westwhere | our troubles will be out of sight

Entry tags:

our troubles will be out of sight

WHO: Wanda and you!
WHEN: Month of December
WHERE: The Inn
WHAT: Checking things out, getting a feel for her new companions, etc
WARNINGS: Will note as needed.

I.THE LAKE

[A frozen lake is a frozen lake, but this one is strange. Wanda doesn't quite step on the ice itself, but she does stay very close to the edge, eyes narrowed as she tries to discern what she thinks she saw... bump the ice from below?]

Did you see that? [She'll ask whoever is near.]

II. THE MOUTH

Are you sure that's a good idea?

[Interested in taking a sword, shield, or whatever from that pit? Well, Wanda's making a face like she certainly doesn't think it's a good idea.]

III. THE WELLS

[A morning of wandering has Wanda slowly approaching the wells. Generally, she wouldn't care to look, but she's got nothing to do and nowhere to be, so she's allowing her curiosity to win. They look very old, possibly out of use, but as she draws near the first she gives the lid a little push. Far too snug for her to move using her own muscle, which she suspected, but she didn't expect to see blood on the light dusting of snow when she stepped back.

She crouches down to get a better look. It's pretty hard to mistake blood for anything else. Still...

Come spook her while she's already feeling vaguely spooked.]

IV. THE FOREST

[Collecting herbs and berries isn't the most engaging task to help out at the inn, but it does give her an opportunity to watch the villagers. It feels colder out here, and much more dangerous. Which is why Wanda calls out to whoever she might see,]

Careful. They said there are wolves around here.

[Wolves, direwolves. Same difference.]

[ooc: Easy peasy prompts! If you want something more specific, or more actiony, feel free to PM me and I'll gladly work something out for us.]

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[Something? Rude. Wanda had a brief, insane idea of living a life without use of her magic, putting it behind her, but she's already known that to be impossible. Annoying, then, that it's not quite working right.

And it's one hell of a time to have it confirmed.]

Go! Get off the ice!

[You know, the area maybe no one should have been in the first place. Arms pinwheeling comically for a moment, Wanda gets on her feet and decides to try again--maybe not flinging anyone to safety, but to use her magic to keep the creature at bay long enough for an escape, hands glowing red.

Because surely the creatures can't traverse land.

Right?]

( Get off the ice, she commands, and the parts of Lan Wangji that are yet juvenile, petulant and uncooperative wish to scream out, Do you think I would not wish it done?

But for the minor inconvenience of the creature that's half emerged from the lake's depths, half convulsively reaching for the pull itself up with the help of broken shards, crawling, writhing, reaching for Wangji's leg, claws slipping to his ankle —

He kicks, once. Again, landing on what is either the creature's face or its... nether end. He cannot say, the bulbous, sightless swell of overly stretched, wet membrane providing little guidance. Bichen's blade remains clung to ice, and he uses her to steer himself and kick out at the creature...

...that is pushed from him, without his work. Whatever sorcery saturates these lands now seems to favour him. He makes fast work of his advantage, rising and dragging his sword out, skidding, racing — )

Retreat!

( And on him, the second creature suddenly plunges. At the last moment between collision and clawing, Lan Wangji rolls over, leaving the beast to land on his sword and thinking, when its blood gushes, when he feels the warmth of its viscera staining the front of his coarse loaned linens, when he hears the harsh scratches of its waning breath, It is done, it is done, it has perished, it is done.

Until the ice beneath him starts cracking. )

[This guy. Yelling for her to retreat, when she's already told him to run, and he's the one that decided to go be nosy in the first place--

Wanda, also with parts that are yet juvenile, rushes forward rather than back because she can. She thinks to stop the second beast, but even the first doesn't feel as securely under her magic as it should, and by the time she musters up the will, the ice is making dangerous noises beneath her feet because that second creature is up and there's the scent of blood and she really hopes she didn't just see that guy get squashed.

She thinks she can at least move the creature off him with her magic, and with a grunt and a thrust of her arm forward the wet weight rolls. It appeases the ice, pauses the tell-tale sound of it cracking... at least until Wanda rushes up to grab the arm of her now bloodied ally. Please. She doesn't even weigh that much.

The ice doesn't seem to care, and completely cracks and dips below them, leaving the two nowhere to go but down.]

( He breathes.

