[Round One]: Alabaster and Viridian

[HurriSbezu]

OoC: Surprise! I decided to post the round myself. Sorry, Dakota. I know you had set your heart on doing this. XP

IC: The sky was the color of lead, and bore down oppressively on Penina Hargreaves as she trudged across the colorless desert of ice, searching for a place she only saw in old tomes. Bundled up in hooded coat and bulky pants, she was set to withstand a blizzard.

She stops for a moment and rests, just beneath the peak of the hill she was scaling. Antarctica sure is chilly, Pen thought as she gazed at her tracks stretching out across the plains of snow. I wonder if it is there, or if it is just another myth concocted by monks who had too much time on their hands. This thought brings a long drawn-out sight to her lips. A cloud of vaporous water wafts in front of her, unfurling before her eyes.

Standing up, she brushes the snow off the seat of her pants and, picking up her backpack once more, she trudges up to the crest of the hill. Then she stops and stares for several minutes.

. . . well, now. That certainly looks real to me. The emerald towers seemed to stretch out for miles and miles, in a ruinous splendor redolent of childhood toys abandoned in a sandbox. As she approached them, Pen looked around at the strange blind, white penguins that scuttled out of the ginormous archway and, looming over her, shuffled past her on some obscure pilgrimage. Slowly, the crowd petered out and the huge gates were open wide for her search. Only one thing she had to keep in mind, she recalled to herself: avoid the white shape-shifting giant.

OoC: Please note that said giant is 54 feet tall, precisely, which is nine fathoms. ^_^

[Awkin]

I didn't so much have my heart set on it, you PMed me asking to write it xP.

Yeah, so I actually wrote an intro post. But it was in the arctic, which is very different, but basically the same -- loads of cold stuff. So if we pretend that there's trees in Antartica, I can mostly just rip this across, hmm?

Right!

(Ic)

Asha rides across the expanse of the southern continent, trussed up in furs, curled in a sledge pulled by a team of sixteen white huskies. She snuggles deep into the thick-piled ruff of her coat, inhaling the musky scent of the hide deeply, and feeling her skin bristled by the strands of hair. The days are short here, and the blizzards are infamous -- the snow blinding, creating a veil worse than any fog, and the wind sucking any living thing of its life-warmth. If she were to remove her gloves and touch the steel fastenings of the dog's reins during one, she would surely leave a fingerprint as think as her flesh is deep.

She reckons it to be about an hour before the dawn of this southern land would bathe the frozen scape in an array of reds and yellows, but for now she rides through the half-light before dawn, where the moon and promise of the sun gives things shape, but no colour. She in content and warm, and the sledge rocks her gently. She recognizes the trees around her as Oskan pines. What a misleading name, she muses, blinking frost off her eyelashes. Oskan is the Icelandic god of fire and the sun.

She attempts to check her bearing by the stars -- trying to snatch constellations through the shower of needles. I was never much good at that anyway. Asha fumbles in one of her many pockets for a compass, the search taking some minutes, her mind hazy and sleepy and warm, but as she finally extracts it from its fur-lined hovel a sudden gust of wind bites at her fingers and exposed wrists, and her fingers contract involuntarily: causing her to drop the compass onto the floor of the cart. Shivering slightly, she reaches down for it, but her fingertips barely grace the polished rosewood's surface before it slides off the cart and scuttles off behind her.

Suddenly aware of the folly of being without a compass, and therefore bearing, and therefore direction in this wild north -- she swiftly stands and reins in the huskies, digging her heels into the rough wood of the sledge. Throwing the dogs a hunk of meat from supplies, she jumps -- landing cat-like on the floor.

But it isn't the crunchy, frozen coniferous carpet she was expecting -- what she lands on is glassy and smooth. She is no longer flanked by trees -- the mighty vault of heaven, star-studded and profound sweeps undisturbed far above the young traveler. Hesitantly taking a step, her feet sweep from beneath her and she falls onto her face. Shuddering as the ground steals warmth her body and face, she stands more carefully, leaving heavily on the sledge. Asha's fur-lined hood falls around her shoulders, and her silver-gray hair hangs around her face, covered in frost. She shields her face from another gust of wind, and then scans the ground through watering eyes for the fallen compass.

