Tamsin Rue

[HOLDFAST]
Name: unset
Sex: unset
Crew: unaffiliated
Hold: unchosen / Resonance
Mode: survivor
State: ordinary
Place: Kestrel Point, square, bench under the dead oak
When: 14 March, Year Three of the Lock, Friday, 08:40, clear, frost on the boards
Aim: Tamsin's Harborreach offer, unanswered
Kit: empty
Rations: none you can show
Trust: Tamsin Rue 0
Suspicion: 0
Present: Tamsin Rue
Tamsin: crouched to your eye line at the bench under the dead oak, pack slung to one side, Harborreach ask still in the air, a half-ration held out and not pushed
Log: 14 March, Kestrel Point. Tamsin Rue found you on the bench and asked you toward Harborreach.

Frost still has the boards. The well is nailed shut. On the notice board, cordon days and ration hours face an empty square: one dead oak, two benches in its shade, no other voices yet. Breath shows. Cold sits in the seams of your clothes. Your hands are empty in your lap, dirt in the nails, nothing at your belt.

Tamsin Rue is already there, crouched to your eye line. Winter-red in the face. Long hair running rust into salt-pale tips. Grey-green eyes. Pack slung to one side. Wrinkled boots. The hem of her coat carries dry mud and grass seeds. Close in, the air around her will not frost.

She started it too fast, the way she always has.

"Why aren't you in Holl—"

She bites it off. A laugh tries to get out; she swallows it. Then she is only looking at you, too bright for the hour, as if Hollow Creek were still a place a person could be.

"Come to Harborreach with me." Informal. Almost light. "I heard the whole underside is a dry bunker. I want to see how far it runs. I don't want Wickerwood yet, and I don't want to go under that city by myself."

Her glance ticks to your empty hands. From the pack, a half-ration: held out, not pressed, the paper whispering in the frost.

She waits.