Lungs singeing, fire crackling his ribs, the slow, simmered ache running fluid through his bloodstream. Strain, and his qi energy rushing to overfill his flesh and mend it at a pace that exhausts just as rapidly as it replenishes. The dangers of allowing a body to mend itself on animal instinct. He lies all too still and concentrates on balance —

...and then the woman is near him, the creature's carcass rolled completely off his bones, the astringent scent of fresh ice and cleanliness saturating the air where he hears, in the distance, the contingent of inn keepers rush to fill the lake's wintered skins again.

Unfortunately, it ruptures further. Lan Wangji can attest to that, in the quick succession of heartbeats that transports him from gentle repose to hapless deadened weight, sinking down, entangled in his own silks. It strikes him, distantly, that if the Heavens were kinder, the gases of putrefaction might have already swollen in the dead creature's belly to raise the corpse up to floating and give them a raft. Instead, the woman and Lan Wangji receive the far more precious gift of the creature's sibling now encircling them, and forgive Lan Wangji, but he has tired of moderation, sword cold and readied in his hand.

If he seeks, without preamble, to skewer or sever whatever appendage of the second creature that falls within reach, while holding out a hand for the girl, so they might emerge together — well, he's only one man, with a kill count to honour.

Let there be blood. And pneumonia. )

[She was probably overdue to be dunked into water to see if she could float ever since this whole Scarlet Witch thing rolled into her life.

Water, nevertheless, is not her forte. Terrifyingly, she loses track of where up is, where the remaining beast is, and it's only the extended hand that smothers the rising panic as she grasps it tightly and kick-swims-pulls until her free hand comes in contact with intact ice.

Now, if they can just get out--the fall into the icy water has broken her concentration on the first beast, but some leg or fin or limb is severed straight off in the chaos, a blade perhaps puncturing something like a swim bladder, but all Wanda knows is that when she breathes air and uses magic to try and push the thing down, down into the inky depths, the resistance is less and less. This thing is unable to do the thing it was born to do: swim.

Their luck, as it thrashes below, the water and ice around them messy with blood.]

( His hand latches, catches, turns. Tugs, and it's all in the gamble, in blind and soon rewarded faith that the silvered, ashen light of Bichen's blade will suffice to give them guidance.

No candle flame in the wet's dark depths. No north, no south, no pittance of direction. Gravity confounds them, the swiftly shifting thickness of the breaking ice pieces that scatter each way — hard and thick when freshly broken, slightly molten in descent, then heavy once more as they draw the cold of the abyss.

Youth taught Lan Wangji to choose his head over his heart. Maturity has calmly schooled him that reason is overruled by instinct. And they say there is no more wisdom to be had, as a man grows and greys.

Small mercies: the beast below does not give them chase. He draws the girl with him, paddles, unambiguously, breathless by the time he breaks water, and grateful for the warmed hands that reach for him — for them — and the braziers brought after, when the inn staff finds and fishes them out. His ears stay deafened, white light of their panic screaming sharp in his ears. Clawing them.

He blinks, when they're set on their sides and draped in blankets, while the inn's people dash to fetch a doctor of the main house. His fingers clench, shiver. The girl. The girl is no longer with hi — but he reaches out and rakes her flank or her shoulder or her calf, some strange amorphous line that bothers to sum into the totality of her person. The tips of his fingers come too stiff to hold her, so he paws, repeatedly, hollowly, gone. Then croaks: )

Srrrr... surra... ssscol. ( Yes, it's cold, very cold. Well done. ) Apol... apple... apolojee... pologies.

[Flustered and freezing, Wanda tries to push off the hands before registering they're here to help, not to harm. It's all very confusing, the commotion, but all that matters is that she's out of the water and can breathe and she suddenly remembers--

Oh, there he is. He's fine, more or less, just as she is, but she haltingly reaches out to touch in some form of reassurance. Her hand is so numb from cold she can't tell if they're actually touching or not, and she can feel her hair is stiff, water turning to ice.

Her magic is not as it should be, but she thinks (hopes) she can at least dry their clothing. There's a grunt from her, in the effort it takes to reach her hand further towards him, the red glow at her fingertips brief before she makes contact with his clothing. Clothing that is now dry, though the now-damp blanket isn't great, it's not daggers tightening around them.

When her hand retreats back to herself, another touch has her clothes dry, too.

The hair is still an icy mess, though. Something had to be the test subject to see whether she was still capable of it or not--or if something worse would happen.

Though the feeling of her hair turning into one solid mass is pretty high up there for miserable things that have happened as of late.]

