Broken Space

"I think I need to talk to Ephram before I decide." Madison looked at Andy with an almost apologetic smile. "What'd he say?"

Andy gave her a strange look. "Nothing." He moved from behind the desk to close the office door as Madison watched him, confused.

"I don't understand--"

"He doesn't know." The conversation was just getting more confusing as it continued, really. That wasn't how it was supposed to go.

"You haven't told him."

"No. And I don't plan to."

"What?" Madison's stomach knotted as she frowned at Andy.

"I don't want him to know that you're pregnant."

"He would want to know. He deserves to know," Madison argued, going cold. She'd trusted Andy, taken him at his word, and now this? Why?

"That's true. But it really doesn't matter. I'm going to tell you something and you may not understand it, but that's fine. You don't have to." Madison looked at him in obvious disbelief. "Just listen." Andy paused and Madison waited, feeling her head start to pound. "Ephram lost enough of his childhood when his mother died, but I got lucky. He got lucky. He somehow...managed to salvage that innocence. If he hears this now, all of that innocence is gone. And it will be the end of a childhood that isn't finished yet. Don't do this to him. Please."

Madison wanted to ask what about her, what about all of the plans she'd made? Because this? Put a serious kink in her life, too. She felt the tears that had been threatening start to overspill her eyes and wiped them away with a small gasp that did nothing to alleviate the tightness in her throat and chest. She needed to sit down, felt as if her life which had already been spiraling out of control had just suffered admission to free-fall.

Andy came over to her. Apparently he wasn't finished sucker punching her. "Listen to me, Madison. Whatever you choose to do, if you want to end the pregnancy, if you want to keep the baby, I will pay for it. I will support you. I will see to your comfort and security. Whatever you want, for as long as you want it. But Ephram is not to know."

She couldn't even look at him, felt dirty and cheap. Not that she couldn't use the money, but--God. Andy Brown, the man she had trusted to help her, had just offered to buy her silence. All she had to do was sacrifice her integrity and her love for Ephram, a love that was still there despite them not working out. Lack of emotion had never been the problem after all. "I think this is a mistake." Her voice was thick with tears, but she didn't care.

"Fine. Let it be my mistake." He said it as if it was just so damn easy, as if just sitting back and not telling Ephram would solve everything. But it wouldn't.

"How. How could I do that?"

"You go." And there it was. She was being asked to not only keep her silence, keep something as huge as a baby a secret from Ephram, a secret she felt he deserved to know--now she was being sent away on top of it. This was all too much to deal with at once, especially when she'd thought she made the right choice coming to Andy in the first place.

"I can't--I have to go. I'll...think about it." Andy opened his mouth and before he could say anything else, she promised, "I won't do anything before I talk to you. I won't...go to him." She got to her feet, edging toward the door to his office. "I won't tell him."

"Madison, I know you think--" Madison shook her head as Andy started talking again, raising a hand.

"I really can't, right now. I'm sorry." She turned and fled his office, the converted train station he'd turned into his practice...and came to an abrupt stop as her feet hit sand, looking around in shock and the first tendrils of fear. Day had become night in the blink of an eye, and there was a fire nearby and strangers all around and...

...and Madison sinks to the sand, eyes wide and scared, and hugs her knees to her chest. "What the hell just happened?" she whispers to no one in particular.

[A bit belated, but the island's newest resident has arrived in the middle of the NYE party. BRING IT ON. ;)]

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.

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.]

Winter is traditionally a time for feasting and celebration. There'd been plenty of that at Thanksgiving, a holiday that Bran has still only celebrated twice. But he knows Ephram and Delia have attachments to it, and if he can make them happy by stuffing them full of food normally reserved for Christmastime, well, it's a small price. Even if it does mean doing it all over again in a month's time.

And in between, there's always this matter of what to do with the leftovers. By the time that even Bright is complaining about eating the same thing for a week on end, it's probably time to do something else.

Which is why what's left of the single turkey unfortunate enough to appear on the island is bubbling away in a pot, surrounded by the remains of the potatoes and some herbs and vegetables out of the garden. And why Bran is crouched on the floor with his head in the cupboard, fishing out other things to pour into the pot and go on making the kitchen smell good.

[It's been a while since I did one of these; come talk to Bran, have some soup, shoot the breeze...whether you know him yet or not!]

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 had dawned and most of them did, bright and fair and with birds singing. But as the afternoon wore on, the sun creeping steadily toward the horizon and the sea, the sky darkens, and the trees go silent and eerie as the birds disappear.

It is autumn, then, for all that this island has no seasons. All Hallow's Eve--not unheard of, and if strange things are meant to happen it is surely the night for it. But as the sky above turns grey and the shadows lengthen across the sand, far off in the distance, the baying of far-off hounds can be heard.

And then, with the wind that sweeps in from the farthest reaches of the sea, they come--tearing through the Walls between Worlds, wailing and howling in a mad rush of burning red eyes and shadow-fur, with the horned Huntsman at their head; they who had chased their prey in this way, this night, for centuries and more on end.

The Huntsman has been known by many names, and at times by none at all. He sits tall atop a wheeling white horse with eyes of fire, his head a garish mask at one moment, at the next an empty skull, always with horns like an elk's jutting from the sides. The hounds--the Hounds of Hell they have been called, and the Dogs of Darkness--are huge white beasts, ugly things, with crimson eyes and crimson ears taut upright, their baying the stuff of shivering nightmares. The Huntsman holds an ancient horn in his hand--he lifts it, and its fierce, bloodcurdling call cuts through the night like a burning sword through snow.

It is full dark now, and all the clouds are the silvery coats of the racing pack, and the wind is the howl of their voices as they chase across the sky.

[Even though this is for a specific part of the plot, do feel free please to tag in--there is a sort of 'main thread' involving Delia but everyone is welcome to see the Hunt, react to it, do gathering, whatever.]

I just realised we hadn't posted this yet. Bran and Ephram get married on the beach, accompanied by a few close friends. Timed to 6 June.

If the ceremony itself had a limited guest list, the party afterward is open to everyone. It's casual affair, with a bonfire on the beach and a few makeshift tables filled with snacks, treats, and what alcohol is left from the previous night's debauchery.

It's simple. It's unpretentious. It's perfect.

There is music playing--probably Dairine's iPod again, and the speakers Alec had made out of broken parts. The moon, a tiny sliver in the darkening sky, glimmers from the violet-streaked sky. It looks as if the horizon is painted in watercolours, the perfect backdrop to a brilliant day.

[Wedding reception! Everyone invited, slowtimed through the weekend if necessary. :)]

For the first time, Ephram is wishing for just one of the thousands of pawn shops in New York. But barring an entire pawn shop displacing itself and ending up here, he knows someone on this island has to have a ring.

Just one. That's all he needs. One ring. Preferably that fits his fiance's finger, but that part is negotiable at this point.

Ianto's told him that things appear randomly, and so Ephram's trying to track things equally randomly, looking behind books, in boxes, and even outside, feeling like a magpie by his reaction to anything shiny.

Currently, he's in the laundry room, checking the lint traps of the dryers.