2019-12-21 - Whiteout

August had Eleanor over for dinner on the solstice, since it's just as much a day for him to celebrate as any other. This turns out to have been a mistake, because...now she's stuck here.

It's bright once daylight sets in, with the snow reflecting from all angles. That's how August knows it's snowed; he wakes up, and there upstairs of the cabin is much better lit than usual. "Uhoh," he murmurs, and slides out of bed, moving to the windows and sliding back the curtain.

Half a foot, and still coming down. He sighs. He has to get the pens dug out, make sure the animals are warm enough, shovel off the decks. If they're all lucky, Paula Bower, who has the five acre plot where the dirt road meets the forest service road, will fire up her tractor later and plow some of it out, letting Eleanor go home (assuming the highway gets plowed, though it might not--but August could drive her, the Outback can take it).

The Good: If she has to be snowed in, at least she's snowed in with her handsome hunk of a boyfriend. Cuddling for warmth by a wood stove with homemade hot cocoa? Not a terrible concept whatsoever.

The Bad: Being snowed in in the middle of the woods, with no real sense of the rest of the world out there, just the black, bare branches of the trees the only view from any window. It's not the dead forest of her nightmares, but it's close.

The Ugly: Roads will be closed. She makes phone calls to have one of the managers check on the shop, but not open for the day, and lets the scheduled employees know to stay home, stay warm, stay safe.

Eleanor stands at the bedroom window after finishing her calls, wrapped up in August's flannel with sweat pants on just in case they get yanked across to the Other Side again. She stares out at the bright white and the flakes that keep on falling. She may be here a while. Even if they plow out the forest road, the highway will be last on the county's list of sections to clear. They're nowhere important to the state. There are better pathways to Seattle or Olympia than going through Gray Harbor. They're a blip on the map.

She eventually throws on some clothes and heads downstairs to see what August is up to.

The smell of fresh coffee, french toast, and bacon greets Eleanor as she comes downstairs. August is in sweat bottoms and a loose, long-sleeved shirt (both OSU brnaded), and his indoor slippers, puttering around in the kitchen. The woodstove is going, casting out the night's chill. His hair's a sight; he won't shower until after he's cleared the snow. (What would be the point.)

"Hey," he says, smiling as he sees her come down. "Got some breakfast here. I have to go outside and clear the walkways and check on the animals, but that shouldn't take me long. Then we can spend our day inside watching it snow." He's determined to be calm and steady for her, because he knows 'trapped in the snowy woods' is on her top ten list of places to never, ever be.

Eleanor is in a slouchy sweater and jeans with her bunny slippers still on. She's braided her hair back, and looks utterly amused at the sight of August's morning hair. She finds it absolutely adorable in it craziness. "Smells delicious. I could help you out with the chores?" She doesn't want to be alone in the house, or out of the house, or anywhere in these woods. "I closed the shop for the day, I don't want the barista kids driving in this." She slides up onto one of the island stools and props her chin in her hand. "The news reports say this snow isn't stopping for a while. I might be stuck here for a bit."

August looks up from flipping the French toast, thick slices of challah flecked with orange zest, cinnamon, and allspice. He studies Eleanor, taking in the request to help with the chores and transmuting it into what it is: a desire to no be alone. "Absolutely. The goats love you." Is she milking goats? She might be. He smiles, though, because it'll be nice, to have someone to do it with.

He nods about closing the coffee shop, his mouth twitching in a rueful smile. "Gray Harbor weeps. Cy opened the shop, but rescheduled all our appointments for a week out, except emergencies for trees that the snow knocks over. Apparently there's some sort of...snow man building contest in the park, so they all went out and did that."

After a few seconds of cooking, he reluctantly adds, "I can probably get you out if you really need to. Outback's got snow tires, and all." A glance up at her, with a hint of a smile. "But I'm just as happy to keep an eye on you here."

