For many miles, the only sound in Lorin's ears had been the wind moaning over the drifts and his footsteps crunching in the snow. He couldn't feel his face or his feet, despite the fur-lined clothing given to him by the men who had seized him in Serendipity.
They had blindfolded and bound him, kept him gagged. That blindfold had never come off. The last few days had passed in darkness and silence, for whoever they were they had not spoken in his hearing. He'd thought at first that they had taken him to demand a ransom from his house, then that perhaps this was the doing of some rival family looking to eliminate his claim to the throne. Yet neither explanation made sense. If it was wealth they were after, why had they not bothered to strip his rings or earrings, any one of which could have fetched a fair amount of coin? When they had taken him, he'd felt his coin purse torn from his belt and heard the music of gold coins as it was thrown to the ground, discarded. And if they sought to remove him from contention from the throne—which wasn't even under contention—why was he not dead yet?
Not that his prospects for a long life looked encouraging. He'd escaped from his assailants and into a white desert. It must have been high noon just then, yet the sky never lightened from a steel grey. The snow had not stopped since his wild flight through the blizzard last night. That blizzard had saved him. He could not see where he ran, but neither could they.
Now the snow drifted light and gentle and he was wary, crouching beneath a tangle of leafless thicket and scanning the clouds. They had been traveling upon some flying creature. It might have been near or far. They could be on his heels or hunting for him miles away. No way of knowing.
Yet he was not alone.
Hovering around him, entranced by his strangeness, played ice sprites and elemental spirits. Invisible to most, they responded to the fey blood in him and revealed themselves. Talking to them was proving near impossible. He must have been very far north for they did not speak at all like the spirits of Serendipity that he was so familiar with, but he was making do with mental pictures and emotional exchanges.
"Which way is the village again?" he asked, shaking in the cold, sending out thoughts reflecting a gathering of humans and a sense of inquisitiveness. His attempts to ask them where his assailants were had only elicited bemusement and boredom with his failure to communicate.
One of them, an ice faery who appeared as a white blur to his sight, drifted up to his head and began working a tiny braid into his hair.
He clenched a gloved fist into the snow to keep from swatting at her. A faery's anger belied their small size. "No, I need to find the village. Please." Some of his desperation came through. Not helpful that. The fey tended to find human suffering fascinating.
An ice elemental who had been particularly helpful streaked off to what Lorin thought was the northwest. In that direction he might find his salvation. Or a band of brigands who'd sooner butcher him for meat. Or slavers who'd have him back in binds and on the next caravan to market. His swarm of fey couldn't tell him exactly what waited for him, only that there was a gathering of humans there.
He'd take the risk.
With a last wary glance at the clouds and the empty horizon he ventured out of his cover, folding his arms over his chest and hunching his shoulders for as much warmth as he could get. If nothing else, he would not look immediately out of place to anyone who found him. His hood and scarf hid his blonde hair and Serenian features.
He angled for a route more westward than what the elemental had shown him, thinking it safer to keep off the most direct route to the village—or whatever it was—lest his enemies think to search that stretch of land. How far it might be to the village, whether or not it was even within walking distance, these were things he could not afford to think on.
Hope was his only resource now.
As it turned out, there had been a group of travelers in that very direction. Also, as it turned out, they would never meet the youngish prince, because they had made a very bad mistake--upon coming across a nice-looking horse of the Clydesdale look, with shaggy hair over the horse's hooves. "My," the travelers had though, "What a strange place for a horse to be. On the other hand, what a nice horse. Why, we should take it." And they tried. And they failed.
Because, Célion thought emphatically, I am not a fucking horsie.
Granted, the dragon was probably mostly at fault, because he had been the one wandering around the cold dessert pretending to be something he wasn't, but--but--well, if you were attempting to wrangle a horse, and it suddenly started cursing at you in half a dozen languages, don't you think that a normal person would, er, maybe stop trying to capture the horse? But no, they had persisted.
So, he had, as you might, flipped a shit, wasted everyone in his path, and set out across the tundra, southeast, more south than east. And in the way that things like this go, Célion soon came into sight of a hooded and scarfed figure crunching across the thin layer of snow that Célion's hooves mind no mind to.
Célion didn't intend to stop for the man at first--because what did he care?--but then he reconsidered and decided that stopping to chat wasn't too bad of an idea, and if the man was very annoying, Célion could always eat him. He was a little hungry, after all, and cold use a snack. So when he was within ten yards of the man he slowed, and then stopped far enough away to talk, but not so close as to be intrusive.
In his low tenor voice, which was decidedly odd coming from a horse's mouth, Célion spoke. "Human-Man, I must request that you direct me to the nearest settlement of humans. Please and thank you."
((Hiya, Talyafera. : ) ))
When the golem had first arrived in the mountains, the snow had been a strange and exciting experience. She had never seen it before and it had covered everything in such pristine whiteness. She had loved it. And being only sort of alive, the cold had never bother Damayanti much.
The village she had ended up in was high on the mountain, secluded and peaceful. Damayanti had liked it instantly. She had caused a little bit of a stir, as few people came to visit the town besides a few merchants and even fewer stayed for the winter.
