{ pfsb } flee from Temple Isle

[jaskoleczka]

One second, she was on her knees, cold stone hard through the leather of her trousers, hearing Dandelion shouting her name and watching an arrow speeding towards her –

The next, she's gasping in cool, misty autumn air, her knees and shins growing wet from the heavy evening dew that has settled on the grass where she kneels. Ciri looks about herself in a near-panic, then buries her face in her hands, trying to keep from sobbing with reaction and fear and pain.

She'd made it. Milliways: the first pleasant, peaceful place that came to mind when she made her jump from one world to another. 

Half-turning, she winces at a sharp complaint from her back, and her eyes grow wide as she studies the arrow buried halfway up its shaft in the ground just behind her. "That was a near miss," she murmurs to herself, and pulls it from the ground as she slowly gets to her feet, aching, her back burning. Once upright, she locates the main building and begins staggering her way towards it, step by determined step, stumbling a slightly drunken path through the wet grass and quiet night.

Comments

[lightamidchaos]

The scowl forming at the news of the sort of place this Novigrad has become transmutes immediately into a soft, warm look as Wei Ying reaches them. He stands, shifting so that Wei Ying can take the comfortable chair, and moves to drag another one over.

[jaskoleczka]

"Wei Wuxian," she says, smiling, and gets up to offer him a hug, studiously ignoring whatever speaking glances Lan Wangji might be sending her way about moving around whilst injured.

(She's a little stiff, but it's not that bad!)

"Your ears must be burning. We were just talking about you."

Well – in the context of both him and Lan Wangji, which honestly she thinks is probably how they're usually discussed.

[acrookedpath]

He has just enough time to catch Lan Zhan's look from the corner of his eye -- a look he knows very well, from all of the times he has insisted I'm fine despite all evidence to the contrary. Combined with the slight hitch as Ciri gets to her feet? Well, he is more gentle than he might otherwise be in returning the hug.

"Oh?" he asks with a laugh. As soon as Lan Zhan has a chair of his own, Wei Wuxian flops into the proffered one. "Are there scandalous stories I need to refute? Or perhaps confirm?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Or both at once?" he asks, dryly. Lan Wangji signals to a waitrat and tips his head toward Wei Ying; the rat squeaks agreement and scampers away.

[jaskoleczka]

"...or tell," she laughs. "For I would love to hear them. But no."

She lifts her hand in a brief gesture; her other still holds one of the red bean paste buns, a remnant of the feast that is now evident only in empty bowls and plates nearby. "It was more in the context of... well, perhaps of coming to my world, one day."

In the not too distant future, in all likelihood.

[acrookedpath]

He wrinkles his nose at Lan Zhan's teasing, and sneaks a hand beneath the table to link their fingers in a brief squeeze.

"Ah, Ciri, if you are offering, I would very much like to see your world," he says. "I will never turn down a visit to a new place! Perhaps I can tell you all the scandalous stories there, out of earshot of the delicate ears of the waitrats."

[lightamidchaos]

He squeezes Wei Ying's hand, then lets go as the rat returns with a tray containing another pot of tea, a plate of cakes and three small bowls of fresh fruit all scattered with the fragrant herbs he'd noticed in the garden a few weeks ago (mint, lavender, and lemon thyme, although he does not know their names).

"It will not be for pleasure only," he observes, knowing that is not likely to deter Wei Ying in the slightest. "There is a matter of a curse."

[jaskoleczka]

"But there is always time for scandalous stories," she tells Wei Wuxian, grinning widely. "I have a few of my own, you know. Perhaps we can trade them, someday."

She pauses for a moment when Lan Wangji's order appears, and helps herself to the fresh fruit with the alacrity of someone who has not seen so much as a cellar-withered apple in quite some time. "Still – yes. A curse."

She glances quizzically at Wei Wuxian. "How much has Lan Wangji told you of Avallac'h, my companion?"

[acrookedpath]

At the mention of a curse, Wei Wuxian sobers a little, his jovial demeanor fading into the focus of professional interest. He shakes his head upon hearing Avallac'h's name, quickly pouring himself a cup of tea and nabbing one of the pastries.

"Not very much," he says. He exchanges a glance with Lan Zhan. "Only that you are fond of him."

(What he doesn't mention: Lan Zhan, merely by the way he said Ciri is fond of him, made it clear that he himself did not share the same sentiment.)

[lightamidchaos]

"Perhaps the explanation would be better, coming from you," he murmurs, setting another bowl of fruit in Ciri's easy reach, as well as one for Wei Ying. "I would not wish to misspeak."

