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rainbowfic2022-11-10 09:01 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2022-11-10 09:01 pm
Twilight #20 [Starfall]
Name: First Frost
Story: Starfall
Colors: Twilight #20 (supine)
Supplies and Styles: Paint-by-Numbers frombookblather (she could only lie there stunned)
Word Count: 1760
Rating: PG
Warnings: Hypothermia.
Notes: 1337 Starfall Manor; Leaira Modelen, Aimon Merner, Rion Wolmer, Tannis Kellen.
Summary: Leaira gets into danger over a book.
“Bear with me for one moment,” Leaira said as she led Aimon along the main corridor. They were on their way to see Rion Wolmer, Starfall’s chief physician. She lived nearby in Hummerstead and could help him in getting up and down to the Manor from the village every day. “The medical wing is that way, but while I’m down this way I really ought to check on the Arvale Chronicle and I don’t want to forget again.”
Aimon followed her. “Which is kept… in the kitchens? For perfectly good reasons, I’m sure.”
Leaira shook her head. “Obviously not, Imai Merner. There’s an icestone store round the back beside the kitchens – it’s in there. For the temperature, you see.”
“Of course. I should have guessed. What does this one do if you don’t keep it properly chilled?”
Leaira steered him outside, emerging only briefly into the sunlight before turning aside down a narrow paved path overshadowed between the main building and the outhouses.
“Nothing much, except deteriorate rapidly. We’re not sure exactly what it was made of, but nothing at all suitable for a book. But as long as it’s kept cool enough, it remains stable enough for occasional consultation.”
“Naturally. Do you have any volumes that don’t glow or melt or burst into flames?”
Leaira stopped sharply. She raised an eyebrow. “Plenty, thank you, book-keeper! And we don’t have any incendiary items – at least not literal ones. Not since 1054 anyway.”
She darted away into the icestone store before he could ask whether that was true or not.
The icestone building was a small brick outhouse. Much of it was underground, with steps leading down to the main cellar, where things were kept frozen. On ground level there was an inner chamber and this corridor, where the temperature was merely cool rather than icy. It held little else but a row of shelves crowded with odd items and one solid wooden chest on the floor.
Leaira crouched down, pulling her ring of keys from her belt and sorting through them to find the one that opened the box. Her breath misted in the air; the outer chamber seemed to be more sharply chilly than it ought to be.
She turned the key. It was icy under her fingers. She shivered and fumbled with the lid, fingers growing numb. When she lifted the lid, it was cold enough to feel as if it burned her.
Leaira stopped, watching in disbelief as a white rime formed on the edges of the box. She stood abruptly, but the frost gleaming on the walls and the very mist of her breath seemed to blur and shift in front of her into a white snake made of icy air, writhing around and blocking her way back out.
It looped its insubstantial but freezing tail around her wrists and she gasped. The ice hurt her throat.
“Imai Merner!” she called desperately, tugging at its hold – but surely she must be imagining it? Was she already so cold her wits had deserted her? “Aimon!”
The snakelike form was nothing but moisture in the air, forming itself into ice crystals, nothing that should be able to physically bind her, but the temperature was still falling and nothing made sense. Leaira lost feeling and all idea of where she was. She slumped sideways, first against the frosty wall, and then slid down it to hit the floor beside the open box.
“Imai Modelen. Adeleaira.”
She struggled to open her eyes at first, but a little more effort made it possible. She blinked in yellow autumn sunlight. She was still shivering, but she had a coat wrapped around her – Aimon’s.
Before she could ask what had happened, someone else knelt down beside her. Rion Wolmer put out a hand to Leaira’s arm. Large, concerned brown eyes met hers. Rion pushed a loose strand of greying brown hair back out her face, and then added her blue jacket to Aimon’s coat to cover her better. “Leaira. Whatever happened?”