Finding a place to stay had proved a little tougher then she had expected, but a family had taken her in and she helped do chores and watch the children. But the golem had discovered a problem. The small size of the village meant there was almost no food for her. There was plenty of stuff to eat, just not the food she needed.
So she had been forced to venture outside of the village to hunt. The golem was not a natural hunter and animals were scarce that high in the mountains and the ones she did find tended to be old or sick which weren't giving her much of a meal.
Making one of these hunting trips was what had gotten her into her current predicament. She had been trying to find some sign of an animal and had wondered farther then she normally did when a blizzard had hit. The flurry of show and wind and disoriented Damayanti and covered her tracks back to the village.
Leaving her quite lost.
Picking her way through the snow in the direction she hoped was the village, the golem scanned the horizon. Mostly just white, broken in a few places by rocks. Nothing to look familiar and let her know she was going the right way. Though...there seemed to be something in the distance. A man shape and something larger, maybe a horse.
Moving faster, her small form struggling to push through the snow, Damayanti hurried to where the forms were. She must be close, or at least close to some village. There was a horse after all!
Waving her arms, Damayanti did her best to get the mans attention, "Hey! Hello! Over here!"
In trudging through the snow with his head down and being so focused on keeping his feet in the wind and snow, Lorin soon forgot to keep awares of any approaching danger. And thus it sent a jolt of fear through him when he caught the crunch of footsteps on snow in the near distance.
His head whipped up and immediately he found the dark shape of the...horse? He squinted through the drifting snowflakes. It certainly had the shape of a horse, and he could see no rider with it. Wild? If not, perhaps he could ride the thing.
Certainly no wild horse would take such a direct path toward him. It struck him as deliberate, and something seemed off about that. He was still trying to figure out what when the large horse stopped and spoke.
Spoke words.
Lorin blinked at the thing and raised a hand in stunned silence to point in the direction he'd been traveling.
He'd nearly mustered up the courage to say something in response when words rang out over the distance and made him jump. Heart hammering, he cast about for the source of the voice and found a figure hurrying toward them. In the blur of falling snow, the shape was nigh indiscernible, but that voice had been distinctly feminine. Lorin backed up a few paces as she plowed through the snow toward them both, chagrined that he had noticed neither of these...people...until they were right on top of him.
"A grand lot of good you all are," he muttered to the faeries, who quivered in their amusement. The one went back to braiding that bit of blonde hair at his temple, humming to herself in a tiny voice. Unless his new acquaintances had the Sight, they would only see him talking to himself.
Lorin scowled, subdued and disillusioned now by his own obliviousness. To think, he'd actually fancied himself stealthy out in this forsaken wilderness! And now look how easily he had been found by not one but two creatures, and he with nary a defense to put up save for pleading on behalf of his life. It was clear to him now that he'd never stood a mage's chance in Reajh of evading his pursuers if they'd happened upon this region.
"I...there is some settlement or other that way," he said to the horse, feeling silly to be speaking to it at all, though it had quite clearly spoken to him. The scarf across his nose and mouth hid most of his features, but there was no hiding the Serendipity accent of his voice. "I was just trying to find it myself." As the girl...woman...female creature?...approached, he grew ever more worried. His palms were sweaty in their gloves. If she were with his enemies...
Furthering the possibility that Célion was not, in fact, really a horse was the way he hissed at Damayanti when she came upon them. It was a harsh, almost certainly frightening sound, not at all like a cat's hiss(which is really more annoying and grating than anything). It was closer to a snake's, but louder, deeper. Questions of how such a sound could come from a horse's voice box are not even to be considered--due to his recent talking, it can be firmly concluded that Célion did not have a horse's voice box, or that magic was otherwise involved.
Too many damn humans. No matter which he killed first, if he ended up killing them, the other would surely scream, or cry, or try to attack him or something equally annoying.
Perhaps more frightening was the blood visible on the white fur around Célion's mouth . Not dried but frozen in the blizzard, still vividly read.. There was quite a bit of it, and also specks on the shaggy white hair on his legs. He had killed the humans that had tried to capture him, and left them to be buried in the snow that now drifted slowly down. Their lives meant nothing to him.
The human in front of him did not look like though that had attempted to capture him. They had been rag-tag and loud. The human infront of him was hung over for warth, or perhaps out of fear, or perhaps both. He was alarmed by Celion's ability to talk, and also by the appearance of the girl-thing. Celion did not care that Lorin was not used to horses talking to him, and responded with just as mush distaste as he had had originally--perhaps more. "There are not any humans that way," Célion said, quite surely. "At least not for a very long while. The group of traveling merchant-thieves that was there have passed on." They had tasted alright, but human flesh was still not his favorite.
He swung his head to look at the approaching girl. Something about her was not right, and Célion did not think that he would like to eat this one, though in the cold he could not smell her. Still, she must have come from somewhere. "Stop yelling, silly girl-thing, and inform me where the nearest human village is, if indeed your brain is not addled."
