2021-03-11 - The cold teeth of winter - Dwirhian (& BB)
Jul 22, 2021 7:33:12 GMT
Igrainne (RETIRED), Queen Merla, the Sun-Blessed, and 3 more like this
Post by Dwirhian on Jul 22, 2021 7:33:12 GMT
18 Ches 1498 – BB's tent, the Flower Fields, New Hillborrow
You wake up and the world slowly fits itself together. The familiar smells of tea leaves and incense that drift through your tent, and the gentle sounds of New Hillborrow outside, the soft notes of the wooden wind chimes on the flower shack the loudest. Inside your eyelids the slightly lighter hazy grey of day-time persistently reminds you the new day has already started. There’s weight leaning against your arm – is it her? No, fabric – it’s the bedclothes, half piled up in the middle of the bed. You turn over and you can tell from the shifting of the blankets and the movement of the flock-stuffed mattress that she isn’t there. Already up.
Okay, time for vision. You make your eyes open and see motes of dust floating in the oblique sunlight coming through the doorway. She must have opened it to let some light in. There’s something beyond the shaft of light – pale blue shoulder blades, a silvery round head. She’s sitting cross-legged on a few cushions, facing away from you. Something’s balanced on her thigh. A piece of board? Her hand moving back and forth over it. Dwirhian’s writing something. You muster the energy to slowly push yourself up, you can feel your hair is a tangled mess atop your head as you emerge further out of the blankets, but you can deal with that later.
In a quiet voice so as to not startle Dwirhian you ask what she’s writing out before you move your hand in slow motions, the tattoos on your arms starting to glow softly. The fresh water in a nearby jar bubbles and moves itself into a kettle on the log burner, where the logs inside instantly sputter out a small flame which starts to heat the kettle. All the while you have managed to slowly shuffle over to Dwirhian and the cushions where you sit down behind her, close enough to lean on her back slightly but not enough to disturb her work.
She leans back against you and tilts her head back to rest against your shoulder. Morning, she says, and you can hear the almost-laughing smile in her voice. Then she sighs a little. It’s a letter, she says. Writing home. About the… about Icy Peak.
Dwirhian told you the story yesterday. Or – no, she told you the facts. It wasn’t like her usual stories, vivid and exciting and funny. It was simple and a little sad. How she and a few others had been hired by researchers at Daring Academy to check out a place in the southern reaches of the Sunset Spine where there were stories of a white dragon a few years back. How the place they were sent was about thirty or forty miles from her home village of Galavir, a place that she’d never visited but was known in the village as the Icy Peak. How an old Galavir story tells of a white dragon who many people over the ages have gone to hunt and many have returned claiming to have killed, but who has never actually seemed to disappear. How, sure enough, when she and the others reached the peak they found signs of recent battle and slaughter – not her own people this time – and in a near-by cave a great white dragon dying of grave wounds. How the dragon, Wasuth, at first mistrusted the group’s assurances that they meant no harm, and told them white dragons would always live at Icy Peak and they would always hunt people and people would always hunt them. How Wasuth, with their last breaths, finally entrusted their son, Phazwahr, to the group to save him from a lonely death in his parent’s absence, and asked them to take him to the dragon who lives amongst them. How the white dragonborn, Anwyn, gently carried the cat-sized wyrmling back to Daring Heights and how, as the group stood pondering how a dragon could be living in the town, Dwirhian had suddenly remembered you mentioning a red-haired ‘dwarf’ who had made the fur on your neck stand on end, and the red-haired dwarf who’d sat quietly in the corner of the room while the Academy researchers had been briefing the group for their mission… And how, yes, it was Kanorax who came and took the little Phazwahr away.
I don’t really know what to tell them, though, she says. You sigh as you consider, your breath tickling the top of her head. Why not the truth you ask, like you told me. Or do you think they’ll not take kindly to the news? I’m not familiar with your home, with Galavir, I’ve never been there you say. But surely they’ll be happy that this cycle of people and dragons being hunted at Icy Peak will be over?
I don’t know if it is over, though, she says. There was something about the way Wasuth said There will always be dragons at Icy Peak. Like they’re drawn to the place somehow, or even created there. I kind of want to tell them to just leave the place alone, leave the dragons alone. But if the dragons come hunting...
She makes a sort of grunt and wriggles, turning sideways to nestle into your shoulder and collar-bone. Stuff is hard! she says, in an exaggerated child-like tone; then, in a more normal, perky voice: Is there tea?
