Micali Alsara
Member
14; Cold, Colder
(4951)
(4951)
“...Well all of the books are kinda out there, and most people pretty much agree it’s fiction, but there’s just something so appealing about that sense of mystery, y’know? Like, even if it is fake, the idea that it could be real is the actual source of, like...sorry, I’m overexplaining, I’ll shut up.”
“Don’t sweat it, I can empathize- oh, I forgot to mention, reading is getting easier as time goes on. I didn’t even realize it until after the fact, but the map? It didn’t hurt at all.”
“Oh that’s such great news! Hopefully it fully goes away, right?”
“Yeah.”
Twin footfalls crunched on the frosted dewy grass as the laicar and velen walked along the wood’s road. Breaths danced with the cold air, and hands grazed for the most imperceivable of moments. The two had been travelling for a few hours, and the journey had been thus far tranquil as the women chatted peacefully about anything and everything.
“What were our plans for food long-term for the trip? I appreciate your efforts in creating what can only be described as far too much trail mix, but I was hoping to do some hunting.” Micali chastised herself internally after she finished the uncharacteristically...chipper sentence. What was it about Rosa that brought out the positivity in her, the peace of mind?
The pink velen woman gave a mock sigh. “Oh well, more for me. I practically survived off of this stuff after I left home. It was only a couple weeks before I went to Dom’s, where stuff turned around pretty fast, though.”
The brunette laicar slowed her even strides to match pace with the heiress - as she had plenty of times already - before she gave a slight hum. “How did you end up at Dom’s, anyway? I’m surprised you didn’t end up heading to Terminus.”
“Well, funny story- that was originally the plan. I was actually getting my things ready to go for the next day, and then the Help Wanted for Dom’s was slipped under my hotel room’s door. I guess Dom had the twins sending out ads once he found out...oh, what was her name again? The one before me, the waitress.”
“Livisca.”
“Livisca, right, thank you- where did she end up going, anyway? Terminus, right?”
Livisca was a laicar with dark skin and short black hair, buzzed on one side. Most days she kept to herself, which Micali appreciated greatly. “Yeah. She got some kind of job there with a medical research company as a receptionist - ‘glad to be done with this fucking shitshow of a city,’ I think she said.”
Rosa smirked wide at that. “I mean...she’s right.”
“Oh, big time. So, you got an ad?” Micali chastised herself for pushing, for continuing this disruption of her typical periods of rumination and planning.
“Yep! Just slipped under my door at the perfect time. Crazy coincidence, but hey, it worked out for the best!”
The laicar went silent at that as Talrigori’s words echoed in her mind. She whispered to herself, “There are no coincidences in Lucrus.”
“What was that?” Rosa cocked her head to the side as her long hair, in a tight braid, swayed beautifully with the movement.
“Oh, nothing, sorry.” With that, the two fell back into a comfortable silence as the din of early winter carried them through the rest of the day.
Then evening began to set in.
The pair found a small opening off to the side of the road, and made camp. After a couple short minutes of struggling with the campfire she managed to assemble of the less-damp logs she managed to find scattered around the surrounding forest floor, Rosa stepped in and her hands lit the logs aflame. Maybe there was some merit to having a travelling ally. The conversation was welcome, too. As Micali rolled her eyes at her own thoughts, the two settled into their sleeping bags around the fire.
“By the way, I think we might be ahead of pace - it might get knocked down to a week and a half long travel instead if we keep this up!” Rosa’s optimism was only cut short by the sniff she let out as the cold night air began to creep in and nip at both of them.
“Good. Sooner we get there, sooner we get back. I still can’t believe you quit Dom’s for me.” Micali meant every word, but kept her excitement for killing Valgora toned down, just another reason she wanted to get to that cathedral as quickly as possible.
“Well yeah, I mean...you, uh, you needed my help!” Rosa let out a loose chuckle after that, though it was clear they were both tired from the day, so Micali wrote it off as a drowsy response.
