Blown in on an icy wind

[ofspaceandtime]

WHO: Cirilla
WHERE: The fountain
WHEN: November 29
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None yet
STATUS: Open!

---

The brutal gust of cold, and the Wild Hunt’s vessel suddenly lurked in the sea off the coast of the Isle of Mists where she and Geralt stood.


“Get us outta here.”


“They’ll know where we’ve gone. They’ll know how to find me.”


“They already do. Ciri, take us home.”




The world turned in a flare of aqua light as it always does in her travels, and in her dreams. She wasn’t dreaming this time though, Geralt was there, had found her, and they were finally going home; finally to face Eredin and his hoard head on and come what may.


Except the world wasn’t turning the way it always did, and Geralt wasn’t there (had he ever really been?).


Instead of the solid ground of the keep Ciri expected to find on the other side, she was abruptly submerged in water and rapidly floating upward. Something had gone very wrong; even if this wasn’t the first time she had portaled into (or above) water, she had never lost anyone in transit before.


In fact, as she kicked herself to the surface, it became apparent how much more she had actually lost. She felt as though she was swimming wrapped in a potato sack, and it grew heavier as she caught her purchase on the edge of the fountain and hauled herself up over the edge in a sodden heap. It took Ciri a few beats to catch her breath and her bearings, enough to discover that when she reached back her sword was gone (sheath and all) and a pack, somewhat less sodden than the rest of her, had taken it’s place.


She had appeared many places before, but this was unequivocally her first fountain.

Comments

[ofspaceandtime]

The shivers are starting to set in. Ciri is used to cold, especially since it's always just at her heels, but soaking wet in loose clothing and biting air is a bit much even for her. Worrying about where she was and what happened to Geralt would have to wait, and for the moment, there was no obvious sign the Hunt had followed them her.

Trembling somewhat visibly she wriggled the pack from her back and sharp emerald eyes darted in all directions, honestly not trusting anything and praying it wasn't a trap... or another nightmare. The shivers grew worse as Ciri stumbled to her feet, fumbling now with the drawstring on the pack. She needed to get indoors, or she needed a fire, and quickly. There appeared to be plenty of trees in this park. Change of plans.

Ciri momentarily abandoned the pack with the odd flame mark beside the fountain and headed toward the base of the nearest tree, snatching up every fallen stick and twig in reach. The slight figure must have been in her blind spot at the fountain, because now knelt beneath the tree with a small handful of sticks, Ciri wasn't sure how she'd missed her. Immediately something about the gaze staring back at her struck Ciri as very raw.

"Hello?" she tried, unable to keep her voice entirely steady, and hoped that wherever she was it wasn't a place where 'hello' meant 'prepare to die'. Ciri had a lot of questions, but as of now, other than the way her fingers were tingling and going numb, her concern for the woman overruled anything else, including her search for kindling. "Are you alright?" Then, because she looked it, "Are you lost?" That would make two of us.

[treadswater]

She hesitates, a fact only shown by the way her poise shifts, wavers. There's the faintest sense of her shifting her weight. And then she sighs, as if annoyed with herself, and shoves her hands into her coat pockets.

"There's, um. There's warm clothes in the pack. They'll help? And-

Oh."

Annie smiles, a quirk of an expression that flitters across her face. It's an entertaining thought, even if she's aware that she's speaking too fast and appearing too odd. But nothing to be done, the train can't really stop just right now. "No, not lost. We're in the fountain park in the village in the enclosed canyon. It's like an arena? If that's... Familiar to you.

But there really is a coat in the pack."

There are reasons why Annie Cresta had been booted from the Career Academy, and the main one is this: she doesn't like to see people hurt in front of her.

[ofspaceandtime]

Ciri frowned watching her hesitate, still not entirely sure she was managing to communicate in the first place until the woman answered. The pack. Ciri had not fully trusted the new item but the advice was enough to spur her back to where she left it, dropping the meager bundle of sticks she gathered beside.

"My fingers have gone a bit numb, I'm afraid," Ciri explained, voice continuing to quake with the shivers of cold that were pricking through her with growing intensity. It wouldn't be nearly so bad if not for the damned wet of it all.

"Could you help me get it open? I was going to make a fire..."

She managed at least to crouch down and yank somewhat fruitlessly at the tangled drawstrings. Her fingers burned to try as though the White Frost were freezing them solid. What arena? she wondered, but decided there were more pressing questions. "Does this village... have a name? What year is it?" Ciri was aware her last question always made her sound mad, but it was a necessary evil sometimes.

[treadswater]

Her eyebrows pull together, the thought, but fire highlights your location going through her head. It sounds like her teachers at the Academy: it sounds like Finnick, here.

Her teachers had been right, but frankly, Finnick can go now fuck himself, because it's cold.

So Annie shrugs, nods.

"All right. Kick the bag over."

The woman's cold, yes, sure, of course she is. But she's also just come from the fountain and who knows what she came from. What her mind is saying is a right and logical course of action.

"And, um. Village's not got a name that anyone here knows, and the year's kinda a subject of debate? It's. It's complicated."

[ofspaceandtime]

Complicated. Well, Ciri understood complicated. A debatable year and a village with no name was a mystery but not the strangest thing she had ever encountered by a long shot. She gives Annie a searching look before giving the bag a pushing kick in her direction. It is then she notices why her feet feel so much heavier, her boots are different, thick soles and no heels. So strange.