You chuckle at her exclamation, for indeed stuff is hard. Funny you ask, I think a fresh pot has just finished brewing, you say as you wave your hand again in small tight motions. The freshly brewed tea on the on stove swooshes out the kettle and into two clay mugs nearby. Another hand motion, accompanied with some arcane mutterings, and the fire of the log burner snuffs out. You lean over to retrieve the steaming mugs, making sure not to jostle Dwirhian too much in the process and hand her one at your side. The air is filled with comfortable silence as you both take the tentative first sips of hot tea.
I read about dragons for years, not really thinking I would ever meet one. And my tribe only mentioned them as scary stories to stop you going too far into the mountains, so they almost felt more a myth to me than real. I certainly didn’t think I would actually get to meet multiple in my lifetime. You say as you try not to burn your tongue on hot tea, the morning light gradually illuminating the inside of the tent more and more. I wonder if there are more hiding somewhere in Kantas yah know, the mountains do seem full of hidden places after all.
Oh, definitely! says Dwirhian. There's so much out there! Her people have been exploring for hundreds of years, she says, thousands even. There's always more places and people and things. What about your mountains, she asks, shuffling around to face you expectantly. Were they all mapped and known? No surprise dragons?
You consider her question for a moment, casting your memories back a bit. No, no I don’t think they were mapped at all really. My old tribe was at the base of the mountains and certainly trekked all over it, but they saw themselves as guardians of the land, there to protect and maintain the balance. Not necessarily map its secrets. Though...I left when I was very young, maybe they just hadn’t got round to showing me any maps before I was gone.
You smile wide and shrug before adding, though that sounds like there’s lots of mysteries to uncover in my mountains. So maybe there’s plenty of surprise dragons somewhere, or it’s just full of normal firbolgs and giants. Who knows! But one thing’s for certain, there were plenty of flowers to be found near the mountains in the summer months, I would sometimes trek all day and try to find as many as I could.
You’ve always loved flowers, then? she asks.
The excited smile you had turns into something softer as you consider Dwirhian in front of you. Yes... Yes, is the simple answer. But the not so simple one is that my mother showed me their wondrous nature when I was oh so young, it’s one of my first memories walking with her into the nearby forest to find clusters of wildflowers during the summer months. And when she passed, I still went looking every summer, maybe went a little too far away from home sometimes (You wince just slightly at the memories of getting in trouble for those times, but you continue on with your not so simple explanation). And when I had to leave home all on my own and live in this strange world so far and different from what I knew, flowers were all I had to turn to, to keep my days happy, to have something to look forward to tomorrow. But I’m fortunate to say my days certainly have much more in them now than only flowers that make me happy, so much more.
Sighing you look a little sheepish as you say sorry, the not so simple explanation got a bit sad there.
Babe, she says softly as she strokes your many-flowered forearm. Don’t be sorry. I get it, and thank you. For… I don’t know, for letting me hear your sad things. And sharing your happy things.
In a smooth motion Dwirhian stands up, leaning forward to kiss you on the forehead as she rises. How about some breakfast? she asks. I could make pancakes – have you got flour and milk or eggs? Or I brought some fruit from Daring if you like?
You nod enthusiastically, pancakes sound fantastic thank you, everything should be in the chest. Just... mind the large seed in there, you add indicating towards a smallish chest next to the wood burner.
For me it’s stories, says Dwirhian, rummaging in the chest. I mean like you were saying about flowers. Something from home, happy and sad. It’s our whole thing, you know? Wow, that is a big seed isn’t it? But yeah, we go out and travel, explore, have adventures, see beautiful things, meet amazing people, all that kind of thing – and then we come back and we tell each other the stories. That was one of my absolute favourite things: the story-telling, the listening. I got pretty good at it too. Was? You add, has that changed? I think you’re still very good at the story-telling and listening my dear.
