Teja and Pyrrha -- for the light-boat festival

[gotland_npc]

The door Teja opens comes out on a hillside, and in the valley below it, there's a large, prosperous farm with a longhouse and many out-buildings -- baking oven, forge, and so on. It's near dusk, and everything is covered in snow. To the right, there is the sea.

There are children playing in the yard, and light streaming from the open door of the longhouse, and smoke from the snow-covered thatched roof.

Comments

[scarred_grin]

Pyrrha hasn't been to anybody else's world before.

It's weird to think that this isn't her world--or at least, not her time. There's no way to know.

So she just stops and looks around, trying to take everything in, absorb everything. Maybe then she'll fit in.

[ostro_goth]

Teja puts his arm around her. "It needs not explanation," he says, quietly. "It is simple and common, something often seen all through mankind. But there are things that are unique, as there are always. It is not one, but two families that live together in that proud longhouse."

[scarred_grin]

"I'm a city girl," she says quietly. "I don't even go outside much at the bar. This is gonna be overwhelming, there's no getting around that."

She's trying. She just didn't know how strange it would all be, being somewhere completely new like this.

[ostro_goth]

"It must be strange to you: - open hillsides, endless snow, and the sea," Teja says. "Soon it will be dark, though, and people will gather inside. So let us go greet them."

[scarred_grin]

"No leaving me naked in the woods anywhere," she says, managing a small, nervous smile. "I'd be very sad if you did that."

She can do this. She can meet people. It'll be okay. It will.

[ostro_goth]

"Never such a thing," Teja says. "You shall be by my side all the time; and in the warm house by the fire most of it."

[scarred_grin]

"Good, 'cause if you left me in the woods I'd end up getting lost, and then people would start wondering where I am--well. They probably wouldn't, actually. But I couldn't make any guarantees about what might happen, 'cause it's not just me here, and all."

[ostro_goth]

Teja bends his head, and kisses her.

If Pyrrha speaks so much, and somewhat disjointedly, it shows she is nervous -- of course she would be, and he would show her that he is not alone in this, he is by her side every step, if she so wishes.

Some of the children have spotted them, two dark figures on the hillside, and they come racing towards them.

[scarred_grin]

She's been trying to hide her nervousness--even though it never works, and she knows it never works. The most she can ever hope for is that other people won't comment on it.

But his being there with her certainly helps.

And the fact that it's children coming over, and not older people... well, that helps too. In theory, anyway. And at least she managed to cover all her tattoos (besides the eyeliner).

[ostro_goth]

It's a little girl that comes first, the youngest of these children, racing towards them.

"It's really the king, and he's brought a friend again from Milliways!"

[scarred_grin]

Pyrrha gives a nervous smile and a bit of a wave.

"Hiya," she says.

She can do this.

[ostro_goth]

"I'm Hilde!" the little girl announces. "And you're a friend of the king! And I'm not to ask awkerd questions again, am I?"

The last is said to Teja, who nods.

[scarred_grin]

"I'm Pyrrha," she says. "And I am a friend of the king--and it's nice to meet you."

She seems nice enough. And with that endearing bluntness children have.

[ostro_goth]

"We have honey cakes and warm cider and lots of good things," Hilde declares, "and we have our little boats all ready to swim! Mine has a red sail!"

She reaches for Teja's hand as the other children arrive as well.

"That's Pyrrha, and she's the king's friend from that place where he is."

[scarred_grin]

"Red's a good color for a sail," Pyrrha says. "It's my favorite."

Hence the hair.

She smiles and waves to the other children as well.

[ostro_goth]

"You must both come and have honey cakes with us now," one of the boys says, with an inviting arm movement he clearly copied from some adult.

Incongruously enough, he is wearing a cowboy hat.

[scarred_grin]

"Thank you," she says, giving a polite nod, and looks to Teja.

Honey cakes sound pretty good right about now.

[ostro_goth]

As they approach the house, a woman with a small child on her arm appears in the door.

"Oh, there you are!" she says. "Greetings, Lord King! Come inside, there's food and drink before we go and set the boats to water."

[scarred_grin]

"And you were saying you're mostly just a count," she whispers.

It may be a minor thing, but it makes a difference to her--there's more pressure, now.

[ostro_goth]

"I was, most of my life," Teja whispers back.

When they come inside, there are two brawny, cheerful, rather plain men and another woman with two tiny girls at her skirts, greeting Teja cheerfully and clapping him on his back and demanding to be picked up (that is the littler of the little girls) and talking about people and horses, and even jumping on him (that is a rather large red cat).

"I hope we don't scare you," says one of the men, tall and strong and homely, with blue eyes and brown hair. "I'm Adalgoth, the woman with the little girls is my wife Gotho, that there is Wachis, and his wife Liutha is the one with the little baby who greeted you at the door. I guess I could introduce all the children and the cat, but you'd likely get confused by all those names. Just remember Hilde; she's Teja's favourite."

[scarred_grin]

It's a lot to take in, all at once--she looks from person to person as they are named, and at the children and cat as they are mentioned, and tries to remember.

She can do this. She can't just turn around and go home.

"I'm Pyrrha," she says. "It's nice to meet... everybody."

[ostro_goth]

There are tables and chairs set up, and Pyrrha and Teja are offered the chairs at the head of the table, as guests. The oldest of the girls brings them hot cider, in somewhat dented metal cups that are clearly Roman, and have come from the south with these people.

Little Hilde comes and offers Pyrrha the first piece of honey cake.

[scarred_grin]

She murmurs her thanks as she is served--she understands that she is being treated as an honored guest, and is trying her best not to do anything that might be seen as rude.

Though it's hard to tell, going across culture lines. The circles she's traveled in--

And, well, most of her experience with families with small children comes from her childhood, and that's not a world she ever had to navigate as an adult woman.

There's a lot to think about.

[ostro_goth]

Teja puts his arm around Pyrrha, and squeezes lightly, as he can guess at her bewilderment.

Adalgoth comes to sit with them, as all settle down with their food and drink.

"It is good to finally see you content, Teja, after all that you did or did not do," he says. "And you are welcome to us, Lady Pyrrha. We must seem very strange to you."

[scarred_grin]

"I'm not really a lady," she says. "Just a Pyrrha. And you're not strange at all--just not what I'm used to. But what I'm used to isn't really normal, and anyway I'm the guest here, so I'm the strange one."