Bird tracks in the snow

"I used to think the same way," he agreed, his smile a little sad. "But I was one of those Blighted. I had friends and loved ones suffer for it. It... changed things, in many ways. And the killing of the Fae and the desecration of the Mathair was the last straw in my belief that any of this would end peacefully." He didn't blame Weaver for her lack of empathy for the strangers of the Greatwood and Hollowed Ground who had suffered for the Voice's ambitions, but he had chosen his side and he was not ashamed of it.

Weaver's Fae tale certainly sounded like a few Jigano had known - Delah, most notably, but there had been the nameless woman making her lantern in the woods. "That is unusually rude, even for their warriors," he chuckled. "Though it's rare to see them outside the Greatwood. I hope the next Fae you meet is more courteous!" Though at least it sounded like a fairly low bar had been set?

He raised a quizzical brow at the conclusion she had jumped to, giving a slight shake of his head. He had thought he'd spoken politely... And had let Weaver do most of the talking about her benefactor, even when it wasn't all good things. She had drawn far more from his neutral words than he had thought possible. "Apologies if it came across that way. I just wasn't sure what else to say on the matter." He offered an apologetic smile. "A brother, though? What's he like?"

Her carefree approach to her future was a bit bemusing to the bard, but he took it in stride, giving her a lopsided smile at her opportunistic lifestyle. "Not a bad way to live if it gets you through," he agreed, but her return question had him chuckling. "Too many things. I am Provost of the Loreseeker's Guild, Outlander Advisor to the Hollowed Grounds Council, general busybody, and partner to a farmer whose land and animals take up all of his time and some of mine. There's never enough time in the day to do all I have on my plate, but I enjoy exploring and meeting new people, gathering new stories and learning more about this world and the people and animals in it."

She didn’t call it lack of empathy, necessarily, but she would call it practical. There was a choice. They could try to find some peace, or they could risk far more destruction than the Blight. ”So you would choose to risk all of Caido?” There is no judgment behind the question, just the point of it. That is the path he chooses because one bad thing happened. She is not sure there’s a way around it, not anymore, and yet...and yet, for so many of them, this was not really home, was it? ”I mean, peace would require that the Voice also not risk all of Caido, and given that she’s the cause of much of this, clearly we know what she would do.” She may be hopeful, but she is not naive. Her home was destroyed because of the Voice’s ambitions, no matter how ‘good’ some might see the cause.

”Well, glad to hear not all Fae are quite so rude,” she says with a chuckle. She didn’t really spend much time in the Greatwood, knowing she was not exactly welcome there, so perhaps she simply wouldn’t run into many more of them. Maybe not the worst thing.

Weaver just shrugs, as if he need not apologize. Maybe she’d read him wrong. It happened, though Weaver was usually pretty at reading people. Not that she didn’t get it wrong on occasion. ”Korbin is his name, and he’s out in Halo quite a lot. If you haven’t met him yet, you likely will soon enough. He is...ah, well currently my brother is experiencing a midlife crisis, except that he is eighteen.” She chuckles, reaching up a hand to twirl the end of her braid around a finger. ”I didn’t tell you that, though. He’s very charming when he wants to be, though, and a good worker.” He was good at pretending with strangers, when he wanted to.

”Honestly, until the portal opened, my life was getting food on the table and not freezing to death. I have never had the luxury of planning more than that. I don’t know how to start.” There’s the real truth. Nor is she sure she wants to start, because that feels far too good to be true. It feels like a great way to have the rug ripped out right from under her.

His list of activities is long, which seems to be a trend among many of the Outlanders she’s met. Not that Weaver doesn’t keep busy, but it’s a different sort, stemming from a life of living here. Most can’t quite appreciate life in Halo without having experienced it. ”That is quite the list. Have you learned anything particularly interesting about Caido?” Gods only know, there’s probably something he could teach her.

He tilted his head thoughtfully at her question, and while he did Weaver clarified, earning a wry smile and a nod from the bard. "I was going to say, it depends on how you define 'risk.' And until things are over - one way or the other, peacefully or violently, regardless of who 'wins' - there's no way of knowing which choices, which decisions, will lead to the least bloodshed... or the most." It wasn't a choice he had made lightly, but he hoped that Weaver would never face the lessons that he had in the Voice's disregard for non-Ascended lives.