But there is a groaning, creaking sound. And Asha realizes with horrible, horrible certainty just where she is. She walks slowly and cautiously back the way the cart has come, watching the strains its sleepers had caused in the brittle, superfrozen ice. She curses her doziness, she should have paid more attention when she was riding -- she's walked right out onto an unstable and deadly patch of terrain. If she doesn't move swiftly, the ice will shatter around the runners on the sled, and she'll have to cut free the huskies: making off at best she can on her own, alone in the freezing wastes with only what food she can carry. And that was impossibly bleak.

And then she spies it, some way off the tracks, lying on its side near one of the many undulating dunes of snow that the wind has carved on the lake's icy surface. The spring it gives her step reminds her of a dance floor as she carefully and ungracefully makes for it, every transferal of weight causing an ominous creaking, groaning sound. And then, dropping to her knees and reaching out with her gloved hand -- it strikes -- an inhospitable, icy wind, freezing the breath in her lungs. Frost runs like a coiling snake up her sealskin overcoat as she stands, grabs the compass and runs blindly downwind.

She had been told what to do here -- run. But don't work up a sweat. Grab your wooden husky whistle and blow while you run. Keep blowing, keep running. Don't stop. Don't let yourself get cold. Don't go fast enough so it stops. Let your dogs catch you up, or the wind blows over. Her joints ache and he head spins as the biting cold rasps at her lungs. And she fumbles in her pockets and she can't find the whistle as she's getting so cold but her head is burning but that is shadowed by the biting airlessness that worsens with each breath...

And then, before her, the greatest wonder. Towers of green, stretching high before the dawn. She runs at a loping pace towards them, marvelling despite herself at the shifting plains and scapes of the structure, slowly sliding away from her probing eyes as her approach alters her perspective. It seems like some small eternity before she reaches the archway and falls, panting, into the shelter it offers.

[Kiriyama]

“What’s that?” Ziran eagerly asked, pointing at what appeared to be a bizarre yellow horse. Its long neck was supported by a thin body, which was in turn supported by four long legs. The beast’s slimy tongue slid out of its mouth and into its nose, causing all but Ziran (Who actually tried to do the same, just to see if he could) to cringe.

“That’s a giraffe,” the zoo-keeper, a burly man in his mid-forties, said. His hairy arms were crossed in front of his chest in an attempt to keep them from wringing the catboy’s throat. The cat’s curiosity really was getting close to killing him.

Ziran rushed over to another cage and stared at its occupant, which appeared to be another mutated horse. This one, however, looked somewhat dangerous. It was a dark shade of brown, with scraggly fur and long, slender horns. A demonic horse maybe?

“That’s a moose,” the zoo-keeper said, answering Ziran’s question before he could even ask. He turned to leave the catboy and go to where the penguins and polar bears were kept, only to have the hyper nuisance follow him. He threw a disgusted look in Kunto’s direction before gathering a bucket of fish.

The zoo-keeper took the bucket over to what could only be described as an icy pit. Inside the horribly unsanitary pit, amongst piles of bird dung, was a group of short, pudgy birds. The Windigo’s mellow eyes widened at the sight. They were so cute!

Fish were tossed to them with an obvious lack of care. At times it seemed like the large man was taking joy in hitting the poor animals with their food. A particularly nasty shot hit one in the face and knocked it down, ushering a sadistic giggle from the keeper.

“Those are penguins,” he said, again anticipating Ziran’s question. “They’re really dumb animals.”

Ziran sat at the edge of the pit and looked at the poor creatures. They seemed to be sad…

“Sir?” he asked, turning and looking at the zoo-keeper. “Are they sad?”

The man, thanking every deity in existence, threw the last fish and turned to Ziran. To make his performance more realistic, he wiped his eyes (Poking them and making them tear in the process), and put on the saddest expression possible. He knelt next to the catboy and, resisting the urge to simply push him into the pit, grabbed his shoulders.

“They are fine, child,” he said, making his voice quiver a bit. “It’s the ones in the wild that are suffering. They have nothing to keep them happy! They don’t have a dependable source of food, or warmth, or shelter from the weather!”

