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.]

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[Once Talulah has better shoes and an outer layer on, it looks a lot less like she'd been just about to go to bed, at least. She steps out of the tent, expecting Yelena to follow, and briefly mentions to the guards where she's going. They exchange glances again, and she sighs to herself, thinking that look probably meant someone is going to follow them at a distance, even in the middle of camp.

She doesn't pay it much mind for now, though, and sets off towards where Yelena, the Yetis, and some other squads should have their accommodations.]

Well, now that we have a little time, I guess you can answer my question. What did you mean by "hidden agenda"?

[ Yelena falls into step beside her, not thinking much of the guards that see them out of Talulah's tent. she's not expecting Talulah's first line of questioning once they're on their way, but the mild surprise doesn't really show on her face. ]

Not too much? If they're hiding something from me, either they're acting on orders directly from my father or another army general, or they're running some scheme they think will help me but don't want me to know about.

[ those are the only two options in the realm of actual possibility, and the latter option is a stretch. the Yetis colluding against her is reserved for situations like surprise birthday parties or tricking her into going out to clubs, not acting shifty in a war zone. ]

It seems more like the latter option, doesn't it?

[Because Talulah can't think of what Yelena's father could be hiding from her at this juncture that would require the squad running interference. Anything Talulah shouldn't or doesn't know about would have to do with Ursus politics only, more than likely.

But she does get the implication that "scheme" in this instance is likely something completely harmless.]

Mm, if it is a prank, do I get to say you brought that on yourself?

That's what I'm hoping. I know how to deal with that.

[ someone on the same rung as her moving behind her back is a scenario she'd prefer not to consider. the Yetis acting on their own, borne out of worry for her, is familiar ground to tread. with the Ursus army now actively occupying most of northern Victorian, they must see the writing on the wall. things are going to start to move quickly from here on out, and if their remarkably good luck is going to sour, that shift will come soon.

what Talulah says next is a good distraction from that thorny topic. Yelena glances at her side-long, her brow raising slightly as her tone takes on a shade of mock-offense. ]

Huh? I thought we called that even. Don't tell me the leader of the rebellion's pride is that fragile.

That's just with me. I have no idea what tricks you play on your poor squadmates.

[She laughs, lightly, teasing back in equal measure. It would be best if it's only a harmless prank. They're at a precarious time, just before they can really get a foothold to try taking on Londinium and the throne properly. If it really is unrest back in Ursus...that didn't bode well.

But she doesn't quite get an ominous feeling from either the Yetis or her own squad members. Just a strange one.]

If you're familiar enough that you know how to deal with it already, what else have they done before?

It's not something I make a habit of, I'm not a lunatic.

[ she rolls her eyes, clicking her tongue at Talulah's imagined scenario of a FrostNova who runs her squad like a cartoon character. ]

There's been a couple of times they've pulled stunts like this. The first big one happened when I was about eleven or twelve. Way too many of them tried to fake a haunting in an ambassador's residence after they found out the Leitheniens were there to pitch an arranged marriage for me.

[Talulah is, admittedly, quite startled by the mention of arranged marriage. She shouldn't be. Yelena is an heir to a very large nation that's a power player on a global scale. If they're successful, Talulah will also probably have to deal with arrangements and alliances like that.

Both thoughts discomfort her, like a sharp pebble caught in the churning flow of blood through her heart, but that's not a very productive feeling. Or one she even wants to acknowledge, with things as they are.

Instead, she focuses on another part of what Yelena's just said.]

Haunted...? I get the idea to mess up the arrangement if it's not something you wanted, but why choose that method?

[ Yelena doesn't notice Talulah's discomfort at the mention of the Leithenien's former designs on her. it's minor footnote in her life by all accounts, a bizarre side-story to her life she hasn't thought about in years. ]

You know how kids are. We watched a movie with a similar plot right before the envoys arrived. The palace always gave us a lot of leeway, but even they knew harassing a foreign visitor face to face would get them banned from the grounds.

[ which would basically mean social suicide. all of the Yetis were placed with families who could handsomely provide for them, but when one of your friends lives like literal royalty, you never want to hang out anywhere else. ]

A housekeeper caught them trying to bring in a fog machine, and that was the end of it. They never came clean about how they managed to get their hands on one, actually.

[Despite the pang the notion of arranged marraiges caused, the idea of the young Yetis trying to sneakily roll a fog machine into a room earns another laugh.]

Wow. I knew this already, but they must really care about you to go through all the effort.

