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[SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Jigano - 11-02-2019
Monsters made terrible houseguests, as it turned out. If you invited them inside they'd burn your building to the ground, and if you didn't they'd find ways to destroy, deface, scratch up, or otherwise wreck whatever they could reach. Jigano sighed heavily as he walked with slow steps towards the building that had been Caiside's burgeoning forge. They hadn't completed work on it, but they'd made a good start...
It hadn't stood up to the predations of LongNight, though. It wasn't as bad as it could be, but it was far from the nearly-finished smithy it had been at the end of Deepfrost. The door hung loose from its hinges and a window was smashed. Stepping inside showed the furniture in pieces and the anvil overturned. Some of the bricks around the forge had been cracked and needed to be replaced, and Caiside's precious tools were strewn like rubbish across the floor.
He rested a hand on the doorframe, drawing strength from his friend's memory as he stepped inside and dropped his bag of tools, determined to repair what had been broken. He drew out a small hammer and a pair of pliers and began working on the hinges first, knowing that even with the broken window he'd feel better once there was a door to the place again, one that could be shut and locked against thieves or weather.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Lily - 11-04-2019
Compared to last year, they got off easy. A building is replaceable - people aren’t. So in that way, Lily thinks they’ve more or less succeeded, or at least taken a step forward from last year. Perhaps her outlook is brighter because she didn’t truly know anyone who died, other than Ezra, and their relationship was bare bone®s at best. Whatever sense of sadness there was at the end of the week of darkness was expelled with the light of Spring. Seasons just had that kind of effect on Lily; her spirits rise and fall with the sunshine and the resulting warmth.
Unaware that Caiside had been a budding blacksmith, the singer is not sure why Jigano looks so melancholy as he works to clean up a wrecked shop. She lingers just beyond the doorway for a moment, hesitant to interrupt his melancholy. There is something to be said for the therapy of repetitive movements, of cleaning something up the way one often cannot clean their own heart and soul.
“Hey Jigano,” the redhead says in greeting, her voice light against the heaviness in the room.“Need some help?”
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Jigano - 11-04-2019
Lily's voice was unexpected but welcome after the way she had kept the luxere together after the Guild had been set ablaze. Jigano paused his work to turn and give her weary smile, uncertain of whether or not he wanted company...
But entirely sure that he didn't want to be alone.
"Lily, it's good to see you. I'm sorry I didn't thank you yet for what you did during LongNight... both the concert and the luxere. That song for Arduinna was lovely." Bright and brave to stir the blood - and to keep the darkness at bay, as it had turned out. He glanced around the messy not-quite-forge, his smile faltering again as the memories pressed in, and he turned back to her with a decision already made.
"I would very much appreciate some help. This was Caiside's forge... or it was going to be. We were going to put the finishing touches on it after LongNight. But I was too slow to open the door when he came knocking," the bard finished softly. "I couldn't stand letting the monsters get away with ruining this as well. So I'm trying to get it cleaned up as much as I can. I don't suppose you have any experience with smithies?" he asked, attempting to lighten the mood with a more innocent question.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Lily - 11-05-2019
She shrugs away the thanks. “No need to thank me, it was as much for myself as it was for anyone else.” She hadn’t made an effort to save anyone inside - the only thing she did was try to hold them there long enough for everyone to get out of the burning building. And even then, they’d had to leave Amalia and Deimos behind. Luckily, the pair caught up the group but she’d still left them. Saved her own skin.
“I’m glad you liked the song, though. Felt fitting that we should remember who saved us.” Even though their memories seem to perilously short…
Rather than commenting on the blame he seems to foolishly heap upon himself, Lily bends down and begins to pick up things and sort them into piles according to their type: glass in one pile, tools in another, metal in a third, rubbish in a fourth. If he wanted to whip himself, he could, but they all knew the deal for LongNight. They knew what would happen if they weren’t in on time. They knew the risks of opening the doors and keeping them closed. They knew. They made choices. Regret, while the stuff of beautiful songs, isn’t actually useful to the human psyche unless it’s a catalyst for change.
