#cino’s warm corner

[euthanarexia]

My most recent toys photoshoot. Don’t mind the small watermark, I have a IG now (idk if I’ll actually use it often but I started posting those pictures there).

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

Laying of the Cards

Here’s the Link to ao3!

After the fresh and biting cold winds outside the smoky air inside the kitchen of the small cottage that had been built many years ago at the edge of the village, caused Nyx' eyes to burn and his throat to itch. He blinked a few times to make out the other people in the room within the flickering light, the fire burning in the hearth the only source of light, their number higher than he had expected, considering what was to happen this evening.

There were seven people in the crammed room already, making the stuffy air even worse. Nyx felt his head swim at the smell of burning herbs and spices, wet fur, burning wood and unwashed bodies. The plumping had frozen about a week ago, causing some people to whisper that the white she-demon was wandering about again. In Nyx' opinion there would be a whole lot of frozen dead people right about now, if that were true, but he did the smart thing and kept his mouth shut. Let the people talk. That way they would have something to do over the winter that promised to be longer and harder than unusual.

He knew about half of the people here at least by face if not by name. The others were most likely either of the Watcher Clans or from one of the more western islands. The people there kept even more to themselves than the Galahkari did anyways.

Nyx lifted his dominant hand horizontally up to his collarbones in a general greeting, not really in the mood to more people than he absolutely had to. He should be at home right now with his mother and sister, helping to keep the house from cooling out or helping in the forge, seeing as that was the warmest place they had right now.

“Nyx,” he heard Crowe's voice from the corner to his right.

She, like everybody else safe for the mistress of the house and her apprentice, was still buried under thick layers of wool and furs against the freezing winter howling outside, battering the village with a gale of snow. Her cheeks were flushed from a mix of cold and the sudden heat in the kitchen but even then he could see her pallor underneath it. Despite her many layers of clothing he could see how tense she was.

“You too?” he said in a low voice when he stepped closer to her.

Crowe sent him a dark look. She wanted to be here as much as he was. Which was to say not at all.

Nevertheless he tugged at a strand on her long brown hair until she complied and leaned her forehead against his own. They stayed that way for the span of one breath before Crowe stepped away again. Nyx ignored the looks that action got him and grinned unabashedly at his friend. She huffed in fond exasperation, thankfulness lurking in the depth of her brown eyes. He wondered how the last week had been treating her. The heating at her place had always been shitty, but now it had to be even worse. Neither his mother or Selena would be upset if he were to invite her to stay for the rest of the winter. Another helping hand was always welcome, but she clearly wasn't in the mood to talk right now either, so he just stood next to her in companionable silence.

Sweat started to pool at the small of his back and formed beads along the arch of his brow. The stuffy and smoky air that smelled of burned herbs, was nigh unbearable. Nyx wanted very badly to open one of the windows to be able to breath, consequences be damned.

“You better not be doing that, boy. Elder Rhea will tan your hide if you take one step towards the windows, and she'll not be without help,” grumbled a burly man with a barrel chest and a deep voice that sounded like the rumble deep in the mountains.

“Chief Ostium,” Nyx greeted with a nod of respect that could be nearly taken as a bow.

“Cut that out, Ulric,” scowled the older man. His heavy brow, the thick beard and the long salt and pepper hair made it only more impressive. “You're a man grown now and a chief yourself. Start acting like it. People won't be as tolerant as they were when you were nine.”

Nyx resisted the urge to duck his head like a chastised boy, like he had done so often before, when this man had caught him and Libertus doing something stupid again. Murus Ostium nodded, his gold flecked blue eyes grew warmer as he patted Nyx' fur clad shoulder once. Unbidden, he felt himself stand up straighter despite Crowe's scoff. Murus didn't even spare her a glance.

“Come and greet Elder Rhea. No need to be impolite to an Aware One in her own home.”

With that he guided Nyx away from Crowe, whose eyes flashed with an old hurt Nyx would have loved to soothe, if he only knew how to. Libertus and him had met her too late for that.

Elder Rhea Etas stood by the hearth, bowed over an earthen bowl filled with smoldering sage, roasting cino nuts and druhm roots standing on a cooking grate. She hummed a tuneless melody while her gnarly fingers rummaged through the pockets of her layered wool dress. Her smile showed her crooked teeth and deepened her wrinkles when she saw them approaching. Or rather him being pushed by the older chief.

“Ah, Chief Ulric. Welcome to my home. May the fires warm you and the white she-demon not steal you or your loved ones during the night.”

Nyx made himself answer that smile as he crossed his wrists in the traditional greeting. “Thank you for letting me step into the light of your hearth. May it keep you warm during long nights and dark days.” The smell coming from the earthen bowl over the fire brought tears into his eyes and made him want to gag. He swallowed dryly. It made it only worse.

