strangetrip | 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 made sense to Corbie. She wasn't the only person here who wasn't from any world like this one, and she was still a person.

She bit the inside of her cheek. "Well, this all happened before I was born, mind," she said. "But my gran told me when she was a girl and there were still warlocks in Caloxa, any warlock worth their salt was looking for weaker wizards to be shadows to their flame. And once you were a shadow, you weren't making many of your own choices anymore."

Her brow furrows a bit. "That sounds awful. Is it better now in your time?"

"Yes," she said. Gran hadn't thought so, but it was better. Corbie didn't live in fear of warlocks and neither did most people her age. At least not if they were magical and usually urban, country folk were different she knew. "But most warlocks were women, so now there's a lot of fucked up ideas about women having magic."

She let out a slight frustrated air with an 'ugh' and an eye roll. "Why is it always us? We get so much flack for everything."

"Because men are idiots," she answered with a shrug. "I'm Corbie, by the way."

"I'm Liz." She smiled "you have pretty good aim, by the way."

Corbie laughed, bright and loud. "I try."

"Any tips for me?" Liz smiled as she swooped down and picked up some snow and began packing it in her palms.

Corbie considered that, forming a snowball and throwing it at the first available wall. She hadn't actually thought about it before, just done what she'd seen other kids doing when she was little. "... Use your legs," she said.

Liz used her legs and the ball had a little more speed to it. Sports we're never her thing, but she was also not one to let things go if she wasn't good at it so she picked up another. "I'm from the desert so I've never really played in snow before. It's nice." This time when she threw it actually had a bit of an arch.

"I didn't grow up with much snow either," Corbie admitted with a shrug. "But so many kid games involve throwing stuff, so."

"Where did you grow up?" She picked up another and threw it. This time it actually hit someone - the groundskeeper. Liz's eyes widened as she let out a small yelp and turned her back to him, cheeks red.

Corbie snickered. "I grew up in a city called Bernatha. On paper it's part of a country called Corambis, but really it mostly governs itself. It's wedged right between Corambis and Caloxa, so things got interesting when they went to war a couple of years back."

It took her a second to find her voice. She glanced back and was a little bewildered to find the groundskeeper didn't seem to even look up from the snowball. She reminded herself the people who worked here were strange and different.

"Wow." She had never heard of any of those cities, which she should have expected, but she hadn't entirely been prepared. "Is it nice there? Um Ber-na-tha?"

"It's..." Corbie considered that question. "It's the only place I ever knew, until a little while before I came here. It's on a series of islands, and you can only get between them by boat. A lot of days have rain, most days have fog. Even the main cathedral is named for the fog. But it's... lively. Port city. People come from all over."

"The only people that come to where I live are tourists looking for aliens." She made a bit of a face. "And they usually are really over the top about it. I think a port city sounds really exciting."

"Can be," Corbie allowed. "Politics, different cultures, weird religions, a dozen languages... it's definitely never dull." That was the lighter side of things, but it was true.

"Very different from here then, I guess." Especially since they were stuck here.

She paused as she looked out at the snow, then back to Corbie. "Want to try to build a snowman with me?"

Corbie perked up at that suggestion. "Hell yeah."

Liz's smile spread into a grin as she headed over to an area that seemed like it was out of the way and with enough snow. She had seen this on TV and was going on that for what to do. She crouched and started to gather snow.

Winter's Crest Snow Day [GP]

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