[closed] when im on the road i see stuff going by

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria, & Luana, with guest appearance by Raleigh Samson
WHAT: Wysteria and Luana go on an adventure to join the Battle of Ghislain
WHEN: Pre-Ghislain (gestures vaguely at travel times)
WHERE: All over the Maker's blighted earth.
NOTES: Phenomenally stupid decision making.

Comments

CAMPING → Closed to Luana;

[heirring]

She'd planned to hire a fast horse once she reached Val Chevin, but if the unexpected addition of Luana's company hadn't already ruined that plan, then the state of the city's stables upon arrival had certainly eradicated the prospect entirely. Every fit creature had easily tripled in price and the only animal inside her laughably small budget had been a particularly surly mule.

Which has bitten her twice already and now stands tied to a tree alongside the road to Ghislain, watching with a sour expression as she and Luana struggle to erect a shelter against what looks like rain.

It's cold, it's miserable, the fire they've managed to build is pathetic, and they are at least a day if not farther from where the Inquisition is meant to be. Her skirt hem is all muddy and she is, quite officially, starving to to death. But they are doing this thing, gods be damned. She is quite determined. With a last tug of rope, Wysteria secures her side of a leafy evergreen bough they'd rigged up between two trees. A few more of these and they'll have quite nice lean to to spend the night in and--

Her knot unravels, the bough slips, and the whole thing collapses slowly to the ground like a deflating wine skin.

"This is hopeless," Wysteria all but wails.

[pyrazine]

Luana had decided to not let Wysteria go alone, which was unlike her, since Luana usually goes to the side of sitting it out when it comes to war. War, it turned out, was nothing like what she was used to in Rio, where gangs went to war too often to count. But that was different.

And Wysteria, she was more - well. Not innocent. Maybe delicate? That was a sad way to think about it. And Luana spent some time as a wolf and some time as a girl; she freaked out the mule, who was already surly, into practically being intractable. Now they were stuck, and there was a storm, and Wysteria was still trying to get the bough up.

And Luana was holding the other side of the bough as it deflated away. Ay, puta merda. Luana looks over Wysteria makes a noise, and her mouth flattens. "Planning on dying here today? Get your hair up, girl."

[heirring]

"My hair is up," she snaps back, razor sharp despite all the abject misery. Which, yes, it technically is. Mostly anyway. A vast majority of her little metal hairpins have gone missing since leaving Kirkwall and it's been a struggle to keep the shorter hairs in place. The rest she has bound in a tragically sensible braid, bound in a knotted ribbon and tucked down the back of her traveling coat.

"It's been up this whole time and I don't see why now is the instance where it's suddenly relevant to talk about." It's not about the hair. She knows Luana isn't even being literal about it. But after a few days of sleeping in nauseating ship holds and dirty barns, her temper has become quite short indeed.

With a vicious shove, Wysteria hoists her side of the tree bough back up into place.

[pyrazine]

Luana didn't mean it literally, but now she wants to tug at the tendrils that are hanging from her messy hair. Luana's own hair looks more like a mane than usual, the curls frizzing up and getting huge, too big to be pulled back. She shakes her head and snarls. "Stay there a minute," she commands, and goes to the tree the bough came from and looks up.

It's a pine tree, and it's not too tall - it's probably not that old. She starts climbing, then. She's only seen Aluisio do this once, and it wasn't a pine tree but a guava tree. Her strength is no joke, though, and she hauls herself up until she is at branches that look like they might bend, and takes a grip. She's only about ten or fifteen feet up, and she grips the branch and falls, holding on.

The tree groans as soon as she hits the ground. It resists, and she presses more of her strength, until it groans more and bends. "Fuck," Luana says, huffing her breath. Already the pines are coming down and making a cave, but she needs the tree to-

-she hears the snap and moves fast to get Wysteria out of the way, and the tree settles, not fallen, but snapped and bent so that the top comes down to the ground, covering the ground, and keeping the wind off them. Luana huffs again. "Shit," she says. "That was harder than I thought."

[heirring]

For whatever it's worth - and after a few days in one another's unremitting company, with Wysteria's ceaseless chatter cedeing into a propensity for bickering, it probably isn't worth much -, she does as she's told: holds that bough high in place with her arms over her head as Luana goes scrambling up the tree even though she doesn't see the point. They have plenty of things to cover themselves with. The problem is making anything out of them. At this rate, Luana will fall out of the tree and do some fool thing to set them even farther back like break a leg or something equally horrendeous and annoying.

At that thought, Wysteria watches as Luana drops from the tree. Her heart leaps into her throat accompanied with a wild flash of regret - what a horrible curse to wish on someone! --That dies the moment she realizes her companion isn't falling at all. Not on accident anyway.

The tree comes slowly, inevitably downward. And any pleasure Wysteria might have found in the prospect of simply crawling into a shelter instead of constructing one, is traded in favor of-- "You could have warned me! Next time you're going to bring a tree down about my head, at least give me the benefit of telling me beforehand!"

Also she was sick with worry for a split second there. But that's neither here nor there, thank you very much.

[pyrazine]

Luana breathes through her nose, huffs. She eyes Wysteria for a moment before she speaks. "Are you going to hit me?" she asks, but then she's grinning, laughing. Holy Jesus, she was worried. Luana crawls into the space made by the dense leaves, and stretches out on the ground. It's warm here, buffered away from the wind and the chill, even with the ground being cold.

She grins up at Wysteria. "You can't complain too much. Even the mule from Hell can't complain too much." Oh, but how Luana hates that mule.

[heirring]

"I might." She certainly could. There is literally nothing to stop her, save maybe for her own faint sense of dignity.

With a grumble, Wysteria fetches her traveling case from where its set high on a nearby rock. From it she draws what is now a very familiar and not entirely clean blanket no doubt brought with her from her room in the Gallows. She shakes it out and passes it through the branches to Luana.

"Spread that out on the ground."

[pyrazine]

She grins a little, but takes the blanket, obedient as ever, and spreads it on the ground, moving to sit on it. It's not clean, but it's warm and dry from being carried in Wysteria's pack for so long. Combined with the warmth and pine-y smell of the little spot, it makes it almost nice here.

She looks at Wysteria for a moment. "I can shift before you sleep. I'll be warmer to sleep against," she clarifies, but she knows that the smell can be a little overpowering. "And I'll go make a perimeter."

[heirring]

"You'll go make a--" Oh.

She fights down the effort to wrinkle her nose. Yes, well. Fine. If it keeps the other animals of the wilderness at bay, then she doesn't see the harm in it. What she does see some harm in, however--

"I don't suppose you could find something to eat while you're out, could you? We're running low." On the dried fruit, salted pork and crackers she'd brought along. Spirits, she really hadn't anticipated this delay. They were meant to be with the Inquisition by now, sharing in whatever meals were being prepared around a fire far bigger and more comfortable than the one flickering away in their little camp here.