Solo When the nights grow colder.

[Ruari Darkwind]

68 AU 515 AV

Ruari woke with a jolt, a trembling, shivering start that pushed her up in her bedroll.

In the dark, it was hard for her to see what had woken her. Her tent was closed, pinned shut to prevent an unwanted breeze from straying in where she wouldn't like it. There were no voices beyond, nothing to hint at what the outside world might be up to but for the snorting of the horses and the distant braying of a mule.

When she decided, in the sleep-fogged mind of her drowsy self, that there was no immediate danger beyond the entrance to her tent, she sought inward. Nothing was amiss, as far as she could tell.

Yet, she was cold, and it was the unexpected chill that settled in on her once sleep-warmth wore off that told her it may have been the culprit.

As if cued, Ruari realised she was shivering. Her feet were cold. She'd gone to bed in too light of clothes, her sleep-mind told her, but it was quickly waking up and reassuring itself that she had worn reasonable clothes to bed. She was covered still, and as usual for her every year, she forgot what it was like to be cold, to feel the tightening in her chest that said and showed she was cold, to feel the aching discomfort of frost in her joints.

It must have been the winter chill, crawling along the ground early and grasping at her from any crack in the tent it could find.

[Ruari Darkwind]

Ruari acted in favour of keeping warm, which involved wrapping her blanket tightly around herself before she undid the tie she used to close her tent and began crawling out.

The world before her was painted in ghostly whites and grays, twinkling like stars under the weight of the silver moon. It was a world of mystery and anticipation, quiet with a lack of wind and the varied sounds animals made when the sun was high and children were awake. It was like a gift, a present for her birthday from a god of frost and cold breath, perhaps a child of Morwen with gentler fingers and a quieter song. It was the world where the sun was far off, a promise made by the stars and the way the frost clung to everything it could.

Ruari's breath, though stolen from her at the moment she opened the flap of her tent, came in a short gasp when she recalled Rhoswen, who so often stood alone away from the horses of the rest of the pavilion; she typically lingered nearby, grazing when she was sure the camp was quiet, and when Ruari found her standing as if a sentinel against the cold, she pulled herself the rest of the way from her tent.

Regret was imminent; her feet were cold and wet with the frozen dew on the ground and her shoulders shook with a chattering shiver, but her thought was on the mare in her vigil and the blanket found itself draped over her body.

Rhoswen whinnied a greeting, or maybe an urge for Ruari to sleep, and Ruari's tired smile answered her.

Her wandering took her to the pavilion shared by her father and her mothers, where her child siblings slept, and she crawled in with them. Like a time long past, she slipped between her mother and her father, a child afraid of the dark and the cold, and was rewarded when her mother wrapped her arms around her in sleepy affirmation of her being there.

Ruari slept much better, then.

[Tribal]

G R A D E S

Ruari Darkwind

Experience

• Observation 2
• Logic: 1
• Winderness Survival, Plains: 1

Lore

• Endrykas: Fall 515 coldsnap
• Winderness Survival: Staying warm in cold weather

Notes

Short and sweet, enjoy the rewards.