{ 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

[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?"

[lightamidchaos]

"I do. In the evenings."

When they reach the top of the stairs, he glances at her key, then shows her the marks on the wall that indicate which corridor to take.

"When we locate your room, I can show you how to reach mine as well, should you have need to find me."

He says it without even the slightest hint of flirtation.

[jaskoleczka]

"I'd appreciate that," she says, with frank relief. "As so far, you and Doctor Ford are the only friendly faces I know here."

The...dormitory, she assumes, winds out into multiple different corridors, and she glances back as they head towards the one the key indicates. "The building seems...larger up here. How is that possible?"

[lightamidchaos]

"I do not know. But you are not wrong. Some sort of portal, I think."

He glances at her.

"Not like the one you came through. More like ones I have seen, that lead to hidden places."

[jaskoleczka]

That's all deeply interesting, but they've come to a halt in front of a numbered door. "Twenty-three," she says, and fits the key into the lock.

The room is spartan but comfortable: there's a small bed tucked into one corner and a chest which she presumes might act as a wardrobe at its foot. There is also a set of comfortable-looking chairs and a low table – through another door she can see what looks to be a washroom vastly improved from the ones she's familiar with.

(Inside, there is a large, deep tub that fills with hot water and scented oils at a touch.)

Everywhere, there are lit candles, filling the room with warm orange light and friendly shadows. Her eyes light on a series of banners hung along one wall: a crumbling tower, a diving swallow, a white star on black silk, a snarling wolf's head. And, hung in pride of place in the midst of these, three golden lions passant on an azure field.

She smiles to see it, her eyes gone soft and a little sad. "I am welcomed, indeed," she says, and unbuckles Zireael from around her torso to lay it on the neat bed.

[lightamidchaos]

It is well appointed, he thinks, and studies the hangings with interest. It makes him think of adding something of the sort in the room that he and Wei Ying share - although perhaps he will let that wait, for a while. Perhaps.

He blinks in mild surprise as Ciri places her sword on her bed, and offers,

"If there are other things, that you would like. Bar-guniang can provide them, if you ask. I have a sword stand, for Bichen."

[jaskoleczka]

"That would be handy," she agrees, and looks at the wall, crossing her arms thoughtfully. "Maybe something hanging there, where there's plenty of space."

Truthfully, she's used to sleeping with Ziraeal right at hand, but if Lan Wangji and Doctor Ford are correct and this place is safe...she may not need to.

She looks down at herself, her still-damp clothes. "Some fresh clothes would be nice." On a whim, she goes to the trunk at the foot of the bed and opens it to find – fresh clothes. She looks long enough to ascertain that they'll work for her purposes, and closes it again. "At least it won't take much to settle in."

[lightamidchaos]

"If you like," he says. "Mine stands here--"

He indicates a spot beside the head of the bed.

"There is not much, if anything, that she cannot help obtain."

[jaskoleczka]

"A handy spot. But I'm curious: why do you need a stand for Bichen when you can simply vanish it into thin air?" she asks.

[lightamidchaos]

"I still carry it. It is just hidden," he explains. "In my qiankun bag, or sometimes a qiankun sleeve, depending on which robes I am wearing."

"At home, I prefer a stand. Both for Bichen and my guqin."

[jaskoleczka]

"That's a nice trick," she says, smiling. "I can think of a few people who could make good use of a bag like that. But what is a guqin?"

[lightamidchaos]

"An instrument. I use it for musical cultivation."

There is no sign of a musical instrument anywhere visible in anything he is carrying.

"I can show you, if you like."

[jaskoleczka]

"If you wouldn't mind," she says, and sits for a moment on the edge of the bed. Even with Doctor Ford's treatment and the food from earlier, she's tired.

"Cultivation – yes, you said you were a cultivator. Is that some way of using energy, like magic?"

[lightamidchaos]

"Yes."

He sweeps his hand across in front of him, and a stringed instrument appears. With unconscious grace, he seats himself on the floor, the guqin balanced across his lap, and places his fingers on the strings.

