"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
In fits and starts, in singles and small groups, they step forwards onto the paths. Somewhere, watching from afar, they are pleased with the symmetry. Half of them go left, and half of them go right; divide and conquer. A worthy strategy. Perhaps they feel a brief flicker of sadness that half of the travelers will not succeed, but it can’t be helped. There must be sacrifice made to right this balance, and the sacrifice of work put in despite uncertain outcome is worth much. Their choice allows others to make a different choice – one that will lead them to success.
The island isn’t large, and the storm isn’t long, though it is unusually fierce. They don’t make quick progress, so it surely feels like forever, exposed to the elements. But it isn’t forever, or even too long; they’re not interested in killing anyone today.
Those on the left-hand path walk awhile; first the ground is flat, and thank goodness for that, because it’s all they can do to put one foot in front of another and move onward against ice and snow and wind; terrible wind that steals their words and their breath. But as they begin to adjust to the cold, feeling strangely warm (a truly dangerous sign), there are dark shadows all around them. Tree trunks that spring up out of nowhere in the low visibility, forcing them to travel even slower to risk crashing into the bare forms of towering hardwoods or the low-hanging greenery of frost-crusted pines. By the time the trees clear and the storm begins to ease, they have found themselves back in a field, on the edge of a different shore. They can no longer feel the cold, but they are sleepy, and some delusional to top it off. Some might find irony in the shape of the shoreline opening in front of them – the top two curves of a heart, but not a pond. This is the sight that ushers them into healing sleep amongst the snow-drifts. They wake in a meadow well in the grips of spring, a teasing hint of summer warmth blowing across their coats and new grass revealed where the breeze blows the powdery snow back towards the forest they already traversed. But while the Isle might be melting, they…aren’t. A souvenir of sorts from the unnatural storm, their manes and tails are still encrusted with ice that sparkles in the sunlight and seems to have no intention of melting. Those who were previously gifted have also awoken once more intact, but it is clear to all of them: they did not choose the right path, and there is certainly no way to catch up now, since the path they had followed from their original landing site is completely gone. It is also clear, in their hearts: the fae are still grateful for their sacrifice.
(@[Nalia], @[Briella], @[Leander], @[Wane], @[Kagerus], @[Ether], @[Jinju], @[Madelyn], @[Solace], & @[Sabrael] will have lingering ice encrusted in their manes and tails for 1 BQ year. After that it may melt away, or you may claim it as a permanent 0-space appearance trait. They are free to return home and have all of their traits returned to them).
The other half take the right-hand path. This path is not flat. Perhaps the ground underneath is flat, but they are forced to walk, and dig, and push, and jump, and climb their way forward, as snow piles up around them. Sometimes it is no more than a light dusting of powder underfoot, while other times it towers at horse-height or far above, threatening to collapse upon the weary travelers at any moment. A few times they lose the path when the drifts become insurmountable and they must go around, but through luck – or perhaps a little otherworldly assistance – all of them continue to find their way back to the trail and persevere. But they are not immune to the effects of the storm any more than their companions had been – they, too, grow bitterly cold before strangely warm and confused. They don’t even notice at first, when the storm stops; the entire world is still white and gray, broken only by the intermittent forms of their traveling companions, and even they are now near-white with snow and ice that clings to their freezing bodies. But the monotony is broken by the appearance of something dark ahead, a smudge that becomes clearer as they stumble and trudge forward.
There’s the pond: dark, a blue so dark as to be nearly black, and an undeniable heart shape that is clear from the ridge they are standing on. It’s cut into the ground and somehow not frozen, but very still and quiet. Growing from the snow between the two swells of the top of the heart is a single massive cedar tree, and hanging from its branches are the promised icicles. They fall into the same cold-induced stupor that the left-hand group had, and awaken some time later, sheltered beneath the tree’s boughs. They begin to look up at their prize, hundreds – thousands – of choices to bring back to the mountain. Some are tiny, mere nubs of ice, and they grow in size all the way to spears nearly the length of the horse’s heads. There’s beauty but danger here too – they could send lethal ice projectiles tumbling to the ground (or into each other) as they try to capture one or two icicles to take back to the mountain.
And how are they going to get them there?
@[Kolera], @[Wallace], @[leliana], @[Leilan], @[Valdis], @[litotes], @[Santana], @[Nocturne], @[Agnieszka], and @[Illum] chose the right-hand path. Now they are faced with a challenge – to bring several icicles back to the mountain – not melted.
-They still do not have traits.
-They may work together or separately.
-Entries will be judged on creativity, readability, and judge’s preference.
-A first and second place prize will be awarded for this quest.
-Round 3 entries are to be posted in this thread no later than NOVEMBER 26TH at 11:00 PM CST
-Your post should describe how they retrieve some icicles and take them to the mountain – alone, together, injured, triumphant, however.
-Failing to respond on time or at all without notifying the officials you are dropping out will result in a permanent defect
The world is nothing but a spiritual haze around her. She hears nothing but the deafening whistle of wind, sees nothing but an endless white at every angle around her. Even the path that she had watched so intensely under her hooves, has vanished. Time is lost and her body has turned numb from the frigid air. All the pain of her life, her sickness, has seemingly disappeared into the nothingness that surrounds her and for a moment she experiences the euphoria of peace.
Here in her altered state, she sees her life. The beginnings of it, that day in Tephra where she was found by the navy tipped stallion Warrick. The giant tree that she had killed in the mere blink of an eye is before her again, just as it had been that day. She looks at it now with dull sienna eyes, an apparition to the moment so long ago. The child, she had once been, looking up to the pine with a sorrowed expression. That sigh alone tugs at the strings of her heart, woven tight with regret of that day, and so she too looks away with grievance.
That was the very moment that set the tapestry of her life. It set her on the wrong path in her young life, only to eventually be unthreaded by the hands of fate and show her the right one. Time and time again she fought through the trials of her life, and only in these moments had she found the will to go on. To fight for all she knew was right, and if she failed, at least she could say she didn't go down without one hell of a try...
This was another of those moments. When she reaches rock bottom and pushes through -to awaken beneath the boughs of another pine. This tree was nothing like she had ever witnessed before, and she knew trees. Its branches covered in delicate spindles of ice. Some large and some small but all held the same shape. Sienna eyes drag upwards to see even the tip top was ice, before her gaze flickers about to the others that are gathering. There are fewer than before but they all had the same task. To retrieve the icicles from the tree at the forefront of the heart shaped lake and return with them -still intact- to the Mountain. Then and only then will repair be brought to their world.
Her body shivers from the cold. Rustling a dry cough free from her lungs, blood spatters, staining the ivory of her forelimbs and white of the snow covered land. A plume of vapor lifts upwards, blocking her view for a short while. When the smoke clears she can see the variances in the dangling ice shards. Her thoughts immediately mull over all the conceivable ways she could carry one across the ocean water bridge and through the lands, back to the Mountain. Her eyes flicker to the lake, giving it a moment's thought. She could salvage a small icicle from the tree and coat it with many layers of ice water, but that would take a massive amount of time to freeze thin layers of water around it.
Again she looks to the tree, noticing others beginning to knock the daggers loose and nearly piercing another. A sharp gasp echoes from her lips at the near miss. She would be sure to watch for those. Still others pull and prod at the evergreen, ripping the branches from its trunk and weave the twigs together, fastening strange carrying devices. Her head tips in curiosity at this method and if it was truly necessary.
Soon those gathered begin to retreat, carrying their prizes to the mainland. She watches as a bystander, not strong enough to contend with the rest, and surely not stealthy enough to dodge falling spears of ice. With trembling limbs, the chill is setting deeper within her, and soon she decides she cannot wait any longer. Looking to the tree she decides that perhaps the biggest of the ice pieces would hold up the best. She could comfortably carry one in her mouth and if some of it should melt on her journey there would be at least some salvageable piece.
She locates the large icicle that had nearly gorged the other equine. It was the largest she had seen and it was well within her reach. With opened jaws she fits the girth of the ice between her teeth, gently firming her grip and pulling it from the snowbank. To have considered this comfortable was a misinterpretation, but it was her best option.
With the item secure between her lips she strikes out for the very coast that she had landed upon. Shockingly the storm had seceded and visibility was greatly improved. The distance to the shoreline was short, which leads her to wonder just how lost she had gotten in the blizzard. Her hooves still at the oceans wake, eyes gauging the shortest path to reach the grey washed land across the waters. The waves weren't as turbulent as they had been upon her arrival and for a moment she breathes easy.