Aw, that’s sweet of you, she says in a voice slightly raised to carry over the sound of batter sizzling on the stove-top. And, yeah, ‘is’, I guess. It’s still one of my favourite things, but it’s a bit sad now too. Last time I was home, I’d been away for a pretty long time and when I got back… it was all different. People didn’t want stories any more. It was like they were… afraid, or – or ashamed, or… disgusted… They said it was all fake, our whole culture, thousands of years. They’d stopped wearing lakereed or – or drinking the water… Some had just gone – not gone travelling, I mean gone forever, left the village – my sister… (You hear Dwirhian’s voice cracking a little.) Other people still wanted to tell stories and hear them but it wasn’t like before, they weren’t just enjoying it, it was like they were trying too hard, I don’t know, trying to hold onto something… It used to be so… simple, so nice… Oh thirst, I’m sorry, I’m crying on the pancakes! Here, come and grab these before I ruin them… Sorry, I didn’t think I’d – I haven’t really told anyone about it before…
You swiftly get up, all sleepiness suddenly evaporated, moving the pancakes off the stovetop just as you sweep Dwirhian up in a large hug. Don’t worry about the pancakes right now, and don’t ever apologise for feeling something. Big changes are scary, especially when it’s about something that you thought was a constant in your life. That’s a lot…. a lot. You have every reason to feel not great about it. And you hug her for as long as she wants.
Long moments pass with the slight figure wrapped in your arms, her deep breaths becoming slowly more steady and controlled. Then she rubs her eyes and the back of one wrist and looks up at you. Hello, snowdrop, she says.
Your puzzlement evidently shows on your face, and Dwirhian breaks into a sudden smile that squeezes a final tear from the corner of her eye to roll down one cheek. With a hint of a laugh, she explains: you always make her think of snowdrops. Or the other way round, maybe. Both. Because you brought her that little bunch of them the day of your picnic, and then that evening when she got back to her room she put them in a little vase by the bed and went to sleep, and in the morning when she woke up and looked over at their white heads bending gently down, and it reminded her of being close to you like this, and looking up into your face, and you bending down your head down towards her and your lovely white hair all around like the petals…
With the clarity your expression turns to a bashful smile, wiping away that last tear on Dwirhian’s cheek you stumble slightly on your words hoping your face of happiness, gratitude and awe can speak a bit more for you. But eventually you say that you find that lovely, you find her lovely, and you’d happily be her snowdrop. You tell her you also remember another thing from that date, specifically how it ended. And you lean further down, the snowdrop going in for a kiss.
Several long kisses later, she rests the side of her face against your chest and says, quietly: thank you for… looking after me, I guess. It’s been a few years since anyone did that. Well, she laughs, apart from my mum, I suppose. In her way.
Dwirhian gently pushes herself apart from you with a little sigh. Okay, she says, let me have another go at these pancakes and then I’d better finish writing her that letter.
Big thanks to Soph for co-writing and for their patience during my lengthy spells of not adding to the google doc
You wake up and the world slowly fits itself together. The familiar smells of tea leaves and incense that drift through your tent, and the gentle sounds of New Hillborrow outside, the soft notes of the wooden wind chimes on the flower shack the loudest. Inside your eyelids the slightly lighter hazy grey of day-time persistently reminds you the new day has already started. There’s weight leaning against your arm – is it her? No, fabric – it’s the bedclothes, half piled up in the middle of the bed. You turn over and you can tell from the shifting of the blankets and the movement of the flock-stuffed mattress that she isn’t there. Already up.
Okay, time for vision. You make your eyes open and see motes of dust floating in the oblique sunlight coming through the doorway. She must have opened it to let some light in. There’s something beyond the shaft of light – pale blue shoulder blades, a silvery round head. She’s sitting cross-legged on a few cushions, facing away from you. Something’s balanced on her thigh. A piece of board? Her hand moving back and forth over it. Dwirhian’s writing something. You muster the energy to slowly push yourself up, you can feel your hair is a tangled mess atop your head as you emerge further out of the blankets, but you can deal with that later.
In a quiet voice so as to not startle Dwirhian you ask what she’s writing out before you move your hand in slow motions, the tattoos on your arms starting to glow softly. The fresh water in a nearby jar bubbles and moves itself into a kettle on the log burner, where the logs inside instantly sputter out a small flame which starts to heat the kettle. All the while you have managed to slowly shuffle over to Dwirhian and the cushions where you sit down behind her, close enough to lean on her back slightly but not enough to disturb her work.
She leans back against you and tilts her head back to rest against your shoulder. Morning, she says, and you can hear the almost-laughing smile in her voice. Then she sighs a little. It’s a letter, she says. Writing home. About the… about Icy Peak.
