OPEN STARTER ellis ward + open. midday, burnington streets.
The city is slowly rebuilding what it has lost, but it doesn't help much when there's still so much left to fix. It's disheartening to see the community so tense and on edge, but not even Ellis can justify not feeling that way these days. Snow still sits high in uneven drifts where plows had either missed entire stretches of road or given up halfway through, the main streets carved open, enough for traffic and emergency crews. The farther Ellis wandered from the center of Burnington, the more it looked like the storm had simply swallowed whole sections of the city, waiting to spit them back out. People still can't reach their homes and the government has left them to fend for themselves. There's nothing more to be done for the Ink Well as he awaits the government's help to rebuild, and everytime he steps inside, all he can see is damage and loss. So naturally, he puts himself to work.
He'd grabbed a shovel and just started walking. By now he's lost track of whose driveway he's clearing and the path behind him makes it clear where he's been for the last few hours. His skin is slick with cold sweat, skin flushed and nose pink. His breath fogs in front of him, coat hung open despite the cold, long since worked up enough heat to make the winter feel distant. A knit cap sits crooked on his head, curls escaping beneath it, and every so often he pauses only long enough to flex his aching fingers around the shovel handle before returning to work. The snow is still somewhat hardened by ice, the muscles in his arms and torso burning with the force used to dig, but he welcomes it by now. The shovel bites into packed snow with a dull scrape, again, again, again, and eventually he's so consumed by the repetitive motions of the work that he doesn't quite hear or see the person coming up near him. When he finally does, he forces a smile and stands up straight to face the new companion, "One hell of a mess," he greets, as if that explains why he's been out here for the last three hours nonstop, exhaustion creeping in the lines of his face. "But I'm almost done here. Need a hand with somethin'?"
