TIMESKIP.

[vrykolakas]

THE BRUCOLAC COURT Unseelie. TITLE Baron of Srathmarbh, Black Omen. OCCUPATION Baron, drugs manufacturer, political thinker gods help him, Umibōzu captain. ABLE TO FAST-TRAVEL Yes; puca. RESIDENCE IN 2,701 Srathmarbh. RESIDENCE IN 2,702 Srathmarbh. MAJOR EVENTS PUBLICATION OF THE REDDENED HILL Being a Personal Account of the Battle of An Carn Ban... [ ✖ ] ADOPTION DISCUSSION "There is no one I would want to do it more." [ ✖ ] COMPLETION OF THE SRATHMARBH SPIRE Description [ ✖ ] PUBLICATION OF THE GOVERNOR A brief meditation on what and what not to do while holding public office. [ ✖ ] BIRTH OF SHAMASH Description [ ✖ ] BIRTH OF ISHTAR Description [ ✖ ] RESCUE OF CHILDREN Description [ ✖ ]

PLANS By the time the timeskip ends, the Brucolac will be in a more stable position, his spire complete and the surrounding lands a buzzing centre of construction and commerce. He will have two children in the care of Alyosha Hazan. SUMMARY OF KNOWN DETAILS Beebins; daring rescue of beebins; becoming reluctantly published; stuff stuff stuff; seeing a scifi film and being the biggest nerd; building a wee town & preparing for ports & shipyards; maybe hunting cloudwhales; tsk'ing unhappily at the cult of the fox TIMELINE OF EVENTS SPRING IN 2,701 (Mar, Apr, May) MARCH - Publication of the Brucolac's The Reddened Hill: The Unseelie Triumph of An Càrn Bàn. Anonymous, though rumour suggests it was one of the Barons. MARCH - A long talk with Alyosha about adoption. APRIL 5TH - The Srathmarbh Spire is completed and the name 'Srathmarbh' finally begins to catch on. Construction workers are encouraged to stay and continue building on the town proper. Whispers abound of future, grander plans (the Brucolac himself ensures these whispers circulate). Various grants and start-up loans are offered to would-be business-owners. APRIL - Hunting cloudwhales for their precious floaty bones. MAY - Publication of The Governor. Anonymous/under penname. MAY - A run-down rural farmhouse west of Mair is chosen for the location at which to base the Brucolac & Dasha's growing drugs business. MAY - Aileas an Seabhac requests that the Brucolac act as her diplomat to help smoothe over tensions between the vampires and the elves. MAY - Those fucking swans. The Brucolac will scoop up a few and be seen to pour what wealth is gained from them straight back into Srathmarbh. SUMMER IN 2,701 (Jun, Jul, Aug) JUNE - Two vampire entrepreneurs take advantage of the Brucolac's offered start-up loans and begin to create a printing press in Srathmarbh. JUNE - The Brucolac participates in the Treun summer tourney, in the Melee category! Yseult comes to watch; the rumours which have long abounded about the Brucolac's kept woman in Mair become noisier. The event ends terribly for them when, during the daytime, Yseult is attacked by copycats of the fox cult for her association with shardbearers. JULY - Perhaps it's the rich heat of the summer sun which the slakemoths respond to? Or the blood in the air. They wrap themselves up in cocoons and emerge terrible, but are manageable. Don't ask how. JULY - An attempt is made to feed one Mr Bones to the slakemoths. AUGUST - The Festival of Shadow. FALL IN 2,701 (Sept, Oct, Nov) EARLY SEPTEMBER - The Brucolac is affected by the scrambling of the translation enchantment; he speaks some stilted Drabbish, and a whole heap of languages from his world, which are all totally useless to him. Expect terrible handwriting and a lot of gestures. Also expect one great big universally-understandable I TOLD YOU SO. SEPTEMBER - The Srathmarbh press is complete and ready for business! Grants for teachers and educators, or literate people wishing to become teachers and educators, are refined and more widely publicised. SEPTEMBER 29TH - Birth of Shamash, son of Verla. OCTOBER 3RD - Birth of Ishtar, daughter of Yseult. OCTOBER 5TH? - By the grace of the Unseelie monarchs, the children are returned, delivered safely to the arms of Alyosha Hazan. OCTOBER 25TH - 30TH - Samhain! An excuse to be naked with loved ones. NOVEMBER - Some of the escaped criminals are former employees of Mr Bones, out for vengeance or perhaps out for gainful employment now that Mr Bones is no longer quite the force he was. The Brucolac puts out feelers to ascertain various situations and deal with them appropriately. WINTER IN 2,701/2,702 (Dec, Jan, Feb) DECEMBER - The Brucolac stays far away from the White Hart. No thanks. Srathmarbh will hold a fervent Yule celebration, which promises to become a tradition. JANUARY - Fuck, what do you mean the slakemoths bred? Oh fuck. FEBRUARY - Yseult causes controversy at the Ostara Festival by anonymously submitting a work named Blindeye, a great abstract mural of wild colours meant to be touched and stroked and stared at with unease. It is torched by a traditionalist. The Brucolac tries to use this to distract from possible re-emergence of elf/vampir tensions caused by the assassinations of elven artists. SPRING IN 2,702 (Mar, Apr) DATE - Description DATE - Description DATE - Description