Dwirhian told you the story yesterday. Or – no, she told you the facts. It wasn’t like her usual stories, vivid and exciting and funny. It was simple and a little sad. How she and a few others had been hired by researchers at Daring Academy to check out a place in the southern reaches of the Sunset Spine where there were stories of a white dragon a few years back. How the place they were sent was about thirty or forty miles from her home village of Galavir, a place that she’d never visited but was known in the village as the Icy Peak. How an old Galavir story tells of a white dragon who many people over the ages have gone to hunt and many have returned claiming to have killed, but who has never actually seemed to disappear. How, sure enough, when she and the others reached the peak they found signs of recent battle and slaughter – not her own people this time – and in a near-by cave a great white dragon dying of grave wounds. How the dragon, Wasuth, at first mistrusted the group’s assurances that they meant no harm, and told them white dragons would always live at Icy Peak and they would always hunt people and people would always hunt them. How Wasuth, with their last breaths, finally entrusted their son, Phazwahr, to the group to save him from a lonely death in his parent’s absence, and asked them to take him to the dragon who lives amongst them. How the white dragonborn, Anwyn, gently carried the cat-sized wyrmling back to Daring Heights and how, as the group stood pondering how a dragon could be living in the town, Dwirhian had suddenly remembered you mentioning a red-haired ‘dwarf’ who had made the fur on your neck stand on end, and the red-haired dwarf who’d sat quietly in the corner of the room while the Academy researchers had been briefing the group for their mission… And how, yes, it was Kanorax who came and took the little Phazwahr away.
I don’t really know what to tell them, though, she says. You sigh as you consider, your breath tickling the top of her head. Why not the truth you ask, like you told me. Or do you think they’ll not take kindly to the news? I’m not familiar with your home, with Galavir, I’ve never been there you say. But surely they’ll be happy that this cycle of people and dragons being hunted at Icy Peak will be over?
I don’t know if it is over, though, she says. There was something about the way Wasuth said There will always be dragons at Icy Peak. Like they’re drawn to the place somehow, or even created there. I kind of want to tell them to just leave the place alone, leave the dragons alone. But if the dragons come hunting...
She makes a sort of grunt and wriggles, turning sideways to nestle into your shoulder and collar-bone. Stuff is hard! she says, in an exaggerated child-like tone; then, in a more normal, perky voice: Is there tea?
You chuckle at her exclamation, for indeed stuff is hard. Funny you ask, I think a fresh pot has just finished brewing, you say as you wave your hand again in small tight motions. The freshly brewed tea on the on stove swooshes out the kettle and into two clay mugs nearby. Another hand motion, accompanied with some arcane mutterings, and the fire of the log burner snuffs out. You lean over to retrieve the steaming mugs, making sure not to jostle Dwirhian too much in the process and hand her one at your side. The air is filled with comfortable silence as you both take the tentative first sips of hot tea.
I read about dragons for years, not really thinking I would ever meet one. And my tribe only mentioned them as scary stories to stop you going too far into the mountains, so they almost felt more a myth to me than real. I certainly didn’t think I would actually get to meet multiple in my lifetime. You say as you try not to burn your tongue on hot tea, the morning light gradually illuminating the inside of the tent more and more. I wonder if there are more hiding somewhere in Kantas yah know, the mountains do seem full of hidden places after all.
Oh, definitely! says Dwirhian. There's so much out there! Her people have been exploring for hundreds of years, she says, thousands even. There's always more places and people and things. What about your mountains, she asks, shuffling around to face you expectantly. Were they all mapped and known? No surprise dragons?
You consider her question for a moment, casting your memories back a bit. No, no I don’t think they were mapped at all really. My old tribe was at the base of the mountains and certainly trekked all over it, but they saw themselves as guardians of the land, there to protect and maintain the balance. Not necessarily map its secrets. Though...I left when I was very young, maybe they just hadn’t got round to showing me any maps before I was gone.
You smile wide and shrug before adding, though that sounds like there’s lots of mysteries to uncover in my mountains. So maybe there’s plenty of surprise dragons somewhere, or it’s just full of normal firbolgs and giants. Who knows! But one thing’s for certain, there were plenty of flowers to be found near the mountains in the summer months, I would sometimes trek all day and try to find as many as I could.
You’ve always loved flowers, then? she asks.
The excited smile you had turns into something softer as you consider Dwirhian in front of you. Yes... Yes, is the simple answer. But the not so simple one is that my mother showed me their wondrous nature when I was oh so young, it’s one of my first memories walking with her into the nearby forest to find clusters of wildflowers during the summer months. And when she passed, I still went looking every summer, maybe went a little too far away from home sometimes (You wince just slightly at the memories of getting in trouble for those times, but you continue on with your not so simple explanation). And when I had to leave home all on my own and live in this strange world so far and different from what I knew, flowers were all I had to turn to, to keep my days happy, to have something to look forward to tomorrow. But I’m fortunate to say my days certainly have much more in them now than only flowers that make me happy, so much more.
