OPEN ↠ HEART LIKE ICE

[faderifting]

WHO: New Rifters & Inquisition Members
WHAT: A journey south to make new friends and kick some ass
WHEN: Drakonis 15-25
WHERE: Sunless Lands
NOTES: Violence and language assumed. Warn for anyting else. OOC post.

The Sunless Lands are not, in fact, sunless. This time of year there can be as many as eight hours of daylight, some of it blinding where it reflects off of snow and ice that stretches from the southern edge of the Kocari Wilds as far as anyone can see, broken only occasionally by rocky masses of land jutting out of the snow cover or barren tundra peeking out in patches where constant, unforgiving wind has pushed it aside. You'll be traversing this span primarily on foot—there are sleighs, too, pulled by hardy dogs, but they're carrying essential supplies rather than spare people. The only way to get a ride is to successfully feign passing out.

Beyond the dogs, the area isn't devoid of native wildlife: white fennecs hunt rodents underground, and a herd of excessively fluffy wild druffalo is seeking out whatever vegetation it can find. But hunting down a meal or two early and preserving rations for further south would not be a bad idea, because the further south the team travels, the more inhospitable the terrain grows, and the less life can be seen. And sometimes not much of anything can be seen, when clouds roll by and burst with snow thick enough to halt progress entirely for hours.

The nights are cloudy as often as clear, but when they are clear the sky is split by green and purple ribbons of light.

I. THE RESCUE

Two days' journey south, the monotonously icy horizon is broken by something new: smoke rising in interrupted puffs, an intentional signal. Someone is out there. Chances are, it's the rifters, with or without their first group of intended rescuers. But there's no way to be sure. And approaching with caution is wise either way. Rifters have strange powers (and strange personalities), and they've been out here for days now, dealing with demons and Maker knows what else on their own. For all anyone knows, they could be the reason for the rescue team's disappearance. Orders are to approach carefully.

Then, once contact has been made and initial concerns have been allayed, make sure those poor people have something to eat, and try to figure out where their original rescuers disappeared to.

II. THE STORM

After the rifters are recovered, there's still the matter of the red lyrium mine to address. Another two days' journey south will put the group within good range of the mine: not so close as to be seen, but close enough to be able to get there in a couple of hours as needed.

Halfway there, however, in the middle of the day, progress comes to an abrupt half when the darkest clouds yet gather suddenly on the horizon and barrel down on the group, bringing with them a glut of snow that reduces visibility to only a few feet and wind that roars so loudly you have to shout to be heard. Magic can help some with heat, but the storm shows little sign of quickly abating and with hours of deadly cold conditions to deal with, digging in and getting cozy for a few hours might be the most feasible solution for everyone.

III. THE VILLAGE

Shortly before the point everyone is aiming for—one marked by an enormous stone carving of an owl, several times taller than a man, that's inexplicably been left by the ancients in the center of the tundra—something else appears not far to the west. On closer inspection, it turns out to be a circle of low-sitting animal-skin tents pressed down into the snow to protect them from wind, rocky fire pits, and abandoned sleighs. Overall, it's a cross between camp and village indicative of a nomadic group that's staying a while but not forever.

It's empty now, with a coating of snow on most of the structures that indicates it's been at least a few days since anyone was here. Closer inspection reveals personal belongings inside the tents, including toys and clothing belonging to children—and, in many tents, chunks of red lyrium in the center or beneath the skins that form the beds, each piece emanating heat. They probably thought it was safer than fire.

Wherever they went, they don't come back while the Inquisition is there. But the activity does get noticed. A few hours after arrival, enormous white bears apparently moving in a pack come within a hundred yards of the camp and pace at a distance, watching the interlopers with wary interest. Some of them are wearing collars or harnesses decorated in the same style as the tents. For enough food, they may come closer, and they'll turn out to be abnormally tame.

IV. THE BATTLE

The red lyrium mine that Corypheus' followers built when their operations were crippled in Emprise du Lion is nestled in an icy canyon, with massive scaffolding built up the sides of the cliff and too many cages to count, though few of them hold living prisoners anymore. It's a massive operation, but one that's been crippled by its distance from civilization. It's sparsely guarded compared to its size, and other than the cliffs, it has minimal natural protection. The enemy has magic-silencing Templars, enormous behemoths, and a chained white-furred giant, but they are clearly not prepared to be attacked.

Ahead of the onslaught, traps are set and any surviving prisoners are evacuated under cover of darkness. Everyone else sent to fight either creeps down shortly before dawn, rappelling quietly to avoid notice in the dark, or waits at the top for the first surprise strike to provide enough distraction for them to descend more openly. If anyone has been particularly nice to the bears (see above) then it is entirely possible they'll allow themselves to be ridden into battle.

