faderift | MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

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MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

WHO: Anyone & Everyone
WHAT: Winter adventures as Riftwatch heads up into the Vinmark Mountains to do some work for (Provisional) Viscount Bran of Kirkwall
WHEN: Throughout Wintermarch and early Guardian
WHERE: Vinmark Mountains
NOTES: OOC post

Still-Provisional Viscount Bran has received a number of requests for aid from communities in the Vinmark mountains outside Kirkwall. He wants to keep them happy so that they continue to pay taxes to Kirkwall and don't become problematically independent or allied with some other state. But he also doesn't want to deal with this shit, and the City Guard isn't really equipped to go tromp around the mountains in the winter. So he has asked Riftwatch to deal with this, casting it as a shared danger (if any communities were to break away, they'd be more vulnerable to enemy collaboration, or hampering travel through the passes, and things like that) but if necessary will imply that Riftwatch's refusal would weigh unfavorably against the decision to allow them to remain in the Gallows for free.

This work isn't done at the exclusion of all else--other normal (and especially high-priority) work continues. Any work that isn't especially time-sensitive may be postponed, and otherwise agents will simply have to forfeit their free time and fit this work in on top of their other responsibilities. Something for people to complain about while they're tromping through the snow.

It's not a long trip back and forth to the Gallows, so people can come and go if they want, but Bran has also agreed to allow Riftwatch the use of the Viscount's hunting lodge, a rustic mountain retreat traditionally used for hunting parties, which happens to be in a roughly central location. As Viscount Bran is both Provisional and profoundly not the sort of man who holds hunting parties, the lodge has gone unused for some years now, and Riftwatch is bringing in its own supplies and a skeleton support staff to man the place for the duration. Those traveling up in the first group will have to help escort supply wagons through snowy, muddy mountain roads, unloading casks and crates into the cellar, and pitch in cleaning, making minor repairs, and generally getting the building set up after a decade of neglect.

The lodge is organized around a central hall with a massive fireplace, and a small library and study that will be used as offices shared between those visiting. Up the grand wood stair is a mezzanine level that looks down on the hall and leads to three corridors, each with a couple rooms. Rooms will be shared by groups of 2-4 people, the exception being the two suites generally reserved for the viscount and his wife, which will now be assigned to whichever of the Division Heads are in residence (and if there are more than two at a time, then to whichever Division Heads win a coin toss or something). Each room has basic furnishings, heavy and rustic, and its own fireplace. Bathing facilities are communal, provided by natural hot springs pools. While these are outdoors, there is a roof, and there is also a small springhouse alongside for changing, as well as a separate sauna.

The stables contain a number of sleighs in varying states of repair, which can be signed out for use. They're often the best way to get around this area in winter, and can be pulled by a team of Vinmark Goats, a big-horned shaggy breed of unusually massive mountain goats that are often used in place of ponies in this part of the world. The Viscount had a herd of them, which has since run more or less wild on his land and will need to be rounded back up for use.

There are a few communities with different problems, spread out some ways apart through the mountains:

