2021-12-03 - Once upon a midday clear

There's a brisk knocking on Ravn's doorway just after breakfast time. It's Gail. She's got a hat on her head and is followed by two people that look like they forgot which century they belong in. The woman is firmly pregnant and holds onto the man's shoulders tightly. Gail looks very expectant and when the door opens she nods firmly. "Good, I had so hoped that those around would be pulled in also. Mary," turning to look at the pair, "This is Inn Keeper Ravn."

Why yes, Mary and Joseph ARE standing on Ravn's doorstep, hello Gray Harbor.

It speaks to Ravn's credit that his very first thought is, where's the donkey? A man should be kind to animals, after all.

His second, what the everloving fuck?

His third, wait, is this supposed to happen, I'm not even Jewish?

Maybe now is not the time to worry about the church founding fathers of Nicea in 300-something, Ravn. Or the fact that you haven't been to church except a few times the last decade -- and both times were to look for clues to local mysteries, not to worship. Nor the fact that it was a Catholic church and he's supposedly a Lutheran and just shut up, brain, because these two have never heard of either.

Play along. The only way out is through. And if this is not a dream, then the world has a few interesting days coming.

"Uh," is his first, very intelligent response. His second, "Let me find out if we have any vacant rooms for your -- friends." After all, if this dream is going to insist hard enough on the narrative, then the bedrooms are going to be occupied and the garage stand in for the manger. Right?

Oh it's okay Ravn, the donkey is there. It just happens to be penned up firmly behind Gail's picket fence and is currently trying to find some not-dead grass under the light dusting of snow upon the ground.

Never mind that there wouldn't have been snow on the ground mid-year when Mary ACTUALLY had her baby. This is Gray Harbor. It'll do what it WANTS.

Gail beams at Ravn for picking things up so quickly. An arm goes to rest over the woman's shoulder's lovingly and ushers both Joseph and Mary into the house. "I am sure that Mr. Abildgaard will be able to find proper accommodations for the pair of you. Such a shame my granddaughter just moved in, though she is a lovely young lady. My sofa just isn't right for you though, we'll have to find something better."

Ravn quickly heads upstairs; he knows this story -- who doesn't know this story, no, seriously, who the hell does not know at least the basics of this story, they built like, three world religions on it, okay, maybe just two since the third doesn't recognise the main character as the Messiah, and I am not panicking, nope.

Yes, the spare bedroom is not empty. Figures. Or rather, the hallway isn't. He didn't think it would be. U-turn on the stairs, back down.

"Whyyyy don't Mrs Leigh put on some coffee for water while I tell Decurion Ponte Vecchio up there that his men will have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight, mm?" The Dane attempts to guide his guests towards the open kitchen / living room area. "If you plunder the cupboard there's various things to eat too that don't require much preparation. I will go -- dust off my Latin, yes."

Just then Mary lets out a groan - because this wouldn't be Gray Harbor if she didn't, and Joseph catches onto her elbow looking altogether like HE might just faint too. "No time for that, I believe some hot water and towels will be sufficient. Come now, let's go to the front room."

Gail leads the way towards the front room, just riding right over everything that Ravn said just then. If Ravn hesitates she'll repeat, "Come come. It will be nice for Joseph to have someone to chatter to as we ladies work."

Who's Ravn to argue? Not a midwife, that's who. The Roman soldiers, figment of his imagination or not, will have wait -- or approach, and run the risk of being drafted into helping. He takes a deep breath to steady his anxieties -- is she going to give birth right here on the floor?. "Perhaps you'd better get her into my room, there is a bed at least? Over there."

A sympathetic look to Joseph. "I don't suppose you'd care for a strong drink?"

"No, no, the sofa will be just fine," Gail casts back over her shoulder. Hopefully the pair of them trail along behind as they walk into the living room - scratch that - barn. There are cows nestled up to their chest in pillows. Mother lambs and their babies rest on the opposite side - well, mama's resting, the baby is looking for anything at all it can chew. All in all, it's a scene of bliss.

Except for Mary and Joseph. Gail guides Mary to the couch and helps her down.

