[PRP][PLOT] Their Frozen Fate (Katya & Lailah:Sword)

[Teigra]

Lailah dug at the snow and ice, her expression masked by irritation. It wasn't that she wasn't used to physical exertion, not at all. It was just...this was so...boring! It was actually something of a relief when she heard her name called from nearby. Peeping up from the growing hole, she realized that a snow drift blocked her view of the other Squire's dig site. She glanced down at her progress so far. No sign of anything yet. Maybe the other had found something?

The subtle notes of panic touching the other Squire's tone made her doubt that. Yet, it wasn't the sound of one under direct attack either, else she'd not have hesitated to respond to a threat in their camp. Instead, she puzzled for a moment over what Katya could possibly want. To be honest, for the most part, she'd left Lailah well enough alone since they'd been here. She didn't ask anything of her much...and though she'd had the prime opportunity this morning to make light of her companion's sprawled sleeping posture...as far as Lailah knew, she'd said nothing and in fact taken care to leave the blankets to keep her warm.

So, if she was calling for her now...

Figuring a break would be a relief at this point anyway, she sighed, climbing from the hole to move around the snow drift. "What is it?" she asked, still managing somehow to include the mental image of an eyeroll in her tone. She just caught the sight of the demon creeping back into the hole where she'd been digging, looking like she was nearing a snake ready to strike.

Wait, it was far too cold for snakes up here.

So, what...?

Curiosity engaged, Lailah brushed the snow from her gloved hands as she neared and looked into the hole. Woah. "Is that...?" She didn't even finish the question, crouching at the edge of the hole and peering around the little one's wing. A fallen warrior of old...just the sight was both fascinating and in some way, inspiring. An ancient fighter, live given in service of the Guardians...not that she specifically wished to follow that path directly, but if Lailah were going to go, it would be for the right reasons. And she'd be sure to take plenty with her.

And if he was a warrior...her eyes scanned the dark form, still encased in ice. "Well, does he have a sword?" she asked bluntly. Straight to business. It was why they were up here, after all. Then, she glanced towards Katya, arms wrapped around herself and looking shaken. "What's wrong with you? You look like you expect him to jump up and come after you or something," she asked with a derisive snort.
 

[Doof]

Whoever he was, it felt decidedly sacrilegious to be disturbing his grave. Keen to avoid any sort of divine consequences, the red demon turned her eyes skyward, and silently recited a quick prayer in her mind, biting her lip afterwards, since she had effectively asked permission to keep digging around the fallen warrior. She also knew that no clear response was likely to be forthcoming and that from there she would be operating under the assumption that the need of her current mission outweighed the disrespect of unearthing this grisly, haunting discovery. At least Katya might not have to do it alone, she figured, as her head turned at the comforting sound of Lailah's voice.

Hah, comforting. That was a first.

"Lailah, what do you make of this?" Katya spoke nervously, her eyes flicking between her comrade and the iced-over corpse. She was surprised at the other's reactions; there was not trepidation at all in the angel's features, only a deep fascination. Katya shook her head and looked back down at the figure beneath them. At Lailah's suggestion of the unsettling 'undead' prospect, Katya shuddered."I suspect that he's dead, and he's staying that way, but I'm not discounting the possibility."

"A sword?" The demon's mind took a second to catch up. Oh, that was the reason they were up here, of course. That was classic Lailah. Always on the mission. "I don't know. I haven't looked for one yet." She brushed away a little more powder from the surface of the ice, and saw more than one potentially sword-like object under the surface. "Lailah," Katya tilted her head, trying to peer closer at the vaguely long and slender objects. "Do you know what kind of swords these ancient warriors wielded? Would the type we brought back matter? Or who used it?"