The fact that the horse hissed didn't actually mean much to Damayanti. As far as she was aware, all horses could. She had never heard one make that sound before, but she also had never spent that much time around horses. So she just blinked her large green eyes at the horse for a moment before ignoring at and focusing on the man.
Well, she thought he was a man, but it was a little hard to tell with all his layers on. Though he appeared to be talking to the horse. Which seemed a little odd to the golem. As she got closer, it became apparent that she was not really as dressed as warmly as one should be to be out here. She had a fur lined jacket on, several sizes too large for her small frame, but she only seemed to have a simple skirt on under it. And no gloves.
"Why are you talking to the horse?" Tugging off her hood, Damayanti revealed the fact that she was indeed a woman. And a pretty one at that, with delicate, almost doll like features and curly red blond hair, half pulled back from her face. Though her skin had an odd, too pale look to it and her eyes had very dark circles under them, like she hadn't slept much recently.
About to introduce herself, the horse interrupted, speaking to the Prince. Damayanti knew that horses weren't supposed to talk and she stared wide eyed, jaw slightly open. It was then that she noticed the blood on the creatures mouth and she glanced over at the man. Maybe this hadn't been the best plan.
While she might be only sort of alive, she wanted to keep it that way. And while she didn't always have the greatest sense of self-preservation, even Damayanti was aware that being eaten was not a good thing. As she was all to familiar with the effects of that.
"I am not addled...And I am not a thing!" Even nervous, Damayanti hated to be called a thing. She still kept her distance, not really wanting to get close to the beast anymore, "I am lost as well. I got stuck in the snow." She gave the male another worried look, not sure if he was with the scary horse thing or not. "I was hoping you knew where the village was."
Giving Lorin a funny look, she frowned again, "Why are you wearing that scarf over your face?" The fact that the man was freezing and trying to keep warm didn't really connect with her.
Oh great gods, Lorin thought, cringing. That hiss. An awful sound on its own, coming from such a creature it put a mortal fear in him. He held his breath, fearing the hiss heralded an attack, and staggered backward another step. I don't think that's a horse. No horse he knew of made such a sound, and as he stared wide-eyed at it he noticed at last the splash of red about the creature's mouth.
Such a bright crimson. Perhaps...perhaps it was just its natural coloring. Yes. That is what he would believe. To think otherwise might have paralyzed him to the spot.
But not even the sight of blood dismayed him as much as the news the creature relayed.
Lorin's shoulders sagged. "None at all? They're gone?" The wind hammered at him. He closed his eyes and felt the white wilderness close around him, killing him. Drained of hope, he cast a helpless look about the landscape that may well be his grave. If there was no settlement, then it had all been for naught. He could not catch a caravan on foot and he would not survive a night out here. His chances would have been better among the abductors.
He felt desolate.
"It...it talked to me first," he told the woman, drawn out of his gloom by indignation. He wasn't touched in the head, to go around having conversations with livestock. It really had spoken to him first! And he was quite certain now that it could not be a horse, though to ask struck him as rude. Whatever it was, it was dangerous, and he wasn't such a fool to think this woman was harmless either, pretty or no. While their focus was on each other, Lorin edged away yet more. He would leave them to their own affairs and continue the same way he had been walking. It was as good a direction as any other.
The woman's attention back upon him stopped him. "Oh, well..." What a question. What did she think it was for? He readjusted the scarf, shifting it up on his nose. "It's there to protect my face from the cold—ah, I'm so sorry!" A bit of snow and he neglects all obligation of civilized behavior. More shameful still because he was royalty. The lady was surely suffering the cold and there he stood with proper winter clothing on. His mother would have given him such a scolding.
Lorin swept his cloak from around his shoulders and draped it over one arm so that he could tug his gloves off as he approached her. "Forgive me, I have been remiss. The gloves may be a bit large for you, but they will do for warmth."
Damayanti kept her green eyes on the strange horse creature. She didn't like it. At all. She kept her distance from it. She wasn't totally sure about the man either, but the golem hated being alone. It was worse then almost anything else. It was what caused her to seek company time after time.
When Lorin approached with his cloak over his arm, Damayanti retreated slightly, frowning, "What are you doing?" She wasn't sure she trusted him enough to get close. The golem had the strength to break someone like Lorin in half, but she didn't really know how to use it. And she still wasn't sure if he was connected to the evil horse....thing.
Tilting her head, she looked at him, puzzled, "Gloves? Why would I want your gloves." She lifted her own hands, half covered by the too long sleeves of her jacket, "It's hard to move my hands in gloves."
The fact that they didn't know the right direction was rather annoying. The girl puffed her cheeks out, slowly blowing out the air, making a fog in the air, "I know there is a village somewhere around here. I haven't been lost for that long. But I got all turned around, so I don't know which direction to go."
"Well...for the cold?" Lorin held the cloak and gloves out at arms length, but stopped a few paces from her. Poor girl was obviously nervous and why not? Faced with a unknown man and a predatory creature out here where civilization had caught no hold, any girl—any person—would be wise to proceed with caution. He'd been nigh on the verge of panic himself when he'd seen her making her way through the snow. How easily could one trust any stranger out here? And when the land itself was your enemy that left little faith to spare on odd girls who didn't seem to feel the cold.
