Winter tithe

[shardofwinter]

Although the Nexus is generally well kept, this year its inhabitants are a fraction more careful about keeping the paths clear of snow. As if by pushing the mound of white powder to the side they will stop the Nexus from being buried like last year. But as with all places lacking an organised effort, the clearance is patchy. Where some people have thrown out dirt or salt to clear the paths outside of their homes or houses, an equal number haven't. Ice sits perfectly clear over stone and concrete, or hidden under the thinnest layer of snow. All of it a precarious balance of mortal awareness and a Winter spirit's work.

This is one of the few times Reynard walks freely in his human form through the streets. Occasionally someone will recognise him and hasten to take care of their home or pull gloves onto their hands. Most people don't, however. Such is the nature of the Nexus, in a place filled with so many people they don't seem to be able to point to the person encouraging their troubles, even if he has proclaimed it from the rooftops. Once he's done admiring the hard work of some and punishing the negligence of others, he ends up in the centre of the Nexus.

Leaning against a lamp post, he takes his hat from his head, inspecting it briefly before address those passing by. "What are you leaving in the past this year?"

Comments

[eumenis]

"One of the Sisters told me once Kindness is Never a Waste," she says pensively. "And we carved it into the walls of the Citadel with their other words. But they don't always see things the way I do. It may never be a waste, but it's usually a gamble."

"It's funny, how even within the same world, living can make you harder or softer than you ought to be, and how much work it is to meet in the middle of the two. Even more so in the Nexus."

She gives a casual nod as his assumption. "It doesn't snow where I'm from. Almost never rains. We get cold--it's a desert, so temperatures plunge at night--but it's dry as old bones, except where we can pump water up from the aquifer or collect it from the air."

"Seeing all this, it's a little like a dark fairy tale," she says, gesturing at the snow drifts. "Water everywhere, clean and not radioactive, so pure it's the whitest thing you ever saw--but you can't drink it, and it'll kill you if you let it. I thought I was ready for anything this place could throw at me, but I sure as fuck wasn't ready for this."

Granted, she's doing better with it this year, but there's less of it right now. "It's pretty, but is it a privilege or a curse? That's what I ask myself about the Nexus itself, too."

[shardofwinter]

"She and I must not have been kind to the same kinds of people," he replies with a wry smile. "You're right. It's a risk. Either way you're taught a lesson. I don't think it can make you harder than you ought to be. Surely it only makes you as hard as you need to be."

A desert. He's never lived in a desert before. What must its Winters be like? The thought distracts him briefly as he wonders whether or not to ask Winter, before he falls back to reality as if he'd forgotten he was musing. Daydreaming is no good in a Season like his.

"A 'dark fairy tale'. That's a rather beautiful way of describing it." And it's true. He finds himself flattered for Winter. Pure but deadly are a wondrous combination. The wistfulness is replaced by a casual roll of his shoulder. "But it needn't be a privilege or a curse. It simply is. Like the Nexus. Like people."

His head slowly tilts to one side, weighed down by a curious thought. "Do you ever take snow from the Nexus into your world?"

[eumenis]

Furiosa laughs at his observation, a short bright sound like a fox barking. That sounds like something she'd have said to the Sisters a few years ago, if she'd cared to give them as many of her words as they gave her of theirs. Her perspective has changed since then, but his isn't wrong, either. Demonstrably, harshness allowed her to survive this long.

"I don't now," she says with an almost nostalgic smile. "Sometimes we get into the habit of striking first when we might not have to strike at all. No one ever calls you out on that because they're too dead to, but that doesn't mean it's right. If there even is such a thing as right and wrong."

Furiosa's Wasteland might not be a great example. What passes for a season there is the difference between occasional violent storms and a whole hell of a lot of violent storms. Wind season. A desert on a healthy planet would be different.

"'It simply is'," she repeats thoughtfully. "Maybe I'm getting old. That used to be enough for me."

She raises an eyebrow and shakes her head. "Not on purpose. I've come through with it clinging to my clothes and wrung them out into the cisterns, but I never filled a canteen with snow. Maybe I should. It'd be nice to drink half-melted. Cold."

[shardofwinter]

"Right and wrong can only be decided by each person alone, for that person alone. There is no grand declaration of good and evil. Only what is and what isn't. Survival and death. Happiness and grief."

Of these things he is certain. Outside of recent times in the Nexus, he has seen no sign of angels, nor of gods, or of any proof of good and evil beyond what a man declares as such. In a radioactive desert he guesses it's much the same.

Just as she's careful in her answer, he's thoughtful as he watches her. "Maybe when you get older you'll find it's enough again."

"You should try it and see how it is." Looking around, he nods at a nearby snowdrift and smiles at her. "There's plenty here."

[eumenis]

"Mm. We all draw lines we don't want to cross. I guess the distinction is who you're drawing lines for, and why. I promised a girl 'no unnecessary killing' once, as a compromise. Even now, it gets me to thinking, weighing what is and isn't necessary. What was and wasn't necessary before I made the promise."

"It doesn't weigh on me like it did once, but if I can't live with myself, why should I expect anyone else to? So I keep an eye on it, and try to make up for lives I took that maybe I didn't have to."

She eyes the drift and return his smile with a little shrug. "You're right. Whatever else it is, it's clean water. If no one's going to miss it, I may as well take some."

That, plus cold can be extremely useful for easing minor injuries and preserving food. She finds herself considering whether they could dig an ice-house under the buttes, near the aquifer where the ground is already cool.

"Could be like inviting the Winter home with me," she says with a little frown. "But...I already invited Autumn, I think, taking home the seeds and fruits she offered us. Maybe fair is fair."

[shardofwinter]

Reynard nods along, quietly agreeing with her. Hearing her echo some of his own thoughts is somewhat reassuring. Then again, he never quite rested easy with idealists.

"I think there's something profoundly moving about that. Being able to look at someone and say, 'I'm a good person because I respect you and I want you in my life' is no small thing."

When she smiles back he wonders how often she does that: Smiles.

"There's no Autumn without Spring, and no Spring without Winter, no Winter without Autumn," he's quick to cite off. "... Have you had a snowball fight since you were here? Or ice-skated?"