12-24-2016, 03:34 PM
Blinking in surprise at Amber’s outburst, it took Jade a moment to pick up nibbling at her food again, her eyes roving around the room to make sure they hadn’t attracted too much attention. It would stink to get thrown out of such a nice place, after all, especially since it was SO cold out!
Now that they were enveloped in the warmth of a tavern, the smell of burning fish oil and greasy, frost-wetted beards dampening everything, Jade was practically giddy with excitement over starting off on a new adventure. She could hear and smell bacon crisping in a pan, fat and meat mixed with smoke and salts creating a decadent aroma that set her stomach to grumbling. The room was dark, cavern-like walls dripping with condensation and firelight; a bar-like atmosphere clattered around them, dwarves occasionally shooting them wary glances from time to time.
Jade’s ears flicked when Rebecca giggled and cupped Becquerel’s snout between her small hands. After making the journey across fields of slippery snow and ice, Rebecca nestled comfortably atop his back like a toddler engaged in a pony ride, the wolf-dog had simply flounced down beside Jade’s feet and hadn’t budged since. Jade hadn’t even been certain that Bec was still alive until he sniffed, white fur sparking.
Rebecca’s fingers were apparently sticky for some reason, most likely from the honeyed bread Jade had given her to eat a little while earlier. Of course, Bec had been the one to eat it in a few snaps of his teeth seeing as the child didn’t need sustenance, but it had been an awfully gluey treat. So, the god-dog did what any faithful pet would do and licked the Little Sister’s hands until they were practically sparkling with cleanliness, something which Jade was quick to put a stop to once she caught wind of it.
“Ew, Bec! Don’t do that, you’ll get dog-germs all over her and then what will we do?” she said, batting his muzzle away from Rebecca. Wrinkling her nose a bit, she turned back to the conversation at hand, elbows scooting across the counter and her full attention resting on Amber.
She considered Amber’s question for a bit, chewing up a piece of cooked fungus that the dwarves apparently cultivated someplace underground. It might be dangerous, she supposed, but a lot of things were, and it would be amazing to learn more about Amber’s world…. besides, Jade seriously doubted that it could turn out as horribly as her last expedition!
Swallowing once she was finished chewing, Jade’s eyes sparkled as they met Amber’s. “I’m always down to help out a person in need!”
“Well, that settles it,” Amber said triumphantly, a bit muffled around her mouthful of food. “We’re helping the astronomer guy!”
Brandon was busy poring over his map of the Frozen Fields when the two primes emerged. Tents and woolen bedrolls had been laid down for the short time that they would remain here – after a few hours’ rest, with a watch set of course, the last watch would rouse them from slumber and the true journey into the mountains could begin. The astronomer sincerely doubted that he would get any sleep, not with how excited he was to set out! His hands practically shook during supper, unable to keep a lasting grip on the utensils for all the excitement stirring in his blood. Even the unforgiving white of the landscape couldn’t sour his cheery mood, and it was with bounding steps that he strode over to the primes, Tell following in short order behind him.
“So? I take it you’ve decided to help us?”
“Yes!” Jade Harley said, bouncing up onto the balls of her feet. “When are you going to set out? I have a little experience navigating around this place, if that would help.”
Brandon chuckled, smiling at her obvious enthusiasm. It was practically infectious! “Actually, we’re not setting out for a few more hours. The men need their rest, you understand, and we’ve already traveled far enough today as is.”
“Oh, yeah, of course!” said Jade, nodding quickly.
“Still, there is something that you can do to help now, if you’d like,” the astronomer continued, sending a meaningful glance in Captain Tell’s direction. “The captain here would know better than I what needs to be handled around here.”
It was true, but only because the astronomer and captain had been bickering about it for the past hour while the primes were away. While Brandon would have gladly let them into their company based on nothing but trust and goodwill, Captain Tell was far more wary of their motives. It was through this guarded mindset that he had elected to assign them some kind of task to prove their worth, eventually convincing the astronomer of the test’s necessity, but Brandon still hadn’t the slightest clue of what it could be.