Leaira wasn’t quite capable of processing that herself yet. It had been so cold, and yet she’d only gone into the outer chamber. That couldn’t be right. She looked up at Aimon.
“I’m not sure,” said Aimon slowly. “The temperature had dropped far more than it should have done in there. When I stepped inside, it was starting to improve, but it was still –” He hesitated. “The chest and that book – they’d both gone so brittle, they broke into pieces when Leaira fell on them.”
That caused Leaira to sit immediately. “Oh, no! Not the Chronicle!”
“But that’s impossible,” said Rion, taking Leaira’s cold hands in her warmer ones and rubbing them.
Leaira’s gaze strayed upwards to Aimon again. “Please tell me it’s not ruined.”
“Well,” said Aimon, shifting. “Er. I’m afraid, between the excessive freezing and then the warming up, there’s not much left of it. Rather it than you, though, surely!”
Leaira tried to tug her hands out of Rion’s. “I should go and see! Some of it might be salvageable.”
“No, you don’t,” said Rion firmly. “Honestly, Leaira. Imai Merner –” She turned her head and gave Aimon a quick smile. “I take it that you are Imai Merner?”
Aimon nodded.
“Then Imai Merner is right, Leaira. However valuable the volume, it’s not as important as you.”
“It was more or less pulp. I don’t think there’s anything anyone could do.”
Leaira closed her eyes and leant against Rion, beginning to feel a little warmer. “I suppose there is a transcript, but –”
“I’ll send someone sensible in to look at it and whatever can be retrieved, will be,” said Rion. “But not you, not yet. Diessa, perhaps. I think she’s back. You walk about in the sunshine with Imai Merner – if you will,” she added with a glance up at Aimon.
Leaira straightened. “Oh, yes. Rion, this is Imai Merner, the inspector of accounts from Portcallan. I was bringing him to see you.”
“So I gathered, but we’ll talk later.” Rion turned her head as one of the kitchen staff hurried across with a blanket. “Oh, thank you.” Rion took it and wrapped it around Leaira. Real warmth began slowly to creep back into her bones.
Aimon helped Leaira to stand. She would have liked to have refused, but it took a few moments to stop feeling unsteady.
“What are you all doing out here?”
The three of them turned their heads to see Tannis Kellen bearing down on them briskly.
“An incident in the icestone store,” said Rion. “Very odd. We’ll have to have someone investigate it before anyone can go back in there.”
Leaira nodded. “And, Imor K-K-ellen. I’m t-terribly s-sorry, but the Arvale Chronicle has been completely ruined.”
“Did you want to speak to me?” Rion asked Tannis, who had been heading in the direction of the medical wing before she’d spotted them.
Tannis frowned at Leaira, encased in a grey blanket and still being supported by Aimon. “Yes, yes – but what’s been going on here?”
“We don’t know, Imor Kellen,” said Aimon. “The temperature in the icestone building dropped down far more than ought to be possible while Imai Modelen was in there.”
Tannis looked from Aimon to Leaira. “Somebody attacked Adeleaira?”
“I suppose that is possible.”
Leaira pulled away from Aimon. “But why would anyone do that? It must have been an accident. Something upsetting the balance of the icestone – I don’t know. No one could have made that happen on purpose.”
“Powers grant me patience,” said Tannis. “The wretched man hasn’t even left Portcallan yet and already there’s trouble. I might have known!”
It was the turn of the other three to stare.
“That was what I was coming to say,” Tannis said. “One of the Governors – But, never mind. I’ll explain later, Rion. First, I suppose I had better talk to Lyel or Kaia and get them to look into this. I can’t have people trying to kill the librarian.”
“It can’t really be a matter for security. There wasn’t anybody in there – just something wrong with the icestone,” said Leaira, recovered enough to feel cross.
Rion lifted her head. “Adeleaira, weren’t you going to show Imai Merner the front garden? Keep an eye on her, make sure she’s warming up, and by the time you’re done, I’m sure I’ll be ready to see you,” she added to Aimon. Then she swung back around to face Tannis. “Well, come with me now. We’ll send someone for Lyel and you can tell me your news.”
