Self Care February

 This was a concept that had never quite occurred to Pepper before. Ever since her long  travels into and around the Wind Valley, she had found herself increasingly more stressed out. A lot of her time had been spent in abhorrent weather conditions. Freezing cold, icy rain, bitter nights, and plenty of dangers abound her as she traveled with quite possibly the worst driver in all of the Scarfox Realm.

She didn’t even bother going into detail by the time she had made it back with the package she had been tasked with picking up in the first place. Corriedale had been such a terrible place to be after her travels, and Pepper had only walked away with the package neatly squared away. And a friend. Sort of.

Opal was his name and he had been kidnapped by a local vampire coven that Pepper hadn’t even been made aware of until she had trudged out of the forest and back to Piero and Hanabi, caked with dried mud and covered in mites. She didn’t seem to care one way or the other, but Piero had nearly fallen out of his chair when he’d seen her.

“Pepper! What happened?” had been the first thing he’d said. Hanabi had also shown an air of concern, which was quick to disappear when Pepper handed Piero the box and went upstairs to the room that had been assigned to her under the agreement she had made with Piero before departing.

She never had much of an opinion of things outside of not liking them for the most part, and it was easier to just leave a conversation or any situation than it was to try to keep her temper in check. It didn’t help that so many fretted over her like she couldn’t take care of herself in any situation. It was exhausting and she needed a break more than anything. Something that she refused to express under any circumstances.

Pepper cleaned herself up in the bath and dried herself off by a heater, crouching in front of it as the water dripped out of her hair and fur. It felt nice to get warm after being so cold for so long, but there was something eating at her. She couldn’t quite place it, but she tried anyway. At least for a little bit before she had to stop.

There was a fog that clouded her mind sometimes. It often appeared in times of great stress or deep introspection, and Pepper had yet to surpass it despite her many many nights spent in emotional isolation. She rarely ever had the chance to sit with good company and feel at ease, even now that she was back at The Ugly Cloth with Piero and Hanabi. There was a tight coil in her chest.

It wrapped around the core of her soul and squeezed until the soul was rendered a pile of ribbons and frayed string.

Pepper had no idea how long she had been sitting in front of the furnace when she felt a little stick poke her side. Salt, her Snowfy. Piero had identified it as a snow spirit that possessed snowdrifts during winter and would often attach themselves to a person in order to play with them. The spirit was supposedly made from the laughter of children combining with the magic of the realm. And animating spirits were notoriously difficult to ignore.

Snowfy pets were fairly common, and would stick around until the animating spirit was satisfied with some unknown goal. Pepper had only really absorbed some of that information and might have been misremembering it entirely, but she had allowed Salt to stay with her and Salt proved to be a very curious little snowman thing.

Salt, currently, was poking Pepper in a desperate bid for attention. Pepper blinked at Salt and cleared her throat.

“What is it?” she asked. “I don’t have any more Hollyhosta or Scillamint. You ate it all.”

Salt pulled at her arm rather weakly, and Pepper stood up, scooping Salt into her arms at its request. It pointed to the bedroom door and Pepper went to it, but did not open it.

“Do you need to go outside?” she asked. She didn’t think snowmen needed to do that kind of business but perhaps this had something to do with the animating spirit that Piero had been talking about.

Salt pointed at the door and Pepper hesitantly opened it. She was immediately bathed in the sound of singing and dancing from downstairs. There was a plate of food on a small tray in front of the door which looked like it had been hot at some point.

Had Pepper really been spacing out for that long?

“You want me to go downstairs?” Pepper said, the edge in her voice hard to ignore. Salt didn’t seem fazed. “I’m not going downstairs. I don’t want anybody to ask me what I’m doing.”

Salt pointed with even more conviction. There was an urgency to it. Or maybe it was begging. Pepper hadn’t had Salt for long enough to really tell. The only thing she really knew about Salt was that it was a troublemaker sometimes and could mysteriously down its weight in Hollyhosta and Scillamint which had been difficult to deal with now that the snow was melting and the plants were out of season.

“Salt was also, as Pepper was realizing, very adamant and was puffing out cold bursts of air to encourage Pepper to leave her room.

She obliged, but only because Salt would bother her until she did it. When she did finally make her way down the stairs to the common room, she was greeted by a number of foxes that were dancing with each other in the center of the room. Tables and chairs had been pushed out of the way and Piero was entertaining a group of foxes as another couple were hashing music out on odd stringed instruments. The room was lively and Pepper was taken aback at how different the rabble was considering how most of these same Scarfoxes wouldn’t even look at her if she was facing the forest, fearing the superstitions.

Salt disappeared behind the reception desk to bother Hanabi, who was tapping her fingers to the music.

Pepper stood there, awkwardly, on the stairs until she decided to sit on a step about halfway up. She was not going to go into the celebrations and music and food, but she was content to just observe. It was warm after all, and she did like the music.

Sometimes, just watching others have fun was good enough for Pepper to feel a bit more at ease. She wouldn’t try to unpack that until later, but with her little feet tapping to the music, Pepper did enjoy herself for probably the first time in a long time. It wouldn’t last, but it was enough for one night.

She was content.