Joseph lingers by Ravn, not an iota of blood in his face. "I... I... what if something happens to the baby? It's not mine - but, well, it's a baby." Spare a moment of pity please, Joseph is a virgin too.

"The baby will be fine," Ravn says and wonders for a moment how he can sound so confident; then he remembers why -- he knows this story, and as far as that story goes, nothing short of the baby's actual father will be able to put an scratch on it. He manages a wry smile for the other man. "Let's do our best to not get in their way, shall we? Do they have Scotch where you're from?"

Date wine, more likely. Whatever.

Also, this dream better clean up the living room when it's done. Ravn knows very well what cows and sheep leave behind and he does not want to find any of it in the carpet tomorrow.

"JOSEPH!" Mary yells, holding out her hand for her husband. Poor Ravn's not going to be able to drag him away, but Joseph DOES have time to say, "I, ah," which is basically yes in confused man words.

Gail settles the pillows in their proper arrangement then examines the scene once. "Something is missing...." She taps her toe as her eyes dance about the room considering what the story needs. That's when the doorbell rings. "Oh drat it, they're early. They can't come in till the baby is born. Men, always with the worst timing."

"Worst case scenario, I'll work out 'these three rich men are smuggling something' in Latin and tell the boys upstairs," Ravn murmurs. "That ought to delay them a little."

He still pads over to answer the door. But first he takes a deep breath. Delay tactics. Right. Timing. Men. They suck. Then he slams the door open and shouts into what he hopes is the face of a Wise Man from the East: "Thank you, I already gave at the office!"

Poor Ravn.... it's not a wise man. Instead he's yelling into the face of a group of several boys and two older grandfather-types. At their feet are a group of lambs and one decides without prompting that Ravn's shoe looks AMAZING. If he doesn't move it quick it'll get nibbled on. "Ah, but, sir," a boy says, twisting about his hands, "Them angels came and said we should come be seeing the Son of God."

Back in the living room the birth is going QUITE FINE. This is Jesus, so anything going wrong is ~quite~ out of the question. Mary isn't even yelling a lot, though Joseph's face is pale.

"Oh. Oh, that's all right, then." Ravn admits his defeat -- and glances up at the twinkling star that is definitely a hell of a lot bigger and a hell of a lot more existing than it ought to be. "I guess you guys better come in and have a cup of coffee. The Son of God is not quite ready to receive visitors yet but from the sound of it, his mother is dilating nicely."

Pause. "Could we leave the lambs outside th-- "

Too late.

Yep. Too late. The lambs SWARM into Ravn's house, and unlike the people, they aren't about to be dissuaded from seeing the Son of God. They stream towards the living room, and Joseph's call of, "What in the -" is cut off by a gasp from Mary and Gail's voice saying, "There now, that wasn't too bad, now was it?"

The shepherds are more polite, and follow Ravn towards the kitchen and the coffee. One older man twists his hands upon his crook. "Was quite a sight. Just sitting there, minding our business, when angels start singing. Thought I'd gone around the bend for a bit. Is it... is it really the Lord?" He has such anxious hope in his weather beaten features.

Ravn reaches up to run a slender hand through his copper mop. "Well. Uh. I think so. They certainly think so. And I suppose angels appearing to say so is a pretty convincing argument, too."

The historian in him wonders if the angels in the field appeared like winged ladies with floating discs of light over their heads -- or Biblical angels, wheels of fire with a thousand eyes, entities with four faces, and whatnot. The man in front of him isn't gibbering like he just had tea with Cthulhu, so the former is probably more likely.

"So, let me get you blokes a beer while they, uh, get God washed and swathed, right?" The only neighbour who's going to believe this story is right there.

It's usually a concerning sign when the baby doesn't scream and cry - but the Bible and songs of the season are quite clear about this. No crying he makes~

Joseph looks utterly shocked by what he saw upon walking into the kitchen. His eyes blink as he realizes there are people here and stutters, "Ah.... the old woman wants towels?" He stands there like he's just not at all sure about what to do now.

"Yes, sir." The Shepard says to Ravn with feeling, "Never thought a poor one like me would be seeing angels, but that means there's hope."