Chuckling at the last bit, however, Lily straightens and waggles her delicate, white hands at the man. “Do you think these are the hands of someone who’s familiar with smithies?” It’s all in kindness, of course. “No, I’m afraid my familiarity with manual labor is strictly limited to ladies and how to button up their fancy things. Or how to entertain a man.” She gets a brief look of consideration on her face, which turns into a slight smile. “That doesn’t mean I’m not open to learning a bit about them.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Jigano - 11-05-2019
She could have gathered all the luxere about herself and left the rest of them stranded outside the Guild, had she been of a purely selfish mind. She hadn't; had remained as long as she could hold the animals, until all but the last had escaped, and those last being Amalia and Deimos, well... that was a pair that could take of themselves, even on LongNight. Still, he let her hold her distance, giving only a nod of acknowledgment .
"I knew her only briefly, and I suspect her sacrifice was more for the Greatwood than for those of us in the Hollowed Grounds," he admitted. "She loves the Wood fiercely, but she is... she was a remarkable woman. We might have been secondary to her purpose, but I don't think we were accidental to it." Not least because infected humans could have re-infected the Greatwood's plants and animals. Arduinna was an efficient woman if nothing else, and she could be grateful for services done for her, but he was under no illusion that she would have done as she had if only humans had been infected.
She said nothing about Caiside, so he assumed she had not known the Loreseeker-smith. Jigano nodded gratefully as she began to clean things up into piles that would be much easier to deal with separately. He turned back to fixing the hinges, lip twitching up in a ghost of a smile at her question. "Looks can be deceiving," he quoted back to her, trying to find a match to her lightness from the gloom he had been sunk in. It wasn't perfect, but at least he was trying. "Beauty doesn't mean a lack of strength, after all. And those lovely hands might wield a jeweler's tools as deftly as Caiside wielded a hammer for making swords."
He hesitated again, but under Lily's determined cheer he did his best to keep his sadness from his tone. "Our fathers were both smiths, you see. Caiside was a better student of the trade than I was, though. He was helping me re-learn the craft before..." He trailed off, but shook his head as if to chase the shadows back. "And you, fair Lily? Were you lady's maid, once upon a time? Or a maker of fine clothing, in addition to a songstress?"
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Lily - 11-07-2019
“Mmmmm, I imagine so. I’ve heard not all encounters with her were pleasant, either. But Ianto used his favor from the Wishing Wagon for a song for her, so…” she shrugs lightly, “I do as I am commissioned.” Like any artisan or craftsperson might, unless they had a moral opposition to the person or thing, she imagines. And there are many types of songs… someone not in her favor might find a crude drinking song suddenly howled throughout the taverns, the subject of drunken laughter and ridicule. Not that she’s ever done that exact thing, but it is certainly possible.
“Thank you for your faith, but no - I wear the jewelry, I don’t craft it,” she says with tinkling laughter, throwing more glass shards on the pile and now moving beyond her immediate reach. “They are skilled at looping in tiny buttons, embroidery, and making lace. I can quickly tie up a corset and know how low to curtsy depending on someone’s rank.” Lifting her head up to look at Jigano, a far more deviant expression flits across her face. “And I can make a man feel like a man.” The expression is not to be confused as an expression of interest; it is simply a true statement, another side of her she’s hidden lest the ladies here start to hate her.
That would require their men to be less than loyal, and so far, she’s seen only virtue in the couples. Good for them.
Looking back down to the ground so that she doesn’t cut herself on something sharp, Lily continues. “And yourself? Aside from seeking lore and re-learning about smithwork, what do you do?”
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Jigano - 11-07-2019
"Ah, a business transaction? I hadn't realized that's what it was." He was curious but not too surprised, given how well Lily knew her way around a song. It was admittedly intriguing to have another bard - or whatever her world's equivalent was - around, and it had been far too long since he had simply enjoyed making some music. Not since last Longheat, really... "Perhaps we can work together at some point to put on some entertainment. A set for Fiat Lux, perhaps?" He didn't have much experience duetting, but that was no reason not to try and expand his horizons and learn something new.