Sighing you look a little sheepish as you say sorry, the not so simple explanation got a bit sad there.
Babe, she says softly as she strokes your many-flowered forearm. Don’t be sorry. I get it, and thank you. For… I don’t know, for letting me hear your sad things. And sharing your happy things.
In a smooth motion Dwirhian stands up, leaning forward to kiss you on the forehead as she rises. How about some breakfast? she asks. I could make pancakes – have you got flour and milk or eggs? Or I brought some fruit from Daring if you like?
You nod enthusiastically, pancakes sound fantastic thank you, everything should be in the chest. Just... mind the large seed in there, you add indicating towards a smallish chest next to the wood burner.
For me it’s stories, says Dwirhian, rummaging in the chest. I mean like you were saying about flowers. Something from home, happy and sad. It’s our whole thing, you know? Wow, that is a big seed isn’t it? But yeah, we go out and travel, explore, have adventures, see beautiful things, meet amazing people, all that kind of thing – and then we come back and we tell each other the stories. That was one of my absolute favourite things: the story-telling, the listening. I got pretty good at it too. Was? You add, has that changed? I think you’re still very good at the story-telling and listening my dear.
Aw, that’s sweet of you, she says in a voice slightly raised to carry over the sound of batter sizzling on the stove-top. And, yeah, ‘is’, I guess. It’s still one of my favourite things, but it’s a bit sad now too. Last time I was home, I’d been away for a pretty long time and when I got back… it was all different. People didn’t want stories any more. It was like they were… afraid, or – or ashamed, or… disgusted… They said it was all fake, our whole culture, thousands of years. They’d stopped wearing lakereed or – or drinking the water… Some had just gone – not gone travelling, I mean gone forever, left the village – my sister… (You hear Dwirhian’s voice cracking a little.) Other people still wanted to tell stories and hear them but it wasn’t like before, they weren’t just enjoying it, it was like they were trying too hard, I don’t know, trying to hold onto something… It used to be so… simple, so nice… Oh thirst, I’m sorry, I’m crying on the pancakes! Here, come and grab these before I ruin them… Sorry, I didn’t think I’d – I haven’t really told anyone about it before…
You swiftly get up, all sleepiness suddenly evaporated, moving the pancakes off the stovetop just as you sweep Dwirhian up in a large hug. Don’t worry about the pancakes right now, and don’t ever apologise for feeling something. Big changes are scary, especially when it’s about something that you thought was a constant in your life. That’s a lot…. a lot. You have every reason to feel not great about it. And you hug her for as long as she wants.
Long moments pass with the slight figure wrapped in your arms, her deep breaths becoming slowly more steady and controlled. Then she rubs her eyes and the back of one wrist and looks up at you. Hello, snowdrop, she says.
Your puzzlement evidently shows on your face, and Dwirhian breaks into a sudden smile that squeezes a final tear from the corner of her eye to roll down one cheek. With a hint of a laugh, she explains: you always make her think of snowdrops. Or the other way round, maybe. Both. Because you brought her that little bunch of them the day of your picnic, and then that evening when she got back to her room she put them in a little vase by the bed and went to sleep, and in the morning when she woke up and looked over at their white heads bending gently down, and it reminded her of being close to you like this, and looking up into your face, and you bending down your head down towards her and your lovely white hair all around like the petals…
With the clarity your expression turns to a bashful smile, wiping away that last tear on Dwirhian’s cheek you stumble slightly on your words hoping your face of happiness, gratitude and awe can speak a bit more for you. But eventually you say that you find that lovely, you find her lovely, and you’d happily be her snowdrop. You tell her you also remember another thing from that date, specifically how it ended. And you lean further down, the snowdrop going in for a kiss.
Several long kisses later, she rests the side of her face against your chest and says, quietly: thank you for… looking after me, I guess. It’s been a few years since anyone did that. Well, she laughs, apart from my mum, I suppose. In her way.
Dwirhian gently pushes herself apart from you with a little sigh. Okay, she says, let me have another go at these pancakes and then I’d better finish writing her that letter.
Big thanks to Soph for co-writing and for their patience during my lengthy spells of not adding to the google doc