ICE RIFT: The village of Erith has been plagued by shades and despair demons, which can be traced to a rift that has opened under the thick mid-winter ice of the frozen lake just outside town. Trying to get at it from above would mean cutting into the ice and fighting off demons while underwater and very likely freezing to death in minutes. So instead they'll need to traverse the ice caves beneath the lake to reach it, which will be complicated by the nature of shades, which leech off the energy of the livings' psyche, causing confusion, fatigue, and fear.
SNOWMONSTERS: Cragfield has been cut off by an infestation of what's only been described as "snowmonsters," that have been harrying travelers around the village or anyone who strays too far from the edge of town. They will prove to be some unknown variation of giant, even more aggressive, though a bit smaller and nearly covered in white hair. They have some resistance to magic, especially ice magic, and one seems capable of using ice magic, if crudely. They can be tracked through the forest and picked off a few at a time, or traced back to one of their lairs, usually in a cave or tucked into a rock formation.
THE GRIPPE: Galssop has sent an urgent request for healers to help combat a particularly virulent strain of the illness many in Kirkwall are suffering. Most of the town has fallen victim to it, including their only healer, leaving the rest without care. Complicating matters, reaching the town in winter (especially while transporting supplies) requires traveling up the frozen Wye river, using skates and iceboats. The villagers there will be wary of magical healing, and Bran as urged trying to use non-magical means of healing first if possible, though he and the sick will ultimately come round to the necessity of using some magic rather than see dozens die.
THE GRINCH: Lerwick's trouble is a young man who recently inherited Touraigle, the fortress above the village, and who firmly believes that Lerwick is also his inheritance. When the Mayor of Lerwick refused to enforce Lord Bertrand's taxes, the lord's guards ransacked the town, helping themselves to most of its winter stores, among other things. Riftwatch diplomats have been asked to help entreat the lord to be reasonable and return what he took. But the road up to the castle has been blocked by a combination of overzealous defenses and weather, forcing all visitors to climb a treacherous hill of downed trees covered in ice and the occasional, possibly-frozen (if they're lucky), booby trap.

In addition to these specific issues, Rift Watchers can expect to encounter the usual Vinmark winter hazards: unpredictable weather, hungry animals, bad roads, scarcities, and so forth. Once news of their presence in the mountains gets around, they may be asked to take on similar small problems for others, like dealing with wildlife issues, helping search for a missing child, rescuing a hunting party trapped by a minor avalanche, etc. There are also basic chores to keep the lodge running that will always need extra hands, like chopping firewood, hunting down dinner, safeguarding supplies on their way to and from Kirkwall, and so on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is she?

The only thing that cuts through her panic is the realization that Leander is here. He hasn't skated off upriver. Whether or not he gets her out is a less certain prospect, but his presence and the clear intent to try to save her is enough to dull her fear. It's less effective against the ingrained bodily response to the cold. Keeping her head above the water is natural, but she can't stop herself from gasping and spluttering as the cold lances through her body.

It's agony. It deadens her limbs and speeds up her heartbeat. When she tries to do as instructed, she brings her hands down so hard on the ice that crack spiderweb out, but it holds. She coughs so hard it hurts, river water washing over the ice in front of her.

"Don't get close," she answers, the first warning that comes to mind. Her voice is shaky. If she could just get her breath, stop her heart from thudding in near-panic, this would be easier. There's nothing to grasp on the ice, and nothing to focus on beyond the cold, the roar of her own heartbeat in her ears and Leander, unspooling lengths of rope from his pack.

"I know—just hold on."

Up he stands, loops of rope in hand, and glides with purpose to the edge of the frozen waterway. To one of the trees, its boughs thinner, hanging lower than the others. Still not low enough to grab, not without risking an idiot's leap on skates, but he reaches nevertheless, showing his gloved palm to the branch above—and it jolts up, shaking loose the snow. The others, too, rustle and shed their soft burdens. Leander ignores the flakes melting on his cheeks and his lips, and grasps the air with a fist, and jerks his arm back, and with a tremendous splintering crack the living limb comes free, leaving a bright green- and ivory-coloured wound behind.

Those few snowbirds not scared off by Derrica's mishap now burst into open air, sounding alarm, chuk chuk chuk.

"That was on purpose," he calls. Obviously; the chatter is for her benefit. "I'm making something."

He's stripping twigs like leaves from a herb's tender stem, reducing the branch with an efficiency that shouldn't be possible, but is, each sweep or jerk of his arm dragging a bright wake across the Veil. Left behind is perhaps two feet of acceptable material, not quite as thick as his wrist. It's with this, now firmly affixed to the rope, that he follows the last of his glances back around to face Derrica bodily.

A little out of breath, "All right, darling?"

Edited 2020-02-13 01:35 (UTC)

All she has to do is stay latched on to the ice while Leander does whatever it is he's doing. Derrica holds onto that thought as the shivering sets in. Her breath is coming too fast, hitching as she tries to keep her weight tipped forward against the jagged edge of the ice.

