eswareinmal | Hunting for the King

Entry tags:

Hunting for the King

Characters: All who are searching for the King!
Open? Yep
Where: Starting at the castle
When: RD 10
What: The heroes go hunting for the King.

The castle staff, as unhelpful as always, had no idea where the King had gone to. Some had guesses, of course, he went off to track down Prince Charming and drag him back home, he went out visiting the Giant Kingdom, he went across the sea, he went to see the state of the Old Capital, no, they hadn't actually seen him leave... they just knew that he had. This just happened every now and then, you see, one of the older maids explained. The King, being the King, just sometimes was elsewhere. Just wait a little while and he'd be back soon enough.

But that was hardly helpful now, now was it?

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"Or a world without will," he says. His words are deliberate, testing. "A world where each of us are fitted in, pressed into a mold. Made into a particular... Role."

Because of course this is what Order has done to them. It has made them figures in its nice, neat equation. Order hopes that bringing in fresh blood will balance Chaos. Probably. What he's seen of Order so far doesn't give him much faith in their ability to plan ahead. Or to think. At all.

Cho considers this, doesn't dismiss it out of hand. But she doesn't reach the conclusion Loki has. "I don't think that can be sustained, either. People thrive on hope, and they fight against limitations. Humanity needs at least the possibility of something better, something they can strive toward. Look at Communist Russia." That had crashed and burned. Hard. "People may grow complacent and lazy when their lives are full of possibility, but take it away and I believe they will rally and fight back."

She's not sure what this has to do with the King. Perhaps it's about their roles here in Schwanheim. But really, they're hardly conforming to those. Cho is a Princess and Loki is a Prince and she doesn't believe either of them properly fit the stereotype. Convention says she should be back in the city, in the castle, planning some useless party for the Heroes on their return.

He bristles; it seems, to him, that she is doubting what he says, that she is assuming his ignorance and his lack of analysis.

"My words are not speculation," he tells her. "They are the truth, of how this kingdom has brought us and the constraints they have forced upon us. Do you take me for a fool? Neither perfect roles nor perfect destruction may be utilized to achieve any end."

"I don't take you for anything," Cho answers calmly. "I thought we were just talking. We've been slotted into roles, but I don't think our will is gone. We're being urged, not controlled. You can't take away free will. You can try and subvert it, but you can't kill it. Unless you know something I do not." She looks at Loki for a long moment, and then she shrugs. "I can't not have opinions, but I can keep them to myself if you'd prefer it."

"You must have an interesting relationship with the truth, if opinion and fact are the same to you." He had been stating fact, not asking for her opinion. This is what the forces of Order have done to them, and it is a burden, and it is a deep, terrible annoyance. If Order had its way, their free will would be gone, and he knows that it's possible.

He steps ahead of her.

"I have an interesting relationship with a lot of things." Cho watches his back and Charlie goes back to nosing at his mare's flank. "So you mean the actual absence of free will. Not subverted, just... cut out of people?" That's a terrifying thought. "I think we'd stop being people. Without free will, we're just an extension of someone or something else. We're not ourselves any more. I wouldn't be Cho, you wouldn't be Loki."

"And with utter chaos, we'd be dead."

He releases a breath of air.

"Which would you prefer?"

She thinks about that for a while, too. With free will subverted, there's a chance to get it back, to fight and win. But simply gone? She wouldn't be herself. Without free will or dead, the end result is the same - no Cho. "I'd rather be dead," she says eventually. "I'd be basically dead anyway. Everything that's me would be gone."

He glances to her, in surprise. For once, they are in utter accord. And it wasn't what he'd expected from this pretty slip of a thing.

"I find death would be preferable to a great many things."

"Agreed." She's had a couple of years to get used to the idea. "Don't get me wrong, if there's a chance in hell I'm going to fight for it. And not in that ridiculous, all consuming, death or glory way. Because that's just stupid. Just alive might be worse than glory, but it's a damn sight better than death. There's nothing wrong with a tactical retreat if it means you get to keep breathing. But in the end, if there's no way out, I'm going down swinging and taking as many of the bastards with me as I can. No one is using me as a puppet." And something in her tone says that if he doesn't like it, he can go suck a lemon.