Ziran found himself tearing up at the thought of the poor, defenseless animals’ pain. He wiped his eyes and hugged the zoo-keeper. The incredibly annoyed man bit his tongue and hugged Kunto back. That was when he thought of the perfect way to finish his performance and rid himself of the catboy.

“The poor creatures in the wild deserve hugs…”

~

And that was why Ziran was now flying across Antarctica, halfway frozen. He pulled a list out of his pocket marked, “Giraffe, Moose, Penguin”. The first two were crossed off, and he had the bruises and cuts to prove it. (Who knew that moose were so mean?)

His green eyes scanned the landscape, and eventually found what he was looking for. Several black dots were littered across a small area of the white space, and he quickly flew down and grabbed one. Rather than stop to hug it, he kept flying with the penguin in his arms. No sense in stopping if you were freezing.

That was when he saw something that really caught his attention. There appeared to be green spires on the horizon. Unsure of whether he was hallucinating or not (And not caring either way), Ziran quickly made his way over.

He was so focused on the sight that he forgot about the chubby bird in his arms. Kunto remembered the penguin when he felt it squirming, and promptly dropped it in a snow bank. The Windigo waved his friend goodbye and flew low, noticing an archway that he’d need to go through. Even he wasn’t stupid enough to plow into a wall, after all.

Upon entry, Ziran went straight for the nearest living thing: A red-haired woman in a hooded coat and bulky pants, obviously far better prepared for the weather than he was. Desperately seeking warmth, he dropped down next to her and, without waiting for her to acknowledge his existence, hugged her.

[Halcyon Hero]

“God hates me. He really, really does.” Kestrel growled through gritted teeth, digging the tips of his fingers into the crevice and hauling himself up another foot or so. His other hand shot up, scrambling and clawing desperately for another hold in the icy surface. The gypsy focused his every iota of strength into his left hand as his questing fingers hooked over a small ledge, barely two inches wide. Arcing his fingers so that even his nails dug into the ice for a better hold, the young man slowly drew himself up, bringing his chin to rest on the ledge. Now, if only he could find someplace to put his feet. Heh. Rolling his eyes back in their sockets, the gypsy stared up at the light blue sky, framed on either side by the deeper blue of the fissure walls. He whimpered. He had not liked the trek across the frozen wasteland. He had not liked the sudden collapse of the ground he had been walking on. He had not liked being stuck with an impenetrable darkness below him and a fifty-foot expanse of icy wall above him. And he sure as hell did not like the icy, knife-like wind that was still somehow finding it’s way through his borrowed fur cloak.

“God,” Kestrel whispered, shaking the catch loose on his right arm and dropping a knife down into his hand, “If you really don’t hate me, you’ll let me make it through this.” The raven-haired man lifted the knife above his head and slammed it into the ice, the blade digging into the wall. And he watched as numerous cracks, like the threads of a spider’s web, branched out from the blade and through the wall.

“They’re just hairline cracks, just hairline cracks—everything’s ok!” The gypsy squeaked in an unnaturally high voice. He pulled out the dagger. The cracks cracked, widening and shooting across the fissure wall like lightning bolts. Then the entire thing collapsed, exploding out in large chunks and slivers of ice. The litany against God that Kestrel cried out as he fell into the blackness does not bear repeating.

<====}=0 – 0={====>

“I’ll find the ruins, I said.” Kestrel snarled, inching his way through the darkness on his belly. “I’ll write a wonderful song, I said. The greatest tale of adventure you’ve ever heard, I said.” The gypsy continued sarcastically, shoving a small pile of snow off to the side. “This isn’t my idea of adventure, bastards!” Kestrel suddenly yelled out, his angry voice echoing through the tunnel. The gypsy cringed as a dusting of snow shook themselves from the ceiling at his voice. Just who exactly those “bastards” were was unclear, even to the minstrel. Every single one of his friends, to a man, had waved off his offer of adventure with disinterest. Even Lhaeo, who loved adventure as much as anyone could, had shrugged at the gypsy’s proposal, mentioning something about a temple. It might have been the twin co-authors of Kestrel’s most recently acquired book, Forgotten Realms and Lost Palaces. There was also a pretty good chance that it was God, seeing as the minstrel was especially peeved at that particular entity at the moment. It might have been them all.

