[Glimpse] Cabin in the Woods

It was gruelling work, shaping the Hedge. Tia had been kind and understanding, but Rowan couldn't keep freeloading at the Hostel. And so, every afternoon, before going to work, he would work on his Hollow. The Portal would be stable until the turn of the Season, and that was his deadline. With Spring fast approaching, the moratorium of the Low Seasons would be replaced by the revelry of the High ones and the Darkling wanted off the streets by then.

People were noticing his wounded hands, bandaged and clumsy. He was dropping his mop, when the handle bit into a thorn bite. They were shaking from exhaustion. Rowan was genuinely afraid of loosing his job. It was strange, having people pay attention to him. More than just a few times, he had used his Kenning at school, worried that some supernatural powers were at work. After Yule, he has been more prone to jumping at his own shadow, now filled with imagined enemies. He was doubling down on his tasks, trying to prove to the whole world that there was something he could do right. After his shift, he patrolled the school grounds, a skulking form jumping from shadow to shadow. Once or twice, he had to scare away some of the older kids, who had broke in to smoke in peace. They now firmly believed that the third floor bathrooms were haunted.

He had wanted to give up and simply return to his old place, with his tail between his legs. Or he could go live with Ivory. He suspected she felt just as crappy as him over the Rose Water incident, and wouldn't turn him down. Somehow, the very idea of seeing her everyday gave him nausea. She was kind, and motherly, and nice, once one got passed the Spring Fairest exterior, but he needed a place where he could be alone. Besides, relying on someone for hospitality put him in a precarious position. Never mind the flashbacks he got when he saw Ivory.
And so he trudged on. Rinse and repeat.

Day in, day out, the Darkling repeated this cyclical pattern, failing the basic survival guidelines of the Lost - don't be predictable. He pushed back the Hedge with both blood and sweat, hacking and slashing, carving out his own little pocket of dreamscape. Could he have asked for help? Maybe, but Ivory was still recovering and he doubted his Torrent friend would have been much help. If anything, Danica would have caused a forest fire. He was also having a hard time revealing the location of the would be Hollow to them. Custom called for a house warming, he knew, he was simple struggling with the idea of letting others in.

After a week, he had managed to hack away a clearing. After two, the foundations of the cabin were lain. After a month, the exterior had taken shape. The Hedge had grown back a little, but it suited him just fine. He felt at home in the woods, after so many years, much more than in the city. It had a familiarity to it that Whitney had lost. Shortly before the turn of the Season, the Hollow was finished. He wiped his sweaty brow with bloodied hands, breathing a little freely. As a finishing touch, he hung a sign over the entrance, lopsided and written on a piece of warped wood.