[seasonal event] Toil and trouble

Maea Big dreamers shoot for open skies The worst part of it was the silence. It hovered over the farm like a cloud of misery, accentuating the fact that she was now alone. Utterly, completely alone. A funeral might have helped bring home the reality of her loss, but with no one left but her to grieve and everyone else in the community busy with their own sorrow and hard work, Maea couldn't bring herself to arrange anything. A solitary night spent crying as she crafted a lantern, so Ludo would find the souls of her loved ones and take them under its cloak, was all she gave herself. Then, unable to stand sitting around in the house any longer she threw herself into the work, numbing the thoughts by wearing herself out each day. It helped, a bit. But the nightmares did not let her rest long, and dark bags under her eyes looked more like bruises against the near translucent skin. There was so much to be done. It was by no means a big farm, and as they had always focused on the raising of sheep and growing of fruit trees it could have been far worse, butbeven so... to be alone with it all meant that all the hard labor she was so ill suited for fell on Maea. All of it was on her now. A weight on her shoulders that all but drove her on her knees. First the animals. A more thorough look in the shed confirmed that all the sheep had escaped. One of the dogs were dead, the other limped on a swollen paw, no doubt trampled by frightened ewes crowding to get away from the horrors of the night. The door was broken and needed repairs, and same with the front door. Once that was taken care of, Maea looked over the stores of firewood and food, found them almost entirely depleted and made a foray into the woodlands. With the melting snow forming puddles and revealing fallen branches on the ground from Deepfrost, it was easy enough to remedy that; the Magna were plentiful and easy to kill if she went after the small ones, and as she found tracks, sheep dung and shed wool scrubbed off on treetrunks on her way back home, the trip almost felt worthwhile. The sheep were alive, atleast, though it would be a hard task to get them home again. She would need help with that. Dealing with the orchard was worse. The trees needed pruning before spring progressed too far, and without anyone to hold the ladder, reaching for the high branches made her stomach lurch in fright. Maea gritted her teeth and held on so tight to the pruning shears that her knuckles whitened, but tried to ignored the unsteady wobble of her footing as she leaned out towards the next branch. On the ground below, Frost whimpered - out of concern or boredom was hard to tell - but Maea ignored her, too focused on the task at hand. Seiji