Tal might not be able to prove it, but he subconsciously relaxed a little at the shared warmth. The last few years had made the miracle of the dome something one could almost take for granted, but for most of Tal's life LongNight had been a time of cold and dark and grim loneliness as Halovians locked themselves inside with their stores of lantern oil and firewood and piles of blankets and furs and food. Every house had been an island in the night, isolated and unreachable as the Deepfrost winds had howled down the streets, cold enough to freeze a man dead in minutes no matter how many layers he wore, and the snow drifted and heaped halfway or more up their doors. Whole families died if their fuel ran out, their bodies found frozen in Flowerbirth when the shoveling teams finally cleared the streets and neighbors realized which chimneys had no smoke emerging.
The falling lights - stars? - had called forth those old, subconscious sense-memories of LongNights past, dangerous and uncertain and deadly, when anything might be outside the shuttered windows, and Tal leaned into his friend's side in unspoken gratitude as a shiver ran down his spine.
If the subject hadn't been so serious the courier might have had something smug to say about Sah admitting he was right, but aside from a brief flare of warmth in his chest he let the words go unremarked. Instead he chewed his lip, listening to the other man's ideas in turn as his customary scowl began to tug down the corners of his mouth. "If you're right, it picked a damn inconvenient time t'visit," he grumped. "No one can go any-fuckin'-where 'til dawn right now. An' that's still a few day-candles away." The big candles, thick as his arm, that took twenty-four hours to burn down and helped mark the time when there was no sun or stars to do it for them. "An' we don't even know where they came down, even if we had fancy teleportin' magic." He drew in a big sigh and let it out with glum resignation. "So... guess I'll be takin' th'Peregrine out first thing an' seein' if there's anythin' I can spot from th'air." At least he wasn't going to be the first one to encounter... whatever it was. Whichever poor sods east of the Draig the lights had landed on would have that dubious honor.
Tal just hoped he wasn't going to be the first one to find a messy aftermath of that meeting.
The falling lights - stars? - had called forth those old, subconscious sense-memories of LongNights past, dangerous and uncertain and deadly, when anything might be outside the shuttered windows, and Tal leaned into his friend's side in unspoken gratitude as a shiver ran down his spine.
If the subject hadn't been so serious the courier might have had something smug to say about Sah admitting he was right, but aside from a brief flare of warmth in his chest he let the words go unremarked. Instead he chewed his lip, listening to the other man's ideas in turn as his customary scowl began to tug down the corners of his mouth. "If you're right, it picked a damn inconvenient time t'visit," he grumped. "No one can go any-fuckin'-where 'til dawn right now. An' that's still a few day-candles away." The big candles, thick as his arm, that took twenty-four hours to burn down and helped mark the time when there was no sun or stars to do it for them. "An' we don't even know where they came down, even if we had fancy teleportin' magic." He drew in a big sigh and let it out with glum resignation. "So... guess I'll be takin' th'Peregrine out first thing an' seein' if there's anythin' I can spot from th'air." At least he wasn't going to be the first one to encounter... whatever it was. Whichever poor sods east of the Draig the lights had landed on would have that dubious honor.
Tal just hoped he wasn't going to be the first one to find a messy aftermath of that meeting.
