castlenim | I saw rise in the heat settle soft and as pure as snow

I saw rise in the heat settle soft and as pure as snow

[This, honestly, took a lot of work. More work than some of the battleplans, but admittedly the machinations of the Victorian nobles are predictable. The only thing Talulah knows about the northern territories is what she's gleaned from her father's journals.

Edward Artorius apparently had a decent enough relationship with the ruler when he'd been alive, and since the wendigo race of Sarkaz live for a very, very long time, perhaps any goodwill towards her parent might be extended to her.

She has also gleaned the northerners are not unreasonable; they've crossed paths during various skirmishes at the border, and they ignore all rebel forces once their own task is complete. Talulah has made it very clear no one from her side is to engage with any other party that isn't either obviously Victorian, or strikes first, and it seems the courtesy is returned.

That said, isolationist policy is hard to overcome, and what she's asking isn't a mere favor. To be embroiled in civil war in another country is an idea most people would scoff at, but...the north has undoubtedly seen the writing on the wall for what will transpire after the dust settles. Victoria's appetite is ever unsatiable.

The Gaulish castle she walks through is a testament to that. It's nothing but ruins now, good for little else besides neutral territory. She's brought two members of the rebels with her, two with a calm rationality suited to negotiations. She'd be fine going in alone, but, well...if Talulah saw another group's leader sitting all alone during a meeting that was meant to be a peaceful talk, she'd think there was an ambush waiting.

Still, no matter how rational one is, curiosity tends to win out, and she can hear her escort party gossiping even behind their masks. They're wondering if the northern princess is as beautiful and strong as the rumors say. If she's half as strong as that Cautus she'd seen once during a border skirmish, then her alliance would be more than a boon.

By her estimation, the meeting time is near, so she supposes she'll find out soon enough.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ after the Hillock incident, FrostNova's lucky she's even allowed out of Ursus again.

her and Talulah's disappearance had brought the war to a standstill, the rebellion unable to make any consequential moves while their possible capture remained a factor on the board. their forces had managed to apprehend the Victorian caster's responsible for their displacement, but they were confident that the pair had been transported directly to one of their bases. as time wore on and no declaration from the other side came, however, Ursus and its allies had dared to hope for a better outcome.

Yelena thinks gathering vital intelligence on Victoria's nightmarish super-weapon and managing to destroy one of its main components is more than a "better" outcome, but the incident caused enough panic among leadership to ensure she was kept close to the border for a good, long time.

it's months before she manages to secure a place on a more important operation again— ferrying much needed supplies to a rebellion outpost near one of the Grand Duke's home cities in preparation for a covert assault. the Yetis are forced to shed their uniforms, dressing down to the nondescript clothing a local supply caravan, and Yelena's stuck with lookout duty on the last truck as they make their way across the countryside.

they run into a little trouble with looters, and then a scare with some possible undercover military agents that leads them to shut down their comms for the last leg of the trip. their bad luck keeps FrostNova on her toes, focused on the present and not overly worried about who might await them at the meetup point. there was only a chance of Talulah being there the last she'd heard, and besides, what did it really matter to her?

she's missed Talulah since they parted ways. that's natural, she thinks— they were thrown into a high-stress situation, forced to rely on each other, and even though that might've caused a lot of people to clash, Talulah had called them friends. Yelena is missing her friend. it's as simple as that. she stays focused on the mission at hand and ignores that tug of warmth settled deep in her breast, urging her forward.

it's late by the time they roll onto the grounds of allied noble who's let the rebellion setup shop on their estate. Yelena had drifted off after taking a longer watch, tucked in the back of the trucks with the cargo, and only rouses after she hears some commotion coming from outside. it doesn't sound like an altercation, and there are already men positioning themselves to begin unloading, so she makes her exit casually, prepared to face nothing more challenging than a high-strung officer. ]

Hey, what's the noise about? [ she calls out as soon as her boots hit the ground, still rubbing sleep from her eyes. ]

[Talulah also thinks that getting intel on the superweapon, destroying a vital building block of it, and escaping a town that went up in flames thanks to tensions stoked by both Victoria and Dublinn had been a brilliant reversal of fortune.

