faderift | OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

WHO: All
WHAT: WINTER IS HERE
WHEN: Haring 15-Wintermarch 1
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: You can use this post as an event-style mingle log, or just use it as background information for your RP elsewhere!

It's been a chilly month already, but in mid-Haring the temperature suddenly plummets. One day it's merely cold, and the next morning the Inquisition wakes to frost on the inside of the window panes and an icy draft whistling through every crack in the tower's masonry. Downstairs, the pipes that feed the bathing chambers and the kitchens creak in the walls, loud enough to be heard even out in the courtyard, where they run beneath the stones, and around midday, when the sun has failed to raise the temperature above freezing, a blocked pipe finally gives, cracking open to spill water across the central court and send it running down side passages. The whole area floods several inches deep and almost immediately begins to freeze, presenting at first a gigantic, treacherous slush puddle and, after a few hours, a sheet of sheer ice.

Melting a safe path from door to door and laying down sand or wood to keep it from becoming slick again is a simple enough undertaking, but before the entire courtyard can be thawed, someone appears with ice skates—and that’s a better idea, surely, for at least a few days. Anyone who complains about the frivolity can be assured it’s good exercise, not to mention good training for a force that may have to travel or fight on ice in the future.

Temperatures remain cold enough that even some parts of the harbor begin to freeze, first just at the calmest edges of the shoreline, and then the more protected nooks and crannies of the bay, inlets and the spaces between piers and beneath docks. It snows most days--not real storms, just a couple inches here and there--little enough for the window to blow most of it off the icy plain of the courtyard and other wide open, paved spaces, accumulating on branches and in alleyways, and creating growing drifts in corners and against walls.

After a week or so actual chunks of floating ice begin to fill the narrow channels of the harbor, threatening smaller and less-sturdy vessels, and the situation in the poorer parts of the city begins to grow dire. With the Viscount's blessing, Inquisition teams (particularly mages) are called in to help. Some are assigned to the docks, to clear ice that makes landing and unloading treacherous, others to help escort ships into harbor by melting a path ahead. Others are sent into Lowtown to clear ice and snow and to provide warmth and medical attention where needed. At least one mage is sent with each team, and while many neighborhoods are pleasantly surprised and grateful for the quick work fire glyphs make of cold hearths and frozen streets, a few are unable to overcome their distrust, and refuse the teams entry, determined to take care of their own without the help of dangerous outsiders.

In the last week of the year, a true blizzard strikes, snow falling steadily for more than a day, blanketing the city at least three feet deep. Digging out the Gallows will be a group effort, and most non-essential trips outside the base will be cancelled for a few days until travel is less difficult, while those who reside in the city or elsewhere may be encouraged to stay a night or two in the fortress so they might continue to work without traveling through the storm. But on the first day of Wintermarch the First Day feast goes on as planned, with modest but plentiful food and ale served in the Gallows' dining hall for anyone who wishes to celebrate the new year.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He worries, frets over his apiary, and Galadriel is momentarily enchanted by the sentiment. Snowflakes gather on his hand but it is not cold enough to keep them from melting against his skin. She turns her attention upward and, after a few seconds of companionable silence, he speaks again, smiling blindly at her as he does.

"I am," she replies easily, for it is not untrue. "I have been here only a very short while, but I am not entirely new to these lands."

She draws her cloak around her shoulders a bit more tightly and the wealth of fabric flutters just so in the cold breeze. Her hand is above her heart, even if he cannot see it, and she bends her head forward as she introduces herself.

"I am called Galadriel."

That pulls the rest of Myr's laggard attention around, away from the hives and how unenchanting a melted snowflake is. Couched carefully as the words are, they suggest one thing to him--and of the few things about the Inquisition that remain an uncomplicated joy, meeting rifters is one. Even when they're surly or ill-mannered they're always interesting, and Galadriel hardly seems either.

(Though her name tickles at the back of his mind in a way he can't place, calling to something he hadn't bothered to commit to firm memory. Overheard gossip? A report in passing? A name caught over the crystals when the latest rifters had joined them on the way to Nevarra? But she's not entirely new--)

"Then I'm happy to welcome you to it--precious little as there is that's welcoming about the recent weather," he replies, with a self-deprecating laugh lurking beneath the words. The southerners among them take the snow in stride; perhaps he can learn to as well. (Even if he's quick now to shake beaded water off his hand and tuck it back in his sleeve against the chill wind.) "A pleasure to meet you all the same, serah Galadriel. I'm Myrobalan Shivana."

Lately of Hasmal Circle, he'd been accustomed to saying, but six months is too long for a lately; and how much that might matter to someone from beyond the Fade, he doesn't know. "And forgive me if it's impertinent to ask--but do I understand rightly that you're a rifter who's left and returned?"

"Myrobalan Shivana" she repeats his name and the way the syllables form is strange, they resonate more in Quenya than not, but she strives to match the way he says it. It is something of a challenge to keep her pronunciation from straying, his name is so similar to those she is accustomed to.

"Yes, I am," she confirms and lowers her hand to her side. She watches him for a moment before glancing back up at the sky and the falling snow. "Though the tale is somewhat uninteresting. To my recollection I simply awoke elsewhere...disheveled and out of sorts.

"It is not terribly strange for one of the Eldar to simply lose such spans of time, I have been known to let my attention wander for far longer than a few months, but to appear somewhere else, altogether, is somewhat less normal."

She considers her ring, where it might be and how she might find it, and the darkness that pulls at her thoughts is sobering. She dismisses the topic and turns her attention from the sky again.

"I fear I should dwell on less troubling topics. Please, tell me of your bees and of yourself. It has been too long since I have met someone new in these lands and I am eager to learn of you."

OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

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