Decided on a route, she steps into the chilled sea. With her body numb to the elements, she hardly notices the grip of death that threatens to consume her. Stroke after stroke, her weak body is pulled closer to Nerine. The strength within her was fading quickly but thankfully the shoreline comes not a moment too soon...
When she steps hoof on Nerine coast, she nearly stumbles in exhaustion. The air here wasn't much warmer than the island, which is good for only one thing -the icicle. Dropping it to the ground, she takes a moment to recollect herself. With a violent shake she attempts to dry her coat enough for her own sanity. Then with a few flexes of her jaw to relieve the tension from carrying the hunk of ice, she lowers her lips to secure it once again.
With ice in mouth and hooves to solid ground, she picks up what pace she can spare. She had a long distance to travel and a time limit to do it. Even with collapse threatening to consume her, she doesn’t think about the what ifs.
Nerine comes and goes with each length of her stride. Even at a choppy pace, she clears into Taiga before night is thick above her. A late winters breeze catches her just as she enters the redwood forests. She is thankful for the protection they give, a pay back for her long days spent renewing the woodlands to its former glory. It is here she feels most at home, and she remembers her journey to plant three seeds in tribute to the fallen kingdom.
Through a damp haze she struggles to remain conscious. Her muscles plead for rest as her lungs ache from the cold. A misplaced step sends her plummeting to the pine littered floor. Landing with a hard thud, the shard of ice is expelled from her jaws and sent air bound -falling to the ground mere feet away from her frail, near lifeless body.
The darkness wraps around her, cloaking her in a blanket of despair. Sickness plagues her skeletal form, leaving her a fragment of the mare she once was. The once deep red of her coat, that could be compared to the majestic red pines, is now bland and patchy. The ivory of her points is stained with earth and blood, a testimony of a life fought for. Her breathing shallows and the beat of her heart sputters. In this moment she recalls the most pure of memories from her life, the face of her son. Not the monster he had become, but the soft newborn eyes of the day he was born. The joy she had felt before her world went dark the first time she had nearly died. All she had ever wanted was to protect him, to love him. And in the end it was her undoing. These memories bring a single tear to leak from the duct of her eye and trail down her cheek.
She had failed him and now she has failed them all...
Kolera
Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.
I imagine that because she was at the epicenter of the plague, the sickness is too far advanced in her that her making it through the quest is impossible. Especially with Zain taking her health in the Rhonen killing thread. However this ends I will be glad she participated
The wind is cold and howling; piercing, blinding, deafening, and pushing them back when they walk. Hills going up that he’s never encountered here before; perhaps snow and ice compiled by the ominous wind. His hoofs get stuck repeatedly when ice crashes under his weight, a baroque descendent through and through in that aspect - still, he’s happy to not have the most heavy of legs like a Belgian Draft but rather perhaps slightly thinned - the slim and strong kind like Friesians usually have. He’s happy with this fact simply because it means he can get un-stuck again, also.
It is slow going, especially when one is shivering in a summer coat. His muscles are protesting with every move, half-frozen - it is nothing but his enormous will-power that helps him go through. That, and the fact that he’s not the first in this line of idiot horses like himself, going on a suicide mission for the sake of the rest of the world, is what ensures he makes it at all. They may not all live to see the result of it - not with conditions like these. It’s a scary thought on one hand, but then, he’s already living on spare time, so why bother thinking it through? He also isn’t one to give up easily, as thick-skulled as they come. If someone has to do it, then he’s glad he’s here instead of several others he can think of.
At long last there seems to be an opening; he can’t tell if it’s complete relief or simply the eye of the storm; that is until he joins the gathering of horses near the lake, and sees that they’ve reached their destination. A tree at the heart-indent; but unlike last time he’d visited the strangely un-frozen lake, now the tree is full of ice pegs, sharp-pointed darts that menacingly hang from the tree - like bad omens, or threatening fingers perhaps, pointing at the gathered folk accusingly.
As if they’re the ones who caused all this mess in the first place.
Looking around, he wonders if some did indeed go to Pangea to kill Rhonen. He surely didn’t trust Carnage himself, and would not be tempted to take a deal of his unless a family member’s life depended on it. He briefly wonders if Ophanim or Chryseis would be stupid enough to ever bring him in such a precarious situation, but he brushes it aside. Not today. Today he’s here to fix things.
The fae must know that this island needs more fixing than just the plague, but helping them fix the plague will at least be something.
Patience, then. One step at a time.
But transporting ice is a problem. Not normally, for him, but today it is; the fae’d so neatly ridden him of his icy advantages while it could have helped them. Why? Levelling the playfield? It honestly wasn’t a competition as far as he knew. And so he looks to his companions. Now-non-healing, wingless Leli. The girl he’s seen on Nerine’s shore but who never bothered to meet with him or Breckin, that he knows of... or maybe she had and nobody ever told him anything... they usually don’t seem to think he needs to know any kingdom business, do they?
His chocolate gaze travels further along the group, but he doesn’t recognise any more of them. Oh there... wingless now... whatshisname - a Shah kid, one of the too many he hadn’t bothered to keep up with, not enough anyway. Perhaps if the guy had visited more or introduced himself, he would know, but no matter.
He snorts. So far nobody has spoken yet, so he steps towards the group. Head high enough because he wants to look them all in the eye and seek their attention, but not overly so because he doesn’t want to give them the idea he looks down in them. In this they’re equals - so whether they give him their attention or not, is not for him to decide, but at least they’ll know he has some ideas. Already one mare secludes herself, but if she wants to work on her own, that’s no problem with him. In fact, it sparks an idea. When he opens his mouth however, he notices his own chittering, though after a while, his tone steadies somewhat. ”L-let’s... think this over. We should t-try every idea we can come up with, hope-f-fully one makes it to the Mountain. One-ne ...thingg we must remember about ice. Our bodies, our breath, a-are too hot. They’ll melt if we carry them normal-ly.” A shudder. ”An-and if the ice s-starts melting, the icicles will fall off the branches... we’ll need something to hold ‘em together. But maybe... spread the chances. Any idea may work... Good luck. For the world. For our friends. For our families.” Divide and conquer. And he hopes for them, to remember they’re not alone in this world. Sacrifices must be made, for the world to survive. But not everybody has to take the dangerous path he’s planned for himself.
Some take his advice, and he watches as several horses group together into weaving baskets and the like. Others may find perhaps more hold by using other devices, things they may find in the snow. The bay mare, his peripheral vision spies, has already snatched the biggest icicle she can find, and hurries away with it. Speed might be a key. Himself, he lets go of the group discussion after his short speech, and studies their surroundings. The unfrozen, still freezing cold lake, and the snow itself - shouldn’t that work? Would it be enough? Perhaps it will.
Entranced by his thoughts now, he makes his way into the lake water, not bothering if anybody follows his reckless behaviour or tries something else instead. He soaks himself, until his legs are numb and he’s hardly able to move. This thing requires some kind of sacrifice. Not, per say, in the literal sense, although a frozen dead body would perhaps be ideal transport (in terms of temperature that is) for an icicle; but in every other sense it can’t be easy. They’ve already given up traits, for example. Should he give up his life or may he keep it? Not that he’s unwilling to die; he’s done it three times over now and he wouldn’t mind the fourth time actually being meaningful and worth something - helpful even. But he doesn’t think the others will do it (kill him) or even, that they should. The fairies aren’t very keen on horses pointlessly dying, he believes. Or else why would he even be here? They’d put him back on the side of the living, after all.
His mind is as numb as his limbs are by the time he makes his way out. It’s dark now, the night colder than the day, but that should work in his favour - unless he dies tonight. The water freezes on his fur in the cold night and he knows now, how to secure the icicles on himself. Slowly, he rolls through the snow like an old man might, stiff from the cold. Snow is not that dense, unlike the cracked layer of ice clinging to him now, and the air entrapped in it will insulate and isolate both his body heat and the icicle’s coldness, respectively.
Then comes the tricky part. When the rest of them have cleared the area directly beneath the tree, he enters it. Only a moment’s hesitation left, then he bucks - with an audible clunk where his hooves land on the tree stem, the larger ice drops down sharply upon him. Some don’t make it past the snow - small ones, not worthy of the trip. Some bury themselves into his newly created, frosty external layer. And some dive and delve deeper, into skin and muscle with a sharp painful gasp and a drop of blood (or more, but he’s cold enough not to feel it too much). No vital organs are hit, he thinks. Hopes, he corrects his thoughts. He doesn’t linger though. One more dip into the lake and the extra water freezes his entrapment to himself when he emerges (for now). But it only needs to hold while he’s swimming to the mainland anyway.