Many in the rebellion do not share this outlook.

Oh, they're happy to have their leader back, of course. They couldn't make any moves even with her contingencies in place because they had no idea if she'd been alive but lost, dead, or alive but captured. Now that she's back, things can finally start moving again. Only now, she's usually trailed by an escort.

She's had one before, but not in this many contexts. One of the friendlier rebels tells her jokingly that she can think of it as practice for when they succeed. National leaders usually have plenty of guards and attendants, regardless of how well they can protect themselves.

Still, that's not the only adjustment she's had to make. Yelena might be held behind the borders of Ursus, but the opposite is true for Talulah. She has to go anywhere and everywhere that's required of her. It's not something she thinks is a burden by any stretch, but it is odd to be without Yelena at her side. Even when she gets used to sleeping on her own again, there's a persistent empty space somewhere in her periphery.

It doesn't help that the updates she gets are typically fairly sparse. Talulah likes writing letters, but there's no good way to get replies when she's on the move so much.

And, usually, she wouldn't be showing up at a relay station on some noble's estate, but the noble in question had wanted to meet and speak with her, so there's nothing for it. She's thankful she made that decision when she hears Yelena's team will be arriving as well.

Only...there's no contact from them after a while. Naturally, she knows that without other information this doesn't mean anything. There might be interference, they saw an enemy outpost too close for comfort, or any other reason they needed to travel with no comms on. But knowing that didn't really do much for the way her thoughts went skittering down the worst-case scenarios.

She hadn't seen Yelena in so long. There's no recent reassurance of her voice or presence, no real idea of what she's doing besides bare-bones information. So maybe "high-strung officer" is a good descriptor of Talulah ultimately breaking away from her alarmed entourage to go see what had happened when she sees the rest of the caravan arrive...sans Yelena.

(The Yetis have been acting extremely odd around her ever since she and Yelena got back from County Hillock, and she can't fathom why, but that's a problem for another time.)

Of course, the person in question steps out of the back of the vehicle shortly after, and Talulah only feels an overwhelming sense of relief.]

Yelena. [She strides closer but stops just short of...well, she's not entirely sure what action she would have taken to ground herself to the other's presence after so long, but the knowledge that it's not something she should do in front of so many eyes stops her short.] Your comms went dark, and I was wondering what happened.

[ FrostNova had a jab readied for whoever appeared to own up to the commotion, but she goes quiet when she hears Talulah call out her name.

her first instinct is to reach out and take her by the hand. there's some childish, giddy impulse bubbling up inside her, like she's a little kid waking up on a holiday morning. she squashes that instinct fast, all too aware of the awkward coughing from one of the Yetis after Talulah called her by her name. they've been gossiping about what happened in Hillock— over what, exactly, she's not sure, but they all get weird whenever Talulah's brought up now. exchanging glances and whispering amongst themselves, but refusing to tell Yelena what the story is.

it's driving her up a wall, but at the same time, she can't let whatever games her unit's been playing behind her back get to her. she lifts a hand to Talulah's forearm, giving her a quick squeeze as she reignites the arts link between them, a harsh flash of cold rattling Talulah's heat. ]

That's a normal part of moving a duke's home turf, last I checked. Do your new babysitters have you jumping at shadows now?

[The shock of cold is not exactly pleasant, but it's familiar, and for that reason, Talulah accepts it gladly.]

Well, not when there's not meant to be much activity where you were. And the fact that I have an escort should tell you everything.

[The entourage in question does not look happy that Talulah all but gave them the slip. County Hillock had put a lot of people quite on edge.

But none of that really matters when Yelena's in front of her for the first time in a long while.]

Did you have more to do after arriving here? I was just about to read over the intelligence we've gotten recently, if you wanted to come with me. Save me a report to your father, maybe, if you played messenger.