The keen-eyed demon pointed at two potential swords, not very much deeper under the layer of ice. One was firmly clutched in the fallen warrior's hand, and the other, buried halfway to its hilt in his side, wedged in precisely where his breastplate met his fauld. "Right hand, and left side, see?" Katya said simply. She really did hope it didn't matter what swords they brought back, since one was likely to be very different from the other, and at least one was likely to have been wielded by an enemy of the Guardians. Katya stood, motioned her angel partner back and swung down with her pick, resuming the excavation. It wouldn't be long now.

Taking only a handful more swings, Katya succeeded in freeing one of the swords- a very large chunk of ice broke free, exposing much of the corpse's side. The heavy slab needed to be rocked a bit before it was cleared because it had frozen around one of the flaps of the fauld- and when it broke free, so too did that section of armour. Katya squeaked an apology to the fallen demon's dead body and made a series of finer chips at and around the sword to retrieve it. There was surprisingly little rust on the sword, and from what she could see of the design, it was not one that she recognized. Katya stopped short of actually retrieving it though- that might require wobbling and working it out of the frozen flesh (possibly even chiseling into it) and that was something that the little demon sorely hoped Lailah would do. Instead, she wordlessly set about freeing the sword in the hand, which similarly didn't take much longer to uncover, and as she got into the finer chipping away of ice presented a much more familiar profile, with its short hilt and relatively broad blade.

Although she worked quietly, Katya was not completely involved in her work. She broke her silence just to make plain how she felt. "Lailah, this makes me very uncomfortable."  

[Teigra]

Lailah looked the demon up and down with a snort of derision. Not discounting the possibility? Really? Even if the body wasn't still mostly encased in ice, it was just a body. As long as it had been there, it was little more than frozen meat really. The spirit was long gone. Not that she was pondering any ideas about creating some sort of corpse puppet and putting on a show. That was silly. She just didn't see the need in being quite so hesitant about disturbing the corpse. Obviously, the Guardians had provided it for them to get what they needed.

Of course, if it had been more recent, she would have perhaps been a bit more reverent. After all, a recent death meant that the spirit might still be present. Prayers and rites helped guide the spirit to the Guardians, especially one like this who had obviously died in their faithful service. It was a just reward for the faithful and righteous.

But, a corpse this ancient? The spirit was long gone, one way or another.

Still, seemed awfully silly to be afraid of the body itself.

As for what kinds of swords the ancient warrior had used or what kind they needed, she had no idea. Lailah shrugged. "Honestly, dunno," she admitted. "Just that we needed a sword from an ancient battlefield. I don't suppose it matters which side it came from or what kind it is. Not sure we have the luxury to be too picky anyway."

There wasn't much room in the hole to work, certainly not enough for the both of them. Katya had found it, so Lailah figured if she wanted to get hers first, it was only fair. She was encouraged when the digging revealed two swords, though each obviously from opposite sides. Predictably, it looked like Katya would leave the foreign one lodged in the corpse's side for Lailah. She didn't care; at least her objective was in sight. Waiting her turn, Lailah perched on the edge of the hole, watching, stirring only when Katya lifted her voice again.

"Uncomfortable? All this hard, physical work? You are still pretty small," she commented idly. Yeah, she knew that wasn't what the demon meant. She wasn't about to coddle her for her strange insecurities. On the other hand...she was ready to get out of this cold as soon as possible. With a weary roll of her eyes, she offered up, "You know, I'm just kinda' sitting here..."

That was all the invitation she was gonna' get.
 

[Doof]

Katya had just cleared away most of the ice from around the dead demon's hand when Lailah spoke up. She looked up, brushing her bangs out of her face to look at her comrade, to get a gauge on the other's expression. Bored about summed it up, so she tiredly pointed at the exposed sword handle sticking out of the body's side. "I'll be done swinging the pick here in a second, after that I guess you could see about working that sword out of this poor fellow's flesh..." She suppressed a shudder. "And I'll try to pry this other one out of his hand." Her forearm rose to her forehead- she was sweating again, and harder than the day before, probably a result of it being slightly warmer, and her exertions being greater. No matter- they were going to get those swords soon, she was sure of it.

