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The first winter after they leave the border camp is the harshest and longest in a generation. The snow begins to fall in November, beginning with soft flakes that pile up against the windows and doors, and gradually deteriorating into greyish sludge that makes its way into every building as the guards return from their watches.
As the cold descends, Elliot continually makes pointed comments about “central heating” and “double glazing” and “raidy eighters”, but by mid-December even these die out as they watch yet another snowfall begin. They are curled up in the window seat of their (technically Luke’s) cabin as the flakes start to swirl. Luke’s wings are unfurled for warmth around them, as they’ve been almost habitually for a month now, every time they’re alone.
“We could light the-” Luke begins, and is silenced by Elliot’s finger on his lips. There’s a fireplace in their cabin, a luxury probably granted to Luke because he still carries the Sunborn name, but the first time he suggested lighting it, Elliot made a horrified squawk and began rambling on about the health hazards associated with improperly cleaned chimneys. So the fireplace sits unused, a source of draughts rather than heat, and Luke’s wings remain the warmest place in the camp.
It has occurred to Luke, on more than one occasion, that Elliot doesn't entirely mind this state of affairs.
———
“It’s unusual,” Serene affirms in response to Elliot’s questioning one morning over breakfast. “Certainly in the woods we rarely experience such bad weather, and for so long. Snowfall is a brief, momentous occasion for elves.” She smiles wistfully. “I recall my first snowfall — it was soon after I’d first noticed Golden, and we arranged a snowball-throwing tournament among the youngest elven women. Of course we were not to involve the boys in our licentious schemes, but I couldn’t resist aiming one at Golden’s flawless locks, and he went forthwith to the elders to have me punished for my roguish behaviour.”
“I am so here for hearing about your youthful elven courtship rituals,” Elliot says, and Luke thinks he might even be telling the truth. “Later, that is. But for now, has anybody considered the possibility that this snowfall heralds the beginning of an ice age?”
The others all look blankly at him. “Ice age?” Luke ventures, knowing as he does that Elliot will probably mock him for not knowing about yet another Otherland term.
Elliot looks like he is valiantly resisting that urge. “You know, loser — climate variations. Like, have you ever had long periods of atypical cold? Or intense heat, for that matter.”
“Well, yes,” Luke says. “We usually call them winter and summer.”
Elliot blinks, startled, as if he can't figure out whether Luke is being deliberately obtuse or is genuinely teasing him, but then laughs. "I am going to instruct you in meteorology. You could be a weatherman, you know. You have the smile for it."
———
Golden, surprisingly, is thriving in the snow. He rides out every morning on the dappled horse that Serene presented him with on their arrival, and every morning he returns with his elaborate hairstyle entirely dismantled and a satisfied smile on his face.
“If I were at home,” he confides in Luke and Serene over dinner in the Great Hall one night, “my mother and father would be cosseting and pampering me all winter long. They would have me stay indoors for at least two days after even the slightest snowfall, and if I were to go outside, they would enjoin me not to show an inch of skin below my neck.”
He pauses, and then hastens to add: “Not that I would ever think of such impropriety.” Serene smiles beatifically at the rest of the table, which consists only of Luke, and then continues casting sly, roguish glances at Golden whenever she thinks Luke isn’t paying attention.
Luke gets the impression that Golden would actually think of such impropriety, and much more besides. Luke also has the distinct impression that Golden, whatever the elven customs, will not be coming pure to his marriage bed.
It’s a rare dinner with only the three of them there, and with nobody stealing his pudding, but Elliot has been spending longer and longer days at what Luke thinks of as his library. In truth, the library is an unused storage room where Elliot has been accumulating the books sent to him by sundry Sunborns, along with the suitcase-full he managed to sneak out under Bright-Eyes’ distracted gaze. He somehow cajoled Swift into helping him with this ruse — Luke still doesn’t know how, and isn’t sure he wants to.
———
Louise shows up two days before Christmas, riding into the camp without warning, her hair flowing loose behind her. "Little Red!" she calls to Elliot, who has stopped working for the first time in about thirty-six hours at the sight of her, and Luke would have felt a twinge of jealousy if she hadn't followed it up immediately with "Little bro!" and bestowed liberal kisses on both of their cheeks.
"I can't stay," she says before they have a chance to ask. "The new garrison is giving us heaps of trouble, with the troll recruits -- did you know they have their own winter celebration? They've demanded a week off for the festivities without a scrap of warning, which means all the humans have to work over Christmas. Dad's going to kill me for missing our first ever Christmas family photograph."