The pack will be her undoing, but it's far too late to try taking it off now. The slow kick of her legs keeps her above the water, but it's a struggle, fighting against the backwards drag of the supplies. Her fingers are stiff with cold inside her sodden gloves. The crack, and the sudden flutter of fleeing birds drags her attention away from the miserable awareness of her body's reaction to the water. The pulse of Leander's magic disturbing the Veil is almost more of a comfort than the bursts of chatter he calls back to her.

"Cold," she manages, forcing the word out through gritted teeth. "What did you make?"

In the midst of this, the tension of their fight has faded away. Her thoughts are scattered, spinning from pain and cold to fear to his presence here. He didn't leave her. She'd have taken that for granted before their argument, but now it feels momentous.

"This," he responds, and underhands the little log along the ice. It skitters and slides and stops short of the hole, which seems not to bother Leander—indeed, it's what he was aiming for. Rope still in hand, now winding it around his hand, his forearm, preparatory movements while he considers the situation for what may seem like ages to Derrica, trapped and freezing as she is, but is in fact only a handful of seconds.

Back to the riverbank, then, where he stutter-stops among the old reeds and rocks and assorted wild detritus frozen in place. There he turns, stomps to wedge his feet in where old plant matter weakens the very surface of the ice. The blades of his skates make it easy enough—like wicked little anchors.

"I'll kick it to you now. Wrap your arms around it." Expecting her to grip with frozen fingers would only invite another mishap, to potentially deadly effect; better that she should entangle herself and use the clutch of her strong arms to hang on. "You're all right—don't worry about the pack, just look at me. Ready?" She'd better be ready. This is not as casual a rescue as it seems.

On her mark, and with firm concentration, Leander nudges the branch at a distance—and it scuttles forward like some bizarre log-like vermin. (She can thank him later for not simply flinging it toward her face, as would come most easily for most mages.) And another.

"One more," and again, until it's close enough for her to grasp—

Edited 2020-02-14 03:56 (UTC)

Pure luck keeping her from adding a broken nose to her current list of ailments.

Moving hurts. Her limbs feel stiff, and worse, lifting her arms from where she's clinging to the ice is terrifying. The pack nearly tips her back as she lets go. Forcefully, she kicks herself upwards and latches onto Leander's makeshift device with a guttural shout.

Derrica's eyes find Leander's.

"Okay," is all she manages. The bigger, more complex sentiments can come later, when she isn't trying hard to keep her shivering under control. There's something wrong in her body. The cold has burrowed in, slowed everything down to near-uselessness. She needs to get out of the water, even if she balks at the idea of being out in the open air. The erratic, sluggish pulse of her heartbeat tells her that she has a fighting chance out of the water, and she never doubts that Leander will reel her in. He stayed. He fashioned something to save her with out of branches and rope. If something goes wrong, it'll be on the last leg of their journey to the village.

They'd been so close. Derrica bites down hard on the inside of her cheek against the embarrassment and shame that she'd waylaid them this way when they'd been nearly there.

They'd been so close. It will save her life.

"Kick!"

Leander's leaning back, using what weight he has to make up for what his arms alone cannot do. In the woods, in Rivain, he was stronger—he could do more of what cannot be accomplished by grace alone—but since then he's had easier living, he's been bled nearly to death, he's still recovering. And so his legs, too, strain against the sodden weight of water and woman and clothes and equipment—and he already knows what he will do with them, how to save it all, how to save her. Skate blades wedged among the reeds, pressing deeper. Hand over hand, one glove at a time.

"Kick hard, pull yourself out—that's it—"

Through Leander's efforts, Derrica comes out of the water slowly, and then all at once, toppling nearly into his lap in a ice-drenched heap. Water is streaming from her hair, dribbling from her thick coat, weighing down her pack. She gasps, then half-sobs through chattering teeth.

"Leander," is all she gets out at first, so relieved and so painfully cold that she can't get anything else out. Likely fortunate, as her first request is somewhere between tears and asking to just be set on fire because she's too cold to abide.

