An Elemental Tide (Hadrian)

[Cara]

Cara simply stood over the mage, her eyes glaring into his skull, wondering in silence, what it is he would do, once he bothered to make a move. After a time of receiving what seemed to be little to no response from Hadrian, Cara's eyes took on several golden-colored flecks. Well you're no help are you? the Vantha thought, as she studied the man cooly. No help at all, nor are you all that exciting... and yet, it's a wonder, why you haven't yet run when so many others would. What is it about you, my dear, that makes you so unafraid? Have you seen much like this before? Or have you grown used to conjuring yourself? The Vantha's thoughts paused a moment as she considered Hadrian's form. So tall, so lanky, so seemingly weak. His gaze not at all troubling or piercing like her own. At least, not as far as she was concerned, he simply seemed, far too blind. Or are you devoid of feeling? The tell-tale signs which betray themselves in the eyes of someone like myself? Cara's thoughts faded away again, as she straightened herself out, allowing her form to tower over the meditating mage. Maybe there is another way, she thought, as her smile widened, and even more res poured out of her pores. She could feel her fingers tingling as small orbs formed over her hands, orbs she stretched out with her hands. Orbs she guided into the shape of cylindrical lines, before guiding it over to Hadrian's neck with several flicks of her wrist. As it neared, she imagined it bending, like a metal beam beneath too much weight. Imagined it circling, as spiky tendrils spilled away from the central essence, forming a thick collar around his neck, which she turned to thick, grey stone. Just the core, not the tendrils, which she could still sense, winding their way around the stone. "Pay attention," Cara hissed, as she glared down at the boy, a single finger twirling in the air, as though willing her magic onward. "Unless you want to find out what else I can do." The woman paused, giving Hadrian but a moment to shift his gaze, or offer some other form of acknowledgment. "Now that we've finished our pleasantries, stranger, care to mention just what the petch you're doing out here?" Cara inquired, her voice as cold as the snow beneath her feet. "Alone? Seemingly unarmed?" Again, the girl paused a moment, "or do I have to burn the answers out of you? Teach you a lesson about being on your guard? Especially, out in the Wastes?"

[Hadrian]

First an Icewatch bear and now an ice-hearted witch who insisted on speaking in Vani, the which he could not understand. His heat-shield would be no help against a collar of stone choking him, and for the first time he felt an icy finger of fear down his spine. He could answer in kind, but that would only provoke her, and he didn't want a snapped neck. He had no spell to reverse that and Rak'keli was not likely to bless him anytime soon. He had other tricks up his sleeves, but he went for the tried and true stratagem, the one that had worked on Belgar, calming him until he could talk some sense into him, and then the audience with Morwen in which the Winter Queen welcomed him into Avanthal and gave him work. His own aura reached out invisibly except to a skilled aurist, perhaps. It began to suffuse her own, pulsing with calming, most especially non-violent feelings. He was a soft touch with this. There were more skillful techniques, but he found the simplest used cleverly to be the most effective, the most difficult to detect. She had his attention, so he didn't have to change anything for that. If only he spoke Vani. "I was meditating," he said quietly, his voice calm and asking her to be calm too. "The Wastes are peaceful, and I was told the bears keep it safe. I have Queen Morwen's permission to reside in Avanthal, not in the least due to Vantha blood, albeit diluted. If you harm me, I cannot complete the task she laid out for me, and she will be disappointed."

[Cara]