( codes by whambam )

Comments

EVENT.

[vrykolakas]

It's very fucking cold.

The Brucolac doesn't mind that, though. What he minds is losing a young lad to the ice-treacherous scaffolding which winds its way up along the spire; what he minds is the unease that ripples through Srathmarbh with the news the Baron has stopped construction. Most agree that it is only sensible; that it should have been done sooner, even. Nonetheless, in the few months that they have been here, there has always been construction, and the new silence is heavy.

Hence the bonfires. Three of them, the greatest in the very centre of the encampment, around which a crowd is gathered. Someone's singing. Someone else is hawking hot cider at a truly unbelievable price, which the Brucolac notes with weary pride. Towards the east, the family and friends of the dead boy are gathered about a smaller bonfire, huddled in private, silent grief; off in the north, a fire more well-tamed than the centre blaze, where people are assaying to cook, and not char good meat to a crisp.

The Brucolac works through it. Puts out advertisements for mages who can work with fire and heat, orders salt to be spread across the roads, keeps the bonfires burning; Srathmarbh is by no means so built-up yet as to provide adequate shelter in the face of this much cold. And every morning he breaks the ice on the Criostal, to cheer up the naiiads who should be thawing by now.

[selfimage]

Loki's not an elemental mage. He doesn't do fire, and nor does he have much desire to learn. He could write off some excuse about inelegance, but the metaphorical and literal prospect of it never fails to make him side-eye. (Metaphorically more than literally for reasons he's not about to divulge.) He's an Asgardian, and he's been raised Asgardian, but he has a particular penchant to the cold that comes from somewhere of his birth. He's still a polar bear diving frost giant somewhere in the depths of his tricksy heart.

When the call goes out he decides to pay a visit, not that he can be of much aid, really, but it's as good of a time as any. He may find some use for himself yet. It would be good to see what he was up to, keep the memory of himself fresh, and see if there's anything else to gain.

"Well ..." Loki says, approaching and tucking his hands into his pockets. "I should've brought a bag of marshmallows." It's hard to miss his signature horned diadem, the tacky green jacket and the way that he sashays up beside him. He takes a moment to survey—the bonfires, the seasonal drink, and the ice. All the ice.

[vrykolakas]

"A bag of what?"

Of course the Brucolac recognises him, with a smile even, hitching his lip to reveal a fang. The whole village has a curious air, subdued and weirdly manic simultaneously. The sugar rush of grief. A lot of people are drunk, and talking over-loudly, over-happily, as the fires crackle. Cleaving to the warmth and urgently enjoying it. The dead boy had been popular and well-known, and the Brucolac himself is wearied by the loss. For him, though, it's familiar, almost tiresome.

[selfimage]

"Marshmallows. Mortal tradition." He waves his black nailed fingers. "Puffy, sickeningly sweet, they make your teeth fall out. They're delicious with chocolate. That's after they're poked and cooked over a fire. I've heard it's an art not to turn them charcoal black."

It's not an unfamiliar feeling—he finds that everything in Drabwurld is a little familiar. Either from a mesh of mythology and history or what memories he has from the Otherworld.

He glances him up and down, and then adds, "Miiiight not be your thing."

[vrykolakas]

"Ah? I believe I've seen them at feasts. Something like that, at any rate." He catches that look with amusement and appreciation. "I tend towards...other delicacies," he says, with the drawling, brittle melodrama of one who likes a good vampire joke, provided it's very much on his terms.

"We're not much of a holiday destination, currently. Forgive our disarray."