Tell made a pinched face like he had a sour taste in his mouth, but soldiered on for just long enough to give them the task he had decided upon. “Do you see that slope, just a small ways beyond camp? Over it is an ugly patch of iced-over water. It’ll be a bitch for our sled-teams to get over, ‘specially with our cargo. If you can find a way to shift everything over it on your own, you’ll have earned your keep.”
Amber frowned, looking between the miscellaneous crates and barrels scattered around camp to the snowy hill. Just then the wind picked up, chilling her to the bone; while this task seemed like the kind of labor you could work up a serious sweat doing, the icy wind would undoubtedly keep them cool. There also wasn’t any signs of movement— no hares, foxes, or birds moving against the blanket of seamless white. Only men and dwarves seemed to have left tracks in their wake recently, and even that was scarce. The heavy snowfall swathed everything in silence.
The Faunus looked at the captain, lips pursed and a slight pucker between her brows, brain already whirling with ideas on how to move the crates across.
“We can handle it,” Amber declared, turning then to Jade. “C’mon, let’s figure this mess out!”
They started off at a steady lope through the snow, disappearing over the hill in only a few short minutes’ time. Brandon and Tell watched them go, the soldier with his arms crossed over his chest and the astronomer with a slight grin on his lips. Such determination, it was so refreshing!
“See, I told you,” he said, nudging Tell’s shoulder with his elbow. “They will be a great help to us. Although, I am a little surprised you didn’t give them something a little more… challenging. Wrestling with a wild grizzly bear or something.”
The older man scoffed, not turning to look Brandon in the eye as he began to head back towards the camp with long strides. The astronomer hurried after him, breath huffing out before him in visible clouds. “Watch out, I might take your silence the wrong way! ‘Oh, yes Brandon, maybe I was being a stodgy old curmudgeon in assuming the worst about everybody. Those children aren’t malicious at all, you’re so smart and a good judge of charact—’”
“The dwarves won’t be pleased that we’ve entered their domain.”
They entered the central tent with a rustle of cloth; Brandon immediately moved to sit beside the small lamp they had inside, hissing and rubbing his numb fingers together near it – Tell bustled around in the corner of his eye, only several feet between them despite it being the biggest among the tents that made up their camp. “Yes, and?”
Spreading out his bedroll and fishing out the tankard of grog he had tucked inside it, Tell jerked his head towards the tent flap. “The primes are our insurance. While I have no doubt that my soldiers are perfectly able to handle a few giggling teenagers, I’m not so sure about one of them taking an axe to the head and surviving it. If they’re as kind-hearted as you say, those girls won’t let it come to that.”
Brandon gave the captain’s turned back a long look, nodding slowly in understanding. If there was anything Captain Tell truly cared for in this irrational, crazy world, it was his group of soldiers. The men and women who pressed on even in the worst of circumstances, committed to the preservation and safeguarding of Camelot. It was almost touching, and the astronomer smiled fondly while he was sure Tell wasn’t looking.
“Anyway, assigning them to some basic grunt work will save us time,” the captain acknowledged, settling down on the woolly mat with the tankard tucked against his chest like a newborn babe. “We’ll be out of this region before any more…. unsavory types decide to try and knock heads with us.”
Both men fell silent, the underlying danger of the elder man’s words thickening the air. Outside, the arctic winds continued to wail, the whines of the dogs and the jingling of their sled-ties the only thing that disturbed the uneasy quiet.
Shaking his head, Brandon grinned a little and gave an easy shrug of his shoulders. “Say, how long do you think it’ll take them to get our gear across the ice?”
Taking a hearty swig of the grog, Tell leaned back on one elbow, watching as the tankard’s contents sloshed around. His eyebrows lowered as he closed his eyes, and Brandon could have sworn he looked like the wisest man in the world in that very moment.
“To tell you the honest truth? I don’t imagine they will.”
The snow was on fire and it was totally Bec’s fault.
“How did this even happen?!” Amber shrieked, stamping out the bright green flames with her boots, occasionally pausing to kick half-melted snow in its general direction.
