Cold Clarity, part 1

by **Ennisa** on January 21st, 2020, 10:37 pm

52nd Winter 519 AV
"speech"
"others"

The cold battered at her every pore. Gone was the cheerful, manageable snow that Lhavit had seen most season. Something vile had taken its place, something bitter that curled under every door and whistled through fabric as if it wasn't there. Ennisa hated it. Her child did too. However, staying inside was not exactly an option either. The apartment was cold and miserable. There was only so much pacing and shuffling she could do before staying boxed into one place became unbearable, and she was forced into the chill. This was where she was now, battling through the cold, and the whipping snow, and the slippery ice, cursing in a long stream under her breath at the stupidity of her actions.

Her baby was strapped to her front. He was too affronted by the weather to cry properly, but Ennisa could tell he was unhappy either way by the intense glow that emanated from his skin. Yet, despite the cold and her cursing, she wasn't overly angry, or frustrated. The reason for that was the cloak she had clutched tight around her and her baby. The cloak had, somehow and miraculously, changed overnight at the beginning of the season. Not only was the colour shifted to a beautiful, dappled moonstone, but it had a peculiar effect on her. An effect she had found most helpful when nursing the baby. It calmed her, like the soft balm of a cool, clean pillow. It also allowed her to somehow sense the emotions of others. It was this effect that she found so useful for the child.

"Not long to go now, kiddo." She whispered to the top of her baby's head. She didn't get a response, but she could feel his little legs pressing into her sides, as if making her go faster. She could only oblige. She had one destination in mind - the Dove's Tower. She had heard a couple of rumours about a building that had appeared sometime at the start of the season. The Dove's Tower was some kind of gateway to another world, she'd heard. It transported you out of Lhavit and into somewhere completely different. This was what Itzi had told her, but Itzi had been terrified of the place, and didn't trust it.

"It came from where? Zintila may have deemed it safe, but I won't go near it." They had sighed together over the gossips of the city, yet Ennisa couldn't help but connect the strange goings-on of her life recently with the arrival of the tower. Her baby had appeared then, her cloak too, and she needed to find some kind of answer before she went entirely crazy with guessing. The Dove's Tower might very well be dangerous, or it might not. Ennisa felt like it might hold the answers, so she wanted to go.

Some might say that was all well and good, but why go in the middle of a snowstorm? To that, she could only respond, why the petch not? She had nothing better to do than drive herself to insanity cooped up at home. A journey into the unknown was a sure-fire way of focussing her mind of something. Petch the weather.

WC: 532

by **Ennisa** on January 23rd, 2020, 3:36 pm

"speech"
"others"

Despite the bravado, it was hard going. The problem with the weather was that it was a brutal combination between snow and wind. Just snow, or just wind on its own might have been okay, but although Ennisa was a native-born Lhavitian used to the peaks, she wasn't prepared for this kind of climate. Not whilst Mizahar still had an absentee goddess of Winter. This was unexpected, and strange. Ennisa didn't know what to make of it.

They reached Tenten Peak. Ennisa battled with the cords of the cloak to untie it a little to properly check on the baby. The wind grabbed the cord and pulled the side of the dappled cloak open. In haste, Ennisa shielded the child's face as best she could from the biting snowfall, but the little boy dozing, or asleep, or... Sudden worry pierced her heart like a frosty shard. Her fingers were cold and stiff, but she gently pressed the fingertips to his forehead, trying to check his temperature. She could feel nothing. All the feeling had gone. She cursed, quietly, and took one of his little hands. His fingers were curled into a fist, and she turned her back to the wind to allow her to jostle him around a little, and talk softly into his ear.

"Wake up, you little snot." Even in worry she was rude, her reasoning that he didn't understand what she was saying, did he? "Don't you go sleeping now, mr. Go on, cry your eyes out." She jostled him some more, and to her relief he briefly fluttered his eyes open in a little scowl of displeasure. "Good boy." His little face scrunched up, and a wail gradually built in his throat. "WaaaAAAaaahh!"

Ennisa now decided she preferred yelling over dead silence. She grappled with the edges of the cloak and fastened it around her and the baby, so that they were swaddled into as much warmth as they could share between them. "Good boy, we're almost there now." She hurried her pace just a little, her hands clasped around the lump of the baby in a protective cuddle.

Almost there. She wasn't wrong, either. It was somewhere nearby. The park-land she was walking through was covered in snow, but Ennisa recognised certain patches of land to the right as she squinted through the low cloud. This place, however, was new. Then, through the white gloom, loomed a tower.

Her heart jumped a little, and she picked her way carefully across the lumpy terrain to the structure. Her relief was a flood of energy as she looked up at the building. The outside was partially covered in snow, but it was the Dove's Tower. She was almost sure of it. The few brave birds that shivered together on the outside of the building confirmed it. She walked around the perimeter of the tower until she found the door. With barely a second thought, she pushed it open, and shut it firmly behind her.

WC: 497

by **Ennisa** on January 23rd, 2020, 10:31 pm

"speech"
"others"

Ennisa blinked straggly hair from her eyes and then, once her vision was cleared, immediately raised her gaze to the walls and ceiling in amazement. The architecture was stunningly carved; no matter where she looked, more details unfurled. She soon learned the reason for the name of the building too, as she massaged feeling back into herself and her baby. A dove swooped low over her head with a soft hoo, hoo. It was creamy in colour, like snow but speckled with a mottled brown across its plumage. A pretty thing. Ennisa had always liked birds, and so she smiled as she watched it join its fellows on a perch, high up near the ceiling. Most of the birds were within the Dove's Tower, she could only presume they had been driven indoors by the miserable weather. Then her gaze dropped to the woman, stood just beneath the birds, and she clutched the baby closer, her mouth agape.