"I'd rather we not take the risk, August," Eleanor states, though she looks worried. "You can drive in it, but many other people can't. And you can't control them out on those roads. Let's just be safe here. I'll be ok." She gives him a small smile, but her eyes are still narrowed with the weight of being trapped out here. His SUV can handle it though. She is not trapped, she's here by choice. That is what she will continue to tell herself.

She gets up to get out plates and utensils for breakfast, setting them out for the two of them and getting herself some coffee. "The goats do like me, even if they aren't nearly as adorable as the demon ones in that Dream that turned me into a cartoon character."

Well, that's a truth August can't deny. "Yeah, snow does have a way of turning most drivers around here into complete idiots." He makes a face, shrugs and pours their coffee. Her mug is white, with crudely drawn strongmen in stark black and a single word: HUNKS. His is a black, alluminum mug with various useful botanicals on it (nightshade, rosemary, Willow, etc.).

He gives her a consternated frown as he adds the coffee mugs to the breakfast bar and starts plating the French toast and bacon. "I'm unclear on how demon goats are cuter than mygoats." Also he doesn't remember the demon goats, because the fever muddled his memories in unflattering ways.

Eleanor sips her coffee and makes a sound of relief at the first taste of hot caffeinated bean water. "They were absolutely adorable. Not that the goats you have aren't adorable, but these were cartoon cute. Like big red eyes and all." She gives him a warmer smile and sets down her cup, "and adorable horns," she makes little curled finger horns at her temples like a total dork.

"As for our drivers, yeah, they aren't used to more than a dusting or a few inches. Sounds like this is not going to be that. I think we have a single plow for the in town roads and who knows when the county will get out to our section of the highways.

"Demon goats," August repeats, tone bland, though he can't help a smile at Eleanor's adorkable nature. He reaches out and taps her nose with one finger, pushes a plate at her. Glass bottle of marionberry and maple syrup join the butter on the breakfast bar, then he comes around to join her at a seat.

"Well hey, we can sit around being warm." He pours some marionberry syrup on his French toast. "And I can show you what I saw from that flower. Maybe we can sort out where it's from, get a bead on this...guy." He makes a face. Is it too much to hope the snow's hampered Peregrine as well? "After chores," he says. "Chores, shower, then the rest."

Eleanor adds a healthy dose of syrup to her french toast before she digs into it. She makes a happy sound as she swallows it down. "Delicious. And that sounds like a plan." Keep her busy, give her something to focus on, that is the best way to stave off any freak-outs over being trapped in the woods.

"I think the flowers themselves might help us to find him. I couldn't recall exactly where I knew it from, but I knew they were from Over There and that they were mind-affecting. Maybe somewhere in my research I have notes about where they are."

August makes a low sound, contemplating the flowers. The botanist in him wonders what effects growing things on the other side has, aside from the one they've already encountered. Or was that the very thing he'd mentioned to Itzhak the other day, imbuement?

"Not sure about the ones from the funeral, but," he gives her a sidelong look, sips from his coffee, "definitely the ones from the wedding. It sounded like he drugged Alexander with more of those, when they had their little...chat." He's mostly done being annoyed at Alexander for that, and settled on relief Alexander was alright, with a side of concern that he thought so little of his own well-being.

Breakfast cleanup doesn't take long, then August throws on some outdoor-chore clothes (older jeans, worn and faded to the point of being soft as fleece; an OSU sweatshirt; heavy duty workboots). He gets the snow shovel out of the storage closet on the back deck, and gets shoveling. There's a second shovel for Eleanor to use--a standard garden spade, but it'll do--and plenty to clear. The air is sharp and bitter compared to the cozy interior of the cabin. The animals mutter, annoyed in their enclosures. Who allowed this?

Ellie dives into the chores with gusto, enjoying the activity and its wonderful distraction from her over-imaginative brain. A brain that is...changing even now. She doesn't intend to do it, but she reaches out with her senses to check on the goats, and she gets back a great deal more information than she expects. August can sense it, the surge in her Glimmer. She's gotten stronger. All those years not using her abilities, and her recent decision to stop running from the Gift has strengthened it.

