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The period of time after going on an adventure, where the main goal was accomplished and there was no clear new objective, was weird. Other than cleaning up the mess the near end of the world had caused, this was how things felt for the unlikely team of heroes Tarah and Thayne had found themselves in. So, they stuck together for a while longer to help clean and rebuild what had been destroyed.
Eventually, though, things were cleaned up and everyone was free to do their own thing. Armilly continued exploring the areas around her home and helping others where she could, Copernica helped at the college while Galleo did so at the orphanage, and Orik simply went back to comfortably living his life in the background. Unsure of what else to do, Tarah and Thayne went back to their aimless grifting and scavenging. It wasn't like they really knew any other sort of life.
It was cold out, colder than either of them remembered it ever being in the past. They needed to find somewhere to hunker down for the night; the wind chill was reaching what felt to be an absurd level.
Huddling close to Tarah for warmth, Thayne watched his surroundings like a hawk as his sister led the way. They had a system, one focuses on finding and following a path while the other looked around for potential threats (or targets). He pointed out a spot down the hill that appeared promising. "Maybe over there?" he asked.
"Maybe," Tarah said. "It's hard to tell from this far away…" They'd have to move closer to figure out if it could be turned into a suitable den.
They came to a stream. With how cold it was, it was completely frozen over.
"I guess the cold isn't completely awful if it lets us get over this stream without looking for a log or something to cross it with," Tarah said.
She experimentally poked at the ice with her foot, finding it to be reasonably sturdy. Cautiously she took one step onto the ice, then another, gaining confidence when the ice hardly creaked in response to her weight. Seeing that the ice could support Tarah's weight, Thayne began to follow suit.
The stream wasn't all that wide, so it wasn't long before Thayne caught up to Tarah and they reached the middle. But as they got closer to the other shore, the ice creaked louder than before and a crack appeared, spanning the short distance between each other's feet. The stream was deeper here, and the ice wasn't as thick as they thought it was.
Before Thayne could react, Tarah had shoved him towards the other bank and to safety just before the ice gave out from under her. She screeched as she fell in the water, it was freezing .
"Tarah!" Thayne cried, already trying to get back to where Tarah was so he could help. He wasn't going to leave her behind, he had to save her! They always stuck together, no matter what--it was how they’d survived for this long.
She was scrambling for purchase on the remaining ice but having no luck. If anything, more of the ice broke as she struggled.
Thayne held out a paw for her to take and she tugged. The ice he was laying down on broke and they both fell in, but Thayne was just close enough to shore to sort his bearings out and lead Tarah over there.
He coughed out the water he'd inhaled when he briefly fell in. "Tarah, are you okay!?"
"CO-OLD. SCRAP H-HEAP ." She croaked out. The cold had never hurt like this before, she was having trouble feeling her hands or feet. "Forget everything I said, there's nothing good about it being cold."
They were soaked . Their hoods were soaked, their cloaks were soaked, all of their everything was soaked in icy water.
Which in this weather, was a very, very bad thing…
Sure, they each had a fire within them, their furnaces, but that could only go so far without specialized modifications. Neither of them was built for weather like this. They needed to find shelter from the wind, and soon.
Helping his sister up since she was still badly shocked from the cold, Thayne looked around. The spot he'd pointed out earlier wouldn't do; it wasn't nearly as deep as he had thought and would take too much work to make into an adequate den now.
He remembered a house in the area; they'd ignored it earlier since breaking into houses usually led to trouble. He couldn't remember if anyone lived there or not… either way, this was an emergency now and the house was probably their best option.
They got closer, and it appeared that the house wasn't abandoned after all. The snow around was disturbed, someone had taken the trouble to keep the front steps clear. It was hard to tell if anyone was currently home, though. The windows were covered to help keep the heat in.
"Almost there," Thayne mumbled to reassure both himself and Tarah, who had mostly stopped shivering despite still being very cold.
He tried the door and couldn't get it to open. Locked. Scrap. Fortunately, locks were only a temporary obstacle with the twins around. Just not one Thayne wanted to deal with at the moment, but he had little choice. Tarah couldn't feel her hands enough to do it. So he freed his hands from his sister's hold, clumsily retrieved a tool from his cloak, and began trying to pick the lock as fast as he could manage.
Just as he nearly got the lock to open, the door unlocked and opened on its own, its occupant likely wondering what the noises were.