“Yeah. Get some sleep, we’re gonna want to leave early if we can - only so many hours in the days now.” Micali laid down in her bedroll - lined with furs to protect from the frozen season, and took in the desired warmth.
“Yeah.” Rosa likewise laid down, and Micali drifted off.
When she woke up, the fire was low, but still going. The noise was what had woken her - the shifting near her, from Rosa’s bedroll. The sharp breaths, the shivering gasps through chattering teeth.
Micali threw her own blankets off, regretting only for an instant that she was now exposed to the cold night air, and stood to move toward Rosa.
“Mickie, n-no, don’t worry about-” The stutter gave away what Micali had already predicted.
A hand held to Rosa’s face became ice cold. A cursory glance in the low firelight showed white breaths blow out as the younger girl leaned into the touch. “You’re freezing.” Micali gazed down to where the velen’s head emerged, and realized the problem. “It isn’t lined. You’re gonna freeze to death, c’mere. Get up, c’mon.”
Rosa did so immediately, clearly past the point of protest as winter sunk its jaws into her.
“Here, lay down in my bedroll, c’mon. We both need some sleep still.”
“Mickie, I can’t t-t-take your bedroll-”
“Just lay down, Rosa.”
Again, the pink-scaled woman did so, nustling into the warm furs.
Micali laid down behind her, and brought the covering of the bedroll back up, laid her arm in front of the shivering body that pressed tight to hers, disturbed the once perfectly warm haven that was the bed roll, and held her travelling companion close to try and regulate their temperatures.
“Wh- Mickie, what’re you-”
“Hush. We need to share body heat. I didn’t realize your bedroll was gonna kill you, and this is the best way to stay warm. Get some sleep, I don’t want you lagging behind tomorrow, alright?”
“O-okay.”
Micali was beginning to get frustrated with this anonymous feeling that crept up on her at the strangest times as her stomach flipped and her chest tightened.
x------
“Vis, how have we been out here for three days already? It feels like we left yesterday. Time flies when you’re travelling in the most inefficient way at the worst time of year, I guess. Anyway...sorry, what were we- oh yeah, my Mom was super great. When my Dad started to get all...y’know, evil, she stayed as she always was; sweet, kind, heartful. She was diagnosed with the illness when I was about fifteen, and she was gone two years later.” Rosa took a moment to look up to the sky - to the moon that hung high in the late dawn’s glow. “What about you? You never talk about your parents.”
Micali stopped walking at that, and Rosa made it a couple more paces before she stopped and looked to the brunette. The sniper sighed and continued to walk. “Well, y’know how I was raised into the Insidiis, right?”
“Ooh, sorry, your parents were probably…”
“-I have no idea who they are. The Insidiis- or rather, Editus Malum, though they were one and the same, had some kind of issue with my parents and killed them. They took me and made me a weapon. I had handlers - a couple that raised me with the minimal education and plenty of survival skills I have today. They were pretty abusive and treated me like shit, but they’re dead now, so fuck ‘em.”
Rosa gave a solemn look to the older woman. “Sucks about your real parents though.”
Micali just shrugged. “Hard to mourn someone you never knew.”
Neither said much after that, though not an hour later, a heavy snowfall began, the first of the winter. Hoods went up, and hands found pockets as the pair continued on their journey through Amantes Pass.
That night was like the first two, the women bundled tight in Micali’s bedroll underneath a leafy outcropping they had found along a small site on the side of the road. After a good-natured day of discussion, Micali felt a bit tired, though not enough so to refrain from tormenting the other woman some. “You ever hear about the skinchanger?”
“The what?”
“The Cutis Mutante - a vistra that can impersonate anyone. It used to roam around Lucrus at one point, and at the same time a bunch of people died. They found ‘em all missing their skin and stuff, was really messed up, apparently. Then it was spotted heading north. That was a few years back, though, so it’s probably not even around anymore. Probably. Goodnight!”
“Mickie please tell me you’re joking. Mickie?”