He hardly knows what to do any more, but he’s set himself a task, and that’s the only thing his stubborn mind keeps hold on. Following the island’s curves, he nears the southern point in a cold-induced, near-delusional state; a walking snowman in the aftermath of a storm.
He nearly drowns halfway. He’s not sure if anybody has followed him to help or not, but if they did he’d be ever grateful. He swims as far as he can, but occasionally stops on sandbanks - those banks that the seals usually inhabit, but his bloodied, icy form may look scary enough. Hell, he must look like a horse-yeti of sorts. He sure feels like one.
He cannot linger. His body stops shaking and shivering along the way, and that’s probably not a good sign. Entirely cold, he wonders if he’ll even make it. Through the Taigan woods he goes next, almost feeling warm. Happy with the thick mist for the sake of some of the ice on his back, he takes a slightly too-long route, lost, not entirely sure where he’s going but only knowing that he is, in fact, going somewhere.
By some miracle, the mountain comes in sight by dawn. Ah yes, that’s where he was going. He starts shivering again, and now even knowing what he’s doing, travels towards the mountain base and then starts up.
He’s not sure how far up he must go or how far he even makes it. At some point he crashes down. And hopes that there is still enough ice on him. There might be... he’s so, so cold. Will it be enough? Or did he just doom himself forever and will he never be able to help his family get fully rid of this plague? He has so much still to do but... well, at least he tried.
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
Ice like fire pelted them from every direction. Santana's eyes were slit against the stark whiteness and the blistering wind as they plodded on their steady way. His narrow shoulders brushed those of the pied mare beside him as they walked. Was this storm going to last forever? Would they stumble on the slick ground and find themselves unable to rise again? Exhaustion leeched the borrowed warmth from his bones unforgivingly. All the world was white and cold, and they would soon be embossed in it.
At first he thought his eyes were deceived, when the pervasive whiteness seemed to grey ahead. An ache rose in his skull as he tried to see through the whirling flakes. As they paced forward it became clear; the way forward grew darker, and at last the storm broke around them. Out they fell into a clear space, with slate grey skies overhead and cold hard earth at their feet. Blinking into the overcast light, Tana grinned tiredly in Valdis direction, dropping his grip on her mane. A quick glance around erased the rising hope in his chest, however. This was no lake, nor did he see anything relevant nearby. Instead, the events of the day seemed to have caught up with him. Every blink seemed to drag his eyelids lower, until it was more trouble than it seemed worth to keep them open. His breath slowed and deepened. In the space between one heart beat and the next, the gold and white boy passed from waking to deepest sleep.
When his eyes fluttered open again it was on an unfamiliar scene. Unfamiliar and yet recognized by description. The snow was crisp and clean, unmarred in any way. It reached to the very edge of the black waters, no rhime of ice encircling the banks. It was, in fact, a perfect heart shape. Behind them stood a great, bushy cedar and around them stood some of those who'd stood with them on the mountain. A sound like subtle chimes caught his attention, drawing his sight upward to the spreading branches. A light breeze had wound its way through the greenery, shaking the spears of crystal ice that dripped from above so that they tapped against each other musically.
Long and short, thick and thin, the frozen spikes glittered ominously overhead. Each held a lethal point at its end, and Tana realized how little it would take to bring a shattering cascade down on all their heads. An anxious exhale hissed from between his lips as he noted the others who'd recovered their wits most rapidly. Different techniques were utilized, of varying complexities. Some saw fit to advise the rest while others struck out on their own tenacities. His gaze cut to the golden haired girl beside him, brows raised doubtfully.
"Here we are, I guess." His voice was kept carefully low, eyes unable to keep away from the threatening icicles long. His tail twisted around his hind legs pensively. "Kay, watch out for a minute. I'm about to do something stupid." It was a fair warning, he felt, before shifting his weight onto his haunches. In one smooth motion, he tipped backward and stretched upward until the tip of his muzzle grazed a cold point. He was tall enough to reach the spear, but only just. Not tall enough to exert the pressure needed to break it from the branch it clung to. Losing his balance, his feet thudded back to the packed ground. Apparently, that impact was what it took to shake a few of the crystal stems from their perches.
The one he'd been aiming for shook free from its green needled stick. It cut through the air and embedded itself in the snow mere inches from his flank. Sparkling fragments rained down and bounced off his back and shoulders, catching in his mane. He sniffed briskly, a tickle at the back of his throat. "So that worked, sort of." The icicle stuck straight up from the ground, glinting in the dull light. He gripped it in his teeth, yanking upward to free it from the snow. About two feet long, it was clear through, with patches of snow clinging to its surface. It lay between them, taunting in its delicacy.
Tana walked to the base of the tree and grabbed a twiggy looking stick from the trunk in his jaw. He pulled and twisted as delicately as he could while still breaking it away from its home. A sleigh, of sorts, to ferry their treasure home. When he returned, Valdis had turned the icicle into a snowy sausage. It was cloaked in a thick shield of ice crystals, fluffy weather packed closely about the frozen staff. "That's great!" He laughed softly, nosing it onto the wide surface of his branch. The needles dug into the snow, making it more secure than he'd hoped. Together they turned to leave the island.
Making it to the edge was much faster than the inbound journey had been, and crossing the water was treacherous but possible with the branch floating between them. The snow grew saturated but remained as cold as ever, a coating of fresh ice raising where it surfaced in the frigid air. It was as cold as before, but now his purpose felt clear. The cold was bearable now that the end was in sight. On the opposite bank his skin frosted over with ice crystals until they began moving again, hauling their prize. The landscape shook and scraped the branch, knocked chunks of snow from its fragile burden. He carried it, then took a turn walking behind the sledge until the mountain grew in their sight. Every so often he nudged the icicle back into the center of the branch. All thought of rest and exhaustion evaporated as the foot of the mountain encompassed them. Day and night ceased to matter. Up and away the path rose underfoot, like it had decended them so recently. It was deja vu as anticipation filled his breast. They were close, so close to their goals.
And then it opened up, like a grasping palm. Little snow held on to their stem now, but it had served its purpose. The icicle was only slightly diminished after their long journey. For better or worse, things were at an end.
She says nothing more to him, even as he pushes forward and walks adjacent to her instead of behind. Together, they face the brunt of the storm with their eyes nearly shut in defense. Her forelock was freely whipping side to side, but has since stiffened from the freezing blizzard. Ice frosts her every inch. The hot breath spiraling from her nostrils helps to crystallize the whiskers as she presses on, utilizing every ounce of strength she can muster to scale the snow drifts and ledges. An occasional touch is all she provides Santana, a silent confirmation that he is still there, as is she. It was foolhardy to do this. The extreme demands of this quest are exhausting to her young body, but it doesn’t stop her.
Once her mind is set, nothing can stop her.
A low grumble rises from her throat as Valdis reaches the edge of the pond with Santana remaining at her side. It’s only now, when there is a new obstacle facing them, that she realizes the storm’s conclusion. Everything is still whitewashed, vague even, but the deep blue-black of the water remains a heavy contrast that grabs and holds her attention. Prepared to plunge into the water and retrieve the icicle, Valdis is suddenly taken aback by Santana seizing the opportunity. With an air of humor twisted in his words, he elicits a smile from her before it flickers away in her concentration.
Santana retrieves the icicle but returns to the tree for a branch. Understanding – almost as though they are of similar minds – she steps forward and lowers her muzzle to the ice. It threatens to cling to her skin as she gingerly rolls it along the snowy bed. As she predicted, the snow embraces the ice and hugs onto it until blanketing it like a cocoon. By the time she finishes, Santana is returning and nudging the branch underneath the snow-encrusted icicle. With a nod, the two of them grab onto the ends of the branch to lift their prized possession.
So begins their troublesome return to the Mountain.
The water greets them in the same manner – frigid, reckless, dangerous – but they still submerge their bodies into the tide as a single unit. During the trek to the shore, the snow hardened; it’s sandwiched between solid ice and sub-freezing temperatures. It all works well, she muses, as the water bites at her skin, threatening to immobilize her and drag her into its dark depths. A periodic glance determines Santana’s stamina, gauging how he is faring while she, too, struggles under the immense pressure of the assignment and the wintry elements. Still, throughout this entire time, she remains silent as to keep all energy to herself, all her air going unwasted by conversation.
