Ari ♫ ♪ ♬ (gracenotes) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-09-11 09:46:00 |
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Kerwon in mid-Virgo was reminiscent of nothing so much as winter in Valendia. Even with cozy fireplaces taking the chill out of the night in their tidy inn in Erbeskopf, Ari had shivered as she dressed in the bright, clear light of late morning. It wasn’t snowing, which was a small mercy, but where shadows fell deep and dark across the craggy landscape, pockets of it remained. Ari supposed that they never did melt entirely, though she could scarce imagine the landscape in Aquarius. Fur-lined boots and cloak had been required before she dared venture outside, along with a scarf and wool mittens with a flap to expose her fingers at need -- cold or not, if she couldn’t play, she was nigh defenseless -- and she had requested an enormous thermos with scalding, sweet coffee, which would be warm against her leg as she sat in the saddle. Even the chocobos here were different, with thicker, fluffier plumage in a yellow so pale it was nearly white, and thick, powerful legs. Riding them was the same uncomfortable misery as anywhere else, though, even with the additional desire to please granted by almost any animal when in Altair’s company. So, loaded down with weapons, instruments, the thermos, and one massive picnic basket, they made their way outside the town’s walls and down a narrow, winding road descending the rocky mountainside into the misty valley below. Fortunately, the conversation helped pass the time as one hour became two, and the valley did turn out to be if not warm, then at least temperate. In the second hour, when the bare boulders of the mountains had become warped trees and colorful bushes, Ari was able to throw her cloak back and pull back the flaps of her mittens; by the time they had completed their descent, the cloak had been rolled and attached to her saddle and the mittens and scarf discarded altogether, although the woolen clothing she wore beneath was still comfortable. Just as she was beginning to doubt the veracity of the map, filled with growing concern over the rapidly approaching haze of Mist which delineated the Feywood’s true border, she realized there was something between the trees, half-concealed by vines sporting strange, spotted flowers. A ruined building, she realized as they came closer, with no glass in the window frames, a collapsed wall, and a sagging roof, but definitely manmade. “I take it we’ve reached our destination?” Her voice echoed ever so slightly. Even outside the Wood, the Mist was thick enough to distort it. She thought briefly of the night in the Tenements, shivered. For now, it was quiet among the trees, but as she dismounted, she thought that bringing the chocobos inside via the rather large entrance provided by the collapsed wall appealed. The silence, broken rarely by rustling or brief snatches of birdsong, seemed to be waiting. “I do believe we have,” Altair agreed, his eyes transfixed by the tiny house. It truly seemed to be as it had been described to him: a cottage reclaimed by nature. In one smooth motion he dismounted, keeping the reins in his left hand. He still wore his leather gloves and wool coat, but his overcoat and scarf had long since been rolled and packed. Walking, he approached the house, leading his chocobo at his side. The undergrowth was thick, and he had to lift his feet to avoid the vines that curled along the ground. The door was closed but unlocked, sealed shut by the vines that grew around the frame and through the knotholes. The collapsed wall seemed a more likely entrance, and after a moment of inspection, Altair discovered that one corner of the wall had crumbled completely, revealing a hole large enough for a chocobo to step through and into the house. The interior, from what Altair could see, looked much like the outside. Vines snaked up through the floorboards, and flowers poked out from the cracks between the stones. Mist had seeped in through the glassless windows and settled in the main room of the house like the morning fog over the ocean. The afternoon sun filtering through the plants cast an eerie greenish glow inside, and there was a stillness about the place, as though it existed outside of time. Even the birdsong seemed muted. Altair glanced back at Ari. “Shall we?” he asked, and then, bracing his hands on the stone walls on either side of the hole, he stepped up and into the cottage, coaxing his chocobo inside behind him. She had a bit more trouble with her bird than he had had, which was perhaps to be expected. Still, both she and her mount made it to the cottage interior in due time, after a bit of coaxing (and, perhaps, an Ordalian swear or two under her breath).They had entered from what appeared to have been a living area of some kind. The floors had been wood, once, though most of it was rotted or broken away. Moss grew, here and there, and the flowers were everywhere, seemingly undeterred by the lack of sunlight. Then again, perhaps these plants fed instead on Mist? That was what the legends of the Feywood claimed, and now that she was here, she could almost believe it. Some of the furniture still survived, though it was in a sad state. A sofa, covered by a moldy sheet. A broken desk under a window wound