Life Gets Colder • •

[roban kadon o'keann]

Roban was not the kind of man who enjoyed working with wood. He hated getting splinters or trying to level it out to perfection. He worked with iron. If it wasn’t behaving how he wanted it to it went back to the fire until it learnt its lesson. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with speaking to the metal as he worked with it, though he had seen his brothers giving him looks for doing so. None of them were ironsmiths though. They all had their own specialities within the Seven Circles, and none of them really enjoyed testing the waters of another. Yet, there always came a time when one of them needed a second pair of hands for an installation job or something that came with heavy lifting. It was a predominantly family business after all and they didn’t really need to hire extra staff for the work they did from one day to the next. They had an apprentice here and there, someone who was going to learn the trade but very likely end up somewhere else where they would be making bigger money. Roban thought the business did well. They had plenty to stay afloat and look after themselves. There was always something that needed repairing or building up, and they had the yard space and all the people who could do the job quickly and efficiently. If they were hired for a job then it was likely they could cover all aspects of the job from start to finish. There was no awkward waiting around for some strange company or professional to come in and do their part. Roban liked that most of all about Seven Circles. They could work alone on their own projects, but then it was easy for everyone to come together for a big renovation when one came across their books.

This was almost one of those times. For the most part it had been Corbin’s project, but then he wanted lights in it so he needed to ask Shaun to do some wiring work and make sure everything was safe and wired correctly. Then, of course, for some finishing touches around the edges he had wanted Roban to work with iron and rivets to give it that edgier look. Now, the finished piece resembled a decent bar, but it needed to be installed. It was in two pieces and would be completely assembled without flaw at its new home, but Corbin needed someone to help him get it there and set it up. Roban had been the unlucky soul to work with a frustrated Corbin that afternoon. The move from workshop to bar went smoothly, but Corbin was just frustrated by every little thing that came his way. Sometimes Roban wondered if his brother might benefit from joining his wife’s yoga classes to relax more.

“If you let me rivet it together it would be done a lot quicker if you have somewhere to be.” He stood watching his brother battle with tools at an awkward angle. “It’s not like it would look odd.” He ran his finger over the solid iron he had worked around the top, impressed with his own work. Roban was too used to just doing big solid pieces and not getting paid to make things look nice. It was a break from the norm, and he actually enjoyed taking a crude piece of metal and working with it until it was something people might want to look at. Corbin grumbled from under the bar and then stood up. Everything was joined and solid. It was a piece of work that wouldn’t come apart unless someone took several axes to it. Roban rapped his beat-up knuckles against it and grinned to his brother. “It’ll be around long after you’re gone.” It might have sounded like a weird compliment to a stranger, but that was how they all spoke at the workshop. They wanted their stuff to last and nothing could make them happier. However, there were times when strangers thought the blunt compliments were strange, almost rude. It took some explaining to fix, but it was a family business; jibes and torment came with that.

• • •

TAGGED! Mitchie Amelia Creek
WORDS! 706!
LYRICS! Soldier - - - Before You Exit
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Mitchie Amelia Creek]

Mitchie had known the garage wasn't going to be her entire life. Much like Shelby, she had wanted more than just the building and the business that taught her everything she knew. Shelby had, at the end of everything gone back to a garage of sorts; his own. Colorado was too difficult to live in after his accident and Mitchie had felt it just as much. She couldn't figure out why her parents were still there. The business was the only thing holding them in that town but they weren't bothered with the gossip that still kept rolling in after all these years. Aspen might have been her childhood home but it was not where she was willingly spending her adulthood full-time. Mitchie could just imagine what it was like for Shelby to return but they rarely spoke of home anymore; just of the bar and the garage. He was always able to turn the conversation around and though she knew he was doing it, she did still let him do it all the same. It was the coping mechanism that he used and until he was actually ready to talk about it, she would let him. Hers was much the same, distract everyone and throw herself into work until she was feeling better. Sometimes that was more plans for the bar, sometimes it was a total engine overhaul. It all came to the same result; she felt better and a job was done as best as she could make it.

As much as Mitchie loved her place the way it was, it hadn't been exactly what she'd been after when she originally opened The Museum. Places always needed to be improved to keep people interested though so it wasn't anything she hadn't planned for over a five-year term. The bar hadn't been as centralised in the pub part as she'd wanted but she had wanted something special and needed time to formulate the plan for It. Mitchie even talked to a few different people and then talked to Shelby about them all before going with Corbin for the upgrade. The Museum might have been Mitchie's baby but Shelby had put money in, too. He had a say in everything that went on with it, even if it was just agreeing with whatever his little sister suggested. Corbin had been the best and as she's mentioned to him, if the work was beyond what she'd imagined, she would be hiring him on to finish off the rest of her plans. She'd made enough over the last few years to close it down for a couple of months to do the upgrades fully. This was the audition of sorts. And as they had been talking through the planning process she'd learned there was more to his business than just woodworking. That was good because if he was as dedicated to the work as he appeared, his brothers would be just as dedicated.

Mitchie had mentioned that the door would be opened and to just walk in when Corbin called about the delivery of her new bar. She wanted it to be a surprise to herself so she didn't want to answer the closed door. It was like Christmas morning and knowing she couldn't get out of bed at five in the morning to look for her gifts, she needed to wait until the sun as least started to rise before she woke everyone in the house up. She, of course, heard Corbin enter the building a little while later but held herself down in her chair. She had a couple more orders to finish before she would allow herself to even have a peek. One of those orders took longer than it should have but the man on the other end of the phone learned a valuable lesson in making Mitchie run in circles and she, of course, got what she wanted and a discount at that. She hated when people thought they could take advantage because she was a woman. Fuck that. With a deep breath, she opened the door and overheard Corbin's companion's remark. "That's exactly why I hired him," Mitchie said with a smirk to the stranger before walking further out of her office space to examine the bar she's requested. "Better than I ever imagined. Thank you." She said, running her hand along the top of the smooth and utterly perfect central bar. This was the space people saw when they walked through the door. This was the first impression and now, the bar said what she wanted it to say. Mitchie walked around it, smiling to herself, so pleased with what she was looking at. "Did you do this ironwork as well?" She asked, running her fingers over where the wood met iron.