Micali slowly moved her hand, which she had previously rested her head on, and ever-so-inexorably moved it to the back of Rosa’s neck, where the slight brush with it caused her to let out a fast shriek.
“Oh, you- that was really rude!” Rosa sat and let out a huff as she crossed her arms.
The older woman could only howl out a few laughs as she attempted to rein it in to spare Rosa’s feelings.
“I can’t believe- wait, did you hear that? Mickie, stop laughing, I’m serious, listen.” The heiress’s head pivoted toward the bushes nearby, though anything was imperceivable in the darkness.
Micali let loose a smirk. “I’m not falling for that. Get some rest.”
“No, Mickie, seriously- there’s something out there. I heard a rustling or something.”
“It’s probably just a critter or something, don’t worry about it. I promise to keep you safe from the horrible skinchanger.”
Rosa went silent after that, and the two eventually fell asleep beside a roaring fire.
On the fourth day, Micali awoke hungry. The trail mix and scavenged edible berries had lost their appeal, but hunting was still an option, she supposed. As she rose from the furs, she noted the lack of current snowfall, and she was cautious not to disturb the younger. She’d stay close so that if something went wrong she could come back-
“Mickie? Where’re you going?”
Or not. “Hunting. Kinda sick of the trail mix and berries.” The sentiment had been stated on the first day, and the cold that echoed through their travel and the restlessness of simply walking and talking day in and day out had begun to wear at her.
“Oh. Well I would bake cupcakes or something, but I didn’t exactly get a lot of sleep last night.”
Micali felt an edge in Rosa’s tone, a sass she truly lacked the patience for. “The skinchanger thing was a joke. Whatever. Stay here. I’ll be back in a bit.” The laicar turned to move toward the wood.
“Wait, I can come with you!”
She stopped turning toward the wood and held back a sigh. Of course Rosa wanted to come. Because why would Micali need alone time, a moment away from someone who loved to talk and brought out all these emotions. “I…” Micali realized she’d faced her first dilemma; if she left Rosa here, she could potentially be in danger, and knowing the velen, she’d likely wander into the forest just to try and prove herself. If the sniper took the mage with her, though, she’d likely not catch anything. “Fine. Just stay quiet and don’t scare anything off.”
The two entered the brush after some quick preparations.
Not only a minute into walking the newly snow-covered forest floor, a voice sounded out behind Micali. “So, I was wondering-”
“Shh.” The brunette rolled her eyes and continued to stalk along as she tracked down some animal prints. Some kind of doe-like creature, from what she could tell. She moved along the tracks, sure to be quiet, and was sure that Rosa was behind her, though she was impressed by the other woman’s silence. Then before them, she saw the creature. It ate a few leaves off a tree that had remained mostly dry, and just as Micali nocked an arrow, a snapped twig behind her scared the beast off. The archer rose from her hunched position, and turned to look to the younger girl, who seemed as startled as the animal had been.
“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to! There’s just snow everywhere so really I probably avoided so many already, really it’s impressive that I-”
“We’re gonna keep going. If you can’t be quiet, go back to camp.”
“I can be quiet, I promise.”
Satisfied that perhaps this would work, Micali moved forward again, eager to follow the beast to wherever it had wandered to. The two wandered through the snow-covered forestry until the path they walked of crowded tree limbs and wet foliage seemed to open up into some sort of clearing in the distance. Micali felt a sense of anticipation as they pushed past the almost darkened area they were in toward the light of the day that reflected off the snow from-
The cervidae they had been tracking laid in the center of the clearing, side shredded open and ribcage snapped to pieces as its innards laid exposed, a gnarled crimson contrast to the snowfall covered glade. Micali’s heart pounded out of her chest as a bit of movement on the other side of the carcass caught her eye - hair, bouncing with movement as a something ripped and growled at the body of the animal.
