Mountains west of Northgate
Winter 29 (while the other party members are at the sparring field, discussing leadership)
Vanja
After a breakfast of roasted rabbit and pine tea, Vanja watches as Bax rises, claps his hands, and asks Ethan, Talith and Roux to join him in the sparring field. Vanja’s instinct is to tail along, too, in the habit now of half-hunting Bax, in case he decides to range too far and not return. Bax had been reluctant to talk to her earlier, though. Maybe he would be in better spirits after some time to properly catch up with his old friends.
So Vanja stays seated, instead. Her hand travels absently to her chest, pressing against her breastplate, where the talisman her mother gave her is safely tucked between the borrowed steel and her own fragile sternum, cushioned by layers of wool and fur.
She had done something, the other night. Or something had happened to her. Through her, perhaps. The world around her fading to white, making the sky and the earth seem as the same endless space, and the River flowing through both, as a tangible, touchable thing…she’d been distracted then, though. Thinking of Bax.
It’s got to be some kind of condition. Something we can treat the symptoms of, at least, now that we know…
Vanja blinks, and shakes her head. She was allowing herself to be distracted again, when it was unhelpful to think of. They had time, still. A few more days, at least. It was better to use her energy to practice. To determine how to channel this new, deeper connection to the River.
Vanja tries to focus. To keep her breathing steady and even. To clear her mind, and think of the flow of fate, as natural as the flow of blood through veins, as air into lungs. Vanja can feel the riverlight rising in her, warming her, and she can see the magic coalescing in bright ribbons of green and gold down her arm and into her hand. It isn’t the same as that night, though.
Vanja curses, and releases the pent up riverlight in a directionless burst of light.
Sav
The sudden burst of light startles Sav, who hadn’t been particularly paying attention to the others, as she was once again absorbed in studying the octahedral aasimar artifact they’d rescued from the Swan caravan. She’s more or less done this every day at some point in the day, even though she hadn’t discovered anything new after the first week of studying it (and that when they hadn’t even left the city). Still, sometimes new angles could present themselves, or maybe it might shift based on different conditions, or different times, or the weather patterns - one never knew. So: she studies.
Her study interrupted, her head jerks up and she blinks over at Vanja, catching the afterglow of radiance washing away from her in all directions. “That’s new,” she observes, brows rising. “Why are ye swearin about it?”
Vanja
Vanja looks up at Sav, startled herself. She had been trying to block out everything around her, to try to achieve the same calm isolation from that night, but it hadn’t worked. Vanja leans forward in her seat, and looks over at Sav.
“I’m sorry,” says Vanja, “it wasn’t meant to be…that.”
Vanja indicates the area around her, where the light has melted the snow in a perfect circle, centered on her own seat. Vanja looks down at her feet, and at the small patch of yellowed grass between her boots. This was a new thing, too, though.
“It’s not what I was trying to do,” says Vanja. She takes a deep breath. The air is good here, and it steadies her. As she watches, the freezing air overtakes the thawed earth around her, and the grass solidifies, and goes white with frost. “The other night, when the River came down out of the sky, and swept me up in it, and Lumotu, Astarael, Ethan and Bax along with me, it felt different than this.” Vanja looks up from her feet, where the wet of her boots has iced over again, now, too, and back at Sav. “I’ve been…I don’t know. Practicing different ways to use the riverlight, since I set out to Jorung. And it’s all new. The stories my parents told were of healers, not…” She stops again. Restarts, “And that night, after we found out about Bax…” she goes quiet for a moment, and closes her eyes, trying to picture the white of the sky, then. “That night I wasn’t trying to do anything at all. And yet…”
She shakes her head, and pushes her loose hair out of her face. Some of her braids had come undone in the night and she sets to work now, replaiting them. Vanja nods to Sav, and indicates the artifact with a nod of her head, “I’m sorry, again. For interrupting. Have you found anything different? About that?”
Sav
Sav chews her lip, looking down at the artifact—lying still and silent on the pack she got specifically to hold it—and the cracked power source she’s currently holding. She looks back up at Vanja, and the ring of melted and refreezing snow about her, then down again, and sighs. “Nothing new today either. I tried to bridge the broken web of arcano—” a brief trill of wordless sung notes and a smooth segue back into, “—tasmic links here, here and here t’ see if coupling the biolodic and the tetralodic spans t’ each other insteada makin new ones of the same kind would work t’ meld them together and kindle the power up again, but no burnin luck.”