Oh, and right on time there goes the doorbell again. "Ravn dear!" Gail calls, "That should be the Wise Men."

"Second cupboard," Ravn advises Joseph; towels, dish rags, same deal -- Aidan buys the fluffiest dish towels anyhow. Then he heads to the door to pull it open yet again.

What were those guys called again? Hell if he can remember. But there they are -- Balthasar and, uh, the two other guys. "You're late," the Dane informs them. "Or early, I'm not sure. Either way, come on in -- mind the lambs. Beer?"

Joseph gets the towels and goes back to the living room. There are nice domestic sounds there along with the sound of the the animals mooooing.

At the doorway there are some very dark men - Kings in fact - from lands far far away. They don't understand a word that Ravn says (because why would the dream make this easy?) but they come in and take up the beers that they are presented. One keeps trying to hand over his box to Ravn, assuming that this dude must be the person the gold is designated for.

If Ravn was still a thief, he might have considered keeping gold, myrrh and frankincense. As it happens, though, he's not in financial distress, wouldn't know where to fence at least two of those, and while he is hardly a devoted believer, he also has a nagging suspicion that screwing with Jesus' buddies might not be the best plan for a long and prosperous future. He has no doubt that this all is not the real thing -- the Veil created this scene for God only knows what reason (pun intended). These are absolutely not the real deal -- and as such, he doesn't feel particularly blasphemous in being a bit casual about it all.

The Veil has the power to edit reality, though. And that means doing something off script that would invoke divine wrath would be really, really stupid -- since the Veil has the power to make divine wrath absolutely, definitely real as far as his backside is concerned. Gold, myrrh, and frankincense gets to sit on the dining room table for now, for his guests to pick up on their way out. In the meantime, Ravn is going to have a cold one with Balthasar, Melchior, and he'll be damned if he can remember the name of the last guy.

The baby god born next door is very human, and his mother more so. It takes some time to get things in the living room situated for guests. More than once they hear Gail telling an animal that something that made it into their mouth shouldn't have and to put it down.

Sorry Ravn. Sorry Aiden.

The three kings sit in chairs and try to converse with their hands. The unnamed king is either asking, "What is in this coffee" or "I want to kill you with this mug." Hopefully the first one. The sheep boys off to the side are nervous about the royalty and the moment one of them starts to whisper the grandpa types hush them, shooting looks at the king.

Finally Gail comes out and does just a hint of a courtesy. Not far, because her hip doesn't like that movement. "They are read-" and she presses her back against the doorjam to get out of the way of the bodies that go to slam past her.

Ravn remains in his seat and tries really, really hard to not laugh out loud. He's pretty certain that Veil made or not, laughing at Jesus is a bad career move -- but really, that just looked absolutely hilarious. And so does that goat happily chewing up the remains of his leather jacket. Oh well. It was kind of ruined anyhow.

"This is fantastic and absurd and hilarious," he tells Gail, still biting back tears of laughter. "And you have very obviously seen something like this happen a hundred times before. I guess it comes with being a native. At least no one is trying to kill us all if they stick to the script, eh?"

Yanno, except the Romans, out to kill every male child born this night, something, something.

An exhausted Gail sits down at the table. A napkin is taken up for her to dab at her shoulder. "Yes, Mary and Joseph often show up about this time of year - when this ends I expect I'll need some help bringing them back to the yard. My Ronny always swore it was the neighborhoods playing pranks that we had to reposition them yearly. No matter how he found to secure them." Fondness infuses the words as Gail speaks of her deceased husband.

"I believe it's the veil's way of trying to test my faith - but the miracle of seeing a baby born?" Gail shakes her head slowly, "It is worth any trial. What is faith without adversity?" Why yes, Gail does go to church every Sunday, prays every night, and will say 'god bless' as easily as breathing. Nothing the Veil has thrown about has caused her to be shaken from that faith.

"What do you believe in Mr. Abildgaard?"

Ravn sips his coffee; everyone else might prefer older beverages, he will stick with coffee, thank you very much. Then he curls long, gloved fingers asround the mug and looks thoughtful a moment. "I'm Lutheran, formally. Less formally? I don't know. I've never thought about it a whole lot. One of those things that you just do -- get married in a church some day, have your kids baptised in it, get buried from it. My parents were not very interested in these matters though of course some services have to be attended to keep up appearances."

