*****
Morgan stood on the porch of her small home in Grenvor. She shivered in the perpetual cold caused by living on the edge of an ice sheet and sighed into the silence of the night. She looked around at her neighbors’ homes and smiled, though her heart was heavy.
Grenvor was a small mining town with little enough to recommend itself. There was the Broken Icepick Tradepost where Morgan worked, two taverns, an armory, and an outfitter’s. Steamreach Coal was the biggest employer in the area, but there was also Chillden Trapping and Trading, for those who were adventurous enough to hunt out on the ice sheet. Most of Morgan’s neighbors worked for Steamreach Coal, many down in the mines, and their homes were usually dark at this time of evening.
But not tonight.
Those with generators had strung incandescent lamps, small ones, around their porches and their homes, and those who couldn’t afford the generators, or the coal to run them, had candles with colored globes sitting on porch rails and in windows. Morgan had considered doing something similar for the Yuletide season, but her job at the Broken Icepick Tradepost didn’t allow for many luxuries, and Morgan had opted for a new coat from Littlehallow Outfitters instead. It was something she would use. Something practical.
The night was quiet, peaceful, and laughter from Mistbay Tavern floated on the cold breeze. Many of the miners gathered at the tavern during the holidays to spend time together in the warmth before the cold of deep winter prevented much movement. Morgan often considered joining them, but, for some reason, she just couldn’t seem to manage it. Not to say she hadn’t tried, but she’d quickly realized that being alone in a room full of boisterous miners and their families was still alone, and she just couldn’t make herself repeat the experience.
With one last look at the lights, Morgan stepped back inside. She made sure the door was locked, then she settled onto her sofa. Her job began early in the morning, and even the holiday season didn’t prevent her having to report to work, so Morgan had forgone the decorations of Yuletide and elected to get some extra rest instead. With her children grown, she had no real reason to celebrate and attempting to only made her realize just what was missing from her life.
Darkness closed in around Morgan like a shroud enclosed the dead. She moved to light a candle, but a flicker caught her eye. Her bronze owl, one she’d made while a Sister with the Arcana Maximus in Freywater, shifted position on the coffee table. She shook her head and ignored it while she made herself a cup of hot cocoa and grabbed a wool blanket from her bed. Once she’d settled, she stared the owl in the eye.
“All right, Abraham,” she said. “It’s Yuletide. What’s going on that’s gonna get me out of my warm house? Really not in the mood to freeze my ass off again tonight.”
Light flared in the owl’s eyes, and it waddled from leg to leg, then it quieted. Morgan finished her cocoa and shrugged. If Abraham wasn’t going to tell her what she needed to do, then she was going to bed to get a good night’s sleep. She’d fought the specters; that was enough for one night.
Morgan set her empty mug on the table in front of her and groaned as she rose from the sofa. The fire was nearly out in her wood-burning stove, and she dreaded going back outside to get more. Wind whistled around the corners of the house, and Morgan could imagine it biting through her clothing.
“Dammit,” she said to the owl. “If you can tell me who’s getting eaten, why can’t you do something useful like go get the wood?”
The owl waddled again and flapped its tiny metal wings, then it settled back into silence.
“Asshole.”
Morgan stomped through her small kitchen to the back door and snatched it open. The wind’s chill was razor sharp, and Morgan’s teeth chattered, as she’d neglected to put on her coat, so she raced down the steps to grab several pieces of wood. She hurried back inside and tossed them into the stove, then she took her blanket and wrapped it around herself until she stopped trembling.
Just as she laid back down, raucous laughter caught Morgan’s attention. She rolled her eyes and climbed to her feet. She wrapped the blanket more firmly around her shoulders and stepped out onto the porch.
The night had grown even chillier, and Morgan quivered in the cold. A group of miners, large, burly humans, were stumbling their way down the street. Several Halflings from the Halfling village to the west of Grenvor had joined them, and the group’s noise echoed in the night. Morgan laughed as one of them tripped over his own feet and landed face first in the snow, and she shook her head at their antics. She loved the miners of Grenvor and the Halflings that often patroned her shop. There were even some of the trolls from the troll village south of Grenvor that weren’t half bad, but there was no one here to whom she felt particularly close.
Pain welled up in Morgan’s soul at the depth of emptiness within her home, for there was no one in her life to celebrate the Yuletide season with her. Her children had all gotten apprenticeships several years before, even before Morgan had left Freywater, and none of them had spoken to her since.
A tear rolled down her cheek at the thought of the all the years her family had celebrated Yuletide with a tree and gifts for the kids. They’d never had a lot of money, but they’d been a close family.
Morgan smiled at the memories of previous Yuletides, those in their small flat in Shadowhell in Freywater…