Glacial Improvements

Log Info

• Title: Glacial Improvements
• Emitter: Cryosanthia
• Characters: Cryosanthia, Jinks
• Place: In a dream
• Time: Saturday, January 01, 2022, 4:03 PM
• Summary: In the arctic beyond the ice-walls, near the tower of Endless Winter, Cryosanthia faces the icebergs of her discontent, with her allies, Cryosanthia the Fey Queen of Winter's Spring, and Cryosanthia the dragoness, terror of the north. Arriving, is Hijinksalinksalongenestname, a gnome of her acquaintance, trapped in her mission or there to assist. The placid winter day turns into a frigid storm, as the whitescale addresses her damage and immediately drowns. Hijinks finds himself being sent to attack, riding the back of the most glorious little white dragon to ever exist. Too bad she takes him to school. The academy, the place of his greatest failures where even the supportive efforts of his parents were not enough. Its never enough, and he's thrown out for his failures to meet the other failures in the snow and confront the edifice of self. When a pen can be an icepick, is when it's possible to break through, and they do. Jinks tells Cryosanthia he's forgiven her for the wrong she did him, and that's one less face to face. It's enough to move even the Fey Queen to face her actions, and crack just a little. The storm breaks and they stand on the beach. The task is not complete, but it progresses.

The world is a great expanse of white, arctic tundra and arctic ice. A cold, crystalline sky arching overhead, the body of the sky goddess. Her scales drained of all colours except white, silvery blue, and tiny streaks of a pale teal.

The land is barren, small pebbles covered in snow drifts, exposed only in patches. There is a tower, small and distant, away from the frozen seas. In the open water, three icebergs grind, speaking an ancient, unknowable language to each other.

Facing them are three figures, unbothered by the cold. One is a small dragon, with the build of a hunting cat and the size of a mastiff. Another is a Sith'Makar, tall and graceful with the thought of clothing but nothing specific. The third is a sildanyari, of sorts, one showing many fey aspects in addition to having scales, a tail, and small wings. Unusually, she has a bust and curves more associated with mammalian softskins that belie her reptilian nature. Her clothing is a more defined, arcane robe. All have wings of varying sizes, all are white-scales, with pale-blue accents, highlight scales, and glowing scars.

All face the three icebergs, the middle speaks, "So... I guess we should deal with those. Is it one each, or what?" Her right hand twitches, her words are uncertain.

"It is your task to do." The elfin dragon-woman tells the sith'makar. Her voice, her mannerisms, her posture, everything about the person suggests power and indifference. She is not the Queen of Endless Winter, though she resembles her strongly. That fey left enough of an impression on Cryosanthia to permanently alter her self image, but it was not a complete transformation.

Given enough time, it might have been.

"We are here to support you," The dragon-elf says. Opposite, the dragon-cat bobs her head in wordless agreement.

Cryo inhales and adjusts her wings. Nestled between them is the curled up form of Little Fang, warm and asleep. The whitescale finds herself rubbing her front out of habit, and a surprise. "Why am I still pregnant? I laid my eggs. I remember doing that."

"They are a part of you now, they always will be. You do not un-wet from this river."

"Mmm," the whitescale says, "well maybe they could be smaller. It's not like I'm going to forget." Then they are; and she doesn't.

A gnome fellow turns in place blinking bright, emerald-green eyes. He reaches up, stopping just shy of touching them. He somehow knows they're different without being able to see them; a black pupil and colored iris, both set onto a white orb. Not the solid black they should be. His hair is shorter and smartly trimmed, firey red and parted; close on the sides. Like his academy days.

Academy? That would explain the uniform. Blue and brass-colored, immaculate, and obviously meant to emulate the military. The patch on his jacket sleeve is an airship atop a series of three differently-sized cogs. The writing around the border refuses to settle. He crosses his arms to brace the two books against his chest-- books? Yes, his books-- and walks over towards the three women.

He's fresh-faced and bright-eyed. Clean-shaven to keep with the facility's standards. Smaller than seems right... or maybe the women are bigger. When he walks his polished boots clop as if he trods across the wide wooden floors of an academic building.