Jagged teeth gnarled and crunched into supple, raw flesh. Blood bubbled and squelched as the humanoid figure before her hunched over the corpse of the cervidae, the body still fresh as chunks of flesh and organs were lifted to the jaw of the being that had killed it. Micali felt a hand at her back and nearly screamed, until reality came back to her - Rosa. Just as the sniper turned to cover the velen’s mouth with her hand, a sharp gasp erupted from her at the grotesque sight before them. Micali turned back sharply, just as the being on the other side of the only obstacle between them slowly raised its form.
Definitely humanoid, though it was hard to tell exactly what race it was underneath the accruement of dirt, ice, and gore that stained the skin and faint remnants of clothing as the being- no, person, dropped the intestines in its hands and came to its feet.
Micali immediately raised her bow and loosed an arrow, but not before the person dashed forward, animalistic in its sharp, sporadic movements. The arrow sunk into its chest, and Micali let out a deep breath at the realization that the person would stop and slow at any moment.
Except it didn’t.
“Run! Run!” Micali dashed one way as the being continued its onslaught toward the pair, clearly setting its sights on the major threat that had sunk an arrow into it.
If Micali thought she was fast enough to outrun it, she was wrong. She turned just in time to throw Cora to the side and bring her knife up to the creature. It attempted to throw itself at her, but she managed to duck down just an instant before it sailed above her, her blade raised to cut deep along the creature’s belly as it soared over her. Black liquid ruptured out and along the white snow as it laid there for a moment, and now she was sure that the fight was done. She rose, slowly, and kept her distance from the still-twitching, decidedly laicar body.
She turned to look to Rosa, who had ended up toward the middle of the clearing. The woman had her hands clasped over her mouth, and she suddenly reached out and shouted, “Look out!”
Micali turned just in time to see the animalistic laicar lunge, stomach free of any wounds and arrow broken off from its fall. Her arms were at her side, and as she raised them to defend herself, it collided with her. Her knife fell to the side on impact, and her forearm was all the held its gnashing jaws back from her face.
Until it instead latched onto her arm, teeth sinking deep into the flesh there, enough that she couldn’t hold back a pained scream. Her other hand was busy holding its chest away as best as she could, and her eyes shut as it swung its head back and forth, tearing at the sinew of her arm, until a whizzing sounded out from nearby and struck it, knocking it off of her. Immediately it raised, and began to sprint toward the mage as she threw her hands around, bolts of flame shooting outward toward the running figure.
Micali stood as quickly as she could, and pulled her now wet sniper rifle from her back, and bent down to one knee, and took aim as quickly as she could, ignoring the gush of blood that came as she tightened her injured arm as she steadied her rifle’s scope. Their attacker would be upon Rosa in only a few seconds. It would kill her and rip her to shreds if Micali didn’t take her shot right at that moment.
So she did, and watched as its head exploded outward in a black mist and it fell to the ground only a few feet from the velen girl. Rosa immediately moved to run across the large clearing to Micali’s side, snow kicked up behind her dark boots the whole ways over while Micali held her still-gored arm with her uninjured hand, her rifle falling to the snow. The laicar attempted to ignore the sight of bone beneath her layered clothes.
“Mickie! Mickie, oh no, are you okay?”
Of every pointless, idiotic, rhetorical question that the heiress could choose from, she asked if Micali, bleeding heavily onto the snow they both kneeled upon, tired from days of travel, on a mission to avenge her dead daughter, bogged down by an uninvited tagalong who scared off the game that they tracked to this precise moment in time when the sniper was injured- she asked if Micali was okay? “No, obviously I’m not fucking okay. Why did you fucking throw fire at it? It could’ve killed you!”
Rosa seemed to be taken aback at that, her expression morphing from fear and worry to exasperation and disbelief. “If I hadn’t, you’d be dead! Are you kidding me!? Vis, you’re so fucking stubborn.”