It was a gut instinct of surprise, which faded as soon as she realised the stranger meant her and her child no harm. The woman was just a little strange. Her ginger hair, the strands not held in a bun, fell in small waves that framed her face, and her blue eyes stared piercingly but curiously at Ennisa. It was neither of those two things that made her jump, but instead the cluster of pale wings that jutted from her head, the wings which couldn't possibly be there. Except they were. Her mouth formed a loose 'o' of surprise, until she regained some of her scant few manners and addressed her.

"I heard that this tower is a gateway to another world." It was both a question and a statement. Now that she was here, she wasn't sure what to expect, and she had to admit she was a little disappointed. It was a beautiful building, and it was certainly mysterious in its sudden appearance in Lhavit... But the rumours appeared to be wrong. There was no other world, not one that she could see at first glance, anyway. Ennisa was not accustomed to the ways of magic, and hadn't learnt the subtleties or intricacies that really good magic entailed.

Nevertheless, the winged woman, who had noticed Ennisa's disappointment, smiled tightly and nodded a couple of times. "Well, how? I don't want to sound rude about your home, but I'm pretty certain we're still in Lhavit. I was expecting something a little... different." Ennisa sighed. She was tired, all of a sudden. A spike of tiredness, which was hard to push down. Within the bundle of her cloak, the baby whimpered. Ennisa peeled back the layers and gently rocked him. Motherhood was coming to her, slowly but surely, as she softly smoothed her freezing fingers over the little man's forehead. "Shush, shush," she soothed. Gradually, his pale glowing faded as he warmed within the confines of the stone tower.

She raised her eyes to the wing-headed lady of the tower, looking for an answer, and to her surprise found her scribbling on a notebook she had withdrawn from somewhere about her person. She'd still not spoken a word. Ennisa figured she must prefer, for some reason, to write her words rather than speak them. She waited patiently (though her foot gently tapped on the floor without her realising), until the red-head Inarta tilted the paper towards her.

Ennisa quickly scanned the scribbled text. The woman's writing, despite being small, was neat and concise. It read: "This is the Dove's Tower. I am Altaira, the caretaker. Open the door and you will go to the Outpost, Xyna's haven of Trade and Commerce." Ennisa raised her eyebrows at this, and looked at Altaira. Apparently, she had been too quick to judge. "So, if I open this door, it won't take me back to Lhavit, but to this Outpost? And Xyna, who is that?" As soon as Ennisa had started to talk, the winged woman focussed on her lips intently. Ennisa felt a little self-conscious about this simply for the direct nature of the stare, but then as soon as she stopped talking the woman nodded once to herself and focussed her attention back on the notebook and her pen quietly scratching words onto the paper.

A thought suddenly hit her. Is she deaf, I wonder? Her eyes wandered to the wings sprouting from the sides of her head. She couldn't see any ears. Perhaps that was why. Ennisa wriggled her fingers to warm them up a little more, and watched Altaira writing. She was deft, and precise. Ennisa idly wondered what kind of ink she used, until she'd finished writing and once again lifted the notebook to her view. "Yes, you will go to the Outpost. Xyna is the Goddess of Money, Trade and Commerce. She flourishes on trade and selling. She makes and manages the miza." This was fascinating news, and she took a moment to process it, having never thought a goddess would have control and power over something as simple (so she thought) as money. Her forehead contorted as she thought. "What about danger? It wouldn't be dangerous for me, or for my baby, to travel to the Outpost?"

WC: 868

by **Ennisa** on January 24th, 2020, 10:01 pm

"speech"
"others"

Altaira cocked her head thoughtfully. Her blue, blue eyes narrowed slightly, and she set pen to paper again. Ennisa waited until she'd finished, and then read the proffered notebook. "Dangerous - sometimes. If you are not sensible. Otherwise, safe. I say - go!" The last word, go!, was written with a cursive flick and a thin splatter of ink droplets. Altaira nodded encouragingly when Ennisa raised her head to look at the other woman. The answer wasn't particularly enlightening, but nevertheless she felt relieved. The guardian of the tower didn't seem perturbed by sending Ennisa and baby to a different world, and she would hope that most people, even those of poor moral decency, would have some hesitation over sending a baby into peril.

In some ways, it was telling of Ennisa's relative naivety that she struggled to imagine a world like that.

However, she handed the notebook back to the wing-headed woman and ran a hand through her gradually defrosting hair. The baby grabbed a strand and put it in his mouth. She removed it as soon as she noticed, but there was a brief struggle. After this, she came to her conclusion. Going out in the storm again didn't seem like a wise option. Another world, a world with answers (maybe) and new, fascinating things to see (definitely), was far more appealing.

"Okay, Altaira. I will take your advice." She took a couple of steps to the doorway, then paused a few ticks from the exit. "And how am I supposed to get back?" In her haste to reply, Altaira disregarded the notebook and proceeded to gesture with her hands. Ennisa frowned slightly as she tried to interpret what the other woman meant. Door, walk, here? She scratched her nose. "I come back here? Is there another door there, then?" The woman nodded enthusiastically. The wings on her head rustled disturbingly as she did so. Ennisa tried not to stare too much.

"That's fantastic." It wasn't even a sarcastic statement. She could see no disadvantage to exploring the Outpost. With a swish of her cloak, she walked the last couple of steps towards the door she'd entered the tower from. A couple of doves took off from the alcoves, and swooped in a graceful, meandering pattern through the air. Ennisa pushed open the door. A dove, the same creamy, tan-speckled one she'd seen earlier, winged its way above her head and entered the doorway as she stepped through.

Through to the other side.

WC: 413