"... Cryo?" He ventures, blinking again and speaking without his usual confidence. "Where are we? I think I'm late... for something." He turns, holding the books a little tighter as he scans the wondrous white world around him.

"Faran?" The tallest one says, turning to look. They all do. Cryosanthia is her usual self, looking better than she has in a while. Her clothing resolves into her swashbuckling gear, cape and corset and fancy mithril mail. Her fey-self, the one Braelnoir dubbed 'Cryosally' gazes imperiously at the gnome. With a much smaller nose, barely a snout at all in face, she still manages to seem like she's looking down a longer aqualine ridge than the original. "Oh! Jinks! Oh, that makes sense."

The third breaks ranks, coiling around the little man like a giant cat, even dragging her tail across his face. It's less pleasant than a furred appendage would be, she has scales and spines that would grate off flesh were the turned the wrong way. Yet, it's a greeting.

"You're on time. I need to deal with something. I've needed to try for a long time."

Behind her, the icebergs growl, rocking against each other, cracking blocks off to splash into the frigid sea, creating a defense of floes.

"You look good." She's delaying. Cryo-sally and the little white dragoness stare at her.

"Mother just had it fitted," Jinks answers after scrunching up his face when the reptilian tail bumps into his nose, uncrossing his arms and bracing the books in one arm so he can look down at the uniform. He tugs down at the bottom of his coat and pulls a stray bit of lint from the brass-colored trouser stripe after the 'cat' has made her rounds. "'No Jonillescenest will study at the Enclave's academy annex looking like a ragamuffin,'" he echoes with a grin, demonstrating a nascent talent for parroting voices.

The gnome frowns, confused, and glances out at the icebergs. He glances at the sith-makar's kit and remembers he has his rapier; an ornamental piece of kit for the uniform. And since he doesn't need the books they're gone. He busies his hands with hugging an overcoat tighter against the chill instead.

"Is this the Icewall range? I've never been this far north..." A glance between the three, settling finally on the familiar swashbuckler. The icebergs are distracting and draw his attention. The clap and crack like a firework made slow. He frowns again and crunches into the snow, across to the sith-makar. "If we're going to the tower we should go. I have classes to get to." He tilts his head expectantly.

The little dragoness and Cryosally are facing away from the icebergs, towards the tower actually. Both lift their heads as Jonillescenest mentions it.

"No. We're going..." Cryosanthia points out at the sea, hesitating further. Even she turns to look at the gnome now. "We're in the... it is very far north. It never thaws. The winter never ends."

And I am spring.

Cryosanthia takes the time to examine the little gnome's uniform, the style, the bright buttons. Even though she is often a cypher of expressionless, there is movement in her eyes, an adjustment of her muzzle. "Your mother loves you very much."

Cryo picks up Jinks and places him on the little dragon. There's a saddle there, between her wings, where he can ride just like Lily sits on her backpack.

"When I came back from Salina's tower, I was eighty years older but only remembered being twenty and in the Fernwood. That was upsetting, but Salina had left damage in my mind and I tried to... murder. That's one of them." Her head turns to look at her dragon-elf-self.

There's no apology there, only a blank, returned stare made worse by the lack of emotions on features capable of them, "You were a convenient tool. It bothered you far more than I thought about it."

Cryo continues, "the second is everything when my child died, and my cihuaa left me... and then I left him. The third is the eighty years of memory of being with Salina, when they came back."

Finally she looks at them, "I thought that was the largest, but maybe not? Did they change size? Are you smaller?"

"I was always smaller," Cryosally answers, for herself, perhaps for Jinks too. His name was too short, she noticed, it bothered her, yet she never asked for the proper long version. "I seemed larger."

A nod. "Sounds like the Icewalls. Laughing One's mirth would be tested by my geography lessons but it's a lot easier to remember what's north of home than all the shi-- stuff to the south." Jinks grins and blushes. He reaches up and pushes a hand through his hair.

Some futzing in the saddle and he has the gnome-sized rapier situated. A scritch behind the cat-dragon's ear and he urges it towards the sea and the icebergs. He just smiles at the thought of his mother, maybe blushing a bit more at the thought of her doting. A turn and he's looking back, smile fading as Cryosanthia shares her trials.