[Their enthusiasm had been misplaced, but they probably noticed their big sister didn't think too well of the whole engagement talks.

Although, now that she thinks about it, is that a hint?]

...so maybe the situation now is similar. Has anything been bothering you lately? Besides house arrest, that is.

Has anything been bothering me?

[ Yelena repeats Talulah's words back to her in a tone that asks a question without asking it. she doesn't immediately see how Talulah got there from a cute anecdote about the Yetis when they were younger, and if she just wanted to know how she's been doing, Yelena would tell her. ]

They didn't have me locked up in a tower. I was bored, and I didn't know where you were, but that was the worst of it.

[ minor inconveniences compared to the grim conditions of leading the invasion of neighboring country. at least she'd had Talulah's letters as proof of her life, a welcome relief that she didn't think twice about eagerly receiving when they arrived, often in clear view of her comrades. ]

I meant if they're going behind your back now with some kind of plot like the fog machine, maybe it's for similar reasons.

[Yelena being kept behind might not have been as difficult as some other things, but she must have been frustrated. Talulah knew she would have been, no matter the reason for it.]

We'll have to think of a better way to communicate next time. It was pretty annoying to me, too, that by the time you got my letters, I'd be long gone from that position.

The entire squad would be on thin ice with me if I found out they were pulling a stunt like that during wartime.

[ which doesn't actually rule it out, no matter how much Yelena hopes it would. still, she can't think of anything that's happened to her recently that would make the Yetis hatch a scheme to her benefit. the only thing she's been whinging about with any consistency is her troubles reaching Talulah, and there's no reason that should be driving them to act out. ]

Maybe I can convince a logistics officer to let us use a long distance comms line. We wouldn't be able to talk for as long in much detail, but it would guarantee contact.

It might not be reliable all the time, either. There are arts devices that can react to each other across long distances, aren't there?

[They're mostly novelties, and they couldn't really talk, but at the very least, neither of them would be left wondering if the other is incapacitated or worse when they're apart.]

Well, anything that's faster than a letter is probably a better option, in the end.

You mean those recording devices? I've heard they can be setup to transmit over long distance.

[ it's essentially just sending voice recordings to the receiver, but the delay is significantly shorter than the time it takes to deliver a physical letter. that way she'd be able to hear Talulah's voice as well, which Yelena views as a major advantage. the letters had been nice, but ink on paper couldn't compare to speaking to her in person.

not that a recorded message would be the same as being next to Talulah, able to see the attractive angles her and feel the ambient heat of her body. it would still be closer. ]

I can look into what options we have. I've gone along with all the deployment orders I've been given since Hillock, they owe me this much.

Well, whenever you manage it, you should tell me what we end up getting from you cashing in your good behavior.

[Neither would be as good as having Yelena next to her, no, but Talulah would definitely not turn her nose up at actual voice comms, whether they're traditional or an arts trinket.

She slows her pace a little as they come to another section of the camp, spotting what appears to be a few of the Yetis still milling about.]

This is where you're supposed to be. I'm not sure exactly which tent is yours, though.

If it works out, you'll know when it's delivered to you.

[ Yelena's confident she can manage that much, has to, if she wants to feel the slightest bit useful after weeks of being kept on a leash strung along the sleepy border towns.

familiar voices drift out of nearby tents, and trio she knows well are huddled by a dying campfire, all signs indicative of the Yetis laying claim to the place. ]

I can figure it out from here. Thanks for taking me this far.

I'll look forward to it then.

[Talulah smiles, genuine about the sentiment. The other rebels will probably find it further odd behavior for her to be waiting for a package, but that's not something at the top of her mind at all.

What is instead is how...reluctant she feels to give Yelena a goodnight and head back to her own tent. But she has to, before someone comes looking for her. With a small sigh she hopes most of that hesitance doesn't show in her expression.]

It wasn't any trouble. Sleep well.

Yeah. I'll see you in the morning.

[ it's more of a hope than a certainty, the chance that one of them is called away before they can meet again always looms in the background, but Yelena says it all the same. in case it doesn't come to pass, a part of her wants Talulah to know that she was looking forward to it.

in the following months, Yelena finds time moving at an incomprehensible pace, a syrupy slowness that rapidly escapes through her fingers in the brief moments she tries to hold fast to it.

an arts device is supplied for her and Talulah to communicate through. while FrostNova acts like she forgets it at times, she is a princess, and fully entitled to the rare impractical demand. she doesn't regret leaning on the communications team to have her request fulfilled, not even when tense glances exchanged between the Yetis finally prompt her to sit her vice-captains down and put their feet to the fire over their grievance with Talulah.

that sliver of information never makes it to the recordings she passes along to Talulah's receiver. she doesn't need to know about the idiotic speculation of Yelena's squad. they swore on their lives to never indulge in the absurd gossip again, and Yelena will take the heart-stopping embarrassment of hearing it to her grave.

well, sestra, you have to know, it's kinda obvious that the two of you got ... involved while you were alone out there, yeah?