"So you speak Common," Cara replied in his tongue. Frustrated that she would have to switch from something that came so much more naturally than that which he spoke. And he was beginning to seem like a mute... pity, Cara thought, as she strummed her index and middle fingers against her bottom lip, the others dangling. Curling in the air, as she studied him. The necklace. His impossible calm. She thought still, that she could see the res wavering, and wondered, if he would remain in his current state if she altered anything more. Only one way to find out... at the right time... "Strange, to find an outsider meditating here. In the cold. Alone. When one can do so within the city's walls. Protected by the bears," Cara continued, her voice calm. Collected. Neutral, as though weaving a recount of all the things she'd need to get from the market before the day was done. "They tend to stay in. Never come out this far. They seem afraid of something. What, I cannot say." Cara paused as her fingers slipped, sliding down her chin, her neck, before settling by her side. "As for Morwen... well, she tends to welcome everyone," Cara continued. "Yet, it seems unlikely she would give an outsider a task... so soon." The Vantha paused as her index finger twirled rather absently, willing the suspended djed onwards, in its never ending circular path. "If one didn't know any better, they may think you were up to something," she finished, finally switching back to her native tongue. Finally finding some sense of comfort in the familiar. With a subtle flick of her finger, Cara filled one of the spikier points of her res with stone. Slowly it expanded, sharpening to a point, that grazed the inside of Hadrian's skin. Hardly touching, scratching or perhaps even piercing his flesh, only if he moved his neck into it, for whatever reason. It seemed to tease; to taunt. To threaten. Come any closer and you'll be dead... come any closer and she'll do more... come any closer and she'll show you how much control she has over you with this collar around your neck. Test her... we dare you. You won't win. Cara is the coldest. It was meant only to draw Hadrian out of his meditative state. Or perhaps, the cobwebs of it. Meant only to scare; to get his attention, so that Cara could question him, and perhaps, have a little fun while she was at it. "So tell me stranger," Cara whispered, her voice a cool Common, "just what sort of task has the Ice Queen assigned you?"

[Hadrian]

He did not respond to much of the bulk of what she said; there seemed to be little need as it sounded rhetorical in any case. For whatever reason, she had a streak of sadism to her. Even if he were not so skilled an Aurist, he would have been able to tell that by her actions, by the tone of her voice and what she said to him. But he did not want to fight, and so while she nattered on and eventually regressed to her Vani, he gathered his aura about him, and then pushed it outward, its flavor enticing, working into hers like molasses or honey, alchemizing it. When he spoke, his words had weight. But no matter what he said, that weight pulled at Cara, begging her one simple emotional response: to care for him. "I don't know that my work is a secret, but I had better not elaborate without permission from Queen Morwen," he said. It was not quite an apology, but at least an explanation. "If you wish to ask her yourself, you may do so without fear of offending me. I wish merely to work in peace. I have had my share of strife in my travels and was hoping to enjoy Morwen's peace in and around Avanthal." Of course, Morwen was no longer in Avanthal, but bestriding the entire continent. Still, a child of Morwen might still commune with her, he thought. Morwen loved her Vantha; surely she would not be deaf to their prayers even while girding the mountains with ice and sending those plants to sleep that would survive her embrace.

[Cara]

The ice maiden leaned into the aurist a little. Her eyes sparkling with the sunlight as it danced off the bed of white snow. "The Ice Queen has gone," Cara said in an accented Common, simply for his sake. "She won't be back for quite some time. No one could ask her anything, no matter how much they wanted to. Not until she returns, to grace us with her presence once more." The woman's finger came to a halt, and slowly, melted into her side. Her gaze softened a little, but still, it seemed intense. Still, her eyes seemed to bore into the back of Hadrian's head. "You understand, don't you?" Cara asked. "Why one of Morwen's children would ask questions of a stranger? Why they would want to know just what someone so seemingly peculiar and out of place may wish to do with our beloved Queen and mother." The Vantha paused, as her fingers clutched the fabric of her dress, trying to draw in some of its warmth. Her body's heat. "We just wish to keep her safe. Not that she couldn't protect herself... it's more or less, the principle of the matter, you see." Again the Vantha paused, considering her words. "Which brings us back to the beginning. Why act so strangely, if you are truly doing our Queen's bidding? If you are an ally? A friend?"

[Hadrian]

"I know she is gone," he said calmly, "but her assistant reminds behind and can speak for her. And of course I understand, but who could come to Avanthal in the dead of Winter unless they too could reave the ice?" If this woman felt she had a duty, that was fine, but he was not going to divulge the Ice Queen's secrets to her. Instead he continued to ply his hypnotic power upon her, willing her to melt a bit around the heart toward him. He did not mean to inspire love and, in fact, he wasn't even sure he was capable of that, but merely that she should grow to trust him and leave off with her threats. At this point, his Shielding exercise had worked and all he wanted to do was go back to Avanthal and work on his plans for the coldtorch.

