• Monday, November 22 - 16 P.A. •

The first snow fell two days ago. It hasn’t gotten heavy since then, but Edison knows it will soon. The land around him is crisp with frost and any breath, no matter how small, puffs in front of the face of the one who let it out. A sheet of bright gray clouds illuminates the land enough for them to see where they’re going, but it won’t last much longer, and another night in the cold could be detrimental.

Edison kicks a rock half heartedly and pauses to look around. He can’t see anything that would give their group shelter; not even for a night. He walks a little farther, but there’s nothing but empty grass and field. With a heavy sigh that turns into a big cloud, he turns to make his way back to the broken shack they’re currently using.

“Did you find anything?” Matt asks quietly.

Edison shakes his head. “Nothing but empty land.”

Matt purses his lips and looks back at the kids, all huddled together while Maybelle tells them stories. “They can’t take much more of the cold.”

Edison nods.

“Once the snows get heavier, this shack is going to be useless.”

“I’m going to try going a bit farther,” Edison says and turns.

“Wait.” Matt reaches out to stop him without touching. “You shouldn’t. You’ve already been out twice today and you’re just as susceptible to the cold as the rest of us.”

Edison gestures to the kids. “We need a better place for them. This is too exposed, to weather and to raiders.”

Matt sighs. “At least wait for Ekua and Oren to get back. I’ll even go with you when they’re here.”

Edison nods reluctantly. His eyes drift to the kids while Matt’s stay on him.

It seems like Edison can’t sit still lately. Unless he’s sleeping, he’s always moving somehow, be it scouting ahead for a better place to stay, or hunting with Oren or Ekua, or even just pacing around the outside of the shack. Maybelle says he doesn’t like winter very much, but won’t say much else about it. Matt doesn’t ask her to.

His attention shifts to outside the door when something floats down. Small, white flakes drift down from the sky and he purses his lips tightly.

Dark shapes catch his gaze and he straightens up as Ekua and Oren walk up to the falling apart shack. Ekua is hauling a rabbit and two squirrels over her shoulder and Oren has a few rosemary twigs and a small bag of nuts, berries, and beans.

“How bad is it out there?” Matt wonders.

“Not great.” Ekua gestures to the snow gathered on the fur of her armor.

Matt sighs and looks at Edison, who’s already nodding farewell to his sister. “Edison and I are going to scout some more. We need to find a better place soon.”

Ekua looks at Edison. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Edison? You’ve been going out every day. Shouldn’t you rest a little more?”

Edison shakes his head. “I can rest when we have better shelter. Matt, are you ready?”

Matt nods, grabbing his pack, and smiles forcefully at Ekua and Oren. “We’ll be back soon after dark. If we’re not back by dawn, be concerned.”

“Stay safe,” Oren wishes.

Maybelle looks up to watch the two leave. She hates seeing Edison so agitated.

“How did the Hood find their way out of the forest?” Zenaida asks, prompting Maybelle back into her story.

“At first, they didn’t think they would,” she says. “They thought they were stuck in the trees forever. But thanks to the help of the stars, they made their way through the woods. Before they were completely out, though, they found an old cottage with smoke coming from the big brick pipe in the roof.”

“Have you ever heard these stories before?” Oren asks Ekua quietly as he listens to Maybelle.

Ekua shakes her head. “I think she makes them up.”

Oren nods thoughtfully.

“She’s got quite an intelligence about her, doesn’t she?” Ekua murmurs.

Oren snorts, looking at Ekua with a raised brow. “Someone sounds fond.”

Ekua shrugs. “I’ve spent a lot of time with her. Why wouldn’t I be fond?”

Oren hums teasingly and Ekua rolls her eyes, stepping away.

“I’m gonna go take care of this meat. Is Calvin still out here?”

“Probably. I don’t see her in here.”

Ekua nods and leaves the shack. She walks around the outside until she finds Calvin leaning against a tree with one of her homemade cigarettes in her lips. The smoke rises in the air in swirling puffs and gives off a faint, herbal scent.

“What do you use in those?” Ekua wonders as she sits on the stump she’d dedicated the moment they got to this shack to skinning her hunts.

Calvin looks over and takes the cigarette from her lips to regard it. “Mullein as a base, marshmallow and rose as support, and spearmint to make it more palatable and flavorful.”

Ekua nods interestedly. “I’m guessing you have a lot of them?”

Calvin chuckles. “Yeah. I make a ton every spring when I have the supplies so they’ll last me through the other seasons.”

“Why do you need so many?”

“They’re relaxers, mainly for my nerves. I’ve got some kind of nerve thing, I think. My mom told me what it was when I was a kid but I don’t remember it.” Calvin waved dismissively and lifted the cigarette to her lips again.

“So you were around before the modern end?” Ekua asks.

Calvin shakes her hand tentatively, blowing smoke out in front of her. “Barely. I was maybe… four when it all went down. Maybe five. I don’t remember.”

Ekua hums and focuses on her work.

“You were born into this world, huh?” Calvin wonders.

“Pretty much,” Ekua replies. “My birth parents died when I was real little and I was taken in by the Roarers not long later. I’m lucky I had as smooth a life as I did.”

Calvin nods. “Me too. My mom and I were pretty taken care of most of the time.”

Ekua hums. “I wish that were more common than it seems to be.”

“Yeah.” Calvin takes another drag, then holds the cigarette away and looks at the shack. “Has Edison come back yet?”

“Yeah, but he and Matt took off again right when Oren and I came back.”

Calvin sighs softly. “Bet that’s rough on Maybelle.”

Ekua pauses and looks up curiously. “You two got close pretty fast, huh?”

Calvin shrugs. “She’s easy to like.”

Ekua hums with a small smile as she returns to her work. “She is.”

Calvin grins, putting out the end of her cigarette so she could tuck it into her pocket, and shifts so she faces Ekua completely. “That’s quite the smile you’ve got. You’ve been with her longer than me. Surely you two are close.”

Ekua wobbles her head thoughtfully. “I don’t think we’re particularly close, but I like her a lot.”

They both turn as footsteps crunch softly around the outside of the shack. Maybelle appears with a sigh as she runs her hand through her hair, which is down from its usual ponytail and draped over her shoulders.

“Oh,” she murmurs when she sees Ekua and Calvin. “Were you two talking?”

“Only about how much we like you,” Calvin grins.

Maybelle blushes, then chuckles and shakes her head. “You’re silly.”

Calvin laughs.

“You doin’ alright?” Ekua wonders as Maybelle sits on the stump behind her.

“Ugh,” she grumbles and rubs her face. “I don’t know. I’m worried, but I know better than to hold him back this time of year.”

Ekua leans her back into Maybelle’s comfortingly. “So this is an annual thing?”

Maybelle nods. “He doesn’t like winter very much. He especially doesn’t like bein so out in the open during winter.”

Ekua hums. “That makes sense.”

“And now that we’ve got like, eight kids in our group, he’s most likely kicking himself over not having somewhere better. He won’t stop until he finds somewhere safe for us.”

“If he can’t find somewhere?” Calvin asks cautiously.

Maybelle shrugged. “Then he’s going to do everything in his power to keep us from freezing to death. He’ll put himself in the ground before he lets any of these kids go a day in the snow.”

“That’s… kinda sad,” Ekua says.

Maybelle nods. “He’s never had even a day to himself without worrying about someone else.”