Her list of skills was modest enough for the Hollowed Grounds, but might prove significantly more useful beyond them, Jigano thought to himself. The mysterious Fangs and the world beyond might have far more use for someone with experience working with nobility than their current humble surroundings. Even if she didn't know the exact local traditions, she'd have the background and foundation to pick them up more quickly than most. The last skill on her list had him arching a brow though, pausing as he checked the swing of the door to make sure it was stable. "Ah. A very... particular set of skills then," he said delicately, a flicker of amusement rising from within his grief. "Ones I fear these mild environs have not allowed to shine at their brightest. Perhaps we'll find places beyond the barrierlands that play more to your strengths though. It's a large world and we've only seen but one small slice of it."
The door was fixed, and while he couldn't repair the glass of the windows on his own yet, he began helping Lily scavenge through the scattered debris, collecting wooden boards long enough to be nailed place over the openings as a temporary measure to keep out the weather. "Mmm. Mostly mope and brood and such lately," he admitted, maybe not entirely joking though he kept his tone light. "When I'm not tending to guild business, though, I still style myself a bard, though I've been woefully derelict in my duties to the Rathskeller since the blight... well. I suppose that is no longer an issue," he admitted with a faint grimace for the Rathskeller's loss. Alas, poor Chunk... "And I help my partner with his farm. I have learned more about rye in the past year than I ever thought possible," he added with a flicker of a grin.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Lily - 11-11-2019
“Sometimes business and pleasure are the same thing,” she semi-corrects the bard. “Or one becomes the other. In the end, I wasn’t thinking of it as a transaction." And if you’re lucky enough to do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. This world - dangerous and exciting and alien as it is, is easier in many ways for Lily, and much more difficult in others. But then she doesn’t involve herself very often in the affairs of the Gods, so perhaps that makes all the difference.
“I don’t see why not,” the entertainer responds the invite with a smile. “I also have a piano in my house, if you know how to play one of those.” She has a soft spot for the harp as the original instrument, but there is something about sitting down at a piano that can make the time fly by. “Mmmm, very particular. Sometimes I find myself feeling useless here, but…” she shrugs as if to say ‘whatcha gonna do?’ and continues on, now finding nails to help secure the boards Jigano is working on. No one's complained about her yet, and she does make an effort to help out when she can. Learn.
“Is that Rory’s farm?” She knows very little about the native man, only that he’s around now and then in the market for trading purposes. He seems like a kind fellow.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Jigano - 11-11-2019
"You make a very good point," he agreed with a smile, taking her correction with a gracious nod. "I think I've been losing sight of that in recent months." When he had first arrived things had been difficult for a host of reasons, but he had enjoyed lending a cheerful hand and found joy in working with the Loreseekers and those who came to their door. Then he had begun taking more responsibilities on himself, shouldering burdens that should have been shared and discovering how frightening it could be to have something to lose and people he cared for again, with all the potential for hurt and loss that came with them.
Perhaps it was time to go back and try to find the man he had been before Caido's gods and monsters had their way with him... without losing sight of the gifts he had gained along the way.
"A piano? I haven't seen one in years," he exclaimed, curiosity shining briefly in the interested blue gaze he turned on her. "I don't know how to play, no, but I'd love to hear one again." Was the bar in Starfall the last place he'd seen one? His subsequent wanderings had taken him mostly to towns and villages too small for one of the expensive instruments to be found, but that had made his own smaller instruments and talents even more welcome.
He shifted aside to give her room, holding the boards steady as she hammered them in place with admirable efficiency, nodding in understanding at her feeling of being out of place and unneeded at times. For all that he so desperately meddled, it seemed as though he rarely helped much... but the company was too fine to sink into brooding on that now, and he gave her a grateful smile as they finished the last temporary shutter against the elements.
"You know Rory?" he asked, brightening at her question. "Yes, it is. I admit, I didn't really know much about farming before I moved in with him, so it's been an education." For someone who enjoyed learning new things as much as he did, it was largely a pleasant one, too if the softening of his expression and the crinkle of quiet happiness at the corners of his eyes was any indication.
