A Winter's Gift (open, Katshika Falls)

[Aurordan]

For a moment, Aurordan thought he had just made things worse. Truly spending days off on his own in the woods did not do wonders for his social skills. But then the woman began to calm down, and he relaxed somewhat. Whether or not he had helped, the situation seemed to have improved somewhat.

It caught him completely by surprise when she fell in the river. For a moment, he failed to react at all. Fortunately for her, the trapper acted much faster ran off downstream with his bow outstretched. A second later, Aurordan was scrambling after them both.

A little way down the river, the woman had managed a grip on the bow and was being dragged toward the shore. Reaching out as far as he could on his hands and knees, Aurordan caught a grip on her arm and pulled her to the bank.

[Yarrin]

His teeth were chattering now. The snow was picking up. Home was quite a walk away. None of these things were good. In fact, Yarrin was quite concerned. He knew very little of winter survival, and he tried his damnedest to recall his limited knowledge as he bent and stretched to help Aurordan to hoist Shayth back onto the ice and out of the water.

Being wet was bad. That much he knew. Obviously. Being cold and wet generally led to things like hypothermia. People got silly and weird before that turned fatal, at least. Getting the Endal dry and warm would be important.

It was probably more pressing than trying to haul everyone back up the path to home.

“We have to get you dry.” The bowyer began thinking out loud, mostly to forget about how petching cold he was, but also so that he could keep the other man involved in his actions. Oh, and to give Shayth something to focus on. She was much colder than he was, surely,

“Th-there’s some clef-fts in the rocks that way,” Yarrin nodded his head in the direction he’d fallen from, “We c-can light a fire or s-something. It’s too far for you to walk back petching soaked. I won’t have an Endal icicle on my conscience.”

He offered an apologetic sort of grin at Shayth, as if he felt like some of this was his fault. It wasn’t. She was obviously hot-headed. As she should be. Inarta and all.

His hands helping her up were at least warmer than the air, though he could hardly feel his fingertips. He looked to Aurordan and then to his own discarded katinu, glad to see it was still dry, “C-could you carry that? Our wet friend will need it once we get a f-fire going.” Yarrin declined to mention that he was pretty sure getting the Endal warm would involve nudity. He decided he’d save being forward for just the right moment.

Sliding carefully across the ice while wet and cold assisting the woman he didn’t know and would have to tell this too was just not quite that moment.

Maybe once there was a fire.

Hopefully, no one would get hurt in that process.

“I should have some f-flint and such in my bag. We’ll j-just have t-to get s-some wood on th-the way ... and hope th-the storm waits for us.” Yarrin had no desire to be stuck out in more blizzard.

[Shayth]

There it was, that moment of pain before water came rushing into her lungs. The endal had hoped her death would be something glorious or heroic. Instead, she was going to drown in some frozen river with two complete strangers to tell of her story. Pathetic. Her grip loosened on the bow as her strength began to drain, her muscles trembling so much they had frozen stiff.

A hand reached her arm, grasped her tight, and pulled her upwards. As she broke the surface again, Shayth weakly coughed, unable to assist her rescuers. The frozen bank felt almost warm compared to the water, and laying there, she watched the blonde as she chattered. Dry, that was a petching good idea. Her body ached as it cramped, violent trembling shaking her body and making her teeth chatter so hard it felt as though they would shatter. As Yarrin assisted her to her feet, the endal could barely walk. Her thoughts were garbled and didn't make sense.

"T-T-Tur-r-r-risk-k-k-a...sh-she w-w-will b-b-bite y-you...your...s-she..d-d-does't l-l-like..." Her words were almost incoherent and whispered as her jaw and vocal cords refused to work right. The redhead knew she wasn't making sense. As they moved, her steps were slow and unsteady.

"P-p-pe-t-t-tch-in-in-ing hell...h-h-hu-r-r-tsss." The rider gasped, groaning in pain as her body succumbed to the freezing cold. The water on her skin was freezing in the biting cold air, slivers of ice coating her thick mane of hair. The cold she couldn't feel any more, numb all over. Her legs refused to work, and her head began to feel light. It was hard to keep her eyes open, so hard.

[Aurordan]

Bending to retrieve the discarded katinu, Aurordan took stock of the situation. The other man was dragging the incoherent endal off the ice and away from the river, but he was probably right about needing a fire immediately. The shivering woman would certainly not survive the trek back to the mountain. She might not even make it until they got a fire burning. Especially if she fell asleep, he thought, noting her drooping eyelids.

"Hey! Wake up! Plenty of opportunity to sleep later." He shouted, as positively as he could manage. Then to the man supporting her "Looks like as good a place as any. You two get over there as quickly as you can manage, I'll get some wood and try get a fire going."

The hunter turned to leave, then realized he was still holding the katinu. He thought for a moment about the man's expressed desire to keep it dry, but a glance at his companions caused him to doubt whether they would last long without it. With an apologetic look, he threw it as best he could over the two, then turned and trotted off towards the nearest stand of pines.

Finding dry wood in the snowbound forest proved as difficult as he had feared. Two minutes of digging blindly under the snow had got him nothing but cold(er) fingers and a few branches too icelogged to ever burn. Frustrated and frantic, Aurordan cast desperately about for any source of wood he could find. A few meters off, the skeleton of a dead tree caught his eye. He ran gratefully over and began hacking off the largest branches he could manage. Careful to keep them off the ground, he gathered a massive armful and shook off as much snow as possible.

As quickly as he could manage, Aurordan ran back towards the rock crevices he hoped the other two had already reached.