Walking in the sunshine helped a lot, together with the blanket. Leaira felt normal enough to remember more of what had happened.
“Thank you,” she said soberly. “I wasn’t even sure if I called out or not.”
Aimon remained unperturbed. “You did. And then I found you like that. Could hardly do anything else.”
“If I hadn’t been showing you around, I’d have been there alone.” Her brow furrowed. She shivered.
He put a hand on her arm. “Best not. You’re probably right – probably an accident. After all, could have been anyone who went in. The kitchen staff must use it all the time.”
Leaira nodded. She tried to push the memory aside, at least for the moment. He was right, but nevertheless, everything suddenly seemed a great deal less safe than it had before. “Well, thank you anyway.”
“You’re welcome, Imai Modelen.”
Leaira turned her head, screwing up her eyes against the sun. “After this, you’d better just call me Leaira.”
“Noted,” he said, and smiled suddenly. “And in that case, it’s Aimon. Except when I’m going through the library’s accounts, of course.”
“Of course.”
The sunshine and the exercise warmed Leaira, but even after that, and after Rion had pronounced her well enough back in the medical wing, Leaira couldn’t shake off the memory of the creeping cold.
It wasn’t the first time: in the back of her mind, she remembered, years and years ago, looking into the lightstone and seeing snow and ice – snow falling and swirling until it formed itself into clawed and toothed creatures. She’d felt it the same then, too – the chill stealing her very breath.
And wasn’t that Kaia’s story, too, when she talked of the Ice Prince and his palace, up in the Northlands – that he made snow into wolves to chase and tear you down?
In the night, all three tangled in her mind, she woke, shivering even with the bedclothes drawn close against her.
“It can’t mean anything,” she told herself firmly. “That would be impossible.”
Story: Starfall
Colors: Twilight #20 (supine)
Supplies and Styles: Paint-by-Numbers from
bookblather (she could only lie there stunned)Word Count: 1760
Rating: PG
Warnings: Hypothermia.
Notes: 1337 Starfall Manor; Leaira Modelen, Aimon Merner, Rion Wolmer, Tannis Kellen.
Summary: Leaira gets into danger over a book.
“Bear with me for one moment,” Leaira said as she led Aimon along the main corridor. They were on their way to see Rion Wolmer, Starfall’s chief physician. She lived nearby in Hummerstead and could help him in getting up and down to the Manor from the village every day. “The medical wing is that way, but while I’m down this way I really ought to check on the Arvale Chronicle and I don’t want to forget again.”
Aimon followed her. “Which is kept… in the kitchens? For perfectly good reasons, I’m sure.”
Leaira shook her head. “Obviously not, Imai Merner. There’s an icestone store round the back beside the kitchens – it’s in there. For the temperature, you see.”
“Of course. I should have guessed. What does this one do if you don’t keep it properly chilled?”
Leaira steered him outside, emerging only briefly into the sunlight before turning aside down a narrow paved path overshadowed between the main building and the outhouses.
“Nothing much, except deteriorate rapidly. We’re not sure exactly what it was made of, but nothing at all suitable for a book. But as long as it’s kept cool enough, it remains stable enough for occasional consultation.”
“Naturally. Do you have any volumes that don’t glow or melt or burst into flames?”
Leaira stopped sharply. She raised an eyebrow. “Plenty, thank you, book-keeper! And we don’t have any incendiary items – at least not literal ones. Not since 1054 anyway.”
She darted away into the icestone store before he could ask whether that was true or not.
The icestone building was a small brick outhouse. Much of it was underground, with steps leading down to the main cellar, where things were kept frozen. On ground level there was an inner chamber and this corridor, where the temperature was merely cool rather than icy. It held little else but a row of shelves crowded with odd items and one solid wooden chest on the floor.