Not all, but admittedly most Fae were rude. Still, hopefully the ones brave and curious enough to travel beyond the Greatwood would be of a more tolerant stock?

"Korbin..." the bard mused thoughtfully. "Dark hair? Taller than me? Deaf?" Or so he'd been the second time they'd met, though Jigano didn't really know if the boy had been able to hear him or not, out on the Sea of Glass. He winced with amused sympathy at the midlife crisis, offering a rueful nod. "I've met him twice now, I think. He's been... less than friendly both times, but he was a hard worker. And he has a lovely voice." Loren was certainly right about that.

"That's how life is for many in the Hollowed Grounds, too," he admitted with a sigh, remembering clearly how hard it was to get food to grow and keep animals alive in the still-barren earth. "But things are getting better, slowly but steadily." Life was returning, albeit at its own pace. And with it, hope. And on hope he chuckled at her question. "Most of it dovetails quite nicely or I'd never be able to fit it all in," he admitted. "But I was a Loreseeker first. The Advisor position sprang from that, doing more of what I already was to help other Outlanders with this world they find themselves in. And those are just fancy titles that let me be a busybody - but officially," he added with a wink. "As for what I've learned... gods most fortunate, I'm filling books with it," he chuckled, delighted. "I've learned what a Spark Bird looks like, and what a frost giant smells like, and a rough estimate of the wingspan of a grey dragon. I've learned what the cry of a new-hatched gryphon sounds like, and the color of a soul, and the crackle of rye the day before it's ready to harvest. I've learned to always watch my feet when walking in the Fields in case of Landsharks, and how to grill a single worm to feed a family of eight." He arched a brow in playful challenge at Weaver. "And what have you learned of this dangerous, fascinating world of yours, that you would pass along to a too-curious Outlander seeking to learn more of it?"

She nods, humming thoughtfully. ”Over?” she asks with a rueful chuckle. ”This is a three hundred year old war. It seems unlikely it will ever be over, only that the shape of it will change.” She can be hopeful, she can dream of peace, but she knows better than to ever truly expect it. No, there was no lasting peace in their future. There was only destruction and damnation and the glimmers of something good that they forged along the way for themselves.

Weaver nods at the description of her brother. ”Not usually deaf, but he had a bad run-in at the shrines,” she says, agreement enough that that is, in fact, her brother. She chuckles a bit louder at the mention of ‘less than friendly’. ”Definitely my brother as of late.” The statement suggests he is not always like that. He certainly wasn’t, though she wasn’t sure if this was his new normal or if it was just a phase.

He goes on to explain his many jobs a bit more, and she grins as he admits to being a busybody. Aren’t they all, at least a little bit? She thrived on knowledge, even if she didn’t study it as Jigano did. No, she gathered it in gossip, whispered in corners when you thought no one was listening. She gathered it from asking questions, from never shying away from a conversation or the truth, from answering questions in turn. He lists too all the things he has learned, and though they are not the things she hopes to learn, they are interesting. ”What is the color of a soul?” she asks, picking up on that one in particular.

He asks too what she has learned that she would pass on, and she smiles slightly. ”That the animals of Halo are starving, always, and you are a delicious meal. That once, we were not a Tundra but simply a northern plain, full of many nomadic tribes. That memory snow most likes to be shaped, and the easiest way to handle the problem of it is to simply give it form and purpose. That even on a clear, beautiful Halo day, a blizzard can come out of nowhere and surprise you.”

"Three hundred years isn't so long," the bard chuckled ruefully. "That's about the lifespan of an elf on my world. A bit longer than a single Fae's lifetime, here, I think. In the span of the life of a god it must be much less than that. Not a blink of an eye... but you're right enough that it's unlikely that we'll see the end of it, or which choices ended up being the best or worst in hindsight." Perhaps they'd get lucky and it wouldn't really heat up until the next generation or two came along to deal with it.