“He was only trying to help!” cried Jade, hugging the wolf-dog’s neck tight while Rebecca appeared to be trying to sculpt a perfect replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà in the snow. Needless to say, the Little Sister was facing minimal success.
The pair had been lamenting the roughly five inches of support the ice was able to provide when Becquerel arrived on the scene. Sniffing at the ice, the white-furred hound had trotted around the edge, testing the seams and slushy patches with his paws. Having apparently found whatever he was looking for, the wolf-dog seated himself in the snow with a slumphf. And then he sneezed and the snow was o n f i r e.
Visibly slouching in relief as the flames finally died, Amber scrubbed one sleeved arm across her face. This was turning out to be a lot tougher of a job than she expected! The ice was just too thin, and she was pretty sure that the captain guy only wanted to cross it so he could shave off a few measly minutes of travel time. She also kind of got the feeling that he didn’t like them that much. Well, whatever. They’d show him!
Jade came over to stand beside her. “Well, what now? I mean, not that I’m not having a great time and all, but standing around and staring at this lake isn’t accomplishing anything!”
One hand resting on her chin, the Faunus nodded. “You’re right, Jade— we’ve gotta get to work if we want to help those guys out. The dark patches are what we have to worry about the most, I think, since the ice is thinnest there. Maybe we could make everyone some snowshoes?”
“Oh, good thinking! Something to distribute the weight over a wider area. But that could take a while….” The dog-eared girl bent down near the ice, moving one hand over it as she judged the depth of the waters below. “What if we just moved everything over?” she flapped her hand vaguely in the direction of the camp.
Amber stared at her. “Uhm, that’s the idea, isn’t it?”
“No, no, like this!“ Jade gestured at the snow with both hands, the ice particles drifting up to spin cyclically between her palms. After a few seconds they were molded into a perfect sphere, turning slowly before settling into her cupped hands. Amber took it from her when she offered it up, turning it over in her hands with a bemused look.
Pausing in her examination of the snowball, Amber squinted doubtfully over at the grinning Witch. “We’re going to make snowballs.”
“Well, I guess we could,” Jade giggled, shrugging. “But I was thinking more along the lines of mass levitation!”
“…..Okay, I’m listening, but only because that sounds freaking awesome.”
The camp was quiet in the snow, triangular tents made of brown burlap and patchwork staked unevenly in the ground. Despite Captain Tell’s worst fears, neither hide nor hair of a single dwarf had broached the grounds of their camp or given the first and second watches any trouble. Brandon learned of this when he awoke after several hours of much-needed sleep, tidying his gear and packing everything into his travel bag while the captain did the same. Sleeping in the same tent as the captain was like sharing a cave with a grizzly bear afflicted with a serious lung condition, but it was necessary— after all, what better way was there to protect such precious knowledge than by keeping the finest security near at all times?
Breakfast was a silent affair, the bread rolls in his pack hardened by the cold and scraping like chips of ice on his back molars while he chewed. It was all washed down with a few swigs of grog, the burning drink shooting down his gullet in a trail of fire and warming him down to his frost-nipped toes. He scribbled a few notes in his journal with a stub of graphite by the light of the lantern, teeth chattering as he tugged his coat tighter around his middle. Brandon wondered if the primes had had any luck with their task, his eyes locked onto the lantern’s flame until it was very nearly seared into his memory. Like Tell had said, he doubted very much that they had succeeded. Primes were resourceful, sure, but not that resourceful.
“What in the name of Hell gates?!”
He would know that voice anywhere. Apparently, Tell had found something new to inspire a few healthy bouts of crabbiness. Sighing wearily, the astronomer scrubbed one hand along the side of his face and rose to his feet, the leather of his boots creaking. Right then. Best to see what he was on about now before the good captain did anything too drastic, like order someone to dig in the snow with their bare hands until at least one frostbitten finger fell off.
Brandon blinked hard a few times as he stepped out of his tent, nearly blinded by the sunlight reflecting off from the snow. It took a minute before he could see clearly again, but when he finally got a good look around he rather wished he hadn't.
Oh. Oh.