[selfimage]

"As one who carries dominion over disarray," he holds up a hand, gesturing outward. "I can dig it." It's followed by a shrug. Being a god of chaos meant that he thrived under a little mischief here, a little chaos there, it all brought the familiar and much welcomed shake-ups that he claimed as change. "Your call was for elemental mages, but I thought I might be able to lend my services."

[scorchedchivalry]

It took Saber a bit longer to get to Srathmarbh than she had planned given those with her could not travel through the fairy rings and the clegs they were mounted upon needed to land far too frequently to have their wings thawed and tended to. But arrive Saber did, dressed in a manner that most others would freeze in as her only concessions to the cold where a thick blue fur cloak with white trim and the gloves she wore. Upon her brow was the silver crown as the Winter King and the four men with her all bore banners of a white dragon on a blue field.

She quickly dispatched two of her men to assess the state of the Spire and help thaw out anyone that had become frozen. Then she sought out the Brucolac with her other two men.

[vrykolakas]

"General."

The Brucolac broke off talking urgently to two of his officers, a stern orcish woman and a much-tattooed human with a deep-furrowed brow, to greet Saber. The soldiers shared a look, bowed swiftly to her, and vanished to put into practice whatever the Brucolac had been bidding them to do.

"You're fucking good to turn up here," he said, flatly and as if brooking no argument. The only reason he didn't bow was so as not to waste time. "What do you wish to know?"

[scorchedchivalry]

Saber nodded to the two soldiers in greeting as they bowed, not bothered that the Brucolac didn't present the same to her. There were more important things to worry about than courtly manner. Such as...

"Two of my men are already out helping the people - fire magic users both - as for the two with me, one is a healer and the other," she gestured to the big man behind her that was close to twice her size, "is a ferrier that will shoe any horse that needs it to be fit to handle the icy ground."

Both of her men nodded to confirm Saber's words. "As for myself... Where do you need help the most in regards to the ice?"

[vrykolakas]

"Sick bay's inside the Spire, ground floor; there's a forge to the east, hard work getting the furnace hot enough in this weather, though. I leave it to you."

He licked his lips and carried on, hoarse voice at a swift clip; "I have people securing the walkways already. Would you help me with the cellars? They've frosted over." Frustration twanged in his voice, an edge of fury at being unable to offer something as simple as a warm dry refuge. "Vampir aren't...so affected by the cold, but these are the refugees, the weak, the injured."

[scorchedchivalry]

The big man murmured in a quiet voice that he had his ways before he and the other one took their leave with Saber's permission. They would see to their duties without question, having done this already at other places.

"Lead the way, Baron. I will see to the cellars," she replied with a nod. "I do not work these ices as quickly as others, but I am quite thorough."

[metalica]

The silence is like a sickening weight as Erik lands in the grounds of the Spire, the first he has been to since he heard of their existence. He's had no reason to come so far north for longer than he'd cared to admit, the safety of Maupertius and Morgana's protection (abusing the whispers of the servants to make him seem far more important than he really is) all that he had needed for the most part. Now, though? Now he needed money and people to come to his side, builders and perhaps some kind of guard, just until he had what he needed prepared.

He walks forward, reaching out with his mutation to feel the world around him, the iron he had been told about, the scaffolding, the in-progress building that makes his lips purse and his eyes dart around. It makes him feel powerful, if he's to be honest, and a part of him wonders if he'd be capable of simply waving his arms and lifting the entire structure into the air, reaching out and grasping all the metal. He wouldn't, has no reason to, of course, but the idea is a powerful one and leaves him considering.

It's only when he moves closer to the fires that he pulls on his bracers, flexing his fingers and feeling a power as familiar as his magnetism flick through him, the urge to manipulate and turn the flame, to have it dance around him, almost a distraction. If he didn't have a job to do he might spend a few hours experimenting - but he has a man to find and a job to do. When he spots his target he walks over, expression set and neutral.

"Tell me what you need."

[vrykolakas]

Erik catches the Brucolac as he's hauling wood like it's nothing, easily outpacing the small team he leads despite them clearly been having picked for their strength. His face is taut, somehow angry. Erik has arrived in the bitter climax of a screaming ice-storm. Hail spatters the village and it's a struggle to keep the bonfires blazing. Shelters have popped up around them, people trying to get the best of both heat and protection from the winds. Chiefly the fires just smoke and sputter.