There’s an urgency in their step when they’ve reached the mainland. With nothing more than branches and twigs as a small sled for their ice, their time is ticking. The snow encasing the ice threatens to melt and so they take direct paths across Taiga, Nerine, and Hyaline. There are minimal breaks, pausing only to allow their jaws to relax from so long having clenched on a branch. Both of them know, however, that they are pressed for time.
Droplets trail behind them as the snow melts, opening the icicle to its looming demise.
By the time they’ve returned to the Mountain, the icicle is only slightly receded. Valdis peers down at it once they’ve placed it and its bed of twigs on the ground. Her lungs are screaming, frost coating the edges of her hair, and her muscles are groaning painfully. So tired, she almost mutters to Santana, but she refuses to expose her exhaustion and, in turn, weakness. Straightening up, she meets his eyes with a smug grin across her lips. ”Good job,” she finally whispers, the first spoken words from her in hours.
Litotes’ choked exclamation is carried away by the wind, barely out of his mouth before it disappears. He can no longer make out his brother’s receding snowy form, but he chases it nonetheless. Here and there, he catches a glimpse: line after line of snow forming the swish of a tail, white triangles twitching as if they are ears, and once the slightest glimmer of an eye. Each passing hint draws him down the path, closer to his destination - farther from reality.
He has no idea where he is - snow, wind, ice, tree (repeat).
The winter storm swirls around him, dragging tears from his eyes that roll for no more than a second before freezing into his coat. The weather has whipped so angrily and for so long that all the General can see is white. He thinks he may now be marble: frozen, statuesque, as ivory and blended as the rest of the landscape.
The path begins to open. Lie no longer feels the soft-then-rough brush of bark as he allows the trees to guide him. The wind begins to calm as he lifts his head to study what lies ahead (a spot, not small but not huge, dark and hopeful). Too late, though, for as he begins to stumble with the most exhausted stirrings of excitement in his chest - his cornea and conjunctiva begin to inflame. Pain, sharp and hot, pulsates behind his eyes. He thinks there is poison spreading like fire through his veins, wild and unforgiving and unstoppable. Litotes closes his eyes and stops, stamping one hoof over and over into the ground (each imprint in the snow a new prayer for the swelling to cease).
When he opens his eyes, he thinks they are frozen shut. There is nothing ahead of him, and as he swings his head from side to side he realizes there is nothing - at all, anywhere. Lie closes his eyes again, panicking but unable to bear the pain the freezing air causes his cornea. The cremello nearly gives up then and there, but he does not wish to die - and he thinks he may truly become as frozen as marble if he were to wait. Instead of swallowing his panic, he delves deeper into it, allowing it to pump adrenaline into his legs. In this state he is able to overcome his fever, able to ignore the blood pooling on his bottom lip.
The sprinting exhausts Lie. His only sense is taste as he collapses: his own blood coloring his teeth bright red while the flavor is metallic and cruel against his tongue.
When the lion-man awakes, dazed, he blinks over and over to clear the fairy-induced haze. Around him several others are also bedded - he watches them for a moment before untucking his legs and standing shakily. It is still cold, but not so bitterly. Lie shivers then shakes out his fur while the party comes alive. He notes that two others are already awake; he considers speaking with them but then notices what they are staring at: icicles glittering dangerously above his head. The stallion skitters away, intimidated by the near-weapons they are supposed to carry home.
One of the stallions begins a speech - one Lie only half listens to for he finally notices that Solace and Kagerus did not make it. He sighs and peers back at the speaker only to find he has stopped.
The cremello watches as the others begin to mill about but ultimately decides to keep to himself. He is the second to snag something from the tree: two small, cupped branches. One of the branches lies on the ground, while the other dangles from his mouth. Lie presses his hoof onto the broken end, then forces the thin branches of the piece in his mouth above and below the ones beneath his hoof. Between the pressed together branches and the natural cup of the leaves, a precarious basket is formed.
Lie is not finished, though - not yet. He carries the makeshift basket to the edge of the heart-shaped pond and dips them in. Small pools of water stay in the branches when he brings it out, so the stallion places it delicately on the ground beside the pond. Here he kicks large amounts of snow into the carrier, just enough to cover the pools. He trots hurriedly to the base of the tree, lifts his front knees to the bark, and rips off one large icicle. He returns to his invention, places the icicle into the snow, and then repeats his process two more times. Now that the basket holds three icicles, the stallion kicks another load of snow over the ice. Finally, he drops to the ground and wraps his mouth around the center of the branches.
There, he waits. Stomach cold and pressed against the ground for hours as the contraption freezes.
When the rest of the party is gone, only he and the man that gave a speech in the beginning remain. His invention is frozen solid and mildly stuck to his maw. The cremello dips his head in solidarity to the frozen equine before trotting quickly into the darkness. The ice-coated basket burns his mouth, for he had kept his jaw cocked for hours. His tongue is stiff and numb against the bark.
Good, he thinks, I don’t need my breathe to get too hot against the ice.
The shore draws closer as Litotes picks up his pace. He does not break his stride when the water washes over his hocks; he does not allow the plague to take him. As the water rises against his chest, he shivers and paddles and moves desperately in an attempt to keep warm. The waves lick dangerously against the underside of his chin, but the cremello never falters: the branch-basket always staying at least half of an inch above the channel.
Somewhere along the path Leilan overtook him. He sees the dragon-man struggling just ahead, almost drowning. Lie digs into one of his last reserves and paddles furiously toward his slipping brother (they were brothers in his mind now - brothers of struggle). He stops paddling just long enough to dip his shoulder down and offer a shove upward. The General nods at him once again, tries to keep pace with Leilan, but the two get lost to the waves.
Finally, the cliff-shore of Nerine looms ahead. Lie breathes a shallow and sickly sigh of relief when the sand meets his hooves. Despite his exhaustion, doubt, and fear . . . he does not linger, does not hesitate. The stallion breaks through the water, takes one moment to peer at the reflection of the moon over the ocean, and then canters up the cliffside.
His journey through Nerine is quick - most of the land being barren and flat. When he reaches Taiga, he does not stop like he once did, spurred on by his need to finish what he started. Taiga’s pass-through is even shorter, so on comes Hyaline. Litotes breathes yet another sigh of relief, this one even deeper. His home welcomes him, wraps her mountainous arms around him in a warm embrace. He is re-energized by the dawn as it rises beautifully above the terrain but quickly realizes that he must rush (the snow begins to drip from its branches).
Lie stands in the shadow of the Mountain, peering morosely at his destination. The brief energy he had now leaves him, draining his limbs; still, he will not give up. He drags his hooves up the incline, snow and dirt building against the tips. The snow melts faster as the sun continues to rise. Lie panics and breaks into a terrified and reckless gallop. He does not know where his hooves land: each step more precarious and potentially ankle-breaking than the last.
The fairies’ perch is the same. When he arrives, faltering and heaving, he barely manages to bow his head in respect. Lie drops his offering and lifts his regal head, feeling the tiniest glimmer of delight at the sight of two icicles still whole.
i don't want your pity, i just want somebody near me guess i'm a coward, i just want to feel all right
Wane is not there when she crests the ridge, her head is fuzzy and heavy, exhaustion tugging her lids down over her amethyst eyes. She is never aware that she falls asleep.
Awakening beneath the tree beside the black heart of the isle she wickers in a forlorn way for her misplaced companion. He has not made it to the pond or the ice encased tree. Heart pounding--trees are her least favorite flora--she walks out from beneath the tree and away from the danger of falling ice. At least for now. She watches others deliberate on how they will bear their spinels of ice back to the mountain, while others still dive right in and carry away their prizes in teeth that will hurt like cracked bone by the time they reach their destination.
Rounding the tree, listening to the others, to the chiming of ice, she examines the cedar’s heavy branches. She notices that many of the icicles contain spines of the cedar’s green needles, skeletons within the rippling spires. She had thought to just fall in with someone else and help them bear their load, but the more they returned with the better, right?
So, after careful and cautious inspection Agnieszka approaches the tree and reaches up among its branches for particular thin limb that she can gnaw through. She has carefully selected it for its abundance of “skeleton” icicles.
However it is not to be as simple as that. As she extends her muzzle up into the tree another of the small group attacks the cedar to loosen some of its icy spires. There is only a chime of warning before a handful of spikes hurtle down on the tobiano mare in glittering fury. Of course the first strikes her face, leaving behind a gash on her right cheek just below the old scar. Another slams into her left hip, glancing but heavy. A third impales itself behind her right shoulder, piercing her hide and sticking there, perhaps to melt. It is all she can do not to panic and flee.
Blood drips down her leg and pools around her hoof in the snow but she returns to her task, breathing hard, struggling to keep her mind quiet.