"We don't have to go if you don't want to." He offers, looking left and right through the frozen wastes to check for superiors and monitors. "... play hooky for the day. There's a tavern near the docks where the airshipmen go, most of them are graduates from the annex." A wide grin and his green eyes twinkle, little golden flecks catching the sun. "If you buy them a lager they'll tell you the most amazing stories..."

Another look askance at the icebergs. Then back to Cryosanthia. "The icebergs aren't going anywhere; what's leaving them one more day?"

The little dragoness walks forward, nudgeg into motion. The other two follow, with Cryo staring ahead and Cryo-Sally looking over her shoulder at the tower. The edge of a beach is reached. The dragoness makes a scraping motion at the snow, talons tearing down to the black pebbles beneath. She continues, hunched, like a cat scratching at a post. She looks up up, nudges a horn in the direction of the icebergs.

She's been working on them.

There's a soft pink glow, surrounding the gnome and reflecting off the white of the little dragoness' wings. The wind picks up. Her wings are raised to provide a wind-break for the gnome, hooking thumbclaws to make a tent.

"I don't want to but I have to." Cryo admits, her voice defiant, yet shaking, "I have to be a better person. I have to be better Nest-Mother. It's hard Jinks."

They're holding me back.

One more day turns into one more day, until it's a year. Eighty years. A lifetime.

The wind increases, the open water whips into waves, tiny whitecaps that surge towards the beach, threatening to blow the beachcombers away. Cryo, seems smaller, and the fey-dragoness beside her even more rigid, erect, unaffected. The canopy of the sky darkens. Cryo has to shout to be heard over the noise.

"I tried to murder my child! I was relentless. He was my light in the tower and I tried to destroy him." She screams.

"Almost succeeded." Her fey self says, indifferently, "imperfect tool."

"My not-cihuaa did. To save me. Because it would break me and just about broke him. He had to choose. I had to forgive him!" A black book appears in her hands. One of Jinks'? No, it's a Vardaman tome. A book of the dead. The real ones are packed with names, but the symbology remains. Across the front is emblazoned: Methel -- Beloved Son "A Light In The Tower" and a much smaller volume title, Bernfleur 1022, A-G.

She holds it in front of her like a shield, hands clenched tightly. She screams at the storm, "He's gone and it's my fault!"

The storm screams back.

Choking on the smell of reptile musk, Jinks turns at the sound of wagon wheels and the plaintive cries of a kobold. The other memory retreats from the dream quickly and the sounds are swallowed by stormy seas, gusting winds, and grinding icebergs.

The gnome quits the dragonness, foolishly, and goes for a brief tumble, onto his rump and then backwards ass-over-teakettle. He reaches out for a handhold but is caught by a snowbank. He stands without looking back at the two shadowy figures propping him up; one in robes with a smooth pate, the other in a uniform similar to his with long hair caught in the winds. They brace him as he stands and leans into the wind, blasting away into the storm as Jinks pushes himself to stand next to Cryosanthia.

Young features strain with effort and the sad smile is half-smothered by a grimace as it takes some doing to keep his feet. Fingers free of rings and jewels rest lightly on the sith-makar's knee and kind eyes still full of hope and wonder stare up large at her.

"It wasn't your tower, Cryo." He's heard these stories and sulked at the tragedies. He can step into this one for at least a moment. "You were a part of what happened and what happened is a part of you but you didn't lay the bricks and lock yourself away."

The wind lashes. Shards of ice and frozen spray are thrown at Jinks and Cryosanthia, cold and hard enough to affect even the whitescale, who bears the brunt as they crash and shatter across her scales. The little dragoness raises her head, moves, to shield the gnome from the wind. He is cold, but protected.

Cryo focuses on his touch, down, looking at the small man beside her knee. The small folk remind her of her foundling, who though human was a young child. "I tried to help. I chose to stay. It's always there, the pain, the failure. I'm never good enough, fast enough, strong enough, smart enough." The ice has left a mark, between her scales, along the lines of all her scars, she's leaking a blackness that treacles down her. There's a nasty gash in her chest where her heart should be. Much alike the scar the gnome bears for the thing that killed him. Her legs shake, Cryo is sinking to her knees, cracking and coming apart, reaching to embrace Jinks. Her fey-self watches coldly, so coldly.