Leaira crouched down, pulling her ring of keys from her belt and sorting through them to find the one that opened the box. Her breath misted in the air; the outer chamber seemed to be more sharply chilly than it ought to be.
She turned the key. It was icy under her fingers. She shivered and fumbled with the lid, fingers growing numb. When she lifted the lid, it was cold enough to feel as if it burned her.
Leaira stopped, watching in disbelief as a white rime formed on the edges of the box. She stood abruptly, but the frost gleaming on the walls and the very mist of her breath seemed to blur and shift in front of her into a white snake made of icy air, writhing around and blocking her way back out.
It looped its insubstantial but freezing tail around her wrists and she gasped. The ice hurt her throat.
“Imai Merner!” she called desperately, tugging at its hold – but surely she must be imagining it? Was she already so cold her wits had deserted her? “Aimon!”
The snakelike form was nothing but moisture in the air, forming itself into ice crystals, nothing that should be able to physically bind her, but the temperature was still falling and nothing made sense. Leaira lost feeling and all idea of where she was. She slumped sideways, first against the frosty wall, and then slid down it to hit the floor beside the open box.
“Imai Modelen. Adeleaira.”
She struggled to open her eyes at first, but a little more effort made it possible. She blinked in yellow autumn sunlight. She was still shivering, but she had a coat wrapped around her – Aimon’s.
Before she could ask what had happened, someone else knelt down beside her. Rion Wolmer put out a hand to Leaira’s arm. Large, concerned brown eyes met hers. Rion pushed a loose strand of greying brown hair back out her face, and then added her blue jacket to Aimon’s coat to cover her better. “Leaira. Whatever happened?”
Leaira wasn’t quite capable of processing that herself yet. It had been so cold, and yet she’d only gone into the outer chamber. That couldn’t be right. She looked up at Aimon.
“I’m not sure,” said Aimon slowly. “The temperature had dropped far more than it should have done in there. When I stepped inside, it was starting to improve, but it was still –” He hesitated. “The chest and that book – they’d both gone so brittle, they broke into pieces when Leaira fell on them.”
That caused Leaira to sit immediately. “Oh, no! Not the Chronicle!”
“But that’s impossible,” said Rion, taking Leaira’s cold hands in her warmer ones and rubbing them.
Leaira’s gaze strayed upwards to Aimon again. “Please tell me it’s not ruined.”
“Well,” said Aimon, shifting. “Er. I’m afraid, between the excessive freezing and then the warming up, there’s not much left of it. Rather it than you, though, surely!”
Leaira tried to tug her hands out of Rion’s. “I should go and see! Some of it might be salvageable.”
“No, you don’t,” said Rion firmly. “Honestly, Leaira. Imai Merner –” She turned her head and gave Aimon a quick smile. “I take it that you are Imai Merner?”
Aimon nodded.
“Then Imai Merner is right, Leaira. However valuable the volume, it’s not as important as you.”
“It was more or less pulp. I don’t think there’s anything anyone could do.”
Leaira closed her eyes and leant against Rion, beginning to feel a little warmer. “I suppose there is a transcript, but –”
“I’ll send someone sensible in to look at it and whatever can be retrieved, will be,” said Rion. “But not you, not yet. Diessa, perhaps. I think she’s back. You walk about in the sunshine with Imai Merner – if you will,” she added with a glance up at Aimon.
Leaira straightened. “Oh, yes. Rion, this is Imai Merner, the inspector of accounts from Portcallan. I was bringing him to see you.”
“So I gathered, but we’ll talk later.” Rion turned her head as one of the kitchen staff hurried across with a blanket. “Oh, thank you.” Rion took it and wrapped it around Leaira. Real warmth began slowly to creep back into her bones.
Aimon helped Leaira to stand. She would have liked to have refused, but it took a few moments to stop feeling unsteady.
“What are you all doing out here?”