The early mornings, not so much. But sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
He turned to the piles Lily had made, kneeling to stir through the tools and separate out the ones that were still usable. It looked to be most of them, and he took an armful to begin hanging them back on their pegs on the wall. "Have you met Jiao?" Something she had mentioned earlier, about lace and buttons, had tickled his memory until he recalled the Fae seamstress.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Lily - 11-12-2019
With an enthusiastic nod of confirmation Lily continues, “Frey gave it to me… in return for an orgy.” She laughs, a little bit embarrassed at saying it out loud, but the truth was the truth and enough time had passed (and enough participants as well) that it seems like a frivolous thing to try and hide. Clearly Lily doesn’t have any hangups about sex. And she’s slowly realizing that the people here don’t have nearly as many as the people in her home time and place do, either. It’s liberating. Liberating and beautiful and just as soon as she gets over this last bit of guilt over Lucas, she’ll get back on the horse.
“You’re welcome to come over. I don’t get many visitors.” Does he know where she lives? Lily quickly adds, “I live in the former Church of Safrin, if you remember when Bastien lead the silly thing,” she adds with a wry tone. Blue door with a yellow star on it - aka the house with the boner room, but then that’s also another matter entirely.
As the windows are boarded up and the Jigano begins to separate the tools, Lily finds herself unsure of what else to do, knowing nothing about glass or metal and having no gloves with which to scrape the glass together and transport elsewhere.“Only by sight. He’s often in the marketplace when I’m there. We’ve never talked but… he has kind, sad eyes.” And that’s the full extent to which she knows Rory and his leather products, goats milk, and whatever else he occasionally peddles.
“I think so. Just once, though, and she offered to make me a dress but I ah, I forgot to follow up on it.” What she doesn’t say is that the Fae’s ability to make wonderful, fancy things far surpases her own ability to count stitches and make pithy designs - meant more to keep idle hands busy than for anything of true worth. Silver would still sit on the banquet table without any lace beneath. The Bible would still exist without verses quoted and decorated and hung on walls. Lily is the epitome of upper class white women uselessness, albeit a step down because she can, at least, dress herself.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Jigano - 11-12-2019
"I've not met that particular deity, but it sounds like what others have described of them," he agreed wryly, not batting an eye at the mention of the orgy. Such bedroom games weren't for him, but he had provided music at Bastien's party-turned-orgy last Deepfrost and though he preferred to keep his own activities private he wasn't offended when others brought them up...
So long as they weren't trying to drag him into them while he was mourning friends who had been killed mere days before.
There was enough time and space between Caiside's death and now that he was still in mourning, but no longer so completely lost in grief.
"Ah, yes, I remember the place." He was surprised to hear that Lily had taken the place over, but he was glad that someone had kept it up, sa flighty as Bastien could be in his experience. "I'll try to come by soon, if we can find a moment in between fighting mud and whatever the next big catastrophe turns out to be," he added with a wry smile for the redheaded entertainer. If mud could be the worst of the disasters to strike this season, he'd count them all lucky.
As he returned for another armful of tools he realized Lily had no real protection against the sharper debris in the room and he shook his head in disgust at his lack of realizing it earlier. "I'm sorry, here..." Behind the counter was where Caiside had kept the forge gloves before, and he was relieved to find them still there, albeit beneath an overturned box. He offered them to Lily with an apologetic bow. "I should have found these for you sooner." They would be undoubtedly large on her slim arms and hands, but if she wanted to begin moving the shattered glass and wood that was wrecked beyond repair into a box or outside, she could now do so without cutting herself. "And yes... his eyes are very kind," Jigano added with a flicker of a soft smile, though there was a hint of sadness in it, as well. Rory did not easily share his troubles, and it was not the bard's place to do so for him, so he said nothing more on the matter of the sadness in those striking blue eyes.