"I'm sorry, my name is Ciri," she says after a moment, managing a faint smile through the cold and going again for the bits of kindling in an attempt to form them into some semblance of a pile several feet from the fountain. She wishes not for the first time in her life she hadn't given up completely on sorcery. A well placed Igni spell would have worked wonders just now, but the steps to make a fire never changed. She just had to get her hands working. Warm clothes would certainly help. "What's your name?"

[treadswater]

"I'm Annie." Annie Cresta, Victor of the 70th Hunger Games. Not that anyone here reacts as if they know her at all. Certainly, not one reacts as if they'd seen her mental breakdown in her arena, on her victory tour.

It's another data point.

She looks at the woman as she undoes the backpack, and it's the same as her own. Set supplies.

"There are overalls here, a coat. Take off your wet things and here."

She tosses the backpack back, a gentle lobbing to try and make sure nothing spills out.

"We're all given the same things, I think. By the folks who captured us. And there's an Inn, where they keep a fire going and have rooms. But, get out of your wet things first."

[ofspaceandtime]

She's not sure what overalls are, but Ciri catches the bag easily and starts to dig through it. "Thank you," she says gratefully.

Bracing herself for the shock of it, Ciri strips off the clinging wet of the dark blue scrub shirt and tosses it to the ground. She hisses a bit from the cold, and finds the coat, heavy enough, in the half-spilled pile of the clothes she's dragged out of the pack. "Captured?" she repeats with some alarm as she drapes the coat around her bare shoulders and pulls out the first set of trousers she finds.

Losing the scrub pants takes longer, forcing Ciri to kick off her boots. She tries not to be terribly put off how even her underwraps and knickers are different. What was happening? The long johns are snug but warm, and her shivers begin to subside somewhat as she stands there, forcing her feet back into the unfamiliar shoes.

"Do we know who these folk are?" That seemed a reasonable question, if anything could be considered reasonable just then. At least she was drying off.

[treadswater]

Annie doesn't leer, doesn't stare. She watches Ciri carefully, yes, but she's also still, habitually, scanning their surroundings, too. Not attraction in her dark, sea-green eyes, but wariness and threat-assessment.

"We don't. There aren't any good theories. At least, not I've heard, but I don't hang around the village much." There's amusement, there, but directed at herself.

It's not exactly from lack of invitation.

"People are, or, um. Claim to be from all over. Different... places."

[ofspaceandtime]

The more she learned the more questions she had, but it didn't seem there were many answers to be had in return. Ciri located the shirt that was the same soft warm material as the 'pants' she had on, losing the coat only long enough to pull it over her head. She gave up on the buttons after a moment, her fingers were still too cold.

She was putting the pieces together, a bit more easily now that some the feeling was returning to her extremities.

"You're not... from here then, I suppose?" she prodded Annie slightly for more information, not wanting to be rude, but she really still didn't understand how she had gotten here, and apparently she was not the only one.

Ciri was still slightly damp, but this was certainly an improvement. She couldn't stand still for long, already searching around the roots of the nearest tree for a piece of bark she could use to get the fire started. Until she sorted this out, could figure out what happened to Geralt or if he might be somewhere nearby, she really couldn't try to leave. Surely somewhere in this village there would be answers?

[treadswater]

"No one is..." Then Annie trails off, for a moment entirely confused by Ciri's actions. What is she trying to-

Oh.

Maybe Annie hasn't mentioned all she should have, if the woman's still trying to start a fire. At least (and for once), she hopes it is that. If the woman's so far gone with cold she's behaving oddly, Annie's not sure what she could really do currently.

"Look, um, there's an inn ahead. It's got a fire, and food, and they seem to welcome people. I can show you?"

[ofspaceandtime]

Ciri pauses in her searching, looking to Annie with an expression of torn uncertainty.

"Is it terribly far away?" She bites her lip, and looks back to the fountain. "I'm a bit afraid to leave, you see, in case- my father, I was traveling with him and he should have- well he was right beside me."

Then again, one of the major points of awareness that was convincing Ciri this wasn't at all a dream was exactly how hungry she felt. Food sounded like exactly what she needed. She sighed. "I suppose I should know where it is. Maybe he's gone there too. Thank you, for your help."

[treadswater]

"It's not far." But far enough, for someone as soaking wet as Ciri. Annie doesn't understand it: the Gamemakers know that hypothermia isn't that entertaining. It's a strange arena, this one. Subtler. She will have to try and recalibrate her thinking.

Later.

Not now.

"If he follows," Annie says, slowly, "there'll be our tracks. He can follow 'em."

She doesn't point out that there is a lag in time that Ciri has forgotten. A time enough for their clothes to be taken and changed, to be dressed like this. To have other things done to them. Either the woman will work it out, or she won't.

"I'll show you. Cold people can get confused."

It doesn't snow in District Four - at least, not anywhere they are now allowed to go. But she knows hypothermia from water, and it has the same affect, she figures.

[ofspaceandtime]

Ciri sighs heavily and it collects in a burst of cloudy air before her. She’s spent so long trying to find him, and he her. Perhaps it is really their destiny for Geralt to be forever following her trail, finding her, only to lose her again.

“Very well,” she finally agrees with a decisive nod, as the cold continues to bite at her. “Please, lead the way, Annie.”