[The alarm went off, it was 6 AM. Jason was ready to get to work around the farm. He had 39 starting actions]

[Tess’s Almanac: 5th day of Winter! 86 days until the Winter Festival. Lots of snow coming down today, folks! Nothing record-breaking, but it looks to be mixed with a good deal of sleet, so make sure you’re careful if you venture outside]

Jason slowly rolled out of bed, more than comfortable as the heat from his distant fire filtered up through the room. The window had a thick layer of frost across it as a result, and he soon wiped it clean to reveal a sparkling winter wonderland beyond.

The snow was falling hard, and as Tess had indicated, was mixed with a large amount of slush. The ground was covered in mounds of half-frozen water, and as Jason watched, a great deal of it slid off the roof and fell down to the ground below, where it splatted across a large area. He shivered, not wanting to go outside for more than a few moments, and soon changed into more appropriate clothing.

When he went downstairs, he passed by the kitchen as usual and made his way outside, where he ran to Lady’s stable and soon had her fed and watered. It took him a few minutes to get the straw scooped and fluffed, and then he closed it up and let her be. At least, that was his goal.

As he stepped out into the slush-covered driveway, hooves clattered on the muddy road, and a small carriage rumbled up to the house. Lacy sat in the back, with Nathanial and Killian sitting on the front bench. The wagon was hitched to a chestnut mare that nickered softly when it saw Jason. He was fairly certain that it belonged to Jeremiah, though he couldn’t be certain. He waved and started walking toward them, but only Killian and Nathanial waved back.

“This is quite the place!” Nathanial whistled as he dropped down to land in the slush. Jason took the reins of the horse and began disconnecting it from the carriage, and Lacy began scrambling down. “I remember hearing about this place from Dad, once. It looks a lot better than he made it sound!”

“I’ve done a lot of work on it.” Jason sighed and shrugged, and soon had the mare disconnected from the carriage. He started leading her toward the stable, and glanced over his shoulders. “Go ahead and head on inside. I was about to get myself some breakfast, I’ll whip up some for you as well.”

“That would be wonderful.” Lacy muttered. “That inn has dreadful service. I’d report her to the Innkeeper’s Guild, but I’m not sure if there even is such a thing.”

By this point, Jason was convinced that there was a guild for just about everything, but he didn’t dare say so. He quickly took the mare into his stable and set her up right next to Lady, then followed his family into the house. Nathanial and Killian stood just next to the doorway politely, only coming out of the snow and ice, but Lacy had already made her way into the home and was poking about.

“The kitchen is that way.” Jason gestured at the open door. “I do technically have a dining room, but since I haven’t really had occasion to use it, it’s pretty dusty.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t be living here, if you can’t take care of everything.” Lacy sniffed. “This furniture. It all has a rather feminine touch, don’t you think?”

“I am getting married, mom.” Jason kicked off his boots and made his way into the kitchen. “Tess has been helping me get the place together. It has been kinda hard to get it all put together while also taking care of the farm. Winter has been about the only time I’ve had to really spend much time on house work.”

“Well, that will have to change once you get married.” Lacy shrugged. She walked into the kitchen and sat down at the small table. “You can’t expect house work to only get done over the winter, unless you expect your new wife to give up her job.”

“She’s already planning on doing so.” Jason shrugged. “She’s not going to be just lounging around the house, she has too strong of a work ethic for that, but I’m too far away from town for her to effectively keep performing her current job.”

“Oh really? And what would that be?”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “She’s the guildmaster for the Warriors Guild.”

Lacy’s eyes popped open wide, and then she scowled darkly once again. “And she seemed like such a nice little thing. A warrior? Jason, pardon me for saying so, but that’s no way to go. She’ll be out of here and off with a far handsomer young lad just as soon as you start to settle down.”

“You’re just a proper beam of sunshine this morning.” Jason scowled at her, then turned to the stove. “We need pancakes and bacon, lots of it.” He glanced at Lacy. “You guys do still like that, right?”

“We’ve been trying to eat healthier, actually.” Lacy cut off Nathanial and Killian, who had both begun nodded enthusiastically.

“Alright. Add a bit of eggs and something green along with it.” Jason sat down at the table, with Killian and Nathanial doing the same. They could all four barely fit, but they made it work well enough.

“Well?” Lacy looked at him incredulously. “Aren’t you going to get to it?”

In response, the cookbook began to flap its pages back and forth. With a flash, the full array of food appeared on the table, and Lacy screamed.

“What in this wide, wide world is that?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “It’s a magic cookbook, mom. Come on, you can’t tell me that you haven’t seen these things up in Illumitir. Our neighbors used to have one that I would play with all the time.”

“Light works makes for a lazy boy.”

“Is there nothing I can do that will make you happy?” Jason snapped. “Ever since you’ve arrived, and admittedly that hasn’t been long, all you’ve done is complain.”

“After you left us like that-”

“I didn’t get any of your letters.” Jason snapped. “Tess has been checking into that. Constable Hank isn’t exactly the best person to-”

“I don’t care about the letters.” Lacy snapped and started stabbing at the food on her plate. “You got a letter from a random uncle you don’t know, and all of a sudden, you’re leaving the big city and trying your hand at farming. You left us high and dry. What if we had needed an extra set of hands? What if we had needed an extra hand working for us?”