The three of them turned their heads to see Tannis Kellen bearing down on them briskly.
“An incident in the icestone store,” said Rion. “Very odd. We’ll have to have someone investigate it before anyone can go back in there.”
Leaira nodded. “And, Imor K-K-ellen. I’m t-terribly s-sorry, but the Arvale Chronicle has been completely ruined.”
“Did you want to speak to me?” Rion asked Tannis, who had been heading in the direction of the medical wing before she’d spotted them.
Tannis frowned at Leaira, encased in a grey blanket and still being supported by Aimon. “Yes, yes – but what’s been going on here?”
“We don’t know, Imor Kellen,” said Aimon. “The temperature in the icestone building dropped down far more than ought to be possible while Imai Modelen was in there.”
Tannis looked from Aimon to Leaira. “Somebody attacked Adeleaira?”
“I suppose that is possible.”
Leaira pulled away from Aimon. “But why would anyone do that? It must have been an accident. Something upsetting the balance of the icestone – I don’t know. No one could have made that happen on purpose.”
“Powers grant me patience,” said Tannis. “The wretched man hasn’t even left Portcallan yet and already there’s trouble. I might have known!”
It was the turn of the other three to stare.
“That was what I was coming to say,” Tannis said. “One of the Governors – But, never mind. I’ll explain later, Rion. First, I suppose I had better talk to Lyel or Kaia and get them to look into this. I can’t have people trying to kill the librarian.”
“It can’t really be a matter for security. There wasn’t anybody in there – just something wrong with the icestone,” said Leaira, recovered enough to feel cross.
Rion lifted her head. “Adeleaira, weren’t you going to show Imai Merner the front garden? Keep an eye on her, make sure she’s warming up, and by the time you’re done, I’m sure I’ll be ready to see you,” she added to Aimon. Then she swung back around to face Tannis. “Well, come with me now. We’ll send someone for Lyel and you can tell me your news.”
Walking in the sunshine helped a lot, together with the blanket. Leaira felt normal enough to remember more of what had happened.
“Thank you,” she said soberly. “I wasn’t even sure if I called out or not.”
Aimon remained unperturbed. “You did. And then I found you like that. Could hardly do anything else.”
“If I hadn’t been showing you around, I’d have been there alone.” Her brow furrowed. She shivered.
He put a hand on her arm. “Best not. You’re probably right – probably an accident. After all, could have been anyone who went in. The kitchen staff must use it all the time.”
Leaira nodded. She tried to push the memory aside, at least for the moment. He was right, but nevertheless, everything suddenly seemed a great deal less safe than it had before. “Well, thank you anyway.”
“You’re welcome, Imai Modelen.”
Leaira turned her head, screwing up her eyes against the sun. “After this, you’d better just call me Leaira.”
“Noted,” he said, and smiled suddenly. “And in that case, it’s Aimon. Except when I’m going through the library’s accounts, of course.”
“Of course.”
The sunshine and the exercise warmed Leaira, but even after that, and after Rion had pronounced her well enough back in the medical wing, Leaira couldn’t shake off the memory of the creeping cold.
It wasn’t the first time: in the back of her mind, she remembered, years and years ago, looking into the lightstone and seeing snow and ice – snow falling and swirling until it formed itself into clawed and toothed creatures. She’d felt it the same then, too – the chill stealing her very breath.
And wasn’t that Kaia’s story, too, when she talked of the Ice Prince and his palace, up in the Northlands – that he made snow into wolves to chase and tear you down?
In the night, all three tangled in her mind, she woke, shivering even with the bedclothes drawn close against her.
“It can’t mean anything,” she told herself firmly. “That would be impossible.”
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Also, "Yeah, yeah, I almost died, WHAT ABOUT THE BOOK" is the biggest archivist mood.
no subject
That is the trouble with being in a story! And, heh, lol you've got to have your priorities straight. XD
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no subject