The hectic pace only held up as long as the weather did. In those waning weeks of autumn, as the world began to shut down and the villagers started to prepare their harvest feasts, it became harder and harder to find men willing to work for coin. Aden assured Lucas that was typical, but he didn’t really believe it until he heard the words out of Kar’gandin’s mouth, too.
Still, by the time the first real storm dumped snow across everything from Lordanin to the Greenwood, they’d harvested everything worth harvesting, from blue esper vines to apples, and they’d set about preserving as much of it as they could by roasting it over low flames or filtering and boiling it. They’d even dispatched a few orders for ingredients from further abroad to augment their supplies.
So, while sour dwarf berries might not arrive for months, they would expect a big shipment of them sometime just before spring. Likewise, Goblin bile could be had year-round, and it was by far the most finicky ingredient he used regularly; it was just a matter of paying adventurers to venture further and further afield.
None of that mattered anymore once he woke up to the snow. Before all of this fantasy world bullshit, Lucas had lived in Idaho, which had pretty rough winters. Still, nothing in his recent memory looked quite so picturesque as the suddenly white countryside. Though they’d done a lot of work on the manor in the last few months, it still had a ways to go. Suddenly, all that was erased by a blanket of pure, driven snow that was too fresh to even be marred by the chores of daily life.
Lucas stood there at his window for several minutes, just looking out and shivering. He was smiling, too, though, and it was only when he could resist the chill radiating from the glass that he finally retreated to his wardrobe to get dressed.
The house had four large fireplaces on the ground floor, not including the two that were used for actual cooking, and all of them were roaring by breakfast time. They lent the whole place of backward charm that Lucas could appreciate, even if he could never explain it to the Parins or his business partners.
He went out and checked on them first thing and found the cider house relatively cozy. It had a large fireplace in it now to hide the smaller one in the laboratory in the basement, and though Hura’gh complained about the cold, they both seemed to be doing just fine.
“Don’t mind him,” Kar’gandin said, smiling from behind his pipe. “Orcs prefer the heat. We’ve got enough firewood to last for two winters if need be.”
“Not prefer,” the half-orc shot back, “Require. It is one of the reasons we are a nomadic people and half the reason we don’t conquer you all!”
“What he means to say is that they flee from the winter as fast as they charge toward battle,” Kar’gandin laughed, “And it’s not the weather that keeps the horde away. I believe that would be a certain red dragon with a taste for green flesh…”
“The tribes flee from nothing, not even winter,” Hura’gh retorted. “A to Embermaw, one day we will have our vengeance on her!”
Lucas thought about pointing out that Hura’gh wasn’t exactly roaming the grassland here. Instead, he just shot the shit with the two of them for a good part of the morning. Work barely even came up. It was like the winter weather had hit a pause button for everyone, which made for a nice change of pace.
Partway through the conversation, Lucas almost let Kar’gandin’s present slip while they were talking about drinking, and he mentioned applejack, but the dwarf let the reference slide over him. Even if he had some idea of what frost distillation was, he didn’t seem to know the word. So, Lucas was able to slip away from them without anyone being any the wiser.
Even though he’d been really busy, he’d actually put a lot of thought into gifts for everyone. It wasn’t just because their Winter Feast was apparently as much a tradition here as Christmas was back home, either. It was because he was loaded. Lucas had more money than he’d ever had in his life, and he was more than a little sick of watching it stack up only to be frittered away on ingredients and upgrades. He wanted to spend it on something he cared about, and if he couldn’t start his tavern yet, then extravagant gifts for his friends would have to do.
They are my friends, after all, at this point, aren’t they? He wondered to himself as he crunched through the snow back to the main house. Danaria and Kar’gandin were for sure, he decided. Hura’gh probably was, too, and even Gerwin, Mort, and some of the men in the village probably counted. It was only Adin he was unsure about, but he’d bought the guy a present anyway because he hadn’t wanted him to feel left out, even if he was a bit of a dick.
In the same way that Adin could be a pain in the ass, he was also the only one that seemed to want to talk business on such a relaxing day. Danaria was happy to talk about decorations and the upcoming feast. More than anything, she seemed to want to drop hints about what she’d gotten Lucas, but every time she started being cute and precious, her brother did his very best to chase her away so he could discuss the details of how the Torvin’s wished to proceed.
“We’re not doing that,” was Lucas’s most common answer. “Not until I know what they want it for.”
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“But if Count Torvin says—” Adin insisted, or “They’ll be very displeased if things go awry because—”
“One,” Lucas said loudly, “This isn’t exactly a day for work. Why is it that every day I’m trying to get shit done, you want to gossip, but the moment I settle down to hang out and enjoy this picturesque fucking weather, you try to give me a to-do list?”
Adin opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, Lucas interrupted him.