That explained it. They were no longer near the gates of Dwarveholm, as Tell had undoubtedly discovered a moment before. Everything was shifted slightly, as well, with the tents rumpled up and the stakes loosened from the ice. Somehow during the hours when they were asleep their camp had been moved, and the obvious culprits stood just a few long strides away, grinning proudly at what they imagined to be a job well done. Jade Harley seemed tired, dark circles forming under her eyes and a slouch to her shoulders, and Veritz seemed only a bit better.
Captain Tell, on the other hand, was busy raining spittle on the faces of the second watch, berating the scarcely of-age boys for dropping off to sleep instead of doing their duty. Miss Harley, Brandon noticed, moved to intercede on their behalf only for the captain’s ire to reel onto her, which in turn roped Veritz into the fray. The other members of the company seemed perfectly content with watching, expressions ranging from amused to vaguely pitying on their faces.
Brandon approached Selena, a crossbow-bearing woman he had grown acquainted with during their travels; he had also borrowed a pair of boots from her when he’d worn out the soles of his own, which he was still eternally grateful for.
“Would you like some popped corn, or was your frozen meal as marvelously hearty as my own?” the astronomer asked, shuddering at the memory of the ice-covered rocks he had made himself eat.
Selena started, clearly surprised by his sudden appearance, but turned a friendly smile his way. “I had the good sense to sleep with my pack in my coat, thank you very much. Body heat! It does wonders.”
“Ah,” said Brandon, accepting this sage advice for what it was. “Great. What’s happened now?”
Understanding immediately just what he was referring to, Selena sighed. “Burgess and Piers konked out scarcely a half hour into their shift, I’d imagine, and they’re getting flack for it now. The primes— what are their names?”
“Jade Harley and Amber Veritz.”
”Right, Harley and Veritz! The black-haired one, Harley I believe, says she floated us over the lake while everyone was sound asleep. Incredible, I say, but then again primes are always doing things like that,” Selena finished, picking neutrally at the edge of her fur-lined sleeve.
“Really? All in a few hours’ time,” Brandon exclaimed, rubbing his chin in thought. “That’s something else.”
“Yes,” Selena agreed. “’Something else’ they may be, but you had better rescue them from Tell. Or, rather, rescue him— he seems liable to join the choir invisible before long, you know he has too much rage in his blood to be healthy.”
The dark brown-skinned man sighed, shrugging his shoulders in a hopeless effort to shake off the chill. Despite being over six feet tall and a pretty burly guy, speaking with someone as well-respected and….. opinionated about how things should be done made Brandon feel like an ant by comparison. Still, he felt like maybe he had earned at least some respect from the captain while making the journey here, and he was a goddamn adult. And goddamn adults didn’t back down from a little open discussion.
“Wish me luck,” said Brandon, starting to make his way over. Watching him march off like a soldier to war, Selena shot him a quick thumbs up and a somewhat pitying look, as well as a few other guards. But, when the astronomer trudged near enough to hear the actual words being exchanged, he stopped in his tracks.
As one of the Kingdom’s representatives on this excursion, it should have been expected that Laurence Tell was by no means an unreasonable man. “You misunderstand,” the captain explained to the animal hybrids, teeth gritted but desperately clinging to his last thread of sanity. “You carried out the task well, and I thank you for that. But to do something so drastic was a bit much. You could have mentioned it to us before you Leviosa’d us over here. What if you had dropped something into the water? One of our dogs? A person?”
“Oh, no! I didn’t even think of that!” Jade gasped, covering her mouth with one hand. “I am so sorry, it won’t happen again.”
Amber nodded in agreement. “Yeah. We’ll totally ask first, next time.”
“See that you do,” Tell huffed, turning away. He flapped one arm at Piers and Burgess, two scrawny kids with sunken cheeks and tiredness written into their bones. “You two….” the captain paused, brows furrowing at them. “Get some rest. We won’t be setting out for another hour at least, thanks to the time Harley and Veritz have saved us. Everyone else, get ready to move out.”
As Tell made to walk off, Brandon trotted after him, breath fogging in the air as he looked incredulously over at the captain.