Having delivered that incomprehensible explanation with a moody sigh to cap it off, she puts the cracked power sphere back into the pocket on the side of the pack and begins to bundle the octahedron back into the pack, carefully wrapping it up in furs and binding it shut with string before adding more furs and nestling it back into the backpack. She ties the entire thing shut and sets it aside in the section she’s claimed as hers, a hollow formed by the juncture of two logs and a rock. Whatever Vanja’s doing right now and what she had done already is probably more interesting and fruitful than poking at another dead end—hah—on the vessel.
“Maybe it’s tied to the time?” she suggests, unfolding to her feet and shaking her limbs out to get the blood recirculating. She takes a step or two toward the slowly-banking fire, adding another several logs and encouraging it to light up with a burst of fire. Once it’s burning merrily on its own, she hunkers down next to it, holding her hands over it and looking up toward Vanja. “P’raps you have to see the River in order to travel by it?” Her eyes brighten as she considers something. “Does the River have… seasons, or weather patterns, or anythin belike? Maybe ‘twas the equivalent of a tornado, sweepin ye up? Or do ye think it was more deliberate? Can ye describe exactly what you were feelin’ and thinkin’ and what you were doin’ when it happened?” The general event had, of course, been described in the course of bringing everyone back at camp up to speed on what had happened, but this is the first time Sav’s had the opportunity to really ask about the details.
Astarael
Astarael has been sitting as close to the fire as she can, without actually being in it. She isn’t much one to complain, but the level of cold they were experiencing on this journey was pushing her usually abundant tolerance of uncomfortable surroundings. So, now that the camp chores were done, and breakfast eaten, she’s hunkered down near the flames to try and warm herself, her legs pulled in close to her body, her chin resting upon her knees.
She and Talith had yet to talk about their near-kiss. It has been almost a grasp (10 days), and every time they’ve been alone they’ve managed to avoid the subject, but it’s been on her mind almost constantly. Then there was that whole conversation a couple of days later about that noble girl Talith has apparently spent the past year with, something he had failed to mention before…
She was contemplating how to best broach the subject with him when the conversation between Vanja and Sav broke into her train of thought. They seem to be discussing Vanja’s strange ability that manifested the other night, transporting the sleeping party a full day’s travel back to the cave they had spent the previous evening. Astarael was very interested to see what Sav thought of the matter, and she turned her attention to listen to them.
Vanja
Vanja tries to pay attention to Sav’s explanation of her work with the artifact, but to Vanja, it’s as if Sav had spoken another language. Vanja has to stifle a laugh. It isn’t that anything that Sav said was particularly funny, but the sheer fact that Sav seemed to think Vanja had any chance of understanding it.
Vanja clears her throat, instead, and looks slightly upward, to where the peak above them meets the white-gray sky. It seems as if it will snow again, soon, though that’s hardly surprising.
“Those are good questions,” Vanja says. “And I don’t know the answers.”
“It does seem that maybe the River is stronger here, further North. In the South, in Isendel proper, I don’t think you can see the River at all, even at night. I used to think that that was the reason why there was no magic in Isendel. Because the River was the source of all magic, and without its light, there would be nothing to channel.” She shifts, and looks back at Sav, crouched close to the fire, and Astarael beyond. “But now I know that’s not true. The River might be the source of my magic, but it’s not the only one.”
“Even here the light of the River itself is different every night. Sometimes you can barely see it at all - so shallow you can see the stars through it. It’s easier to see when the sky is darker, but it’s always there, even when you can’t see it, and even in the daylight. It’s always moving, too. Flowing. So it’s always different. It isn’t…predictable, like weather can be. ”
Vanja sighs, and continues, doing her best to answer Sav’s questions. “I was alone, when whatever it was happened. On watch. I’d just taken over for Bax and I was just…I don’t know. Thinking about him.” Vanja looks away from Sav, now, and she can feel heat rising in her cheeks.