The old men want a status report on things here, with a timeline of when the rebellion thinks they'll have the area under their control.

[ with a better grasp of the weapon Victoria had been hiding as an ace up its sleeve, a sense of urgency had taken root in many of the Ursine generals. they want to capitalize on the setback the army had suffered in Hillock, and think upping the pressure on the grand dukes is the most straightforward way of going about that. ]

Can you help with that, or do you need to hand me off to someone?

[ she idly wonders if Talulah's minders would let them discuss things in private. it feels stifling to have to speak to Talulah with an audience that requires a certain amount of decorum— the two of them are far beyond that, but everyone else suddenly seems intrusively interested in watching them interact. ]

I can handle that. Let's go.

[There's also no reason for her escort to be any nearer than guarding the entrance when she's trying to have a conversation that involves sensitive information with the leader of an allied group, frankly. Besides that, Talulah doesn't really like having an audience like this.

As she passes by Yelena to head in the direction of their makeshift war room, she lightly touches her shoulder. It's an unthinking gesture, an unspoken follow me, but there's probably something startling to others about how natural it is.]

We should probably get someone to bring us food while we're at it. If I'm hungry, you're probably starving.

[ Yelena's ears swivel around when Talulah touches her shoulder, as if she's aiming them to pick up a certain noise, but just— falls into step besides Talulah without comment, sticking close to her side. ]

I could eat.

[ she's not that hungry, given that her job for the last few days has been sitting around and watching the countryside roll by, but she's missed sharing meals with Talulah. in this case, she's happy to follow Talulah's lead again. ]

How long were you waiting? I didn't think we were running that behind schedule.

A few days at most, I think. We were held up a little too, but that was because of the weather.

[Which in Victoria meant a lot of rain and mud.

She's aware of the escort trailing behind them as she leads Yelena through he camp, but thankfully, as she stops in front of the entrance to one of the larger tents set up, it doesn't actually take that much convincing to get them to stay outside of it. The other guards around probably have something to do with it, or they'll try to remain when they come back with the food Talulah asked for.

Regardless, she slips inside, holding open the flap for Yelena to follow in after her. For effectively being camped out in a noble's garden, it's certainly a lot nicer than some accommodations Talulah can think of in recent memory. A lot of them certainly didn't have a nice portable table and chairs to spread plans and maps on.]

Take a seat. I'm pretty sure the map there is accurate as of today.

A few days ... the run in we had with those Victorian scouts set us back longer than I thought.

[ Yelena remains in Talulah's shadow as they move through the camp, her eyes moving quickly over their surroundings, already starting on her mental map of the camp. this location is supposedly off the duke's radar, but she knows how fast that can change.

she begins removing her outermost layers once they're in the tent, hanging her raincoat (that's clearly a few sizes too big for her) over the back of a chair before she sits down. it's dry and reasonably lit, which is check all of FrostNova's boxes for nicer places to be in Victoria. a lot of the hideouts she's been to can't even clear that bar.

another odd, stray thought crosses her mind, that she should've waited for Talulah to pick her seat first so she could— what? pick the one nearest to her? make sure she sits somewhere she can see her face? she dismisses it stubbornly, chalking it up to some lingering funk from being woken up suddenly, and turns her attention to the map. ]

Are you just accounting for armed forces here? Or civilians too?

Enemy forces, bases, civilian towns and villages, and supply routes.

[Talulah stands long enough to point to each on the map as she lists them out, showing Yelena how they're annotated, before she sits in the seat closest to the other. Maybe it would be better for this type of discussion to sit at the other end, but...she just plain didn't want to.]

The pins and twine are possible routes or enemy encampments we don't have full confirmation on, but we suspect are there. Where were you when you had to cut out the comms, by the way?

[ Yelena tries not to show how pleased she is by Talulah taking the closest seat. she's being shockingly childish, reactions closer to how a kid feels when their favorite playmate arrives for the day, and even though she knows this, it's doing next to nothing to damper her mood.

maybe she hit her head while she was asleep and didn't realize it until now. it would be less embarrassing than some other options. ]

A couple of hours past a village checkpoint. We weren't expecting to run into any soldiers that far out, I thought they might've been following us.