"What?" Tell scowled, tossing one sack over his shoulder and reaching for another. "They did all-right."
Brandon grinned. They certainly did!
Now that they were enveloped in the warmth of a tavern, the smell of burning fish oil and greasy, frost-wetted beards dampening everything, Jade was practically giddy with excitement over starting off on a new adventure. She could hear and smell bacon crisping in a pan, fat and meat mixed with smoke and salts creating a decadent aroma that set her stomach to grumbling. The room was dark, cavern-like walls dripping with condensation and firelight; a bar-like atmosphere clattered around them, dwarves occasionally shooting them wary glances from time to time.
Jade’s ears flicked when Rebecca giggled and cupped Becquerel’s snout between her small hands. After making the journey across fields of slippery snow and ice, Rebecca nestled comfortably atop his back like a toddler engaged in a pony ride, the wolf-dog had simply flounced down beside Jade’s feet and hadn’t budged since. Jade hadn’t even been certain that Bec was still alive until he sniffed, white fur sparking.
Rebecca’s fingers were apparently sticky for some reason, most likely from the honeyed bread Jade had given her to eat a little while earlier. Of course, Bec had been the one to eat it in a few snaps of his teeth seeing as the child didn’t need sustenance, but it had been an awfully gluey treat. So, the god-dog did what any faithful pet would do and licked the Little Sister’s hands until they were practically sparkling with cleanliness, something which Jade was quick to put a stop to once she caught wind of it.
“Ew, Bec! Don’t do that, you’ll get dog-germs all over her and then what will we do?” she said, batting his muzzle away from Rebecca. Wrinkling her nose a bit, she turned back to the conversation at hand, elbows scooting across the counter and her full attention resting on Amber.
She considered Amber’s question for a bit, chewing up a piece of cooked fungus that the dwarves apparently cultivated someplace underground. It might be dangerous, she supposed, but a lot of things were, and it would be amazing to learn more about Amber’s world…. besides, Jade seriously doubted that it could turn out as horribly as her last expedition!
Swallowing once she was finished chewing, Jade’s eyes sparkled as they met Amber’s. “I’m always down to help out a person in need!”
“Well, that settles it,” Amber said triumphantly, a bit muffled around her mouthful of food. “We’re helping the astronomer guy!”
Brandon was busy poring over his map of the Frozen Fields when the two primes emerged. Tents and woolen bedrolls had been laid down for the short time that they would remain here – after a few hours’ rest, with a watch set of course, the last watch would rouse them from slumber and the true journey into the mountains could begin. The astronomer sincerely doubted that he would get any sleep, not with how excited he was to set out! His hands practically shook during supper, unable to keep a lasting grip on the utensils for all the excitement stirring in his blood. Even the unforgiving white of the landscape couldn’t sour his cheery mood, and it was with bounding steps that he strode over to the primes, Tell following in short order behind him.
“So? I take it you’ve decided to help us?”
“Yes!” Jade Harley said, bouncing up onto the balls of her feet. “When are you going to set out? I have a little experience navigating around this place, if that would help.”
Brandon chuckled, smiling at her obvious enthusiasm. It was practically infectious! “Actually, we’re not setting out for a few more hours. The men need their rest, you understand, and we’ve already traveled far enough today as is.”
“Oh, yeah, of course!” said Jade, nodding quickly.
“Still, there is something that you can do to help now, if you’d like,” the astronomer continued, sending a meaningful glance in Captain Tell’s direction. “The captain here would know better than I what needs to be handled around here.”
It was true, but only because the astronomer and captain had been bickering about it for the past hour while the primes were away. While Brandon would have gladly let them into their company based on nothing but trust and goodwill, Captain Tell was far more wary of their motives. It was through this guarded mindset that he had elected to assign them some kind of task to prove their worth, eventually convincing the astronomer of the test’s necessity, but Brandon still hadn’t the slightest clue of what it could be.