She stares at the goats, feeling the blood moving through their veins, one has a little ache in one hip and she reaches to rub its flank to help soothe it. She shouldn't be able to sense this keenly. She panics, she reaches out for August's mind, but in her panic she can't find his mind among the others in the area, so many. "AUGUST!?" she shouts, and her shovel goes flying out of the goat pen as she grabs the sides of her head.

August slowly straightens when he first feels Eleanor reaching out to the goats. Not that she's lacked for the art of the mind, but this is different. She's stronger overall, reaching further, sensing more. Drawing in more, too. Too much more, maybe.

Her panic hits him with a sharp pang. He sucks in a shocked breath, drops the snow shovel. He reaches back, forming a link even as he makes his way over the not-yet-shoveled portion of the yard between the goat pen and the chicken and duck pen. He gently pushes the other minds aside with the rushing of a river, the wind through a volcano crater filled with aspen, barren and waiting for spring. <<You're okay, you're okay. I'm right here.>> It takes him a good minute or more to get to her; once he does he yanks off his gloves so he can cover her hands with his. <<Just listen to me.>> To the wind, to the river.

She didn't mean to reach out to the goats, or anyone else. She didn't mean to sense all the hurts, August's are bright pain spots in her Spirit Vision, all the aches and pains the cold is wreaking on his old injuries. When his mind reaches hers, the threads are there in a tangled mess, which coalesce into a ball, and reform into a little red fox. A little red fox who climbs one of the aspens of his mindscape and clings to a branch, shivering in panic. In the real world she just clings to him.

<<What is happening to me? Why can I sense all this?>> She hasn't realized her Glimmer has gotten stronger, but August should be able to tell.

<<It's okay. It's okay.>> August pulls Eleanor close, wraps her up in a hug, tucks her head under his chin. He grimaces as she feels all these old aches he's been carrying around for decades, the ones he doesn't think on much because he only notices them on the occasions he can really get them to abate. Maybe it's not a wonder he looks so tired in winter.

He strokes her hair. <<You're okay. I'm right here. We're right here.>> He radiates calm, not just to her but to the animals as well, and gradually they all go back to their routines. Except the goat Eleanor was soothing; that one nudges her in reassurance.

The wind in the link blows sharper, rippling the surface of the caldera lake. Ash and dust slowly swirl and coalesce at the foot of the tree into a large, dark shape: a bull elk. It's not just an elk, since the black of its body is raven feathers, and its antlers are great, woody branches bound with vines, brambles, and flowers, with roots dangling from them. It moves to stand at the base of the aspen where the fox has fled, tilts its head to look up.

<<You're stronger, I think.>> August tilts his head back, looks at Eleanor a moment. <<Brighter.>> It's hard for him to give her a proper comparison; all his memories of her are bright. But there's a distinct difference Eleanor herself can perhaps see: in some, she's lit with Glimmer, but now, she shines like a bonfire.

For a moment the coalescing of the antlered creature makes the fox yip in panic and scramble higher in the barren branches. But then it's him, it's August, and he is safety. Ellie-fox picks her way down again carefully, to the ground and sits near the massive raven-elk. Her fur is the color of her hair in the real world, her eyes that same vibrant green.

<<Stronger. That...makes sense. I've been using the Glimmer more than I have in decades. I guess it may be like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Or maybe I was just suppressing it all this time, somehow.>>

The ravenelk waits, patient and still, for the fox to recognize it. Even once the fox has come down, it stays put, waiting to be approached. An orb weaver spider spins her delicate web between two branch-antlers. <<I think so. Or it's like a plant that's been hibernating, a rhizome that was sleeping. You've brought it out where it can grow. So it is.>>

He kisses her forehead. <<Let's finish up out here. Then we can go in, curl up by the stove. Maybe practice a little, if you want.>> The goat lips at Eleanor's jeans for emphasis. Yes, finish out here! The ducks and chickens have enjoyed their hour or so in the snow, and the novelty has worn off; they're all back to milling around in their shed and coop. The geese are still enjoying themselves, honking at one another and splashing in their frigid pool, but August can round them up easily enough.

