It was, officially, too cold.

A shocking take, yes - really, Abathur? Nightly snowfall meant it was too cold? - but one that had been building on his mind since a few days after he joined. It had only gotten colder and colder, and the wind chill went from a mild discomfort to feeling like he was developing frostbite (even though he didn't have skin), and the ground went from hard and cold to covered in snow which, when he stepped into it, lightly coated some of his most sensitive hairs in the frozen nonsense, leaving him with a gross dampness much like eternally wet socks.

Frankly, he was quite sick of it, and so he began browsing houses.

Originally, he planned on taking some time - examining some real estate once a day, then deciding when he found something that really resonated with him. However, given the recent appearance of the hell-powder on the ground, Abathur was spurred to just find something he could deal with and live there. And he was relatively successful - he found a house in one of the less occupied blocks of the town, near enough to the forest to make any hunting trips convenient, and not so large that he wouldn't know what to do with all the excess space.

Unfortunately, there was still a lot of furniture he didn't want. Such was life - every solution came with more problems, and on and on, until you were, frankly, tired of the whole life thing, and just wanted to curl up with a good book. Normally he wouldn't mind, since any problem was an opportunity for growth, but the frigid colds of winter could silence even the strongest of philosophies.

Now, Abathur could be found inside his newly-claimed house (at least the one he would live inside until Leroy yelled at him about not paying rent or something), desperately trying to unhook a practically prehistoric oven to make space for - well, for literally anything else. Maybe a nice bookshelf, or some decorative web clumps. Anything but an oven that didn't work. Notably, anyone who approached the house would find a wealth of tables and chairs sitting outside the door, abandoned to their cold fate, strangely coated in new soft webbing (he wasn't very strong, so he had to resort to pulling everything out), which would undoubtedly reveal the culprit of this crime of furniture neglect.

tags - "speech"

Aurum, unlike most during this time of year, was not exceedingly cold most of the time. That wasn't exactly a huge surprise, considering the fact that he was covered in thick fur, along with the wild gold and red mane that kept a large portion of his body comfortably sealed with heat, but it also wasn't to say that he couldn't understand the plight of others. Despite not having to deal with it himself – beyond the barest minimum of chills whenever the wind or snow managed to sneak beneath his feathers – Aurum could certainly understand why a great deal of people didn't appreciate the winter, or the bitter cold that came with it. Truthfully, he couldn't even begin to imagine what it must've been like for Abathur, considering he had never thought of how a spider reacted to the cold for more than perhaps a second. He supposed it was natural for Abathur to be uncomfortable, considering every book Aurum had even glanced at on the subject said that both arachnids and bugs in general alike either hid away or died when the cold came, with its blistering winds and freezing snow. Thankfully for Abathur, it seemed as though the large spider had decided to take the hide away option, rather than the die option. Something Aurum was quite happy with, considering the fact that he was just beginning to get used to seeing Abby around, and had begun to enjoy his company.

Aurum had been returning from a rather successful hunting trip when he came upon the house that Abathur had decided to inhabit, and he had been so caught up in inspecting his catch that he had nearly fallen over one of the many chairs strewn about outside. The Captain had managed to pause just before he went ass over tea kettle, and found himself looking curiously at the furniture that had been haphazardly tossed around outside, most of it covered at least somewhat in webbing. That made it easy to figure out who had claimed the home, but still didn't really answer the question of why Abathur had just decided to throw all of the furniture within the building out. Curiosity getting the best of the lion, Aurum put his catch aside before heading up and into the front door, glancing around before he caught sight of Abathur, struggling valiantly against the ancient stove that remained in the building. Taking in the sight for a couple of seconds, Aurum hesitated before stepping forward, clearing his throat and rumbling to Abathur, "Uh... Abathur? Do you need some help doing... whatever it is, you're doing?" Well, technically it was pretty obvious what Abathur was attempting to do, but the why behind the arachnid's actions were still very much hidden away from Aurum for the moment.