Marche Au Supplice

[Josette]

Her gloved hand withdrew as if burned, and she cradled it against her chest, taking two startled steps backward through the drifts. The movement nearly threw her off balance, but as Josette fought to regain her control, she spread her feet and found her center. Then, she drew her sword, her default when it came to uncertain situations. What had just happened? Even as she filled her lungs with the frigid Salvaric air, her mind raced with the same ferocity as her heart beneath her armor. The man had either been delivered to death's door, or was well on his way, when she found him. She had not even touched him before his body lurched, like some undead Raiaeran monstrosity. Was she watching his spirit flee his body, or was the man not so far gone as she had originally assumed?

The latter became more plausible as the stranger's hand clawed at the snow, struggling to find purchase as he dragged himself along. Josette inhaled sharply as the movement shifted the draped cloak. Below it, she found a splattering of red, like rubies to the emerald of the cloth. The more he moved, the more was revealed, until she realized the entire front of his shirt was bloodied. Those looked like wounds a man could die from, Josette determined, unless the cold claimed him first. Even with the sun at its noontime climax, the chill was nearly unendurable. A person in good health would not survive the night, or even the darkening hours of dusk, as the temperature began to plummet. How would he possibly survive hours more of this? How had he evaded death for this long?

This was only the tip of her iceberg of questions, as she had no idea who he was, or where he came from. Still, she would feel better solving this one mystery, if nothing else. Had he been deposited there within the past few hours, she would have seen it across the wide plains. Therefore, the only possible explanation was that he had laid there since early morning, a Herculean feat that Josette still struggled to believe.

So lost in thought, she was neither close enough nor attentive enough to catch the man as he tumbled back into the deep powder. Though his body no longer moved, his startling golden eyes sought and locked on hers. They were clouded with pain, and muddled with confusion, but he managed a simple query before slipping into unconsciousness. Fortunately, he had chosen a lull in the howling wind, or else she might have missed the words he spoke.

Again, Josette found herself faced with a choice - mount up and ride on, or tend to the stranger? Considering the severity of his wounds, she wondered if it might be like trying to bale out a sinking ship as it took on water. She lacked the tools and the knowledge to plug his wound before moving him, and the nearest town was still miles off. And the nearest town was in Ressin. She was waltzing into the lion's den, and with her red cloak and unconscious patient, she might as well write ahead to announce her arrival. The woman had made many mistakes in her lifetime, and some very bad choices, but most were revealed to be so in hindsight. Never had she knowingly done something so impossibly stupid.

But could she let one more perish beneath the cloudless Salvic sky?

She blew out a sigh, turning back to Dras; the horse had remained stationary, apparently unfazed by the dying man before him. "What should I do?" Josette asked. His response, a low rumble in his chest, could be interpreted as either cautionary or scolding. No help at all.

[...]

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Gradually, the void of black warped into something vaguely familiar.

Shadows danced along the cracked plaster walls of a bedroom as candles burned in oil lanterns over the doorway. The pungent smell of cool, rising damp wafted into the Telgradian’s nose, stirring his senses in a way he would have preferred to not have experienced. As he slowly opened his eyes and adjusted his focus, Shinsou could see that the strange voice that had jarred the Telgradian from his slumber belonged to a strange face. Framed by dark hair the colour of tar, a woman peered at him from over the other side of the room. Her chair blocked his view of the door.

How many hours had passed since he had passed out, the Telgradian wondered? As Shinsou sat up, only the irises of the woman in his room stood out on first glance. Across her lap lay a blade that she gripped just a little tighter as his eyes steered towards it. The Telgradian briefly sat up before glancing towards the window and began to take in the reality of today; a freezing cold, snowy dawn. Sleet began pelting the glass, and suddenly the view of the looming expanse through the flawed transparency was distorted by thick streaks of white.

The Telgradian stared icily at it all, thinking upon the significance of these things. Where was he? Nowhere friendly, judging by the climate outside and the way his female guard kept her weapon close and her grip on it tense. He could feel the weight of his queries inside him, tearing at his hazy mind.

“Am I your prisoner?”

The question crumbled from his mind as his eyes fell upon a second bed. Upon it, well within his reach, were assorted pieces of his inventory. Included were his swords Stygian and The Goat. His buckler shield, Mephistopheles, lay atop his folded drakescale coat. They were the only things he recognised in this bizarre situation. It occurred to him quickly that if he were someone’s prisoner here, wherever here was, the guard wasn’t doing a very good job of securing him. This led Shinsou to believe something else entirely was happening to him. Surely, no-one was stupid enough to capture someone and leave their weapons out on the bed next to them.

"I don't take prisoners." The lady's retort was weighted with a cold, matter-of-fact undertone that left very little room for doubt.

Unhindered, and unchallenged by his keeper, Shinsou rose from the bed. He hobbled slightly to the window he had been looking out of before, rolling his tongue over his teeth and clicking it in bemusement as his golden eyes fell upon the nameless whitescape.

“Interesting. If I am not a prisoner here, and you are not my guard, then why do you cling to your sword as tightly as you do? Is there something about me that concerns you?" The Telgradian thought aloud, turning his head slightly so that the woman was just in the corner of his eyesight. "...and If I am not your captive, just what am I, and how did I get to this desolate place?"