She wasn't shivering. Closer now, he had the chance to notice it. Nor did she hug herself and hitch her shoulders up as he did.
An ice mage? Something else? Which made him wonder what she was doing out here at all, where she had come from and why she had left. Behind her, the snow had already begun to erase her footprints. Lorin glanced behind him and gave thanks for mixed blessings. This weather put him in peril, but it was also hiding his tracks. All the more reason to continue on swiftly.
"If you don't need them..." He donned his cloak and gloves again, though the chill had already seeped down into his bones. It seemed surely impossible that he would ever be warm again. Little else he had encountered in life compared to the drag, the drain, that constant cold put on his body. To find no relief from it, no end to the knifing bite of frigid wind. And to think people lived up here! It would have driven him mad.
"I've no time to tarry, I fear. I must find shelter before night falls." Curious as he might have been, the creature had said nothing of any village he knew of and the girl seemed not to know where she was going either. "My lady," he said, bowing to her. "Sir." He gave the creature a nod and set off in the same direction he had been walking in for hours.
In perhaps...seven hours?...the sun would set on this world and take his chances of survival with it.
"You are something unnatural," Célion told Damayanti bluntly. He had no real understanding or need or like of feelings and how to spare them. Why would he need tact? Célion liked things frank and to the point. There was no need to beat around the bush when you could just trample through it. The girl gave him a weird feeling, anyway, and he was quite certain that something here wasn't how it should be. And when Lorin took his warm clothing off for the... girl... Célion did not try and hide his scoff of distain.
Humans, Célion thought belligerently, Are so stupid. Why would he remove his cloak and gloves for some chit he'd only just met? Even Célion was a little cold, and he was a dragon. But this exasperation with the strange social rituals was quickly wiped from Célion's thoughts when the flash of a ring on Lorin's hand.
A signet ring.
It was, perhaps, an unhealthy social habit, but Célion was the rudest thing on the planet--until he came across a noble. It was a double standard that he had been taught from birth, just like every other dragon. Farmers, merchants, and artisans were to be tolerated at best. Nobles and royalty were a completely different matter. They were to be treated with respect, whether they were foreign or domestic nobles, and they were certainly not to be eaten and if they were under duress, they were to be helped.
Célion did not really like Lorin. Had Lorin not been a noble, the sight of him walking off, shivering, into the snow probably to die some horrible death and not be found until some equally lost fool stumbled over him wouldn't have worried Célion at all, and he in fact might have had a good laugh about it before continuing on his way. Unfortunately, Lorin's signet ring proved that he was a noble, at least, and though Célion did not know he was royalty being a noble was enough.
"Wait!" Célion commanded, and he took great loping strides towards Lorin in about the least threatening manner he could--which is still about the scariest thing you can imagine. "You are no peasant."
Damayanti gave a start when Lorin started to leave. She could feel her heart rate pick up and she started forward, not wanting to be left alone. Or even worse, left alone with the frightening horse thing. Her hand reached out, large eyes wide with fear and she latched onto the back of his jacket, "Please. Don't leave me. I'm scared!"
Her hand jerked back, clutched against her chest at the horses comment, one hand coming up to cover the stitching at her wrist there. The creatures comment hurt, but the golem glared back at him, "Take that back! I am not!" How dare he! Damayanti felt color rise in her face, giving her a slightly healthier look, covering the odd pallor of her skin, "Y-you are the unnatural thing!"
The sight of the creature approaching Lorin made her nervous and she took a few more hesitant steps toward the human. She wasn't going to let the bloody horse monster eat him. He had been nice to her and Damayanti hated being alone more then anything. When he broke into a run, the small golem did as well, trying to stick herself between Lorin and the monster, "Don't you dare hurt him!"
Lorin lurched to a halt as the girl creature—he was no longer sure she was human—grabbed at his coat. He sighed before twisting around to look at her. "You can come with me if you like. But I must keep moving and keep my blood up." He'd been standing still too long. He needed to get his blood moving again to create some warmth. She may not have felt the cold, but his body felt it as a very mortal threat.
As soon as she let go, he got his feet moving again, and she could come or stay as she saw fit. The chivalrous thing to do would be to stay with her until she knew what she wanted to do, but chivalry was of a minor importance just then. He would beg her pardon later, if the opportunity presented itself.
But he only made it a few more steps before the horse creature's voice cut through the moaning wind and halted him where he stood. Lorin whipped around. It was running right towards him! He retreated back a couple of steps instinctively.
"I'm..." Now, how had this creature known that Lorin was not a commoner? His mind raced until it remembered his hands. His gloves. He'd taken them off, and the silver signet ring with its white raven emblem would have betrayed him to anyone with eyes to see. Damn. He felt like an ignorant fool. No matter what he did, he only made the situation worse!
How would he possibly make it back to Serendipity? His own obliviousness would destroy him ere he reached a settlement.