“Take a seat, young Chief and take part in the meal. Soon we will begin.”

The young man nodded and forced his questions down. He had no idea why he had been invited to a flow laying of all things. They were for people with power, influence important destinies – mystic heroes during times of old - and while he wished he could be someone like that, he doubted that he was such a person now. Some of the other participants also didn't make a lick of sense to him.

A young man, clearly of the Lazarus Clan with his blond hair and pale skin, sat at the table and frowned into a steaming cup. Nyx' eyebrows shot up in surprise. The Lazarus' seldom came out of their little conclave in Tenebrae. Especially after they had brought news of Tenebrae's conclusive conquest by Nifelheim and their slaying of the Oracle a few years ago. Next to him sat a woman he didn't know with sandy brown hair twisted into thick braids that wound around her head like a crown. A bit ostentatious in his opinion, but who was he to judge another clan's braids? She was talking to Elder Istoria Patientia, one of the few people he knew from the westernmost islands, who sat at one end of the table. The old woman had made it her mission to travel all over Galahd to keep the stories alive and well, as she said.

Nyx finally shed his furs and the outer layers of his clothing until he was down to a knitted jumper, his mother had made for him, his pants and his boots, and carefully laid it all over the back of the chair across from the Lazarus Clan member that had to be around his age. Him, Crow and Nyx were clearly the youngest people here. Now the heat in the room wasn't as oppressive and he could breathe a bit easier. Crowe claimed the chair to his left, looking even more uncomfortable than she had when he had come in. She was the first Nameless One to take part in a flow laying in a few hundred years.

At last he had stories to tell him what to expect from this. Ulrics had been part of this every few generations since the Clan had been founded. But her...

The leaden wight in his gut only grew, so he went straight for the fumir and also poured his best friend a cup of the steaming beverage. Without saying a word they drank a deep gulp. It nearly scorched his tongue and the stronger than expected spices made him blink the tears from his eyes before some of the other people in the room noticed. Crowe sent him an amused smirk, the traitor.

“Don't worry too much about it,” he whispered, leaning towards her, “The stories say that all you have to do is sit still and watch. The Aware One will do everything else.”

“Well, it's not like you have ever been to something like this either,” she hissed back, clearly agitated over her own ignorance.

The sound of a door opening and closing made them and the other people in the kitchen go silent and look up. Elder Rhea's apprentice, whose name he didn't know, flushed red in embarrassment at the attention she received. She carried a heavy looking wooden box in her arms. It was covered in elaborate carvings of the Galahdian jungle and the sea and was around one and a half handspans high and two long. She carefully set it down at the end of the table where two empty chairs stood and sat down on one of them.

The other guests also settled down, the plate in the middle of the table that had been stacked full of nuts and dried meats now empty, and a tense silence settling over the group. For a short moment Nyx let his eyes wander. Everybody seemed to be as tense as he was despite their best efforts to hide it. The young hunter could practically smell the nervousness in the air.

Finally Elder Rhea stepped away from the bowl over the hearth. Nyx followed her every move with keen eyes as her gnarly fingers opened the box, its well oiled hinges not making a single sound. Within, he knew, lay the cards with which this game would be played, even if it was a game in name only and that, too, just barely.

The fire crackled ominously as she pulled a surprisingly large stack of cards out of the box. All of them were made of thin wooden plates the length of his hand, one side painted in vibrant colours, the other bare. Some of the cards were older than Galahd, his mother had said, while others were as young as to have been made only a few years ago. The river was forever in flux and so cards came and went.

On his left Crowe was gripping her cup so hard he feared she would break it. He took another fortifying gulp from his own. The spicy alcohol spread its warmth quickly and made his face flush even more.

Elder Rhea put the cards into two neat stacks, face down. Her apprentice pulled out a pen and a stiff sheet of paper, her chair the one furthest away from the table. Nyx assumed she wouldn't take part in the game then.

“Thank you all for following my call. Strange things are afoot. This winter is far colder than many of its precursors. The magicks are restless and unsettled and all of you gathered here have to play a part in what is to come.”

Another short silence followed. Nyx shared one last glance with Crowe. Then, without further ado, the Elder picked up the first card from the stack closest to her and laid it on the table with an audible click. Nyx stared at the image. The only clear features he could discern were a pair of sickly yellow eyes on black and a too wide grin full of sharp teeth. The rest was hidden behind a screen of smoky grey, but he thought he could see the black spots of scourge marring a human face. The card practically oozed savage satisfaction and a sick desire for blood and vengeance that made something within Nyx bristle in defense. He shook his head. The alcohol must be getting to his head already.

“The Herald of the Starscourge,” muttered Elder Rhea just loud enough for all to hear.