Their awkward silences have eaten up a decent chunk of time, and now she can see a glint of sunlight off of stone in the distance. "Hey." She nods at it, and urges Charlie forward, snapping him out of his careful examination of the mare's rump. "I think we've got something." The conversation is-- well, it's not nice, but it's not terrible. But still, this is why they're out here in the first place. And the path of faint magic is leading right to what she can now see is a tower. Score.

Funny. Her determination -- it reminds him of Thor. But her pragmatism... no, that was never something Thor knew. Not until recently.

That thought is somewhat distasteful, and he turns it away, focusing instead on their find.

"Good," says Loki. "It's about time." He urges his horse on, as well, and they draw closer.

As they approached, a proper path began to emerge, white paving stones that had become stained with weather overtaking the scrub, moss and dirt as the ambient sounds of the forest faded. The magic clinging to the tower was fading, but it was still present enough to hold out the outside world, retaining a dignified and impressive air despite the attempts of nature to reclaim it, the gleaming white marble holding fast against the vines that climbed its sides, seeking entrance.

It stood tall, easily 4 stories to crest over the tops of the forest, every surface a pure, almost painful, arrogant white, windows small and uninviting, every inch seeming to claim that no one was worthy to enter it's sacred halls.

But there were also signs of battle. The top most floor, though mostly windowless, was riddled with cracks, the forest seeming to have thrown itself against the ivory walls in protest of the arrogant existence in its midst.

"Well," says Cho, staring up and dismounting from Charlie, who immediately walks forward to have a private conversation with Loki's mare. "There's something you don't see every day. Every other day, maybe." She approaches the tower slowly, hand on the hilt of her sword. "The trail leads inside." And almost immediately, she stops, scenting on the air like a wild animal. She picks up a pebble, charges it with a little bit of her magic, and tosses it at the barrier of protective warding around the tower. It meets a very solid and definite end. "Someone wants to keep us out."

"Alas, we will not be able to keep to their wishes."

He dismounts, as well, giving the mare's mane a stroke.

"We will have to attempt something difficult," he tells her. "Unless you think you can break these defenses on your own."

Eyeing her. He isn't sure he'd trust her judgment in the matter.

The horses all but ignore them, caught up in each other, nuzzling and sniffing and getting to know one another.

"I'd have to study them..." Her other option is to just attempt to blast her way in, charge the problem now and ask questions later. Problem is, that leaves you about a fifty fifty chance of getting your dumb ass killed.

She shrugs, a tiny bit apologetic, a tiny bit helpless. "I think I could, but I don't like rushing into something headlong without a plan. Especially if I don't know what I'm dealing with, and I don't here. There's not a wealth of information on the magical constructs of this world."

"We'll use my magic."

A bit of preparation, and he's ready to channel the magic through himself. He focuses it like a knife. Or, he tries to. Her magic overwhelms him, bursting through his barriers and flooding him with silken pain. All he can do is direct it.

And when that fails, he falls unconscious.

She can feel the drain on her magic, the moment it hits the barrier and bounces back, not properly contained. It's too much for Loki to handle, and she can feel it coming back, rebounding to the source of the power. Which is her. And for a moment, she's afraid. Desperately, terribly afraid. The only person her magic can kill directly is her, and she can't run from this. She closes her eyes, braces for the impact she's sure will take her off her feet.

But it doesn't. He's holding it. Keeping it from her. And then it bursts like a balloon, crackling over them both.

And she sees him begin to crumble. "Loki!" Her automatic response is to try and catch him. She realizes how foolish this is when, just moments later, she's trapped beneath several hundred pounds of frost giant on the forest floor with a twig digging in between her shoulder blades. "...Shit."

Luckily, the horses aren't far away. "Charlie? Charlie?!" She lies there and wants for the familiar clip-clop of heavy hooves. "Get it off me," she croaks, now having a little trouble breathing. Not to mention, this is a very unfortunate angle for her leg. But worst of all, it gives her time to think. This place is a joke, the problems ridiculous and the threats nonexistent. Except something guarding a rundown tower in the middle of nowhere just took out a God. What if she'd been on her own and curious?

By the time Charlie gets Loki off of her, she's nearly dizzy with her own swirling thoughts. It takes the careful application of Sorcery and physics to lever the dead weight onto Charlie's back. She ties the mare's bridle to Charlie's lead, and walks them all out of the forest.

