edited (accuracy) 2019-08-23 03:19 (UTC)

Immediately Fíadh can feel the heat from the fire sink into her skin and a satisfied sigh escapes her lips as she sits down. She didn't realize how badly she needed to just ... relax. Her eyes follow the man as he moves around the room until he bounds up the stairs, then she looks to the tart in her hand. She can't remember the last time she's had anything that looks this nice. Or anything that doesn't just look like a simple lump of sustenance. She almost feels bad about eating it. But not bad enough.

She's devoured the tart by the time the man returns with a towel, and she quickly grabs it before ruffling it over her choppy hair.

"Fíadh," she answers brusquely, bringing the towel down from her head. "Who are you?"

"Colin." A warm smile. "I'm the baker." A gleam of an apologetic wince. "Obviously. Sorry. Um."

He squeezes water from his hair with the towel before wrapping it around his shoulders and sitting by the fire with her. He's always been rather shy, which makes it tricky when he runs into other shy people. He wishes he could be any other way.

"You can take off your shoes, if you want to," he says idly, while toeing off his own shoes to let his feet dry.

Edited (typo) 2019-08-23 19:39 (UTC)

If Fíadh thinks anything about his obvious job role she certainly doesn't show it. She places the towel in her lap and stares into the flames. Although she doesn't look completely relaxed, she certainly feels better than she did before she came in.

Without looking away from the flames she takes off her shoes and socks before setting them closer to the fire. After a bit she speaks.

"Did your roof fix seem to work?"

"Yes." Colin doesn't venture too close to the fire, but it's not quite as critical for him. This is his home. As soon as his guest is gone, he can change into dry clothes, so she is the one with the journey and therefore the more important issue here. And they are both out of the wind and rain now, and therefore in no immediate danger.

"It has to be canvas that's already been in water," he says aimlessly, simply to fill silence. "Otherwise it's...and this will be good until it stops raining and someone can fix the roof. Did you want another tart?"

"No."

She still stares at the fire, definitely not one for supporting conversation. But, he gave her food and rest, deep down she knows that she owes him some sort of effort. She purses her lips, thinking, before turning to look at Colin.

"How long have you lived here?"

"Here in this house, or here in Northcliff Pass?"

"Both?"

"Um." He rubs the back of his neck, feeling slightly insecure, as he often does when divulging personal information. "In Northcliff Pass, all my life. Here in this house, the last five years."

"Hm."

She looks back to the fire. She can't imagine living anywhere for that long, that sort of security. It must be nice. But, right, conversation is a two-way street. She mulls over what she should share.

"I've only arrived recently. I run the smithy."

It's the beginning of the day for Lance, who at least appears decently well-rested as he sits on a bench and spaces out at the sea shrine, carefully sipping at a steaming mug of some rejuvenating beverage or another and preparing himself to go out in the torrent for another night.
He glances over his shoulder with a little smile for Colin when he comes in, but otherwise pays him no mind; they're all here for privacy and reflection.

What he doesn't know is what Colin is actually doing, and capable of, and therefore able to perceive: which is to say, a miasma of destructive emotion as thick and black as a stormcloud, emanating from Lance with the cruel confidence of a deadly parasite. Like an infected tick, it resides just under the surface, invisible to the eye but so obvious to anyone with the right tools, draining the life from its oblivious host.
But apart from that he seems fine.

I. Getting wellies on
It's early Sunday morning the first time Arlene ventures out of her home. She doesn't mind rain, in general; in fact, she looks forward to it, for the soothing pitter-patter on the window and for nature's growth in the aftermath. But storms have usually broken by morning, and when it becomes clear this one won't, some of Arlene's garden has to be rescued and brought indoors.

It's harder than it looks. The rain dulls Arlene's sharp sense of hearing, robbing her of one way to navigate a familiar environment, as well as most of her sense of smell. She has to feel her way to the pots, feel her way to where the relevant plants are growing, stumbling over shifted ground and into puddles and mudholes as she goes. At one point, she miscalculates a step, and falls face-first into a pile of mud.

And for several moments, she just lies there, unmoving in the mud, torn between laughing and crying, both of which will undoubtedly lead to mud inhalation.

II. Further inconvenience

Several days later, avoiding the market becomes impossible, though clearly not quite as impossible as asking someone for help. Arlene has to resort to using her cane, which she hasn't touched in years, to avoid obstacles and perhaps help identify where she is in the town based on the sound of the stone below her feet.

Theoretically, she knows the way. Practically, the roads feel and sound completely different from how they normally do, and it's not long before she finds herself utterly and completely lost, in the opposite direction of the market, hunched and shivering in her cloak.

"Alright," she says into the rain , just in case anyone's nearby and she flat-out can't tell. "Hello? I'm a little lost."

Rock the Stablah

About a half-hour after the mud has stopped its progress, Detlef is standing in the stables looking up at the decimated roof, muck-filled stalls, and destroyed feed. It's a disaster. The horses are now tied up out in the paddock, at least. There are also a few towel-bundled cats practically stacked up by his hearth, fully on display through the open door since it's his roof that's shot too. This is the disadvantage of living where you work.

"Good," he says, sounding and looking exhausted. "This is exactly what I wanted today." There's a few shovels near him, a stack of towels awaiting muddy cats under the part of the hayloft that's survived, and more work than he knows how to start.

Rock the Barbah

He's soaked, huddled over a hot toddy and a bowl of hot stew, dripping at the counter and staring into nothingness. Maybe he can't really afford to be eating out right now, but he doesn't have the brain to pull anything together right now. Everything about him says he's exhausted and out of it, so clearly it's the perfect time to pester him.

