A Maybe Not-So-Temporary Home (For shardofwinter )

[turningcolors]

This Spring is more difficult than most for Hazel.

She's made infrequent trips to the Nexus any time tensions and emotions in the small Scottish cabin have gotten to be too much for her. Though while Hazel will claim she needs to get her housemate out of her hair her trips have not all been for blowing off steam.

In fact, every time she leaves she comes back with something new for the cabin. A small storage freezer she clears floor space for in a corner of the cabin to store large bags of ice for whenever Reynard is feeling particularly unwell. Another particularly bad bickering and another day of her missing from the cabin. A small fold away futon showing up on the floor that evening for when Rey is too weak to make it to the bed.

He'd made it quite clear he was going to deal with this Spring Sickness in his own way so Hazel just keeps working around that. Doing what she can to make the recovery easier on him.

It's early evening when Hazel comes back from the Nexus tonight. The days grow ever longer and the air ever warmer. She has a couple bags of ice in tow to replenish the freezer and something that smells suspiciously like Chinese food in the bag on her other arm. It keeps well if Reynard isn't awake to eat just yet. Hazel sets it on the table and quietly makes her rounds trying to find the Winter spirit.

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[shardofwinter]

Reynard smiles and nods. "If it gets you to enjoy the dinner you brought."

Once he's sure she's eating he turns to pull over her plate and start dishing out some more food. Mostly so that he has something for his hands to do while he thinks and while he talks. It's more difficult this time. Usually he's talking to humans, giving slivers of information, glimpses of his life. She'd know if he was holding back, though. He's sure she'd know. So he has to be honest. That... isn't easy. To bare your soul when you are so used to hiding it.

"I kept to Europe, mostly. The furthest south I've been is Turkey, the further East Russia. I went to the Arctic once, but that's as adventurous as I've been with my travelling." It's all geography. All distant. He has to give something warmer, something Autumn might look for.

"I never had a family. Like you I... I tried, but..." He glances at Hazel and shakes his head as if confirming someone's unfortunate fate. "I tried to find my family elsewhere. I had a little farm in France for a while. Fought with a band of warriors in Germany. Kept the company of... unsavoury figures," he breathes with a guilty smile. "But patience for our kind of task only lasts so long."

[turningcolors]

It is good food though Hazel's appetite is somewhat waned she forces herself to eat. The food is necessary if for no other reason than to stymie the hangover she's going to incur with the wine she's still imbibing with a fervor.

"I've not been to most of Europe, to be fair. Nor to the poles." She points over her plate with her fork while she speaks but takes care not to break the flow of Reynard's story completely. Nor to give herself time to consider and push her food away. Her gaze drops to her plate when Reynard confirms what she feared; he is as unable to have children as she is. Her fingers shake slightly with the conflict inside of her.

The despair of the truth she's been hoping was wrong her whole life fights furiously with the shameful relief that she's not broken and inferior. That Reynard is also like her. But she shouldn't be relieved to hear that. It's a horrible fate for ones as long lived as they, isn't it?

"Family is what you make of it. The...important things is, for better or worse, neither of us has to be alone anymore."

[shardofwinter]

He gives Hazel a forced smile and a small nod of agreement before hiding behind a sip of wine. They don't have to be alone. That should be a good thing, shouldn't it? So why does it make him feel so nervous?

Silence sits between them for a minute as Reynard stares into his wine, hoping the deep red liquid might give him all of his answers. Eventually he sighs and doesn't quite look at her as he speaks.

"Hazel, I… I'm not a good person. I can act good, I can do good things but… that won't ever make me good." A hand lifts to gesture in an effort to help him focus his thoughts. "I… I've done things I regret, and… My point is, I don't want you to feel you have to stay with me or help me just because we're both spirits. I'm not your obligation. Ever."

[turningcolors]

It's a decidedly different tone than the one he'd taken with her during Winter. Not for the first time, Hazel finds herself wondering what happened over the last season that's shaken Reynard quite so much. But Winter is his time, not hers. She has no right to make demands of how he serves his season. Nor the reasons he might have for doing so.

She certainly doesn't want anyone trying to tell her how to do her job, or why she does what she does. The least she can do is offer him the same in kind.

"Reynard, by our very nature neither of us can be good people. What makes a person good changes with the times and the minds of the people. Human definitions of good and evil are too simple for you and I. What is good for our season may not always be good for humanity. Maybe they deserve it, maybe they don't. We don't question why a season bids us to do what we do. We don't serve humanity. We serve our season."