The little girl was starting to pant slightly, but she found additional resolve in her continued self-assurance that they were approaching success. Strike after strike came down around the remaining sword, still encased in ice. Despite her earlier assertion that she would be done in a second, it took a little longer than she had anticipated. Her hands hurt, her back hurt and her flight suit was a little damp from sweat by the time the blade was completely exposed.

Katya didn't set the pick down so much as it merely slipped from her fingers. "Whoo." She said breathlessly. Another wipe at her forehead. "I guess these will do." She took a moment to admire the ancient sword, simple as it was. Like the armour, it was nothing fancy, or intricate. A basic sword, likely identical to countless others, built en masse to supply an entire army. Katya couldn't resist the temptation of running a gloved finger down the spine of the blade, wondering what stories, never to be told, had spun themselves around the ancient weapon.

As enthralled as she was, however, she still kept her focus on the mission. She prised the back of the blade off of the ice beneath with a snap, and was pleased to find a little play in it. She began to pull it upwards...

And abruptly stopped when she heard a crackling noise coming from the bones in the corpse's wrist, hidden inside its long glove. She fought down the sudden shiver she felt and let the blade fall back onto the ice. Holding a hand to her chin, she puzzled over the artefact for a moment before reaching down and trying to open the hundreds-years-old closed fist. A bit of working back and forth, and with a snap, the sword came completely loose, delicately balanced in her hands so as not to cut into her gloves. As an added bonus, the fallen demon's wrist was still on the ice.

His fingers, however were not. A horrified glance at the sword's handle showed Katya what a Pae's finger bones looked like when severed at the knuckle. She violently, and with a jittery squeal, swiped at the hilt, knocking the dead warrior's fingers off one by one, the frozen digits being flung unceremoniously onto the ground- and one in Lailah's direction. Katya didn't even notice- she was too busy checking the handle of the sword for any more hidden body parts. Aside from a little of the glove's surface still sticking to the metal, the sword lay more or less clean in her shivering hands.

 

[Teigra]

Okay, well, if she wanted to keep doing all the work, Lailah wasn't about to fight her on it. Heck, maybe it'd be good for her. Toughen her up a bit. Shrugging, the angel settled in and let the demon do her thing for a while.

A while too long.

...this was boring.

Watching Katya chip ice away from an ancient weapon was not how she wanted to spend her morning. Lailah was getting impatient by the time the little one finally dropped the pick and started working with just her hands. At least it shouldn't be much longer. Lailah was puzzling over how to go about extracting her own sword, not that she seemed to have many options aside from the obvious. She'd have to wait and see how difficult it was to--

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sudden movement of Katya pulling her sword free from the corpse's hand...followed by a high-pitched squeal and flailing. Lailah merely blinked, feeling something hit her foot and looking down to stare at the ancient fingerbone lying atop her boot. Oh for Guardians' sake... With a roll of her eyes, she stood and kicked one foot, sending the bones back into the hole. "Alright, if you're done with the fit you're having there," there she said wearily, reaching down to grab the little demon by the upper arm and aiding in hefting her out of the hole. Her turn.

Taking a moment at the edge to figure out what angle to attack this problem, Lailah carefully descended, standing to the side of the corpse and facing the sword. She took a moment to straighten her gloves, shift her sleeves, then check her footing, then took hold of the sword and started wiggling it from side to side while pulling upward. It barely budged. Grumbling, she put her weight behind it, pushing the blade in one direction until she heard a satisfying 'crack'. She took this as encouragement and keep working in a similar manner, working it in one direction until something gave, then the other. If she could just break it free enough on both sides...

Once or twice she paused, pulling one of her blades with reluctance to use it for such a mundane reason, but she needed to chip away some ice from the base where the blade entered the body. Soon, there was little visible holding the sword in place. She seemed less concerned than Katya had about disturbing the body, though she wasn't going out of her way to be destructive either. But damn if that sword wasn't stuck good! She still couldn't pull it free for some reason. Maybe if she had better leverage.