Tell made a pinched face like he had a sour taste in his mouth, but soldiered on for just long enough to give them the task he had decided upon. “Do you see that slope, just a small ways beyond camp? Over it is an ugly patch of iced-over water. It’ll be a bitch for our sled-teams to get over, ‘specially with our cargo. If you can find a way to shift everything over it on your own, you’ll have earned your keep.”
Amber frowned, looking between the miscellaneous crates and barrels scattered around camp to the snowy hill. Just then the wind picked up, chilling her to the bone; while this task seemed like the kind of labor you could work up a serious sweat doing, the icy wind would undoubtedly keep them cool. There also wasn’t any signs of movement— no hares, foxes, or birds moving against the blanket of seamless white. Only men and dwarves seemed to have left tracks in their wake recently, and even that was scarce. The heavy snowfall swathed everything in silence.
The Faunus looked at the captain, lips pursed and a slight pucker between her brows, brain already whirling with ideas on how to move the crates across.
“We can handle it,” Amber declared, turning then to Jade. “C’mon, let’s figure this mess out!”
They started off at a steady lope through the snow, disappearing over the hill in only a few short minutes’ time. Brandon and Tell watched them go, the soldier with his arms crossed over his chest and the astronomer with a slight grin on his lips. Such determination, it was so refreshing!
“See, I told you,” he said, nudging Tell’s shoulder with his elbow. “They will be a great help to us. Although, I am a little surprised you didn’t give them something a little more… challenging. Wrestling with a wild grizzly bear or something.”
The older man scoffed, not turning to look Brandon in the eye as he began to head back towards the camp with long strides. The astronomer hurried after him, breath huffing out before him in visible clouds. “Watch out, I might take your silence the wrong way! ‘Oh, yes Brandon, maybe I was being a stodgy old curmudgeon in assuming the worst about everybody. Those children aren’t malicious at all, you’re so smart and a good judge of charact—’”
“The dwarves won’t be pleased that we’ve entered their domain.”
They entered the central tent with a rustle of cloth; Brandon immediately moved to sit beside the small lamp they had inside, hissing and rubbing his numb fingers together near it – Tell bustled around in the corner of his eye, only several feet between them despite it being the biggest among the tents that made up their camp. “Yes, and?”
Spreading out his bedroll and fishing out the tankard of grog he had tucked inside it, Tell jerked his head towards the tent flap. “The primes are our insurance. While I have no doubt that my soldiers are perfectly able to handle a few giggling teenagers, I’m not so sure about one of them taking an axe to the head and surviving it. If they’re as kind-hearted as you say, those girls won’t let it come to that.”
Brandon gave the captain’s turned back a long look, nodding slowly in understanding. If there was anything Captain Tell truly cared for in this irrational, crazy world, it was his group of soldiers. The men and women who pressed on even in the worst of circumstances, committed to the preservation and safeguarding of Camelot. It was almost touching, and the astronomer smiled fondly while he was sure Tell wasn’t looking.
“Anyway, assigning them to some basic grunt work will save us time,” the captain acknowledged, settling down on the woolly mat with the tankard tucked against his chest like a newborn babe. “We’ll be out of this region before any more…. unsavory types decide to try and knock heads with us.”
Both men fell silent, the underlying danger of the elder man’s words thickening the air. Outside, the arctic winds continued to wail, the whines of the dogs and the jingling of their sled-ties the only thing that disturbed the uneasy quiet.
Shaking his head, Brandon grinned a little and gave an easy shrug of his shoulders. “Say, how long do you think it’ll take them to get our gear across the ice?”
Taking a hearty swig of the grog, Tell leaned back on one elbow, watching as the tankard’s contents sloshed around. His eyebrows lowered as he closed his eyes, and Brandon could have sworn he looked like the wisest man in the world in that very moment.
“To tell you the honest truth? I don’t imagine they will.”
The snow was on fire and it was totally Bec’s fault.
“How did this even happen?!” Amber shrieked, stamping out the bright green flames with her boots, occasionally pausing to kick half-melted snow in its general direction.
“He was only trying to help!” cried Jade, hugging the wolf-dog’s neck tight while Rebecca appeared to be trying to sculpt a perfect replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà in the snow. Needless to say, the Little Sister was facing minimal success.
