V5 Incline 11: Nin

"I told you, Rose-sweerui, I told you. Yes, I told you." I growl through the harsh, icy winds that batter me. Their bitter teeth sink through my scuffed up and fluttering cloak, through my bandages and deep past my body's exterior. The same as it has been ever since I climbed up into this particular part of the mountain. A snow-belt unlike anything else I've encountered thus far.

I just can't stop myself. My head keeps turning back constantly towards the bag. Rose'lhia is suffering badly in these conditions. Even with her pocket of warmth. So I'm trying, I'm trying as hard as I can to get up this part of the mountain. But there's something about the weather here that makes it all so cold. The air was nippy before, and now it's deathly freezing.

Were it not for my shell... I'd no doubt be seeing just how bad the cold is affecting me. I can barely feel any part of my body and it's only slowing me down. Whatever it is about this cold, too, it's making my magic flare with uncontrollable passion. Like my body is just doing so naturally as I might blink or breathe.

Still, grips I was formerly sure of I am now nothing but paranoid about. My inability to see through all of this snow is only making it worse. Never mind this detestable ice. It's everywhere, a true permafrost that is such a know-it-all about reminding me of who Cold is in his full name. Death.

There are no specific details to the mountain anymore, just vague outlines amidst grey powder and razor-sharp snowflakes. I can't let it stop me, I must keep going. Something is cultivating within me, and this cold has only made it grow. Especially since the cold became such a maze that refuses to leave my life. Our lives.

My body is so stiff. Frozen. But the blood in my veins pumps on still, free because of a heart that won't stop. It's outright esoteric, a heat that refuses to yield to the ice that I swear is growing on me.

A bark rings out against the storm, and I smash my arm up, freeing it so momentarily of the cold. I drag myself on up with pure force of will and the strength of my weakening body. All that it still holds and all that it has pulled back to the present after I lost it on the way up. Sometimes it barely moves me, other times I might as well be lifting myself up with a lonely arm.

One that cannot bear this burden alone.

The strength is fickle, however, and it does much more than pull us up. It pulls out icy stone, dragging it out to fall apart in the snowstorm's breath. I cling desperately close to the mountain, awkwardly shifting to keep my supplies and Rose'lhia close to it, too. All as I cling on for dear life, all so I don't fall down into the depths I climbed out of. All so we don't fall.

"Hang in there, Rose-sweerui, hang in there..." I heave out, smashing my way back into a climbing posture. All while hoping that the god responsible for our current detriment is not near. It's so ironic. Cold, Death and Friendship. Does this look or feel anything like friendship, Undwote!? Does it!?

Who knows... Maybe it's not even him. Who else could make this situation actively worse? Who else? Does Undwote want me back in his grasp that badly so he can finish what he started the last time I died!?

Is the so-called God of Friendship really an embodiment of even awful friends!?

He can't be that uncaring as to drag me and an innocent to him. He can't be. I have no debt that needs to be paid, I owe him nothing. It doesn't matter what he wants in the end, I just need to get this damn aelenvari woman out of the cold. This beautiful woman who called me her 'love.' Her 'beloved' and so much more sweet things I wish someone else would tell me. No...

"Grrrgh." I growl, pulling myself over another load of cracking rock and ice. This cold will come to an end, I know it will. Name aside, I've climbed many mountains in my time in this land. All of them have an end to their snow-belts. Some don't even have them!

And an end this mountain does, I need to keep this in mind. Helpless as it might seem to do so. So much snow, so much ice. It doesn't stop. It refuses to. This frozen misery refuses to go even as my mind helps me go on.

"Eeeeeugh..." gently squeaks out of the bag. Striking straight for my ears. My head shifts to the noise, eyes wide even as snow lodges into them. The clattering of teeth coming from the bag, it's gone. The subtle shaking, it's all gone. The bag has gone silent...

"ROSE!?" I shout, sending a reinvigorated fist into the ice and pulling. My next touch falls through the ice- Falls through!?