"Wait, their own celebration?" Elliot jumps in. "But why didn't anyone ask about this before? Why don't we write these things into employment contracts?" Louise scrunches up her nose, obviously on the verge of asking what's an employment contract?, but then thinks better of it — which is probably a good thing, because Luke has already been subjected to Elliot's lengthy thoughts on the need for regulated labour laws and does not need a recap. "Did they just assume the trolls would work throughout the winter without taking a break? What about spring and autumn celebrations? What about the elves' winter festival? And I know from Podarge's letters that the harpies celebrate the growth of new life in about April or so, so if you have any new harpies onboard, you should probably factor that in for your scheduling."
"Thanks, Little Red, I'll keep that in mind," Louise says, rolling her eyes a little, but Luke can tell from her expression that she wishes she had someone with Elliot's brains alongside her, someone who thinks ahead instead of just along. "Anyway, the reason we didn't know is that they only celebrate when there's snow on the ground, and there hasn't been any for a couple of years." And because we never bothered to ask, Luke thinks silently, before realising with a start that he's beginning to think altogether too much like Elliot. "But more importantly — I brought presents!" She waves her hand extravagantly at the saddlebags that Luke now realises are not full of riding gear and provisions, but instead spilling over with gifts. "For both of you, and Serene and her new paramour, from the Sunborn clan."
Elliot's eyes light up at the sight of largesse (another word Luke had picked up from him and wasn't sure how to spell). "Louise, I couldn't adore you more if you'd brought central heating to the masses. Wait — nobody sent me any weapons, did they? I know you Sunborns like to share your killing machines. Please let your family know discreetly that I prefer life without murderous implements."
———
The snow continues, unabated, into the new year. It's lucky, Luke thinks grimly, that they'd had such a good harvest the previous year, and so little fighting — an occasional spat has broken out between isolated clans in recent months, but nothing severe enough to force intervention. This level of peace is unheard of, and it won't last, but peace for now means that the soldiers can get by without extra marching rations and don't have to venture far from the camp in perilous conditions.
"I never thought I would say this," Serene says to him on the ramparts one day, "but I believe Elliot has made everything much easier." Luke stares at her, on the verge of delivering several counterpoints, but she forges ahead. "By that, I mean in his council training and his natural skill with treaties. In the forests, we used to fight almost weekly against the dryads and the dwarves and whoever else was stirring up trouble, but my mother wrote to me last week to say that the daughters of Chaos are going out of their minds with boredom and wish I would return to liven things up with my wild behaviour." She looks eminently pleased at this state of affairs.
And as long as Luke only has to admit it to himself and not to Elliot, he recognises that what she's saying is true: that Elliot, almost singlehandedly, with his books and papers and wanton flirting with almost-strangers, has brought about a stable peace across the Borderlands. That he's outperformed generations of Sunborns in this, at least.
———
“None of this makes any sense,” Elliot rages one evening at a notebook covered in scribbles, and Luke immediately regrets looking up from cleaning his knives.
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“Look, your world has Latin,” Elliot says. Luke stares at him. “So the people from across the wall must have come over at least after the dawn of Roman Britain. Probably more than a thousand years later — as far as I can tell, much of the literature I borrowed is closer to medieval Latin than classical.” Luke is about to jump in and critique his liberal use of the word “borrowed”, but Elliot surges ahead. “But you don’t have any heating systems — not even the types that don’t run on electricity. Not even running water! And the Romans had plumbing. It was kind of their thing. Public baths! Aqueducts!”
“Okay,” Luke says, bracing himself for what he’s sure will be another explosion. “I understand what ducks have to do with baths — sort of — but I don’t see the relationship to plums at all. Ducks don’t eat fruit, Elliot.”
Elliot’s face contorts into at least five different expressions before he flings the pen to one side and advances on Luke. “I am going to draw you a diagram,” he breathes, his finger tracing the contours of Luke’s chest. “Of pipes, and plumbing systems, and central heating delivery mechanisms. It is going to be the sexiest diagram you have ever seen. It will be annotated.”
At the word “annotated”, Elliot clasps his arms around Luke’s neck and tilts his head back for a kiss, and then another, which Luke willingly gives.
“And then,” he adds, “we will start on the Industrial Revolution.”
———
Every night throughout the winter, Elliot crawls into the bed that nominally belongs to Luke, all elbows and messy hair and inkstained fingers, the shadows beneath his eyes darkening with every new treaty codicil (and they are multiplying now, growing exponentially with so many clans and alliances) — and demands, petulant: “Wing.”
And every night Luke engulfs him, wrapping him in feathered warmth as if it is the strongest shield imaginable. As if he can keep Elliot safe when Elliot’s entire modus operandi seems to be identifying the closest source of danger and demanding to go there right this moment.