gods she’s so fucking cold

... she’s stopped shivering. If she doesn’t warm herself up, she is going to die. She knows it with a hard, heavy certainty at the bottom of her gut. 

... anger can wait. Fatigue can wait. Sorrow can wait. She needs to move.

Out into the rain again, quick as her numb legs can carry her, up the stairs and into the once-bar with its sea-smell and citrus and not important she’s here for the burner. 

Her hands don’t remember how to light it, not anymore, but she forces her fingers to find it and, and - 

and there’s heat. 

She sways. It’s nice. She can feel it on her arms. She should just lie down around the nice fire, and everything will be fine. Everything will be ok.

No it won’t be. 

Back out into the rain, out across the stones again, burner clutched tight as she dares, up and in and around and no time for propriety, she needs to be warm. Her soaked-through dress hits the tiles with a sodden thwap: she drags the covers from the bed, pulls them in tight around herself, and hunches over the tiny burner, doing her best to catch all its heat. 

Her shivers return, and with them pain: she fights back a gasp as her numb fingers start to thaw, hunching in closer on herself. She stays by the burner. She doesn’t fall asleep. 

Eventually, she can bear to move from the flames. 

She washes the cuts on her hands, stiffly, mechanically. She finds another scarf to be a new bandage, and binds her reopened wounds. 

She stares at the burner for a long, long moment. 

She turns it off, and goes to bed. 

The rain outside continues its slow downpour, soft and gentle and, as she is now well aware, ice fucking cold.

This sleep feels... deep. Longer than usual. The chill nips at her in the darkness, inescapable and unquenchable, despite all of the blankets around her.

When she wakes she feels cold and stiff and... strangely light. Like a dizzy spell that's caught all of her limbs and overbalanced her with the lack of weight.

At least the rain has stopped.

She stretches. She looks at her hands. 

Not a dream, then. 

... She's been terribly rude. 

She picks up her half-finished book from the bedside table, and resumes from where she had left off.

The book is as light and hopeful as before. Warm and bright and, well, still painfully naive. With a good heart.

In the end, the villain of the story is not slain, but redeemed.

She manages a smile, this time. 

She stands up, stretches, shelves the book delicately back where it belongs. She feels... different. Not so leaden and ill-fitting. 

She hums to herself, and lays her waterlogged dress in the basin for later. Right now, her blanket will do.

She drops in downstairs to check on the chairs and tables, and apologize to the ill-used doorframe. It certainly didn't deserve any of the abuse she gave it last night. 

The chairs have dried, but some of the tables are still a bit damp. The rot doesn't seem to have progressed on any of them.

There is a slight scuff of mud on the doorframe from where she kicked it, but it cleans off easily enough. The frame itself is sturdy.

She pats it, after she's done cleaning the scuff marks and made sure none of the tables have hurt it. 

Now... Breakfast. 

She eats fruit bread and savoury berries, and considers her apartment as she does. She's been too focussed on faraway places: she should have started her work at home. 

Downstairs is tidier than it was, even with the waterlogged house guests, but it's far from finished. The quarters are still cramped, but all of the books are off of the floor. The ones that she can read are filed sensibly, and the ones she can't read are at least sorted together by language. Moving the grimoires into Waybound and using the shelves in the back for more books helped relieve the crowding problem a little, but many of the books still haven't found shelves, instead waiting patiently on tables or chairs both upstairs and downstairs. On the table in the back sits a tea set, looking a little bit lost and out of place among the books that now sit on the shelves. There are sets of shoes by the door, none of which fit her in size or style.

Upstairs, her muddied and bloodied dress sits in the basin, awaiting washing with the trampled scarf. Several plates and cups also await cleaning, though they're in much less of a dire state. She's just about out of bread, though her food supplies are not in any real kind of danger; she still has several sets of different fruit, and several shelves are full of different kinds of preserves, along with a few bottles of cheap beer. Empty bottles sit on empty shelves, awaiting new contents. Her spice rack is still woefully disorganized, and she's entirely out of salt. In a little empty bottle that was probably meant for spices, the remains of a once-strawberry are tentatively beginning to sprout, apparently uncaring about the lack of sunlight. Or dirt. Or even water, really. Another plant with twisting purple vines sits in a too-small pot, looking less wilted thanks to its watering.

The armoire is filled with robes and dresses in various colors, none of which fit her. The burgundy robe has departed to be a player's coat, though some of its scraps still remain, eager for a new purpose. The sewing kit is down a needle, though there are enough spares left that it's quite usable. A spinning wheel sits at the ready, patiently awaiting new work should she run out of thread. Several books from downstairs sit in tidy stacks, taking up the limited table space while they await organization. The books from the last librarian remain on their shelf, beneath paper flowers and two lavender coins. Beneath them sit cooking books, untouched since their arrival upstairs. Stuffed animals sit on the bed. On the end table beside the bed sits wood treated for wands and the spectacles, one lens cracked and the other missing, and next to them stand the inert staves. A clock is still left sleeping, and a bag with runes carefully inscribed on its interior sits, ignored. Another, smaller bag filled with lavender coins sits comfortably nearby. Despite its use, the jug of water is still as full as it has ever been, and it will likely carry on that way. On the nearby basin sits a mirror, turned face down, and a cup.

... there is really a lot of things to do. And she has no soap.

Well. Let’s fill the basin with water now to give the dress some time to soak, and she’ll finish her meal and consider things. 

She pulls her blanket a little closer around herself.

... there is so much to do that honestly she needs a pen and paper to keep track of it all. But the pens and paper are in Waybound, and she has nothing to wear. So. 

She sits and finishes her fruit bread, a little grumpily. 

... now then. To the basin. She’ll do the best she can with her hands and water alone. 

The mud comes out surprisingly easy, for mud. It doesn't seem like it wants to be on this dress any more than the dress wants mud on it. On the other hand, the blood comes off less easily. Despite the time since its staining and the time spent soaking, it's still crimson. A slightly unsettling shade of red, actually, barely dulled by her efforts. Water and her hands don't seem like they'll be enough.

She frowns at it, and dips into the spice cabinet in search of vinegar.

There is a vial of vinegar in the back! It's a slightly strange shade of smoky grey, but it smells correct.

A bit of luck for once. 

She extracts the bloodied section from the basin, pours on a liberal dose of vinegar, and works it in with her hands. 

Then she waits.

(She eats another two or three berries while she waits.)