Я вернулся в деревню

[balancedlight]

Who: Svetlana and Open + a prompt for Fraser
What: Venturing forth and also dealing with April shenanigans!
When: April catch-all!
Where: Milton, then the path up to and including Lakeside. See prompts in post!

Content Warnings: Nothing as of yet; will update!

Comments

[maintiensledroit]

He's not sure where Diefenbaker's gotten to– ever since they got here to Lakeside, the wolf has taken off almost every day, leaving early in the morning and not returning until late in the never-ending day. It's worrying, with how strange and aggressive the animals here are, but Diefenbaker can take care of himself.

It means he's uncharacteristically alone, sweeping snow off the front porch of the cabin he's taken for the time being, when a familiar figure comes in sight. The Mountie smiles, lifting a hand in greeting. "Svetlana. What a nice surprise!"

His eyebrows lift as he takes in the steam wreathing her face. "What do you have there?"

[balancedlight]

"Benton Fraser, it is good to see you!" she calls back, stepping to the porch, around the pile of snow that he's seemed to accumulate from his sweeping. She holds up the little package when he asks.

"I hope you are hungry. I made - well, I should not call it borscht, but it is close. It is a thank you for saving my life."

[maintiensledroit]

Almost at the same time as she says the word — hungry - he catches a whiff of the steam. It might not truly be borscht, but it smells heavenly anyway, and Fraser's stomach gives an audibly loud grumble. "Ah—"

He colors, glancing down with a smile before he opens the door to the cabin, politely showing her in. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I've mostly been eating pemmican and a little fresh meat, these last few days."

[balancedlight]

It's a good thing he accepts, because Svetlana was not taking no for an answer. She walks happily inside and sets the bowl on the table. "No, you need this. It's warm," she tells him. "Sit and eat."

She looks around the little cabin, her hands on her hips. "These are - different than the ones in Milton."

[maintiensledroit]

Fraser, never one to argue with a lady, and certainly not about to argue about homemade food, takes only the time required to dig out a spoon and sits as requested. Ordered?

He pauses a moment with the spoon held over the rich red soup, looking up at her before casting his own glance around the cabin. "Yes— I believe they served a different purpose. These seem mostly to have been vacation residences, for people unused to the northern environment and weather."

For example: the fireplace is almost inefficiently large, the airy, open space with its enormous windows is difficult to heat without some sort of central system supplementing the fire. "I came across an unusable hot tub outside one of the other cabins, which suggests to me both a degree of luxury that would have been difficult to maintain in Milton and a resort's lack of efficiency and gratuitous use of resources. A sauna would have been much easier to build and maintain, and could even be used in our present circumstances, if a heated outdoor element was desirable."

[balancedlight]

It's certainly not the sort of place she would have chosen for herself to live, but it seems the perfect cozy cottage for a getaway. A holiday. It would have been nice to stay somewhere like this willingly, with central heat and a fireplace, and - did he say hot tub?

"Why have a hot tub when you can have the hot springs in Milton?" she says lightly, shaking her head. "What happened here?"

She settles herself at the table, her arms crossed on the table.

GOD I'm sorry we can start fresh with something new if you want or pick this back up

[maintiensledroit]

"I wonder how easy it was to get back and forth from Lakeside to Milton, before," he muses. "There are plenty of cars and snowmobiles around. But I suspect that anyone who came here to vacation wasn't looking to spend much time hiking to hot springs."

He dips the spoon back into the soup and takes another few bites, deeply enjoying the bright, complex flavors after so many days of meat. "Have you ever been to a resort like this?"

Unlikely, considering her accent, but you just never know how people will surprise you.