Nyx couldn't tear his eyes away from it but he could still hear the hissed breaths the others took. The Starscourge cropped up on their isles every few years. Just a few cases, mind, but still enough for all Galahkari to learn what to do if one were to meet one of the scourge-sick. Which, in essence, boiled down to giving them a quick and painless death.

He wondered if there would be another outbreak, worse than there had been for many generations. Nyx had heard of the rising numbers of scourge-sick on the mainland, which was not only, but in part, because the last Oracle had been slain by the Nifelheimr Empire.

“He is the one who will put what is to come in motion, who will guide a great number of the players involved. With or without them knowing has no bearing upon it.”

A second card was picked up and gently laid down next to the first. This one depicted a softly glowing crystal in the form of a heart, wrapped in chains.

“The Chained Heart,” Elder Rhea said, her eyebrows raised in something resembling astonishment. “An opponent to the Herald but not an enemy. At least part of their goals align and lead towards the same outcome.”

The third card was laid horizontally across the first two. It showed a figure all of them knew and none of them liked.

Bahamut.

Self proclaimed King of the Astrals and all around pain in the ass. His tries to conquer them through the Kingdom of Lucis had made the Galahkari hate him even more than they already had after the Astral War. Nyx had to suppress the irrational urge to bare his teeth at the card.

“King of the Sword, Bahamut. Master of the actions taken by the Herald and the Chained Heart. What his own agendas are remains murky in the flow.”

Elder Rhea reached for the first stack again – Nyx wondered what the second was for – to pick up the third card in the laying but then something happened. Later Nyx couldn't say what it had been and neither could any of the other attendees he had asked afterwards. Maybe it had been a slight of hand, maybe a slip of old and tiring fingers, maybe her apprentice had jostled her as she wrote down what had already been laid out. Whatever the case, the intended card flew from her hand and slid over the edge of the table where it landed face down in a loud clatter of wood on wood. Instead another was shown.

The wooden card clattered onto the table, out of order and too far to the left, the sound reverberating through the smoke filled room like gun shots. It did so with a wight that couldn't be natural. For a moment none of the participants sitting around the table moved. Nyx felt his muscles tense up and the fine hairs on his neck stand on end as Elder Rhea leaned towards the fallen card, the beads of her gently swinging braids clinking against each other.

“The Black Ships,” she whispered hoarsely into the deathly silence.

Nyx felt lightheaded as his blood fled from his head. Suddenly any influence, the alcohol may have had, vanished. He looked at the Lazarus across from him, who sat head bowed and clenched fists trembling. The card of the Black Ships laid nearest to him. Their black sails and hulking hulls promising death and suffering.

The gisdrauhti said this card had come into existence when the Conqueror King of Lucis had come to take their lands in the name of his patron God. It was one of those stories that had scared him witless as a young child, but he had only understood it as he had grown into his teenage years. The Black Ships only represented bloody invasion, death and pain and deep sorrow, that would be remembered until the end of their days for his people.

A thin and calloused hand clutched his in a death grip under the table.

The near silent clinking of wood against wood made him look towards the Elder who picked up a new card, from the second stack this time he noted, with trembling fingers. Her mouth was pressed into a bloodless line. She seemed to stare into thin air for a few moments as all others, including Nyx, held their breath. The grip on his hand grew even tighter. His own grip was just as strong.

Gently, Elder Rhea laid it down in front of the Lazarus. Nyx could practically see the relief wafting off of the blond. Leaning forward, he breathed a tremendous sigh of relief himself in tandem with Murus Ostium next to him.

There, facing the Black Ships that sailed in a stormy sea, was the Watcher of the Hunt.

They would be warned.

Thank the ancestors and the spirits of the jungle.

They would be warned.

“Thank ahtrii,” whispered someone across the table. Nyx didn't know who it had been. Nor did he care.

“It seems we have much to prepare for. Dire times lie ahead of us. Dire times, indeed. What needs to be determined now is what role each of you will play in what is to come,” said Elder Rhea, her normally calm voice a tight curl of tension Nyx had never heard before.

More cards were laid out. This time in front of the people sitting around the table.

Orfefs, Father of the Hunt.

The woman with the braids wrapped around her head.

Priestess of Fire.

Elder Istoria Patientia.

Witch of the Hunt.

Crowe the Nameless.

Mage of the Wilderness.

Himself.

Wall of the Wooden Throne.

Murus Ostium.

Ship of the Hunt.

The man with red hair and Solheimr golden eyes that hadn't said a word until now.

Nyx had no idea what any of this meant but when he looked down at the card in front of him, at the man with the coeurl eyes, the wild grin, naked, safe for the white fur wrapped around him, he couldn't help but feel a rightness that scared him down to his core.