Season of Winter, Day 57, 511 AV
When Avari awoke in the early morning to hear fierce winds howling around the walls of her cottage, she knew with a sinking heart that she did not want to go outside on a day like this. Sliding out of bed, she wrapped a blanket around herself and shuffled over to the window for a look outside. The Konti pushed aside the drape and winced when she saw the trees outside beeing bent almost nearly double by the famously harsh, freezing wind off the bay, known locally as the Bonesnapper. A little of the wind seeped through the window frame, so chilly that Avari shivered and sneezed mightily. Dark storm-clouds loomed on the horizon in the distance, and the shrill whine of the wind only grew louder as she listened.
She let out the drape fall back into place with a long sigh of resignation. The Konti had lived long enough in Zeltiva to interpret its moods and maelstroms, and she could tell that today was no day for strolling through the market filching coins or exploring the city casing buildings and warehouses for burglary. She hugged the blanket tighter around her body, thinking of how cold it must be outside, and grumbled at the Bonesnapper, the weather, and Morwen herself for her frigidity.
Well, there was nothing that Avari could do about it. She knew she should be grateful that she had four stout walls to protect her from the wind and rain, as well as a small store of food and firewood. Still, the Konti couldn't help pouting a little as she shed her blanket in favor of tunic and breeches -- for there was no going back to sleep with the thunder and rain outside -- and started preparing breakfast and laying a new fire in her small hearth. Avari had never taken well to confinement, even when she'd had an entire family manse in Mura at her disposal, and she liked it even less now that she was stuck indoors inside her small, one-room cottage.
To be sure, her cottage was snug and sturdily built from wood and stone, even if it did smell faintly of fish thanks to its previous owner, a weather-beaten old fisherman, despite her half-hearted attempts to clean it. When she heard rumors that the fisherman was tired of trawling the sea for his livelihood, Avari had needed only a brief, bare-skinned handshake and some unctuous arguments to persuade him to retire from fishing, settle down and marry the way he'd always wanted, and, incidentally, sell his cottage to her for a low price. Delighted by the weight of her grandmother's mizas in his pocket, the fisherman had moved out within days, leaving her only a narrow bunk bed, a squat table and chair, and a moldy-looking old chest. At the time, the dim, frowsty cottage -- little better than a hut, really -- had seemed like paradise to Avari, a place that belonged wholly to her and no one else.
Today, though, she fretted and paced the floor impatiently, listening to the shriek of the wind. Of all the times for the Bonesnapper to strike! Avari had been planning the heist of a warehouse that received a thrice-seasonly shipment of food and supplies intended to provision the University's pampered scholars and students. The University's pantries were deep, and no one would miss a few loaves of bread and tins of dried meat that would mean much to Avari. She'd been watching the warehouse for a moon's turn now. What if the shipment of food arrived today, and she not there to greet it with her lock-picks?
She'd had such good ideas for breaking into the warehouse, too! Unconsciously, just thinking about her plans, Avari shifted into a creeping, skulking walk. The warehouse had small, latched windows set high on every wall, as well as piles of crates scattered anyhow outside.
When the city grew dark and quiet, she'd climb onto a pile of crates -- just like this, she thought, climbing on top of her table -- and pick the latch on the window. She stood in the middle of the table, closing her eyes and pretending she was just outside the warehouse. Picturing the high window in her mind, Avari lifted her hands above her head and wiggled her fingers, pretending to unfasten the latch. Then it'd be a simple matter of swinging herself up toward the windowsill and jumping in…
Wham! Avari had jumped in the here and now, and her feet landed sharply on the table, knocking a plate to the ground. It shattered into a dozen pieces on the floor.
Guiltily, the Konti climbed off the table and slowly picked the pieces up. She had too few belongings as it was to break them in the middle of imagining a heist that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. It was a good thing that her cottage had only the one window and one door, she thought, or else she might have to worry about more than her own clumsiness breaking or ruining her possessions. Instead of worrying about how to acquire more riches, Avari would have to fight just to hold onto what was hers.
Struck with this thought, Avari suddenly lifted her head and began studying her cottage with a greater attention to detail. If I were a thief trying to break into this place, she thought, looking at the bare floorboards and the plain wooden door, how would I go about it?