#brightwindsbarony

That came from Stew "Yipeee is my OWN contribution"

Irene laughs

Cattir nods "I like it and Rudolph the armodillo could TOTALLY be a girl. "

"And if you do good things, people will see the real you."

Ashlee smiles and keeps puttting up little delicate snowflakes

"Of course, you do bad stuff, people see the real you - in the end, that's what people react to. Oh, Ashlee, those look great!"

"Thanks, the patterns Irene brought are doing the work. I'm just.. playting with the placement"

She's got a good eye for spacing

"Spacing is important. Look how you used asymmetrical balance so it feels like they're blowing..."

"Thanks" The troll is still a girl, one starved for affection at that, "I tried to imagine a giant off the side blowing them along"

"Oh, like the great winter wizard!"

"The Cold Miser doesn't come down to Texas often, this is Heat Miser Country" Irene sighs 'Though, on the mountops some times"

"Well, we can make paper snowflakes to decorate. And it's cold enough for cocoa and wassail... oh, I should teach you the wassail song, then you can go beg at the kitchen..."

"Cool. Urchin lessons" Stew chimes

"Right? It's important. So, here's how it goes. 'Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a wandering,
So fairly to be seen.
Here we come a wandering
So fairly to be seen.
Love and joy come to you
And to you a Wassail too
God bless you and send you,
A Happy New Year
God send you a Happy New Year"

Sparrow is not a bard, not so skilled as a troubadour or satyr, but her voice is sweet and on-key.

"Then, one of you can start, and the others can wait, and start on the second line, and then the third, and the fourth - singing it in a round."

the other kids learn the words, and try it. Though, though Stew gets the Lyrics wrong

Irene has a rather nice voice, albeit untrained

Sparrow laughs, and sings along as they decorate.

When Catir notices one of the kids being left out, she assigns them a task, or more accurately, she names two tasks that could use someone and sees which interests the kid in question. Irene for example, has nimble fingers and is happy to help thread popcorn

If any wilders wander by, they might be roped in for decorating, too.

Dame Otha might be goaded into sharing tales of the Holly and Oak King's battles, while the twins compete to see who can make the longer paper chain garland. Morth's squire can make a tinsel star.

Otha blinks "Do I look like a story teller?"

"Kind of.. you have a staff" Irene points out

Dame Otha sighs "Oh very well..." And she relates stories of the Yule Cat and other Scandanvian goodies

She is rewarded with hot buttered rum!

Morth's squire has the look of one who who THOUGHT she got away with avoiding this, then gets caught. The girl has been avoiding the other kids

That seems to help "And you want a skald for proper story telling" the Aesin says "I'm mostly repeating what they say"

"I don't have a skald yet, and you did an excellent job. Those Yule lads sound very mischevious."

Morthwyl himself chuckles "I was about to go on patrol, Baroness, but if you need me here?"

"I don't, but make sure you make some merry. It's Yule! If you see any locals, invite them up here for some cookies and a warm cuppa."

"I will" he nods "And Merry Yule to you as well" he looks at his Squire "Squire... try to have fun"

"I was having fun" She says "But yes, I shall 'frolic'"

light stress on 'was'

A light eyebrow quirk.

"Frolic with honor" Morthwyl says utterly dead pan and withdraws to patrol

There's a slow down to work... at least among the childlings.

"Hm. Do folks need snacks?"

Otha, despite her protests of not being a skald, seems to be memorizing the children with shadow stories...

The magic of Autumn spreading winter tales in black shadows on gray

Ooo - Sparrow watches those, too.

Yup. The kids didn't even hear their baroness..

The kids gasp as the story seems to end tragically... but then the shadows form a question mark

"But this was a story by a mortal who did not understand... " Otha says "And that is not to say mortals canot be wise in their way, but they do not see. Now, what do you think REALLY happened? A story where the boy is not dead"

Catir says "His son isn't dead, he's in arcadia"

"But what about the body? " The pooka asks "As the redcaps say, what about the corpus delictable?"

"the body is nothing" The Eiluned girl says "It could be an effigy, a fuddled bit of animal, we are talking old TALE.. when we had more power. The boy could have been one of us, taken to a hold. He could have just been pretty or had a nice singing voice so seized for a servant. Maybe the boy was always one of us, and had broken the escheat and went to his punishment. Maybe he was annointed as a sidhe prince. Maybe he was turned into seven notes of music. Maybe he was the spring prince and had to fight the winter king but first he need training."

A quiet eyebrow.

Otha raises a brow "this is true. But if it could be anything.. what do you want the story to be?"