The other group has dispersed by the time she reaches the town, and that's probably for the best. She doesn't feel like she's up to talking to anyone. Charlie can't make it up the stairs to Loki's rooms, but there's a large man who works at the blacksmith shop across the way, sweet and slow and he doesn't ask any questions, just beams at Cho when she thanks him for his help getting Loki upstairs. He hasn't so much as moved on his own the entire time. She's not sure what temperature he should be, how fast his heart should be beating, how quickly he should be breathing. But she checks all his vitals anyway, because she doesn't know what else to do. So she sits and she waits, and she thinks... thinks about how much trouble they're really in.

He wakes up slowly and dizzily. Comfortable surroundings, no roots or rocks digging into his back, no rustle of grass or brush of wind. Which is both good and bad. What does he last remember?

He squints his eyes open, and flinches away from the light. Scrapes across his retinas like nails.

Edited 2012-09-30 03:37 (UTC)

Cho's up and moving as soon as he is. She slams the shutters of the lantern closed, plunging the room into a dim glow, waiting for his eyes to adjust. "You're awake." Her voice is soft, in case the sensitivity extends to more than just light, and there is relief there. Not dead. Not her fault.

"Take it easy," she warns him, recalling some particularly rough magical benders from her past. "Here. Drink something." She's got a skin of water, and she presses it against his lips. The only time she left him was to grab a passing child, send her to the market to buy the things on Cho's shopping list. She figured he'd be hungry. She always is when she pushes herself too far.

He's overextended himself before. Quite a bit, actually; that's how he learned where his limits were. This world has just changed them all.

He drinks, sets his cells to healing, sets his body to recovering itself.

He craves sweet things.

"Seems you were right about the sugar," he murmurs.

She laughs, and now the relief is incredibly obvious. If he can joke, then things are going to be all right, right? "I told you." She's not going out to steal him a cake, but she leaves him briefly to pull a small bag out of the larger bundle near her chair.

The thin mattress dips under her weight as she perches on the edge and shakes a few ludicrously sweet candies into her hand, pressing them against his mouth. "Eat this. It'll help." They're the same kind she now carries on her whenever she goes out. The candy-making skills of this world are still somewhat primitive, but they've at least mastered the art of cooking sugar down into a highly concentrated sweetness.

"I don't know anything about Jötunn. What do you need to heal? I have food and water and I got as much of what passes for medicine in this place as I could. I can try to change your surroundings to suit you..." She'll do what she can. She feels responsible. That recoil was headed for her.

He shakes his head. Accepts the sugar, but murmurs, hoarsely: "Time, only. We are stronger than we seem." He is stronger than he seems, at least.

"You seem pretty strong to me," she tells him, continuing to feed him candy. She'll keep going until the bag is empty or he tells her to stop. "Heavy, too. But you don't look comfortable. Are you sure there's nothing I can get you? Nothing I can do?"

If he's not too far gone in his own mind, he might notice the shift of her attitude, now concerned and almost affectionate. She feels guilty, and she owes him. She owes him a lot.

Something of her concern penetrates the fog around his mind. He squints at her, and admits, without really thinking: "I do wish it were colder." He is so warm, always so warm.

"Colder," she repeats, practically bouncing to her feet. "I can do that." And she can. Rowan had no electricity and no reliable way of preserving food. Cold boxes were one of the first things she perfected, and his room is basically the size of a walk-in. She cuts the magic right into the air, working as quickly as she can, throwing the patterns into the walls at the precise points and keeping track as she goes. It's the work of a few frenzied minutes, and then she activates and places the last spell, and the chain reaction is set off. Each symbol feeds the next, again and again, like those paintings of stairs that endlessly climb higher and yet go nowhere.

"Is that better?" she asks, perching on the side of the bed again, breath fogging now in a room where ice crystals are forming on the window and in the corners. She presses some warmth into her own clothes, and places a shield spell around her to keep that heat directed in. Ice crystals begin to form on the outer edge of that, as well, hovering millimeters from her skin. "I just-- I don't know how to thank you..." Even this seems like such a paltry and simple thing.

Hunting for the King

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Optional background music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdQyVnNR4As&feature=related

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