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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[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.