“Before meeting up with you all again in Jorung, I hadn’t seen Bax for nearly a season.” Not since after their disastrous sparring session, then after, when he’d shown her what the Swans had done to him. His collection of scars. “Since a few days after that disaster in the sewer,” Vanja clarifies, “But then we were together again, and back in the woods, scouting ahead, but he seemed so distracted and then, after we found the cave, where he’d been…staying…”
Vanja presses her hand to her face, but her hand is just as warm as her cheek, and does nothing to cool her blush. She speaks quickly, now, trying to explain, “So I don’t know. I was thinking about Bax. I’d really missed him, before, and now he was talking about leaving the group, and I just…I don’t want to lose him, right when we’re back together. I…” She stops and hesitates, suddenly self conscious.
“And I don’t know how it happened. It seemed like the air was starting to blizzard - the way a white out can come out of nowhere. You don’t realize you can’t see as far until suddenly you’re in this white space. And then, when the River seemed to flow down from the sky… I thought maybe I’d fallen asleep. Or that maybe I’d died. That I’d misjudged the cold and I was going to cross the River and be with my parents. But even then all I was thinking of was Bax. That if this was the River calling me, that if it was my time, then I would be abandoning him.”
“And then the River flowed away and the whole group of us was somewhere else.” Vanja stops speaking and shrugs, trying to pretend nonchalance. “I don’t know if that’s what a tornado is.”
Sav
Sav shakes her head to confirm Vanja’s supposition, that the River can’t be seen at all further south in Isendel. “First time I saw it, ma eyes near popped out of ma heid an I babbled like a loon about it,” she says, lips quirking a little at the memory. So much younger and dumber then, lo those many three years ago.
The idea—of there being sources to magic, not just the River but that it seems to be an unspoken assumption that a source is necessary—niggles at the back of her head, but she files it away for later. It’s not immediately relevant, though it is an interesting thought to pursue.
“Even so,” she says thoughtfully, “that it’s present durin the day doesnae necessarily indicate whether you can use it as such, in that way, durin the day. At least, in that way. Although the fact that you can use the River for your other magics at any time does seem t’ put paid to that idea. Hmm.” She subsides, muttering something polysyllabic and fluting to herself, but from the way her gaze rests alertly on Vanja she’s still paying attention to what the Jorungun girl is saying.
She does, however, note the way Astarael, crouching nearby, looks up and starts paying attention to the conversation. And the way she huddles so miserably. Nodding at Vanja to go on, Sav moves to fetch some of the rocks she’s been using for erstwhile heating pads at night, for those on watch outside of the controlled comfort of her shelter spell. She extracts them from the cold furs and piles the stones into a small cairn, then sets the cairn ablaze for a handful of seconds. The ground scorches and sizzles, snow melting and mud drying out with the roasting heat; when she allows the flames to vanish, small waves of twisting air can be seen rising from the heated rocks. She waits for a few more moments for the worst of the heat to dissipate, then wraps a big thin slab and a smaller pair of rocks in furs and hands them silently to Astarael. She wraps several more for herself, setting one on the ground for her to sit on and another one that she cradles against her body and warms her hands upon, poking her feet toward the regular campfire.
In all of this activity, she misses the pauses and faltering and blushes, catching largely the words and little of the facial expressions. That she’s been listening is indisputable, though, because she looks up at Vanja as she comes to the end of her description and says, “That en’t what a tornado is, I think—that’s a fearsome twisty bit of wind that can do strange things and carry things far, and to be honest I’ve never seen one myself, only heard it described by those as lived on the plains.” She waves away the matter of what it is and continues. “And it brought ye back to the caves what Bax stayed in when he was a yeti, huh. Maybe because it was closest? The link there seems pretty strong, hm? I wonder—if ye were closer to Aelorean’s Crossing, would it have taken ye there instead? Or maybe it’s too far south and it can only take you where the River can be seen. I wonder if the blizzard is connected, too. Or perhaps it’s completely separate, no connection whatsoever—or maybe the blizzard or white-out or whatever was brought on by the River comin’ down to sweep ye away—” She continues to mutter on a bit more, then grunts sourly, stopping herself. “‘Tis impossible to pull any answers from just one instance, t’ gie ye pure truth. Anythin’ could be the answer and anythin’ could be coincidence.” She squints at Vanja. “I do wantae see somethin’ ‘bout ye though. Stay held for a titch.” She pulls her goggles up over her head and pulls a tool from under her cloak and begins to mutter over the goggles, drawing on them.
