As the great day gloss sets over dust filled meadows, the sky is lathered in exquisite luminescent colours. The great Mìm gloss never fails to paint the most bae of landscapes.
It’s been a long day. I worked the yards with me Pardu from gloss-up to gloss-down. This time of the arnu is always tough. The days are biting cold and winds blow ferociously through Brille's tunnels. It makes work hard, particularly turning the soils ready for planting. Besides being hard on an already stringy body, my penchant for wearing frills and tassles, mean I am always getting tangled up in the weeds. I don't mind it though. I like that I have bigger muscles than Tedde down the block.
Tilly dropped by around mid-up on her way to the Brille markets. We talked at length about the ruckus that had occurred in Brille this morn. Things have become a wee bit rowdy, to say the least, with the influx of Kawlin travellers and Parvee wanderers over the last few passos. Tilly was quite taken by one of the Parvee lads that had been at the center of the scuffle. I think her interest was more than just a passing observation. Her cheeks rosed and she had a twinkle in her eye at the near mention of him. I could only imagine the uproar if she was to take up with a Parvee lad, an outsider. The entire village would have something to say about it, that's for sure. Tilly is a highlander, part of the Scurran clans. She's practically nobility. Highlanders never mix with Parvee. Tilly didn't care. She always had a sway for the wrong side of the valleys.
After a full turn of the sand dial, I was able to pull myself away from Tilly’s gushing, overly exaggerated storytelling. Don't get me wrong, I love a good tale, but Tilly has a knack for wagging her tongue over long turns of the sand dial. Oh, and she has no use for pauses. "That one, she can talk under water," me Pardu would say.
I spent the rest of the arv helping Pardu to clear the yards and take in ruffage for the colts, before the frosts set in.
The lands have been hit hard this arnu by the dusts. The dusts come every 10 arnu-s or so, and usually last a couple of passos. But this arnu, they were thicker and more imposing than usual, lasting a full three cycles of the moren.
Settling into the eevnen, I listened to Mar and Pardu chinwag about the upcoming Festival of the Krokeths, debating who will take out head Kroketh this arnu. It's a big deal, to be head Kroketh...
Me Mar, a purveyor of the finest elixirs in the region, whipped up a warm cuppa of her delicious colt mead.
“Ee-a me wee lass. Drink up. It’ll warm ya bones right up nicely.”
“Ahi, there’s nothin more pleasing on a cold night than Mar’s warm mead” followed Pardu, raising his mug to the skies, giving salue to the ancestors.
With the aroma of sweet lieven honey in the air and my tummy full to the brim I was soon dozing off under cover of Mar’s rhotith husk blanket.
“Karlish”
“Karlish” Pardu’s voice echoed through the night air, breaking through haze filled dreams.
“Karlish, wake up” Pardu shook my shoulders. He seemed to be in a panic.
As I rubbed the soot from my eyes a bright red light is glowing behind Pardu. Wiping away the haze I can see more clearly that the red light are flames rising into the ceiling of the culven.
“What’s going on?” I stammer through sleepy tones.
“The hausen be torched me wee lass” Pardu says as he throws a soaken cloak over us both.
“Where’s Mar?”
Pardu pulls me briskly towards the vindou and heaves me up and out into the cold night air. I plonk heavily down onto a bundle of old wood crates, giving a squeal of pain as I feel the crates break under my colliding body. I hit the ground hard and am shaken for a moment. Pardu jumps out of the vindou and lands firmly on his feet beside me. He grabs my arm and pulls me up and away from the smoky cloud that is now seeping from our home.