♦ ♦ ♦

TAG; roban kadon o'keann
WORDS; 797
LYRICS; Rhythm of Your Heart --Marianas Trench
NOTES; <3

[roban kadon o'keann]

The joke in their family was that O’Keann men were “manly men”. Whenever ridiculous adverts came on for cologne sold by models chopping down trees or smearing dirt on themselves, someone would laugh and say they needed to buy a crate load for the family. The brothers were the type who washed up and still had soot under their nails or a bit of grime on their nose that had gone unnoticed. They weren’t the type for fancy scents and when they did dress up for a wedding or celebration it typically lasted long enough for one photograph before someone swapped their tie for beer and tossed the blazer jacket somewhere someone else could find it. It was a family joke to mock them in a good natured way, to laugh at the idea of them all getting pampered or actually being able to last a dinner without devolving into talk of DIY or power tools. They weren’t the type to sit in stuffy offices for business meetings. Hell, if they ever needed to have a meeting about their own company it was often in a bar with drinks and snacks. Paperwork was scribbled out on napkins with one of them promising to type it up on a laptop later at some point and e-mail everyone a copy of the document. They did have a cloud system but none of them ever managed to figure the damn thing out. Things didn’t sync when they were supposed to and other times the wrong things synced. It wasn’t worth the hassle and Roban had called quits on it several months earlier and proclaimed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with e-mail.

Roban wasn’t someone who could sit and spend his days in front of a computer screen. He often got stressed enough whenever he needed to use his laptop to do the basics for the business. He was a hands on guy. He liked to be practical, to get dirty and keep busy and active. He couldn’t sit still for hours. Even if he went out to a bar he liked to stand up and drink rather than end up cramped in a booth, getting up and down whenever someone needed the bathroom or wanted to go and order something. He liked to be mobile, to be able to move whenever he wanted to. He also liked being in charge of his own choices. After being his own boss for so long, Roban didn’t think he could have someone else tell him when he could go for lunch or have a bathroom break. He liked being able to choose his own days off or dictate his work days. It wouldn’t be easy to let go of that, and thankfully he had zero plans to turn his back on the business he had built with his brothers. He’d be sweating in front of the forge when his back was broken and his bones creaked and groaned.

When that day came there would be a legacy of work to outlive him and his brothers. It was a sense of pride knowing that. It wasn’t cheap, shoddy work that would fall apart within a year or two. It was hard, solid structures and furniture that could last the generations, survive children and animals and have memories engrained into each and every piece they built and sold. “Someone has to.” Roban joked with a wide grin. What were brothers if they weren’t always ribbing each other? There were times when people didn’t see that though and thought they were just insanely cruel to each other. Roban had to think that those people were the children who had grown up alone, without brothers or sisters to tease and torment. “The iron was my doing, I’m proud to say.” He gestured to Corbin who was packing up his toolbox and shaking his head at Roban. “My brother here can’t handle the heat of the forge.”

• • •

TAGGED! Mitchie Amelia Creek
WORDS! 663!
LYRICS! Soldier - - - Before You Exit
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Mitchie Amelia Creek]

Coming from a family that only saw her and her brother, Mitchie enjoyed being around people who came from larger families. They'd always had their friends around so it was almost always a circus around but when Shelby made it into the big leagues of snowboarding, it became a family of four to a family of two and occasionally one because both parents went off with her big brother. Mitchie didn't mind it much. She enjoyed the quiet when she'd been growing up. And it meant that she could throw parties because no one was home. As long as she cleaned the house before her parents got home, they didn't press the matter. It was like the worst kept secret in the family. Her parents knew she was throwing the parties while they were gone but at the end of it all, the house was ten times cleaner than when they'd left so they chose not to mention it. Mitchie knew when to draw a line and shut the whole thing down. And her friends had always known that when she said it was enough, it was enough and they booked it before she could get mad. It was a pretty natural progression that she would eventually become a bar owner.

Mitchell smirked, looking over at the man she'd originally commissioned for work. "Ahh, so he's a wimp. Pity. But you." She paused, returning her attention to the large ginger man. "You and I have some business to discuss then." This bar was her pride and joy. It was all she'd wanted and she put a lot into it. No price was shocking or decidedly off the table. "I want a spiral staircase for my office." It might have been a ridiculous request, especially for an office but Mitchie had always wanted one, loved the look of them but didn't want it to be all flash and pomp. She wanted sturdy, something that was going to last and withstand a lifetime. She wanted simple but she also wanted it to be unique and solely hers.

She got the building at a steal so the majority of her money went into fixing the place up to her liking. That was a continuous process but at the end of it, it'll be exactly what she wanted. It helped that most of the things she wanted to be done were minor upgrades and could be completed over the days the bar wasn't open, like the actual bar! She could still take orders in, do inventory and whatever else she needed to do around the work because she'd done the big stuff before they'd opened. So now it was all cosmetic to get her baby to look as gorgeous as she envisioned her to be. She was almost there. A couple of things here and there and then the only upgrades she would need to do would be surprises that she could handle, though she knocked on wood would never come. No one wanted a surprise burst pipe or blown electrical.

♦ ♦ ♦

TAG; roban kadon o'keann
WORDS; 507
LYRICS; Rhythm of Your Heart --Marianas Trench
NOTES; <3