~Previous IC thread can be found here~
Five months ago.
The sun was pale in the sky on the day of the meeting with the savages. Pale, and cold, like the land itself, like its people. Not quite true, that. Not completely. Tan skin under that icy, silver-white hair. Blue locks as highlights, somehow, it seemed, natural. As if they were all tainted with the ice. Easy enough to believe, for most of them.
Most, not all. It paid to remember that. The more lively ones were just as dangerous, if not more so. And today we're treating with some of them.
The Flame Captain stroked his mustache (a fierce yet majestic specimen in the handlebar style that was known to leave men in awe and women weak at the knees), contemplating the first time he had come in conflict with the savages. First conflict, though second encounter. The first time had been that child. Twelve summers, wounded unto death, treated in our infirmary. Killed two of my men to make her escape. Two good men, and she with a broken leg, the little bitch. His knuckles cracked at the recollection. Carelessness on their part, to be sure, the confusion of the attack on his camp... but also a reminder, an important one, of what these savages were capable of.
It made him wonder what their Nunh was like. The obvious reverence they paid to him had astonished the Captain from the start, speaking of him more like a King, an Emperor. Or a God. Primitive ignorance, but the meaning, the implication behind it was clear. The murderous cats would venerate the most murderous cat of them all. The man they were going to meet with today.
He would not be unprepared, and yet... these were their homelands. Not some mere expansionist colony, but the cold tundra that birthed them. Vast and near-trackless, framed by the mountains of the Ixal far to the north and east, the darkness of the Shroud to the south, Coerthas further west... a nowhere-place, a cold heart, isolated and empty, or so it had been thought. How many lived here? That they came to parley was small comfort... this camp, so-called Camp Glorious, was strong, but all here knew that a true effort on the part of the savages would be the end of them. It showed on the faces of these madmen, these devoted fools, mercenaries and armsmen alike here on a quest for the young Lady behind it all...
"Captain."
He turned, lowering his gimlet gaze to the Lady in question. A Lady... barely more than a girl. Or so he had thought back then. Frances Lorieux had grown hardened in the past moons, had grown, period, as though the weight of responsibility had brought upon her body the same maturity.
"My Lady."
"The scouts make their return."
He turned, the way she pointed... north, and west. Same number as went out. Good. And not far behind...
"They're coming."
"Yes, Captain."
He glanced back down to her. She hid it well, but he could see the trepidation there. The anxiousness... the eagerness. He put his hand on her shoulder, briefly, and she stilled. Nodding to him in thanks.
"Let's get ready. We'll get 'er back. This'll all be over soon."
"Yes, Captain." A deep breath, released. "Then, let us meet the Nunh of the Falling Stars Sept."
Five months ago.
The sun was pale in the sky on the day of the meeting with the savages. Pale, and cold, like the land itself, like its people. Not quite true, that. Not completely. Tan skin under that icy, silver-white hair. Blue locks as highlights, somehow, it seemed, natural. As if they were all tainted with the ice. Easy enough to believe, for most of them.
Most, not all. It paid to remember that. The more lively ones were just as dangerous, if not more so. And today we're treating with some of them.
The Flame Captain stroked his mustache (a fierce yet majestic specimen in the handlebar style that was known to leave men in awe and women weak at the knees), contemplating the first time he had come in conflict with the savages. First conflict, though second encounter. The first time had been that child. Twelve summers, wounded unto death, treated in our infirmary. Killed two of my men to make her escape. Two good men, and she with a broken leg, the little bitch. His knuckles cracked at the recollection. Carelessness on their part, to be sure, the confusion of the attack on his camp... but also a reminder, an important one, of what these savages were capable of.
It made him wonder what their Nunh was like. The obvious reverence they paid to him had astonished the Captain from the start, speaking of him more like a King, an Emperor. Or a God. Primitive ignorance, but the meaning, the implication behind it was clear. The murderous cats would venerate the most murderous cat of them all. The man they were going to meet with today.
He would not be unprepared, and yet... these were their homelands. Not some mere expansionist colony, but the cold tundra that birthed them. Vast and near-trackless, framed by the mountains of the Ixal far to the north and east, the darkness of the Shroud to the south, Coerthas further west... a nowhere-place, a cold heart, isolated and empty, or so it had been thought. How many lived here? That they came to parley was small comfort... this camp, so-called Camp Glorious, was strong, but all here knew that a true effort on the part of the savages would be the end of them. It showed on the faces of these madmen, these devoted fools, mercenaries and armsmen alike here on a quest for the young Lady behind it all...
"Captain."
He turned, lowering his gimlet gaze to the Lady in question. A Lady... barely more than a girl. Or so he had thought back then. Frances Lorieux had grown hardened in the past moons, had grown, period, as though the weight of responsibility had brought upon her body the same maturity.
"My Lady."
"The scouts make their return."
He turned, the way she pointed... north, and west. Same number as went out. Good. And not far behind...
"They're coming."
"Yes, Captain."
He glanced back down to her. She hid it well, but he could see the trepidation there. The anxiousness... the eagerness. He put his hand on her shoulder, briefly, and she stilled. Nodding to him in thanks.
"Let's get ready. We'll get 'er back. This'll all be over soon."
"Yes, Captain." A deep breath, released. "Then, let us meet the Nunh of the Falling Stars Sept."
![[Image: MBLxxyE.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/MBLxxyE.gif)
