dejah_thoris | [Milliways] White Upon White

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[Milliways] White Upon White

He'd only left an hour ago. Darkness had fallen and the storm outside was screaming and tearing at the building. It was lunacy to go out in this weather. But he was out there, and in only the clothes he'd put on this morning. He and Edgar both.

They'd die out there, surely, if they didn't get a move on.

Woola whined at her, picking up on the desperation she felt crawling down her spine. She'd put on her winter coat and boots, and taken the goggles bar had given her. Ellen and Ysalwen were already waiting for her at the backdoor. She handed each of them one of the electric lanterns Bar had provided.

"Are we ready? Do we need anything else?"

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Woola is the first to pick up on it. The hint of the trail that remains. He disappears from Dejah's side in a blur and before she can draw a breath to call out again, he's back, eyes bright.

He's found something!

It's a scrap of rag, frozen stiff with ice, but the tiny length of twine with it is unmistakable.

"This is Edgar's. Woola, show us where you found this!"

Woola chuffs and leads them to a path still visible in the snow, though it's disappearing rapidly. It heads straight for the burned out building.

"It's orange," Ellen says, forgetting for the moment that she's never actually shown the other two women what she sees through the goggles. "Woola, if you can, push some more of the snow aside- we have to get through..."

Purely out of reflex she reaches over her shoulder for the Gauss rifle she often carries. The men might be safely indoors, but this is a bad situation and there may be predators she hasn't seen smell-trails for trying to take advantage of it.

Ysalwen hums a little, just under her breath.

If a person casts an invisible prison, but instead of it crushing inward it pushes outward --

It does wonders to clear a very distinct and well-defined area of snow along the quick-fading path.

Just to help Woola out.

Woola takes full advantage and Dejah's not far behind him. It's easier not having to fight the snow itself.

It's not long before they're at the shattered, burned out remains of the old boathouse. There's a scattering of snow over the very clear place on the floor where two bodies were.

"They were here. And not long ago." She glances at her companions. "Maybe a half hour?"

"Not much more than that," Ellen agrees, the goggles fixed on the partially bared floor. "The scent didn't really have time to fade, judging by the way it's glowing in these... we've got a better chance now."

She'd like to ask what this building is, but -- later.

"Did they leave the same way they came in?"

Liranan is sniffing around as if to help answer that same question.

Dejah scans the room and shakes her head. "I don't know." She sees where the canvas was disturbed, and the remains of Edgar's sock. They can't have gone very far, if he doesn't have any shoes.

"I think maybe.... Hang on." She touches her wrist again. "That way. Not far, it feels like." She points.

"Then we'd better move quickly," Ellen says. "We have protection. I don't think they do."

She crouches briefly, scanning the floor more closely to be sure she has the orange trail running in the direction Dejah indicated.

"Should we bring the makings of a travois, just in case one of them is hurt?"

Scrounging for said things out in the snow might be -- difficult.

But she asks that over her shoulder as she drifts in the direction Ellen seems to be regarding most intently.

Dejah's face becomes a mask as she thinks. Could the Thern neural restraints be used to...? No, no not in the case of broken bones. Also, it made her a little queasy to consider it. Perhaps a static force shield. "Yes, that could work," she says to herself.

To Ysa, "No, I think I can fashion a platform, if we need one." Already in motion out the door, she taps her wrist. "Let's keep moving."

"I have a few stimpaks if there's an immediate emergency," says Ellen, but she's hurrying to get ahead of Dejah before the Barsoomian rusty-red scent layer can obscure the Terran orange. "They'll persuade any natural healing a living body has to pick up its speed- close a wound faster, knit bones, things like that. It should be something."

Ysalwen takes a deep breath and steps out after them, lifting her lamp-holding hand to shove the hood of her cloak a bit tighter around her face.

Then she stills the winds again.

The others seem to have healing and transport well in hand.

"Curtis! Curtis!"

Dejah knows Ellen has to take point, for tracking reasons, but as the tug at her wrist grows stronger, she can't help but push forward. The snow is deeper here, and even in Woola's wake, she's struggling. Beneath the scarves, her lips and nose have gone numb from the cold and even under the heavy insulation of the parka, she feels the heat stealing away from her body.

