{ pfsb } a test

[jaskoleczka]

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.

Comments

[lightamidchaos]

He does not like the sound of any of this, and hopes that Ford-daifu is right and that this Wild Hunt, whatever it is, cannot find its way here.

He will have to tell Wei Ying. Perhaps they can do something with talismans or more advanced wards, as he had in the Burial Mounds, to give warning.

[jaskoleczka]

"You have a Hunt in your world? One led not by Eredin?"

She's startled but knows she shouldn't be; in all the worlds she has seen, the one constant is that many of them share a few – or more than a few – similarities.

She looks to Lan Wangji. "And you, do you know of the Wild Hunt as well? It sometimes appears as a pack of ghostly riders racing across the sky, with demonic hunting hounds at their heels."

[bannion_sight]

"In Fionavar," Kim says. As she talks, she starts assembling a packet of medicine. "Eight kings, including Owein, who leads them, and a child--"

Her tone shifts into that of reciting once more.

"The flame will wake from sleep
The Kings the horn will call
But though they answer from the deep
You may never hold in thrall
Those who ride from Owein's Keep
With a child before them all."

She sighs.

"They can't be controlled, and they are extremely dangerous, but they aren't evil."

[lightamidchaos]

He shakes his head.

"No. I know of nothing like that where I am from."

[jaskoleczka]

"The Hunt that I know, they call themselves the Red Riders," she says, softly. "And they are not spectres, only drape themselves with the trappings to stir up superstitious fear wherever they ride. They have terrorized multiple worlds for an age, kidnapping and killing as they pleased.

"They found me when I was a child. They have been hunting me ever since."

[bannion_sight]

Kim is quiet for several seconds while she finishes collecting the medicine.

"Yes," she says, finally. "Until the Paraiko bound the Wild Hunt in Fionavar to sleep until woken, by the terms of the verse I told you, they were much the same."

She hands the packet to Ciri, both pills and salve. "Take one of these morning and night to help with healing, for five days, and use the salve when you think you need it."

She hesitates, then, before saying - a little too casually --

"And if you happen to meet a young man here named Finn dan Shahar, you might want to talk to him. He was the child, with the Hunt in Fionavar, when I was there, and he is the reason its ride ended."

[lightamidchaos]

There's something of wry sympathy in his eyes as Ford-daifu turns over the medicines -- it has not been long at all since he was on the receiving end of similar instructions -- but it is replaced by shock at her last statement.

He glances at Ciri.

[jaskoleczka]

She takes the pills absently, frowning. "There's a child here who ended the Wild Hunt?" she says, amazed.

"Yes, I would very much like to speak with him."

[bannion_sight]

"I don't know if he's still here," Kim warns them. "But he was, for a while, after everything."

[lightamidchaos]

"Perhaps Bar-guniang will know," he offers.

[jaskoleczka]

"Bar...guniang?" she asks, the words feeling strange in her mouth. "A bartender?"

[bannion_sight]

"No, the actual wooden bar itself," Kim says. "There's a spell, or was, a long time ago, and now it's -- she's -- well, she's a person, basically, just made of wood."

[lightamidchaos]

"Guniang is an honorific," he explains. "Lady Bar, I think you might say."

[jaskoleczka]

"I see," she says, although she doesn't really. She tucks the packet of medicine into her shirt and nods to Kim. "Thank you, Doctor. Here, I don't know if you take orens, but –"

She rustles in her purse and draws out a few gold coins.

[bannion_sight]

Kim holds up both hands, refusing the payment with a smile.

"No need," she explains. "It's all part of the service here. You're covered."

"It was really nice to meet you, Ciri. Come find me anytime you want company."

She waves at Lan Wangji and adds, cheerfully, "That goes for you, too."

[lightamidchaos]

"Thank you."

He offers Ford-daifu a formal bow, then turns to Ciri and waits.

[jaskoleczka]

She pockets her gold again, bewildered but pleased. "Thank you," she says again, and smiles at the doctor's invitation. "I'm sure I shall."

She stands, tests her side (it still feels numb), and looks to Lan Wangji. "It appears I am at your disposal, sir," she says, cheerfully, if a little forced.

[lightamidchaos]

"I will introduce you to Bar-guniang," he says, starting to lead the way back to the common room as Kim Ford blithely waves a farewell and turns to cleaning up.

As he does so, he vanishes Bichen back into its hidden storage.

"She is kind. And manages things here, as an innkeeper."

[jaskoleczka]

Ciri's head is full of old stories about humans being put or turned into trees after angering or inconveniencing the wrong deity or sorcerer, but neither Kim nor Lan Wangji appear all that concerned, so this is probably not the same thing.

"I will be very pleased to make her acquaintance," she says, after briefly weighing in her head all of the incredible and impossible things she's already seen thus far.

[lightamidchaos]

"I thought she was one of the yao, when I was first introduced."

The room is not too crowded, at present, and he is able to walk beside her as they approach.

"She may still be. But if so, she is a benign one."

They reach the wooden bar, and Lan Wangji bows politely to it.

"Bar-guniang. This is Ciri, who is new here, and Bound. Please kindly make her welcome, as only you can."

[jaskoleczka]

"Yao?" she asks, curiously, but they have reached the long, glossy wooden bar – Bar, she supposes – and she follows Lan Wangji's lead, curtseying as best she can in trousers and with Zireael still sheathed on her back.

"Lady Bar," she says, politely. "It's a pleasure."

She's not sure exactly what to expect by way of response, but after a moment something materializes on the bar's surface. It's a parchment envelope with Zireael written in neat script; she takes and opens it, pulling out a fanciful wrought iron key and a note, written in the same hand.

Welcome, child of surprise.

Touched, she puts the note back into the envelope and looks at the key. "I suppose this means I can stay?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Unliving things that have developed life," he says, and nods.

"There are rooms upstairs. The key has the symbol that matches the door."

[jaskoleczka]

She knows what she'll see almost before she looks down at the key in her gloved palm: a number (in this case, 23), and, on the other side, a stylized engraving of a swallow.

She holds it up for him to see. "Shall we find where this key leads?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Mn."

It is clearly a noise of assent, as the next thing he does is to indicate the stairs.

[jaskoleczka]

She smiles; with his monosyllabic noises of assent or dissent, he reminds her a little of Geralt.

(Only in this, thought.)

"Alright, then," she agrees, and leads the way. As they climb, she glances at him again. "Do you stay here also, Lan Wangji?"