"No," he admitted. No use in hiding it now. When the girl put herself between them, he laid a hand on her shoulder and stepped in front of her. "I am not a peasant. I am a prince of Serendipity. Lorin Siilan, High Lord of Ravensway. Who addresses me?" In fear, he resorted to what he knew best, raised his chin and drew his shoulders back and presented himself as the lord that he was.
Damayanti's green eyes flicked between the strange horse and the man. She didn't try and stop him from stepping out from behind her, but she didn't trust the horse to not try and do something. She was so tired of being all alone and Lorin seemed nice. Though Damayanti didn't actually know what a prince was, the word was unfamiliar to her. Her vocabulary was a jumbled, confusing mess, made from the flawed memories of the bodies she was using.
Her small, delicate hands fidgeted with the fur that lined her jacket. She wasn't really sure what was going on and it made her nervous, "You said you needed to keep moving..." Damayanti was somewhat hoping they could just leave the nasty horse behind. She didn't like the reminder that she wasn't like everyone else rubbed in.
Her fingers moved over the rough stitches in her wrist again, a nervous gesture she had. She wasn't unnatural though. Just different. She glanced over at Lorin again, chewing at her lower lip, an icy wind stirring her pale reddish curls, "We should go, please?"
"Yes...yes, I did say that. And yes I do." The oddity of the meeting with these two had kept him in place for too long already, and every time he tried to leave them something held him up. No more of that. Lorin made his feet move, and she could come or stay as she pleased. It wasn't polite to turn his back on someone who was addressing him, but with each passing moment he was made more and more aware of his own mortality, and survival finally outweighed his manners.
"If I don't keep moving, I won't last long out here." He shot her a glance when she used the word we. It seemed she'd already decided they were in this together. Not that he objected to the company. It was just that he didn't know this girl at all. Good sense demanded he remain suspicious, yet his natural inclination was to assume the best of her. Either way he was terribly curious, though to pester her with personal questions at a time like this would have been unforgivably rude.
Since neither the creature nor the girl had been able to tell him which in direction he might find a village, he kept on they way he had been going. There was something out there, the fey had indicated that much at least. At this point he didn't care if it were slavers or cannibals or a clan of giants who would put him in a cage and make a pet of him—so long as he found a bit of warmth before he met his fate.
Possible enemy or no, a lady deserved a proper greeting, and since it looked as though they'd be together for awhile, Lorin paused and bowed to the girl. "We are well met, my lady. I am at your service on this journey. May I have the pleasure of your name?"
Damayanti bobbed her head in greeting before pushing on. She didn't really understand why he wanted to keep moving, but it was important to him, "My name is Damayanti." She blushed a little at his language. He sounded so....fancy. She had never heard anyone talk like that before.
Making her way through the snow, the flesh golem did her best to scan the area for any sign of people. Mostly it was empty and white, broken only by gray rock. She couldn't help but sneak glances over at Lorin. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but he didn't seem to like talking much.
After a moment, she gave up trying to keep quite, "Are your lips always that blue color? I've never met a human with blue lips before."
"It's...an honor, my lady." The words came with difficulty as tremors wracked Lorin's body. How long could a human survive in this kind of cold? He hadn't the faintest idea. But his body knew something was wrong. It could feel death seeping into it, and a quiet dread overtook Lorin as he turned back to his path—which was not a path at all but indeed a wasteland, with no succor that he could see or sense.
Though he struggled on through the snow in silence, he was nevertheless grateful for Damayanti's presence. Even to know another walked beside him eased the ache, no matter that she could do nothing to help him.
At least I won't die alone.
Hours before he would have railed at himself for despairing so, but now the words settled in him as a hard truth. As the sun sank and the light began to noticeably fade, so too did the last of his hope.
His mind was in such a fog by then that he didn't realize at first that Damayanti had spoken, and continued on a few steps before answering her. "No," he said simply, and then pushed on, eyes on the snowy ground before him. He could not bear to look at the empty landscape.
Damayanti lapsed into silence, wishing she knew what else to do for the man. He seemed in trouble, but she didn't know how to help, "Um...would you like my jacket?" He seemed cold, which was bad? It didn't bother her any, but everyone else seemed to hate it.
The fading light didn't bother Damayanti any, her eyes could see in it just fine. She noticed some shapes moving in the distance. They seemed to be heading toward them. It was hard to make out much detail, but they seemed human shaped. Lifting her arm, the golem pointed, "Sir? Are those friends of yours? Maybe they can help you?"
Lorin didn't realized he'd stopped moving until Damayanti spoke and offered her jacket to him. He was standing still in the driving snow, swaying as the wind pummeled him.
He took a deep, stinging breath. But just as he resolved to accept his fate, Damayanti's next words cut to the heart of him.
His head whipped up. For a few moments he couldn't move, and squinted at the distant shapes, not allowing himself to believe yet that they could be people. To hope for that, to accept that, then to discover he was mistaken would shatter what was left of him, and he would not even be able to die with grace.
Instead of energizing him, the sight drained him utterly. Lorin sank to his knees and huddled in the snow. It felt good to sit down. It felt warmer, and there was a kind of peace in giving in at last. "They're so far," he mumbled.