It only makes her all the more desperate to find him him. To find them. "They can't have gone far, could they?" What if they'd slipped through to another world, like Edgar did on his excursion to Barsoom? What if they'd gone beyond the boundaries of the bar and disappeared altogether?

She can't think like that. She can't. Her hand closes around her wrist cuff even tighter, as if she could will it to bring them to her.

"CURTIS!"

Somewhere in the distance, a huddled figure raises his head.

-- tis! Curtis! --

The noise wavers in and out between the wind. At first, Curtis isn't sure if he's hallucinating the voice. It seems likely. One final attempt at comfort before his brain starts another irreversible slide toward death: Dejah calling out for him, finding him in the snow at last.

CURTIS!

Except...there it is again. And when he squints against the wind, there's...is that light?

Hope surges through his chest. Curtis draws a creaking, painful breath and shouts, "Here! Over here!"

Edgar's not sure the light's real until he hears Curtis yell.

He staggers, tries to right himself. "Together --" he wheezes, and sucks in a freezing breath to add his voice to Curtis's.

"Here!"

What there is is a roaring pillar of fire arching up into the night sky.

Some of it is probably clear even through the blizzard.

Because roaring pillar of fire.

And someplace warm to congregate.

'Warm'.

Ellen's gonna be staring at that for a while.

And muttering, "By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light," but mostly she's gonna be staring.

She shoves the goggles up the moment she hears the faint voice on the wind. Her head pivots and she runs, oblivious to the pillar of flame roaring into existence behind her. Luckily, Woola is ahead of her to break trail.

"Issus be praised." The wind gusts around her, sending up sheets of white powder that sting her eyes and her nose. She puts her head down and calls out again.

"We're coming! We're coming!" Her will reaches out for him, for the amulet built into his arm, and a tendril of blue crystalline light spirals out through the darkness, aiming directly for him.

That and a silver thread of hope, burning bright in her voice.

The massive pillar of flame, the flickering blue light that lances through the storm, all of it just adds to the hallucinatory feel. But the Voice doesn't lie. She's coming. She found them.

He can keep screaming, or he can keep standing; Curtis doesn't have the energy to do both. He grapples against Edgar, keeping up the unified cry -- "Here! Here!" -- but finds himself slowly sliding to his knees.

We're going to get out of here alive, he thinks blurrily.

It's okay. He can rest for a minute.

With the canvas wrapped around both of them, it isn't just Curtis who's sinking down. Edgar's struggling to hold him up, failing, sagging down along with him.

"Here," he shouts again -- or tries to; it comes out as a hoarse croak. "Here, we're fuckin here --"

The crystalline shard crawls through the snow and ice like lightning aiming directly for its counterpart. Woola still beats her there, with Liranan not far behind.

Dejah staggers and falls to her knees in front of them both. Her gloved hands pull Curtis's face up and then reach for Edgar, pulling them both into a fierce hug.

"Come on. Let's get you warm," she breathes. "Can you stand?" Her hands fret and roam over Curtis's head and body, down to his arm, as if she's trying to reassure herself he's still alive. Her voice radiates a fierce protectiveness for both of them.

"If you can't," Ysalwen puts in, digging in her belt pouch for two amber-colored vials, "drink these and you ought to be able to."

Stamina potions are very useful in times like these.

"I've left the fire burning to mark our trail back to that last building, so we don't get turned around in all this snow."

He sags into Dejah's embrace. To the other woman, in a thin croak: "Him first."

He's too cold to think, and so Curtis falls back on what he's always done: look after Edgar.

Besides, he doesn't need it. He just needs to sit here a while. He'll be okay.

"Fuck that," Edgar croaks, but he doesn't resist when someone holds the vial to his lips.

And he coughs and splutters a little at the first mouthful -- it tastes like fizziness, with no other identifiable flavor -- but swallows anyway; who gives a damn what it tastes like, it's already making him feel less dead.

Dejah looks up to Ysa and whispers a quiet thanks. Once Edgar's is done, she helps Curtis with his.

"There." She lifts his face and tries to get him to focus on her. "Let's get you home."

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