jaskoleczka | { pfsb } a test

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{ pfsb } a test

Avallac'h was meant to follow me, but something went awry...

It's a quiet night, and the Scottish skies at the end of the universe are filled with to the brim with soft gray clouds. The waters of the little inlet and around the lake lap lazily at the shore. Deep in the lake, the giant squid cruises idly for food, trailing its tentacles like smoke through the water. In the stables, the horses whicker quietly to each other. All is peaceful, and perfect.

Until some of those soft, contented sounds turn sharp, and anxious. Wood rattles as nervous horses begin pawing and kicking at their stalls, tossing their heads, wide-eyed and alarmed.

And then a flash of light splits the clouds with a horrible sound as of a great deal of air being displaced all at once, and then: nothing.

The horses calm. And somewhere, far out in the lake, there is a splash.

***

Ciri surfaces with a splutter and gasps for air as she turns her head, taking stock of the situation.

This is...not Velen. At least, it's nowhere in Velen she recognizes. "Avallac'h?" she calls, her voice echoing strangely over the water, but just inflating her ribcage to project her voice has her wincing. The water is too dark to see through, but she knows what she would find if she could: a faint dark cloud that is seeping from the wound in her side and the tear in her shirt.

"Wonderful," she says to herself, and eyes the distance to shore. It isn't far – fifty yards, perhaps – but she's exhausted from the ambush, the flight, the portal, and she's already lost a lot of blood.

But there's nothing for it: she grits her teeth and strikes out for shore, hoping against hope that this lake is not home to drowners...or worse.

In the end, she almost makes it. There's the shore, only twenty yards, ten. A few feet. Everything goes black, and when she comes to, she's washed onto a sandy beach that makes no sense with the cold lake water she's just escaped – but that's all she has time to determine before exhaustion and pain told firm hold of her reins, and she collapses into a heap on the shore at the end of the universe.

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Lan Wangji had come out to practice sword forms, but everything changed in an instant when the clouds split open and a woman begins to fall from the sky.

He leaps onto Bichen and flies toward her as fast as he can. He is too far away to catch her, but he has to try to help somehow.

He reaches her as she collapses and jumps from the sword. He drops to his knees beside her and takes her wrist.

Spiritual energy pours forth from him in a rush into her meridians, attempting to restore balance and strengthen her so that she can heal.

She comes to with a gasp, shivering with cold and reaction. There's a man bending over her: she reacts badly, pushing herself up to sitting and away, trying to tug her wrist out of his grasp.

"Who are you?" she demands. "What are you –?"

But even that movement sends a sharp pang of pain ricocheting around her body; she winces and clutches at her side with her free hand.

"Hold still. You are injured. This will help."

Bichen lies on the ground beside him, its finely-crafted blade gleaming at the edges with the same silver-blue glow of the power he is sharing with her. There is a faint line between his brows as he concentrates.

"You fell from the sky. I could not reach you in time."

She groans, and shakes her head. "The portal," she says, submitting to his ministrations. "I haven't quite got the hang of them yet...just hope I don't land in an active volcano. A lake isn't so bad."

A soft blue glow envelopes them; she looks around at it, amazed. "You're a sorceror," she says. "That's good luck...where am I?"

"I am a cultivator," he corrects, still focusing on the transfer of spiritual energy, using his golden core to share as much as she needs to stabilize.

It is not healing in the sense that others might be more familiar with, but it is extremely well-suited to help someone's own body use their own energies and skills to recover rapidly.

"You are at an inn that sits at the crossroads of many, many worlds."

He reaches the point where he senses that to share too much more might cause more harm than good, and releases her wrist.

She takes her hand back and rubs at her wrist, breathing deeply to test the stitch in her side, the wound that has at last clotted, and looks around.

A nexus. In all her months traveling across worlds, she's never come across a crossroads of them...she had no idea they even existed. "Avallac'h," she says, softly. "I wonder what happened to him."

She meets the cultivator's eyes again, and offers a tight nod. "Thank you, for the help. What was that? It wasn't any magic I'm familiar with."

"You were alone. When you fell."

Even as he says it, the awful possibility occurs to him.

Wei Ying had been alone when he fell, too.

"You are welcome," he manages, thoughts whirling, as he tries to think how to suggest it. "It was my spiritual energy. From qi; from my golden core."

She shakes her head, negating not what he is saying, but what it implies. "He didn't make it through the portal," she tells him. "We fled...there was a flash of light. I didn't see what happened to him."

Coming back to herself, she offers him a tight smile, drawing the threadbare cloak of manners about her. It's an old, old instinct, one that comes much more from the court of Cintra than the cold halls of Kaer Morhen.

"What's your name, cultivator?"

Ah, he thinks, but does not say.

"Lan Wangji."

He rises to his feet -- leaving Bichen lying on the ground, still, for the moment, so as not to cause undue alarm -- and offers her a bow, followed by a hand to assist her in standing, if she wishes.

"I am the Second Jade of Gusu Lan. I am also called Hanguang-jun. But I do not, generally, use those titles here."

"Lan Wangji, then."

She takes his hand and staggers to her feet; the sword on the ground catches her eye, but the only expression which crosses her face is that of a connoisseur who has just seen a particularly beautiful example of their expertise. "They call me Ciri," she says, and grips his hand a little more warmly before letting go and settling her hands on her hips.