The pair had been lamenting the roughly five inches of support the ice was able to provide when Becquerel arrived on the scene. Sniffing at the ice, the white-furred hound had trotted around the edge, testing the seams and slushy patches with his paws. Having apparently found whatever he was looking for, the wolf-dog seated himself in the snow with a slumphf. And then he sneezed and the snow was o n f i r e.
Visibly slouching in relief as the flames finally died, Amber scrubbed one sleeved arm across her face. This was turning out to be a lot tougher of a job than she expected! The ice was just too thin, and she was pretty sure that the captain guy only wanted to cross it so he could shave off a few measly minutes of travel time. She also kind of got the feeling that he didn’t like them that much. Well, whatever. They’d show him!
Jade came over to stand beside her. “Well, what now? I mean, not that I’m not having a great time and all, but standing around and staring at this lake isn’t accomplishing anything!”
One hand resting on her chin, the Faunus nodded. “You’re right, Jade— we’ve gotta get to work if we want to help those guys out. The dark patches are what we have to worry about the most, I think, since the ice is thinnest there. Maybe we could make everyone some snowshoes?”
“Oh, good thinking! Something to distribute the weight over a wider area. But that could take a while….” The dog-eared girl bent down near the ice, moving one hand over it as she judged the depth of the waters below. “What if we just moved everything over?” she flapped her hand vaguely in the direction of the camp.
Amber stared at her. “Uhm, that’s the idea, isn’t it?”
“No, no, like this!“ Jade gestured at the snow with both hands, the ice particles drifting up to spin cyclically between her palms. After a few seconds they were molded into a perfect sphere, turning slowly before settling into her cupped hands. Amber took it from her when she offered it up, turning it over in her hands with a bemused look.
Pausing in her examination of the snowball, Amber squinted doubtfully over at the grinning Witch. “We’re going to make snowballs.”
“Well, I guess we could,” Jade giggled, shrugging. “But I was thinking more along the lines of mass levitation!”
“…..Okay, I’m listening, but only because that sounds freaking awesome.”
The camp was quiet in the snow, triangular tents made of brown burlap and patchwork staked unevenly in the ground. Despite Captain Tell’s worst fears, neither hide nor hair of a single dwarf had broached the grounds of their camp or given the first and second watches any trouble. Brandon learned of this when he awoke after several hours of much-needed sleep, tidying his gear and packing everything into his travel bag while the captain did the same. Sleeping in the same tent as the captain was like sharing a cave with a grizzly bear afflicted with a serious lung condition, but it was necessary— after all, what better way was there to protect such precious knowledge than by keeping the finest security near at all times?
Breakfast was a silent affair, the bread rolls in his pack hardened by the cold and scraping like chips of ice on his back molars while he chewed. It was all washed down with a few swigs of grog, the burning drink shooting down his gullet in a trail of fire and warming him down to his frost-nipped toes. He scribbled a few notes in his journal with a stub of graphite by the light of the lantern, teeth chattering as he tugged his coat tighter around his middle. Brandon wondered if the primes had had any luck with their task, his eyes locked onto the lantern’s flame until it was very nearly seared into his memory. Like Tell had said, he doubted very much that they had succeeded. Primes were resourceful, sure, but not that resourceful.
“What in the name of Hell gates?!”
He would know that voice anywhere. Apparently, Tell had found something new to inspire a few healthy bouts of crabbiness. Sighing wearily, the astronomer scrubbed one hand along the side of his face and rose to his feet, the leather of his boots creaking. Right then. Best to see what he was on about now before the good captain did anything too drastic, like order someone to dig in the snow with their bare hands until at least one frostbitten finger fell off.
Brandon blinked hard a few times as he stepped out of his tent, nearly blinded by the sunlight reflecting off from the snow. It took a minute before he could see clearly again, but when he finally got a good look around he rather wished he hadn't.
Oh. Oh.
