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

[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."

[raavashing]

Wan followed easily, keeping up without any trouble and practically ghosting over the snow. He barely left any prints and if any real attention was paid to him, the Brucolac might be able to notice the oddly focused breeze that surrounded, picked up, and pushed Wan along with every step.

"I can remove the water and take it back to sea if you want," he offered. "Or if you want something else done with it, made into fencing, steps or something else, I can do that, too. Have you ever built a house out of ice blocks? They can actually keep you really warm if you keep a fire going inside them. And even if they're temporary, they'll be decent roofs overhead while the winter stays."

There was a short pause before he grinned and slid himself around in front of the Brucolac as though he were on skates - which, he kind of was since his feet now had some ice wrapped around them like frozen shoes - to 'walk' backwards as they went, "You know what, I'll ask the people near the shore what they'd like done. If the road isn't that long, I'll probably be done in a half hour or so. And as long as the snow doesn't fall, the road should stay clear. But like I said before, with the lockets, I can come back every few days and make sure it stays clear so long as the winter stays around. You said something about paying people who could do that in gold, right? Don't worry about paying me until this ends."

With that said, Wan gave a wave and was off, skating on the literal ice skates down the road toward the beach. He reached out to either side as he skated past and the ice and snow melted into water that followed after him. At first they were like ribbons trailing behind and as more and more water was added to them, they grew into what seemed to be waves chasing him back toward the ocean. The road was more than clear in his wake. Clearer than even fire melting the ice could make it and no need for salt for the immediate future. When the snow fell again, that would be a problem, certainly. But there was now time for that to be done if the people of the settlement had the ability to do so.

Wan did not stop at the construction on his first pass. He could only carry so much water with him and while he was perfectly able to defrost the road, he did need to dump it before he went after more. The ocean would serve that need perfectly well and as he sent the water behind him to join the larger body, he skated over the frozen waves to unfreeze the creaking ice flows that clogged the bay. Once again he felt frustrated that he had to get as close to all that ice as he did just to connect to it with his chi and manipulate it. It really should have been easier. But it was what it was. There was nothing he could do about it at the moment and he had bigger worries.

Once the water was put into the ocean, he skated back across the softly churning waves as though it were solid ground and to the construction site. He quickly introduced himself to the people who were watching with more than a little awe at how easily he moved the water. A polite bow to those nearest and a wave to those further back. With little preamble he got to the point, finding out what was the most important things to defrost first and going from there. The effort had him sweating within twenty minutes, but he didn't stop until the whole of the port and the shelters set up on the beach and the land just beyond were cleared of frost and snow. When he was done, it looked more like the proper spring it should have than most of the land around the settlement. Wan took his leave then, walking back to the spire proper before leaving through the fairy ring at a leisurely pace that let him rest.

--

He returned as promised. Every couple days during the month (sans about a week around the middle when he wasn't close enough to a fairy ring to come through), he returned either from the La Llorona Ring or the Station Ring. Those other times he mostly checked in with the construction overseer at the port and said hello to the families he'd started to get to know. Some days the roads (and occasionally the people) were harder to defrost than others. The Roc's influence on the weather was unpredictable even day to day. But it was obvious the settlement retained a great deal of aid from others, not just Wan alone.

When the freeze finally broke, Wan returned for the last time during the very start of April. He came to settle his account. He'd been promised gold for his efforts and gold he intended to collect. Though when paid it, only one piece actually made it into his belt. The rest he took to the streets with and started handing out to the people of the small town that was well on it's way to becoming a city. He didn't have enough to give to everyone, but those families he knew had lost someone to the freeze and those who were less well off than others, they got a couple pieces. Those at the ports whose homes had been destroyed by the weight of ice and who had little in the way of shelter for themselves, they got a couple pieces. The gold went quickly and Wan left quietly when it did.