Heart to Harrowheart (with Jim - smartasscaptain)

((Co-written with Jim (smartasscaptain) in Discord, posted here for posterity. Thanks so much to Jim's player for cleaning up this log and making it post-worthy! Some of the markup may not come through properly, so imagine I italicized too much, as one does.

Summation: A YEAR after the conclusion of the Runeblades megaplot, Jim and Harrow finally sit down for a serious discussion.))

Harrowheart

Viatorus' wonderfully alcohol-filled wedding has passed, but Harrowheart's offer to Jim still stands: Come visit his new home. Turns out the location is somewhere in a forest in the Nexus, though fortunately this forest is less the 'haunted monsters' variety and more the average, temperate Earth-style woodland. The abrupt changing of the seasons turned the leaves already, and many have fallen to the ground, prime for the crunching. Without the shadow of the canopy the sun filters down to the ground, lighting the way to the small home well enough.

It sits in a clearing where Harrow has made no apparent attempt to control the leaves in any way. The house is a single story and, at a guess, probably three rooms wide. The wooden siding of the home is white, and still quite clean. Its grey-shingled roof extends into an overhang that sits above a front porch, rightly furnished with a single rocking chair... And in it, a corpse.

Right, Harrowheart. The dude who unlives here. Despite the chilling weather he's dressed, as always, in a tanktop and cargo shorts. His hands and knees are caked in dried mud that's also dusting his clothes. His eyes are closed and he appears to be sleeping. Behind him, leaning against the frame of the front door, the runeblade lies dormant.

Jim

Crunch, crunch, crackle, crunch.

It's impossible to stealth through this kind of dried Autumnal foliage but truthfully Jim isn't even bothering to try and be quiet. He hasn't had the simple joy of being able to drag his feet through fall leaves in years now. There's something so essentially satisfying to hear them crunch underfoot. Unlike the man of the house however Jim is very much dressed for the occasion--clad in an olive colored shirt tucked into fitted jeans with a leather jacket pulled on over his shirt though his work boots are still the only shoes he has to wear.

Harrow's house is much more well constructed than Jim would have figured. Building a house is serious work. Even with his interest in engineering Jim still wouldn't be comfortable making a whole house yet here it stands in the relative quiet corner of Nexus woodland. The lack of Jim-Eating-Monsters around the place honestly makes everything about this trek all the more enjoyable. The captain's carrying a shopping bag on one arm when he finally approaches the porch.

"Knock, knock!" Harrow doesn't have a mailbox or a sidewalk or any kind of patch leading up to his home but Jim still walks until he's in front of the structure before he approaches it out of habit.