Thayne froze in place, recognizing who it was and almost not believing it. "Orik?"
He was just as baffled as they were. "Thayne? Tarah?" He took a better look at them, cold and wet with Tarah barely able to focus. "Never mind, come inside before you both freeze." He stepped aside so they could come in, being sure to close the door tightly and nudge the door snake back in place against the crack at the bottom.
The twins hunched and huddled together in the entryway. This was already a vast improvement over being outside; they were out of the frigid wind and Orik's house was warm.
Orik went over to the stove and put the kettle back on so they'd have something warm to drink in a little while. He looked over and was surprised to see that his guests had hardly budged. "You'd probably warm up faster without the soaked capes," he said to them. "I have more blankets than I usually know what to do with, too."
They looked at him with such confused looks but after a moment both little cloaks had been abandoned in sad little piles on the floor as their owners moved closer to the main area. There was a nice fire going in the hearth and the warmth was enticing as much as it was deicing.
Orik left to fetch several blankets and a couple of towels for good measure. It was a lot to carry with one arm, but he managed. Tarah and Thayne needed help right now, and for the time being, it appeared they were willing to accept Orik's.
He put the blankets in a messy pile on the sofa (where they immediately started sliding off onto the floor because the pile was unbalanced). "Here, you two can dry yourselves off now."
Thayne immediately took the towel and began drying off on his own, but Tarah was still clumsy from the cold. Her paws were not cooperating enough to handle the towel.
"Do you want help?" Orik asked.
After fighting the towel a little while longer and grumbling the whole time, Tarah gave up and crossed her arms with a small hmph .
"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Orik told her as he began drying her off. "What on earth happened to you two?"
"Fell in a stream trying to cross it," Thayne said.
"Out in this weather?" Orik asked. It wasn't really safe to be out and about in this kind of weather, especially at night. He figured they already knew that, so he didn't say it.
"It's not like we got anywhere else to go," Tarah said bitterly. They'd lived out on the streets for years, it was just part of life for them. "We wander. It's what we do."
They've been without a home this whole time? Orik thought. It was something he already knew, but it took until right then to actually click. For some reason, he assumed they at least had some sort of base somewhere… The fact it had taken him this long to realize it made him feel a bit stupid.
“...You two are welcome here whenever, especially when the weather’s bad like this,” he said to them. “It’s good you were close enough I could help, at least. ‘Bots have frozen during cold snaps like this in the past.”
While toweling Tarah's head, Orik discovered that she had thin, velvety fuzz on her head. Normally it would've been covered by her hood, but now it was slightly fluffy from getting dried. He noted that Thayne had identical fuzz on his head as well. Amused, Orik couldn’t resist petting Tarah's head.
She tolerated it for all of one second. "Hey! Quit it!" she snapped while smacking his hand away. When her reaction only made Orik snicker more, she added, "it's not funny!"
Orik couldn't contain his laughter any longer. Thayne was amused too, although he only showed it with a small smile while watching. "If you say so," Orik said, resuming his drying. "But it's still cute."
Her face scrunched up. "You're lucky I'm at your mercy right now, furry head." As if to prove her point, this was about the time where she started shivering again. "A-agh…"
Orik was briefly overwhelmed with his own worry from the reminder that Tarah had been hypothermic. "Looks like you're getting past the 'too cold to shiver' point, that's reassuring," he said. Gently, he draped one of the blankets around her, rubbing her back for a few seconds to help her warm up. "There, that should help…"
“Mm.” Tarah didn’t feel like making any sort of comment this time, only pull the blanket tighter and try to warm back up. She sneezed in a manner not unlike a kitten.
Orik gave Thayne a blanket as well, moving the extras closer in case they wanted them as well. Despite the fact he gave them each their own blanket and then some, they insisted on huddling together in a shared blanket nest.
Having gone over to check on the kettle (he disliked the loud whistling noise it made when it boiled too much), Orik went about making tea. He had made himself some a while ago, but he hadn't anticipated having guests to share it with.
He didn't have the hands to carry everything at once, so he took a pair of mugs over to his guests first. Once they took the mugs (a little confused about them still being empty; Thayne inverting his curiously), he went back to the stove and returned with the teapot.
"I made tea, it should help you two warm back up." He poured them each a cup, then hung the teapot on a hook near the fire so it would stay warm. "There, warm fluids are really good when you get too cold."