He is well aware that Ciri's opinion of Avallac'h and that of the witcher Geralt differ. It is not best done for him to judge the other unmet, but he cannot say that he holds him in high esteem at present, after having heard of how he had treated Ciri in the past.

[jaskoleczka]

Something complicated shades Ciri's expression. "'Fond' might not be the word," she admits, wry. "But he has helped me and I trust him."

Fool that she might be; she had to trust someone. And even Avallac'h is better than Eredin. She looks to Wei Wuxian, her green eyes clear and steady.

"I don't know the nature of the curse, but it did not take hold immediately. He was struck by it when we first arrived back on the Continent. The Wild Hunt found us almost instantly; one of them flung a curse at him. What it was, I'm not sure, but I remember the words: va fail, elaine - caed' mil, folie! glaeddyv dorne aep t'enaid, bunn'droh ithne i'yachus. Then I was through the portal, and he... I still don't know where he is."

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian silently mouths the words of the curse to himself, attempting to commit it to memory. (Such a task might prove a failure, but it's worth a try.)

"The portal that he opened, yes?" he clarifies. "The one that brought you here the first time?"

[lightamidchaos]

He blinks at Wei Ying's astute question, realizing that he is not certain, and looks a question at Ciri. "Did he open that one, or did you?"

[jaskoleczka]

"He did," she confirms.

"I only went through and tried to control where I would land. But couldn't," she says, rueful, and flicks a glance at Lan Wangji, who probably remembers all too well.

"Avallac'h isn't like me; he can't create portals wherever and to wherever or whenever he wishes; he can only use what already exists."

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian's brow knits. "So he found a door to the inn, just as many others do, and pushed it open for you." More wry: "A door in the middle of the air."

He finishes off his pastry and grabs some of the fruit.

"And he has not been seen since. Do you remember anything else of the curse but the words that were used? What it looked like when it was cast, how it struck Avallac'h, anything?"

[lightamidchaos]

"And the phylactery," he murmurs. "What about it made you think it might be of use with this particular curse."

He pours more tea for them all, then collects his own cup. "Wei Ying is an expert at such things."

[jaskoleczka]

"The phylactery," she says, remembering. "Yes."

The trees of the forest in her memory creak alarmingly beneath the heft of the curse, as Eredin utters the words, as he –

"The curse came from the phylactery," she tells them, her gaze unfocused as she thinks back, her words slow and quiet. "A flash of light struck Avallac'h – I grabbed the thing, more by reflex than by any conscious thought, and fled."

She glances at Lan Wangji, apologetic. "I was too shocked that night to remember. I only found it in my satchel later and recalled what had happened."

[acrookedpath]

His gaze sharpens further.

"Do you still have it with you?"

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Wangji shakes his head, forestalling Ciri's answer. "She had a narrow escape just prior to arriving here this time," he tells Wei Ying. "It was lost, at least for now. Perhaps if she describes it, and I do as well, from what we remember having seen?"

[jaskoleczka]

She casts a grateful glance at Lan Wangji – her loss of the phylactery is too recent, and it stings.

"It's about so large," she says, describing the space with her hands. "About the size of a large music or jewelry box. "Four-sided, with a branching tree detailed into the metal."

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian hums in thought around a mouthful of fruit.

Once he's swallowed: "How did it feel when you held it? Could you sense any energy of its own that it carried, or was it more of a..." He circles a hand, searching for the best word. "A channel, or focus? A way for the user to augment their own power?"

[lightamidchaos]

He considers carefully, calling the look of it to mind, the way it had felt when he'd touched it with spiritual energy.

"When I examined it," he says, slowly, considering, "it felt... imbued with power. But not as though it sought to be used to give strength. As though it was trying to draw energy into it, instead. It pulled at me - at the spark I tested it with."

[jaskoleczka]

"Perhaps if I had been able to train at Aretuza, I would know more," she says, rueful.

"But all I know for certain is that it is broken. It did seem to absorb the Chaos – the spiritual energy Lan Wangji tested with – but the thing sits in Whoreson Junior's clutches now, damn him. It's worth little enough when it's out of our reaches."

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian nearly chokes on his tea when he realizes that yes, Whoreson is the man's actual name and not merely an epithet Ciri has spat in frustration. What a name!

"If it pulls, or absorbs, or traps, then at some point it will brim too full to be contained," he says once he's regained his composure. "But -- as you say. We can theorize all we like and hold nothing but sand at the day's end, without the phylactery here. How can we steal it back from him?"

Because obviously that must be part of their adventures in Ciri's world, with all the talk of curse-breaking.

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn." He looks quizzically at Ciri, evidently seeing nothing wrong with Wei Ying's suggestion. "Phylactery first, or find Avallac'h first?"