Hazel turns the wine glass in her fingers with a prolonged sigh.

"I try to be good, when i'm out of Season. I try to do my best to fit in among the humans. I believe in a lot of the things they do. But it's...it's not the same. When Autumn comes I--it's as though I was never among them."

[shardofwinter]

The events of the past Winter are still fresh in his mind. In ages past his actions wouldn't have been bad so much as expected of him. But this is the present, and this involves the Nexus. A place with unforgiving humans and monsters with skills and powers he's often never encountered before. He is sure he's made enemies- Is making enemies. He wants desperately to make sure she understands what she's getting into, but… he can't bring himself to explain. To admit fault would be betraying Winter, leaving his dearest Season without any advocate. He can't do that. He could never do that. He would sooner be willingly torn apart by gnashing teeth.

Yet putting Hazel in danger… It tinges his glances with a guilty tilt of his eyebrows.

Then she speaks and he relaxes. A little. He echoes her sigh. "It's the same for me. They hate me for it. Winter is about the warmth of family and charity that contrasts the trials of the cold and lonely dark. They get angry at me for only bringing what they don't like, but… It's about balance and… they're so focused on the good… I need to bring the dark. Otherwise it won't be Winter." He shakes his head and sips his wine. "And I get angry mobs in thanks."

[turningcolors]

Hazel reaches to the side and touches at Reynard's cheek gently with the tips of her fingers. She gives him a tiny, sad smile. A look of understanding. There must always be balance. The wheel must continue to turn. Finally what he's saying resonates with what she's been saying since they met. There's so much he doesn't know and so much he knows she doesn't.

But they aren't all that different at their cores.

"It's good that they're focused on the good. A breath of fresh air after the centuries of watching the darkness in humanity's hearts play out across the lands." Her fingers trail off his face slowly as she pulls away again and reaches for her glass.

"If we can inspire them to be better then it's worth being treated poorly by them. It's for their own good."

[shardofwinter]

Fingertips brush Reynard's cheek and he half turns his head, stopping suddenly when the motion presses skin to skin. He watches her from the corner of his eye until her hand slides away.

"They have gone beyond cultivating light and hope, Hazel. This isn't an era of focusing on the good, it's an era of expecting ease and convenience. They have become arrogant and entitled. They carve and cut and take from the world and have the audacity to call us monsters. We aren't an inspiration to them anymore, Hazel, we aren't motivation. We are an inconvenience, an irritating bother. There is no respect. There is no reverence. There is no balance."

He finishes his rant with a wave of his hand and swiftly takes a swig of wine. Staring into the dark liquid, he clenches his jaw. "I don't care what good or bad it does them. They don't care about the Earth, they don't care about the Seasons, and they definitely don't care about spirits. Everything I do is for Winter. Now more than ever."

[turningcolors]

"Is it...?"

Worry tilts and furrows Hazel's eyebrows as she listens to Reynard speak. She does see some of that arrogance he speaks of in their world, but in the Nexus too? A place where all times and worlds are supposedly mixed? What could they have done to hurt Reynard so deeply?

Offend his patron season to the point where this jagged determination is surfacing?

"You should. You should make them care again. I can help. If they've gone astray we can set things right. We may be spirits but we are so few. It will be better for the seasons if we can make them care again."

[shardofwinter]

Hearing her say that... It's like finally being able to move out of a painful position he's been forced to hold for centuries. Parts of him that had forgotten they could feel start to get some circulation in them again.

Someone's agreeing with him. He's railing against humans and someone is agreeing with him.

Thanking her would be wrong of him, it would be like turning something true into something to be pitied. So instead he nods and sips his wine instead. "There's nothing to be done yet. All we can do is be patient. And remember not to get caught up in their affairs."

[turningcolors]

"In the meantime you have the girl to worry about. I can go shopping for some things to do up her room as soon as you have the cabin altered to your liking. Bedding, clothing if you can get me her sizes...things of the sort."

Remembering their agreement from before Hazel makes sure to chip away at the food in front of her in between moments of conversation. For the first time she she feels a connection with Reynard that hasn't been there until now.

Hazel had only agreed to stay here at first to show him what it meant for her to be a seasonal spirit, but there's nearly a sense of shared purpose and camaraderie here now. If the Seasons are under attack she has no better place to be than at his side.