16.2
Gem shivered in her winter coat, splaying herself over the back and shoulders of her horse to better draw warmth from the beast.
In Viznove the spring might be cold, in Kaeketeh it could be quite frigid considering they aligned the season to the first breaking thaw of the Vah, but at least you could mostly expect the cold to be consistent from one day to the next!
Spring in the Valley of Man was turbulent, the vault’s low dip simultaneously giving every terraced wall a full day’s sun to warm while the closeness of the sky was able to just as suddenly sap that very same heat in the night. When she had taken wing to try flying as her wyrm self Jewel found that the air itself swelled and fell in the season that was considered fit for departure to the Ridgetails.
From one day to the next a thousand or more feet might be added or lost to the depth between the freezing skin of the firmament and the fields and rivers of the valley. When word reached that the skypath east into the Ridgetails had fully cleared of snow and the worst of the winter storms were passed, all of Jewel’s selves had been confident with setting out and being home and away from the miserable moistness of Burning Depths Ford!
However on the climb up the Valley terraces Gem found that while the trip was navigable it was not necessarily pleasant. She had taken to wearing her winter coat every morning, opening it up while riding if the heavens felt like being sweltering instead of freezing that day. The Twins had discovered their own kind of misery, where as Gem seemed particularly stung by cold of late, they had to suffer the miserably novel experience of their own sweat soaking through their underclothes in the sun!
Today the heavens were closer than yesterday, even accounting for their slow crawl up the terraces to the pass into the Ridgetails.
Despite the cold promised for the passage Gem yearned to drive the horses and footmen harder up the incline. It would be cold for a time but in the Ridgetails at least the greatest trouble with the weather should be spring rains and a bit of flooding!
However that was only the sufferance of one self, smallest yet eldest of her spawn.
“Should I fetch you a blanket from the wagon Lady Gem?”
Smithson’s tone was courtly, practiced and poised but she knew there was a deeper worry beneath it. He was carefully not patronizing her as a child, not even hinting at the familiarity they shared between each other.
Her Captain and Nurse Knight only ever did that when he was worried.
She took a carefully deep breath through her nose, pulling on a mote of wyrm flame to heat the air, the bare minimum to keep the insane spring climate from triggering a cough.
“No Smithson, It’s just the morning chill, I’ll be fine when the sun has time to warm things up by noon.”
If the cold started biting much harder she’d pull on it properly to warm her bones, but if she started in the morning just after setting out she would need to draw more flame from her Mother self well before they stopped for the night.
Nevermind that sometimes in the middle of the day the sun and heavens seemed to just decide to go from freezing her tail to baking her on the horse, and while she could warm herself with Wyrmflame there was very little to do but ‘pant’ for Jewel when the erratic heat took over.
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It felt like there was a far thinner balance in the Valley of Man in getting the sorcery right. What would be enough to properly shield and warm herself in Kaeketeh winter could feel like she barely had done anything at all, but even a spark more of flame suddenly had her gasping to douse the raging inferno burning under her skin!
“Well, then perhaps some vittles for the lady?”
Smithson’s tone was jovial, something closer to the way he still sometimes teased her for her statue. Even knowing full well that of the two of them Gem was now the better in swords craft. If it wasn't for his greater reach, strength and familiarity with her habits it would not be a contest in their bouts with one another.
Gem huffed and gave a nod, she’d had a poor appetite that morning as well, maybe she was just hungry?
The scrap of jerky was arcing through the air, her ears suddenly perking to follow it, before she even fully realized her Knight had tossed the treat like when she was a child Gem’s neck, shoulders, back and jaws were moving in concert, the dry pig ration caught by her teeth, then in nearly one motion with the lunge she had tossed her head back while shoving with her tongue.
In less than a blink the entire piece was fully in her mouth where she could let her saliva pool and wet the ration from a dry chunk of salted tree bark to something more like proper meat. The process also oh so conveniently for Smithson meant that her mouth was completely occupied such that she could not berate the ‘Nurse Knight’.
Yet all the same she could not hold the scowl on her face entirely solid, the flex of a smile twitching at the corner of her lips was more than enough for Smithson to chuckle before he gently squeezed his steed ahead of her.
Eunika of course filled the space he had left on the road with her own horse and gave Gem a knowing glance that might as well have been an open mouthed howl of laughter. She replied with a flex of her jaw and a glance from one shoulder to the next which mollified her sister-self’s amusement with a quiet huff of shame and then an acknowledging flick of her tail.
They might not smell of petrichor when they exert themselves, honestly the almost humanlike scent of their sweat was not unpleasant. But where Gem could hardly pick up any scent under a baking sun both of her larger yet younger sister-selves were ‘smelly’,
The feeling of the sun baking down on her and the slightly harder huff she needed to make with even less wyrmflame running through her nostrils brought her attention back to the insane weather of the Valley of Man.
Even halfway up the hillsides of this pit of a vault the heavens had apparently decided that this was not in fact actually going to be another freezing afternoon. Already the heat in the wind was picking up and Gem could catch a whiff that Eunika’s body was already starting to stew her sister-self under her coat.
Being the eldest Gem took the more proper and magnanimous position, sitting up straight and breathing calm and evenly, not looking directly at her sister-self as she nonchalantly undid the latch of her cloak and shook the cloak’s hood back, being sure to keep enough of wyrmspun wool on her shoulders it would not risk slipping off and falling into the dirt and muck of the road.
Eunika beside her huffed in defeat and began undoing how tightly her own cloak had clasped, but because Gem’s sister-selves could not go a single hour without reveling in their own physicality she instead of simply leaving it open to the waning chill in the air caught it tight in one hand and flung it off her shoulders before sweeping and twisting it through the air until the cloak was bundled around the arm.
Settling the cloak’s messily bound up mass in a gap at the front of her saddle before slipping the arm free.
Gem huffed heavily, then swallowed the almost moistened enough hunk of meat on her tongue, actually giving voice to her intent.
“We are such insufferable show offs.”
Eunika for her part only laughed, but the sound managed to finally break through the scowl that had not yet fully lifted from her lips. Gem was having a miserable time of it in this Valley, but the rest of her selves were there to share the burden and she would soon remember things in a much less unpleasant light.
Nevermind that all of them would soon be home again!