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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Jag stopped staring after a couple of seconds, blinking and then looking back at her. "That was... wow." And it had felt so odd. He'd been able to feel the fire, but mutely, as if through something, and he certainly hadn't been able to get a hold of it.

Pike gave him a wide grin, happy that she could impress him a bit...even if it was just a cantrip. "I'm gonna guess that the world you came from didn't have clerics?"

Jag laughed at the mental picture. "Oh, no, we've got clerics, they just - don't do things like that." His approval of 'things like that' was obvious from his tone.

"That must suck for them," Pike smiled, proud of herself for making him laugh. "Were your clerics the weird kind that are married to Jesus and can't have sex? Because..." she shivered playfully.

"Some of them," Jag confirmed with a nod. "I mean, most of them, really. Bit tragic."

"I mean, it's kinda cruel." Pike chuckled, "I mean, in my world, some gods ask their followers to do really weird things too. There is this one order dedicated to the god Illmater who all wear shirts made out of hair."

"That sounds... itchy," Jag settled on, bemused.

"Right?! But I guess that's kind of the point. Ilmater's the god of endurance" Pike couldn't stop herself from laughing, "The thing is, they won't tell me what kind of hair or fur it's made from."

Jag laughed with her. "I was wondering."

"I don't really get all the pomp and mystery that goes along with so many religions," She leaned back into her chair, "My goddess doesn't have any rituals or require me to abstain from anything...well...except killing people willy-nilly. That's frowned upon."

"I would hope so," Jag stated with a small smile. "I'm not big on pomp and mystery either. Give me an icon to pray to that stands for all the right things, and I'm in."

"Are you from a world like this one? A more 'modern' one?" She'd kind of assumed he was, based on...well...she didn't really know why. Maybe the way he talked? "I feel like I've talked to a lot of people from modern worlds about religion, but none of them have talked about idols."

"I am, yeah," Jag nodded. "But I'm - most people in my world, they live in cities. I'm a traveler. We've got a different culture from them, yeah? And our own twist on their religion. Our patron saint's Sarah la Kali."

"Being stuck in this bubble must be torture for a traveler." Pike tucked her legs up under her. "Saints, I've read about those but they didn't make a lot of sense. They were ordinary people once, yes?"

"Yeah," Jag confirmed, after finishing his second cookie. "I don't think religion's supposed to make much sense? Sarah's a mix between a Christian saint and an Indian goddess, anyway." He shrugged. "She's something to believe in." He'd never thought too hard about it, really.

"Yeah," Pike agreed, "It must be hard when your deities don't tangibly make their presence known." Before coming here, she hadn't realized how lucky she was to have such a personal connection with her lady.

"Yours do?" Jag asked with raised eyebrows.

"When they can," Pike glanced around at the snow, holding out her hand to catch a flake, "That's how I can make it snow. In my world, the gods are incredibly powerful beings that live on different planes. They can no longer come fully into ours, but they can give power to some of their followers, speak to them on rare occasions, that kind of thing."

Jag mulled that over in silence for a few seconds. "Back home, there's... angels. They're creatures of God. But they don't tend to reveal themselves to people very much. I don't know if they can grant power like that, either." He shrugged. "Honestly, it hasn't changed things very much for me. I'll still pray to Sarah if I need to pray to anyone. There's a power in that that isn't about what a god can do for you."

Self-consciousness caught up with him; he hadn't meant to talk so much, or possibly sound like he was dismissing the gifts her god had given her. Because they were clearly brilliant. "But what you can do's amazing. Who's your god? What are they like?"

Pike sat in the silence comfortably. She'd never been someone who had to fill every moment with words. A fact which came in handy when talking to people about as tricky a subject as religion.

And her quiet paid off as Jag opened up far more than she'd expected. As he spoke, she paid close attention and nodded along. When it looked like he was getting nervous, she tried to give him her most reassuring smile. "Thank you. I have always seen my powers as an extension of my god. She gives me the tools and I use them to make her proud. There is so much more mutual trust than people expect."

She raised her hand to her holy symbol again, fingers tracing the curve of the simple female figure with her outstretched wings. "Her name is Sarenrae, the goddess of redemption and healing. She's also called the Everlight or the Healing Flame." A fact she thought he might like. "She's kind, and good, and warm but also a total bad ass. One time, during a fight, she punched an ancient dragon from the sky. This giant golden fist, wreathed in flames just came out of the clouds and doom!"

Jag laughed at the conclusion. "She sounds brilliant." He wouldn't have thought to associate healing and fire, but it made an odd sort of sense to him now that he thought about it. "I mean, I've heard terrible things about dragons, anyway."

"She really is, sometimes literally. Her hair is made of flames." Pike took a sip of eggnog and smiled to herself, remembering the first time her lady had come to her.

"Dragons are incredibly powerful, but their personalities are as varied as any other sentient creature." She smiled over at him, "Your world didn't have dragons?"

"If it did, most of us haven't got a clue," Jag answered with a shake of his head, trying not to let the use of the past tense get to him. "We've got lots of stories about them, but they're myth."

"You know, that's one of the things that has been so fascinating about coming here," She looked into her drink, trying to put her words in the proper order, "Apparently there are so many parts of my world that are considered myths or legends. Hell, I'm a fable to most people." She found his eyes and shrugged, "It just makes me wonder if everything is real, somewhere out there."

"Probably, innit?" Jag confirmed. "I mean, it's like in the films, where one small decision creates another parallel world? But starting with the beginning of the universe? I don't know." It made sense to him, but he did not have the words necessary to have this conversation. They were probably very fancy scientific words, the sort he might never even have heard.

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