The little dragoness growls, nosing between Jinks' legs and flipping him over her head and back into the saddle. She turns, and like a cat leaping atop a counter she takes to the air. She flies, face-tanking into the sleet. Her powerful wings flap, and the saddle... it's a good saddle.

It's a grey whiteout of ice chips and snow, like flying into a breath weapon. Then, the weather breaks.

No iceberg, no water, no sleet, no snow. Warm wood, paneled walls, carpeting, the gilded crown moldings and brass knobs. The haven of nobs, the Academy, and Jinks can hear the monitors coming.

"Wait!" Jinks calls out, pulling at the dragon's wings. He's trying to turn the beast 'round but has no idea how to steer; he's barely serviceable on a pony. The weather worsening forces him to give up the search and just raise forearm and hand to try and block the worst of the elements from his face.

And then a break and familiar halls stretch around him, walls tall and imposing. He's flying until he's not; these dreams are about being overwhelmed and out-of-place. He's not the cocksure rake swaggering down the halls above it all on a dragon. He's falling and rolling, tumbling again until he's come to a stop. Kneeling now, he rushes to gather up dropped books and fallen papers, a satchel that's disgorged an inkwell, and a trio of brass pens decorated with polished wood inlay. A gift at the beginning of his studies for good luck. He notices one is broken at the middle but doesn't pause in scooping it up with the rest of his dropped items.

"-- managed your time better you wouldn't be rushing through the halls like some scurrying rodent." It's one of the masters, looming and lecturing. A pair of polished shoes with tassles in his eyeline. "What could be distracting you? Not lost at study, surely. I read your review of mana-enhanced capacitors and their optimizations in a classical electrical model, Mister Jonillescenest. Some of the annex faculty are beginning to wonder how far the apple has fallen from the tree..."

The gnome doesn't have to look up to know this is all happening under the portrait he's seen dozens of times already. She's calm and collected, somehow curious and searching as she holds all the answers. Her perfect uniform and long hanging hair the same color as his. Department Lead, Professor in Research. Looking down from on high.

Apologies are muttered as he gathers the last of his things in the bag and he stumbles back to his feet, running down the hall as a little white bearded dragon pokes its head out of his chest pocket. He blasts through the door knowing immediately he'll be censured for entering in such a manner-- only the room is empty; he's missed the test.

He trudges across the room and drops into a chair, slouching and pushing his hands into his hair. The podium is empty at the front of the hall. Then he's at a table as the director suggests he seek study elsewhere-- or it's the robed magi of the Esteemed Arcanist Cabals of Clockwork Point apologizing for the canceling of his apprenticeship-- or the private tutors (so many of those), redfaced and lips flecked with spittle railing about-- or the watch telling him how lucky he is who he is-- or his parents unsure what to...

And then it's all of them, a deafening chorus like howling of the wind in the frozen wastes.

He's had enough. He could face them and change but he never does. He stands and walks out the Academy door into the frozen tundra.

Through the flurries of powder and ice he squints. The other Gnome is across the way, dressed for the baths in his satin briefs. White hair and black eyes. He grins maliciously, flexing bloodied fingers like eager claws as he stands over a crumpled form in the snow.

The little lizard in his pocket climbs out and encircles his neck. Tail wrapped around where she can hold it with her fore-talons. She hisses defiantly at the other gnome, so small, so fierce.

"This always happens," It's Cryo-Sally's voice, distant and unsourced on the wind, no longer indifferent and cut with frustration, "I'm a hundred years old and I try to deal with things and fall apart like I'm a teenager."

The little white lizard digs her claws into Jinks' collarbone, tiny painful pricks that remind him she is still here, and he is one.

"We'll be along shortly." The voice comes again, with a strange and unusual quality. A sensation.

Mother will fix everything.

The little lizard holds two parts of the same pen in her talons. The middle one of the gift set. She taps the broken ends together, holds them, as if willing a repair. A tiny breath bands it in a transparent cast of ice. It's not repaired but it's holding together.