The tea was a bit too hot to drink right away, but they found simply holding the mugs in their paws felt good. Exhausted, Tarah leaned against Thayne, soaking in the steam rising from their tea.
Gently, Orik felt their cheeks for warmth. Both of them were still colder than they should be, especially Tarah. He'd have to keep an eye on them; it was not uncommon for bots to get sick from the shock such extreme cold was to their systems.
"You two could probably build a blanket fort with how many blankets I have," Orik said thoughtfully. He’d been keeping them company for a little while now, making sure they were recovering alright. It appeared to be the case so far, and they were probably both out of the danger zone now.
Thayne couldn't remember the last time they had made a blanket fort--probably at the orphanage. It likely didn't last long, the managers didn't like when the kids started making such contraptions since they were mild inconveniences, taking up space and chairs they could be using for other things.
"We could do that?" he asked, fighting his growing nerves. Orik was nice to them, but past bad experiences lingered in the back of his mind nevertheless. He was drained from earlier and felt off, which did no favors for him.
"If you want to," Orik said with a small smile. Tarah had perked up at the possibility, although both of them still looked worse for wear.
“Well, yeah,” Tarah said with a very snarky look on her face.
Orik helped move the furniture so there was a good little spot, then let them bring a few chairs from the table over to help make the frame. Using the small sofa as the back part, they put one chair on each side to make the tent itself a bit larger and put a blanket over it all. With a few books and some ties, the roof of the little tent was stable enough and probably wouldn't collapse on them.
Orik was genuinely enjoying himself and his own good mood put the twins at ease. It had been a long time since he’d had guests, and even longer since he’d played with children. He was still trying to sort out how he felt about his old friend and what he’d done, but what Orik did know was that he was happy that he’d made some new friends after spending so long hiding in the background.
"You're having the opening face that way?" Tarah asked. She hadn’t considered leaving one part of the tent open to the rest of the room.
"Yes, that way it'll catch the warmth from the fire and keep it there longer,” he explained, gesturing accordingly while he did so.
"Oh.” That sounded nice actually, there was a chill that wasn’t wanting to leave Tarah’s limbs and she had seen her brother shivering and snuffling some while they put the blanket fort together. “It’d be even warmer if we made it over the hearth.”
"If it was any closer than it is I'd be afraid of a stray spark setting it on fire," Orik said. He smirked. "I know I don't want that, and even if you two nearly froze yourselves earlier I don't think you'd like that very much either."
“Darn,” Tarah said, making Orik chuckle.
He picked up the abandoned little cloaks and hung them up to dry. “I think I’m going to go to bed,” he said. “Can I trust you two to not destroy my house?"
"Yeah," Tarah said, her brother nodding in agreement. "We don't wanna go back out in the snowstorm."
"I wouldn't go that far, especially in this weather, but I'd probably be upset… If you need something, you can wake me up, ok? Goodnight, you two."
“Goodnight,” Tarah said as Thayne curled into her, a little confused. Genuine hospitality was something foreign to them. They’d been taken advantage of in the past, but in the past, if someone helped them with an ulterior motive, they would’ve thrown a red flag somewhere by this point.
Orik had not.
The twins waited a good while after they stopped hearing Orik stir in his room before either spoke up. “He’s being really nice and I don’t know why,” Thayne whispered. Any louder would’ve risked waking Orik up, or irritated his throat and make him start coughing, or a combination of the two.
“I mean, we did kinda help him save the world,” Tarah said, her voice also a whisper. “I don’t wanna complain but it is really weird.”
“D’you think it’s a trick?”
“...I don’t want it to be,” Tarah whispered after a long pause. It didn’t seem like it, but she’d been led to believe so in the past only for it to backfire on her and Thayne horribly. “Orik does pranks and stuff, but nothing like that…”
Thinking, Thayne rubbed his eyes and shuddered as a random chill shook him. “You should sleep first, I’ll keep watch.”
“Are you sure? You look really tired…”
“You fell in the water first and got colder than me, I want you to sleep first.”
“Alright, fine.” Tarah settled into the nest and nestled against Thayne. She glanced back up at him. “But as soon as you start getting too tired, wake me up, ok?”
“Yes, go sleep,” he mumbled, resting his arm against her head and patting her before turning back to watching the fire.
They were safe and cozy right now, and that was what he was going to focus on.