She can still feel Zirael's weight on her back; that's good. "You said this is a crossroad between worlds, didn't you? How can I leave?"

Even she knows she's in no shape to travel, least of all between worlds, but she must get to Velen. She must find Avallac'h.

"Ciri," he repeats.

He glances at Bichen, which leaps to his hand. He sheathes it in its snow-white and silver scabbard, then holds it loosely at his side.

"I did. It is. There is a door inside that serves as a portal."

Deliberately, he adds,

"And food. And warmth. Dry clothing. Healers and doctors, as well, if you still have need."

That's worth a smile; a real one. "Nice trick," she says, and glances in the direction he'd mentioned.

She looks behind her, too, and her smile fades, replaced by a frown that tucks itself between her brows until she turns back to him. "Alright, then. Lead the way, Lan Wangji. I'll buy you a mug of ale for your trouble; it's the least I can do."

"It was no trouble."

He gestures in the direction of the inn, and paces along beside her.

"You are a swordswoman?"

"In a manner of speaking."

But there, above the tower, you see? A swallow. The symbol of hope. Take this sword. And may what is to come about, come about.

The glance she casts his way is easy but reveals nothing, the casual wariness of a life spent on the road, of a waif who has been lost many more times before this. "You must be, with a blade like that. I've never seen anything like it."

"Its name is Bichen. It is a spiritual blade."

He lifts the sheathed sword up higher as they walk, so that she can see it more clearly.

"Yes, I am. It is part of my cultivation practice. Use of the sword, to train the body, in balance with the spirit."

"It's beautiful," she says, honestly. "I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anyone fight with a blade which shares their own living energy."

(For those who have the eyes to see, Ciri herself is a glowing font of magical energy...but it is passive. For now.)

Their conversation takes them to the door of the building Lan Wangji had indicated, and she pulls it open without waiting, only to gape at what she sees inside:

People. People – and...creatures? – from a dozen different worlds or more. All sitting in quiet conversation, or milling about, or laughing with companions. She sees men with swords and leather armor that remind her of...and she sees women in long dresses and women in trousers, like her. She sees the young and the old, all marked by their own unique world, all communing comfortably together.

And then, there's the window.

Her eyes glued to the explosion and waves of fire through the glass, she feels as though she's falling directly into it. "What is this place?" she whispers, as softly as if she were in a chapel.

Bichen vanishes in a flicker of pale blue light as he returns it to its hidden storage and moves past her to stand just inside the door. He waits quietly while she absorbs the sight, letting her get past her initial shock.

"An inn. Although a very strange one."

She is staring at the window much as he had, much as he figures anyone must. Remembering what Gaeta-qianbei had told him and how it had helped, as much as anything could, he says,

"What you see. It is the end of all things, but it is not -- real. Or not here. If you watch long enough, it starts over again, and repeats."

If she had seen him vanish the sword, she would be all over questions about how and where, but she's too busy gaping at the window.

"Tedd Deireádh," she whispers.

Verily I say unto you, the era of the sword and axe is nigh, the era of the wolf's blizzard. The Time of the White Chill and the White Light is nigh, the Time of Madness and the Time of Contempt

As if in a dream, she walks forward, toward the end of all things, and reaches for it – only to be met with cool glass against her palm, and to blink herself back into the present. "Incredible," she says, softly.

"Mn."

Agreement, in a single sound.

"I've traveled through more worlds than I can count," she says, turning back to him, "but I've never seen anything like this."

There is, at least, one familiar sight: she'd recognize a bar no matter how many fripperies surround it. She smiles, and claps a hand on Lan Wangji's shoulder. "Come, I'm hungry and thirsty and I wish to thank you for your aid. Let me buy you a drink, and perhaps we can exchange stories of how we both came to the end of the worlds."

He has never been a person that people have casually touched, and he is startled at her quick camaraderie -- but not disconcerted by it, and is then surprised at himself at how much easier it is for him to accept than it used to be.

She is recovering swiftly indeed. Perhaps she will not need to see Ford-daifu, or another such. He, for one, will not press.

A faint, faint smile touches his lips in answer, and he nods to her.

"All right. If you insist. But I do not drink alcohol. I will accept tea, however, and would willingly share tales."

"Good!" she says. The magic he'd done – the spirit he shared, it hasn't healed her fully, but she feels almost good enough to be on her way. A little food and companionship should get her the rest of the way there; she doesn't have time to sit here in this inn at the end of the universe and convalesce. The longer she stays, the more she endangers not only herself but everyone around her.

But she really can't go without food and water, so when she finds an empty table and takes a seat, she looks for a server.

"Where are – oh!" A knee-high rodent has appeared next to her; it bobs its head politely and watches her expectantly. She glances to Lan Wangji.

"Is this...a server?"

"Yes."

He sounds resigned.

"I know it is strange. But they are very polite."

This one is, certainly. It even has a crisp white napkin hung over its forearm and is waiting with the very soul of manners.

"Very well," says Ciri, and turns her attention to the rat. "Bread, cheese, and soup, if you have it; a mug of ale and glass of water for me, and some tea for my friend Lan Wangji, please."

The rate bows, and scampers off, leaving Ciri laughing in a startled sort of way before she turns back to her companion. "This place grows stranger and stranger."

"It takes some getting used to."

There is something incredibly dry about that simple sentence.

"You said you had traveled to many worlds. Have you not seen another place like this?"

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