The cedar sap is strange on her tongue, bitter, but she tears the branch away from the trunk. It is only a few feet long, not even as thick at is widest part as a foal’s leg. Once safely out from beneath the cedar she lifts the branch over the back of her own neck, so that it curves along and over the arc. Some icicles fall but many remain, supported by the green scaffolding encased in the ice. The end of the frozen branch rests against her withers. She will have to tuck her chin a little awkwardly to keep it in place, but this way she can carry the branch and the icicles back to the mainland and hopefully at least one or two will arrive at the mountain.
The storm is gone, but she is slowed, limping, though her movement is not impeded pain is radiating down her right foreleg. She should have pulled out the icicle that pierced her behind the shoulder but now she must hold onto her branch and it isn’t possible.
Saltwater stings her wounds. She is wild eyed with fear when her treacherous mind summons up images of creatures drawn to the coppery tang of her blood in the dark water. Later she will be grateful for the strange rest on the island that gives her the energy to swim hard back towards the mainland, but while in the water she can only think to hurry because something may be preparing to drag her beneath and keep her from the shore and from Wane. She knows all too well what kind of monsters might like to drown and consume her.
In Nerine again she longs to stop as before, even just to let down her branch and roll herself dry in the dark sand but water is dripping from the frozen branch and she eyes it only for a moment before snorting heavily and urging herself into a smooth four-beat trot that she hopes she can maintain all the way.
From Nerine she skirts the Taiga, avoiding the forest as best she possibly can, but she is breathing hard when she crosses the river into Hyaline. Without Wane beside her the trees loom forbiddingly and she cannot get away from them quickly enough.
In the mountainous kingdom she is cautious, somehow it’s even more silent here than before. She does not see anyone this time, but is certain she is watched as she skirts the lake and trots south along the river. The bleeding has stopped, though her face, hip, and right leg are rusty and stained now. The ice on her branch begins to crack and shift. The icicle skeletons still seem to be holding, but for how long?
She loses some of them on the climb up the mountain. This last arduous leg far harder now than when she was fresh and climbing up beside a friend. Ice shatters on rock but she does not look down or back only grits her teeth--jaw sore, muscles locked--around the scaly branch and keeps climbing.
On the high mountain she finally stops, there is no way to climb higher. Here she gingerly lays her branch down, trying hard not to look on it and see if she has failed. A shiver, exhaustion and cold, passes through her and from behind her shoulder a small bloodied stiletto of ice drops down among the cedar branch’s fronds, the last of the icicle that made her journey so painful.
The snow fell thick and heavy, and Nocturne did his best to keep wading through it. He might not weigh much, but his feet were small and they broke the surface of the snowfall easily, so it wasn’t long before he was stomping through snow up to his knees, dragging his legs through it instead of over it and breaking a path. Sometimes it was so thick ahead that he had to dig his way through, pawing at the snow and doing his best to push it out of his path. He wasn’t so foolish as to jump or bound into a pile of snow when he didn’t know what lay beneath, so the going was slow. But the work kept his body a little warmer anyhow, so he didn’t seen a point in complaining.
Not warm enough to combat the wicked cold, though, and he caught himself wandering from the path more than once, digging his way through the thick drifts of snow that lined the way forward instead. Ugh, the wasted effort was almost too much for him, but each time he caught himself and turned back, shaking his head and trying to focus despite the cold sinking into his bones.
He didn’t know well enough to be worried when he started feeling warm again, just a dazed kind of relief that at least it didn’t quite hurt the same as the soul-chilling cold had. He didn’t notice the end of the storm, didn’t even really see that he’d made his way to the heart-shaped pond, just fell to the ground exhausted and fought uselessly against the darkness that swallowed him down.
He woke beneath the boughs of a tall tree, staring in confusion up at the icicles that dripped from its branches. And for the second time in his life, he wasn’t alone. Wide silver eyes stared around at the strangers he’d seen once before, gathered together once again. Or half of them, at least.
One of their number opened his mouth and made words, which startled Nocturne into huffing out a quick little breath, eyes widening even further as he stared at the man, buying himself time to process. Maybe it was the cold, or maybe just that he’d half-forgotten speech was available to anyone but the fairies or his dead father, but his brow furrowed with thought as his ears sorted through what he’d heard. Voices sounded so different outside of the muffling safety of being tucked inside a body, and it was still a lot to take in.
The advice was good, though, and very much appreciated, so he snorted a soft little sound and nodded, and set to puzzling over how on earth to get icicles across the sea and up a mountain. He watched the others quietly for a long moment, watched one simply pluck an icicle and take it away with nothing to protect it from the weather or the water, and he frowned, head tilting. Perhaps it would make the journey, but he did not think ice so small would survive the trip across the water. Another made himself a coat of snow and ice, and that looked so, so cold he couldn’t bear the thought of trying to replicate it.
It was clear he’d have to come up with something else.
But how could he keep ice solid through the trip across the water? He had to keep it cold, and even though the sea was cold, it wasn’t frozen. Gotta keep it colder than the sea, then, so he guessed he had to take extra cold with him. He peeked around again, and saw some other people were using snow to try and keep the ice frozen. Maybe that made sense! ‘Cause it was cold too?
Okay.
So he gathered up some of the icicles that somebody else had knocked down into the snow, and made a little pile of snow and ice, with the ice in the middle and pillowed by the snow. Except but how was he supposed to carry it? He shifted his feet nervously, glancing around again for more ideas. And listened as the snow crunched underfoot, compacting and hardening. Oooh, maybe that was important somehow? Like, maybe he could make a thick shell of hardened snow, in kind of a bowl to carry it? Maybe he could use that to push it across the snow and back to the water!
He stomped and tried, pushing the snow around and crunching it beneath his hooves, and all he really managed to do was flatten it out onto the ground. Well that didn’t help. He didn’t have anything to crunch it into so it just crunched into the ground.
Okay, new plan. He looked around, searching for anything else that might be useful. But everything was covered in snow! Brow furrowing, he looked for any lumpy spots that might be the snow falling on something, and when he found them, he dug through the newly fallen snow to see what he could find.
Some old bones. Okay. Well, maybe that would be handy? But while he thought about it, he kept looking. The next weirdly shaped lump of snow-covered something ended up being a log. The bark was peeling off in chunks, and part of it was hollowed out and had some fur in it and smelled like forest creatures, and maybe if he could’ve found a way to move it, he could’ve used that. But it was way too big for him to push around all by himself, and everybody else looked really busy or was already gone.
But!
He pulled some of the bark off the tree, tearing it away in huge chunks, and dragged a few of those over to his makeshift pile of ice-transporters. Okay. Well. He wasn’t quite sure what he was gonna do with that yet, but hopefully he’d figure it out! Maybe just another little poke around quick to see if there was anything else he could use?
All the commotion had knocked or pulled or torn some branches off the tree, leaving lots of sorta leafy-not-leaf bits fallen onto the ground. He gathered those up too, still not sure what on earth he was gonna do, but they looked nice and cozy maybe for a little icicle bed. Okay. Good. Sure. So. He frowned and looked at his pile, and then scurried back over to the pile of old bones and dragged some of those back too. What the heck, right?
Okay. Well. He had to start somewhere, so. He laid out the chunks of bark into a like almost flat surface that curved the way it used to wrap around the log. Kicked some snow up onto the nice, thick bark in a pile. Threw some of the cedar boughs and almost-leafy bits onto it, and kicked some more snow on top. Then he stomped it all down onto the sheet of bark, crunching the snow around the leaves and branches and hoping it would hold together.
It sort of worked, ish. But his feet were pretty sharp and tiny, and tended to break the chunks of compacted snow up some. So he kicked more snow onto it and tried rolling on it, compacting it with a bigger surface in the hopes that it’d hold a little better. That seemed to help some, And it also helped even everything out better. Okay. Good, maybe? He had a vaguely cylindrical shape, except just cut into a thirds or so, but it didn’t seem super sturdy. So he grabbed it by one of the branches and dragged it over to the water to test it out, see if it’d float and hold together.
Well, it didn’t immediately sink or fall apart, at least? He dragged it out almost quickly, scurrying back from the edge. Some of the snow got eaten by the water, dissolving and melting a little, but the hardest bits and the ones that clung to the boughs and the bark seemed to hold a little better. And! Water clung to the weird little contraption, and it didn’t take long for that water to freeze and make a little shell around the beginnings of his little icicle sled. He grinned and tried again, fighting with the accidental branch handle to try and dunk more of it under the water and pull it back out.
