[closed] winter breakers

[3ofswords]

WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: House 42 (Mark and Helen)
WHEN: January 13/14 - during the snowstorm
OPEN TO: Mark, Helen, Ravi
WARNINGS: Will put in tag headers if any arise beyond smoking weed and going stir crazy.

---

Stay the night, Mark had said; it looks awful out there, he'd said.

It looks a lot worse in the half-light of day, the sun obscured by clouds, the trees visible in how they whip and bow to the wind, until they disappear behind the falling snow. Kira's hardly at his best after a night on the couch, listening to the wind howl and his fucking goat clopping around the room. Goats are kind of inherently creepy, and they're ten times worse in the middle of the night.

But she's his, and there's no telling if it's the weather or something worse that has them down a bit of livestock.

Point is: there's a cramp in his shoulder, a goatlick of hair slicked out over his scar, and the plans to let her out in the morning are not going well. "Hey guys," he calls to the waking household, "The porch is basically gone." The wind has apparently been bad enough to pack snow against the front of the house; Kira is surprised enough by the sight, and bleary enough after sleep, that he stands there a moment staring at the wall of it.

The goat takes seconds to push past him, headbutting the barrier and making it fall in on top of her. The layer carries on in a slope, and the wind starts to blow the still-falling snow back toward him. Anyone coming into the room will find a goat bleating helplessly as she shakes herself out of the pile, and Kira trying to nudge her out of the way with his foot, unable now to close the door against the wind and snow.

[Four adults, one goat, two days.  Free for all post for individual and multi-person threads.]

Comments

[3ofswords]

"No Mark, I was going to bust a hole in your living room floor for the goat to shit through, then spend the next few days potty-training her." Kira takes the logs as they come, hand sinking at the unexpected weight. He only fumbles the first inasmuch as it drops less gracefully where he wants it, and the others follow with solid, evenly spaced thuds.

What is he going to do with the fucking goat?

"We need something to get us to the hall," he points out. "Assuming this lets up enough to make digging worthwhile." Shovels not being stocked in most bodegas, he's at least familiar with making-do. "How many frying pans do you own?"

[markwatney]

I pause at that, staring blankly a moment at the earthen wall of the cellar before shaking my head and resuming the steady passing of logs up through the door.

"Are you planning on digging with them or putting them on your feet? Because they're cast iron, so I doubt they'd work well for either of those things."

I feed a few more logs into the furnace to get it properly roaring, dust off my hands, and then climb back upstairs.

"I have a pair of dubiously-crafted snow shoes."

[3ofswords]

"Mostly I'm planning on clearing what's at the door with something other than my hands," he elaborates, "but I'm open to survival craft projects while we wait for this to blow over."

Assuming it would. From what he's read, most disasters here are a matter of days--but the sun hadn't set for at least a month, and why should they assume to know any fucking rules beyond the ones that fuck them repeatedly?

"If it's the pans you're worried about, I'm pretty sure we can find you a new set."

[markwatney]

"I'm not worried about the pans, it's just that they're heavy," I explain as I cross the room to stoop in front of the stove. "I get what you're saying, but they're really not ideal. Take a look in the cupboards, we've got to at least have some big ladles or something in there."

Not that I relish the idea of trying to dig through a snowbank with an oversized spoon, but needs must, as they say.

"You know what, there might be some lids for the bigger copper pots that aren't as heavy as the pans."

[3ofswords]

"Mark," he says, fumbling another log onto the pile, his arms steadily tiring, "I'm hurt that you don't believe in my strength." It's a fair point, and Kira likes the mental image of grown men wielding pot lids and ladles against the elements. It feels the right amount of absurd for the situation.

"You think there's any point in trying before the storm ends?"

[markwatney]

"Honestly? Not really, no," I reply with a glance back over my shoulder. "I'm going to want to get out and do some welfare checks once things calm down some, but I think everybody should be okay unless it drags on for more than a couple of days." Looking back to the stove, I adjust the pile of wood inside to my liking and then reach for the flint.

"Surprising no one, Helen and I could probably be stuck in here a month before we needed to worry about it."

[3ofswords]

"Yeah, I assume if the food ran out you guys would just figure out how to break down the enzymes in the upholstery for nourishment." Or something. "Which is probably what the goat is going to live on now that I've stopped watching her for two minutes."

Bethany had better turn out to be the world's best sled-goat by the end of this. Her charms are such that he can see why someone might consider putting her to the chopping block for a chance to go home. Someone who isn't him.

With the others of the household not in the room, and all of them here long enough to maybe already be thinking it, Kira only bites his lip a moment before asking: "People talk about a monster coming through, last winter. Do you think it might be out there again?"

[markwatney]

It seems like forever since I even thought about that thing, and I'd been with the group that had killed it. There's just so much to worry about in this place over the winter months, and the truth is we haven't seen anything so baldly threatening since.

I pause, canting my head. "Could be," I allow, probably sounding more cavalier than I should, and blow on the sparks I've made until they catch on the kindling. "We killed it, but the body disappeared, so like everything else around here, there's really no telling. But there are definitely bears and moose and things like that out there, so I think we can agree that going out in the woods unarmed and alone, particularly at night, is probably best avoided."

[3ofswords]

"I thought bears were supposed to hibernate," is Kira's I watched a documentary once contribution, and the extent of his knowledge on literal bears. It's difficult to wrap his head around the wildlife until he remembers magic boxes containing puppies and goat deliveries: the canyon feels too small to house multiple bears, but who knows what forces put them here, or how much better they are at slipping out.

He starts herding the dropped logs into something of a stack. "I don't know why I'm expecting this place to make any sense, though."