strangetrip | Winter's Crest Snow Day [GP]

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Winter's Crest Snow Day [GP]

The Inn was decorated in, if possible, an even more outlandish style than usual. Garlands of evergreens and bright berries competed with gold angels and cheerful small grinning creatures with pointed ears and shoes. A large fir tree had appeared seemingly from nowhere and was now draped with lights and hung with colored glass balls. At the top perched a figure in white robes with wings.

It was, Percy mused, probably for whatever the local holiday was, but it was also close enough to Winter's Crest decorations for him to feel a bit homesick for Whitestone. After all, it was only a year ago that he'd been able to celebrate Winter's Crest in his home city for the first time in years.

Something was still missing - or rather, many things were missing but one thing that he could solve for. Winter's Crest called for snow, and better snow in abundance. To solve for that last problem, he turned to a gnome of exceptional talent. While he didn't know how Sarenrae's power worked, he did have complete faith in her cleric. And thus, together, they concocted a plan: to turn the weather to a more appropriate clime.

The morning of December 20th dawned as it often did in this place - heavy with clouds that would burn off before noon. The clouds were important. They would make the spell casting easier, and Pike knew that she needed all the help she could get. Weather magic was not her forte. Like all clerics with powers as advanced as hers, she knew the right spell but when you had a druid around, there hadn't been much need for her to use it.

Dressed in a warm coat and a big floppy, knit cap, she sat on the ground with her legs crossed. Holding her holy symbol in both hands, she concentrated on the sky. As the Celestial incantation took root, golden rays of light encircled her and rose into the air. With each heartbeat, she could feel Sarenrae's power drawing warmth from the clouds above and into her body.

It took ten minutes to cast the spell and another twenty minutes for it to take effect. The spell would fade if she didn't maintain concentration all day, but it was a small price to pay.

And that's how, before the sun had completely finished rising, it was snowing on the Madonna Inn.

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It was the smell that drew Jag near, but the pegasus that made him stop in his tracks before he even saw Emma behind the horse. He hesitated, then walked over, with a gentle stroke on the winged horse's muzzle before he shoved that hand in his trousers pocket. He was wearing his beanie hat and fingerless gloves, but no scarf, and his old leather jacket hung open on his frame; he was clearly not that affected by the cold.

He tried not to look awkward as he walked up to her, and the hands in his pockets would, he hoped, make him seem as harmless as possible.

When she looked his way, his heart lodged in his throat, but he tried for a small smile.

"I won't bother you if you don't want me to," he quietly told her for a greeting, because he couldn't shake that look of fear in her eyes. "I only - I wanted to see how you were doing."

It was the first time he'd spoken to her since that first night, and other than a brief glimpse in the bar when she'd hidden rather than approach, their paths hadn't crossed at all. "I feel like I'm the one who bothers you," Emma pointed out, voice soft and smile sad. "You don't have to go."

Then, because food was always easier, "Funnel cake or fried tequila?"

Of course she was offering him food, because why not. He wasn't sure he could get anything past the lump in his throat, but if she was anything like the Emma he had known - and she seemed to be, so much - then accepting her food might make her happier. "Fried tequila sounds interesting."

He'd had her funnel cake before, and he couldn't quite bring himself to have it again.

Going through the simple steps to make the deep fried treat gave Emma something useful to do with her hands, and something to focus on other than worrying how wrong she was going to do this.

"Are you..." She paused, shook her head, and tried again. "Is there anything I can... I don't know, do? To make things less... awkward?"

"I don't know," Jag admitted after a beat, watching her work, hands still shoved in his pockets. He forced himself to push the words out. "Maybe... I reckoned... maybe if I knew you, knew how different you were from her... But you don't have to... want to know me." His throat was so tight it felt as if the words should come out sliced to bits, but they made it out with less emotion than he failed to hide from his eyes as he glanced up at her face.

Not that that was saying very much.

The grey eyes that met hers weren't the hazel she knew so well, but the hurt in them could have been. "I want to," out before she decided to answer, wanting to ease that hurt if she could, and only having the truth to do it with. "... get to know you. I just thought... you wouldn't want to, since I'm not..." her.

"That's what I don't know," Jag answered, struggling to hold her gaze. "That you're not. Meant to hurt less, if I knew it. Inside." Of course he knew it in theory, but he didn't feel it. "Besides, I don't think I'd want to cut her out of my life, even if she didn't want me anymore."

Which was a huge thing for him, so used to running away, and it was not an admission he would've made to just anyone. But she was Em, as much as she wasn't.

Emma had wanted Pyro, loved him – she still did – and he'd cut her off anyway, too lost in his grief for anyone else. Was it wrong to be a little envious of her other self, when Jag would hold onto her despite everything? "If you think it'll help, yeah. I'll do what I can."

Dropping the last cube of tequila-soaked sponge cake went into the oil, Emma called the pegasus over, burying a hand in its mane and stroking down its neck before releasing the projection. If they were going to get to know each other, it would probably help if he could see her eyes. The way they were supposed to be.

