westwhere | closed starters || Part 2

Entry tags:

closed starters || Part 2

WHO: Clara Oswald + some closed starters
WHEN: Part two of the arc!
WHERE: frozen forests, the caravan, probably other places eventually.
WHAT: gathering the maiden veil, looking tough, and other misc. things.
WARNINGS: Will update as needed, but so far none needed.

Threaded | Flat

[ When Clara and Anduin both realized they were heading into the forest, it only made sense to team up together. Clara's purpose is two-fold: she also wants to at least try and find anything that can be eaten. Not by her, at least not first, but for the kids.

God this is a shitty situation, which is the lightest way to put it.

In any case, she shouldn't have been considering trekking out alone, but Anduin's saved her from that. She has her magic sword in her pocket, which she's been slowly learning to use in between, well, everything. She is by no means good at it, but she has the stance and her grip down. It's a start. Looking over at her company while they hike, Clara considers a question before speaking up. ]

How much of this are we supposed to look for? Is one flower enough? For people asking a favor, they're really vague on the finer details.

[ So far, Clara thinks that along with the others, she's been doing a decent job trying to keep the kids occupied. She hates that most of them have eyes that look like they belong to people quadruple their age; hundred-yard gazes on children shouldn't happen.

At the moment, Clara's walking with a child who needed help going to the bathroom (no room for modesty here). She's holding the small child's hand, and she's just looked up and met Nacho's gaze, beginning to smile, when she hears a crack.

Turning, her eyes widen when she sees a mountain of ice moving. She can't make out anything distinct except for a large hand reaching out. It all happens in a matter of seconds; Clara shouts at the little kid to run, literally turning him around and shoving him toward the rest of the caravan, toward Nacho. It's the last thing she does before she feels herself being grabbed up and surrounded by the cold. She shouts, trying to wriggle her way out of its grasp.

It isn't hurting her, except for the extreme cold, but that's the only (probably temporary?) positive thing she has going for her.

She can't even reach the sword in her pocket with the way she's being held, like Jessica Lange in King Kong with less fur. Someone will come, Clara knows that much, trying not to let panic settle in. ]

[ She shouldn't be here. Every alarm bell is sending warnings to both her heart and her head, but Clara is drawn in, eyes focused, and moving forward. A voice at the back of her mind (that sounds very much like The Doctor) tells her to turn around right now, but she doesn't.

Instead, she hears the request, can almost feel the desperation behind it in her bones, and she agrees. There's a momentary delay where she realizes she isn't sure what that means. Then, there's something else in her head; not the Doctor's voice anymore, but something else that coalesce around her better thoughts.

No one is safe. There are people she's loved but couldn't protect. Her mother, killed in an explosion, her best friend, mother of her godkids, killed by a drunk man. The Doctor—the version of him she knows and has fought for time and again—gone because she couldn't really help him. She tried, but it wasn't enough.

There's a whisper; she has a sword for a reason.

The paladin has to work for it, she has a strong heart, but in the end her better sense takes a back seat. Before it's too late, one pull of her sword across a particular throat could change things for the betterment of everyone. She can see it, she can almost hear the sound of skin tearing. Pulling out her weapon, the look on her face is almost one of disconnect, her eyes vacant. But the grip on the sword is true.

Once the decision is made, she happens to see something out of the corner of her eye, and she turns sharply, calling out in a voice lower than her normal register. ]

Who's there?

[ Clara's done the best she can with the few gems in her pocket, to keep getting food. Even with merchants scattering, she uses sheer determination and aggressiveness to try and force more bartering.

Then there's a sound that seems to vibrate right through her bones as everyone scatters. The dragon is prowling, and she pushes herself against a wall in an alleyway, though she's still able to see out. She wishes she couldn't when someone selling wares is frozen while running, and then, in another's haste, knocked over. They shatter, and Clara watches, horrified. It all happened so fast. She can't stop looking at the pieces, missing an opportunity to run for a better clearing.

Clara doesn't even see Cassian as she stares and wishes she could unsee at the same time. She doesn't want to move, and when the dragon makes some kind of awful noise again, her hands slam over her ears, eyes squeezing shut tightly.

A man was there, and now he's in pieces, and her mind just isn't sure what to do with that. ]

( White of their white thunderous, roiling, glistened. Less peace than absence, a sterile hell. No, that is what sleeps beneath our floor boards, that is what waits.

Here, in the forest's cradle, only the dissonance of steps either weighted and strong, or airily skidding. Their breaths clumsily spelling out betrayal in condensation. The animal stench of blood and soot, and the strange gravel of saltpetre that the watch towers line in their cannons to retaliate against fresh flame from enemy catapults. They reek of their despair, the futility of Alem's dwindling defences. Its starvation.

Throughout this, the defenceless suffer. Even the royal-born unspared, the prince Haiva — the man, crippled by years of sickness — begging relief. A fraction of Lan Wangji wished to lend himself to the hunt to resolve his plight. The remainder merely keeps his eye trained on the chasm of white nothing at the woods' periphery, thickets drowned under the evening's snow. Rare berries line the land like pox marks. He has foraged too little, his purse starved.

And then there is his ward, his companion. Clara, who never earnestly complains of a given task or circumstance, but is still frail and small despite herself, betrayed by her bones. Who all but cursed Lan Wangji's wraith-like resignation to the ebb and tide of another war. He haunts her like a scavenging bird, never far from her shadow, while their path deepens in the woods, ever silent to excuse her from the displeasure of his company —

Until they hear it, blood-curdling susurration. Not yet within reach, but close. So very... close. Invisibly so. Perhaps the river... buried beneath snow? Then, they must take caution, as they near a ravine, with their footsteps. )

Running water. To the north.

Threaded | Flat

𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐢𝐧 • 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐳𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬

𝐍𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐨 • 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐚𝐧 (will switch to prose if you like!)

𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐥𝐟 • 𝐠𝐮𝐭❜𝐬 𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐝

𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧 • 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩

waterrrrr