creator_raven | OOM: In the Summer Country (Merriman and Will)

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OOM: In the Summer Country (Merriman and Will)

The Summer Country is most often a quiet place, and static in ways that Raven does not quite like.

They make him itch.

Also, times being what they are, it is not so well-balanced a land, either.

This is probably why Raven's arrival is not so secret a thing as he had intended, perhaps.

The Wild does not hide so well when the High Magic itself is ragged and tattered.

It is a pity.

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Ragged and tattered, and held together by a webwork of spells and focus.

There's not much that goes unnoticed in this land in general, and far less now. Raven's entrance is noticed, most certainly. Oh, there are some who miss it entirely, but when every Old One's head lifts sharply at the same moment, in a country containing the entire Circle... well.

Luckily, there are two Old Ones here who have felt that magic before, and the regent as well. So that moment of startlement and the brief, intently listening look that follows are all the reaction the Circle shows.

And it's sometime later that Will happens to be in a certain field, wandering among apple trees with his hands in his pockets. (Here, alone among trees, his trousers have decided to be the blue jeans they started out as.)

There is someone standing at his left shoulder.

This someone also has his hands in his pockets, though they are coat pockets instead of pants pockets.

Raven is surly like that.

Right.

"Hello, Will."

Right.

Will glances at him without surprise. (Which is not the same thing as without curiosity, or interest.)

"Hullo, Raven."

Raven grins, bright and cheerful.

"It is not so bad a place, this. Though it makes my head itch."

It's the static nature of being outside Time, really. It makes Raven twitchy.

If the Summer Country makes Raven itch, then Raven's presence in the Summer Country does not exactly make Merlion feel that much more comfortable in his own skin at the moment.

It is not a threat, at the least. In that respect, it is easier to make the necessary adjustments.

He has made it part of his routine to prowl the outskirts of the land -- not with the frequency of a watch that would always pass through at the same time or travel to the same locations, but rather as as means of making the rounds as the mood takes him, keeping an eye on the land as he would have done in the old days. On foot, unhindered, alone.

And always, always, with a careful eye for any who might choose to join him on his way.

Possibly Merriman's careful eye will serve him well when a black-winged bird swoops down out of an empty sky and thumps solidly to the ground next to the Old One.

"Possibly it is not so bad a place, this. Except for the static, yes?"

He doesn't actually startle at Raven's appearance. There is something in that.

'It all depends on one's perspective, I suppose.' He waves a hand in what might be a dismissive gesture. 'The static, as you put it, has its benefits as well as its drawbacks.'

Raven is not really sulky.

If one is not paying attention.

"Shellac is possibly better for that, yes?"

He lets out a breath -- he will let that slide, for now -- and gives Raven a sidelong look.

'If shellac were sufficient for the purpose, you might imagine that I would certainly have made use of it by this point.'

If the static itches, for Raven, then keeping the static in place is taking its own sort of toll on the Old Ones and on Bran Davies.

Raven tilts his head, considering this response.

"Possibly that is true. Still."

He shrugs.

"You are, I think, none of you doing so bad a job. It is almost heartening."

Merlion's eyebrows go up a little, mildly surprised by the compliment.

'It is good to hear you say so,' he replis, with a slight nod of his head. 'I have had to improvise in the past, but never on this large a scale. Interestingly enough, though, it has not been as difficult as I feared it might be -- I almost expected a greater struggle on the day-to-day basis.'

That may yet come, he knows. But for now, day-to-day life seems to be continuing without incident.

Raven pokes at Merriman's shoulder, half-laughing.

"It is not so much boring at all, I do not think."

He looks up and around, taking everything in.

"Though it is also not so much exciting, either. But things are always changing."

He turns a sharp look on the Old One.

"Even in such frozen worlds as this."

It's the last comment, and the look, that makes Merlion's eyes narrow.

'Is that so.' It is not a question.

Raven shrugs, watching Merriman with bright black eyes.

"I am here, I am thinking, am I not?"

It is nothing like a threat.

He lets out a low huff of breath. 'I rather doubt that you would have been unable to find your way here, if the thought of doing so struck your fancy. You have found your way to places as far removed as this before, if not farther.'

The thought gives him pause, though, and there is the space of a moment before he adds:

'Which, I imagine, is meant to imply that others might also do the same.'

Raven grins at Merriman, half-laughing.

"That, too, perhaps."

There are reasons they say trouble follows Raven.

Or they would say that, if they were paying attention.

It is what he is, after all.

Raven being here, in this changeless place, makes Will's head itch somewhat too.

Will doesn't say that.

"No," he agrees instead, with a sidelong glance of some amusement.

Not so bad is rather an understatement, Will thinks, even in the current situation.

"Though you sound as if you hadn't entirely expected it to be."

Raven's shoulders twitch.

"I am, perhaps, not so fond of cages, so."

He wrinkles his nose, studying the sky.

"Also I am very bad at static."

Some things, it must be said, bear repeating.

"Is it a cage," Will says mildly, "if the choice to be here is made freely?"

The sky is summer-blue, scattered with loose clouds.

Raven looks at Will, eyebrows lifted.

"That, I am thinking, is the very worst kind."

Will returns the look.

"Sometimes," he agrees.

"And sometimes it isn't a cage at all."

"This place would be for you, I think. To stay. But not for the rest of us."

"No, not for me."

Raven's smile is small and more than slightly amused.

"I am a thing that changes. This place is not. So."

"Mm."

Will studies an apple tree for a moment: the gnarled trunk, the twisting branches and ripe round fruit against the sky.

In the back of his mind is always an awareness of the structure of this world and the webwork of spells holding it to itself, and now the static of Raven's presence fuzzing along the lines of power.

Raven laughs quietly.

"You see it, I think. Even now."

Beat.

"Or possibly feel is better, yes?"

Will glances at him.

"Of course," he says after a moment.

"I could hardly not."

Raven tosses the Old One a sidelong grin.

"Not here, at the least. But it is why I do not think I will stay so very long."

Nor will he come back so very often.

It is not wise, and Raven is not always a fool.

Usually, but not always.

There are different sorts of fools, perhaps.

"Why did you come?"

It's a simple question, not a challenge.

Raven's grin is abruptly mischievous and very bright.

"For visiting kin, yes?"

Beat.

"It is a thing people often do, I think."

Will slants an amused glance at him.

"Kin, is it?"

Cousin, Raven called Bran once, and none of them deny that there's some truth to it.

(Will has little homesickness here. Partly it's the nature of the place; partly it's that he knows this country, with Bran and Moiraine and all the Circle and more old friends besides, is only a pale shadow of the long Watch and the farewells to his own kin that will come in their own time.)

Raven laughs in his turn.

"Yes. I am not often so fond of lying, so."

And it is, of course, not only Bran he means.

"All right."

That amusement is still there, and something deeper underneath.

"Not a bad reason at all."

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OOM: In the Summer Country (Merriman and Will)

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