“Mom, I’m twenty-six years old. Almost twenty-seven.” Jason rolled his eyes. “I was twenty-four when I left home, which was two years older than Frank, if you’ll remember. You only have two kids left at home, and both of them are old enough to be working, themselves. If I had stayed, it would have been stranger.”

“Still.” Lacy muttered. “You didn’t even ask if we wanted to come along.”

“You laughed at me and told me to stay in Illumitir.” Jason pointed out. “I didn’t exactly have any reason to suspect that you might want to come along.”

“I didn’t want to come along.” Lacy shrugged. “This place is dreadful, and I hope to leave it just as soon as possible.”

“Then leave.” Jason shrugged, gesturing at the door. “I don’t really understand what your problem is.”

“And I don’t understand why you can’t understand!” Lacy stood up and marched from the room, leaving Jason rather flabbergasted. He heard her sobbing from the other room, and Nathanial sighed and got up to follow. Killian looked after his brother, then shrugged and tucked into the plate of bacon on the table.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Jason muttered softly. He heard his mother moving toward the door, and a moment later, she and Nathanial stepped out onto the porch. “What’s got her so wound up?”

Killian didn’t answer for several long seconds as he chewed, then shrugged. “I dunno, honestly. Ever since you left, she’s been like this, in one way or another. It gets better, and then it gets worse, but it never quite goes away. I personally think that’s why dad chose to go back to work in the mines. He enjoys being underground, and the hours are super long so he doesn’t have to deal with her.”

Jason chuckled softly. “That’s kinda awful.”

“Yeah, but I also can’t say that I blame him.” Killian sighed, then shrugged and lowered his voice. “If you really want my opinion, I think she wanted this farm. You remember when she would take us to the zoo as kids, and she’d always stay in the petting part of the zoo way longer than we ever wanted to do?”

At that, Jason laughed. “I do! You practically had to tie a rope around her and drag her away if there were any sheep, I remember that much.”

“Yeah.” Killian shrugged and sighed. “She might have just been hurt or frustrated that you got the gig instead of herself, and now she’s trying to find fault with everything to convince herself that it’s okay that you can out instead of her. I don’t know that for sure, of course, but it makes as much sense as anything else.”

“Yeah.” Jason stroked his chin for a few moments. “Do you think she’d like it better if I asked her to help out? I don’t have a lot going on during the winter, but I know Jeremiah does a lot of cattle drives and that sort of thing. I could probably get her some time with animals, you know?”

“Maybe. It also might make her feel like you’re pandering to her.” Killian sighed. “Honestly, I think she’d like it best if you let all of us move in with you.”

“I’m getting married. I am not letting my mother move into the same house for anything longer than a single weekend.”

Killian chuckled softly. “That sounds like a solid plan to me. I do wish you the best.”

“How long are you guys here for?” Jason asked as he rose from the table. Killian matched him, and the two of them started walking toward the door.

“Honestly? Couldn’t tell you.” Killian shrugged. “We’re here until mom decides that it’s time to move on. That’s really all I know. I think we’ll be heading back by the end of the season, but again, your guess is as good as mine.”

The two of them went walking out onto the front porch, where Lacy stood with a silk handkerchief pressed up against her nose. She took one look at Jason and sniffed, and he crossed his arms.

“What do you want from me, mom?” Jason shrugged. “I’m willing to do pretty much anything, but you have to make it clear to me what that is. I have a successful business and a town that I love. I’m getting married. Most mothers would be thrilled with that sort of a thing.”

Lacy gave no answered, but turned and nodded at the carriage. “Could you get that hooked back up? I’d like to leave the first moment that I can.”

Jason inclined his head, stepped back in the house to put on his boots, and then strode out into the snow. In short order, he had hitched the horse back up to the carriage, and Lacy came and climbed into the back. His brothers took the front seat, and Nathanial gave a snap of the reigns. The carriage lurched into motion as the horse started pulling them back toward Summer Shandy, and Jason sighed as he watched them go.

Suddenly, though, he caught sight of something in the ditch by the roadside. It was small and brown, and as he watched, it lumbered up onto the road. The spinning wheels of the carriage splashed through the slush, dumping a large amount of half-melted snow across the creature. Lacy let out some sort of a horrified scream, and with that, the carriage plunged onward toward the city.

Jason broke and raced toward the road, uncertain what had just happened. As he came racing up to the mound of snow, it began to quake violently. A small black dot appeared, and then a snout pushed out just behind the small nose. Within a few seconds, two warm, brown eyes appeared as well, set just in front of two floppy brown ears. A shivering hound stepped out of the slush pile an instant later, and Jason scooped the creature up in his arms. It was so light that he could hold it easily, and the ribs stood out upon the dog’s chest.

“Now who are you?” Jason asked as he spun back toward the house. “Something tells me that you won’t mind coming inside. Want some breakfast? I think I have plenty that my family didn’t eat.”

The dog trembled, then slowly opened its jaws. A cold tongue slipped along his cheek in a feeble lick, and he smiled. He didn’t know where the dog had come from, but he knew that he had a duty to nurse him back to health. Anything less would have been inhumane. He did, though, need to refrain from any form of attachment to the creature until he could determine if its old owners would come back.

“Chance.” He whispered, utterly ignoring his own advice mere instants after it had been given. “I think I’ll call you Chance.”