Her limbs feel like ice blocks, as if they don't belong to her at all. She still digs her fingers into his wrist, hanging on tightly while simultaneously trying to scoot back from the break before anything else splinters beneath them.

"Let's go, please," she pleads, though doesn't make much move to disentangle herself enough for that to be easy.

"There—good girl," breathed for that part of her, as in everyone, that remains a child, that always comes to the surface in times of terror—calls for mother, wants nothing so much as to be held, safe. (No time for that now; not yet. A word will have to do.) "See, you're all right."

Away from the hole and back to the frozen riverbank, he drags her bodily, painting a liquid stripe, the ice beautifully clean behind them. Quickly, with care, he pries the stick and rope free of her arms and casts them aside. The pack must be removed, the coat next— "Get this off. Your shirt, too." Quick to open his own pack, to pull free the spare he'd brought for himself. "Your legs will have to stay wet for now," he clips, already shrugging off his own cloak, and because he knows what her first thought will be: "I'll be all right, it's not much farther. But we can't have you freezing on the way, can we?"

Could. Would prefer not to.

Edited 2020-02-26 04:45 (UTC)

It's against all her instincts to part with her layers, sodden or not. Good sense prevails, coaxed by Leander's certainty.

Or maybe simply because it's Leander. Their argument and the ensuing silence between them seems far away now, washed clean in the freezing water with only a simple certainty left behind: Leander wouldn't see her harmed.

The chemistry of her body is wrong. Heartbeat laboring, lips and fingers pale. The ties of her shirt are so hard to tug free. Her fingers don't bend the way she wants them to, and it's difficult to concentrate on that and voice everything she wants to say to him.

"Wait," she says, knowing that his speed is what's keeping this from being much worse for her. One icy hands grasps his, folds of the cloak caught up clumsily in the process. "I need to thank you."

Thank you meaning apologize. But she doesn't quite have the words for that either. She's sorry. She's grateful. It's a lot of ground to cover.

There's plenty of ground yet to cover physically, let alone emotionally (more for Derrica than Leander in both cases) and that concern again moves his hand to pry her fingers loose, that he may keep going. He's slowed in the process by something else entirely: a memory of places reversed, hers a different face, pale and serious, the slick of his own blood,

"Later," rushes out, nearly a whisper. "Tell me later."

One more squeeze about her hand, and he releases it, sets about helping her exchange sodden fabrics for drier ones above the waist. The outside of his cloak is cold; as a towel it will have to do. In his earnest efficiency, his clinical acceptance of her bare skin, no sign of the slow wrenching behind his ribs.

Amidst it, through some minor misadventure with the shirt, the unexpected and incongruous urge to laugh, barely contained—

"That's not where that goes, is it? There we are."

Leander has some restraint, but Derrica doesn't. She laughs through increasingly violent shivers, through the shock of cold air.

"You're better at helping me off with my tunic," Derrica tells him as Leander deftly does up the laces. She still feels terribly numb, but it's easier to put aside worry now that the most immediate danger is passed. Rather than attempt to stand on her own, she grasps his sleeve as he releases her.

"I'm afraid I'm going to slow you down."

There's a further note of apology in her tone. She certainly hadn't been adept on her skates before she'd crashed through the ice. They're close, but he's lacking his warmer layers. His discomfort sparks some distant sense of guilt to add to her embarrassment.

"Maybe. Your legs and feet will be painfully cold." A plain answer, delivered plainly while he folds the cloak over to double the layer for her. "But I guarantee no one will care about our schedule once they see the state you're in."

That isn't what she means, he's certain, but there is no functional use in trading sentiment—and even if there were, he is less inclined toward that now. (He'll decide later whether he feels like convincing her it isn't solely a result of anything she's done.) Bundling up, getting Derrica on her feet before she can no longer feel them at all, limping ahead to the settlement: these are their priorities.

