The snow begins to fall, the fires in Emersyn’s home are stoked, and the tea is on the coals. Soon the savory sweet smell of turmeric and licorice add edge to the heat by spicing the air. Cleansing it more like, with the blur of cinnamon-clove mulling beneath the bright colors of the tea. Emersyn moves a clay pot to the wide flat-stone and lets it warm up slowly. Everything is accounted for. Everything is perfectly arranged. It is effortless for the woman who moves like wind. Everything moves around her, no energy goes unaccounted for. If not for the lesser telekinesis, Emersyn would seem enigmatic, -- even though she would never want to try and be something as stupid as a transparent idea.
Steam is piping up into the air, all the plants are leaching up what they can of the moisture, with everything gilded in gold and firelight, the whole room is verdant, everything is awake and everything is breathing. Everything is bending towards Ipomeae, hello, the growth seems to say. Emersyn spends too long watching the mist deteriorate into thin air and contemplates what happens next once the steam dissipates, carnivorous plants hang dejected and hungry towards the other end of the room, where most of the sun pours through and gives the whole cottage varying degrees of exposure. Every form of life has been carefully considered in its positioning...the most violent plants of all are farther away. “I will miss the roses and peony, my first lodgings in Delumine had them outside in a small garden.”
Her mind weaves a scene on its own, pots stir, coals turn, pages lift and curl on workbooks at the side table. Even in the comfortable silence her mind is going, it must always have something. She tries to look at him when he is talking to her, but her mind tends to wander over his appearance, and the braid he wears in his hair seems too tight for her visual liking. She sets her jaw for a moment.
He can catch her looking at him with some care, and concern, her eyes never warm even in the golden light. The heart of her soul seems to be encased in ice, although she has rendered herself benign, even benevolent. All of it could easily be mistaken as fondness from Emersyn, but it is actual jaw clenching concern. The soldier watches her triggers, traps, snares, and snags so that they do not become Ipomoea’s problem. Of course, she invites a boy over with birdfeet, and although she finds it intriguing, she worries more about the snare that his things are idly moving against which lays flat by the makings of a triggerwire. It is to keep out small forest critters, designed to deliver a stinging snap to the pesky intruder and to scare it straight back into the woods. Not to assault her friend.
“This is heartleaf, I am letting it grow long. I brought it home from Denocte.” It is her favorite plant despite the fact that her whole house is a jungle of hobby and intrigue. Newly potted potterings, bulbs gathered to winterize in woven mats, more starts from clippings bound in cloth for rooting purposes. “The heartleaf has helped me find a place here. Before I was growing plants .. I was sword fighting.” And killing lots of things, Emersyn tries a smile and immediately regrets it like a bad food choice because seeding wildflowers isn't the same as praying for forgiveness, but it is a start. Thankfully the kettle starts whistling to keep the energy flowing around the room. “You should take some back to the city with you."
The conversation dies off quickly but they both know it wasn’t going to last for long anyway. Emersyn starts off by sliding a hot cup full of a soothing sweet winter tea. Too bad the comfort won’t last, even though she doesn't appear tense, the tension in her grinding teeth could crack diamonds between her molars like walnuts. The tea only goes as far as to wet her lips and makes her chest warm. She hates the way it makes her feel, the dull ache that it leaves once the sensation has gone always makes her feel empty.
Are you sure, what have you found?
“I have been tracking hoof prints from out here, none of which match the citizens of Delumine. As far as your birds go, I have half the aerie out here, I’m relieved you are not here to complain about the owls being so busy all the time.” Emersyn gazes out of a window facing east, somewhere out there in the fuzzy mess of wintry landscape there are several owls, and two carefully placed handlers waiting for those owls to come to them in warning. "My sources tell me they have not been able to see anything, but I can know that can't be true." In her reflectionEmersyn smolders with a quiet rage, her livid expression is focused away from her friend, he doesn't need to catch her bad vibes if she can help it.
“My wings will not be ready in time. Until then I don’t have enough coverage, if we could gather a fleet of wings we might have a better and more realistic idea of what we are dealing with."
Find the enemy, eliminate it. Her father's training voice comes to her in the form of smoke signals from the steam in her tea, she would swear to Tempus himself that he is staring back at her from the forest, expecting her to take action as he raised her to do. Between her and Ipomoea's recommendations, she decides that declaring martial law on poachers may not be the best approach as far as Delumine's morality code goes. "Come with me, it is best if I just show you." She isn't asking him. She's telling him.
Outside once more, the snow has started to leave a thin blanket over all that it touches, Emersyn doesn't know how to feel cold anymore and so it doesn't bother her when a chill rushes to greet them once they have left the warm cottage. "I have travelled as far as Viride would allow me to. I have camped deep in the woods on a few occasions hoping to find something.” The soldier knows no fatigue. By nature she leaves Ipomoea behind and talks over her shoulder most of the way. She moves like a patch of moonlight slipping through the trees. Silent and sleek, the dark slipping off the silver glow of her skin, separating like oil and water. She is easy to track in the limited light because she wants to be.
“I expected to be hunted while I went camping and was surprised to find it rather peaceful, I even meditated.” The woman’s voice is woody and deep like the soft calls of owls in the night, nothing stirs around them now, everything is quite still. “It is up there.” The woods feel colder by some degree of danger, dread, and discovery - she slows down and waits for him. Emersyn's eyes seem haunted, even her velvety smooth skin seems rippled with nerve-wrecking goosebumps.
They ascend the forest floor ran sere by winter as the elevation picks up. Their feet sound hollow over the root-riddled needle beds as they carefully pick their way to the top of it. She warns him last moment “,brace yourself.” What else is there to say?
The sight of it is the most shocking at first for Emersyn. A kill pit opens up wide and deep at their very feet. Hooves, toes, wings, tails, horns, teeth, skins; one or more of these things are missing from rare and precious mystic animals, hacked apart and as dead as the forest they were dumped in. Emersyn doesn't mention the unicorn she found with its missing crystal horn, but the horse laying across the pit is something Ipomoea can see for himself.
A bountiful mass hunt on the beautiful, rare, and weird mystics of Viride, if they are not safe here then wherever else will they go? This is dangerous, she thinks, to have such powerful entities without their vassals. Now, magic creeps here, low energy and dangerous and in the form of negative rot and disease carrying pestilence. When the wind breaks all she can think of is the rot of the past when the smell of it cuffs her in the face.
Without thinking, she steps into his shadow and raids his existence of its presence and warmth. Emersyn isn’t aware of how close she is to him, but if he is the source of her gravity in the moment - he’ll have to suck it up. “It has grown since I last visited it." She admits with horror, eyes scanning the fresh bodies laid over the bodies that she discovered days ago. The unicorn is new, and it doesn't seem to be a resident that she knows about. "This is happening now, in our home." She can't believe it, the reality is enough to upset her balance but she maintains by rooting herself to her friend. "Ipomoea, who can help us?"
@Ipomoea One day, in the unforeseeable future, Po and Em will meet when the weather is better and the topic is not soul crushing. Until then, enjoy another severe post.