Yelena pushes the memory away, out of sight into the deepest recess of her mind. she ignores shared looks her comrades still shoot each other whenever she speaks of Talulah, just as she ignores the similar emotions that are dredged up when she reads that first unexpected, bizarre missive from the self-proclaimed queen of Tara. her words feel slippery, an oily cast brushed over her sentences, something about her coy phrasing that makes it too easy for Yelena to imagine the madwoman's fingertips tickling the back of her neck, cloying and playful and utterly inappropriate for an official communication.

she can't spare Eblana Dublinn's ramblings any serious thought. not when the war is quickly approaching its finale.

for the siege of Londinium, she takes a group half the size her orders dictate. if lives are going to be lost on the battlefield, Yelena knows it will be here. they slip away from their encampment in the dead of night with no warning, already through the walls by their absence is realized.

moving through the city is a nightmare, but Yelena and her elites have seen worse, remember worse. they reach their classified target within 72 hours of running ahead on their own. when the towheaded punk leading the defense of the shipping docks drops to one knee and renounces her claim to the Victorian throne, Yelena distantly realizes she's living through one of those moments people write about in history books.

Alexandrina Victoria will not abandon the civilians she's kept alive throughout the fight, so FrostNova brings a quiet death to the duke's men that have kept them pinned down for days. her squad is halved again as some of them break off to rush the former heir to Ursus' main force, while the Yeti Princess turns her attention to assisting the rebels being strangled in the factory district.

it becomes a blur after that. FrostNova calls an early winter down through the streets and duchy-occupied buildings. her cold spreads until she tastes thick iron on her tongue, every last ounce of her spent, and the air goes dank around her as she's hefted onto a feline man's back and spirited away beneath the ground.

she doesn't know how long she's been out by the time she starts to stir, voices in the near distance rousing her from dreamless sleep.

woah there, we're friendly! you lads got any space for a couple of wounded freedom fighters? ]

[For Talulah, time moves much more rapidly, even with the unfortunate weight of the distance between them. Maybe it's because she's much more in the thick of it, having to plan and make decisions and battle in skirmishes and interpret reports and deal with the nobles in an endless cascade.

The times she does get to talk to Yelena are a welcome respite, though, even if she doesn't ever hear about what had been behind the Yetis' odd actions. She figures that if Yelena doesn't bring it up, it must have been something harmless. On the other hand, she is slightly more aware of Eblana Dublinn. There's no way she couldn't be, when the talks about what to do with Tara are swirling around. She maintains the elder Dublinn sister is a madwoman and should be dealt with, but that's currently rather politically unsound.

And honestly, she's getting a little sick of politics. Now that victory doesn't seem like such a pipe dream, the nobles have begun to talk about what happens after. The rebels do as well, but they speak of normal things, like wanting to open up a shop or start families, once Victoria stabilizes. The nobles speak on divying up the spoils. On who to keep in check, and how. On what other countries will do. On alliances.

If Talulah manages to pull this off, every world leader will be salivating at the chance to get a sliver of Victoria's power. They'll do anything for it, and they'll get it by might, diplomacy, or...marriage. There are many good options, or so she's told. Talulah's getting rather sick of being spoken to like she's going to be sold to the highest bidder, but it's not just that.

Can she really mourn something she didn't realize she'd be losing until this moment?

Lately, they've gotten close enough that she can practically feel the weight of the crown on her head already. Every inch they take in Londinium adds a little more. But equally, she can feel the weight of the expectations of those she led here. The last thing she'll ever do is ruin the world they're seeking, ruin her own chance to put a sword through the dregs of Kashchey's ambitions for good, because of her own emotions. That doesn't make anything easy, though.

Especially not this final siege on the city. It feels as though it takes all of their effort just to claw a block or two, or a district, but they are making steady and sure progress. They're also trying to throw off the opposition by keeping her location as secret as possible, so Talulah's a little surprised when someone comes to her in the temporary stronghold and mentions that there's an allied party that's arrived. Curious, she gets up from where she'd been resting and poring over a map to go see what the matter is.

