~Fate

The chilling cold wind stirs up the snow that’s drifting down from the skies, and if my eyes aren’t lying to me, then it’ll be bringing much more down from the mountains soon. It’s all a little much, but the cold does wake me up, when I eventually crawl from bed.

Though the cold corpse was enough of a shock for this morning.

The rest of the town huddles inside the warm tavern away from the wind. The fireplace is roaring and the heat spreads pleasantly through the room, partly because of how everyone sits shoulder to shoulder. Us being the only strangers, it’s pleasantly welcoming to be treated the same.

All the unpleasantness of the icy chill that clings to us is washed away in moments of the door closing behind us.

“How much for a good warm meal this morning?” I ask a passing waitress, a young woman who spends most of her time chatting rather than serving food.

In the city she’d be dressed down by the owner and customers both, but it’s clear that this isn’t that sort of establishment. Things here are more casual and uncaring, which is what makes it that much more pleasant.

“Ah, none of that.” She says, “You’re our guests through this blizzard. So long as you’re not gnawing on the pillars that keep the roof up, no one’s going to mind. The owners struggling to keep the gold and silver tower from falling already.”

The towers of coins she waves to have already fallen, and some of the locals are making a game out of seeing who can stack them the highest with the tower collapsing.

“We have a nice morning soup heated up, some biscuit on the side. That work for you two?”

I try not to groan at hearing the word biscuit. Travel rations by any other name… That said, it wouldn’t do to be rude. I give her a polite nod and a smile as she squeezes through the crush to get our food for us.

“You hate biscuit that much?” Hope asks, looking me in the eyes as she shuffles away from the other locals and towards me. She’s a bit bony, but I won’t complain.

“Is it that obvious?” I ask, I was trying to not be rude if they can read my expression… I’ll have to make sure I have a proper smile on when our food comes.

“A little.” She says, quieting as the meals arrive. The hardened biscuit beside the soup seems little more appetising than slabs of stone.

“Thank you.” I say to the waitress as she hurries back to the conversation she’s been missing out on. If she noticed my expressions, she doesn’t seem to care too much about it.

Hope snickers as I start soaking the biscuit in my soup. She’s doing the same, so I don’t really see what’s so funny.

“Your sour expression.” She answers without me needing to ask.

“You know, I’m starting to see the charm in your quiet stoicism now.” I say, chewing on the barely softened stone.

“I’m sure.” She replies, a faint smile on her lips that soon fades away as we overhear the topic of conversation among the locals.

“To Luther, he had a good run. If this damn blizzard didn’t come through, maybe he’d be with us all the way to the end.” Jake says, taking a long drink from his mug. Missy leans against his side, looking rather upset.

“Are you sure it was the cold that finished him?” An older lady asks, sipping at some tea over by the fireside.

“What else could it be?” Jake asks, “The fire was out, and he was practically frozen. I… I never thought that the old man could die, even when the lovers do kiss I could imagine him crawling up out of the mess just to start fixing everything up.”

That earned him a few chuckles.

“Unlike you lot, he wasn’t such a pervert.” Freddy says, chuckling to himself. “He’s not so keen to be watching those gods go smashing parts in our skies. The old fart just wanted to give the pair some privacy.”

“You say that like you’re not an old fart too, Freddy.” The older lady says.

“Says the old, pickled raisin.” Freddy replies.

The old man doesn’t at all look like I’d expect from a man whose friend just died, but then again, everyone’s a bit out of sorts this year. No one here is excluded.

“Settle down, settle down.” The waitress says, chuckling at the older pair as their argument get’s louder, though no more serious.

“Old Luther is gone, but I remember at our last meeting he told us he made it through his last list-”

“Lovers’ list!” Jake shouts.

“Nah, sounds stupid. It’s the death list.”

“The imperfect list.”

“The ‘everything and everyone I want to do before I die’ list.” An older gentleman shouts.

“Good luck crossing anything off that list with that kind of talk.” A younger lady cries back, laughing at his crude humour.

“Whatever you want to call it!” The waitress shouts, taking back control of the scene. “Luther finished his, he did everything he wanted to do before he left us, and we should follow his example. What else have you lot crossed off of your lists?”

“I painted a rainbow.” A young lad says, “It isn’t very good, but I did still paint it.”

“Why does it have brown in it?” A young girl by his side asks.

“Rainbows have every colour in them. I just made the brown a bit too wide.” He says, pouting and turning aside. “I said it wasn’t very good.”

“That’s a lovely painting.” The waitress says, taking it off his hands. It’s a fine enough painting, though it certainly wouldn’t sell at a market or anything.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~Hope

That paint could be wasted in such a painful attempt at ‘art’ is something that can only be forgiven by the fact that it’ll be erased before a full year can pass. Even most children should be able to at least get the colours in the right order, but this…

I have to look away before it damages my eyes. My sister did warn me that looking at ugly things can take your sight away, and if anything can do it, I’m sure this boy’s negligent attempt at art surely can. A weapon by any decent respects, though it seems most here are immune to its effects.

I turn Fate’s head away from the sight, saving her from further injury. She doesn’t seem to get it, but looks at me queerly with an amused smile.

The stinking, sweaty crowd of peasants continues to discuss what it is that they’ve done and what they still want to do. One middle aged man wants to bathe in honey, like some rich, noble maiden preparing for her wedding day, while I find it rather offensive that they understand the concept of bathing but for some reason have decided to entirely forgo the simplicities of a cleansing bath in water.

Others are just happy to learn how to sing without the effort inspiring their neighbours towards murder. Though unfortunately, from the sample screeches they then provide, I have to assume that their solution to the problem was to strike their neighbours deaf.

I don’t get it.