[ her eyes trace over the map, picking out the corresponding town and road before indicating their approximate location with her hand. ]

Around here— but we didn't see anyone after that.

[Talulah makes a thoughtful noise and puts a marker where Yelena indicated. There really shouldn't be enemy forces out that way, but maybe they're missing something.]

I'll have scouts check certain areas. Even if they did follow you from someplace we know about, I'd rather not chance an ambush.

[Although, even with this new potential problem, the sense of ease she feels can't quite be shaken. It's as though something has slotted into place now that Yelena's back in her presence again, although she's just going to assume that comes from trust rather than anything else. Thinking too deeply on what else it could be is...unproductive, is maybe the right word. Distracting, possibly more accurate.

Thankfully, a distraction does come in the form of one of the rebels coming in with tea and food, which Talulah makes space for. He glances quickly between Talulah and Yelena, before he apparently decides it's not worth it to stick around and leaves with a brief salute.

Odd. But Talulah merely shakes herself and pours a cup.]

The stack of papers next to you should be the most recent reports, if you want to take a look.

[ Yelena quietly thanks the rebellion member who brings the food, not entirely picking up on the pensive behavior he displays before leaving. she's focused on the map, superimposing the markers over her memory of the land she passed through. ]

It could be a coincidence, but that route's vital to this encampment.

[ she pours herself a cup of tea after Talulah, mostly to have something warm to hold in her hands while they speak. ]

Are those your reports? Or are they for the area?

They're a little bit of everything. Scout reports, recent skirmishes, spy data. Oh, and one about how well the supply routes are holding up a little further out.

[That's one she hasn't read yet, so she sets her mug down to reach over and flip through the folios for the right one. It puts her a bit more into Yelena's space, but that's fine, isn't it?]

I still need to go over that one, but you're welcome to the rest. Before that, though, did the soldiers you spotted look like regular rank and file, or not?

They looked like average grunts. I didn't speak with them, but they weren't kitted out, and Oleg thinks they had posh accents.

[ Yelena hadn't gone out to speak to them herself. ever since the Hillock incident, she'd been ordered to let her subordinates handle any interactions with Victorian nationals. it's just one of many concessions she had to agree to in order to be allowed back to the front lines again.

she doesn't react immediately to Talulah moving more into her space. if her ears twitch or her body naturally turns more in the draco's direction, it's only to hear her better. ]

... I've been getting the letters you send me too. I tried to send a response a few times, but it seems like nobody can pin down where you are by the time I get around to writing anything.

Edited 2025-09-03 01:10 (UTC)

Hm. That's a little interesting.

[While the rank and file could have a "proper" Victorian accent, the majority did not. But, either way, they didn't sound like scouts, which still begged the question of where they came from.

She rolls the problem around in her mind for a moment before visibly brightening at the mention of her letters.]

Yeah, I knew that would be a problem, so I didn't write as many as I wanted. I'm glad you got all the ones I did send, though. Maybe we should figure out a better way so I can actually get your reply.

[ there's that flare of heat in Yelena's breast again when Talulah's expression lightens, like the sun's turned to directly face her. ]

Don't worry about it. I'm not that great at communicating over text. All my responses would probably read the same.

[ she's simply too blunt and concise to be a good pen pal, at least in her own eyes. Talulah's natural charisma becomes even more apparent in the written word, conveying her thoughts as aptly on paper as she does in person. even if FrostNova had a way to return her messages, she's not sure it would feel like a real exchange. ]

They can't justify keeping me at the border for much longer, anyway. We'll have to start marching south soon, and we can't spare any offensive units if we want to settle things quickly.

I'd still want a reply.

[That's just natural. And it's not as though she isn't used to or doesn't appreciate Yelena's bluntness. A letter with the other's actual personality on the page is the valuable thing, in the end.]