"Come on, then," straining a little, slipping a little, using what strength he possesses to help her to her feet, "we must keep moving. Your things will stay here until someone can be sent back down river to look for them. Here, take my gloves."

As Leander hauls her up, Derrica cinches her arm tight around his waist.

The sheer stupidity of this is sinking in. The ice cracked. How couldn't she have avoided that? As they lurch forward, she spares a brief backward glance at bundle, discarded pack, sodden clothes. She hates to leave any of it, but how much dead weight can she ask Leander to guide along?

"You're good at this," she says. "Saving people. Me."

This as they make their ungainly way forward, closing the last stretch towards the village. He's right. The chill sets in and becomes excrutiating, thankfully not until their destination is well in sight. Warming up is going to be very painful. Derrica almost cringes from the possibility, as if she can just burrow into the few pieces of warm clothing Leander has given her and wait this out for a different way forward.

Perhaps it ought to warm him a different way to hear it, that he's good at something virtuous, something seen as objectively good—and it will, but the sting of irritation must first subside. His placeholder reply: a sort of heh, like humility bundled in effort, while really it's a dismissal so he may examine his own reaction in silence.

Not too much silence. She'll need distraction on the way.

"I thought of it ahead of time. On the way to the lodge." Adrenaline is subsiding, lungs beginning to burn; he'll need a long rest, too. "What I might do on the ice, in a blizzard, in case of avalanche. To reduce the chance," pausing to breathe, "of being caught off guard."

"Clever," Derrica puffs back. Her grip on his waist is growing painfully tight. It hurts her a little to hang on. Leander bundled her up so quickly that her arms are pins and needles, burning as her body struggles to realign itself.

"Matthias taught me a little fire magic," she tells him, faint pride in her voice. "But I didn't...I wasn't really learning it with this in mind. I didn't think it'd be like this."

Unspoken: miserable. But there was plenty she just hadn't been able to prepare for. Derrica hadn't had any grasp of it to try and anticipate something like falling through ice or getting caught in an avalanche.

At least with Leander laboring to get them to safety, he won't have time to be cold? Derrica isn't sure how any of this works. She knows a little about how to detect hypothermia, and not much else.

"Do you remember swimming?" She asks abruptly. "Do you remember the pond near the tower in Rivain?"

Like what, he doesn't ask, rejecting the unkind impulse to pick at what she's saying. Immediately, he reminds himself, it isn't her fault: full sentence, intentional inner monologue. Not the fall through the ice—that was entirely her fault, and she's correct to feel foolish—but his own internal state, his inability to be distracted from it even by so grave a situation. But then, to him it isn't grave at all, that's got to be the issue—

"...Yes."

Nuisance thoughts dissolve into hot sun and cool breeze, green all around, noise of children in play and the elders calling over them. A world so unlike the one he'd inhabited before.

"I always thought pond was too weak a word for it." How dreamlike it was, the shape of it eroded into stone, the colour bright and rich as dye, the surreal clarity. (The ice beneath their feet is clear, too, in places.) "It never felt quite real. Living there."

For a moment there's nothing but the scrape-scrape-scrape of their skates on the ice. Derrica understands what Leander is alluding to. Sometimes her entire past feels like a dream. Was she ever so happy? Had she ever felt so safe?

"I understand."

Maybe she wouldn't have understood had Leander told her that when they had first known each other, but she understood now. She'd traveled enough and spoken to enough mages now to know how surreal Dairsmuid had been.

"When it's warm, I want to find a pond." If it's ever warm. "Do you remember how to swim?"

This train of conversation is a little bit hilarious, considering that she'd just been dunked in frozen water. But it's been on her mind since she'd spoken to Marcus. She can speak to Leander about it now, unraveling this memory between them as Leander propels them forward.

Her arm around his waist; his hand finds hers, gloved, his gloveless, and stays there. A reward for connecting, unconsciously given by most, deliberate from him. (It isn't her fault.) Winter creeps between the fibres of his muscles, pinches him pale and ruddy, but should it attempt to penetrate his will before they reach the settlement, he will respectfully decline. To Leander, pain is a guest, and as such he treats it hospitably.