Taking the pen with her, she flies off his shoulder and darts at the crumpled form in the snow. She's too tiny and small, that other gnome is a monster.

Jinks balls his hands into fists and sets his jaw. He's trembling visibly and sweat from the bathouse steam. It pulls from him in his wake as if he's a lit aether-coil burning in the snow. He makes himself step forward, shaking his head and issuing a quiet "No."

Another step. And another.

The promise of help-- of allies-- is enough to make him decide he won't be seen standing there. Doing nothing.

The closer he gets the bigger the other Gnome becomes. The distance is impossibly long and immediately short. The heat is gone, suddenly, and the world is black. He's in the Shadow. His heart is a rock and his legs fail. He feels the color running out of his hair, turning to blood and dripping hot and sticky. He pounds at his chest to make the rock beat and it does, pumping once.

So many over indulgences and mornings-after. He feels the surge and arches his back. He's in the shadow of the monster he created and he vomits the blackness, eyes bulging for the strain as the inky stuff runs out from beneath his lids. He's blind and choking.

She's been blinded. She's been choking. She's thrown up her stomach contents at the sight and shock of so many things. She was never as sick carrying eggs as she was in Her Tower. She was never in as much pain.

Cryosanthia stumbles, but she doesn't break. The tiny dragoness lands as darkness streams from her scales, joining that which surrounds her. She is too small, too weak, never fast enough, never strong enough, never smart enough. The brutish dregs of dragonkind.

A white dragon.

Which roars a peep of defiance and stabs the pen into the foot of the looming gnome monster. She's always overwhelmed, fighting off balance, and... that's what the white dragons do. Handed the least advantages she makes the most and stabs with a fury that shatters the pen again and leaves a mark.

A glowing spot of pale blue light.

She turns and digs at the buried form, an effort like unearthing a whole cairn. She knows what she'll find, but she has to.

Blinking, Jinks watches the little dragon dig. Red-haired and green-eyed again, standing just ouside the Academy door. He coughs the diamond dust, gags, and heaves again. But it's just lunch.

The gnome spits and wipes his mouth. The looming monster is gone. The little dragon digs. He crunches into the snow, unbuttoning the jacket as he walks. He shrugs out of it and throws it aside, giving it to be taken eagerly by the winds. The buttons of his sleeves are next before he can push them up and drop down into the snow.

"I'm sorry," he says to the little dragon, digging out the first handful. "I'm sorry," to the crumpled form with the next. It becomes a litany. A song. Something he went so long without saying that he can't seem to stop saying now.

The gnome's fingers ache. The dandy's nails are chipped and cracked as he works. Still he digs as best he can.

She digs, the furious little thing, making a squeak of thanks. Snow and ice is her element and she works between Jinks' fingers, cutting through it. There are tiny noises, right after Jinks speaks his mantra, grunts and echoes of what he's saying, but without the words.

A shadow falls across them, a pair of shadows. Cryosanthia's tall and solid, and Cryo-Sally's, smaller and darker. Cold in a way that makes the little dragoness shiver.

Cryo looms large, looking exhausted and worn, as she did after her labour and every fight she's been in. Ungainly, with a roundness to her, carrying orbs of light. Carrying Cryo-Sally.

The fey-dragoness is held up with an arm under hers, the elfin form holding onto the sith'makar's shoulders as she clasps her tight. She has the cracks now, the injuries, the black tar leaking from her eyes. Enough to cause her pain, not quite enough to obscure her sight.

The tiny dragoness clears the snow and ice on the frozen form, his face revealed. Her face. It flickers, so many faces. Menel, Lily, Merek, Ezil, Zeke, Seldan, Seyardu, Faranmidahn, Braelnoir, Jinks, Lysos, Kira, Mikilos, Sabina. Rocky, Boaz, Aryia. So many faces, her foundlings, her family, her friends. Everyone she's hurt.

Even her own.

The frozen visage stabilizes as her first foundling, the human she raised then gave everything to save, only to be turned into a weapon. "Look at him!" Cryo shouts.