That explained it. They were no longer near the gates of Dwarveholm, as Tell had undoubtedly discovered a moment before. Everything was shifted slightly, as well, with the tents rumpled up and the stakes loosened from the ice. Somehow during the hours when they were asleep their camp had been moved, and the obvious culprits stood just a few long strides away, grinning proudly at what they imagined to be a job well done. Jade Harley seemed tired, dark circles forming under her eyes and a slouch to her shoulders, and Veritz seemed only a bit better.
Captain Tell, on the other hand, was busy raining spittle on the faces of the second watch, berating the scarcely of-age boys for dropping off to sleep instead of doing their duty. Miss Harley, Brandon noticed, moved to intercede on their behalf only for the captain’s ire to reel onto her, which in turn roped Veritz into the fray. The other members of the company seemed perfectly content with watching, expressions ranging from amused to vaguely pitying on their faces.
Brandon approached Selena, a crossbow-bearing woman he had grown acquainted with during their travels; he had also borrowed a pair of boots from her when he’d worn out the soles of his own, which he was still eternally grateful for.
“Would you like some popped corn, or was your frozen meal as marvelously hearty as my own?” the astronomer asked, shuddering at the memory of the ice-covered rocks he had made himself eat.
Selena started, clearly surprised by his sudden appearance, but turned a friendly smile his way. “I had the good sense to sleep with my pack in my coat, thank you very much. Body heat! It does wonders.”
“Ah,” said Brandon, accepting this sage advice for what it was. “Great. What’s happened now?”
Understanding immediately just what he was referring to, Selena sighed. “Burgess and Piers konked out scarcely a half hour into their shift, I’d imagine, and they’re getting flack for it now. The primes— what are their names?”
“Jade Harley and Amber Veritz.”
”Right, Harley and Veritz! The black-haired one, Harley I believe, says she floated us over the lake while everyone was sound asleep. Incredible, I say, but then again primes are always doing things like that,” Selena finished, picking neutrally at the edge of her fur-lined sleeve.
“Really? All in a few hours’ time,” Brandon exclaimed, rubbing his chin in thought. “That’s something else.”
“Yes,” Selena agreed. “’Something else’ they may be, but you had better rescue them from Tell. Or, rather, rescue him— he seems liable to join the choir invisible before long, you know he has too much rage in his blood to be healthy.”
The dark brown-skinned man sighed, shrugging his shoulders in a hopeless effort to shake off the chill. Despite being over six feet tall and a pretty burly guy, speaking with someone as well-respected and….. opinionated about how things should be done made Brandon feel like an ant by comparison. Still, he felt like maybe he had earned at least some respect from the captain while making the journey here, and he was a goddamn adult. And goddamn adults didn’t back down from a little open discussion.
“Wish me luck,” said Brandon, starting to make his way over. Watching him march off like a soldier to war, Selena shot him a quick thumbs up and a somewhat pitying look, as well as a few other guards. But, when the astronomer trudged near enough to hear the actual words being exchanged, he stopped in his tracks.
As one of the Kingdom’s representatives on this excursion, it should have been expected that Laurence Tell was by no means an unreasonable man. “You misunderstand,” the captain explained to the animal hybrids, teeth gritted but desperately clinging to his last thread of sanity. “You carried out the task well, and I thank you for that. But to do something so drastic was a bit much. You could have mentioned it to us before you Leviosa’d us over here. What if you had dropped something into the water? One of our dogs? A person?”
“Oh, no! I didn’t even think of that!” Jade gasped, covering her mouth with one hand. “I am so sorry, it won’t happen again.”
Amber nodded in agreement. “Yeah. We’ll totally ask first, next time.”
“See that you do,” Tell huffed, turning away. He flapped one arm at Piers and Burgess, two scrawny kids with sunken cheeks and tiredness written into their bones. “You two….” the captain paused, brows furrowing at them. “Get some rest. We won’t be setting out for another hour at least, thanks to the time Harley and Veritz have saved us. Everyone else, get ready to move out.”
As Tell made to walk off, Brandon trotted after him, breath fogging in the air as he looked incredulously over at the captain.
"What?" Tell scowled, tossing one sack over his shoulder and reaching for another. "They did all-right."
Brandon grinned. They certainly did!
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.