Again, it formed a little more of an ice crust around the outside as he pulled it away and the surface water quickly froze. Cool! Okay, hang on, here. He tried a few more times, and managed to make a slightly misshapen, draggable, solid bed for his pile of snow and icicles. Another few dunks and it was a little sturdier, and he dragged it back to his little pile. Okay. So. Kicked some snow into the weird little icicle bed, smushed it down into the depression with his nose. Kicked a little more and didn’t smush it, and then stuffed the snowy cavity with icicles. Ummm. And then he gingerly picked up some of the discarded stomped chunks of compacted snow in between his teeth and laid them on top of the pile, pressing them down lightly. Covered all that with some more of the bark like a little lid, and then pressed the top down a little more firmly to try and get it to stick.
He dunked allllll of that into the water to freeze it into a solid thing, and then instead of leaving right away like he probably should have, he spent a stupid long time repeating the process, until there was a nice thick shell of ice around the whole contraption. Other than the branch he could use to drag it and maneuver it, anyhow. Okay. Probably not his best idea, and it was gonna take a whole lotta work to get it back to the Mountain. But. It was the best idea he had, and there was nothing for it but to try.
He set back out for the shore, trudging through the trail they’d broken earlier. Handily, he wasn’t the first one to head back either, so the way was even more paved. It made it easier to drag his icy burden along the ground, but he still was good and exhausted by the time he got back to the shoreline and the ridiculously cold water he had to cross all over again.
Ugh, he should’ve made it smaller. Maybe he could’ve like, crammed a few icicles into that old skull stuffed it with snow, frozen it a little, and just carried that? But it was too late, he’d already committed to his weird old container plan. There was no going back. Except for the literally going back that they were all trying to do, of course. He gritted his teeth, gripping the branch handle harder, and pulled his burden along the shore ‘til he reached the spot where the crossing was shortest and he had the best chance.
With a sigh, Nocturne dragged the weird mass of snow and ice and branches and cedar leaves or needles or whatever out into the water, which was no less cold the second time for all that ice had already replaced his entire skeleton by this time. It must’ve done, anyhow. Nocturne could barely remember a time when he wasn’t so cold it felt like his legs were going to snap, but he just kept on going anyhow, dragging the so-important bundle deeper into the water until the ground fell away beneath his feet and he was once again fighting the ocean for every inch of progress.
It was a whole lot harder trying to drag something with him. Hard enough to breathe with the saltwater trying to slip slick fingers into his nostrils and drown him without trying to keep a grip on a branch with gums and baby teeth. A wave tore the branch from his mouth, leaving splinters in his gums and tears dripping from his eyes as his mouth began to bleed, but he scrambled forward and caught it again, pulling harder and hurting more with each kick of tired little feet against briny waves.
After an exhausting battle, tiny hooves found the ground again, and he dragged himself and his burden onto Nerine’s northern shore. He collapsed, panting, and struggled for breath a bit longer just out of reach of the waves. But there was so terribly much further to go, and he knew the rest was a race against the clock. The northernmost part of Nerine was frozen, but once he left the icy lands behind he had to get to the Mountain before his contraption melted, and just hope it stayed together and cold enough to keep the icicles intact.
He rested just long enough to catch his breath and let the burning fade from his weary muscles before scrambling to his feet again and setting out. The way was easiest where there was still snow on the ground and the ice could glide through the snow without wearing too hard on his already wounded gums. The long trip through Nerine, and most of Taiga too, were still snowy, and as much as he had begun to hate the cold, he couldn’t help but be grateful for the weather’s aid in his quest.
The farther south he got, though, the more it warmed up. His mouth felt like fire as he clung tight to the branch handle he’d unintentionally fashioned, his whole body burning with effort as he dragged the bundle through rockier Loess and the far less frozen central forest. At least the way was familiar, even if it took what felt like eternity to the young boy.
Finally though, the Mountain came into view. Just a little farther. Every step was agony, muscles on fire and burning with each movement. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth as the branch wore at his raw gums, but still he pressed on, climbing foothills and closing the distance until at last he was climbing the Mountain again. All the way back to the same spot he’d been summoned to so very, very long ago now, and the second he made it back, his legs gave out and he crumpled into an exhausted heap, the branch tearing from his mouth and dragging a pained gasp along with it. He barely had the energy to lift his head and check on the messy, melting bundle of bark and mud and snow and hope, peeking at it out of the corner of one silver eye before his head fell to the ground and his eyes lost focus.
When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in
Leliana
The path does not get easier, the further she goes.
It does not reach an incline, does not force her to push upward as she had when getting to the mountain, but it fights her for every inch. She tucks her chin into her chest, ears flattening into the muss of her mane and trudges onward, ignoring the coughs and the blood that crusts in the corner of her mouth, ignoring the exhaustion that creeps into her muscles, ignoring the sweat that makes her neck slick and cold. The snow piles around her, blinding her for a good portion of the way, but she continues, buoyed by the thoughts of her family and her loved ones and all of those she leaves behind—all of those she will return to.
She almost doesn’t notice when the path begins to get easier, when she is able to move straight through instead of needing to constantly find new paths through massive drifts. She almost doesn’t notice when the bitter cold begins to abate, when the weather rises and she shivers less, the land around her beginning to come into more focus, the faint outlines of others growing more clear. She stumbles forward, grateful for the sight of the blue-black water and the massive tree that oversees it, before she hits her knees.
She feels the other bodies around her, and she wants to ask more questions—wants to figure out where she is, what she is doing, what they are meant to do from here, but her tongue grows thick and her mind grows slow and before she knows it, sleep overcomes her and her world goes dark.
***
When she wakes, it is to the sight of the icicles above her, the glittering edges of them bright and crystal and glinting dangerously in the watery light that filters into the area. She groans low in her throat, the beginning of a headache forming in the back of her mind as she rolls and gets to her lacerated knees. She can feel the skin protest against the harshly cold ground as she pulls herself upward, her body protesting.
She coughs and shivers as she looks around, concern etching itself onto her features as she watches those who have journeyed here alongside her begin their attempts at gathering the icicles to carry home.
She latches onto the sight of two others, a male and a female, and walks over to them, her crimson mane clinging to the elegant curve of her neck. “H-hello,” her teeth chatter. “I-I don’t think I can do this alone.” Her hazel eyes are bruised as she looks around, at a loss of what to do. She turns her head back to the south, lips pressing together in thought as she spins through one idea after the other.
“W-w-we will need something to carry it,” she says, finally, before thrusting her chin in the opposite direction. “I-I-I think we may have better luck finding something f-f-further south.” Even though the very idea of leaving to walk into the cold again, to walk further before even starting, drains her of energy, she knows that she will have little, if any, luck trying to carry it on her own—and she has to try something. Illum
He stays so stupidly at her side, the curve of his jaw tensed and pressed against her ribs to catch her when she stumbles through such treacherous, uneven footing. She doesn’t say a word to him, doesn’t even glance back, but it is enough for him that she doesn’t step away, doesn’t move out of reach. It surprises him how quickly he grows attached to her, to that shade of soft brown fur peeking out at him from beneath the clusters of white and clear snow glazed to her skin - like spring reaching out from beneath the cover of winter, brown and earthy and beautiful.
They battle on like this through a storm that defies all sense of time and logic. Goes on endlessly, relentlessly, leading them off the path and into loose snow that gives way beneath their feet, sending them tumbling down a false ledge in a tangle of aching, frozen bodies. Through that dull numbness, he can feel the sharp teeth of pain across his hip and his shoulder, his knees and along the cheek he had pressed to her side - and when he looks over at her with a grunt, he can see that she didn’t survive it much better.
But he can see her face, too, and damn if it isn’t a nice one. His mouth twitches, the corners lifting infinitesimally for a reason he cannot name, an explanation he does not have - and then they’re climbing to their feet again, his lips against her cheek and her shoulder and her hip as they turn themselves around and climb back to the last place they had felt the worn path beneath their shuffling feet. He walks closer now, shoulder to shoulder and with their hips brushing, resisting the urge to reach out and touch that face again, taste the cold and the snow and the woman beneath.
He tells himself it is just a distraction from the cold, just a way to make the time pass more quickly. He is good at pretending.
Neither of them notice when the storm breaks and the world around them is suddenly gray and void, empty of everything but them, of distant ghosts - horses cloaked in the brittle crust of snow-glaze and frost. Faceless and soundless, meaningless in their nothingness. It isn’t until something unfurls like a spreading shadow beneath the horizon that they draw to stumbling halt along the ridge with the others.
