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

[ostro_goth]

"They will be drowned at last, by the bigger waves," Liuta says, "but they won't be swept back upon the beach, looking bedraggled and pointless."

[scarred_grin]

"Eaten by the sea," she says. "Taken as tribute for... for something."

A much nicer thought that the idea that the boats might simply, prosaically, wash ashore on some other stretch of beach.

But maybe there are other children somewhere who collect those boats. Maybe they have an annual boat-collecting festival.

[ostro_goth]

"For hope going out that the light will return," Teja says.

He's carrying a little boat as well, for the tiny baby Liuta carries.

[scarred_grin]

"That, yeah," she says.

And those other children on that other shore might celebrate... well. Do all gifts from gods need to be useful? Maybe those other children have stories about children-of-gods who make these boats for them as gifts. Just little boats, and nothing more.

Maybe that's all people need.

[ostro_goth]

If Teja knew her thoughts, he would imagine those the children of the netherworld, and how the original Athalwin would fish the boat this cowboy-hatted Athalwin made from the waves, and show it to his parents, Witichis and Rauthgundis (after whom this Athalwin's older siblings are named). And how so may other children that starved or were slain in the wars would find these boats, and think of the living children that carry on the Ostrogoths in their stead.

But he does not, so he can't lose himself in melancholy if poetic fancies.

Instead, he helps the children light the tiny lamps or tallow-candles in the boats, from the fire-pot that Adalgoth has brought.

[scarred_grin]

He'll get to see her thoughts--later, when she's had time to process through and develop them. There will be an entire series of drawings from this; when inspiration strikes, she goes with it.

For now, she stays out of the way of the lighting and just watches. She knows full well how bad an idea it would be to have someone as clumsy as she can be handling fire around children.

[ostro_goth]

Teja helps light all the little boats; and then, one by one, the children put them on the waves and push them off, the smaller ones helped by the grown-ups, the older by themselves.

It looks very beautiful, especially when the boats turn and the lights shine through the coloured sails.

[scarred_grin]

It is beautiful.

Little lights being cast off into the darkness, and no one has any control over where they might go--but isn't that just how the world is? You send out what you have, and trust that good things will come.

[ostro_goth]

Teja comes to stand beside her; the children are babbling excitedly, but the waves are louder, calm and regular like breathing.

[scarred_grin]

It's a nice quiet moment, watching the movement of the waves, and the bobbing of the boats and their lights.

She wishes they'd had something like this when she was a child, but they would never have been allowed to do anything like this.

[ostro_goth]

Teja puts his arm around her, saying nothing.

[scarred_grin]

She stays still, not saying anything either.

Just letting the moment be what it is.

[ostro_goth]

It takes a while until all the little boats are gone.

And the cold is slow getting to these people. But finally, some of the children are getting restless.

"Carefully, Myrtia!" Adalgoth says to one of the twins, "that's the fire pot: do not upset it."

The twin decides to wander off in a huff, Gotho follows the little toddler, and everybody starts moving again.

[scarred_grin]

The cold doesn't bother Pyrrha much--the fringe benefits of her current living situation, no doubt. But if everybody's moving, she will move too.

All moments end. They have to, to make way for new ones.

[ostro_goth]

"They hold a feast now," Teja tells her, quietly, as they walk. "Would you stay for that, or rather go back to Milliways from here?"

[scarred_grin]

"I don't know what your people's customs are," she says, quietly as well. "I don't want to be rude."

[ostro_goth]

"We are the strange apparitions from the next world," Teja says. "Oddness is expected. Say what you prefer, and we shall do so. It must be all so new and strange to you."

After all, it is all Pyrrha facing his people -- Loki himself might decide differently. But Pyrrha is in control, and that is a good thing.

[scarred_grin]

"Then I think I'd rather go," she admits. "But if you want to stay, that's totally fine--you can just open up a door and I'll go back. I don't want you to feel like I'm coming between you and your people either."

[ostro_goth]

"I shall go with you," Teja says. "Do not tell them I said so -- but there can be such a thing as too many excited children at once. Even though I do love them all..."

[scarred_grin]

"Especially when--well, they get to a point where they're overstimulated and tired," she says. "There's been so much excitement and they've worn themselves out, and some just fall right asleep wherever they are, but some get cranky. Really, really cranky."

It's just how some kids are.

[ostro_goth]

Teja just nods, and then walks ahead to talk to Adalgoth.

He nods, not seeming really surprised; and the others come to say good-bye to both Teja, and to Pyrrha.

Little Valeria gets off her mother's arm, and comes to give Pyrrha a hug.

[scarred_grin]

She says her goodbyes, and crouches down to hug Valeria.

"Don't tell anybody," she whispers to her, "but I liked your boat the best."

And she gives her a conspiratorial grin. This is just between the two of them.

[ostro_goth]

The little one kisses her cheek, and smiles, and then all the Gotlanders are ready to return to their warm home, and Teja nods to Pyrrha, looking towards the hill where they'd come from.

Apparently, the door is always there.

[scarred_grin]

That's good--that means less time trying to find a door.

She's never seen how this works from this direction; she wasn't the one in charge when Loki first came to the bar, and this is her first time going anywhere.

So she straightens up and looks toward the hill.

[ostro_goth]

Teja leads the way back to where they had come in, where the footsteps vanish on the hillside; he takes out the silver snake, concentrates, and a door appears in the snow.