Not that he'd push the problem off on someone else like that. What kind of meddler would he be if he did?

He winced at hearing that the deafness was a result of divine intervention - and not the good kind, but her chuckle at the young man's attitude brought the crooked grin back. "As Loren might say: teenagers." He'd hope it was just a phase then, for Weaver's sake as much as everyone else's. "But he has musical talent, from what I heard. I'd like to encourage that, when he can hear again." It was hard to fix pitch when you couldn't hear it, after all.

Weaver gave him a chance to extemporize, and he appreciated her all the more for it as he went off on a bit of a solilquoy. Her question when he finally drifted to a halt earned a wink. "The color of light," he replied, before turning his attention to her own list. Landsharks would be right at home here, he suspected, but the information on memory snow had him grinning in delight. The mention of the Tundra and its formerly-nomadic tribes caught him as well, and he tilted his head like a fox scenting a hare, happy to hunt down new information. "What happened to turn this land from grass to eternal snow?" he asked, fascinated by another of Caido's many mysteries.

She chuckles. ”And yet for us very mortal humans, we will never see the end of so many years. We are unlikely to see the end of even one century.” It was possible, though rather unheard of, to live so long. Honestly, she considered herself lucky every time she saw one more year. Yet if this war is not their problem, then it becomes their children’s problem, or their grandchildren’s problem. And those children are stuck with their parents' mistakes, just as they are currently stuck with their predecessors' mistakes. What a very ugly circle. ”Where are you from, that they had elves?”

Weaver nods at teenagers. ”Amen to that,” she says with an amused chuckle. Ah Loren. Always Loren. Somehow he crops up in her life even when she’s not around him. ”That would be good of you, and I think he’d like it. Except he may not tell you he likes it.” As much as Korbin kept insisting that he wanted to do everything his sister wanted, she didn’t believe him. She felt like his excuse, like his reason for avoiding finding his own life. ”What do you play?” she asks, curious what instrument, or instruments, the Sage knew.

”Are all souls made of light, then?” Because hers felt too heavy for that, too made of darkness and shadow. Not that she minded, necessarily, but she was not what many would consider good. Ah, well hadn’t she and Loren had that conversation as well? ”Some long forgotten magical disaster. I admit, I was rather hoping you knew,” she says with a slight chuckle, as they made their way past the street where the Kraai is, heading toward the Palace. ”Perhaps that is a mystery you can uncover and then let me know.” Maybe if they knew what had happened they could affect the weather now to bring Halo back, at least a bit, to what it had once been.

He nodded amiably as she added on to his point, but his expression perked up with interest at her next question. "You know of elves?" he asked eagerly. She was the first Natural he'd spoken with who had, and he couldn't help but be hopeful that perhaps she had news of someone else from his world who had come through Halo. "I'm from Numeria. A country that was on the northern plains of my world, with forests to the south and mountains to the west... a little like Halo used to be, perhaps." A vast country, and a dangerous one, far less civilized than the Taldane nations to the south. "Mostly humans live there, but there are smaller enclaves of elves, dwarves, halflings, half-orcs, and gnomes in most of the larger towns and cities. Goblins, too," he added, with a sad, rueful smile.

It sounded as though Weaver had some rough times ahead with a little brother plowing through adolescence, and he took her words to heart with a wry chuckle. "Any tips on how to approach him?" So far he'd been coming up empty and thanks to his first meeting with Loren he was hesitant to push where he wasn't wanted. "Lap harp, flute, panpipes, hand drum and mandolin... though mine was lost when I was brought here and I haven't practiced in two years," he admitted. "Haven't been able to find a decent lutier to construct a new one since." Though now that he had the magic for it, maybe he could... "What about your brother? Or yourself, for that matter?" He teased lightly. "A bar can always use a good bard to entertain folks in the evening. Why, it's in the name! Can't spell 'bard' without 'bar' after all." His grin was downright roguish as they continued on.