Ellie-fox looks down at herself and her floofy tail whips back and forth. <<Well this is new, at least. Reaction to your mind environment maybe?>> she offers. She concentrates and brings herself out of that world and back into the real one. "Right, finish up and go inside." She lets out a breath and reaches to pet the goat. "Poor thing. He has a sore hip." She's still not strong enough in Spirit to fix it, but she can feel it. "And you need a hot bath," she notes to August. She can feel all his aches too.

The elk dips its head to sniff at the fox. <<I'm finding that as I interact with more people like this, we influence one another in subtle ways.>> There's a suggestion this is thanks to Ruiz.

August lets the link drift between them, returns his full attention to the here and now. The snow's still coming down. "Yeah, he was a rescue. Someone found him wandering in a culvert. Not sure how he got down there." He smiles at the notion of a bath. "Well that's always true. I could just live in a hottub at this point." He squeezes Eleanor, reluctantly pulls away so he can get finished.

It's debatable whether shoveling a path is worth while, but August does it anyways, making a direct series of safe routes between the pens and the back deck. He also clears out the open areas of the pens, knowing that he can't let the snow build up too much. Once everyone is attended to and fed, it's time to head back inside. August is looking forward to a soak.

"I'm thinking of getting one put in at my house in the Spring. I know the maintenance is a pain but I can pay someone to do that for me," Eleanor points out. Benefits of owning a successful business. She digs into the snow with renewed energy now, maybe using her Physical gift just a little to help lift the loaded shovelfuls.

When they're back inside she stamps the snow off her boots, unwinds her scarf, doffs her hat, and stands in front of the wood stove to warm her hands.

August pauses a moment to survey their handiwork, taking in the crude paths that the storm is already trying to cover back up. The animals have had a couple of hours out to exercise, which was plenty given the temperatures, and now they're back to keeping warm and nibbling on their breakfasts. Later August will let them out, before sunset.

For now, he comes back in, stomping off snow and getting his coat and boots pulled off in the entrance. He joins Eleanor at the woodstove, sighing gratefully as the warmth seeps into his bones. He slips an arm around her, leans into her. They don't have to get right to the bath, of course. His nest of pillows and blankets is right there, and all... He makes no move either way, though, content to be best Eleanor and ponder her Art's new facets. "What all can you sense now," he asks, voice low, eyes on the fire behind the glass.

"I can sense injuries; I didn't used to be able to do that. And I could feel minds much further away. I feel like I can lift more with my mind too." Eleanor seems mystified at how much has been unlocked for her. "It feels like it was there for a while, but I didn't have the juice to power those things, maybe? I don't know. Different for everyone I suspect." She gives him a tight smile. She knows this makes her more attractive to Them. But it also makes her stronger in the fight against Them.

August makes a low sound, moves to settle in the pile of blankets and pillows. It's a cozy little nest he's made for himself, ideal for curling up in with a book and a cup of something, or a lover.

He holds out a hand to her, inviting her to join him. "Here. Let's try something like we did last time." When he'd showed her what he saw work the shaping sense; the way everything was made of rivers and motes of light. "Only this time, you show me."

Eleanor lets herself be pulled down into the little nest and she curls up against August, soaking in his warmth. They both need a shower, but she doesn't care. He smells like him. She closes her eyes and lets him in to how she sees things with her Glimmer. Those threads, everything is connected with threads. The cabin has bright and dark threads running through it, bright connected to August, to the kitchen, to this nest, to the bedroom upstairs, to the futon, to the reading nook, where they spend time together or make happy memories. Darker threads, where bad things are, the mirror in the bathroom, a particularly reflective window, a spot where the view outside has trees that resemble the twisted shape of Modr.