Astarael
Astarael takes the warmed stones that Sav hands her. She smiles at the act of kindness, thanks her, and continues to listen to her two companions talk.
Vanja
“I don’t know why it brought me to Bax’s cave, or how…and I know I can’t get answers from it only happening once. That’s why I was trying to make it happen again.”
Vanja lets out a breath. The air is cold and bracing, but her face still feels warm, so she takes off her cloak, folding it carefully on the makeshift bench beside her. When she looks up, Sav is rummaging in her own cloak, searching for something.
At Sav’s instruction to stay still, Vanja immediately stands, and takes a step back, over the log that was her seat. She raises her hands to chest level, unsure.
“What are you doing?” Vanja asks.
Sav
“‘S a good instinct,” she says absently, working over the goggles. “As ma stage director used tae say, ‘Once is chance, twice coincidence, thrice conspiracy.’” She pauses, something about that phrase striking her at this moment, and scowls at the memory.
The scowl deepens as she glances up and sees Vanja doing nearly the opposite of what she’d requested. Not so much in irritation at the instruction being disobeyed, as it doesn’t much matter whether Vanja stays still or moves about so long as Sav can see her eventually, but more in frustration at the immediate distrust. “I’m makin’ it so’s I can see the flows of active magics about ye, if ye’d gie me a few bits of a candle’s time. Or do ye have mighty plans takin’ you elsewhere at the moment this?”
Regardless of the response, she quiets down to focus on the ritualized patterns she’s scrawling on the edges and lenses of the goggles, leaving space for the other two without her musing filling the air.
Vanja
Vanja laughs a little and reclaims her seat on the log bench. “Fine enough,” she says. “You can’t blame me for being on edge, though. You don’t always say what you’re going to do, you know, and last time you got me in the face with that dust of yours.” She pauses, before adding, “I did tell you to warn me, the next time.”
As she settles back in, though, Vanja nods across the fire to Astarael. The Morathi girl has been quiet so far. “What about you, Astarael? Has Sav had you sit through this…magic physical already?” Vanja grins, “Or did you zap her when she tried?”
Astarael
Astarael smirks and raises an eyebrow at this question.
“Of course. After I met all of you, I was just as curious as Sav about the sources of your magic, not knowing the true nature of my own. So, I was happy to indulge Sav’s curiosity in mine, hoping she might help me find some answers. I also asked her plenty of questions about her own powers as well.”
Her face shifts into a bit of a frown now, and she glares a little at Vanja.
“I also resent the implication that I would ever purposefully ‘ZAP’ someone I cared about with my lightning. Though I suspect that Bax may eventually badger me into doing so to him. He does seem to like to live a bit dangerously. A trait I notice you two seem to share, so I don’t know why you’re complaining so much about any innocuous thing Sav might do.”
Vanja
Vanja rolls her eyes and laughs at Astarael. “Bax and I have a lot in common, that’s true. He’s a good fighter. Strong. And not afraid to be on his own, in a place like this,” she gestures to the mountain peaks, rising irregularly above the camp. “Brave, too.” She stops, feeling the blush rising in her cheeks again.
With a few low, Dwarven words, Vanja can feel the calming riverlight flowing though her, cooling her, pulling the heat from her cheeks. She feels better. Steadier.
Vanja glances at Sav - seemingly preoccupied with whatever work she’s doing on her goggles - and the back at Astarael. “You seem like you’ve gotten more comfortable here, yourself. Enjoying the company?” Her face cracks in a smile, and she covers her mouth with her hand. “You and Talith keeping each other warm, these days?”
Astarael
Astarael’s eyes go wide, and she quickly hides her face in her knees.
“I’m not sure what you’re implying about Talith and I, but I have grown to care for each one of you as dear friends.”
A slight wind picks up, blowing in Vanja’s direction, bringing with it more freezing cold air. Astarael looks at Vanja with a serious stare that implies that she will not discuss the matter further.