“And two,” Lucas continued. “What in the hell leads you to believe I give a good God damn what that guy wants. I ain’t about to go start shit with him, but he’s going to work on our terms from now on and not the other way around; you got that?”
“I’m still not sure if that’s the wisest way to deal with the Torvin’s,” Adin sighed.
“I get it,” Lucas said. “We’ll figure something out. We’ll throw em a bone or two, but not today. You know perfectly well that nothing is getting done until after the holiday. Even addicts have to rest, so we might as well enjoy it.”
Adin grumbled but relented. He spent the day trying and failing to enjoy the day, and eventually, after a dinner of braised lamb on a bed of roasted vegetables, Lucas sought the privacy of the upper parlor where he could enjoy the snow falling in peace. He even helped himself to a little of the applejack he’d been making for Kar’gandin. There was something about the rich burn of the whiskey compared to the sweet brandy that the nobles here seemed to prefer that sat right with him, especially as he looked out at the snowflakes swirling in the dark and thought about how far he’d come.
That was when Danaria showed up. He was far from drunk when she sat down on the couch only a few feet from him and started up a conversation with him. With the faint buzz he had, it was harder than usual to keep his eyes on hers instead of the light blue dress that clung tightly to her figure. It was chaste enough to make sure that it showed nothing, right down to the white gloves that she wore, but it was tight enough that he had no trouble imagining everything.
Still, he pulled his mind out of the gutter and listened to her talk about the preparations that the servants had left to do before the feast in a few nights and everything else. He wanted to tell her, ‘Just let Jeeves handle it,’ but he liked the sound of her voice, so he just nodded along as she went on and on about nothing that mattered too much.
“What about you?” she asked, “have you found presents for everyone close to you?” she asked sweetly.
“Just about,” Lucas nodded. “I’ve got some particularly vicious face paint for Hura;gh, a new pen for your brother, and I’m just about done with—”
“Face paint? Really? How terrible,” Danaria laughed. “That’s not in the winter spirit of giving at all.”
“Well, orcs aren’t much for winter as I understand it, so as far as I’m concerned, it works,” Lucas said. “As to Kar’gandin, well, I didn’t think it wise to replace his favorite pipe, so I’m brewing him up something special.”
“Oh? Another potion?” she asked. “How in character for you.”
“Nah. Booze. Applejack, actually,” he said, handing her his glass, which only had the smallest sip left in it. “Go on, try it.”
She looked at the glass doubtfully and sniffed it before looking at him again. He thought she was about to turn him down. Instead, she suddenly downed the half a shot or less in a single gulp.
She opened her mouth to speak but instead coughed. “Strong, isn’t it,” Lucas laughed.
“I thought you said you made this from cider,” she said finally. “That is not cider.”
“It was before the cold got to it,” Lucas smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
He stood up and walked to his room, where he had a pony keg of cider by the fire. It was still a little immature and wouldn’t be particularly good to drink on its own, but then, he had no plans to drink it as it was. He set down his glass and his flask on the mantle, and then he retrieved the wide metal saucer he used for freezing and explained the nature of frost distillation to Danaria without using any fancy science words that might confuse someone from a fantasy world.
“You see, hard cider is nothing but a little bit of alcohol and a lot of water, and those freeze at different temperatures,” he said as he opened the window. “So, if you set some out overnight in weather like this, then in the morning, you've got a disk of ice you can throw away and a little bit of booze worth drinking. Nature gives you the chance to make everything better if you just figure out how to use it right.”
For a moment, he started to think about a few of the ingredients in his lab he might want to try frost distillation with. It was possible it might separate them in inappropriate ways, of course, but…
“In everything, huh?” she asked in a tone that completely wrecked his train of thought. “Even making booze?”
“Hey, not all alchemy involves making magic potions and shit. Sometimes it’s just about…” Lucas set the saucer of booze on the windowsill and carefully shut the window.
However, when he turned to continue his conversation with Danaria, he found her suddenly close to him. She was uncomfortably close. Well, she would have been if she hadn’t been a beautiful woman.
“About bringing the right things together?” she volunteered, trying to finish his thought.
“Yeah, something like that,” he said before moving to kiss her.
Despite the fact that he had never planned to kiss her, it was a bold one, and after a moment of surprise, she returned it eagerly. What followed was brief but passionate, and after a few seconds, he broke it and pulled away.
“I shouldn’t,” he said softly. “You’re too young, too innocent…”
“And you’re a villain and a scoundrel,” she breathed. “I couldn’t possibly…”
She never finished the thought. Instead, they kissed again. This time, it was longer and deeper, and as the faint buzz of alcohol that was rushing through his system resonated with his desire, he had trouble seeing which way was up.
We should not be doing this, he told himself. Even so, he didn’t find his own argument to be a persuasive one, and that chastisement wasn’t enough to convince him to push her away. Instead, she clung to him, and he pulled her tightly to him.