"Lehnsherr," the Brucolac says, dropping a concerning amount of deforestation, and gesturing that others should prepare it to be fed to the guttering fire. "I need a fucking miracle. I hope you plan on—"

He's cut short when a gust of freezing wind cold enough to make him gasp and hiss rushes through the encampment. With a great ripping noise, a tent goes flying; a screaming seagull is dashed to the ground; the fire is blown almost horizontal; and with a creeping, scuttling noise, ice spreads, frosting over the Brucolac's hair and beard, and freezing solid one of the hard-faced bundled-up women who had stood to strip down the wood and prepare it for the fire.

"Shitssake," the Brucolac snarls, so abrupt it's almost a cough, and is at her side in a second. Her wide eyes flit to and fro, but she is otherwise totally immobile.

[metalica]

Erik's eyes follow the movements of the people around him, ignoring the push and pull of the ice storm that threatens to overtake them. The shelters are weakening and he frowns, walking forward, reaching out. The main build is in place but it needs a little help - so he pulls, keeping that aspect of the area protected in the storm, as if there's more gravitational pull on it then anywhere else.

Then he turns to the Brucolac and lifts an eyebrow.

The tent slams into the ground by one of the bare hooks hanging from the ropes as he moves forward, his hands flexing. A nearby flame comes to Erik as it he has whispered for it, flexing around his hand and the blood red gauntlets that decorate his fingertips before he focuses, eyes trained on the woman. Slowly, with his concentration, the fire dances around her and starts to defrost her, slowly, even as Erik's attention switches between the flame and the metal around him.

"I think you mentioned a miracle."

[vrykolakas]

"So I did."

His smile is sharp as a hook, though his face doesn't lose its weary, drawn-taut cast. This whole situation is grinding along his nerves like cartwheels across cobbles. Still, he eyes Erik with a faint satisfaction.

"If you're content to work them, I'll pay for them," he says curtly. "I need you to reinforce the shelters and the scaffolding so that they'll hold even when you aren't watching them." He has no qualms, now, about giving orders, when it seems Erik will be able to fulfil them. "Cut through what ice you can, thaw where it's needed, but there are others working on that. I need infrastructure and shelter from you."

[metalica]

"I can do that."

Erik's own smile is barely there, a twist on a smirk as he keeps focused on his powers. He can pull the gravity on them, he can stand and hold on to the metal around him and make sure that nothing falls. If that means he gets money for it - well, he's hardly going to complain. The fire burns around him too, as manageable as his power over metal, and his eyes flick over to look back at the other man.

"Payment is fine. I'd also like to ask for recommendations on builders, people that wouldn't be adverse to working for shardbearers."

[raavashing]

Wan arrived shortly after the call went out, coming in through the fairy ring. It was the first time he'd used one of them, though he had been told how to by some of the imps of Caer Scima before it's fall. It was a very odd and disorientating sensation, but not so terrible that he couldn't come back to himself within seconds. The ice really did cover everything within sight, but there were were areas that were more important to thaw out than immediately where he appeared. Taking a moment to orientate himself and wave a greeting to anyone who was near, he sought out the man who had made the call for help.

"Hello!" he called cheerfully as he finally found him and jogged up, "I'm Wan. I'm here to help with the ice. Is the man made of fire here yet?"

[vrykolakas]

The Brucolac is pacing, an advisor reading aloud from a stack of papers as he stalks about, brow furrowed. They sound like rotas or shift schedules.

When Wan approaches, he waves away the advisor, who quickly sinks back a few paces. "The man made of fire?" the Brucolac asks, briefly baffled; his head is a little too full of the duty roster to think back to who Wan might mean. "Ah—Storm. No, not yet. Can you work without him?"

[raavashing]

"Yeah, that's not a problem," he said, though he frowned at the prospect of doing so alone. Had he still had the full power he should have as the Avatar, removing all the ice and returning the water to the sea wouldn't be a problem. But as he currently was? He'd have to be a lot more selective of what he did and where and he simply didn't like being forced to make such choices. "What needs the most ice removed right now? Where should I be starting?"

[vrykolakas]

"Let me take you to the cliff path." With a cursory hand gesture, the Brucolac beckoned him on—casting a brief, cryptic nod to the advisor, who quickly hurried off to some other duty. The Brucolac set off at a brisk clip, snow crunching under his boots.

