Winter's Walk
Winter fell over the forest, thick as clouds, painting the land in white wolf-fur and the black naked claws of trees that rose from them. There were no Kodama, with their mother's dormancy they slept. There was nothing of the summer at all, only the quiet and the waiting and the reaching, shuddering ice-fingers of the wind.
And this muffled, frozen land was so very much colder after dark.
In Iron Town the bellows burned lower, a sullen glow that warmed all within it's walls, a beacon or orange and red that called out to the night-travelers and reflected like blood on the snow. It was the deepest, coldest month in midwinter that brought the strange travelers. At first they only bought rice from Eboshi, then left, but after a week turning circles in the wolf-princess' forest they had returned, disgruntled and cold. After a long meeting with Eboshi, they had perked up considerably, or so the foundry-women's gossip went. After that, they'd gone out into the forest again, returning with spirits high.
They spent the day after that nursing hangovers. In fact, that's what they were doing now- whatever they'd done in the forest, they were more than happy to let it sit for however long it took. Whatever they'd done, San would surely be displeased.
And this muffled, frozen land was so very much colder after dark.
In Iron Town the bellows burned lower, a sullen glow that warmed all within it's walls, a beacon or orange and red that called out to the night-travelers and reflected like blood on the snow. It was the deepest, coldest month in midwinter that brought the strange travelers. At first they only bought rice from Eboshi, then left, but after a week turning circles in the wolf-princess' forest they had returned, disgruntled and cold. After a long meeting with Eboshi, they had perked up considerably, or so the foundry-women's gossip went. After that, they'd gone out into the forest again, returning with spirits high.
They spent the day after that nursing hangovers. In fact, that's what they were doing now- whatever they'd done in the forest, they were more than happy to let it sit for however long it took. Whatever they'd done, San would surely be displeased.