Okay, so while re-posting what I remembered of SasukeBlade's previous "Challenges to Fandom" from my pillaged forum The Moogle Nest onto her forum The Myrrh Tree, I got an idea for the "Good Weather, Bad Weather" one. I had mentioned in my recently-posted two-shot Desert Sage and Marsh Violets that the Tipa caravan had, after getting a drop of myrrh at Veo Lu Sluice, been chased into Shella by an imminent blizzard and stuck there practically the entire winter - that was how Anaïs Nin found the time to bond with De Nam during her time in Shella. From there, my thoughts drifted to another caravanner, the Lilty lad Dimo Nor, who would decidedly NOT be happy while the caravan was in Shella (also responding to the "Unhappy Campers" prompt). As everyone knows, when a Lilty develops cabin fever, trouble ensues.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles or any characters or locations within, only my caravan from Tipa.
Cabin Fever
Winters in the north of the continent were hard upon the locals of Shella and Alfitaria, but they were harder still on those who dwelled further south, such as the caravan from Tipa. Barely a fortnight ago had the caravanners, after getting a drop of myrrh from the sluice at Veo Lu, been quickly chased into Shella by the darkening clouds that signaled an impending blizzard. "You will be here for a rather long time," the innkeeper at east Shella's Sunrise Inn warned them on their first night in the Yuke citadel, "because all the signs portend a blustery winter the likes of which Shella has not seen in nearly thirty years." And sure enough, the old-timer was right; the wind blew hard night and day and the snow fell so thick and fast that anyone who possessed Fire magicite put it to near-constant use clearing roads of snow and relighting torches when the wind managed to extinguish them.
Dimo Nor, the lone Lilty aboard Tipa's caravan, was already sick of it.
"We couldn't possibly have picked a worse time to be here in this ice-block, could we?" he demanded one evening (for the tenth time that day), nearly slamming his mug of ale down on the corner gathering-room table in irritation. "Old bloke says it's gonna be like this all winter? I'll go mad if we get stuck here nearly half that long!"
"Now, now, Dimo Nor," Lydia chided as she brought him a large piece of bannock and a bowl of vegetable-beef soup, placing another soup-bowl and piece of bannock on a tray to take to David. "There must be something to do while the snowstorm is over us, even for such a restless one as you."
He drummed his fingers impatiently. "Not likely—not since David's been bedridden with that chest-cough and I haven't got a sparring partner 'til he's well again." It was true; three days ago, the fits of coughing that were starting to bother David had developed into a full-blown infection, and Khetala had insisted that David be confined to bed and dosed with herbal teas regularly. She had also insisted that each of the other caravanners drink cups of rose-hip tea to ward off colds and infection. "Just what in the lady's name am I supposed to do when I'm stuck in a place I clearly don't belong in?"
But Lydia had already vanished down the hallway, in the direction of the three rooms assigned to the Tipa caravan for its stay. Khetala had originally claimed the single room for herself, but now bunked in with Lydia in one of the others when David fell sick and was transferred to the single room. Dimo Nor and Anaïs Nin shared the third room.
Dimo Nor had been about to knock over the nearest empty chair in annoyance when he saw the tell-tale flashing lights of spells through the frosted window. But these were not the steadily-moving fire-flashes of locals clearing the roads of snow—they weren't even reddish-orange like Fire spells were supposed to be—this looked like a serious commotion! Without hesitation, he yanked his gauntlets on, seized his spear, and rushed outside.
The thick layer of ice over Lake Shella's surface had enabled monsters from north of the island to cross and attack residents on the edges of the citadel. Right now, two people were fighting a small group of monsters on the border between the island's land area and the crystalline aura's boundary: one, clad in a purple cloak, was chasing a griffin, and the other, clad in a dark fur mantle, was trading magic with two floating ice-bombs.
Dimo Nor suddenly realized that the griffin had seized hold of some poor Yuke-child once the purple-clad figure reached the griffin and struck it hard on the hindquarters with a racket. The monster dropped the child (who at least had the good sense to run toward safety) and went after its attacker, only to get a crippling racket-strike where a wing was connected to the rest of its body. As the griffin screeched in pain, the purple-cloaked Selkie—whom Dimo Nor now recognized as Anaïs Nin, for only she could run that fast in a behemoth-skin cloak—pressed her advantage and dealt her enemy two deadly strikes to its ugly feathered head. Seeing that Anaïs Nin was okay, Dimo Nor turned his attentions to the ice-bombs.