Once their presence is known, their orders are pretty simple. Destroy it all. Leave no one behind and nothing worth returning for.

Fire is a good strategy. Red lyrium doesn't do well in heat.

Comments

[limier]

At length, they depart.

She lingers; Ashara's in the thick of it, and a friendlier face than steel and chain. If there were ill among them, they'd know by now. It would have spread,

But what of the searchers?

She peels off her helmet, watches the last them of them go. If the elf seems aggressive — another tall one, there's the bloody luck — it's the qunari that give her greater pause. It doesn't take an active imagination to picture the twisted hulk of pride in place.

A sharp breath out. They yet speak fractiously, couldn't hold the line upon a murderous lie. What, then?

She stoops to a knee, better to examine the fresh grind of tracks through camp. A gloved finger grows damp as she estimates size. Small, or small enough. An unfamiliar tread, a foreign make. Might have belonged to any of the women. (Four, she thinks. Five? There'd been... five.)

There are more than five sets here.

"Fuck," She mutters, to herself, to the Inquisition's vanished faces. "Where did you go?"

[strangel]

A knight, like from stories. Wrapped up in metal, bearing a blade. Knights in stories could be good or bad, the light and the dark. This one is tall, sturdy, but it drops to one knee to look for tracks, and soon the advantage will be gone. Plate and armour, it is good to protect, but there are always holes, always weaknesses. Tomas had taught her how to find them, how to exploit. No matter how big the enemy, it was better to be small and fast.

She slips from under her snow camouflage near silently, a figure of white and red as her blonde hair billows in the wind. It's quick; she is on the knight's back, right arm hooking under her chin and pressing on her throat, while her left hand drives the knight's head forward, cutting off her air.

[limier]

There's no time for fear.

There's no time — but it washes across her anyway, as sudden and involuntary as ever (shadows in the woods and a shine in her neck) —

Instinct throws her weight forward, hauling shoulders and attacker up, to roll them both over into the snow. Her vision blacks, breath absents. She slams a vicious elbow at the flesh beneath her, other hand scrabbling for purchase against the crush of her throat.

It leaves her knife, her sword unwatched.

[strangel]

The weight of the armour and the elbow to her side makes Helena gasp for air, and she almost inhales snow. It does not matter. Though her arm loosens across the knight's throat, she was taught to be quick, to be able to think quick and change plans as much as to be patient. There were stages to her learning: she was killing by the age of nine.

To fight is a relief after days of walking and waiting and walking and waiting.

Her fishblade is in her hand, and she drives it into the back of the knight's left thigh, twisting the blade sharply once it is sunk in, and drawing it back only to sink it in again. Even giants have weak points.

[limier]

There's air now. That's convenient: It's pretty hard to scream without it.

Not that one exactly comes out. The crack of noise is ugly, wet, furious; the blaze of light abruptly searing. She rips Helena's arm away, staggers up,

Falters onto one leg. Shit.

There's a blade in her own hand now — not the sword, not yet enough clearance to draw, and she lunges forward on the momentum of a fall (feet won't hold her) to try and stomp a wrist, smash a face, anything that might take blood for blood, might give this thing pause.

[strangel]

For a moment, Helena is dazed. It feels as though her head is spinning, light dancing as though she received a hard blow to the head. She was trained, though, to keep moving, to never stop. Pain is an obstacle, not an excuse. Suffering is holy and cleansing.

She is aware of the giant woman coming back. Bigger and heavily are making for falling faster and harder. Helena forces herself to move. Her green jacket is fallen open, allow a glimpse of the bloody, tattered wedding dress, as she twists, one arm raised to protect the side of her head, and drives her elbow into the knight's throat as momentum brings her downwards.

[limier]

The absurd thought, She must be cold,

Free hand finds hair, tangles deep. A lifeline as gravity dissipates about a smashed trachea. She slams the head in her hand at the ground, once, twice — can't tell whether it's made contact. Can't orient,

As a young woman, there'd been candles. So many you lose count: Wax after wick, tallow and the tapered labour of bees. As a young woman, there'd been flame, and her hand above it. Focus.

She grips the knife tight, tries to shove herself up onto Helena. It's not very effective, but if she doesn't move quickly, boy is she ready to stab.

[strangel]

A feral, wild sound escapes Helena. She senses more than sees the knife coming to stab her, her hand closing around the armoured wrist and fighting with all she has to keep the blade from finding flesh, pushing it away. It is harder, with the giant on top of her.