The days of exasperation came bubbling to the surface as dulled pain made way for controlled rage. Micali turned away from the velen, unwilling to be healed by someone she was so inexplicably annoyed with at that moment. She grit her teeth as she spat her words out, adrenaline ebbing away to the memory of recently snapped tendons.“Oh, fucking forgive me for not wanting a burden following me around- why the fuck are you even here, Rosa? You left Dom’s, fucking quit, and your reason is that I needed help? If you want someone to help, use your influence in the city, don’t fucking pressure me into babysitting you through the wilderness! I mean, Vis, why the fuck-”
“Because I’m in love with you, you fucking blind idiot!”
The breeze failed to flow, the snow failed to move beneath her shifting weight, the air failed to move in and out of her lungs as the words registered. Every interaction, every lingering touch, every unfinished sentence began to form fully within the scope of Micali’s recollection. As time began to move once more, Micali turned to the velen, her rant halted by the confession.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, here, let me- c’mere, Vis, we need to stop this bleeding.” Just like that, the younger girl- no, the woman before Micali compartmentalized in a moment, and as the sniper was unable to move as realization after realization tumbled through the synapses of her recent past, she held a hand out to Micali’s covered arm, pried off the sniper’s hand, observed it for a moment, then stifled the wound with her own palm. The brunette vaguely registered the bright glow that emitted, nearly lost in the white floor beneath them if it were not for the sizable amount of blood that had tainted the tranquil purity of the nature-graced clearing.
Micali forced herself to be pragmatic, too, as her eyes wandered to the corpse of whatever being had attacked her. Sure enough, it still laid there, prone amidst a pool of black. Micali didn’t know of any person having black blood, so she could only assume there was some kind of magic involved, or vistra, or something. As the pain in her arm turned from the scrape of movement along exposed flesh to a passive ache, she traced her eyes along the landscape to the cut of black just to her left, from where she’d gutted it. But it had no wound on its stomach after it stood again. She waited patiently as her heartbeat pounded in her ears until the healer before her gave her the go-ahead.
“Okay. That should do for now, but I’ll have to revisit it whenever we rest, make sure the internal damages clear up as well as they can. The tendons weren’t fully severed, so you shouldn’t lose any function, it’s just going to hurt pretty badly for a little while. You lost a decent amount of blood - we need to get you some food, some water. Here,” Just as the other woman spoke, she shoved a water skin from her side to the sniper’s good hand, still soaked with the sanguine evidence of her injury. She untied it and sipped, slowly, as Rosa leaned over to clean her hand of blood through the snow. It didn’t work perfectly, but it wiped most of the red away, creating an unfavorably coloured slush along the longer blades of grass that exposed themselves atop the night’s worth of snowfall.
Micali grabbed her rifle and stood, moved to the body of her attacker as Rosa followed slowly, a silence ensuing. Ever-so-carefully, she stalked forward, and used the end of her rifle to push the body from its side onto its back. Her eyes traced up its body, and rushed to ready her aim as she noticed.
It’s chest still raised and fell. Her eyes moved upward sharply to its face, but its eyes were unfocused, looking up to the sunlight, and even stranger- there was no wound. The bullet that passed through its skull may as well have been nonexistent, as a fully-healthy head rested atop the shoulders of the being. Micali poked the entity slowly with the end of her rifle, and when it showed no signs of cognition, she looked to Rosa, hoping the velen may have some kind of guess.
“Maybe...it healed? I don’t know vistra well, and I don’t know any magics that can do this, but I’m guessing that the bullet wound healed, but the brain function wasn’t restored. At the angle it went from, I think you clipped the cerebral cortex and both the parietal and frontal lobes, so it lost any kind of cognisance. It can probably still move physically, but mentally can’t actually control itself. Not that it seemed...intelligent, before.” It seemed the medical school hadn’t been a waste, though next to none of the terms even meant anything to Micali.
“So, it’s braindead, then.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Micali took that as a go-ahead, and got closer to the body, shifted the matted, long hair out of the way of its face - and sure enough, it didn’t react. It seemed to still have a beating heart, still took breath, but truly did lack any mental function. It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar fate- one of her handlers, the woman, she ended this way. The man had already gone, some time earlier on a mission, and the loss of both pseudo-parents had been an undisguised gift to the then-young woman.