After a moment's hesitation, she braced one boot against the corpse, next to the sword, shifted her grip, then gave a hefty tug. Another crackling sound resulted, filling her with hope. Guardians bless, I'm getting sick of this. She was cold, tired, and eager to get back when this was all over. The thought of going home soon was encouragement enough for her to brace for another attempt, putting everything she had into a forceful pull. The sword broke free with a splintering crack, perhaps easier than she'd been expecting as Lailah tumbled backwards. The slope of the hole and ice may have also had something to do with the fact that the angel fell with sword in right hand, twisting awkwardly to try and catch herself with her left.

Pain shot up through her forearm at the impact. Lailah winced before she could catch herself, though the only vocal response was a sharp, hissing intake of breath. Dammit, dammit, dammit! Damn this traitorous arm! She tried to hide any further reaction, but her breathing had momentarily gone shallow and quick to cover for the pain. As soon as she was able, she shifted her other arm, subtly favoring the left as her base. The sword was of a strange style, and it'd been a pain to get it, but...

"Heh...got it."
 

[Doof]

Satisfied that the corpse was not going to come after her for taking its sword, or severing its fingers, Katya managed to settle herself down and relax a bit, swallowing down her panic and stepping back from the body, dusting away what little ice and frost remained on her blade. Perhaps she had been a bit creeped out at first, but on reflection there was something awe inspiring about holding such an ancient weapon, that had been wielded in service to the Guardians so many ages ago. She left her pick for the moment, in case Lailah needed it, and quickly flitted back to their campsite (even if it was just a stone's throw away) to wrap the sword in her bedroll for safe keeping, and figured, while she was there, to stow her bedroll in her flight bag. It seemed that they would be done shortly anyway, so she quickly tossed the rest of her things into the bag, without any sort of order or organization so as not to tarry too long, although the end result was that awkward bulges formed at the sides and it just barely closed.

A short few flaps later, and the red demon was back at the excavation, watching as Lailah planted her foot on the fallen warrior's side and yanking at the other sword. With little else to do herself, Katya circled overhead, enjoying a return to flight. Though her arms and shoulders were sore, her chest muscles and wings seemed quite willing to carry her on the winds once more. With little else to do at this point, she watched her comrade struggle with the old weapon, wincing at the crackling sound of frozen flesh being forced apart, despite the distance between them.

When it happened, it happened suddenly, so Katya wasn't even looking when Lailah fell back, and she had to do a quick spin in the air to see the angel fall on the hard ice. "Lailah!" She sounded geniunely concerned as she swept down towards their hole, her broad wings momentarily darkening the ground around her comrade. "Are you all right?" It sounded like it actually hurt, but she was distracted momentarily as Lailah held up her prize...

Wow. What a strange sword.

It was more ornate than the demon's sword, lighter looking, more slender, and it had a slight curve to it. It looked like a ferocious slashing weapon, made more for a combination of speed and reach than power.

"I guess this means we can go home, now that we each have an ancient blade." Katya peered closer at the foreign weapon. "Would you look at that. They used curved swords. Curved. Swords."  

[Teigra]

Forsaking leaning on it further, Lailah had pulled her left arm in towards herself, leaving it laying in her lap as she gave up and just sat on the ice for a bit. She had been looking the blade over with fascination when her companion's return and question cut through her thoughts. "...huh? Yeah, fine," she replied automatically, then glanced down at her arm with a frown to herself. "Mostly..." She opened and closed her fist, then dismissed the concern in favor of holding up the weapon and turning it over in the light. "Look at that...it's so light," she observed, noting how easily the slender blade was to maneuver, just a lift, a twist...

She shook her head. Maybe she could try the blade out later...just...for historical curiosity, yeah, that was it. For now, it was cold, their quest was done, and there was no further reason to sit out here on this freezing mountain. "Alright, we're done here. Let's clear out," she said, starting to reach out and push herself up with her aching arm, then thinking better of it. After a hesitation, she pulled that arm back and held it close to her torso, instead using the fist holding the sword to try to push herself off the ground. It was obviously more awkward than the angel normally was, and she had to flap her wings twice to steady her balance once on her feet.