Cryo-Sally won't, her head is turned away. "That wasn't me. That was her. No words..."

"Shut up and look at her!" Cryo roars again, shaking the dragon-elf, grabbing a small horn and turning her head, steering her vision. Anger, desperation, anguish, Cryo's words are raw, "Look at what you've done and feel something!"

"Jinks! You break hearts! Make her cry!" She pleads, a noise echo'd again by the small dragoness, guarding the frozen face.

"... there are too many," Jinks observes, exhaling a shaky breath. The gnome sits back with he knees and shin flat in the snow. The marquess was fresh, his parents an old wound that never closes, those in Alexandria he's shared his time here with and betrayed were numerous. There were so many others; half-formed faces lost in hazy memories. Those hurt in their own special way; he wondered if he could even remember why he felt this lingering shadow of guilt.

The bard considers the rings from his hands scattered through the snow from digging. His painted nails cracked and ruined. He feels the familiar fuzz of the goatee on his face and the tug of his hair pulled back in a tail. Blinking, he knows his eyes are there solid black-on-black. Too many faces in the snow.

The gnome sits forward, scooping up the tiniest dragon and placing her on his shoulders as he stands. He crosses the short distance and takes Cryo-Sally's hand carefully and folds his cold hands around it gently.

"I can't break what's already broken. All of us are." He looks down, tracing a black crack on her arm with the lightest touch before finding the draconic-blooded elf's eyes again. "You can't look because there are too many. I'll take one." He steps a half-step closer and puts her hand against his scarred heart. "You've never disappointed me; never hurt me. You're an inspiration. My own Lady of Inspiration."

"So there's one-less face in the snow. You're strong enough to see the rest."

Cryo-Sally shivers at the gnome's touch. She's immortal, she's fey, she's a dragon, she shouldn't be touched. She doesn't want to be. The White Tower is their fortress, but she is also the White Tower. Aloof, beyond it all, made of ice. Unchanging.

The gnome's touch is warm, and his words, warmer. She's not facing this alone, and there is one less to see.

She looks. There is a tear. "I'm sorry," she tells the frozen dead. Gazes desperately at Cryo, the little dragon, Jinks, with glistening and wide eyes. "Sorry. I'll be better. I'm learning."

There's a crack and a splash, and the storm breaks. The sky is bright again, the sea calm and lapping at the frozen shore. The White Tower seems closer, there are more patches of exposed stones. In some spots, even lichen and earth.

Cryosanthia is healthy looking again, the little dragoness her proper size, and Cryo-Sally also, looking aloof once more but not quite so stiff.

"Are the icebergs smaller?" Cryosanthia asks, looking out to sea.

"They've always been that size," Cryo-Sally replies, "they've just seemed larger."

OOC

Symbolism
<OOC> Cryosanthia says, "let me know if you need clarifications, what is symbolizing what, to help with your poses."
<OOC> Jinks says, "The stuff in this context is going to same so banal and petty compared to Cryo's stuff. ;)"
<OOC> Cryosanthia hugs, "Well, you can always use the Academy as the setting for the other things, t doesn't have to be just what happeened there. Like Cryo's mental landscape is a mixture of stuff. It could be like, Jinks is tutoring his kids and his professor is the Marquess or somesuch
<OOC> Jinks nods! "Yeah. I gotcha."
<OOC> Cryosanthia says, "Cryo's feelings about things are quite mixed up which is why Jinks works for her dealing with stuff."
<OOC> Cryosanthia says, "He's sort of a Lily and Menel to her, but also sort of Zeke and Eclavdran and Salina"
<OOC> Cryosanthia says, "someone she feels protective towards, but also who hurt her badly, and she's mentionned both being a mother and his mother, so there's some of the pierced heart virgin Mary/Isis & horus stuff going on too, although that's ... well he did come back from the dead, so that aligns."

How Cryo Feels
<OOC> Cryosanthia says, "in context it's fine, Cryo feels she's let down a lot more people"
<OOC> Cryosanthia says, "I'm not even sure, as Cryo has been pretty self-blaming for all these things, what Cryo-Sally not accepting it is supposed to represent. Maybe forgiving herself, I don't know."