I pull myself up further, looking on through the crack. Even with the loss of decent vision, I can tell what's beyond the ice. It's blocking a tunnel, and luck has only helped to highlight it. I linger in the snowy mist, a sense of calm seeping in as much as the cold.

I climb up, easing onto the edge of the tunnel, and I fall in. Collapsing onto the ice shard-covered floor. I take the moment to rest, heaving with exhaustion as it really all does catch up with me. How much effort it has taken to get this high up the mountain.

Gods above... All of the gods above and in All-That-Remains am I tired. So tired. So cold...

"The ice is melting neatly..." l breathe, realising what my magic is capable of doing. It can keep me safe. Us safe... Rose safe.

Forcing my way up, I shiver away as I take it all off. Everything. The bag falls even when I don't want it to and I almost tear it open in my haste to get into it. My cloak's lock clips open, the heavy, soggy weight taking it away from me. I strip myself down as much as I can, releasing myself of any snow-infested bandages.

Rose settles in my eyes. A chitter to my mandibles that isn't typically there. I crawl against her, hugging her with tight... Loving... Delicacy. I hug her tight, our stored supplies become our cocoon.

My mouth stays open, letting my heavy breath put some warmth into the air. Getting it all over her face in the hopes it will get her moving again. Please... Please...

Her eyes open again, a gentle pain to her expression.

"It'll be alright..." is all I can think to say right now as my shivering only encourages her to shiver again. Her hand slips up, sloppily placing itself somewhat against my dry jaw. All that snow and ice, and I'm so dry whereas my clothes are soaked. The winds have stripped me bare of any saliva, blocking up every pore and the like with frost.

"M... My... Love..." she barely gets out, a ghost of a smile on her lips as her eyes flutter. Her chill-touched bulbs flicker, her mother tongue speaking just as little as she is proper. She slips in and out of consciousness so many times. Too many times.

My eyes refuse to look away from that barely visible cloud of steam. Her mouth is producing so little heat for the air to mist up. So little and barely anything. My eyes move away to my mask, tucked away so close to her.

"Make sure not to lose this... Ok?" I say to her, putting the mask around her head and onto her face. I trap all that steam before her mouth, and the lens' fog up in no time at all. I pull out all the clothing I can and wrap her up in them. Everything I can find and manage, no matter how inappropriate it is for the weather.

Anywhere it can fit, on her points, her fingers or along the rims of the mask. My plan is to keep her with me, to keep her alive. All I can do is pray for it to work, but I'm so focused and caught up in the idea of keeping her warm that I can't even spare the thought. I just keep fiddling, wrapping her up as much as I can as I hold her so close to me.

I wrap her with everything, balling up beside her while giving her everything that keeps her warm. We're in deep enough as far as this tunnel is concerned. We're in deep enough to keep the warmth to ourselves. I refuse to let her face go anywhere other than near me.

My claw goes through her hair and down her face. I can't feel anything in my claws, not a single digit tells me anything. I can only see that I'm touching her. Trying to warm her up.

"Do anything, anything at all, Rose-sweerui, if this hurts you..." I desperately plea, keeping my claw close as I try to focus my magic. If she needs to be healed, I can do that. I can do that. The palm won't move, any heat that I can pass onto her through it must stay there.

I don't know...

I'm just not sure. I can't tell if it's working, and I don't want to apply any more pressure. All this strength and I can't focus it properly. None of it at all. We can't stay like this... We need to climb and get out of this cold.

A snarl cracks across my face, utter contempt for the world we're in. This cold, freezing world of nothing but death. Such chilly death.

We need to get out of this. Get out... Jump.

I have an idea... This one that's repeated on me for a while.

Jump.

Jump as high as I can, further than I have ever gone before. As high as the sky and as wide as the valleys. No... No.

No, go beyond it!

All for her, all for the endangered life in my arms...

"Rose..." I breathe quietly, reassuring my grip on her.