Though, looking around, Illum realizes with a shiver that their numbers have easily been reduced by half.
He doesn’t remember climbing down the ridge, but he must have, because he’s suddenly blinking the sleep from those dark, weary eyes. There is a second, an instant, one single beat of his heart where it tries to tear out of his chest because where is his nameless companion, all soft brown and stubborn willfulness. But she’s right there beside him, safely tucked at his side, and he makes no effort to stop himself from reaching out to brush his lips along a spot on her jaw just beneath a raw, angry wound. “Come on.” He says, and the gentleness in those gritted words is like a long forgotten echo from a past self.
He has enough time to stand and muffle a grunt at the aches and pains that have also woken with him before a third is crossing the way to join them. She is softer than his companion, fragile and beautiful, a rich brown like smooth mahogany with points of fiery red that he suspects would suit someone else better. She seems to be many things - poised, focused, delicate in that strange way that ice is also strong. But he doesn’t see fire in her. She would be better suited to those soft earthy greens of leaves and forests and spring meadows.
She is speaking again, he realizes belatedly, his gaze sharpening on her face. Wanting to work together to gather the stems of ice to bring back to the mainland - and though he is reluctant, generally self-reliant, he is also not stupid enough to turn down this offer of help. Wallace
She awoke to silence. Deadened silence like the rest of this merciless, dead land.
It even smelled white. And cold. The air felt as though it was piercing through her nostrils, as if they may bleed at any moment to return some moisture to them. She tried not to breathe too quickly. She didn't want to bleed any more than she already was. It was there cold and thick on her cheek, her knees, and likely other places she hadn't registered yet.
Her head lifted with a soft sigh, and she considered if she'd fallen unconscious from hypothermia. It was possible. She remembered shivering before as the two of them forged a difficult path through the storm. Her movements had gotten a little clumsier, another sign of it, and she'd slipped down snowy slopes or climbed over fallen trees stacked on top of each other.
She hadn't even known where she was going besides forward. She wasn't sure she would have made it this far without him, but she would never admit it.
Now she was here, staring blankly at dark water as still as solid glass. Maybe it was frozen and only looked fluid. It took longer than it should have to remember where she was, and why. It took longer than it should have to register the warmth pressed all along her side and that the new touch to her jaw just then should be unwanted.
"Come on."
She blinked and looked at him, sullen brown eyes in a bed of more muddy brown. He had made her blush nearly constantly as they'd partnered up. It had been out of necessity, she knew. Survival, only. The brushes of his skin or his lips over her body had not been from attraction, but a share of warmth in this unforgiving cold. His assistance had surely been to better his chances that he'd return home to a gorgeous family she knew he must have. They were equals though, and she stole his heat too. It was only fair.
He raised himself to his feet and she wasn't really ready to follow. She wanted to lie here and sleep, drift into the snow and let it take her. It would probably feel warm after a while, like an insulated blanket. The cold could numb her after a while and she could just rest. She could feel peace.
His gaze was gone as someone new approached; a woman of rich chocolate dipped in decadent dark raspberry. Wallace's eyes dimmed more and hardened subtly, checking that her walls were in place because she would be alone now. He had found someone else, someone actually beautiful and helpful to be his companion. Her heart sank further as she recognized her, one of the healers of the Island. She nearly hadn't remembered without those attractive wings the woman usually had draped over her elegant sides.
So someone else from the Island had come for a cure, someone more suitable for a dangerous quest. Someone far more capable. Wallace felt immediately useless, more foolish. Why had she ever thought she could do anything worthwhile? What had gotten into her? She should turn back now and just go home, let this woman take care of it.
A small dose of energy seeped into her from her own bitterness.
She tucked her feet beneath her, standing by sheer stubbornness not to be on the ground at their feet as they stood over her. Her teeth clenched and she turned, a quiet sharpness in her eyes as she watched them and listened. The fool man was distracted by the woman's beauty and had to refocus on her face. Wallace nearly rolled her eyes. So typical.
Well, she certainly wasn't too dumbfounded to speak.
"I'm Wallace." Names would help. "To the South?" She frowned, glancing that direction and spotting the trees far off in the distance. That route would mean they were traveling farther, wearing themselves out even more. Why on earth would that be appealing? Was there not a better way to do this without adding more to their agenda?
She turned back to study their situation and the tree of icicles before them. If she were doing it alone...
Whatever. What did she know, anyway? This woman was far more prepared for this. So, fine.
She nodded shortly and began walking south. If they could add it to their journey and still make it out alive then so could she. And she didn't need any magic to do it. She never had. Leliana
She feels a sharp feeling of intrusion as she nears them, a bitter ache in the way that they curl around one another so protectively. She curses herself for forcing herself into their duo, but it’s too late now to back out and so she only regards them with apology in her eyes and in the slight frown that curves her lip. She turns her head toward the mare, studying the wounds that inflict her and not for the first time, she feels a horrible loss, an emptiness where her healing should live. “I can help,” she says softly, hoping to make a bridge between herself and this other mare with guarded eyes. “When we go back. I can help heal you.”
But it is a promise of the future and not now—the only thing she can offer.
At their reluctant, hesitant acceptance of her plan, she nods, tucking away the doubt that blossoms in her chest. Maybe it was a horrible plan. Maybe it was foolish of her to suggest it, but she has no other options now—nothing with which to replace it—and so she sets her shoulders and turns with them.
The trip is not easy. None of this has been easy and she accepts this as a truth of what it is meant to be as they fight the cold and the snow and the wind that picks up, blinding them further as they go. Her companions are quiet as they travel and she works to give them their space, trying to not intrude further than she already has. It is only when the snow beneath them begins to fade if only slightly, the ground turning rocky but the air remaining bitter cold that she lifts her gaze and begins to search, hunting through the trees that begin to populate further, some blanketed in snow and others completely bare.
The trees here have more variety than the singular cedar up north and were she to know their name, she’d be able to say that they now stand within the heart of a grove of poplar trees. Their branches are harsh and stark against the glittering winter sky and, for a moment, she thinks of how beautiful they look. What she doesn’t know, couldn’t know, is that they have managed to stumble upon trees prone to decay, prone to death that hollows them out, while almost remaining remarkably light. Light enough to float.
“We need something to hold it,” she repeats, her mind whirling as she tries to find something. Something that will work as a container to carry the icicles—but there’s nothing. She almost apologizes. Almost. Until Wallace points out a fallen tree on the outskirts of the grove. Leliana takes a deep, steadying breath, ignoring the steel in the other mare’s eyes and the group of them makes their way toward the log. It is clearly from a younger tree, large enough to hold icicles and yet small enough that it will not overburden them completely. “Thank you,” Leliana whispers, although it’s not clear where it is directed.
Illum peels off from the group, hunting for branches to help drag the log, while Wallace and Leliana begin to work together to seal one edge of the log. They nudge dirt into it, along with rocks and branches, whatever they can. They use the hardened snow, the same snow making her feet ache and her legs shake, to pack it together, the snow and the mud and the dirt and the rocks forming together and hardening.
The rest they push into the log but don’t pack hard, letting it rattle around, hoping enough will survive the journey home that they can seal it once it has been filled with the icicles themselves. When Illum returns with the branches, they used their dirt-smeared faces, already worn with exhaustion, to push the log onto it and then grab the ends with their teeth and begin to drag. In a way, Leliana is grateful for the work and the silence and the way she can throw herself into it, focusing on the muscle tremors racing down her sore back and the way her jaw locks up around the frozen branch in her mouth as they pull and pull and pull—
All of this to just get started on the true work they need to do. Illum
They turn to go and he frowns, falls into step beside his companion - beside Wallace, she had called herself. He’d had no intention of sharing his own name, no intention of taking off this mask of unknowing he had chosen to live behind, but the second time he felt his hip brush hers, he said, “My name is Illum.” As though she had asked, as though either of them had.
But they are mostly quiet, mostly resigned to their work and this strange task they had accepted by coming here. And, certainly, too exhausted to speak as they pick their way along invisible paths in a world washed with white and ice, unremarkable in every way but for the trail they leave behind in the snow to mark their passing. Eventually, the white gives way to brown, and the brown gives way to the dark green of pine and smaller cedars. They stop when they come to a cluster of trees with long, bare branches reaching up to a sky that is only cold and empty. It’s Wallace who has found something, a felled tree they can carve empty with the stone of their hooves. Fill with snow and rock and root like some strange thing meant to trap and carry winter. It seems impossible to him, but he follows their directions without question.
