Winter Schnee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
specialist_snowflake) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
genessia2018-01-03 09:13 pm
specialist_snowflake) wrote in genessia2018-01-03 09:13 pm
Entry tags:
We Come From the Land of the Ice and Snow
WHO: Qrow Branwen, Spock, Winter Schnee
WHAT: The blizzard has struck Fayren! It doesn't seem to hamper Winter and her duties, however. On her return from her patrols at the castle, she comes across something unusual, and brings it home where Spock has taken refuge from the storm.
WHEN: January 3rd, 2018
WHERE: Fayren - Winter's Quarters
Winter was not inhuman. Nor did she have any special elemental affinity with ice that would have rendered her immune to the chill of January snow. Being a resident of a kingdom that was almost perpetually cloaked in ice did make her far more tolerant of the cold, however. As a specialist, she spent a lot of time roaming the wilderness in raw, rough weather with little in the way of supplies. As such?
The blizzard wasn't about to slow her down in the slightest, and neither would it detain her from carrying out her duties.
The same couldn't be said for many of the guards, which made for long shifts. She would have to speak with the king about this matter later, for surely they should arrange more martial quarters for soldiers should the realm be afflicted with harsh weather conditions in the future. Two intruders were brazen enough to think that the decreased number of guards would provide them with the perfect opportunity to commit their unsavory crimes. Unfortunately for them, fewer guards meant more Winter patrols. They were both shivering in the dungeon now along with that accursed ice-loving mage she'd taken into custody with Metal Man's assistance. He alone made visits to the dungeon less than ideal, for the man could not seem to tolerate silence and there was no one he loved to talk to more than the woman who'd put him in chains to begin with.
When she departed the castle to return home, she stepped into a bone-chilling gale that nearly swept the hood from her head. It was almost pleasant in its familiarity, the howling whistles and deep rumbles a far better companion than the needling words of bored spellcasters. She crossed the drawbridge with a brisk, easy stride as the winds clutched and flapped at her fur-trimmed coat. Once she was safely across and the castle secured once more, she set out for home.
The glyphs that made it possible for Winter to sprint up walls made snow travel a piece of cake. She kept the sigils small, erasing them as she went, without leaving so much as a dimple of her passing in the thick drifts of snow. She moved with long, gliding steps, always keeping a gloved hand resting on the pommel of her saber, always keeping her sharp blue eyes focused and sweeping over her surroundings. Most humans would not be foolish enough to practice thuggery in this weather, but there were certainly creatures who would take advantage of the situation: trolls, frost giants, ice ogres, rime fae -- just to name a few.
It was during one of these cursory surveys that she spotted the brief shift of movement at the base of a skeletal tree. It was just a small lump in the snow, barely noticeable, but the placement was a little too odd for her to write it off as a root. Something was alive over there. Winter's eyes narrowed, and she deviated from her course to investigate. She exchanged the white glyph for black to hold her steady as she knelt next to the base of the tree and brushed away some of the frozen white clumps, uncovering...a bird. A black bird. The fool thing must have tried to fly in these fierce winds and lost control. Winter dusted away more of the snow until she could pick it up. It stirred weakly, assuring her that it was still alive. Something about this bird...
Hm.
Rising to her feet, she secured the crow within her coat and crossed her left arm over its feathered back to keep it close. She wasn't particularly thrilled with the idea of caring for a crow over the next few days, but she would have been less thrilled to leave it to freeze and die. It had better appreciate this.
* * * * *
Elven magic seemed to keep the worst of the storm at bay. The winds were far less vicious within the general vicinity of the Oak Gardens, and the heat from the underground hot springs made the fields of snow more shallow. Under ordinary circumstances there would be nothing white on the ground at all, but as it was coming in faster than the geothermal heat could melt it, everything was blanketed in at least a few inches of snow.
Winter rapped twice to alert Spock that she would be coming in, and to brace himself against the cold breeze that rattled into her quarters when the door opened. But once the door was shut behind her, it took very little time for the heat of the crackling fire in the hearth to drive away the cold. Rather than shedding her coat, Winter instead crossed the living room with the crow cradled in her elbow, moved into the hallway, and drew a fluffy blue towel from the linen closet to swaddle the bird before setting it on the mantle like some strange, kitschy decoration.
She hoped there was tea.
"Greetings," she finally spoke, loosening the sash at her waist before fully unzipping the coat and shedding it from her slim shoulders. "I trust you had ample opportunities to occupy yourself while I was away?" Winter was aware that her apartment was somewhat sparse, and had therefore taken the liberty of borrowing a few tomes about different practices of magic from the castle library for him to read while she was away.
WHAT: The blizzard has struck Fayren! It doesn't seem to hamper Winter and her duties, however. On her return from her patrols at the castle, she comes across something unusual, and brings it home where Spock has taken refuge from the storm.
WHEN: January 3rd, 2018
WHERE: Fayren - Winter's Quarters
Winter was not inhuman. Nor did she have any special elemental affinity with ice that would have rendered her immune to the chill of January snow. Being a resident of a kingdom that was almost perpetually cloaked in ice did make her far more tolerant of the cold, however. As a specialist, she spent a lot of time roaming the wilderness in raw, rough weather with little in the way of supplies. As such?
The blizzard wasn't about to slow her down in the slightest, and neither would it detain her from carrying out her duties.