"As a cultivator, I cultivate qi, which is energy. It flows through my meridians into my dantian, where I refine and concentrate it and use it to form my golden core."

Someone sensitive to magical and spiritual energies, as he starts to play Tranquility softly, might be able to sense his core, glowing at his center like a bright, miniature sun, or the flow of spiritual energy that he directs into the music. Certainly flickers of blue light are visible, dancing across the strings.

"The spiritual energy thus created can be used in many ways. Balance is important. Training with the sword improves the body, for example."

He has gotten more and more used to offering these explanations here at the inn, so although it is more than he has spoken at once before to her, it comes naturally all the same.

[jaskoleczka]

The mattress is very comfortable, and the music gentle. Her exhausted mind follows it as a stream follows the softly guiding hand of gravity, and, like the stream, begins to wend its way through the stones and rocks in its path.

There is no response to his words. Her hands have fallen loose in her lap, and her large green eyes are unfocused, blinking slow and heavy.

She stands in the midst of mountaintops wreathed with clouds. The air smells of water and moss. The gentle plucking of the guqin mixes with the playful tinkle of running streams. Across from her stands a man her own age. He smiles at her – but is smile is not for her. It is for Lan Wanji, who steps the the man and embraces him.

Behind them, a red ribbon coils from the man in black's hair, and slowly winds around his wrist. She tries to call out, but her voice is gone — the ribbon tugs – the man is dragged from Lan Wangji's arms and vanishes into the mist. She reaches out a hand and the red ribbon leaps from the mists and stabs into her palm. Gasping, she pulls her hand to herself, but the ribbon has disappeared. Her palm has instead filled with blood.

It floats in the center of this red pool: the rose of Shaerawedd.

"Lan Zhan, this is not real."

It is not her voice. This voice is flat, neutral, deeper than her own. "You lost him. You found him. You will lose him again. And when you do, the Shadow will fall upon the Twin Jades of Lan."

A whip, cracking purple with electricity, lashes at her and she cries out: someone catches her wrist and tugs her into a stumbling run. She cries out again, this time in fear: the face of her rescuer is that of a skull. Golden eyes blaze, and shadow smokes about the blade of the longsword she holds.

In the room, Ciri sighs out a breath. "The Shadow follows more than just you. Harrowhark! This is the second death. You will build your church on this rock and your eyes will run dry as the desert for your weeping. She is gone; you have buried her. Dry your golden eyes, dear child, blessed daughter. She will never leave you."

Her voice changes again; it recites: "For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."

[lightamidchaos]

Lan Zhan--

His hands freeze on the strings as he stares at her in shock, shock that transmutes to pure terror as she continues speaking.

"No." It is barely a whisper, choked and desperate. "No. He -- I cannot-- what do you mean? What are you saying?"

[jaskoleczka]

"Wei Ying is not yours to keep," says the voice that is not Ciri's. "He has fallen into mist and shadow, and his soul will heed the call. His brother comes with the scourge, with lightning, with darkness. This waystation is not your home. Look to your world, Lan Zhan."

A girl with blue hair, dressed in whites. A girl with red hair, dressed in black. Both wield swords and ferocious smiles. Behind them both, darkness looms, reaches, swallows them and Ciri too.

She opens her eyes to the wide flat pan of desert. Beneath a twisted, lightning-struck tree, on a stump, sits Geralt the witcher, a fire crackling at his feet. He looks up.

"See you on the Path."

Ciri blinks, smiles encouragingly. "That was a lovely song," she says, entirely oblivious. "Have you – Lan Wangji?"

For he is staring at her in horror. "What's wrong?"

[lightamidchaos]

The guqin vanishes as he gets to his feet, terror shifting to something both intense and desperate.

"How did -- how did you know. What did you-- how--"

It cannot be true. Any of it. It cannot. He will not let it be.

[jaskoleczka]

She rises also, hands raised in placation, eyes wide and worried. "What do you mean?"

(She remembers sitting down. Listening to the music. Smiling at its beauty. It has only been a matter of seconds, surely?)