Oh. It's just some fellow rebels who had uncanny luck.]

Sorry about the cold welcome. It's because I'm here, and the fewer people who know that the bet--Yelena?

[The moment she notices who's being carried on the back of another rebel member, she instinctually sends warmth down the connection of their arts bond.]

[ she hadn't realized how cold she'd gotten before that familiar spike of heat races through her veins. the young man carrying her (Feist, she thinks he said) has Petra's coat draped over his shoulders to keep Yelena's from coming into direct contact with skin, and he makes an unflattering noise of surprise when his cargo jerks to life. ]

Talulah?

[ her mouth is suddenly dry. shit— does she still have blood on her lips? how long was she out for? a wave of panic hits Yelena when she realizes that she's absolutely not prepared to talk to Talulah right now, and must look like a complete child being carted around by the Londinium rebels she was tasked with saving.

she moves to stand, head swimming as her feet wiggle awkwardly in the air for the few moments it takes her to realize that she's being carried. ]

I'm good to stand. You can put me down. [ Feist replies with a skeptical well, whatever you say princess, but crouches down to accommodate her all the same. ]

[Talulah doesn't see Yelena being carried by the other rebels and thinks it childish. She sees this and thinks Yelena has overexerted herself with her arts.

She gives instructions on where the wounded and healthy newcomers should go, still sharing a bit of her arts with Yelena as she does so, before addressing the other directly.]

Did you run into trouble to have to use your arts that much? The comms have been spotty. It's the whole reason we're holed up here.

[ considering her condition, FrostNova should be in line with the rest of her group to find somewhere to hunker down for a few more hours of sleep. with her adrenaline crash come and gone, it's a mix of Talulah's arts and sheer determination keeping her on her feet, and she doesn't know how much time that will really buy her.

she feels an unnatural stiffness creep into her muscles as she stands across from Talulah. instinct tells her to go forward, to huddle closer to that blaze of warmth, but the heavy atmosphere weighs her down, keeping her fixed in place. ]

I'm not sure if I can say that when I ran into it on purpose.

[ Yelena's guessing Talulah wasn't given a full rundown of the Yeti's mission in Londinium. hell, she disobeyed orders for her squad size before she even entered the city, and she's positive there's some hand-wringers in charge here who would want to keep that quiet. ]

We came from the factory district. Creating an exit route for the rebels there was part of my agreement with our original target.

Ah. This makes a lot more sense now.

[She knew Yelena's task had been to handle the Aslan heir, which had been successful, as far as the brief communications had announced. After that, things had gotten much murkier.

But this could actually be a boon. Yelena mentioned they came from the factory district, which means there's a good chance members of their group have the skills necessary to help stabilize the comms.

That said, she should probably get Yelena somewhere she can rest...or force her to take a break, is the most likely outcome. She takes a step closer, near enough that Yelena can use her as a crutch if she needs to.]

We've got a short while before we're meant to receive any signal. You can give me some more details while you defrost. This way.

"Defrost"? What am I, your dinner?

[ Yelena's complaint doesn't have any teeth behind it, but she tenses when Talulah moves closer to her. unbidden, the conversation she'd had with a few of the senior Yetis replays in her mind, the looks they'd exchanged between each other as FrostNova had pressed them to explain their recent behavior. she'd been mortified after that exchange, storming away from the campfire with her face burning red. Yelena hadn't been treating Talulah any particular way, had she? even if she was— was there anything so wrong with that?

she shouldn't be thinking about this right now. taking a sudden step forward, her knee wobbles questionably as soon as she tries to shift her weight to it. her hand shoots out to grab onto something nearby— which can only be Talulah, who moved into range just to let her do something like this. ]

—sorry. I don't think I was resting for too long.

Do you have a better word for it?

[Talulah tips her head to the side, thinking that's a pretty apt description of what Yelena has to do when she overdoes it on her arts. Before she can make any other quip about it, though, she sees Yelena lose her balance and is already offering her hand in case the other needs more support than her shoulder. It's a thoughtless action, the same as her moving closer in the first place.

And maybe it shouldn't be so easy or instinctual, but Talulah isn't about to ponder over that when they're this close to their goal.

Thankfully, she also doesn't have the same knowlege as Yelena about the Yetis' thoughts, so she just peers over her shoulder at the small compound of buildings and one communications tower they turned into a temporary base, judging the distance.]

It's fine. Are you good for a short walk? Then you can actually take a break.

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