Broken Space

It's an annual tradition, and this year Johnny is feeling particularly celebratory. The island seemed to have gone easy on them this year, for some reason. A few people coming, a few people leaving, and mostly not craziness. In fact, it was so incredibly mundane that Johnny was going stir-crazy. He wouldn't even have minded if the dinosaurs came back, so long as something interesting happened. So this year he'd decided to ring in the next year with a particularly exceptional party in the hopes that something would happen--even if it was just another baby in nine months. With any luck it wouldn't be his.

There was alcohol. Lots of alcohol. And a feast of barbecued boar, roasted fish, fresh vegetables and fruits. There were torches lighting the path from the Compound to Summerfell, and on the beach a large bonfire burned. Best of all, he'd spoken with the sciency types and they'd managed a very special countdown for midnight.

Fireworks. Raw, experimental--but still big explosions of sparks and light. It was going to be awesome.

Delia had mastered balancing on one toe. Well mostly. Enough that Arya had decided she was ready for the next level of balancing. The stairs in the compound were not steep enough to be a challenge to balance at the top of and so they had gone outside to the jungle.

Delia had always been a good climber and had become more so in her quest to catch monkeys. However Arya had very particular ideas about the kind of tree it was suitable to learn balance in and so several had been rejected. It had to be sturdy enough to take her weight but the branches couldn't be too wide or where was the challenge.

"This one?" suggested Delia, at the foot of yet another tree. She didn't wait for and answer and reached up to grap a branch bracing one bare foot on the bark and hauling herself up while Arya considered her choice.

Arya has never seen anything like it.

No, that isn't true, not completely. She has, really, if you count that she's seen people who look like other people that aren't arrive on the island, and she's seen the people who are on the island turn up in books or films. What she hasn't seen is the conflation of all these things together--someone in a film who looks like her, but isn't.

She wouldn't admit it, but it's a bit eerie watching yourself do things you wouldn't, even if you once were No One. Even more eerie watching yourself do things you would. Nymeria doesn't like it either, and whined once at the screen before stalking out of the room to go hunting.

On the TV screen, a girl named Ofelia is running for her life. Huddled in front of it, Arya Stark is looking over her shoulder.

[Arya is watching her pb in Pan's Labyrinth, but the details aren't important and we can keep threads spoiler-free.]

It had seemed like fate that a large (Johnny estimated at least 15 foot) fir tree had appeared near Summerfell in early December.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Johnny had said to Robb.

His goodbrother, in atypical good humour, had replied, "Vodka distilled from fir needles?"

Which had only made Johnny cross. "No, medieval boy king, it means that Christmas is coming. And this baby is going to be a Christmas tree," Johnny corrected, patting the fir's branches fondly. "It's the perfect tree for the perfect feast."

Which is why, Christmas Eve, the fir tree is now decorated with garlands made from strung beads, and all sorts of ribbon, and homemade ornaments made from grass and sticks and stones, and small clap lamps lit with oil.

There's a large table with benches to one side, covered with partially eaten plates of food and drink, and torches and lamps strung around the area. There's a large fire, upon which sweetmeats are being roasted, and corn popped.

The only thing missing, Johnny would say, is music, but there's family, and friends, and plenty of Christmas spirit.


[Tag in! Carolers, I expect a thread of your own! Everyone else can come and go as they please.]

Delia had gotten off easy in the end - it had taken so long to find Elf that even though Will had seen through her delaying tactics she had gotten home after Bran and Ephram had become very involved discussing everything that had happened that night. (This was what Delia chose to believe they were very involved with and she could generally find something to think about rather than have to even begin to contemplate other options.) She went to sleep cuddling a squirmy kitten close and snuck out early the next day. She felt fidgety and antsy and so abandoned Elf to breakfast in the kitchen and went for a run. It was the fact that she had barely started and was at the beach that first startled her, and secondly that the bottom of her sneakers were smoking and smelled of burnt rubber.

It was weird. So she tried again and this time she ran along the beach and now that she was paying attention she could see everything blurring. She ran round the entire island twice in rapid succession, and then she was forced to make her way at speed back to the compound because her shoes were ruined and also she was starving. But this did not stop her racing there at full throttle, bursting into the kitchen causing Elf to squeak pathetically and flee as Delia wondered just how hard it was to get melted rubber off the kitchen floor.

[ooc: slowtime v soon but LT welcome on speedy Delia :)]

The day after Kaeldra arrives she meets up with Sansa, who takes her back to Summerfell for new clothes and a new haircut, courtesy of Arya.

Jon was not at Summerfell, because somehow Ghost had managed to get himself absolutely filthy so that when he'd first appeared after his morning trek for a moment Jon had thought he was Summer. Then he realized that they brown and white wolf had red eyes, not amber.

"You know what this means," Jon had murmured, scratching Ghost underneath the muzzle. "You get a bath, with soap."

It had taken more time than he'd expected, leading the wolf to the river that ran from Summerfell to the ocean, and lathering his fur with the soap. Neither party had particularly enjoyed it, and (on purpose, he was sure), Ghost had made certain to get Jon just was wet.

But the white coat eventually emerged, after three or four washings, and, his now soaked black t-shirt and jeans clinging to him, he set up on a nearby rock for an afternoon nap while, and the smelly wet wolf, dried.

"If you get that dirty again I'll sic Sansa on you," Jon threatens drowsily. "And tell her to give you a nice frilly pink bow."