He pauses. "I don't. Keep up appearances, that is. It feels... like lying."

Gail places her hand lightly on the table before Ravn. Her hand shakes a bit from exhaustion, but once settled the table keeps it still enough. "Faith and belief does not depend on what religion or building you attend, or what rites. Faith is..." She pauses to consider her words carefully. "Faith is what lives in your heart. What helps you rise in the morning, to love, and to exist. Without faith there is no reason to continue to face the trials of life."

Ravn smiles a little; that's a language he understands. "Then faith, to me, is humans being kind to one another. That I can get behind. All of us here, just trying to live another day in spite of what the Veil throws at us. We know most of us will not have a happy ending, so we make the most of the time we have. We look out for each other, we try to avoid doing damage. I've spent most of my life alone. I was a privileged kid but I was not a wanted kid. I have spent most of my life studying or travelling or working, but on my own. To me, coming here, becoming part of a community -- maybe that is my faith."

That is an answer that Gail can accept, and she smiles as he says it. "That is a good faith." Her ear cocks towards the living room and she nods as if whatever she's hearing is to her satisfaction. "I think it is about time. Even looking at the Lord born anew often wears off quickly, and Mary is always tired. Would you be willing to see the Wise Men off through a back door?" Hopefully this house has one of those. "The Veil does try to twist that part the story to have them go back to the king and I'm afraid I'm a bit too tired to have a kingpin show up at my doorway thinking murder."

"Right," Ravn murmurs, shaking his head a little. There's reading the Bible -- which he has, at least the not so boring bits -- and there's being a historian and a folklorist, and there is having lived this thing anually, over and over, for years. "I'll get Melchior, Balthasar, and Bob snuck out back. And then I'll go see if the Romans upstairs are still cool with beers and the TV set while our heroes leave through the front door?"

"That would be very kind of you." Gail replies pushing herself to her feet with only a little bit of a groan for the movement. The older one gets, the harder rising from a chair gets. "You've been such a dear about this. Some years it takes several door knocks before we find a place willing to let them in, the poor dears. Most want to call an ambulance." She totters along of her own willpower despite her limp.

She'll lead the way into the living room, now crammed with animals and people. Actually, it's quite loud, despite the fact that everyone always talks about it being so peaceful around the baby Jesus. People are still people, and even a dull murmur in a small area combined with the sounds of animals, makes for an uncomfortable level of noise. Mary and her baby are a small blip of peace though. The baby lays quietly, swaddled in - oh, sorry, did Aiden and Ravn like that throw blanket? Because it's been cut apart to make swaddling strips - the remains of a throw blanket. Mary looks radiant and it's clear there's something special about the baby in her arms.

"Could you get their attention please? I'm afraid my voice simply isn't loud enough any more."

Go get Aidan's cymbals, whispers the Devil on Ravn's shoulder. He ignores it in favour of clapping his hands. "Visiting hours are over, I am very sorry to say. The mother and child need their rest. He may be the son of God, folks, but he's a very young little deity, and he needs his naptime."

One of the older shepherds get flagged down -- the one who asked Ravn about the angels on the door step. "You and the boys try to round up the animals, yes? Put them out in the yard, it'll be fine -- I know they all want to stay in here, but, that's not how the story goes." That might not make a lot of sense to the poor man, but Ravn could honestly care less; there's a script that needs to be followed here -- and really, as dreams go, this is a very kind one in providing such a clear script, most of them leave a lot more to be guessed.

Then he's off to try to convince the Three Kings of the East that there is a motel nearby -- the Seaview, very nice, don't mind that the locals call it the murder motel, no one's been murdered there for at least a year -- and up the stairs to tell Ponte Vecchio (whose actual name is not Old Bridge in Italian, thank you very much) and his men to stay put a little longer. He contemplates telling them some lady had boy triplets in the next town over but -- the Veil might take him up on the idea, and the last thing he wants is to read that headline in the morning.