"That's alright. I can carry you." Damayanti moved closer to Lorin, reaching down to touch his arm, tugging lightly at the arm of his jacket, nervous at his sitting. She was sure that was bad, that Lorin shouldn't be in the snow like that.
"Please? Get up. I can carry you. Really. But you shouldn't sit down." Pursing her lips, Damayanti turned to look back at the figures in the distance. The figures were defiantly heading there way, close enough now that Damayanti's eyes could make out that they were in fact men, 5 of them, dressed in heavy furs.
"You could?" He smiled in spite of the ice seeping into his bones. The thought of Damayanti carrying him struck him as humorous—and a significant breach of etiquette. A lady forced to strain herself by carrying a man? He should be able to walk on his own.
It was that thought, even more than her insistent tugging at his sleeve, that spurred him to his feet again. He forced his head to clear and found the people in the distance to be far...but not so far that he couldn't make it. "I'm all right. Thank you. Let's go."
Perhaps the five figures ahead had seen them, because as Lorin slogged on it seemed they were angled directly at each other.
"Oh yes. Easily. You only weight...what? 200 pounds?" Damayanti wasn't the best judge of size, but she could easily lift someone much larger than Lorin with no strain on herself. She was worried about him, about what was happening to him, "Would you like my coat?"
As Lorin stood, the golem moved to stand next to him, slipping one of his arms around her shoulder and her own slim arm around his waist, supporting most of the princes weight, "Here. This should help."
The men were getting closer and Damayanti really hoped they were going to help them. Lorin didn't seem to be doing well and Damayanti didn't know how to fix him.
"No, thank you." It was touching of her to offer, but he had a feeling one more coat would make little difference at this point. He'd been in the cold for too long; he couldn't quite guess at how many hours. His mind was too muddled. The people approaching him were the only things truly sharp and real.
He must have had some hidden reserve of energy, for once he was on his feet and moving again it became easier to keep going. Damayanti's support buoyed him and he came out of his stupor and realized they had nearly closed the distance between themselves and the other travelers. They were within shouting distance of each other, though in the driving snow they appeared as little more than gray blurs.
It was slow going and Damayanti finally made an annoyed sound before she stopped and picked the prince up, carrying him against her chest. Despite her small size and delicate appearance, she didn't seem to have any problems carrying the larger boy, "You take too long. It's much better this way."
She didn't generate much heat, but there was some as she pushed her way through the deep snow. The men grew closer and started hurrying when they saw how badly Lorin seemed to be. It was three men, all big, sturdy and wrapped in furs.
"Please, can you help us?" Damayanti held out the prince in her arms, "He's too cold..." She didn't really understand how to help him.
"Wha-who? What are you kids doing out here?" The leader of the men came forward, shrugging off one of his furs and spread it over Lorin, confused but not unsympathetic. The fur was warm and stunk of bear and sweat and the man, "I guess it doesn't matter. Let's get you two warmed up and then we'll talk."
"Hey what...what are you doing? I can walk!" He didn't realize what Damayanti was up to at first. When she grabbed he thought she was just offering him more support!
"It is not better. Put me down, this is undignified!" By the gods, she was strong! He wiggled and struggled and could not pry himself out of her arms. It was the most animated he'd been in hours. He especially didn't want the first impression these strangers had of him to be this sight—this girl carrying him because he was too week to make it another fifty feet on his own two legs.
He was so worried about how this looked that he forgot to be worried about the strangers until they were right in front of them. Damayanti finally let him go, and he struggled to regain his balance in the piling snow.
"Ah, thank you kindly." The fur was huge on him, but warmer than anything he was wearing. "It's a pleasure. My name is Lorin, and this is Damayanti."
"Hi!" Damayanti smiled and waved at the men. They had given her a fur and she obediently wrapped it around her. She didn't really need it, but they had been insistent. It smelled funny, but it felt nice under her fingers.
Her large eyes watched the men talk, waiting to see what would happen.
"Ah, well, good ta meet ya. Come with us. Get ya somethin' hot in ya." The men turned, heading back the way they had come from. They had a ways to walk, and Damayanti helped support the prince. Eventually they came to a small collection of huts in the snow. It wasn't a village, just a place that travelers and hunters would use.
They smelled foul and quickly filled with greasy smoke but they were warm and out of the win. Gesturing to the pair, the men all sat down, one of them starting to warm up some soup over the fire.
"So, wanna tell me what you two were doing up here?"
((OOC: I don't have any real plan with these men xD Please feel free to use them or lead things or whatever))
It was every bit as cold as before, the wind every bit as harsh and the knee-deep snow just as difficult to plow through, but the meeting buoyed Lorin in a way beyond physical warmth. Yet he felt hesitant, suspicious of the hope bubbling up inside him lest it be swept away by some worse misfortune. He couldn't speculate on the nature of these men, on the myriad of dangers they might conceal beyond the generous exterior. He felt his mind would break if he tried. He could only fathom the driving snow, and the musty warmth of the fur about his shoulders.