The sticky sensation of bathing in honey? Learning to sing without offending even the tone deaf birds? Wasting expensive paints in an act of vandalism against a perfectly fine canvas?

Why bother?

Why care?

We’ll all be dead in a year’s time and everything we’ve done will be taken from us. These experiences, these thoughts, these piles of gold, and weaponised art. It’ll all be gone, every effort wasted, and happy memory lost, struck down all at once by the horny gods in the sky.

I just don’t get it.

“Are you feeling alright?” Fate asks, nudging at me with her toes under the table.

“I’m fine.” I reply, taking a deep breath and recentering myself. I have one last task. One last thing to do. They have their stupid lists, and it seems I have my own, though it’s rather shorter.

“How about some drinks?” She suggests, taking my mug before I can reply and squeezing out towards the barrels on tap.

I pull my bag closer to me, sitting it on my lap. The sounds of the tavern drift further away, or really, I’m the one drifting. I just want it all to be over already. Why does it have to be one more year?

Why can’t it be sooner?

“Why was I the one…” I shake my head before the thought can finish.

“Here, warm spiced mead.” Fate says, placing the drink on the table as she shuffles in beside me. Her gaze falls to my bag for a second.

She clearly understands it’s important to me. I haven’t really been hiding it, but I’m glad she hasn’t pressed the issue or tried to look inside.

“Let’s drink.” Fate says, her bright eyes looking up. Somehow even now she can see a bright future.

It’s a lie, and I know that she knows it too, but somehow that lie brings to life a smile more genuine than any I’ve ever seen.

Tentatively, I reach for the drink.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~Fate

The blizzard has truly come down over this spring town, but the cold can’t take away the warmth from the fires and the drinks. The warmth the people here have burning in their hearts.

Never before has a blizzard in spring felt so much like spring. The weather bringing everyone together and drawing out smiles and happiness, where in other years it would make the most cheerful of men grumpy for the aches and frost.

“I… I think I drank… too much…” Hope says, stumbling along beside me, with that precious bag of hers clutched protectively at her side. She never does let it go, a burden she carries everywhere, always mindful of it and never really setting it down.

“It was fun, though.” I say.

After her last drink, Hope was even joining in on the singing, but I’m not sure she’ll remember it by morning. Her voice, even when plastered, is surprisingly clear and beautiful, I could almost swear that she’s been trained by a minstrel or some other master of the craft.

Missy gets the door for us as we arrive at the inn, the fireplace roaring and lighting up the room.

“It’s cold out there.” Missy says the obvious with a bright smile, leading us over to the fire. I hesitate only a moment before following. Our room isn’t going to be quite as warm, or pleasant as it is down here, and they did invite us.

“The other rooms are fine, if a bit cold.” Jake says, coming down the stairs to join us. “Luther is… resting in the celler. There’s plenty of snow and I don’t think he’s going anywhere on us.”

“I hope not.” Missy says, smiling as she greets her lover. “I don’t know what I’d say if he sees that I’ve taken his favourite chair. You’d probably have to fend him off.”

The pair settle down as l lead Hope down onto the couch beside me, she isn’t completely out of it, and I think her head will clear up before she passes out, but her balance is rather awful.

“Do you two have a list?” Jake asks, adding a little more fuel to the flames. “You’re both travelling the world, right?”

“I’m travelling to an ancient ruin.” I say, sitting up straight. “The old civilisations knew of the lovers kiss, and… well in short, I want to save the world.”

Saying it just makes the room feel a little brighter, even knowing that they won’t believe me. I’d like to convince them, to prove it to them, but I know it’s impossible.

The doubts come crawling into the back of my mind, but I shake them loose before they can settle in.

“Save the world?” Missy says, leaning forwards, her eyes shining. “Do you think it’s possible?”

“Well, just wait for it and you’ll see for yourself.” I say.

“It’d be a little sad to keep the lovers apart.” Jake chuckles but Missy jabs him in the side. A little too hard it seems as he chokes while holding his side.

“What about you?” Missy asks Hope directly. I turn my attention to her wondering how she’s going to reply.

“I have one thing.” She says, “Fate is helping me with it. I need to find somewhere beautiful. A natural landscape that’s just… beautiful. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“The foundation of a great adventure.” Missy says, smiling happily. “I’d love to hear it all the way through, but… well when you save the world, you can write a book about it.”

Her eagerness doesn’t seem to come from belief, but she too wants to have hope. She wants to grasp that same future as I do.

“What about you two?” I ask, and Missy quickly pulls back, getting deathly quiet as she turns her gaze to the fires.

“Just the usual.” Jake says, the smile on his face a stiff one. “I mean there is one thing I wanted to try of a night-time, but Missy was rather adamantly against it. Something about the road being only one way?”

If the last strike was a nudge, this one was a full body blow. Jake wheezes painfully as he clutches his side, still gritting his teeth and smiling as he sits back up, pretending as though nothing happened.

“In front of a stranger?!” Missy hisses, her glare bringing the temperature in the room up by a few degrees.

“They did ask.” He says, with a somewhat pained laugh. “You’re always telling me I should be more honest.”

“Not this honest!”

The two continue to argue for a while, but the atmosphere from before doesn’t return, and we settle into a quieter conversation. The two are quite interested in the city, and what it’s like being a merchant, but I only give them the more interesting stories, only a few fabricated.

They also talk about themselves and their lives here. They clearly aren’t anyone special, their lives ordinary, so much so that they’re not bothered to travel anywhere else before the end.

At some point Hope drifts away, leaning against my side as she sleeps. Missy gets us some blankets and I get comfortable by the fireside.

The warmth of the fireplace draws me towards sleep as the blizzard roars outside, it’s cold unwelcome here in this place of pleasant dreams.