"All the ones I've seen," he agreed to the question of souls. "And there were quite a few this year on the beach, when Ludo gathered the souls of the sea to him." In fact, hadn't he seen Weaver there...? Or perhaps not. He'd been distracted by Seiji and those he had already known that night. Her lack of details on the past was a little disappointing after he'd gotten his hopes up, but her suggestion earned an easy nod of agreement. "That's what my Guild does. I suspect it has something to do with Rae. That's the god I've heard connected with weather patterns and changes to the natural world before, but why and what caused it? That will take a bit more digging." Maybe he could ask Phoebe to ask Frey? "I'll ask the same of you, kind Weaver. I'd appreciate sharing what we learn of Halo's history. Or anything else you can teach me about your land and how better to survive here," he added earnestly. "I know of the ursurs and the cannibals, the white dragons and the blizzards. What else should I be wary of?"

It seems she is destined to disappoint him with her general lack of knowledge. ”Only from fairy stories my mother used to tell me,” she bs. Fairy stories. Tall tales. Bedtime stories. Whatever you choose to call them. Her mother had spun quite a number of them, telling her children of fantastical stories that may have once taken place in Caido, with some embellishment, or may have just been figments of stories pulled from books Straia happened to read. ”And I admit, you have lost me at some of those other things. Halfings? Half-orcs?” It certainly sounded like a very interesting place to have come from, and Caido must not be that much of a shock to him.

He asks for tips, and she hums thoughtfully, letting him list the instruments he plays while she thinks about it. As he finishes up, mentioning that he hadn’t found a good lutier, she brightens slightly. ”That’s how you approach him. Korbin likes to be helpful, so ask him if he knows of anyone who could help you with your instrument needs. He’ll be more amiable if he thinks he’s being useful.” Her brother the martyr; always helping others even when he hated it. ”I don’t have a musical bone in my body, though I can dance. My brother plays the lute and sings. I’ve suggested he try that at Kraai, at which point he promptly asked me why he’d do that.” She sighs, because she agrees with Jigano. Some live entertainment would be nice, and it would be a better use of Korbin than behind the bar. She was a better bartender anyway.

She nods. She had been there on the beach that day, and though there were many souls, she wondered if they all looked like that. Perhaps. Perhaps in death everything you did in life ceases to matter. ”I guess I just never really thought about it. Though I did see Ludo gather the souls on the beach.” She nods as he explains that’s what his Guild does, mentioning Rae and weather patterns. Though she knows the gods, she can’t b she’s really studied them and their lines blur in her mind sometimes, though as the god of nature that would make sense. ”Water elementals. They tend to appear during storms and can kill you, if they are actually smart enough. Many are not. Oh. Are you familiar with the Eirachi?” She didn’t know much, but she’d tell him what she did if needed. Though really, she wonders again, how much he can teach her.

He wilted, but only a little. It had been a brief hope, and one often enough dashed that he was more rueful than surprised. "Ah well, it was worth asking. And those are other races on my world," he explained easily enough. "Like... like the Fae, here. Nonhuman races," he clarified, still a little bemused by the different classes of human on Caido being considered separate races. "Though some could interbreed with humans and form their own melded races."

Jigano chuckled at Weaver's advice, delighted by her description of her brother. "That sounds perfect, thank you. Hopefully I can get him to listen to me long enough to ask!" He hadn't seemed very interested in conversation at the fishing hole or making the Grounder refuge, but surely a bard could find a way to get a word in edgewise? But Weaver was revealing more of her secrets and Jigano flashed her a grin at hearing that she could dance. "Ah, a musician's best friend! Nothing quite beats playing music for dancers. Hopefully you can convince him to share his skills at the Kraai for Deepfrost?" Was it even a possibility, or all too likely to result in a sulky teen?

It was his turn to nod as she confirmed her place on the beach, sharing a smile with her over an experience that he suspected they would both long remember, the night almost dreamlike in how it had played out. His smile faded to a look of concentration as he drank in her warnings of elementals, humming thoughtfully. "I met one in the Fangs once. It led us to a frost giant..." And eventually its own death at the arrow of a cultist. "Which was then eaten by a dragon right in front of me. It was a bit of a harrowing day," he added with dry amusement, able to find the humor in it now that it was safely in the past.