The same couldn't be said for many of the guards, which made for long shifts. She would have to speak with the king about this matter later, for surely they should arrange more martial quarters for soldiers should the realm be afflicted with harsh weather conditions in the future. Two intruders were brazen enough to think that the decreased number of guards would provide them with the perfect opportunity to commit their unsavory crimes. Unfortunately for them, fewer guards meant more Winter patrols. They were both shivering in the dungeon now along with that accursed ice-loving mage she'd taken into custody with Metal Man's assistance. He alone made visits to the dungeon less than ideal, for the man could not seem to tolerate silence and there was no one he loved to talk to more than the woman who'd put him in chains to begin with.
When she departed the castle to return home, she stepped into a bone-chilling gale that nearly swept the hood from her head. It was almost pleasant in its familiarity, the howling whistles and deep rumbles a far better companion than the needling words of bored spellcasters. She crossed the drawbridge with a brisk, easy stride as the winds clutched and flapped at her fur-trimmed coat. Once she was safely across and the castle secured once more, she set out for home.
The glyphs that made it possible for Winter to sprint up walls made snow travel a piece of cake. She kept the sigils small, erasing them as she went, without leaving so much as a dimple of her passing in the thick drifts of snow. She moved with long, gliding steps, always keeping a gloved hand resting on the pommel of her saber, always keeping her sharp blue eyes focused and sweeping over her surroundings. Most humans would not be foolish enough to practice thuggery in this weather, but there were certainly creatures who would take advantage of the situation: trolls, frost giants, ice ogres, rime fae -- just to name a few.
It was during one of these cursory surveys that she spotted the brief shift of movement at the base of a skeletal tree. It was just a small lump in the snow, barely noticeable, but the placement was a little too odd for her to write it off as a root. Something was alive over there. Winter's eyes narrowed, and she deviated from her course to investigate. She exchanged the white glyph for black to hold her steady as she knelt next to the base of the tree and brushed away some of the frozen white clumps, uncovering...a bird. A black bird. The fool thing must have tried to fly in these fierce winds and lost control. Winter dusted away more of the snow until she could pick it up. It stirred weakly, assuring her that it was still alive. Something about this bird...
Hm.
Rising to her feet, she secured the crow within her coat and crossed her left arm over its feathered back to keep it close. She wasn't particularly thrilled with the idea of caring for a crow over the next few days, but she would have been less thrilled to leave it to freeze and die. It had better appreciate this.
Elven magic seemed to keep the worst of the storm at bay. The winds were far less vicious within the general vicinity of the Oak Gardens, and the heat from the underground hot springs made the fields of snow more shallow. Under ordinary circumstances there would be nothing white on the ground at all, but as it was coming in faster than the geothermal heat could melt it, everything was blanketed in at least a few inches of snow.
Winter rapped twice to alert Spock that she would be coming in, and to brace himself against the cold breeze that rattled into her quarters when the door opened. But once the door was shut behind her, it took very little time for the heat of the crackling fire in the hearth to drive away the cold. Rather than shedding her coat, Winter instead crossed the living room with the crow cradled in her elbow, moved into the hallway, and drew a fluffy blue towel from the linen closet to swaddle the bird before setting it on the mantle like some strange, kitschy decoration.
She hoped there was tea.
"Greetings," she finally spoke, loosening the sash at her waist before fully unzipping the coat and shedding it from her slim shoulders. "I trust you had ample opportunities to occupy yourself while I was away?" Winter was aware that her apartment was somewhat sparse, and had therefore taken the liberty of borrowing a few tomes about different practices of magic from the castle library for him to read while she was away.
no subject
This blizzard, Fayren was determined to prove him wrong.
The first run-in with a group of bandits in the forest had been easy enough to deal with, but the ice ogres that accompanied him had had him quickly outmanned. They were simply too strong in this weather, invigorated by it where he had been weakened. He had taken to wing lest he end up injured in the middle of a blizzard, stuck calling for help. Neither Winter nor Yang would ever let him forget it.
Too bad that crows were even less suited to brave a snow storm than humans were. In the end he spent his last strength to make it to the feeble shelter a tree granted him, feathers puffed up to provide him with what little warmth there was to be had. If he could just regain his strength faster than the cold was sapping it out of him, if he could just wait for his aura to be replenished, he would be fine, but for now there was just a cold and miserable daze.
One from which the least likely of saviors would rescue him, it turned out.
By the time his sluggish mind felt alert again, he found himself in what had to be Winter's apartment, placed on the mantle like an ornament in a bed of soft fabric. She was talking to someone, too.
He cawed experimentally, fluffing his feathers weakly. Half-molten snowflakes fell off his feathers and he pecked at the cloth.
Rescued by Winter Schnee like a birdy damsel in distress. Well, now he was thoroughly stuck as a bird, wasn't he?
/tries to enter quietly KNOCKS EVERYTHING OVER
Never one to miss a day of work, blizzard be damned, Winter had went over to the castle in the morning for her shift. Spock had made himself as unobtrusively at home as possible, spending the day reading a couple of the texts Winter had provided with a meditation break at some point. As the day grew later, he went into the kitchen to prepare some tea for Winter and him to share when she arrived back. By his calculations, it would be done right around the time she should walk through the door.
As it turned out, he had timed the tea perfectly as it was steeped to perfection when she opened the door. He removed the strainer and poured two cups for them to indulge in before going to meet her, giving a nod at her query.
"The tomes you picked up were quite enlightening. I was unaware just how extensive the scientific findings of magic are." It was a pleasant surprise, really. Made it much easier for him to comprehend, and every bit of knowledge he could gather is another step towards understanding this place.
He opens his mouth to announce the tea he's brought over when he hears a strange squawking noise. A slight frown takes over as he turns to the source.
"You brought home a bird."
It's one hundred percent a statement, but the question is evident. Why the hell was there a bird in the house?