( Heat, indiscriminate, violent. Dark of his hair spread on the ice bank like weeds until a young girl thinks to relieve him — them — until they bring braziers close and sit their heads on shivered laps, so they do not stick to ground surface. The cold dispels from him, in a sudden burst, and he sees the girl's hand, and he knows, of course he knows, it should have been plain, to start — )

...you. ( His tongue slack, slow, gelid. Heavy, in ways that work his jaw to open like a chasm. He only intends to speak. Heaves, and something ruptures, as if each word is of ice itself. He curls, diminutively, the great static heap of his limbs scratching the frost beneath. Conserve your strength. Within him, a core of energy roils and blooms and remembers itself. )

You tore me from the creature's clutches. ( When it started, when the tide of their misfortunes turned. When Lan Wangji stumbled them into the water. ) Gratitude.

[Wundagore was bitter cold, but Wanda can't recall feeling it, then. Now, she feels ice in her very bones. Still, they're not drenched, and there's murmuring about getting inside, away from the elements.]

Don't. [She shakes her head in his direction. There's more to say.]

Don't... go on the ice. Again.

[Look. He went there once when it was clearly suspect. What's to stop him from going again?]

( Of all the countless, misplaced counsel, of all the frayed instructions, all the reprimands, all the passive or openly aggressive observations —

...this, stirring his belly to depths of buried laughter that translate as half-gasped, futile wheezing, is, perhaps, earned. He was advised against the waters. Saw and presented himself before the graceless, curious, deadly creatures.

Did not stay his steps. Did not heed.

And he must have retrieved enough slivers of his health again, if the foremost of his concerns, barely turning over, is to mutter: )

We... ahhhh. We. Are upon. ( Lick of his lips nearly freezes his tongue to teeth. ) Upon ice now.

( What a joker. )

[It's so stupid it actually makes her crack a smile. She didn't think that would be the case at the end of this.]

Not funny.

[Then there's more fussing, someone that knows better about cold and ice and likely treated the occasional fisherman or youth that got too close to cracks in the ice before, and Wanda is quick to insist she's fine. Despite the icicles. It's fine. Really.

Regardless, the consensus is that they need to be inside.]

( Yet you laughed. He is not Wei Ying, so easily lent to flirtation, relief and entertainment to the maidens who encounter him. Not a scholar of wit, not a poet, a bard.

And yet, even Lan Wangji, thoughts scattered and fingers too tightly curled to capture purchase on iced ground, trying to raise himself — even he can accept the heart-warming splendour of lightening her spirits. )

You gave no name.

( Neither did Lan Wangji, succumbed to the more troubling distraction of staying alive. Who knew survival could be so discourteous? All the time, she seems young in ways his bones barely remember. She may introduce herself first. )

Neither did you.

[She's quick to point out the obvious. Still, as she watches him struggle, she decides there's no harm in it.]

Wanda. I'm Wanda.

[And--]

Careful.

[There's a half-hearted attempt to get up herself, in order to help him. It's very newborn deer trying to walk for the first time.]

( Where one stumbles, the other may retrieve and rescue. This can be their balance, Lan Wangji slow to negotiate his footing, silks knotting at his ankles, a tangle at his knees. Like weeds, like hooks. Like lines of ropes and strong, dead things.

He watches her, distantly, raise herself with a lean that indicates she either intends to give him her hand — or is instinctively driven to topple in his direction. Ah. It can be so simple, then.

Unbidden, he eases close, hand hovered within her reach, never quite intruding with his offer. Under a slate, stubborn sky, staff aggressively orbiting them to pull out the body of the creature they'd slaughtered from the waters, in their nets — they can have this much courtesy. )

Wangji, clan Lan. You arrived of late. ( As if there is a time for misfortune. ) With your... sorcery.

( This, more, to confirm his eyes caught well. )

[Wanda hopes he doesn't mind her using a boot to nudge his silks aside, cutting the distance to hold his elbow to balance both him and herself as she attempts to make less of a mess of them both. At least their clothing is dry.]

Yeah. [Sorcery, magic. No use in clarifying she's a witch, not a sorcerer. Not here.] Thanks for the welcome.

[She tips her head to the gaping hole in the ice and the labors going on there.]

A warmer one, next time.

[Ha ha. Get it. Warm welcome.]

( ...ah, but there's a flinch to it, inevitable, stubborn, strong — enough to purposefully unbalance his elbow from her grasp and infuse their camaraderie with distance. Touch singes him, stains. Earns a muted hiss of distaste, like every long-suffering cat who has tolerated far too much of an overbearing owner's affections.

He does not repudiate her presence, does not excuse his disinterest. Only proceeds, each step measured so as to prove he can prevail, cautious to aim his heel where the sheen of ice below thickens to opacity, or he senses the slow, crumbling grit of salts beneath his feet.