"There's only really one way to get carts between the main settlement and the port, or the port-in-progress. And that's frosted over. It's slowing down construction, and it's also making it difficult to get proper provisions down to the workers there. Some of them have brought their families down to the seaside level and settled there. They need food, blankets, dry firewood, and it's damn difficult to get any of that to them when the road is almost too slippery to walk down, nevermind bring any load-bearing animal or cart. If you can make the path safe, follow it down to the port construction and see what can be defrosted there."

[uneulogized]

Truthfully, Jason is no "true" fire mage. At the end of the day, his knowledge of fire magic is rudimentary at best, largely controlled through sheer force of will and without any finesse. He's still learning how to do more with fire and make it come to life, but he does know enough to keep a fire burning, to make ice melt away from a frozen object, and he's worked hard enough around Ariadne's spire that he's willing to grant his energies elsewhere.

With the cold unyielding, it seems that it's best to drive himself in every direction. He wants to help, and here, he can make his helping yield something in return. Jason wouldn't normally do this for funds, and even intended to not do this for funds, but he's opportunistic enough. His survival skills have taught him to never look a gift horse in the mouth, so he doesn't do that here, either.

At the end of this day, Jason's face noticeably shows the sign of his weariness. His cheeks are chapped and his lips are broken and dry. He comes to stand near one of the open flames, drinking it in. He'll be gone soon enough, back to where he's generally staying, but he needs to fight off the chill.

"You'd think it'd relent sometime," he mutters, largely to himself, his voice low husky and uneasy, even cracking a little. He's showing signs of needing rest.

[vrykolakas]

"Here."

The Brucolac's footsteps behind Jason are hard to catch, but he at least offers the courtesy of not simply appearing beside him. The cold is shock enough. No need to startle people.

He has a mug of mulled cider in his hands, which he holds out to Jason. It's bitter, clove-stinking, rot-gut stuff, steaming hot and alcoholic enough to clean a wound. "Drink. Trust me. As for relenting? The Roc's a vengeful cunt by all accounts, but birds aren't known for their attention span."

[uneulogized]

The footsteps are hard to spot, but he's trained to listen to his surroundings from a young age. That's a skill he had before Bruce tried to beat down the rugged edges of it through six months of training to be Robin. It's actually The Brucolac's arrival that confirms he heard anything at all, though, because his state right now might actually lead him to hearing things.

Thankfully, he's not. So, good. There's that.

Jason gratefully takes the cider from his hands while processing those words, eagerly swallowing the spicy mixture down. It burns a little on his lips due to the acid, but he can't bring himself to care. It still does what it's meant to do.

"I don't know about that. Am I supposed to trust that birds act like birds here?"

[vrykolakas]

The Brucolac shrugs, sweeps his hair back. There's a faint crunch, and for a split second he looks appalled, before his face snaps back to neutrality. His hair has frozen. Excellent. Great. Fine.

"Yes. To some extent. Depending on your world. There is an internal logic here; you just have to...learn to think with it. You might consider that the birds here act more like birds than the birds anywhere else. They are...the mythological essence of birds."

"Which is bullshit, but at least it's a rule to make reference to."

[fulminants]

The cold doesn't actually bother him, not really; but ever since the cold set in, Johnny finds himself eating more than twice his weight in food to keep the fire and energy going. He expends more than usual these past couple of weeks, and he knows he has to keep going until the blizzard ends, providing warmth to the people who need it, melting snow and heating up rooms, helping with the insulation and sealing off rooms so that precious heat didn't escape.

He's careful with the Brucolac's spire, zipping through his settlement with a speed and precision that cultivated with care. True to his promise, Johnny doesn't set anything on fire that doesn't need to be, and the smattering of people he passes are not so much as singed or blistering from the heat. Control; he'd mastered very good control over his own powers as the months went by, and he worked on the village, the winding pathways, melting snow and drying the uneven paths, the extreme heat he'd applied to the stone setting the walkways steaming with warmth.

They will not burn, but they'll keep the snow off of it for quite awhile, at least. But just in case, he keeps the roads salted, getting right down to business for the baron's spire. He works the heat, moves around them to get the warm air circulating, for whatever it's worth. The vats of water come next; and with everyone working hard to keep the place from being a frosty death trap, there were quite a few who were forthcoming with directions. He heats up the water, helps with the ones who are thawing by moving around the room, bringing warmth to them without blazing alight.

It's a few hours before the Human Torch seeks an audience with the Brucolac, bonfires carefully stoked with more sprouting up with his help, families and individuals who gather around to keep themselves warm.

"Hey."