Outside the threads splay more broadly, and more numerously, weaving themselves into patterns that explain, for her, what things are. The geese, a shield shape, the defenders, the alarm. The goats warm and surrounded by love. The aspens planted after Gohl, surrounded by woven threads to protect them. The lifesense pulses in the shape of the threads, almost like veins, but backing away, they all form parts of a greater Weave, a tapestry of life.

They definitely need to shower, but August doesn't mind the smell of work sweat just now. It's over the smell of the two of them, a personal favorite, so he can deal for a bit.

He strokes Eleanor's hair, eyes drifting shut as she shows him what she sees now. The link coalesces between them again, and her vision fills the sky over the landscape of volcano crater, lake, river, meadow. There's a forest here too, Eleanor can sense it, but August has made it peripheral to keep from distracting or upsetting her. Instead, beyond stretches the ruined side where the eruption spilled out and devastated the landscape, leaving a scar.

<<Stronger, definitely. You're sensing things more finitely.>> She feels the tell tale tingle up her spine of him considering her Art more closely. Then he shows her: a great web of light and life, which rushes inward until she sees three sun's orbiting one another in a complex dance. One is slightly smaller than the other two. <<Stronger Gifts too. You're growing.>> Like a plant grows when given what it needs to do so.

<<I don't know whether to be thrilled that I'm getting stronger, or terrified that They will just pay me more attention for it.>> Eleanor is torn between being better equipped for war, and being an easier to find target in the battle.

In the landscape of his mind, the threads alter, and become roots, more fitting to the setting. They snake over and touch every part they pass, setting down foundations, becoming a part of the landscape, learning it, growing in it.

August considers that. On the one hand, he suspects his largest growth spurt in the Art, such as it was, came in Bosnia, probably the worst place it could have. And his most recent one involved burning Itzhak's hand. His only experiences with this are bad.

Yet, <<I suppose if you're going to hang around with me, might be better to be stronger than not.>> Still some lingering reluctance to pull her into his orbit, where he's constantly putting himself out there for Them to see. He can't not be what he is, not anymore, even if what he is, is someone destined to be going head to head with Them on the regular.

The roots that she settles into his mindscape dispel some of his misgivings. The landscape alters subtly; beyond the mudflow and silent, dark lake with its trunk-littered shores there's something in the distance now.

<<Hanging around with you has lots of benefits, it's not all Oh God we're in a Dream again and why am I naked!?>> Eleanor's thoughts are amused but they sober a bit. <<You're right though. It's like standing beside a lighthouse. Itzhak too. They're always looking your way.>>

She sends her roots out towards that new area, exploring as the real woman curls in his arms in front of the wood stove and thaws out from shoveling.

<<Sorry.>> August does sound properly contrite, even if he also has no intentions of stopping. The ravenelk comes walking out along the old, hardened ash and mud, picking its way down the slope. Unlike the waters in the caldera, which are clear (if sterile), the water of this lower lake is dark and murky. The ravenelk is careful not to step into it as it skirts the shore.

The far distance coalesces. There's a sense this might be outside the borders of August's own mindscape and into either Eleanor's or something else that's sprung up here. Dark, tangled shapes resolve into the twisted expanse of a ruined forest. This isn't like the remains closer to the volcano, where fire and ash left nothing but barren, blackened sticks; these trees have branches, but they're gnarled and warped. They've grown in tortured shapes.

<<I'm not...sure what this is.>> August's mindvoice is quiet, like he's concerned about being heard. <<I don't think this is me.>>

The little fox coalesces to trot beside the elk, the Vixen with a pelt like sunset. She takes careful steps, avoiding what the ravenelk does, and then slows her velvet soft steps when the further reaches begin to take shape.

