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The shadow people, Scar thinks, have quite possibly always been here. He might even call it likely. There's simply no way to be sure.
You see, they're quiet. Before Scar knew how to look for them, they were close to undetectable. The other players had been loud enough to drown them out, and anyway Scar hadn't even known they were there back then.
Perhaps, as Scar's wheelchair hums along a pathway, perhaps if he could go back, dig through his own memory, he could look for them. Perhaps Winter's harsh breeze chased him after Etho, perhaps Autumn invaded his senses during one of those fights.
Scar laughs. "But, y'know, if I could go back, I wouldn't be here."
Spring, like always, doesn't answer. It tilts its head to one side, then with a flicker it appears over to the left of the path.
"I'm workin' on it," Scar reassures Spring. He squints into the grass, trying to spot the best path, then tilts the long control stick on his chair until the enchanted wheels turn him with a low thrum.
Spring stretches out one arm in a long, sweeping motion, and following its gesture Scar can spot the wild spider it's been leading him to.
"Thanks," Scar chirps. Spring's squared shoulders don't even twitch.
Perhaps the only true shadow-person of them all, Spring is a dull, flickering silhouette of a player. It's the polite, stoic type, who will lead Scar to resources but only if he asks first. Its posture is soldier-strong and its short, fluffy hair moves in a constant intangible breeze.
Scar can feel Spring at his back as he lugs the curled-in carcass of the spider back to Trader Scar's. It's a warm presence, but with something electric at its center—and so, the name Scar calls it by.
Four presences, four seasons, and the division seemed obvious as soon as Scar thought of it. It's one of his cleverer ideas.
Winter, as if summoned by Scar's thoughts, brushes through his hair as he passes into his walls.
"Well hello there," Scar says to it, but it doesn't show itself again. Maybe he imagined it in the first place—a cold wind can be easily mistaken.
He could have sworn it was Winter, though. The strength, the insistence, the barest hint of snow in the air, it all felt right.
Scar turns, and Spring isn't there either.
Well, there's spider to butcher. He doesn't have time to pine after ghosts.
Still, there's a tug in his heart as he rolls onto the porch.
There are quiet days, filled with stacking firewood as winter—the time, not the being—settles around him and fixing the paving on the farthest reaches of his paths, near the ruins of the Heart Foundation.
Autumn dogs his work for a full day, the stench of blood rich in his nose and mouth. Autumn has never been his favorite, but it's something. It breaks the endless silence.
As luck would have it, there's snow the following night. Inches upon inches, in a muffled assault on the land until past dawn.
Scar's woken by aches in the cold when the moon is high, and without a reason to try again he hoists himself over to his chair and sits at the front window. The jagged walls block his view, but he's sure the same blanket is coating the rest of the world.
Pretty, isn't it?
Scar smiles to himself, still half asleep. "Mm, yeah. Too cold, though."
Summer laughs quietly. Stoke the fire, then. Burn something.
"I oughtta save my firewood. Who knows how long this'll take to clear?" Even with his chair in tiptop shape, the weather is a real risk. He'd hate to get stuck in a snowbank.
Burn a scroll, then.
"They smell funny."
Summer laughs again, and Scar's heart could just tear out of his chest. There's something so familiar, so warm to that voice, to that laugh. He can't place it, but he wants nothing more than to keep hearing it.
"Y'know," Scar sighs, crossing to a barrel and extracting two of many identical scrolls, "sometimes I think you like the fire more than you like me."
Who, me? Scar tosses the scrolls, imposing wax seals and all, into the newly constructed fireplace. They catch quickly, and spread a subtle acrid scent just as fast. Of course I like you. And if you can conveniently bring me some light, all the better.
"I can't imagine why," Scar says. He takes his place at the front window up again. The lowest branches of the berry bushes are covered with snow by now. "Why you like me, I mean." He says it offhand, like he doesn't care.
And he doesn't. Anyone he needs to impress has long since met the pointy end of his sword. Any need to prove himself found its way down a ravine and never returned. If Summer likes him—and it does, he's sure—deserving isn't a factor Scar cares for.
You learned your lesson, Summer replies. It finally paid off, didn't it?
"What lesson?" Scar quips. "Stay far away from your enemies, and even farther from your friends?"
Sure. There's enough warmth in Summer's tone. It indulges him, like usual. Sure, whatever worked. As long as it got you here.
A sort of velvet strength lurks beyond the words. It's the same note that plays in Spring's static when you get too close; it's the temper on Autumn's steel against a soft throat; it's the frozen core beneath Winter's bluster. They're playing nice with him, he knows. He makes them happy, and they hold back their real power.
Anything, Scar has discovered, absolutely anything, can be ignored with enough practice.
What's on your mind?
"You, sir, are simply a riddle wrapped in an enchilada," Scar replies lightly. "Would it kill you to tell me something straight? I mean, just anything."
Enigma.
"What?"
Enigma. You meant to say enigma.
"I did say that."
Summer sighs. Scar can almost see its fond smile—so close, yet utterly out of reach. Sure.