Vanja
Vanja starts laughing in earnest, struggling to speak through it. “If I…”
Another round of laughter. “The way he looks at you seems to say he sees you as more than a ‘dear friend’.”
“And I don’t usually end up rolling around in the snow, close as kissing, with men I see as just ‘dear friends’, myself, but…” she laughs again, tears in her eyes now, “maybe it’s different in the South.”
The riverlight collected in Vanja swirls up through her chest, but even with the River’s calming effects, it’s a few moments before Vanja is able to catch her breath. She looks at Astarael, noting the air catching her cloak, sending it snapping in the wind. Vanja feels safe enough, though. Astarael had said she wouldn’t use lightning on a friend.
Vanja grins at the serious look on Astarael’s face. “Anyway, the next time you two go missing I’ll be sure to wait longer before tracking you,” Vanja says, “How long did Talith say, before? An hour? Hour and a half?”
Vanja bursts into laughter again, bracing herself on the log bench to keep from falling into the snow.
Sav
There’s a thud as Sav stands abruptly, the warming stone she’s been using falling to land on the other heated stone she’s been using as a seat. The goggles, now properly etched and prepared (with no apparent sign of the work she’s invested into it, aside from a faint green glow to the lenses that’s hardly visible in the crisp winter daylight) are shoved down on her head as she pops to her feet. “Vanja.” The girl’s name is practically barked, it’s so abrupt. “Why’re ye shapin your own mind with magic?”
Vanja
Vanja straightens on the bench, the smile fading from her face, “What? Oh…” She releases the riverlight she’d been holding in her chest and she can feel it ebb away, replacing itself with the blunt edge of fear Vanja’s grown used to over the past half-year, and the new uncomfortable, confusing feeling that she felt when the River flowed down from the sky.
“Just…keeping myself calm.”
“When I was training with my mother, she taught me to use the runes, the prayers, to center myself, and focus. To keep a steady hand.” she says. “Now, though, since meeting you all…and with everything else…I get caught up, sometimes. In my own feelings. Angry or frustrated about things I can’t change. It can be a distraction from things that are really important, or from whatever task I’m trying to do.”
Vanja purses her lips, and looks down at her feet again, where the grass is frozen but still clear of snow. Where her frustration had burst out in a blast of heat and light, only moments earlier. “Those kinds of feelings are unhelpful.”
Sav
Sav purses her own lips, but can’t really argue that. Feelings often are unhelpful, in her experience, especially when they’re distracting. Ignoring the small needle of envy that threads in her mind, she says, “Hmm. Well. Can ye do it again? An t’other thing ye did before when you were trying to call the River to transport you. And maybe try to do the transporting thing again. I wantae see what the flows look like for each of ‘em.” Without looking down, she reaches into her bag for her notebook and a pencil, readying for notes.
Vanja
Vanja shrugs and stands, loosing an axe from its strap at her hip as she does so. She quickly doffs her layers of furs and wool and steel, stacking them next to her cloak on the log bench, sacrificing warmth for freedom of movement. She’s standing at the center of the melted and re-frozen earth, in just her tunic and leggings, now, axe in hand. She glances at Sav and Astarael. “Alright,” she says, “I suppose I’ll show you what I can do.”
Vanja settles herself, first, pressing the toes of her boots into the dirt. She finds her mother’s prayers on her lips, the riverlight responding quicker than her own thoughts - ready to be called upon. She feels the light fill her, bringing with it the comforting, warming calm.
That was one.
Vanja doesn’t know what made the burst of light come out of her, earlier, when she’d been trying to focus, and channel the River down from the sky, but she can demonstrate something else, at least.
“This is new, too,” she says, “though Astarael saw it a few days past.” She nods to the two other girls, sitting close to the campfire. “You may want to take a few steps back, in case.”
Vanja starts to move her axe hand in a slow circle, the movement of her wrist sending the blunt poll of the axe through the air in front of her, the air flowing faster as it moves under the blade, lifting the axe, making it light in her hand.
Vanja can feel the River rising in her again, responding as her muscles tense, flowing along with her adrenaline into her limbs, and down her arm. As the light coalesces in her hand, Vanja thinks of the air and riverlight flowing together, combining, turning into the very breath in her lungs.