"You have kind of a head start on me, though." She wasn't used to people knowing more about her than she did them, not after she'd had a chance to see what the cards would tell. But she'd been so careful, not wanting to be shown Jag's life or connection to the other her. "I could count on one hand the things I know about you? And one of those is your name."

Kind of, as she said. Jag had no way of knowing what was true of both her and his Emma. But that didn't make her point any less true, and it wouldn't be fair to either one of them to argue it. "Have you drawn cards about me?" he asked, to get an idea what else she might know. His name, his fire, those were things he'd shown her. His love for another her, that was just obvious. But did she know anything else?

"Some? Not a lot." Not as much as she might have with someone else. "Some things are personal. I wouldn't want to see, or be seen. I saw, a circus, I think? Is that where you learned to work with horses? Snow told me they like you. And I got flashes of places and people. Your bird a lot. It's beautiful."

"It's where I learned to work with horses, and to make that bird," Jag confirmed with a nod. "It was home, for a long time. Still is, in some ways." Not that he could get back to it, now. A Roma stuck in a tiny world, unable to roam free or be with his people.

"Home is where your people are." She'd first learned that with the carnival, and it was still true after years bouncing around Europe, where home was Sabine and wherever the encampment was on the outskirts of Rome, to a tiny village in Scotland that had felt like the only safe place left for them. "Especially for Roma." A question in the statement, because she didn't know, only suspected from his name and glimpses she'd seen of his circus family.

"Yeah," Jag agreed after a beat. He thought Em - his Em - had told him the same thing, once. "Yeah. You too, then? I mean - I am, yeah." Fuck, he was even less articulate than normal.

"Not by blood," Emma said, waving a hand at fair-skinned redheaded self. There were ethnic Roma who didn't look it, but she wasn't one of them and didn't like to overstep. But the treats were looking done, so she lifted them from the fryer to drain as she continued. "But I got taken in by a clan outside Rome, and they made me family.

"I only left when it wasn't safe for them if I stayed. And I couldn't... I didn't want anybody getting hurt because of me."

Jag nodded. "Just like her." It wouldn't have felt right, not letting her know how much he sort of maybe knew. "I'm not by blood, either," he added. He could pass, but this was about getting to know each other. "I... ran away with the circus." His small half-smile was all about acknowledging the cliché there.

Emma sprinkled the hot bites of boozy goodness with powdered sugar, sea salt, and lime zest, the tipped them into a parchment cone she offered to Jag. "Running away with the carnival was much better," she teased, then blushed, looking down and away before glancing back to see if he'd taken it as an insult, when she hadn't meant it that way at all.

"They weren't Roma, though. Just Travellers."

"In America?" Jag asked, one hand out of his pocket now to take the cone. "Cheers," he said, mechanically.

Emma nodded. "When I... left New Orleans and school. I told fortunes. And helped Marco decide where we should go for the best crowds."

Just like his Emma. "What about - Sabine?" He forced himself to have one of the tequila bites - and even though the last thing on his mind was food just then, they were as good as anything Emma had ever fed him. "They're really good," he told her after swallowing.

Home was people, not a place, and Sabine had been home to Emma for longer than anyone else. At the question, Emma couldn't hide the homesickness in her eyes, even with the thought that Jag knew other her well enough to ask at all. He liked the food, though, and that softened the ache slightly, a momentary light in the well of ache.

"My grandmother's ghost dragged her halfway across the country to find me when the carnival was wintering in Oklahoma. Made her promise to look after me. She moved to London about a month ago to be with her boyfriend. It's the first time we've really been apart. I was on my way to visit her when I... ended up here."

The sugar sharp aftertaste of the tequila sweet was suddenly the last thing on Jag's mind. His heart was thudding way too hard. "On your way to an art show?" More specific, be more specific. "From Scotland? From -" what had it been called - "from Muir?"

Emma shook her head. "Not a show. Sabine's agent has been trying talk us into a joint one, but I'm not good enough to have my paintings in a gallery." Definitely not beside Sabine's photographs.

"I just... I missed her, and I needed to get out of the castle for awhile. But yeah, Muir Island, in Scotland. I've been there a couple of years now."

"With Pyro," he said, not a question so much as... Fuck. Shit. Bollocks. How could this be happening? His throat was so tight, but he forced the words out. "He's been grieving."

Suddenly cold around a flare of protective heat in her chest, and tears stinging as they welled up. "How did..." Fuck.

Then softer, "I don't want to talk about Pyro. Okay?" She couldn't. She only managed to hold it together as much as she did by not focusing on what he would be like with her disappearing when he was so lost in grief over Bobby.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," he blurted out immediately, tears blurring his sight. It was her. It had to be. Because the world wasn't just a bastard, it had the worst sense of humour Jag had ever encountered. "This wasn't a good idea," he told her, pushing the parchment cone into her hands and backing away. They hadn't been together then, but she'd become family in no time at all. And now she didn't know him, and all he could do was hurt both of them. "I rarely have them, and this wasn't one. I'm sorry."

Winter's Crest Snow Day [GP]

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