See, you could have been complaining to me this whole time about how bored you were. Especially since I'm guessing the Victorians haven't been taking as many pot shots at the border towns now that their big superweapon is damaged.

[She still thinks they should have gotten a little more understanding and credit for pulling that one off.]

You wanted to hear— read me complain?

[ Yelena's face screws up, openly incredulous. her old etiquette tutors would expire on the spot if they learned she was penning letters to foreign nobility about how dull her day to day had become. that image should encourage her, but at the same time, she can't really believe someone as eloquent as Talulah would get anything out of a message like that.

she shakes her head dismissively, or like she's trying to dislodge the thought. ]

It's been quiet for weeks now. Even if are were planning some surprise attack, we've already fortified all the major hubs. They don't need me there to direct construction.

Yeah? [That's what friends did, right?] You could at least have gotten everything off your chest when talking with me.

[And besides that, Talulah did want to hear Yelena's thoughts, even if they had just been about how bored she was. It would still be better than being apart and wondering about it, instead.]

Do you have an idea of where they'll send you first? Things have stabilized enough that there's finally a little talk about making a plan for Londinium.

I know they've had our spies focused on tracking down any other research sites for that weapon. If they find another one that's outside of the capital, they'll want to aim the Yetis at it.

[ she takes a sip of her tea and turn her attention to the food that's been brought for them, unconsciously looking for something else to focus her attention on to fight off the nervous energy simmering beneath her skin. Frostnova thought she'd be happy to see Talulah again— and she is. part of her feels almost too happy, the emotion teetering on the edge of overwhelming her natural calm.

she doesn't hate it. she just doesn't know what to do with it. ]

And if you really want me to write you back, I will. Try not to be disappointed when I don't send you a novel.

It's frustrating that we got that location data, but because of what happened in County Hillock, the military probably moved all the other parts immediately.

[Talulah frowns now, faintly, not happy to be reminded of the fact they're still at least one step behind. But, thankfully, it would take a while for the Victorians to get anything functioning after the damage to the main energy source.

It's also difficult to stay in a poor mood when she's with Yelena after so long. She probably shouldn't be as happy about that as she is, but there's no real harm in it, is there?]

I'll hold you to that. And I definitely won't mind, no matter how little you write. Well...maybe one-word answers are off the table. I'll just give you plenty to respond to.

Based on the intel that's come in, after Hillock they've been trying to move all the production and research to Londinium. If the rest of the weapon components are as large as the energy source, we should be able to catch them in the act.

[ Ursus' military has already begun working with the rebels to start tracking the main roads of Victoria and documenting the traffic. if they try to transport any part of the weapon through those routes it will be obvious, and might force the opposing army to try riskier, alternate methods. given the results she witnessed of their attempts at teleportation arts, Yelena has half a mind to think the Victorians might sabotage their own operation. ]

Are you sticking around here for long? I didn't think they needed you for something like this.

They certainly don't have many options for where to build it now.

[County Hillock had been a bit of an anomaly that way. Although Talulah thinks it might have been, in part, the higher-ups' thinking that the Taran people and their sympathisers are more acceptable casualties in case the research went wrong.]

And they don't, but the noble here wanted to meet and speak with me. I guess it's a positive sign that they're all starting to think making my acquaintance early is worth the effort. But that means I won't be here for too much longer. Lucky we met when we did.

That's ... good.

[ the last word is tacked on, a course correction from Yelena's original thought of 'that's too bad'. too bad that Talulah won't be here for long, and Yelena won't either, because— what? that has nothing to do with the goal at hand.

she frowns into her teacup, thrown off course by her own thoughts again. Yelena doesn't like this newfound inclination to censor herself, the instinct at odds with her straightforward nature. carrying on with it will only make her feels worse, she can already tell, and there's nothing wrong with what she's thinking. it's a little embarrassing, sure, but there's no reason to hide it. ]

It's always going to be easier for me to tell you this stuff in person. It's too bad we both have to move on soon.

im too lazy to do a proper transition pt 2

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