"I've heard her name, but I'd appreciate hearing more. She sounds dangerous." Just like everything else in Halo, except possibly the ningyos.

She listens, nodding. Honestly, maybe they’d find some of those races on Caido as well, or maybe not. They don’t really know anything about the other regions. There are old stories, certainly, but so much time has passed that it feels as though anything could be true. ”Quite a number of different races, it seems.” She has never really considered the Fae nonhuman, though they were. Then again, Weaver rarely sees the differences, the usual prejudices (though she has not had great experiences with the Fae to help the prejudices there). ”Was your home somewhat like Caido though? Magical?” Or did it have things like TV (which she still didn’t understand, despite Josh’s best efforts)?

Weaver chuckles at that, giving Jigano a sympathetic smile. Yep, that sounds a whole lot like her brother. If he ever decided to stop being an ass, he was going to have a lot of apologizing to do. ”You have my pull permission to punch him if he doesn’t,” she says wryly. It’s what she would do. Though she hums some agreement at the mention of him playing during Deepfrost. ”Hopefully, though we need a way to break this whole deaf curse thing if it doesn’t lift on its own. He can’t, or won’t, play currently. I suppose it would be rather hard to play if you can’t hear.” He could try, but what was the point if he couldn’t actually hear it and enjoy it himself?

She turns her gaze to him at his story of the water elemental, the frost giant, the dragon. ”May I ask what you set out to do that day, or did you just get particularly unlucky?” She’d live here all her life and generally avoided such creatures pretty well, and yet the Outlanders came stomping in and found all the good stuff. She bs that loosely, because she likes not risking death, but what the hell were they all doing?

”She’s a lesser deity, or something. No one is quite sure what. Still, she lives in the Tundra, and I admit I don’t know much. Only that Neron was discovered by her when he was dropped into the Tundra from his old home, and she made him Warden. I am not sure why, and I do not know what else she might be meddling in. If you learn more, I would be curious to know it. I am happy to do the same in return.” She’d never really thought much of the Eirachi until recently. Well, until Neron. But until then, she’d never really seemed to affect their lives. Now though? Perhaps they need to be better informed.

"My home was very magical," he agreed, smile turning a little wistful at the memories now that time and distance had allowed a more rosy glow to overtake much of the guilt and remorse of that world. "Magic could be something you were born with, something you learned from books, or even a gift of the gods. Not everyone had it," he hurried to nip that potential misunderstanding in the bud. "But it was common enough that people weren't surprised by it. We had many names for magic users because there were so many different types of it." Witches, wizards, sorcerers, clerics, bards, druids... the list went on and on.

"I'll keep that in mind, though hopefully it won't come to that. I'll hope this is a phase that will pass, perhaps with the seasons. I'll hope the deafness passes, too. It's a pain in the ass to try and stay in key when you can't hear yourself," he agreed fervently. "And forget tuning your instruments, unless someone else can do it for you. If it hasn't faded by the time Flowerbirth opens the pass again, I'll lend what help I can." What that would be he wasn't sure yet, but perhaps Ludo would be willing to grant him another favor if he could gather more LongNight souls for the masked god.

"Unlucky," he admitted ruefully. "Though we were out exploring, seeing if we could find any passes through the mountains. A rockfall or avalanche might have been expected, but we ran into far more than we bargained for that day." And the pass they'd found led nowhere safe.

Jigano listened intently to what Weaver could tell him of the Eirachi, layering it together with what he'd learned from the book and Morgan. "That's about what I've heard, too," he agreed, a little disappointed that there was nothing new, but there wasn't much he could add to it, either. "I'll be happy to share if I found out more, of course. Everyone seems to agree that she's dangerous, though, so the more we all know the better." He didn't want to think about the havoc she could wreak in the already-weakened Grounds or the tropical ecology of Torchline.

She listens as he talks, nodding to show her understandment. The way he speaks of magic there makes her jealous, almost. She is lucky to live in Halo, a place that is generally friendly to the Abandoned, but still, magic as she had it was not a gift from the gods. Not here. Well, not anymore. Another thing they could thank The Voice for, she supposes. ”So not quite like here,” she muses. It was not uncommon here, but they were frowned upon for it all the same, at least by the gods. The gods would gift small things, but to become Abandoned was something different entirely. And yet didn’t their demi-children have magic? The Fae? Funny how prejudices work. ”It sounds like a good place, though.”

