Sorting Through Stuff

[Terri Nutkins]

The treehouse hollow needed some TLC, for sure. Outside, the Hedge had already begun to take over the tree it was settled atop, creeping towards the treehouse itself and needed to be pruned back. But that could be left for another day. Today, Terri need to sort out the interior of the treehouse as well as her workshop. If she wanted cash and/or favours, she needed to get back to work.

Sure, she'd returned briefly to collect her tokens but it had hurt too much seeing all of their stuff, laying around. When she thought Rick was dead, Terri hadn't exactly looked after the place, leaving it to fester as she dove into work and the Freehold.

Now she was back, Terri needed to focus herself. The first step was tidying her belongings. Then, she could focus on Fairweather.

[Lesingnon]

Rick hadn't spent much time at the treehouse since his return, either. It had been his first stop, before he'd realized that Terri had gone missing while he'd been gone. He'd been clued in fairly quickly, though. The surroundings alone had spoken of it, lacking the bronzed leaves that had come to dominate the immediate environs as a result of the powerful Autumn Courtiers that had made it their home. Entering it, and seeing the state of disuse it had fallen into, had only confirmed to him what he'd already figured out.

And he hadn't been back since. It had been Terri that made the place home for him. With her gone it had just been...different. Even after she'd returned, well, she'd made it clear initially that she wanted space. And the Hollow had been hers before it had been theirs, probably after as well. So he'd left it to her.

But now they were past the shock, they'd both had time to settle back into he city, and they both knew it was time to talk. So he was here once more. His approach had been through the hedge. And as he reached the front door he did something that, perhaps, he'd never done here before; raised his hand on knocked on it.

[Terri Nutkins]

As the knock caught her by surprise, Terri's tail twitched as her arms were carrying a small pile of clothes that had been left strewn here and there. Some of them were designs that just hadn't worked, others were old styles that she needed to recycle. Placing them on the floor, more neatly than they had been, Terri headed to the door.

The fact someone was knocking from the Hedge concerned her slightly. The slingshot was in her hand and her Contracts ready to be unleashed.

"Hello?" she called out through the firmly closed door, the concern hidden behind a light tone.

[Lesingnon]

It was funny, how much more the nerves kicked in now. When it was just the two of them meeting to discuss what had all happened, what had all gone wrong between them. Revisiting mistakes was never enjoyable, especially such egregious ones.

"Hey, it's me." She'd recognize his voice, he was fairly certain.. Besides, it helped that he was quite possibly still the only other person who knew how to find this place. "Came by to talk and...didn't want to just barge in."

[Terri Nutkins]

Terri paused as she heard Rick's voice, slightly embarrassed by the state of the place.

"Er, one sec!" she called out before turning back to look at the mess. Oh, to hell with it.

Turning once again, she opened the door, offering Rick a small smile. "Hey, I wasn't expecting visitors, its a bit of a mess in here. Promise not to judge?" Terri said, trying not to look to flushed. Stepping aside, she gave Rick room to enter the treehouse.

[Lesingnon]

"Promise." She hadn't been the only inhabitant that had left it empty for a while, after all. And that the Master Pledgesmith, always so careful with the mere insinuation of that word, uttered it so easily here certainly spoke of the trust she'd earned over the years and yet retained. Even if it was a message the Elemental probably didn't consciously realize he was sending.

Besides, nothing could be worse than when he'd come back to see it empty and abandoned. He'd learned to open it carefully. Though he had thought she'd have straightened it up a bit more by now. Perhaps he hadn't ben the only one reluctant to spend much time here, with all the memories that lingered. And they truly did lay thick about the place. Simply stepping back into it, with with Terri standing there as well, certainly brought many of them to mind.

There was the high cupboard she'd stashed nuts every fall, only to promptly forget about them. There was the balcony; whose rail she'd hung over for the half the morning after her bachelorette party, where he'd once stood in the teeth of on onrushing storm to master the fourth clause of the Contract of Elements. There was the door out into McKinley Park, that she'd led him through the first time she'd shown him this place and asked her to move in with her. The door he'd led her out of over a year later, following a trail of leaves towards where he'd waited to ask the most important question of his life. And so much more, lingering echoes of the life they'd forged together. All bringing him to different times, in this place.

It was funny how two years could simultaneously seem like an eternity and no time at all.

"De ja vu..."

[Terri Nutkins]

As he walked in, Terri looked around, nodding at the sentiment. Some things would always be remembered.

She closed the door behind him and sighed. "Its seen better days, right?" Heading back over to the pile of clothes, she picked them up before carrying them over to a black bag, and depositing them inside. Pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear, Terri looked back up to Rick, her hands on her hips. "Time to clear out my wardrobe," she smiled.

[Lesingnon]

"Something of a theme around here these days, it seems." It was all part of the nature of things. Sacramento had withered, to an extent. But that nature was cyclical. It would grow, and come to thrive, once more. They could both play roles in that, as they had before.

The mention of clearing out her wardrobe draws a slightly curious look from him, as he glances towards the bag. "You're getting rid of some outfits?" He hadn't exactly known her to do that much before. For that matter, he didn't really hear of many women willing to part with clothing.

[Terri Nutkins]

"Yep, thought it would help to focus on some stuff," Terri replied as she moved to another pile of clothes, picking them up. "Going to give them to a charity store I found not far away."

Some of the outfits she had had for years, and worn to one event or another. New times were certainly calling.

"Besides, clothes are the least of my worries," she sighed, perching herself against a table after dropping the clothes into another bag.

[Lesingnon]

"Ahh, understandable. I suppose there are plenty of things to worry about around here these days." Or any days, really. The Freehold of Sacramento, he'd found, was incredibly resilient. And that was fact, not opinion. He knew because of the near-constant stream of problems and dangers facing it that it never seemed to fail to get through.

"So what are your bigger worries right now?" And this, he suspected, was wear the conversation would begin to get heavy.