around with vines. In the back of the house, where the kitchen had been, a tree grew between the cracked stone plates that had once smoothly lined the floor and straight through the ceiling. Behind another partially collapsed wall, she could make out the frame of a large bed, the remnants of a canopy hanging from it in tatters, more vines encircling the lone post she could see. “It certainly looks as though it could be haunted. Perhaps the mistress of the house will come to greet us.” She kept her voice hushed, not fear and not respect but something a little like set dressing, perhaps -- it would feel strange and unnatural to speak too loudly here. It certainly did look haunted, Altair agreed mentally, taking in their surroundings. Turning back to his chocobo, he removed the feed bag from his saddle, affixed it around the chocobo’s neck, and then stroked its feathers soothingly. “Stay here,” he said in a quiet yet firm voice, and then went through the same steps with Ari’s chocobo. That done, he removed the picnic basket and set it in the middle of what appeared to be a broken coffee table. “Well,” he said, turning to Ari. “What shall we do first: exploring or lunch?” He knew which he preferred, but if Ari was hungrier than she was curious, he would be willing to delay gratification. Ari gave the basket, then the chocobos, a considering look, but in the end, it seemed they were content enough with their own feed to follow Altair’s instruction. “I think food can wait, don’t you?” She opened her mandolin case, though, and affixed the instrument to her back via a strap. A bit cumbersome, certainly, but if the mistress of the house did linger… well. Ghosts could be rather unpleasant hosts, and she had no interest in being caught by one unprepared. “The bedroom first?” she suggested before making her way there, stepping carefully over the vines growing across the floor. The bed, now that she could see it fully, had been very grand, and was quite disproportionately large compared with the rest of the cottage. It barely fit in the room, the only other pieces of furniture being a tiny nightstand and an equally tiny vanity with a blurry mirror in a rusted frame, miraculously still whole and placed in such a way that it would certainly be visible from the bed. She found herself smothering a giggle. “If ever we doubted what this house was used for…” “A woman after my own heart,” Altair murmured, heading into the bedroom after her. He’d traveled with his lyre on his strap and his gun in its holster, and let them remain where they were. Although ghosts could be lurking around—he was more worried about the flowers themselves coming alive and attacking them: this was the Feywood, after all. Nearly anything could be corrupted with mist. “Well,” he remarked when he saw the bed and the mirror Ari had noticed first. “If we’re looking for the cottage of a mistress, I suppose we must be in the right place.” He edged around the large bed toward the vanity and began opening its tiny drawers. They were broken, difficult to open, and contained nothing but several centuries’ worth of dust and cobwebs. The lower drawer was locked when he tried it. Pulling the lockpicks from his belt, he selected his tiniest picks and patiently worked the lock. It was old and rusted, and took him longer than he would have liked to admit to open. When it finally clicked, he jerked the drawer open roughly. Empty. “Nothing here,” he told Ari, shoving it closed as he stood. “Hmm.” She watched him pick the lock, pouted when the drawer contained nothing of import. “Well that’s rather a let-down. Let’s see…” She knelt to peer under the bed. Dust and vines shared the darkness with a small clump of mushrooms. Not that she’d expected anything quite so simple, but… She ran her hand along the edge of the moldy down mattress, thoughtful. The bedframe was solid wood underneath. What if… “Help me?” she said, making a show of shoving the mattress, which moved reluctantly from where it sat molded to the wood. Maybe it was nothing -- maybe it was too cliche -- but this sort of hiding place was a classic because people used it. Splitting the mattress would have to be the next step, she supposed, and she really preferred not to get chocobo down everywhere... Seeing what Ari was doing, Altair crossed to her side—not a long journey in such a small room: maybe two steps total— and lifted the mattress, pushing it on its side over the bed. The mattress smelled of mold and damp and disuse, and although Altair was in the habit of wearing gloves on a job both to keep his hands soft and to prevent his fingerprints from marking anything that was where he shouldn’t be, he was glad for the layer of leather between his hands and the mattress. With a grunt and some effort that left Altair feeling sweaty even in the damp chill of the cabin, the mattress was thrown over, revealing a flat parcel that appeared to be spelled with some sort of simple barwater charm. The paper hadn’t disintegrated in spite of the damp that permeated the cottage, or the intervening years. Altair met Ari’s eye and gestured lazily toward the parcel. “Well, darling, it appears your instincts were correct. Would you like to do the honors?” Ari grinned and reached down to retrieve the parcel. Working one fingernail under the flap, she got it open, only to