Jiao was an easier topic, as he didn't know her well at all, but he was glad the Fae proved to be another point of shared contact. "That sounds like her," he agreed with a brighter grin. "Beautiful butterfly wings and a bit gruff at first? I'd hoped to trade her for an outfit myself. She does stunning work."
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Lily - 11-20-2019
“There always seems to be something,” Lily agrees.“I can only imagine how hard life must have been while the barrier was up. Society sucked and people died left and right in my home world, but at least we didn’t have a week of monsters,” she jokes dryly. Because that’s all you can do sometimes - just make light of the situation. The blight is a little more of a touchy subject, but she’s still alive (they all are) and that’s what counts.
Luckily, she’s distracted from further rumination by Jigano’s production of gloves. Excellent! “Nonsense, we were distracted.” No harm no foul, now is there? She flashes him a thankful grin and slips them on to her hands. They are indeed large, but they do the trick - stretching up to her elbows, and she wiggles her hands and fingers in the air to test her slightly limited dexterity. Not bad at all. Good enough for the task at hand. She begins to move the glass into a box outside, figuring that if it isn’t going to stay here, that someone would know what do with it.
“Yep, the Fae,” she agrees, though her interaction with the little fae was far more sassy and flirty than gruff.“It must be fun to fly,” she adds after a moment. Jiao’s wings were what enamored her most about the tiny woman. It sparked an envy in her that she didn’t know previously existed.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Jigano - 11-20-2019
"If it was only a week it'd be bad enough, but that doesn't even include the Wicker Women, Banshees, Boggarts, and who knows what else lurking in the Woods," he agreed wryly. "Rumor has it that these portals might eventually lead to oceans and beaches, however. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed that they aren't also trying to kill us. Gods most fortunate, but we're all in need of a break after this past year." He'd never seen an ocean himself, but he'd read about them and heard Sunjata wax (slightly) poetic about them. A few days (months?) lying on the sand with a bit of shade and a cool drink sounded heavenly after the long winter.
The forge was already starting to perk up with their efforts, and the piles of debris and useful items that Lily had gathered were shrinking once more as they separated them further, or put things away. The hardest parts had already been done, and they would finish up much faster than Jigano had anticipated with their conversation to speed the time along. "You are as gracious as you are beautiful," he declared with a gallant wink for Lily's kind forgiveness.
He caught the wistfulness in her tone as she came back in, as he was reaching up to hang the last of the tools that went on pegs. There were a few more to replace in the drawers they had been ripped out of, but the drawers themselves were still intact, thankfully. As he began slipping them back into place he smiled over his shoulder at the songstress. "I hear there are some gods you can speak to about that," he chuckled. "They always seem eager to welcome a new Attuned to the fold, and perhaps one of the shapes your soul finds would have wings with which to fly?" Though given the way things had been going over the past few seasons, he couldn't blame anyone who wanted to stay out of the brewing conflict between the gods. There was something to be said for avoiding divine attention, especially when the good was often balanced with the bad.
RE: [SE] After the Fire Has Gone Out - Lily - 11-30-2019
“Oh the Ocean is definitely always trying to kill you,” Lily jests darkly. “Something that big, that deep, that… dangerous? From land it’s pretty but there’s monsters and stuff out there.” Remember friends, 18th century Lily, doesn’t know a lot about the realities of the ocean. It’s all just a big empty space with drawings of beasts and Here be Monsters still written on it. But her hometown is a port town and she knows the docks, the ships, the sailors and the smells. She knows the people who don’t come back - even experienced seamen - and the women who mourn for them.
And yet, on a clear day, with a fresh breeze and the gulls crying and the clanging of the harbor bell, you can somehow forget all of that. It becomes beautiful… even with the reek of humanity and dead fish.
Smiling at his compliment, she mock rolls her eyes and continues her task, finishing up the glass and taking a broom to the much clearer floor.“I was thinking of asking them, actually. Shapechangers are the things of myth at home… I think I’d like very much to become something that could be in a fairytale.” It’s almost as if beauty isn’t enough, as if this form she wears and the things she does isn’t enough (nevermind that she probably won’t change her path, even as an Attuned). Lily has to be more.