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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"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."

"Wait. No." She reached out for his arm, to try to stop him as he pulled away. "I'm sorry. You didn't do anything wrong."

She blinked quickly, trying to stem the tears before they could start to fall. "This place is cruel, and it sucks. But... you don't have to go. And you don't have to... avoid the room. Not for me anyway."

Jag stepped just out of reach when she reached for his arm, because if she touched him he wasn't sure he wouldn't just break, somehow. "You don't..." He pressed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger for a second, then looked back at her once he felt a little more certain he wasn't going to cry. "The Emma I -" love, "know. Knew." Fuck. "She came down to London to visit her cousin. But she ended up... in another world. In the London I knew. No Sabine, but a - an art show."

He couldn't say it, couldn't say what that made her, how close it made her to Emma as he had met her. He couldn't say it, and his eyes were pleading for her not to make him.

Emma drew her hand back when he stepped out of reach, fumbling with what to do with it before sticking both in her pockets, and shoving down thoughts of the last time she'd reached for someone like that to stop them running away. It wasn't fair to Jag, or Pyro, drawing parallels that were only superficial.

Focusing on what she didn't want to think, it took longer than it should've for what Jag said to really make sense. His Em... she'd come from a different reality, not his. And her life, his Em's past, had been almost identical to Emma's.

"I'm sorry." The words were barely a whisper, pushed out past her heart in her throat for just how much she must be hurting him, just by being who she was. And who she wasn't. He'd said, if he knew how different they were, it would be easier on him. But if they weren't different, and he knew that now, fuck, fuck, fuck. "I'm sorry, Jag."

"Don't - don't be," he told her, shaking his head. "It's not your fault, is it. It's just... rotten luck. Bad karma. I need to..." Go and drink until I don't know how to drink anymore. "I'll be back. By the room. If you want. Once I've... Later." Words, he could do words, no matter that each one felt like it was slicing up his throat.

Emma nodded, and let out a shaky breath as she tried not to cry. For Jag. For herself. For Pyro. "Okay. Yeah," she managed, not meeting his eyes. "I'll, um, yeah."

She let him go.

What else could she do?

"I'm sorry," he said again, because he'd put that look in her eyes, on her face. And he couldn't do anything about it, because anything he could try would just make it worse. He turned and walked away, because what else was there to do?

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Winter's Crest Snow Day [GP]

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