Mardove leaned out the open window of the humble village guest room, allowing the evening cool to wash over her face. Off in the distance she could hear the cheerful voices of Nisra's quaint people singing the praises of their sainted Sovereign, and see the lights of the evenings rituals cresting the snow cozied roofs of the cottages separating the scenes.
"I don't think I like this place at all." She said, with a melancholic touch to her voice.
In the room behind her, Elodie the All-Seeing sat on a cushion, halfway between a small fire brazier and the window. Her eyes closed, she traced esoteric patterns in the air with her left hand, while her right was occupied by a cup of rosehip tea.
"This charming and generous place? Whyever not?" was her reply.
Mardove tipped the ash from the clay pipe she'd been given earlier in the evening. A 'gift' from the same villagers who'd agreed to put them up, as friends of the Das'Herders. It was crudely made, ugly, but serviceable. The ash drifted as carelessly on the gentle air currents as the falling snow.
"I don't know. Something about it just feels so…"
"Naïve?" Elodie offered.
Mardove was going to say 'vulnerable,' but Elodie's answer sounded better. "Isn't it, though?" she asked, turning to her comrade. "Even the dead of winter here is so… gentle, and peaceful. The wind never howls, the dark is too bright, and the snow falls in fluffy piles. It's too quiet. I haven't seen a single brawl, or shouting match. Most of these buildings don't even have locks."
"They have nothing to steal anyway." Elodie pointed out. "Simple people lead simple lives, unburdened by the struggles of Lankhmar. There's nothing here to set one man above another, no wealth to hoard, and no ambitions to clash over." she continued to summarize. "That disturbs you?"
Mardove shook her head slowly thinking it over. "Yeah, I guess it does."
She thought back to home, or the home she knew before throwing in with this gang of fools. In Lankhmar, winter was a beastly creature. Frosting mists crept in from the River Hlal to engulf the whole waterfront in a thin prison of ice, and sleet as deadly as sling stones assaulted from across the Inner Sea. Damp, heavy snow fell to the cobblestone gutters leaden with smoke and airborne filth, landing in puddles of blood and offal, creating a putrid slush that sometimes froze into deadly slicks and jagged sheets. Picking pockets got tricky when people started bundling up in Lankhmar. Easier in some ways, harder in others. Harder still with frigid hands and stiff digits. The Lankhmar winter made hard people harder. Death was never closer at hand than in those months when night outlived day.
Elodie set her cup down, and opened her eyes to the dim ambiance of the firelit room. She swept her heavy woven garments around her tightly as she stood and walked to the window. "If you find it so distressing, we should shutter the evening. Perhaps you'll find a hideous dream to escape to." She latched the window tightly shut, and retired to bed, leaving Mardove alone to brood.
Sitting across from the fire, wrapped in a padded quilt, Mardove's mind refused to settle. The silence of the village by night clouded her thoughts, demanding to be filled, but the only sound she could focus on was the gentle crackling of firewood in the large earthenware bowl. As she gazed into the embers she slowly became entranced by the dish of coals.
In her mind's eye, she was taken back to Lankhmar. She felt the warmth of the fire like the kiss of the setting sun cutting through the cool air, as she and her sister crept quietly down the shallow wooden stairs of their latest hideout. Mardove held the bulkhead door open just wide enough to stave off total darkness, while Lark worked to light a broken pot full of wood scraps and straw down below. With each strike of flint a small spark lit up Lark's focused face, until eventually a fire took root. The little flame illuminated the center of their shelter, and cast a shadow nearly as harsh as that cast by the setting sun. It wasn't enough to push out the chill air, but it made the storage space beneath the cargo warehouse feel warmer by far.
This was without doubt the best squat they'd found in a long time. Maybe ever. There were two ways in, both inconvenient to access from outside, and it was too small for an adult to stand up. They'd worked together to patch the daub in between the log walls over the rainy Autumn months, replacing crumbling mud and sticks with fresh mud and straw. There had even been plenty of straw left to pack into grain sacks to make rudimentary bedding among the old casks and boxes of their abode. It was dull work, but these sorts of tasks helped them pass the time quietly when there was danger in the River District. It kept them safe from the lesser winds of Autumn, but as Winter reared its head, they could only hope their preparations were enough.
Food, of course, was getting harder to come by the fewer harvests sailed down the river. But tonight was a fortunate night. Between them Mardove had pilfered a supply of apples, Lark mugged a rival urchin for enough to buy a bread loaf, and they'd both squirreled away sufficient nuts that it felt safe to roast a few. While the wind outside grew heavier, and the chill in the air grew steadily more pervasive, the twins laughed and joked, pretending their toasted bread was a fine honeyed cake. From a tin cup they sipped a warm brew of rain water and crushed black berries, and imagined it to be exotic liquor. Some chestnuts too old to crack were made into conkers and played against one another. The revelry felt well earned, but soon enough it gave way to fatigue. It had been a tiring day, and the days would only get shorter and more difficult from that point until Spring. It hardly crossed their minds that night though, as they settled in among their burlap bedding and drifted to sleep, by the sound of the crackling fire pot and rushing wind outside.
Eventually, Mardove's attention skipped a beat. She'd allowed herself to be lost in the act of tending the fire, and the effort of pushing the present out of thought. She felt as though she had not moved in a great deal of time, and no sooner did she think this, the song of a snow bird slipped past the shuttered windows. Morning was approaching.
Elodie awoke from her serene slumber, pleased that the room was no colder than she'd left it. She unwound a strip of soft black gauze from around her eyes, embracing the light of the fire once more, and saw that her friend was huddled on the floor with a pensive look on her face.
"Been thinking." Mardove started, her voice somewhat constrained after hours of disuse. "I'd like to borrow your writing things."
Elodie uncovered herself and walked to her pack. She retrieved the requested utensils and a sheet of parchment, handing them over with a curious smirk. "You do know how to use them?" she taunted.
Mardove accepted without comment, and began scrawling a message, bearing down on the side of her knee. When she finished, she stood up, and rolled the parchment into a tight tube. She opened the cottage window, and looked out at the peaceful village of Nisra, steadily dripping with early melt and bathed in buttery sunrise.
"I think I figured out what I don't like about this place." Mardove announced.
Elodie quietly waited for her to finish the thought. But instead Mardove turned to her and asked "Do you think there's a dovecote nearby? I need to send this back home. To Lankhmar."