The air and riverlight in her hand has becomes a spiral of green and gold, moving as an eddy over rocks, as a brief and deadly whirlpool, and just as it feels the axe will be lifted from her hand, Vanja straightens her arm, pointing her axe at the campfire, and releases the River’s energy with a word. “Lufkast.”
The swirling pool of riverlight and mountain air explodes outward from Vanja’s axe, and snuffs the campfire like a candle.
Astarael
Astarael had moved back as Vanja instructed. Although the wind frequently picks up in response to Astarael’s use of magic, or frankly, her mood, she has no real control over it. So, Vanja’s ability is very impressive.
She rather wishes Vanja hadn’t snuffed out the campfire, however. The cold sets in fast, here in the mountains. Astarael pulls her cloak in closer to conserve her warmth.
Sav
The goggles gleam, the pencil scribbles—a scrawl that’s tiny and barely readable, if anyone looks—and Sav nods to herself as she mutters to herself. Aloysius, perched nearby upon the roots of the fallen log Sav had placed her things, opens a sleepy eye and hoots disapprovingly at the blast of wind.
With a word, she sends the fire crackling up again—without the shelter, it’s way too cold to let it go without for long—and goes back to studying Vanja’s actions, noting how the Riverlight, while also pulling in from around her, seems to majority source from within her. She doesn’t say anything about this—at least, not in a comprehensible way, although she does mumble something about, “Coggin th’ River triggers, nae full sourcin’, but aids—maybe control? Maybe involuntary? Just opportunistic? Pull on all available sources?” She’s happy to explain in greater detail if asked, but if not she just asks Vanja to repeat some spells.
After a good handful of minutes doing this, a break in between for her to re-cast the spell on her goggles, and another span of minutes, she finally asks Vanja to try to replicate what she’d been doing when that party had been transported back to the yeti’s lair. “Including coggin’ a bunch about Bax,” she finishes. “It bein day an not white-outed are two different conditions, so keepin’ that one the same is important.” She blinks, realizing that it’s been actually quite a while since she’s seen anybody but the two women with her. Glancing around, she adds, “If it works maybe it’ll bring us to wherever he is.”
Vanja
Vanja nods at Sav’s suggestion and lets herself sit on the ground, her back against the log. She hasn’t used this much riverlight this quickly in a long time. Since that night in the sewer, maybe, or even before that, when she’d tried to call on the River to treat the village that had burned with fever and found it dry. She’s exhausted. But maybe it’s a good thing. She’d been tired that night, too.
Vanja tries to position herself the way she was the night the River had flowed down from the sky, and she closes her eyes. Instead of calming her emotions, instead of clearing her mind, she lets herself think of Bax. Of how he’d been uncharacteristically stern, chastising her for hunting the Yeti on her own, and how in the moment she’d laughed at him for a hypocrite. How he’d fallen quiet in the cave. In his cave, where he’d become some other form of himself, a monster, yes, but still man enough to run, to keep himself out of the city, away from his friends, to try to keep them safe. Vanja thinks of her friend in battle. How Bax had thrown himself into combat, dodging the ogres’ fists and feet and striking back, strong and deadly, with his spear. How he’d insisted on healing Vanja after, though she had more than enough riverlight to do it herself.
Vanja’s pulse slows, and she can feel her breathing steady. Without trying to shape and direct it, Vanja feels the River flowing through her on its own course. Steady and constant. Untroubled.
Vanja opens her eyes.
Nothing has happened.
Vanja curses and stands, tossing her braids over her shoulder, out of her face. “It didn’t work,” she says. She busies herself - donning her layers of fur and armor, avoiding eye contact with Astarael and Sav. Vanja can already feel her face burning again, embarrassed. Her mouth filling with the sour taste of her own failure. She doesn’t need to see that disappointment on the faces of her friends, too.
“We’ll just have to find Bax and the others the old fashioned way,” Vanja says, “Come on. Let’s make sure the boys haven’t fallen into a crevasse or anything.”
Without looking back at the others, Vanja starts toward the ridge overlooking the sparring field.
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