The unending storm means that Arlene's one guaranteed method of social interaction has, ironically, dried up. People still stop by, but not often, driven by desperate necessity instead of idle curiosity.

She's not often in the tavern, because there's only so much social interaction Arlene is comfortable with. But towards the end of the week, she finds out what stir-crazy actually feels like, and that's what brings her down. There shouldn't be many people, right? Not with all this rain.

As it turns out, there's only one other customer there, and it's someone Arlene likes. She thanks the tavernkeeper and takes the chair next to Detlef, giving him a rare smile -- or at least, smiling in his general direction.

"I was told," she says, "that you could do with some cheering up. Is that right?"

He gives her a faint smile back. She can't see it, but she can at least probably hear it behind the tiredness in his voice.

"I could." He sighs and straightens up. "I don't know what you've heard, but the stables are damaged. Badly. It's going to take a lot of work to get them straightened out and..." He exhales again. "And I'm tired. And wet. Dripping wet, even. I'm going to have to mop before I leave tonight. How are you faring, in this weather?"

"Are the horses alright?" Arlene asks immediately. She's always had a soft spot for animals, even when those animals don't return the sentiment -- but even disregarding that, Northcliff Pass losing all of its horses would be a disaster.

... This is not, she realises belatedly, something cheerful to say that would cheer someone up.

"I'm -- sure you'll have help," she says. "No one would leave you to fix it all up on your own." At his question about how she's faring, she smiles again, and admits: "Not very well. I've gotten... turned around. More than once. But I'm sure others have it worse."

When Fíadh heard about the mudslide, she was already concerned for the people of the town. But when she heard that the stables had also been affected? Well, suffice to say many townsfolk see a hulking blur of fear disguised as fury making its way to Detlef's.

She bounds into the building and rounds the corner none-too-gracefully, putting too much trust in a rickety beam for support, before taking in the overly exasperated Detlef staring forlornly at the destruction. Well, this probably won't improve his mood.

"Where is Gregor? Is he all right? If anything has happened to him ..."

Captain Lance is also present, and steps quickly out of the way to avoid being barreled into by the usually taciturn blacksmith. Eyes wide, he looks from her to Detlef and then to the partially-collapsed stable; he knows all the animals made it (he's been here for a little bit, checking in on everyone who's dealing with structural damage since the mudslide happened last night), but her ferocity makes him less confident.
Fortunately, Detlef usually has enough confidence for both of them.

Edited 2019-08-27 23:40 (UTC)

He's exhausted, but her passion for one of his animals helps push a little bit of that back. She's loud because she cares. That's a good reason. But maybe not a good reason to half-threaten him, really.

"He's fine," Detlef says quickly, glancing at the nearest wall and wondering if it was stable (ha ha) enough to support him. It might not be, so he's left standing in place kinda sagging. "All of the animals are all right. Some are a little more shaken than others, but everyone made it out. Everything, not so much. ...Do blacksmiths know anything about repairing buildings?"

She huffs and puffs a bit from the internal passion of fear brewing through her. Well, that and the running; she ran all the way here. But Detlef's words slowly bring her down, and she begins to realize that it's not just the two of them here in the stables. She stiffens as she notices Lance, remembering the last time she saw him was also in ... a less-than-composed manner. She clears her throat before responding.

"... Captain."

She looks back to Detlef and furrows her brows. She really does think for a moment on how she can actually help, now that she knows Gregor is all right.

"I can move large debris and know how to swing a hammer. I'll help where I can."

Lance nods faintly in return to the greeting, clearly, in the way of most mammals, more frightened of Fíadh than she is of him.

"Let's clear the roof, and the mud," he politely suggests to Detlef, "...then we can see how bad the rest is."

I. Marketplace

Kadi had to find someone to look after Silfa while she worked this morning, trudging through the woods soaked to the skin. Usually she would take the baby with her, but it's far too wet and babies must stay warm and dry. By the time she returns, she is shivering, boots full of water and squishing audibly. She goes home and changes into dry clothing, then spends about an hour curled up in front of the fire before heading to the marketplace to sell her wares.

First she drops by the herbalist's, then heads to her own stall. The awning is wide enough that you may simply be there to get out of the rain.

II. The Hammer and Spoke

In general, taverns aren't the best places for babies, but Silfa just had a nap and is very alert, and someone is playing a fiddle. Kadi stands at the edge of the room, swaying her hips with the baby curled against her chest. A rare smile is across her face, and occasionally little dips and spins cause a wide smile in the baby as well.

"Yes!" Kadi laughs when she sees those brief smiles.

III. Outside her house

Telltale redness of the nose and eyes may indicate someone picked up a summer cold. Must have been all that tramping around in the woods in the rain. She is under strict orders to stay dry and not go out into the woods until the rain stops. Which puts a hold on foraging.

She's not greedy, but she is determined to stay independent and not have to go back to her family, so she can't simply be idle. She sits outside under the eave of her own roof and sews. Her bare feet are propped up on a box; a piece of linen tape is tied to the post of another chair, its other end pinned to her sewing so she can hold it up instead of hunching over it. Undertunics and chemises are the easiest things in the world to sew, and easy to sell when they're well-made. Nobody has too much underwear.

IV. Wildcard

Getting out of the rain is barely an option at the moment, not when there's so much patrolling to do and so much mud to do it in. Fortunately, the Captain's shift is nearly over, and he's trudging through the market stalls for one last glance on his way back to the guardhouse.
Noticing Kadi, he offers her a polite little nod with something resembling a smile. Glad to see she's integrating.

Event: August 1312

OPEN TO ALL

I

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ota

I. and III. an indecisive moment of crisis.

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III

OTA

OTA - Detlef

Rock the Barbah

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STABLAH BLAH BLAH

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LATE I AM SORRY

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