The other person, apparently a Selkie who had temporarily made himself Anaïs Nin's battle partner, continued to narrowly avoid the ice-bombs' Blizzard spells while trying to cast Stasis on them. He finally succeeded in hitting one with the spell, and Dimo Nor buried the point of his spear in the roof of the bomb's mouth as Anaïs Nin bludgeoned the other one. Both ice-bombs fell to the ground, and the air around them became charged in the way that signaled an imminent self-destruct.
"Get out of here!" Anaïs Nin shrieked the order, knowing there was no time to lose.
All three fighters scrambled toward land as the ice-bombs exploded. A cry of surprise from Dimo Nor, however, told the others that he had not been able to outrun the explosion—he was now stranded on a rickety ice-floe that the explosion had dislodged. He tried to swing his spear in Anaïs Nin's direction as she ran back to the bank for him, but it wasn't long enough for her to grab the other end. How would Dimo Nor get back on the shore before the wind swept him further out in the ice hole, into the miasma?
The answer came in the form of a Yukish man who came to the rescue with a long rope that had a fist-sized rock tied to one end. "Throw the rock out to him," the man ordered. "With any luck, we can pull your Lilty friend to safety without him falling into the water."
"We'll get you to shore," Anaïs Nin reassured. "Whatever you do, Dimo Nor, just hang on!"
This means of pulling Dimo Nor to shore was successful until the ice-floe bearing him struck the shoreline ice—the floe tipped and he fell into the shoulder-deep icy water with screams and curses. Anaïs Nin swiftly knelt at the edge of the ice-bank and extended both hands for her comrade to grab, the other Selkie beside her in case she lost her ground. It took the effort of both Selkies and the Yuke to pull Dimo Nor, armor and all, out of the water, but pull him out they did, at the cost of the spear that he had been wielding in the fight.
"My name is Runako, and that was my youngest son, Humphrey, whom you rescued from those monsters," the Yuke gratefully announced to the three rescuers once he invited them into his home so that Dimo Nor could be stripped of his armor and soaked clothes and warmed up beside a fire. He gestured to the drawing-room corner where a matronly Yukish woman in dark gray robes and white veils caressed the boy's injured arm as she cast Cure spells. "My wife, Dorothea, who is as grateful as I," Runako introduced her.
"Anaïs Nin is my name," the silver-eyed and lavender-haired Selkie maiden introduced herself. "I'm in the crystal caravan for Tipa, and so is Dimo Nor, my Lilty friend. But you might already know De Nam, who, from what he tells me, has been a resident of Shella for nearly four years."
"No, I do not believe that we have been previously introduced," Runako replied at mention of De Nam's name, but he nevertheless politely shook the hands of both Selkies and briefly dropped to one knee in order to shake Dimo Nor's hand. The Yuke shivered visibly when he did this, probably because Dimo Nor's hand was so very cold at present like the rest of him was.
Two more Yukes entered the drawing-room from the kitchen, a girl and a boy, and Runako introduced them as his older children, Rowena and Galahad. While Rowena brought out spiced oat-cakes for the guests and De Nam launched into a colorful account of the battle, Anaïs Nin raised her hood and prepared again to brave the chilling weather. "I have to go back to the inn and pick up some dry clothes for Dimo Nor," she explained to her hosts, "and also let Khetala, the Yuke woman who leads my caravan, know what has become of us, lest she worry and scour the whole city in search of us."
Khetala's really not going to be pleased when she knows just what kind of trouble Dimo Nor's case of cabin fever had him running straight into, though, Anaïs Nin thought with resignation as she made her way back to the Sunrise Inn to perform her errand.
A/N: For that note on rose-hip tea warding off colds and infection, I read in an herbal-tea-remedy book that rose-hips are high in vitamin C and therefore good for preventing illness, which is why I figure that Khetala would insist on the caravanners drinking the tea while David is ill (so that hopefully nobody else will get sick with what he's got). Because it occurs to me that the Crystal Chronicles denizens would as a matter of course be reliant on herbal remedies and their knowledge thereof to treat and prevent ailments.