The almost-corpse before her was certainly laicar, upon inspection. It lacked the plumage of an enlil, the teeth of a velen. The skin was as squishy and fleshy as her own- the entity was simply...not normal. The dirt, ice, and blood that coated its whole body, the barely-there tatters of cloth that clung to its shockingly well-built physique, and the length of matted hair and cracked nails meant it had been out here for some time. The questions as to what and why it even was seemed to be ones that would be left unanswered.
Micali stood from the laicar, and moved back to the cervidae. The chunks of flesh that had been torn out were indeed wasted, but there was still enough left to carve for a suitable few meals. It’d take some time.
“Mickie, are you really gonna…?”
“I came for this thing, I’m damn well going to take it. Would be a waste if we didn’t.”
Rosa went quiet for a moment. “Okay. I’m gonna...take care of the body.”
It didn’t take much to understand what the younger woman meant, especially as she walked off and began to pick from the drier branches she could find beneath the frosted canopy of the now late morning. Micali took the time to properly butcher the beast- to use its meat, not allow it to rot beneath the sun for no reason. As the meat cooked over a small fire she put together, she whittled another arrow shaft, hoped that she wouldn’t run out altogether by the time they got where they were going.
By the time they walked back to their camp, a few hours had passed in silence. The body burned well, and there was naught left but ash- it seemed the regeneration ceased if the tissue burned.
They packed their things, which Micali thanked any higher power for the fact they were still there, and began to travel again. The day lacked any conversation.
That night, as the two settled into the same bed roll again after some more healing was applied to her arm, Micali kept her hands to herself, didn’t drape them in front of the woman as she had every other night. It wasn’t as though she was uncomfortable- the truth was that it scared Micali just how comfortable she truly was with the idea that Rosa was in love with her. The deepest parts of the elder woman’s psyche- the parts she tried to ignore, they whispered to the sniper that maybe the sentiment wasn’t unrequited, that maybe...she felt the same way.
She turned over in the sleeping bag, and faced away from Rosa.
Loving Micali was a death warrant, and it wasn’t one she would sign off on.
Neither said a word before exhaustion rescued the brunette from her intrusive thoughts.
x------
The next day was as silent as the prior, with minor conversation- mostly instruction, really, when it came to avoiding bumps in the road or bramble bushes that imposed on the edges of the road that they walked. A cart passed by them at one point- the first they’d seen. Rosa pulled her hood up as quickly as she could- it made sense, she could possibly be recognized if her father had ties to the area. The driver paid them no mind, and the two continued.
As they approached a sign in the road, Rosa let out a deep sigh, stopped to scratch at the back of her head. “Damn...I thought this might happen. So, the last time I went to the cathedral, we had a raedas, and I thought the conversion of time would be different, and I think maybe we made stops along the way? Plus, I was super young, and it’s, uh, y’know, I don’t have the best memory-”
“Spit it out, Rosa.” The words weren’t intended to be harsh, though Micali feared any interpretation by her travelling companion would be a negative one, so she refused to mince words.
“We’re here.” The pink-scaled velen moved forward to the sign, which read beneath melting snow, ‘Welcome to Amanta.’
So their two-week trip had become four days. Micali was lost between annoyance at the foolishness of Rosa and relief at the end of such a taxing journey, though it hadn’t been that way for the first long while.
The two crested the hill just past the sign, and they looked down from their elevation to their destination; a small, quaint village with fading columns of smoke rising and dissipating from the chimneys of nearly every building, though there couldn’t be more than a two dozen structures overall.
As they moved down the slope toward the stone buildings, Micali thought of many things, though through the detritus of information that had arrived in recent times - Rosa’s affection, the being they encountered, just how tired she was - the sniper realized she was just a short ways from Valgora, from a step toward closure. Their feet sped up when they entered the village’s boundaries, but Micali’s mind was resolute; she would not falter this time.