Carefully, she climbed out of the hole with her prize, arm still cradled close. Surely when she got warmed up again, it would stop. Maybe a hot bath when they got back to the City to relieve the pain from the strain she'd just put on it. Deep down, she knew she should have had one of the other healers look at it...but pride kept her from admitting that she likely hadn't been able to take care of the entire injury when she'd focused on just fixing the outside enough that the others couldn't tell. Besides...admitting what had happened would have been embarrassing.

All she needed to do was gather her things, shove them in her bag, then they could get out of this place and back to civilization. Finally.  

[Doof]

Although Lailah's sudden hesitance in her movements wasn't lost on Katya, the red demon didn't question it- the angel was clearly hurt, and probably acting stubborn, but she wasn't the easy type to approach and an injury would likely be a sore spot in more ways than one. It would likely heal on its own, and even if not, there were healers far more qualified than her back at the castle. Such a thing was not within Katya's experience to deal with.

They were indeed done on the mountainside, and at a good time. The afternoon was half-done, and tarrying another hour would have night falling on their flight back to Telrunya City. Unlike her partner, Katya flapped her way out of the hole again and arced through the air back to the remnants of their campsite, arriving there before the walking angel. To save time she decided to pack the tent away, wasting no time in uprooting the pegs and lashings from the packed snow- a task that was easy enough, considering the lack of anchoring in the first place. She laid the pegs in the middle of the canvas tent material and rolled it all up into a rough bundle, using the lashings to tie it together, before securing it to the top of her flight pack. The whole pile was far more clunky and cumbersome than the outbound flight, but Katya was largely unconcerned as long as it stayed together and nothing solid would be jutting into her body once she put it on.

Once the whole assembly was on her back, she was satisfied that she could comfortably fly all the way back to the castle, but the first thing she did was return to the hole on two skinny, wobbly legs. Lailah was pretty much done packing and would likely be itching to leave, but there was one thing Katya wanted to do before they set off. Kneeling by the loose pile of snow beside the pit, she spread her arms wide and pushed forward with her whole body- arms, wings, even tail, as she piled as much snow back into the hole as quickly as she could. Once satisfied that she'd covered as much of it up as she could, Katya, still kneeling, said a silent prayer to the guardians and bowed her head, before getting back on her feet and glancing back towards the now-cleared campsite. Her high-pitched voice rang out across the white waste around them. "Shall we?" With her broad red wings spread out around her, it was clear what she meant by that.  

[Teigra]

Lailah trudged back to the campsite on foot, more intrigued by the weapon than for any other reason. Katya had packed up most of the supplies by the time she got there, which raised a good question...how was she supposed to carry this back? She didn't exactly have a scabbard or the like. She wasn't even sure what type of scabbard would fit such a weapon.

Frowning, Lailah set the blade down carefully while she packed away her bedroll, the two blankets, and distractedly re-arranged the things in her pack until everything fit nicely, nothing obviously out of place. That still didn't answer the question of what to do with the weapon. After staring at the sword, then her pack, then the sword again for a moment, Lailah dug into one of the smaller pockets before removing a length of cord. It was more like a thin rope really. She laid the sword cross-ways over the pack, looping the rope around the pommel, then the hilt, then the small guard, and in and around the straps of the pack. By the time she finished, the sword had been securely lashed to the bag. As long as she was careful in putting it on, anyway, it should be safe for the trip back.

She'd remained busy while Katya had gone off on her own again. Only when the smaller Squire's voice rang out over the snow did Lailah look up and over towards where she'd gone. Ah. Well then, if she was finished. "Let's," she answered, rising and carefully settling her pack between her wings before spreading them with a few test flaps. Once sure they had freedom of movement, she nodded once towards Katya, then to the sky.

Time to go home.