discover a number of papers bound together with a ribbon. Untying it, she unfolded the first one to discover a letter, its ink faded but still legible. “Mein Liebling...” she read, then scanned her eyes quickly over the remaining words. “Yes, I do believe this is exactly the sort of thing we’re looking for, though my knowledge of this dialect is spotty at best; we will need a dictionary to get through these.” Pronouncing something well enough to sing it and actually comprehending it were two entirely different things. And if she tried now, they would certainly be here long after nightfall, which was a poor idea all around. Folding the letter carefully, she retied the ribbon and put the parcel under her arm. “Unless you wish to split the mattress,” she wrinkled her nose to show what she thought of that idea, “I do believe the bedroom has surrendered all likely secrets.” “I believe you are correct,” Altair agreed. If the mistress of the house had hidden letters beneath the mattress, it was unlikely that she hid anything inside it as well. It was generally one or the other, in his experience. Besides, the mattress was clearly filled with down, not straw, and he had no intention of seeing what effect centuries’ worth of bacteria and damp had on a pile of chocobo feathers. He made his way back out of the bedroom and to the room where they’d come in. The chocobos were still where he’d left them, although they appeared to have finished eating and were now standing about aimlessly. In this room, the most likely place seemed to be the desk. He crossed to it and began trying the drawers. Most of them were broken to the point that they could no longer hold dust, and the rest were empty. The middle drawer was stuck fast, but on closer inspection, Altair determined that it was broken, not locked. Removing the dagger from his boot, he worked at the drawer for a minute or two until whatever had been blocking it gave way, and it fell open. He dug around with the point of his dagger in the sawdust that lined the entire bottom of the drawer, before finally lifting something out. It was a tarnished silver locket on a chain. The hinge was broken, and it hung open, revealing the faint and discolored image of a young woman. He held it out to Ari. “Do you suppose this is our mistress?” Ari took the locket in her palm carefully and examined the faded image. A pretty young woman, nearly a girl, with pale hair and big eyes the color of which was at this point indiscernible. She wore an old-fashioned dress with a surprisingly modest collar and was smiling faintly at the artist. It was hard not to wonder what had happened to her in this small, eerie house at the edge of a magical forest. “Do the legends mention her name, I wonder?” she mused. “We could check. Depending on just how common she was, there might be family portraits… somewhere.” There could even be relatives. Did they have stories, passed down through generations? And just how far from their stories had the legends strayed? Just then, her stomach gave an inelegant growl, and she giggled self-consciously. “Our hostess may not need sustenance, but I think I am about ready for lunch. A break, perhaps, before we tackle the kitchen and bath?” “Yes,” Altair agreed, although he doubted they’d find much more than they already had. A packet of letters and an old locket were really quite a good haul for such an old and decrepit house. He had little hope of them finding something in the ruin of a kitchen or in the bathroom. People simply didn’t keep many of their valuables in the bathroom. He eyed the sofa warily before removing a rolled blanket from the saddle of his chocobo and laying it out on the ground. Retrieving the picnic basket, he settled himself on the blanket and began laying out the food. It was local fare, purchased and packed fresh before they set out from Erbeskopf. Soon, food aromas filled the air, warming the tiny and damp cottage. “Help yourself,” Altair invited Ari, indicating the empty side of the blanket reserved for her. He didn’t have to ask her twice; she was down on the blanket and attacking the food with a vengeance as soon as the basket was open. It was heavier than food in Emillion, and fairly simple, but still delicious. She offered her thermos to Altair -- the coffee was sweet, but she had packed a second tin cup just in case. Food and coffee, and a mystery discovered -- could anything be better? She was making her way through a salty sausage roll when she thought she heard something. “Did you…” Again, a sound from a distance. “There it was again. What do you think --” Again, closer now. She heard bird calls, then again -- some sort of thump, closer still, like a giant footstep. Her eyes were wide as it sounded again. The foundation of the cottage seemed to tremble. “I think we may have overstayed our welcome,” she said, jumping to her feet and beginning hurriedly to shove things back into saddlebags. Next to her, Altair was doing the same. Again, the giant footstep; this time, the walls definitely shook. Her chocobo rolled its eyes in obvious distress as she grabbed its reins, pulled it towards the opening in the wall. It didn’t even disobey her. They left the cottage at a gallop; only once they were well away from the Wood’s Misty border did she allow herself a breathless and relieved laugh. |