<<It's not you. I think it's...Him. Or my projection of his woods.>> She bristles, a low growl in her throat, and she backs away. <<We shouldn't go there. It's not safe.>>

A shiver of fierce protectiveness works its way through the link. He can come get some. August is fully prepared to show anything with its sights on hurting Ellie a thing or two.

Easy enough to feel, of course, safe and warm in the cabin, curled up together by the woodstove. But even the ravenelk snorts, annoyed, stamps a hoof, sending up a cloud of ash and dust.

Something wings its way through the branches, lands on a tree at the edge of this new space. A crow with bone white feathers, it's beak and claws dripping a black, viscous fluid, its eyes a dull, ugly orange brown.

It caws once, and in that sound the fox hears a name: Addie.

There is a whimper from the fox, and then Ellie snaps out of the link, whimpering in the real world. She shivers against August, eyes wide, and her fingers curled into the front of his sweater in claw like rigidity. "He's found me."

Another crow flies up to the tree, lands in a higher branch. Addie, it croaks.

Then another. And another. Soon there's a dozen of them, muttering the name over and over. Addie. Addie. Addie. Their voices drown out the fox's whimpering.

Eleanor breaks the link, and August flinches in surprise as he crashes back into reality. He curls up around Eleanor. "It's okay," he says into her hair. He's trembling with adrenaline, not all of it his own. "It'll be okay. You're not a little girl this time, and you've got me. If he comes for you he's in for a big fucking surprise." He tries not to hold onto her too tight, but instinct makes him want to cling fiercely.

Eleanor has no such restraint in the fierce clinging department. Her fear is guttural, primitive, instinctive. It's a child's fear rearing its ugly head inside of an adult. "If we're going to face him, we have to prepare. I'm not ready yet. Not yet." She better be soon though, because her strengthening Glimmer has clearly helped it find her.

"We will. We will." August murmurs it against her hair, kisses her temple, her jaw, her neck. He buries his face there, breath warm, and shudders. This is her demon to face. He knows that she has to be the one to face it, the same way he has to be the one to face his. He can offer help, be there by her side, but in the end, she'll have to be the one to grapple with it. And God, he's terrified. "You'll be ready. We'll make sure. You can...you can stop him. I know you can." It's not just her he's trying to convince.

Another shudder, this one from a different source. He clenches his teeth; fear's making him more than just protective, it's also making him feel a little possessive. And here she is, clinging to him, digging in her fingers.

He sighs against her skin, kisses her throat, slow and lingering this time. It's as much a question as it is a gesture meant to calm her.

Eleanor is almost catatonic for a few long moments, as her brain begins planning how to prepare to face her childhood nightmare. There are things she needs to learn, things she needs to research, things she needs to....oh hello there.

August's lips on her throat make something in her wake up and she makes a quiet sound. "Let's go take a shower," she murmurs, kissing the top of his head. The answer is apparently a yes.

August makes a low sound of agreement for the shower. He's slow to get up, not wanting to let go of her. Is it still here, that shadowy forest, waiting to grab her the second he lets go? Will crows made of bone and tar snatch her up in their ugly, dripping claws as soon as he's out of sight?

He makes himself stop thinking about it. They're in the cabin. This is sanctuary, this is a place that thing and the crows can't come. They're safe here. For now.

He stands, offers a hand to pull her up. He doesn't head for the shower right away, though; he strokes her face, looks her in the eyes. He wants to say something, something that'll make her feel brave and capable, dispel the decades old terror and replace it with resolve and certainty, or at least their beginnings. He can't think of anything, so he settles for kissing her forehead.

She knows. She knows there are no words that can comfort or even encapsulate the situation. Nothing about it is normal in the realm of human language. The kiss to her forehead, though, is reassurance enough. This is a safe place. Nothing can hurt her inside this cabin, which is too full of love and happiness for anything from Over There to be able to breach the walls. Hopefully. Eleanor rests her head on his shoulder for a long moment, until they finally, silently, head for the bathroom.