The indignity of his current weakness, too, shall pass. And there's a scattering of lights at distance, flame in heating braziers, steadied to guide the work of dozens of men gathered to pour ice and cold sorcery into the lake's nethers. They need only reach the lights. )

Beg the merchant's boon. Perhaps your next abduction will better satisfy.

( ...seeing as she has. Expectations. )

[Wanda lets go. Hint taken. She doesn't say anything, but the lift of her brows says okay, then where her voice doesn't.]

As far as near-death experiences go, I've had worse.

[Would it have been death? Maybe. The water was so cold she couldn't think. Oh, but since this witch thing has entered her life, she really doesn't want to die by drowning. Too cliché. Add fire to the list, too.]

Apologies.

( For the touch relinquished. Better still, the deathly experience narrowly avoided. The braid of interludes that appear to have preceded it. He hesitates, step dragged and splintering fresh shavings of snow from the trodden path, while various inn keepers interject with offers of further blankets, hot water, tea. They look to him to assess his steadiness, his progress, the likelihood, he knows, that he will topple irrevocably onto the hard, fresh-cut lake glass.

He does not. Refuses, on principle, to be less than he is: slowed under the blinking haze of the settling, morose evening. At ease with his flimsy gravity, waving the woman — Wanda — beside him. )

You do not require protection. ( Of the two, it appears he might be in deeper need. ) But, assistance. Call, and it will be done.

[She wouldn't ask for protection even if she needed it. Assistance also falls under that umbrella. She shouldn't need to--but given that her abilities didn't work quite as she expected them to here, she's probably going to have to eat her words sooner than later.

For now, she's happy in her willful ignorance.]

Yeah. Well... I owe you one, too.

[Even if she'll forever pin the mess on his curiosity, they did have to sort of rescue one another. It's something.]

( Ah, but he is slow to ease, to fall into the trappings of informality, bend of his back already carefully positioned into a rehearsed bow. When he recovers, looser-limbed, it is to transgress with a conclusion: )

No debts between us.

( ...but then, she excused him of the creature's burden, where he only ensnared them further in the lake's depths. He frowns, imperceptible, weak. )

Your... sorcery. What did it achieve? ( It thrust the creature off Wangji's trail. Delivered him to safety. And then? )

[No debts, he says, and there's a fleeting--but genuine--smile across Wanda's chilled lips. Debts are messy business, once you make a habit of them. She's happy to call it even.]

Not enough, apparently. My magic can do a lot of things, but something's not right, here.

[An attack like that would have been over in moments, were she at her full potential. She looks down at her hands momentarily, not sure what she expects to see other than cold, pale fingers.]

( This much he knows, agrees with a stubborn nod like a jolt, a motion both propelled and stunted. The cold has him, heavy and daunting chills. He breathes with the certainty of his imprecisions, steps no better calculated than when he had refused Wanda's assistance.

Better men offer him aid, still. An arm to lean on, another with warmed waters. Tea, he murmurs to a kitchen's boy in passing, and the young lad's hastened footsteps barely land, toes before heel. )

The grounds pervert ability. Shackle it.

( It feels shallow, dusted to his own ears. Stale. An excuse, as if the lands deserve it. We will speak no more of the unpleasantness. )

You may yet recover.

[Again, it's not the worst thing to happen to her. The power of the Scarlet Witch has thus far only caused harm. It's never what she's wanted, but it's what happened--here, perhaps, she can do better.

She did help make sure they didn't drown, after all. And no one got hurt.

Creatures of the deep aside.]

You're a swordsman?

[Obviously, but it's a group effort to speak less of unpleasant things and keep moving on all fronts.]

An exorcist.

( Possessed of a blade he waves like a crutch now, a cane, a superfluous but attentively positioned appendage. Smear of her tip on frosted snow is rivulet of scratches he will polish doubly thereafter. Best — and he raises Bichen's blade even now, her silvers glinting with the start of dus — to avoid her toils completely.

But then, this is what glints at distance: not the man, his skill, his worth, but his weapon. They traverse a territory uncivilised enough to prioritise hostility over negotiation. So be it. )

The creature should have been my toil alone. ( And yet, she has had to intercede. It rankles, rattles, stings. ) I showed negligence.

[An exorcist and a witch walk into an inn--

Wanda can't help the amused huff, breath hanging in the air. She could have used an exorcist not too long ago, really.]

I'm considered a witch. [Nothing to do with sorcery.] We're a good pair.

our troubles will be out of sight

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it's too late to apolojee (it's too laaaaate)

sobbing in my hands

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