Grumbling, the dark-haired traveler rolled over on his side, twisting to get around the cramped turn of the tunnel. Kicking at the same time, the minstrel dug his hands into the snow and heaved himself forward and around the bend. And into a very cold, very hard, wall. His temper, needless-to-say, had not improved when he woke up fifteen minutes later. Grinding his teeth together, the gypsy felt all along the dead-end, finally moving his hands up to the supposed ceiling. The ceiling that wasn’t there anymore. A moment of elation overcame his anger and frustration, and the gypsy curled his feet under him and leapt to his feet. His ascent was abruptly halted halfway up by a ceiling that rivaled the wall in hardness. The fifteen-minute nap had done nothing for his mood when he next woke.

Practically foaming at the mouth, the traveler felt along the ceiling until he felt the cold, frozen metal of the latch. Growling incoherent ramblings to no one in particular, the young man finally succeeded in breaking away the hindering ice and lifting the trapdoor—for such was what it was. Looking very much the part of an angry, ravaged tunnel-dweller, Kestrel’s head popped out of the opening, peering around moodily at vast room. Without warning, something—or someone—stepped down hard on the trapdoor (left propped up against the back of his head), sending the gypsy crumpling down in a heap in the tunnel.

Screaming incoherent rage, the dark-haired man grasped at his fiddle. Setting bow to strings, the minstrel brought forth an angry wailing that very clearly described his current mood. The trapdoor exploded outward in a rain of splinters and smoke, Kestrel hopping out and looking around wide-eyed for something else to blow up.

[HurriSbezu]

OoC: Okay then, to make this work, I made the assumption that the other two are at another entrance. So we will meet up in the center. Okay? Okay.

BiC: Seeing flight performed without wings was very intriguing, to say the least. Several questions popped up in Pen’s head as she watched the small person become larger as he drew closer and closer to her. How does he achieve flight? Some psychic cop-out, wind manipulation, magnetic mechanics, what? Are those cat ears on his head? Why is he so ill-prepared for the weather here? . . . Why is he hugging me?

A few awkward moments of silence passed by as Penina stood there, arms at her sides, as she was embraced by a shivering Ziran Kunto in the gateway to the Emerald City of Antarctica. She observed him shivering like the last leaf of autumn, his lips blue as summer skies, and realized that he was a creature ill-suited for wintry climes. Or for careful preparation, at least. Many approaches to dealing with him were wrangled out in her head as she supplied warmth to the Windigo.

“Um, it is warmer inside the city. If you care to join me . . ?” She gently pried off his fingers and pushed him away.

Hugging himself to keep a lid on his hear, all he could do was chatter out, “So c-c-cold.”

“Indeed. Well, let’s take care of that then.” Taking him by the hand, she led him into the gatehouse of the decrepit crystalline city. Hargreaves brushed her hands on the hieroglyphics on the wall, thus sealing away the outside from sight and mind. A single command of “rubadub” was enough to activate the heating system. The language of the birds did wonders with coaxing the old system into working.

“Thank you very much for that. I almost died out there.” He was looking her in the eyes now, smiling his thanks more eloquently. Pen blushed blackly as she saw that there was not a hint of disingenuousness in his innocent soul. Not what I was expecting to see out here at all . . .

“Well, it is good that you did not perish. I have questions for you.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because most people cannot fly like you do.”

Ziran shrugged this off. “It just took a bit of twisting the wind around my body to do that.” Knew it!

“So then, why are you out here?” She removed her heavy pants and coat as she spoke with him, getting ready for her excursion into the near-dead city.

“Well, I was trying to give some hugs to sad penguins, is all. You know, cheer them up.” She smiled like spring sunshine at this statement.

“Really now? Well, I am out here to find out where the Candlestick Maker is.”

His face lit up at the mention of this figure. “Oh, oh, oh!! I know about him! He was in a tub with two other guys! I read it in a book I bought a few days ago! It was an awesome read . . . Then the moose ate it.” Tears crept into his eyes at this memory of woe.

“Well, yes, this guy did interact with the Butcher and the Baker, both important figures in Nephelon mythology.” Penina stroked the walls, making them ripple with strange figures as she searched for a map of the city.