"Of course I do." She may catch his brief smile for the irony. His face is stiffening in the cold, his ears bright pink. "There ought to be something suitable outside the city. I haven't looked, but someone will know." Lips parted for breath, and in search of the shape of a word, too. At length, "You ought to know, by then I might not be here."

She almost stumbles.

They can't stop moving. She understands the major concerns in the abstract: if she stops, she might not be able to start again. Leander has given her almost all his outerwear, and she can't drag him to a halt. But the steady scrape of her skates is interrupted by that admission.

"What?" Then, amended— "What do you mean?"

She nearly staggers him, too, so the first few words come out sharper—

"Easy, now. Stay on your feet, we're nearly there." Nearly being a relative measure, more for hope than precision, but still. "I may leave the company in the coming months. It's not something I want to discuss—"

at all

"—out here."

The urge to dig her heels in and press him about the possibility now is diverted only by their present situation: she's wrapped up in his warm outer layers, freezing from the waist down, and he's lacking any protection from the cold.

So Derrica bites back her questions. They make it to the village. They're shown to the small cottage that has apparently been set aside for whatever healer Riftwatch cared to send. There are hunters departing to fetch the supplies Derrica dropped, likely frozen solid by now, and they'll be able to get to work in the morning, there's food, there are blankets, dry clothes, please rest, so on and so forth, right up until the moment Leander closes the door on their small welcoming committee.

Crouched by the hearth, Derrica's erratic attempts to produce flame finally take. Is it partly her own frozen fingers or the novelty of the spell itself?

"Can you hand me that tunic?" Derrica asks after a moment. The shivering is good, she knows, but she's tired of it. Her entire body aches, and her hair is half-frozen and Leander might be leaving. Navigating it all is overwhelming.

In the same instant his hand leaves the door, Leander's politely pressed—apologetic, humble, grateful—smile disappears, leaving behind the truth of exhaustion. Discomfort. Adrenaline long gone, reality catching up to his muscles, his cold-stiffened fingers, his lungs, a few dry coughs while he delivers the tunic at an arm's length.

His boots are off, his vest next. He climbs onto the bed, unfolding one of the extra blankets, and curls up in a quivering nest closest to the wall to watch from afar the little fire she's made.

"Let's never do this again."

"No, let's not."

Ice crystals skitter across the floor as Derrica finally shucks off her woolen leggings. She considers leaving everything for the morning, but reluctantly wrestles the sodden, half-frozen fabric to lay across the floor in front of the fire.

She hesitates before putting another log onto the fire and coaxing another burst of flame forth from between her palms. Her sputtering efforts are producing some small improvements, but it will still take some time for the heat to permeate the entire cottage.

"Leander, I'm sorry."

Derrica imparts this as she crosses the room to perch on the edge of the bed. Simplicity seems the best way to cover the multitude of things she'd like to apologize for, before they broach the minor revelation he'd shared as they'd struggled towards the village.

Perhaps he ought to be the one taking care of the fire, helping Derrica out of her frosted clothes and easing her down to rest—someone else might see it through. She's not a child. He doesn't feel like moving, even to get into bed properly. This here will do. Trousers and all.

She's speaking, she's sitting like he's the one who nearly drowned, presenting him with the obligation of an emotional exchange. He couldn't be more fatigued. Probably she couldn't be, either, and yet she persists...

"I know." From the bunched-up blanket snakes his hand, palm up. "So am I."

(He isn't. But it's what you say.)

Her icy fingers find his palm, trace lightly across it before lacing through his to clasp Leander's hand. She wants to draw the blanket and thick fur up over them both and go to sleep. The ice in her hair is melting as warmth radiates from the fireplace. She looks down at their interlocked fingers.

"Are you really thinking of leaving?"

Maybe she could have pretended she didn't hear it. But he'd spoken those words aloud, and Derrica doesn't know what to do with that knowledge now.

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