She tenses her abdomen, and drives her head upwards to crack the other woman's skull with her own. Her other impulse is a knee to the gut, but there is a limit to what that can achieve against armour, and it makes her knee ache. It doesn't matter.

As the knight's head snaps back, Helena twists the hand to wrench the knife away, flinging it into the snow.

[limier]

Focus —

— Can't. There are limits to all training, and thirty years haven't rendered her immune. Probably, this is why you don't take off your big stupid helmet.

She barely registers the crack of joints (more pressing pains to attend to), the sudden emptiness of half-curled fingers. A moment: It doesn't last forever. It lasts long enough.

cw (attempt at?) traumatic eye injury

[strangel]

It lasts long enough.

Helena twists her hands, so her thumbs press over the woman's eyes, hard. The woman hurt her, but Helena knows about lasting hurts, and days spent locked in the dark. She will give this woman permanent darkness; she will take away the light.

Her thumbs drive harder, hands gripping relentlessly as she twists them to press the knight back into the snow, and use her body weight to her advantage, even if she is smaller.

[limier]

Somewhere, Werner must be smiling. Averie. Their eyes an imagined emptiness, and no less frightful for it. There's a song, at the bottom of the well,

Fire twists in her head, blinding as the sun that glares off every inch of this frozen fucking desert. Fire twists in her veins, in the blood spreading beneath her,

In the trailing arc of white that surrounds her fist, thrown hard and precise (lucky) into Helena's temple.

At last.

lmao that fucking icon >:[ af

[strangel]

The hit lands, and it's quite possible Helena blacked out for half a second, as her nails claw across the knight's eyes. She falls - collapses? - sideways, head ringing and blood running down the side of her face from the split across her brow and temple, an injury from the demons re-opening.

She tries to speak, to call for her sestra, but her mouth hangs wordlessly open as she lies back in the snow.

[coppelganger]

Sarah, as usual, doesn't notice Helena causing trouble until the trouble is already irreversible. Also as usual, it seems like this fight was one Helena started. Sarah is very briefly irritated with her sister—it's bad enough they're stuck here like this without sneaking off to make enemies—but more concerned with protecting her from the stranger she's fighting.

She comes running from the crowd of rescuers and rifters to the bloody scene some distance away, and ends up falling to her knees next to Helena, trying to gasp for breath and speak at the same time.

"Helena—Jesus, meathead, look at you—" And she's raising a hand defensively in case the other woman tries to attack while they're down. She seems as messed up as Helena is, but that doesn't mean anything. "What the hell," she says, to both of them.

[limier]

Wren spits into the snow, makes to shove herself up. The smart play would be to end this. But the smart play requires energy, and the newcomer is lifting her hand and it's —

A moment before the significance of that registers, the flare of green that cuts through streaking vision to remind: Not the smart play. Not at all.

"Careful," Coughed. Something in the blur of Sarah's face shapes almost familiar (she hasn't gotten more than half a glimpse of Helena's own). "Armed."

Was, might still be, count on your hands the number of people who move like that and only carry one knife. Have to be plenty confident to do that, have to be plenty stupid. Have to be the kind of person who hides in the ice and leaps out at anyone nearby like some kind of insane weasel.

She pushes herself onto her side, presses a hand to her leg. Speaking of stupid. Getting too old for this; getting too old not to wear a damn skirt.

[strangel]

Helena smiles at the sight of Sarah, reaching up to touch her shoulder. Good. Sarah is here.

The fish blade isn't far off from where Sarah's kneeling, dropped in the wrestle and struggle with the giant woman knight, and Helena blinks through her daze as she goes to reach for it. It's special. Terrible and used to hurt sisters, but the same can be said for her. She and the knife, they are pieces of the same puzzle.

"Soldiers were taking you all," she finally manages. "Didn't trust."

Never trusts. Not after Tomas, not after Johanssens. Family before others, always.

[coppelganger]

"She's my sister." This is said sharply to the other woman, before Sarah turns back to Helena. She reaches for the fish knife before Helena can grab it, because God knows who she'll try and stab next.

"Helena," she says, sounding for a moment more like Helena's mother than her twin. "You can't do this. I get this shit is weird and scary, but we can't go around stabbing anyone who comes near us." She holds the fish knife out so Helena can reach for it, but doesn't release it just yet. "Do you understand?" Only if/when Helena responds in the affirmative does Sarah give up the knife.

[limier]

"Sister." She echoes. It’d be incredulous, if it weren’t just a croak. "Maker."