“In the what now?”

“The people who built this city told stories about them. They have a fascinating culture.”

“What made them so great?”

“Well, they were masters of lightning and of crystal shaping, and they had gathered hoards of arcane knowledge about dreams.” Having found the map, she expanded it with a rap of the knuckles. “Hmm, nine gates. And the library is in the center. Oh dear.”

“Um, that sounds nice. Why did they care about dreams, though?”

“They could not do it themselves. They were birds, after all. Or avian creatures, at least.” She dismissed the map. “Well, I better get going then.”

Ziran looked at her, with a lost expression. “Um, what should I do then?”

“Come with me. A person who can fly will be a great help in this city built by winged creatures. If you can fight, that would be good too.”

“Uh . . why is that?”

“Because the Archer stalks this place in his many shapes, raging for his lost empire.” She walked to the door at an easy pace, fully expecting him to follow her through the triangular door sprinkled with eyes.

“Oh. Why did he lose it?”

“He is the one who wiped out the race as he conquered it. Typical human behavior, you know.” Pen stopped at the door. “You coming?”

Kunto chewed this over for a bit. “Sure!” He trotted after her, following her through the waiting portal, unaware of what he was getting into.

[Awkin]

Okay.

Mikey, that was brilliant. I like Ziran already.

(IC)

The world slowly stops spinning as Asha' hyperventilation slows to a more normal pace. Looking around, the world looks all patchy and slightly pink after the brilliant sheen from dawn light on snow had carved such a staggering whiteness into her retinas.

The huskies will survive through the day -- but the ice beneath her sleigh will weaken and give after just minutes in the morning sun. not that she knows where either is, so attempting to return before that happens is... futile. Patting her pockets she finds a six-inch knife, the compass, a wrench, and all kinds of fold-away tools that she can use for finding food, water and bearings out in the frigid expanse of the Antarctic.

And then she turns her attention to the city itself. A sheltered courtyard with a shattered convex glass dome opens out before her, the walls made of misty, green panels of some jade-like material. But life can't survive in the antarctic! It's impossible!

...But the flightless birds do it, and they live off the fish. So maybe if something lived off them...

...or it was the birds themselves..?

Intruiged, she walks on, through the courtyard and into the hallway on the other side, squeezing sidewards into the narrow space. It goes up for some ten metres, the two great slabs making the walls rising up to the heavens above her. Whatever the walls are made of, it is glassy and smooth and she edges along it meeting no resistance.

She comes out into another chamber, which is eerily silent without the howling wind. Looking round, Asha takes in a spindly-legged table and chair, and a vast mirror, taking up the whole of one wall. The walls curl and twist, and as she looks clseor at the twirls she see they are geometrical and exact, and they stretch right up until the wall crumbles and the roof has collapsed. walking round, she sees the narrow passage fits in with the pattern -- the reward for the inconvenience now faded as the space falls into ruin. She feels like she's treading through a space of flawless, but broken, design.

She catches her reflection in the mirror, and pauses to sweep the hair from her face -- turning her mind inwards. She feels calm here, but there's this tense, stomach-clenching feeling. A very... animal feeling, she is not safe here. It doesn't make sense, and the cold still brushes her skin and makes the air... almost crackle.

Walking carefully, as to make no footfall in this still, but in no way peaceful place -- she walks on.

But she hears a scream, and and angry, frustrated wailing. She runs for the next room, knocking over the table and slipping on the permafrost as the floor explodes outwards at the climax of a long, casting, brackish note. She puts her back to the doorway, just inside the next room. She hears a howling, human, and the music starts again. She feels a burning anger, the urge to destroy, and the mirror -- which she can see without moving, crumples up like a mighty, forceful hand screwing up a wide leaf of silver leaf.

Glass explodes in all directions, causing Asha, with a yelp, to dodge behind a partitioning wall before it is studded with shards of glass. The music pauses, and she hears crunching footfalls approaching her from the last room. [i]It must have heard my voice. Oh please, please don't let it catch me...[i/] Taking a step away, she realizes that she can't move, without making the noise of skittering, crunching glass too.

Steeling herself, she wraps a rag around her clenched fist -- ready to attack the apparent madman as he comes round the wall...