Time passed without his awareness until firelight blossomed before him and they were ushered into small, stuffy huts. He noticed the smell and the filth of them but didn't care. Their question, wholly reasonable, caught him by surprise. In all the hours he'd been out there, he had no thought to arrive at a believable excuse for his own odd presence.
"I..." His mind scrambled for some explanation, and by now they were all staring at him. "I, uh..."
((OOC: We'll let Lorin get a little better then see what kind of trouble they can get into. xDD ))
Damayanti watched Lorin stammer, then looked at the men, then back at Lorin, "Um. His name in Lorin and I'm Damayanti. I was lost. I think he was too."
((OOC: Stop making me NPC all these guys Tal xD I'm not gonna run them all. You pick some up too.))
Lorin kept an ear open and noticed that only a few of them spoke Common, and they did so with a heavy accent. The rest spoke a sharp, blunt language he didn't recognize. Still, best not to be too loose with his tongue, even when talking with Damayanti. They may understand more of Common than they were letting the two of them think.
One of them, the one who had lead the group out in the snow fields, passed them each a bowl of their...rather interesting smelling stew. Despite his reservations, Lorin knew better than to refuse, and he would need his strength besides. He tested a sip, and found it tasted quite a bit better than it smelled.
Whoever they were, they didn't seem terribly concerned with his hesitation or silence. The leader was distracted by others telling him something in their own language. Lorin tried to follow what they might be saying based on their gesture and tone of voice, but he was utterly lost. He leaned in close to Damayanti.
"Do you know at all what they are saying?"
Damayanti happily ate her stew, not bothered in the slightest that it smelled like rancid grease. The men were nice and Lorin was nice and he seemed to be doing much better and suspicion and paranoia weren't really common to Damayanti.
When Lorin leaned closer, she nodded, smiling, "Oh, yes. Lifwayn wants to take you back down to the village. Most of them agree, but a few think that we're slavers." Damayanti blinked, realizing what she had just said and she leaned forward and spoke to the men in their own language, assuring them they were very nice people and not slavers at all.
Silence settled over the hut as the men stared at Damayanti, then the large one that had first spoken to them laughed, switching back to common, "Well, that settles it then. You and your lady friend are commin' back to the village with us. Ya can catch a ride back down the mountain with a trader or somethin'."
He'd been expecting a 'no' from Damayanti. After all, she spoke Common with no accent whatsoever. He stared at her when she translated with no hesitation. Well! This girl was quite the useful one, and full of surprises besides.
Not only could she understand them, she could speak their language as well! He must have looked quite the fool, sitting there with his mouth slightly open as she conversed with them. He stuffed another spoonful of the stew into his mouth just so he would stop gaping. His bowl was only half empty when an older woman grabbed it from him. "Oh!"
She ladled more of the soup into it until it was brimming full then forced it back into his hands. "Atcha, atcha," she said, pointing at the bowl then at him. Then she muttered something to the men and a small laugh rippled around the room.
Lorin may not have spoken their language, but he knew a grandmother when he saw one, and he knew when he was being told to eat because he was too skinny. He'd spent some time as a ward to one of the more traditional and powerful Adelan tribes, and this was no new circumstance to him.
As it happened, he had been most wise not to speak much in their presence. These men did know Common! Lorin scrambled to his feet so he could offer a proper thanks and a bow. "That is most gracious of you, sir, and House Siilan extends its gratitude to you. My heart is alight with the radiance of your noble hospitality."
Their host—Lifwayn?—glanced at his men then shrugged. "Ah. Right! Well sit! Sit and eat, for we move on at first light." He clapped a hand on Lorin's shoulder and it rather felt like getting thudded with a brick.
"She says you are...um..." Damayanti paused, trying to figure out a way to make what the woman said make sense, "Well, roughly, she said that you need to eat more. Don't they feed you?" She tilted her head, waiting for an answer while she ate another bite of her stew.
It was warm and tasted good, though it didn't really do much for her. She ate because the people wanted her too then anything else.
The men were watching them, a few of them a little nervous, but most seemed comfortable and the women all seemed taken with Lorin.
"I gathered," he said, smiling into his bowl. Now she had Damayanti worrying over him, and quite unnecessarily! Damayanti surely was a curious girl. She must have never seen a Serenian before, for Lorin thought himself no leaner than he should have been, certainly no leaner than one would expect for someone of his blood. "I eat well, don't worry," he said, giving Damayanti's hand a pat.
As he finished his second bowl, he watched the people gathered about in the hut. A good number of them looked to be laying down bed rolls and some had even laid down. Surely they would not be expected to all sleep in the same place! "Do you suppose this is where we will sleep," he whispered. "Everyone so close to each other like this? All the men and all the women in the same room?"
"What? Oh yes. I think so." While Damayanti had the ability to understand and speak languages, she didn't really know anything about the cultures. Another woman handed her some furs, "Here. For you and your man."
A number of the folk were starting to strip down as well. It got cold in the mountains and sleeping with another person kept them warm and clothes made it harder to share body heat.
Watching them a moment, Damayanti started to set up the furs into a bed like the other woman were doing, "These are for us. Do you want help with your clothes?"