Disbelief doesn’t linger; the flash of metal and Sarah’s giving the knife back, and it’s with some improbable reserve of speed that she tries to stumble up, throws an arm out and snarls:

"Drop it."

As though she’s about to do anything about it.

[strangel]

Helena nods her understanding. She doesn't like it, but Sarah is clever. And her acceptance is so new, so precious, that she agrees even if she doesn't particularly want to.

"No stabbing," she murmurs, not quite meekly - there's a faint undercurrent to it that doesn't make it to being mutinous, but certainly has the element of chastised resentful child.

And then the knight is issuing orders to Sarah, and Helena hisses at the woman, teeth bared, lip curled back.

She shakes her head at Sarah, as she holds out the knife. "Keep it, sestra." (So she can stab the knight, if necessary. Helena is better at fighting, she doesn't need weapons.)

[coppelganger]

"Hey!" Sarah half turns to actually look at the woman approaching (more quickly than Sarah would've thought she could). She's still gripping the knife, but now she does her best to look nonthreatening, moving so the blade is pointed toward herself. "No one is gonna stab anyone, alright? No one is gonna touch anyone." Which, too late, but she just wants to defuse the situation.

Sarah tries to appraise the other woman and keep Helena from getting up at the same time, a somewhat difficult task. Jesus, she is not cut out for this shit. "Look, are you okay? I'm sorry, she's—this isn't her fault." Like, yes, this is actually totally Helena's fault. But Sarah is only thinking of the people who've hurt her, who've made her like this. "She won't try to hurt you again." Right, Helena?

[limier]

Wren limps a step forward, half-hunched, and it doesn't take a detective to see how little weight she's putting on the wound — or how deep the scowl on her face.

She seems about to say a lot of things, jaw working. At last, only:

"Watch her." It's a long hike to camp, and she's not about to haul anyone there on a bum leg. Would need to bash the girl's head a few more times to manage it, and that's not going to go over with the other. She jerks her hand in the direction of the departing party. "We need to move."

That palm stays out, expectant; a rough gesture towards the knife. Give it here, or hide it well.

(Better not to bring up the matter of restraints until she's got them in reach. The last thing they need of this place is another roaming unknown.)

[strangel]

The long hesitation before she speaks could, in all fairness, be a cause for suspicion and alarm, but she unenthusiastically agree to Sarah's request. "Right."

And then comes a lack of retaliation, of rage, and Helena looks between the knight and Sarah, confused and cautious, mouth caught in a suspicious (but thankfully silent) snarl. With a sniff, she pushes herself up, to her knees, and surges to her feet, ignoring her own dizziness from the solid hit to the side of the head. Despite her arguably poor condition, she holds a hand out to Sarah.

"Come, sestra. We must not be left behinds."

[coppelganger]

Sarah slips the knife into the pocket of her leather jacket. It's not the best place for it, probably, but the leather pants she's wearing are tight enough to make the thought of hiding a knife in them unappealing. She looks to the knight—there, happy?—and then takes Helena's offered hand.

"Let's go." This is more to Wren than Helena. Helena doesn't get to choose whether they go or not. Helena has lost Privileges.

tttttimeskip

[limier]

A limp in snow; she falls behind. Not far, but enough — there are words said into the crystal, there are people waiting when they arrive. They get the same welcome the others received: Warmth (what there is of it), food (what there is of that), blankets and wide eyes and questions of their health.

At some point in the thick of it, Wren vanishes. It’s not until they’ve been shuffled into some tent that she returns, bandaged and propped on a makeshift crutch and looking no happier for it. The shadow of something large and canine lurks in the flap behind her. Hoarsely,

"We need to speak." There’s a bundle, slowly unwrapped, with hands kept in view. A bowl, cloth, some sort of salve. She passes it to Sarah, doesn’t yet remove the rest. "And you need that dressed."

The head wound.

"Coupe," A short gesture towards herself, an introduction. "I command our soldiers here."

[strangel]

Some part of Helena is viciously pleased when she sees the woman returning with the crutch.

"Coop?" Helena's smile is lopsided. "A house for chickens, yes?" Spoken quietly (not that quietly) to Sarah, before she looks warily at the salve, leaning over to sniff at it.

[coppelganger]

Sarah ignores Helena's comment, just takes the salve and starts to glob it onto Helena's head wound, not much caring if it stings.

"Sarah," she says, "and this is Helena." She glances over Wren's shoulder, to the spot where she can vaguely see something large standing just outside the tent. Though she's outwardly staying calm, her heartbeat picks up at the thought of not being able to leave that way. "So speak, then."