[Cara]

Cara shrugged. "Those who come by sea in their special boats," she replied, her voice soft. "Or those who truly bother to try, when venturing north by land, to come and see us." She paused after that, considering her own words, and those at the mage who sat, seemingly humbled before her. Her arms folded across her chest as her magic swept over her, and she, feeling somewhat peculiar, in an inexplicable manner, found it within herself to kneel beside him. She could hear the snow crunching beneath her, as his own djed flooded her, as her body grew a little less rigid, and cold. She could feel the snow sticking to her clothes. Dotting the dark fabric; melting, seeping into her skin. The Vantha's hands fell into her lap, her gaze upon Hadrian's quivering bottom lip. Or at least, she thought it to be, with the cold, or perhaps his fear of her. She marveled in that, the sickly pleased sensation it sent coursing through her spine, as she leaned in a little. "Tell you what stranger," she whispered, "your collar can come off, for now. If it would please you, which, surely it will. And then, you are free to go about your business. Of course, however, if you have lied and intend to harm our queen, then you shall face the wrath of every bear, and every Vantha inside and outside of the city's walls." Again, she paused. "Consider that before you do anything stupid. Unless, you'd like to be reduced to ash." A wicked grin crossed the woman's lips as her right hand came forward. Her fingers furling into her palm, save for one, which came up against the earthen collar. She tapped it lightly, her eyes sparkling as she followed the gentle curve of it a moment, before settling on a spot closer to her. "Now don't you move, if you intend to keep your head," she added, her voice a little more threatening now, although, that didn't seem to be saying as much as before. Slowly, silently, res slipped from her finger, and glided through the rock. Thin slices, winding around. After a few moments, she filled the centers with water, cold and clear, before tapping into the gift of her goddess. Hardening the water. Freezing it. Turning it to ice. She could hear a soft crackling as she drew her finger away. "That should do it," Cara commented, as she pulled her palms onto her knees, and pushed against them, easing her body back up. "Do be careful when you remove it, lest you break your delicate skin." She offered him her twisted smile, before turning away. Leaving him to himself; his thoughts. If he bothered to watch, he would see the dark speck of her disappearing along the horizon. Hear the delicate crunching of her steps as the white swallowed her; the cold.

[Hadrian]

Whatever emotional reaction she imagined him to be having, he only concentrated on diffusing the situation, and, indeed, he was successful after putting up with a few more taunts. Clearly she had some sort of emotional problems that she felt the need to take out on people she deemed defenseless, some rage that needed an outlet. As he watched her go, he wondered if someone had hurt her as a child, the which he was realizing was more and more common the more he learned to understand what his Auristics and his more mundane observational skills told him; perhaps she had been raped, made to feel powerless, and so reveled in putting others in that position to make herself feel powerful. Whatever the reason, she was gone. He put his finger to her collar, willed his res out to twine around it, braid around it, and finally, the solid stone with its iced out cracks fizzled into dust. He stood up, glanced around, sensing no other dangers. The invisible heat shield around him still held, but as he began to walk back to Avanthal by a different route than she had followed, he found that the energy was sluggish for lack of a better word, the shield not wanting to flow with his movements, and so he released the Shield energy and tucked his hands into the pockets of his winterbane coat. It was quite warm, adept at keeping the weather out, but it was not so powerful as a heat shield. True warmth would be his back within the city limits, sitting by the hearth, hot mug in hand. He needed to stop going outside for what he could do inside, it would seem. END

[Warden]

-Hadrian- Skill Points: Shielding 3, Meditation 2, Lore: Interrupted Meditation, Language Barriers -Cara- Skill Points: Reimancy 3, Intimidation 2, Interrogating 1 Lore: Bullying a Fellow Mage, Language Barriers, Aggressive Aura Pacified Notes: Awww, no epic magic duel between two master mages? =P Great thread you guys, very interesting to see these two personalities react to each other.