By the time they have finished and are heading back along the path they carved, dragging this thing behind them in all its strange wrongness, he can feel (and not feel) each and every muscle in his numb, sluggish body aching in protest. He wants to sleep, wants to dig out a bed in this snow and hunker down inside where the wind can’t reach him and perhaps the cold won’t find him. But they are so far from done, so far from finished, so he hunches his shoulders and leans into the ache, leans into this weight he drags by the branch wedged and splitting between his teeth.
“It looks like the lower branches have been picked clean while we were gone.” He notices once they’ve returned to the massive cedar, to the impossible stillness of her heart-shaped companion. That pond of dark water, too dark to know what could possibly lay within. He’s dropped his dragging-branch, all marked and flayed by his teeth, and the other two have done the same. Each one of them with heads hanging a little lower than they had been before, eyes just a little duller. He moves toward the tree, and his hoof strikes something hard and ringing at the middle of a snowdrift. With jaw clenching, teeth gritted together, he digs it out, unsurprised when the glint of something crystalline and beautiful winks back up at him. His gaze whips up, immediately picking out several more places where the storm had built piles of snow in the wild winds, creating soft places for the heaviest icicles to land when the branches shook them free. “The drifts.” He says, reaching down to harvest his find, taking it between his cracked, aching lips to bring back to their sled.
He doesn’t need to say anything more for the two women to understand this discovery, and soon each of them are digging through the snow banks, unearthing those frozen spears of ice. Some are still whole, with bits of branch and dark green fauna trapped inside their widest ends. But others are in pieces, shattered by impact, shattered by the wind before they ever fell, shattered by feet that had not even noticed they were there at all. He isn’t sure, but he collects those, too. They each do. They work until they have a pile of fragment, of winter made liquid, made solid, made so beautiful despite the way it has burned their lips and broken their skin, prying off the top layer each time the heat of their mouths melted and froze to the icicles.
It seems poetic irony that each of them have blood smeared across their lips now, not so unlike the plague-bearers they work to help.
They pause for a beat, wanting to rest but feeling too uneasy about the journey yet to come, the ocean looming between them and the mainland, the distance between here and the mountain. How was it that each task they accomplished felt like such progress until he compared it to what still lay ahead. Wordlessly one of them shifts, shuffles in the snow, and the other two follow suit like a painting suddenly come alive, life breathed back into each of them. Leliana empties some of her sled, makes room for the ice they’ve gathered while he and Wallace pick what they can bring, what will fit once they pack this thing back up and seal it tight. Too much will make it too heavy to carry, too awkward to balance. Too little might mean there is nothing left when they get back if the ocean manages to seep in through the cracks in the wood.
In the end, they leave some behind - and maybe there will be others that come, others to find their salvage pile and bring it back with them. So they take only what they feel sure they can carry, layering ice within the snow again and again with mouths that tremble with exhaustion, with the effort of being too precise, too careful. They do it until there is only enough room to fill the rest with what Leliana had emptied. Picking up dirt in cracked mouths, rocks between teeth chipped and worn at edges that had been so smooth.
They work until the ice is sealed so quietly in its strange tomb, and then they rest - or they would have had Wallace not reminded them how much worse it would be starting out again if they gave these aches and pains a chance to settle deep in their bones.
So they bury everything that makes them mortal somewhere deep inside, pull from whatever is it that brought them here. Their families, each of them. They take their branches in their teeth again, bite down against the rough bark laying across their tongues, the sharp pain migrating through teeth and jaws not meant for this kind of labor. It doesn’t matter though, this pain, not to any of them. They are each so very different, and yet somehow completely same. Almost as though they’d gravitated towards one another for a reason, been thrown together for this purpose.
He prefers that it had been chance.
It is the smell of the ocean that greets him first, the cold, metallic tang of ice in the wind rolling off the waves. For the life of him, he does not want to go back in and feel that cold death soaking against his bones, doesn’t want that dark nothing dragging at his heels. He’s already forgotten he deserves it, that this is what he’s earned from life. He’s grown so good at pretending.
He spits the branch out of his mouth when they stop along the shore, the waves breaking white against their hooves. Glances over at Leliana, brow furrowed and jaw tight, resenting every goddamn ounce of concern he feels for both of them. They should be strangers to him, meaningless, but somehow they aren’t anymore. His lips press to Wallace’s shoulder, linger a beat too long as he savors the heat he feels beneath her sooty fur. “See you both on the other side.” Wallace
A makeshift container of their prize dragging behind them made her want to feel like they were nearly done, they were almost there. It was a lie, though. They'd only done what was perhaps the easiest part, in her mind.
They'd added a small trek to their already long journey to fetch the materials that would house the icicles, then packed it and placed them all in, insulating them with more firm snow and ice crystals, some added dirt, bark, and needles. She'd taken a moment every few minutes to examine it closely, inspecting any areas that needed altering or building on. Only when she was completely satisfied did she return to fetching another spear of ice, oftentimes gravitating to the smallest ones.
They held her reflection so tiny that she didn't have to see it.
Besides that, she just felt attracted to them for some strange reason, as though they were just as important as the larger and more beautiful ones. They were rough little ugly nubs beside the elegant and glittering. Hardy and withstanding.
She wasn't drawing parallels.
She would never be important.
They were just cute.
Across the ocean was her most hated part. They stood at the shoreline staring out, dreading it. She hated the water. Beyond that was an entire world of walking they still had to do. It made her wonder why the other two had even taken this on. What was the goal driving them through this hell? Probably something far more selfless than wanting to return her family back to their home. She didn't care about helping complete strangers, not at least until she returned to Ischia where they belonged - without getting sick and dying.
She would have asked them, but she didn't want to see the judgment in their faces when they learned how completely selfish her motivation was. It didn't matter. It kept her going, working just as hard as they did.
So they crossed.
Illum waded their vessel out, guiding it high over the women's shoulders after they'd sunk to their necks in the water. At least this path through the sea was far shorter than the one she'd taken to get to the frozen island. They had to go slower, more carefully, and every so often Illum would slip closer between them to nudge it gently back higher on them to avoid as much water damage as they could.
He allowed them to catch their breath when they reached Nerine's shore, scouting ahead of them and retrieving small branches with chipped of twigs jutting out in a little hook. He wedged it beneath their icicle-carrier, tilted them slightly so they snagged firmly into the outside, then they took turns gritting them between their teeth and dragging. Just as when they'd taken their swim, they kept two of them in front and one in the back to push and guide.
Nerine seemed far too vast. She hated it. Would it never end?
It did though as they pressed further and further south. When darkness and trees loomed ahead, Wallace slowed. She was used to the wide open beach, small clumps of palms or jungle trees. Nothing like a real forest. It was worrying, shining with a hint of fear in her eyes that turned to a blush when Illum pressed in to touch her again. He should not do that, read her that way as if he knew her.
Then again, the three of them had already gone through so much together. It was a new and strange sort of bond, but the connection was there nonetheless. Even between her and Leliana, and Illum and Leliana. All of them. Each time one began to get sluggish and disheartened, the other two would step in and cheer them on, comfort them. Leliana was much faster at it, better at reading it. Wallace was really great at stubbornly ignoring it because how could she possibly motivate someone else?
She was glad that spread through the Taiga had been brief, though. They made it to the river between the dark, misty forest and the mounds of Hyaline, following along it in a silence that saved their energy for all the pulling. It was nighttime when they trudged quietly around the valley lake and continued on following the small river as the Mountain gradually got larger and larger.
There was a growing hope in their eyes when they finally reached the end, or so very near the end. They even seemed to feel more energized, which they would need, as they balanced this chest of ice and made the dangerous journey to the last place they'd seen the ones that sent them on this terrible quest.
About halfway up, Leliana stumbled. Wallace threw her shoulder against her to steady her, her worried gaze flying to examine her and leaving Illum to suddenly bear the weight of their storage box with a grunt. He was fine. He could handle it.
Damn, she just wanted to be home.
This wasn't even going to be worth all this trouble, but she was going to sleep for DAYS if she survived it.
When they finally reached the summit, they shifted their efforts into clear view, each one panting from exertion and trembling with exhaustion. Wounds were scattered all over them, visible and bleeding. Every muscle screamed for rest and their eyes were red and burning. She was near to tears with how badly she just wanted to go home and knowing she likely wouldn't leave this Mountain for weeks as she recovered.
Her weary brown gaze slid to what looked like a shallow nook carved out of the side of the rock wall. There. That was where she'd fall asleep and maybe never wake.
That’s what this storm’s all about
officer approval for a combined post with @[Illum] and @[Wallace]
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