She nods again, rather touched at Jigano’s offer to help. ”Hopefully it passes. All of it. But if it does not, I may take you up on that offer so maybe we can fix a small piece of his many issues.” Though Jigano is right. Deepfrost is a funny season. It changes you. Though it is a rather uneventful season for them, if you do not count the blizzards and freezing temperatures or the Palace blowing up, something happens when you are cooped up inside with those that you love for way too long. Maybe something changes simply because you can say you survived.

She hums slightly at the mention of exploring. ”Any chance you took a Halovian with you on that expedition?” Not that it necessarily would have gone better, but it might have. She really doesn’t mind the Outlanders, but they do have a tendency to act first and think later. Jigano seems a but less impulsive, but still, she is curious.

”For most of my life I didn’t think much of her, really. A myth, more than anything. And then Neron shows up and suddenly she’s meddling in our lives...I admit that I am hopeful to learn more.” Which might involve her storming into the Tundra to try and get their ‘Lady of Ice’ to come out, but who knows if she’d actually manage that. She’d be more successful with someone like Jigano and his books, most likely.

"No, not quite," he agreed, a little sad for the world he had lost and the friends he would never have the chance to find again, but he had changed and found and gained too much on Caido to truly regret that loss. "It is. But I'm glad that I have a home here now." Simply stated, but all the more powerful for the simple truth of the words.

"From one bard to another, it'll be my pleasure to help if I can," he assured her with a smile, even though his previous interactions with Korbin hadn't been the rosiest. But given what he now knew, he didn't blame the young man for being a bit on the surly side, and he had a season to consider different options. It was Weaver stuck with a teenager's angst in close quarters for the coming months, and he saved some of his sympathy for her as well.

Her question on the expedition earned a rueful grin. "Of course not," he admitted, though not without a flicker of exasperation in his tone. "The young man in charge of the expedition did invite along two children of Rae though. I think he might have been over-reliant on their divine connections when the twins are... mm. From what I gathered, they might have the bodies of adults, but their minds are fairly fresh to the world." Delighted, curious, utterly captivated by the wonders of nature and all living things, but not necessarily experienced in the geology of specific regions.

"All the gods seem to be more involved than they used to be, from what I've heard and read," he agreed with Weaver's experience with the Eirachi. "Sometimes it's a personally comforting thing, but others..." The weight of the guardian sphere in his pocket hung heavy for a moment. "I wonder how many other gods there are, tucked away in various regions?" he mused thoughtfully. "Minor gods or major spirits, perhaps. To us mere mortals I suppose there's not much difference on how bad they can make our days if we piss them off."

”Well we are glad to have you here,” she says. Though she may not know him well, it is clear enough he has made a home for himself here.

Weaver simply nods as Jigano say he’ll be happy to help, offering him a grateful smile. She could use all the help she could get. It would be a miracle of they made it through Deepfrost without one of them killing the other - likely her killing him. It’s a good thing she was raised with two brothers, because she is used to fighting it out with fists and knives.

”Huh,” she says at the mention of yet more demi-gods. Twenty-six years and she’d never seen one, and now, suddenly, they seemed to be everywhere. Wessex, Seren, Ronin, these twins. There are more she doesn’t know about as well, probably. ”Though I am mildly impressed anyone could even be bothered to come explore this place,” she says with a shrug, not entirely sure what else to add. He didn’t need a lecture about letting the locals show you around.

She chuckles ruefully at his observation on the gods, not all that different than her observation at how the demi-gods seemed to be coming out of nowhere. ”They are indeed more active than they have been in a long time,” she confirms. It’s at least true in Halo, and from what she’s heard, it’s true elsewhere as well. ”I wonder if we really want to know what else is out there,” she says, though some part of her does want to know. What would Caido be like if the land was opened as it once was? There would be good, certainly. But oh, what terrors might they find lurking in the dark?