The bowl was plucked out of Lorin's hands and deposited...somewhere. He was growing too alarmed as the people began shedding their clothes. He averted his eyes before he saw anything he oughtn't.
"Do I..." He didn't take Damayanti's meaning. Then it came to him. "I...my clothes...no. Uh, no."
He must get out of this with as much social grace as possible. "I will sleep in my clothes, and...I think you should do the same."
Damayanti was in the process of lifting her shirt when she paused, frowning as she looked around. Most of the others that were sleeping there had already stripped down. She blinked at Lorin, cocking her head, "What's wrong? Why not? Wont you be cold?"
Not that she would give much body heat. She wasn't icy anymore, thanks to the warm tent, but she wasn't a normal temperature yet.
Lorin really wanted to grab her shirt and pull it back down. She was dangerously close to losing her modesty, and his along with it. "Ah...no, the furs will be enough. Let us just stay clothed."
He became very intent on arranging their blankets just so as the rest of the group settled in. If his mother could see him now she would faint dead on the spot.
Damayanti frowned, slowly lowering her arms, "But that's not right...and the clothes are wet." She needed to obey, but he wasn't her master, not yet and keeping him healthy and alive was more important.
So she whipped her shirt off and began to undo her pants, nudity being rather unsexual to her, she wasn't bothered by her own, "You will need to strip as well so we can get you warm."
Lorin looked away just in time to avoid the most dire of embarrassment. He threw a hand up like a visor over his eyes to shield himself from any accidental loss of modesty. And it would be accidental! He was not going to look.
"I really do...heartily request that...you...clothe yourself, my lady. Please?" The dim firelight would—he prayed—hide the fierce blush that heated his face. In desperation he pictured his mother, standing right there looking down on the both of them, and that did for him in keeping any other unwanted physical reaction from showing itself.
Damayanti climbed into the furs, having already decided that following what everyone else was doing would best serve her new friend. Though several of the pairs were having sex under the blankets and that was something she was less clear on and decided to ignore that. Other people were just curled up together.
She leaned closer, her cold fingers lightly touching his hand, "What's wrong?"
"How can you not know?" Lorin took himself a deep breath. He had a solution in mind now. He could make it through this with dignity still mostly in one piece. Thank the gods of fortune she wasn't trying to undress him.
He looked straight down on his own chest and laid the first layer of blanket beneath him, so that it now stood between her body and his. Thinking better of it, he then wedged one of the cushions at his head between them.
There. They weren't touching, and he curled up tight under what was left of his blankets and pulled them over his head.
Sadly, it didn't work as well as Lorin might have hoped. Damayanti quickly moved so she was on top of the first layer of blanket as well, arms wrapping around the boy and pressing tightly against the cushion, squeezing it between them, "We need to make sure you are warm. Why are we on top of some of the blankets?"
Lorin switched when she did, scrambling under the layer of blanket she'd just vacated. "Look," he said, and he couldn't keep the sharp barb of annoyance from his voice, "I would like to keep a layer of blankets between us. I'm quite warm, I'm fine."
He wiggled about until his back was to her chest, by far the best option for positioning that he could think of.
"...ooookay." Damayanti didn't feel very convinced, but he had more blankets on him and she gave a nod, curling up next to him, cuddling against him through the blanket. She closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep.
She awoke with the rest of the people, becoming instantly awake as soon as the rest of the hut started moving. Stretching, she rubbed her eyes and began to get dressed again, not at all bothered by the nudity, her own or the other people around her.
Lorin was among the last to rouse. He poked his head out from under the blankets and tried to find this place and these people in his memory.
"Oh hellfire." He groaned. He could barely move. His whole body was stiff. "I'm still here."
"Did you think you would be elsewhere?" Damayanti's pale, naked form got a number of odd looks, the scars across her skin were wicked looking and the stitching was still red. Once dressed, she headed over to the fire, where food was cooking. She brought over a plate of the fried meat and a hearty flatbread with a few nuts and winter berries baked into it.
Sitting crosslegged in front of Lorin, Damayanti held out a plate, "Eat?"
"I had hoped," he said. His voice croaked out through a scratchy and sore throat. He caught a glimpse of naked, pale skin when he looked up for Damayanti and hid his face beneath the blankets until she spoke again.
"Aye, thank you." He shrugged out of the blankets and folded his legs beneath him before taking the food.
Damayanti settled next to him, frowning slightly, "Your voice is bad." She looked puzzled, magic and memories mingling for a moment in her mind, "You are...sick?" She said the word slowly, as if unsure of it.
Lorin swallowed, and winced. "Aye, I think I may be."
He cleared his throat and tucked in to the food. It helped a bit. "Are they moving on, do you think?"
His head was so clouded. He could not decide if he should stay with these people or go, head north or south, seek to hide himself or search out civilization.
"They aren't moving just yet. But I'm sure they'll guide us somewhere." Damayanti watched Lorin, nervous at the illness. It made her uncomfortable, confusing warnings wiggling around her mind, "But you have to get well first...please."