V5 Incline 15: Nin

"So any idea where it will be best for us to meet back up with the other two?" I ask Rose-sweerui while she still has time between my mask being on and off. The item in question slips on, and I pop the hat back on, too. One massive bag on my back later and all I have left to do is linger my eyes on Rose-sweerui. Pretty lady with a pretty humming tune to her throat and lips.

The Orbital-Halo is high and mighty now, the comforts of the day are out fully. It was a nice watch, idly letting it rise up in the distance as I learned a few new things. If I ever use them, I don't know, but it certainly helped pass the time! And I suppose that's all anyone can ask of a simple conversation.

There have been so many nice sights recently, and yet, it still strikes me as just that. A wonderful thing to watch happen. Still, I think it's actually the first time I've ever properly watched the Orbital-Halo rise. The clean, open-air view of a mountain peak plateau certainly does that, I suppose.

I've spent so much of my life in the shadow of something man-made or god-made that I've never seen it like that before. Something so common and all but guaranteed never occurred to me until it just... Happens. I couldn't be any more glad about it if I tried.

"We'd likely see them again near the exit of the road that spirals up the mountain. Assuming we have not lagged behind them, in which case it might be better to head to our destination that we set out to go to originally." she tells me, her raised index pointing out towards an oddity that has only become clear with the light of day.

An old-looking structure of constant arches and open walls that goes all the way around Thrurstradtur. Brick and mortar to contrast the metals of Thrurstradtur proper. Is it a wall? Bit hole-filled to be a wall.

Does a city on a mountain even need walls? Thrurstradtur clearly has walls limiting the edges of the city, and yet... Here we are. On top of a mountain, of all places. Frankly, if someone gets this high to endanger the city, walls become a bit useless, no? Bah, whatever, Architects of Thrurstradtur, you have baffled me enough for one day.

Then again... There's only one meaningful road up, and I doubt people will risk the climb I took. I barely managed that even with all this power I have in me, and so few people seem to match what I have, from what I've seen, anyhow. Some barricades on the road every few hundred meters or whatever would do just fine rather than actual walls for the city.

Unless they aren't walls in the way I'm thinking of them? Tobaballe's walls were purely defensive, with the Outer Walls being more so a border because of the wasteland past that point. The man-made closure to the gap in the Civil Mountains. So, perhaps all of these, well, walls, are just that, something else?

Perhaps a means to support the large structure at the city's centre? That big building is circling about and following the Orbital-Halo in the same way it followed the full moon of last night. It's all just necessary parts for a man-made machine to track a divinely made one?

Guess I'll find out later, this city will have all the answers I seek. Or, rather, the Academy Vapooliar told me to go to. Well... The Academy we were going to go to... Eugh, dying is such hard work when you're alive again.

"My love?" Rose-sweerui asks, coming close as I realise I'm too stranded by my thoughts. I shake my head, looking down at her as my mask hides my nervous smile. Though, it doesn't do much to contain the chitters.

"That's right..." I slowly say, recalling what she had previously gone on about. Yet, even then, I can't quite get my mind on Rose, instead, it goes to a woman with far shorter hair. Far more muscle and one I met in a bug hive of all places. The one who controlled all those little wisps of emerald light as we left. The one who supported me so closely in the build-up to our escape from that mountain.

She who was there for me first when I finally got out myself, she found me in that valley. She took care of me while I was in the aelenvari flower in ways not even Rose can understand. I was nearly back with her, and I could see that she was ok and... And I...

"Come on, my love! We may have climbed up the mountain, but there is still quite a lot of walking still to do as we are so far from the main road!" Rose-sweerui calls out, her choice of words bothering me more than how far I have lingered behind her sashaying hips.

"We? Woman, I'm the one who climbed up it!" I hysterically snap as I rush after her, catching up with her in no time. She giggles the whole time, her tail slithering against my open palm and whipping it with a teasing strike. Her giggles grow, and I start to chuckle.

"Hey, I provided the support you needed to reach the top!" she insists, her efforts to keep me fed being appreciated for what they are, even if it's still barely anything at all... I climbed a mountain... She curled up in this needlessly large backpack.

"You certainly did something..." I grumble, rubbing the arm I had dislocated getting her out of that damn cold. I nearly snapped off a whole limb in that kilometres-wide freezer and she stayed in a bag. She stayed in a bag...!

Though, I guess I can't complain about anything at this point. All the magic in the air has healed me up, and everything about the pair of us is cleaned. To think something as serious as frostbite and a dislocated arm can just vanish like that. Gods above, I hate magic so much, even with all that is does for me.

I've never have felt so better after a breath of fresh air! And I hate it. Actually, however, on the topic of magic... Every step we take closer to the city, it's all becoming a lot more controlled. The way the air is, the way my own aura works. It's like something has taken the reins and is sucking it all in.

Mmm... I can only hope it's nothing to be worried about. One can only hope. Though I'm not sure what to do either way.

Still, I know full well something has been tugging at us since we got closer to the city. It just didn't seem like a concern back then, and I never truly noticed it enough. Like an annoying insect buzzing about in the periphery of one's vision or in the corner of a room. An annoying drip of water, but that's all it is and you can't do anything about it.

Now, however, it's all feeling more like an air duct taking in its namesake as you pass it. And it's increasingly beginning to feel like I've decided to put my hand against the slotted openings of said air duct. Is my relatively uncontrolled magic about to bite me and Rose in the most tender of parts? Am I going to have to start treating this walk like how I did when we snuck into Tryhpeltzweig?

"My love, does it make you curious as to how the snow-belt works? With how everything up here is so lush and wonderful?" Rose-sweerui asks out of the blue, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Hm? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." I go, unsure if she had been speaking up until this point. Thank the gods my mask is back on. Better yet, for once, thank the gods I'm not capable of blushing with embarrassment anymore!

Rose-sweerui stomps to a halt, a cute pout preceding a soft smile, "We, you, climbed up and through the snow-belt. A place covered in frost and snow. Yet, up here, it is as if there never was a snow-belt."

She emphasises her point but a few steps later, hopping right on through a gap in a pair of increasingly common trees. Not enough to be called a forest, but enough to maybe build a cool hut under the cover of the leaves and the bird nests in their branches. I focus on some of them, indeed spotting birds and their little homes. One of the trees is even flowering with fruit, one such treat thudding against the rock-backed soil below.

In fact, we're on a mountaintop, and this entire area is more like a field than the lesser mountains...

"This is all peculiar, yes." I go, looking around some more as I really take it all in while the halolight offers me the chance to. We're in a field of green that's going all the way up to the city. There are even sporadic farms of all things breaking it up. It all but confuses my mind as I linger on them. Full-on crop-giving farms on top of a mountain...? Modest and small ones, maybe more so just gardens and the like, but still.

"Do you perhaps think this is a side-effect of the efforts of the wind-people, or do you think the snow-belt was always like it?" Rose-sweerui asks as if I've at all got the answer there. Though, I'll give it a shot if I can.

"Like what?" I ask her, seeking some clarification for the specifics.

"Just a small strip near the top of the mountains." she goes, shrugging innocently as she loses herself in picking some berries from a stranded bush far away from its cluster. She comes my way with them, popping them in her mouth with no regard for potential worms or anything.

"Ah, sorry, but I'm afraid I don't really have an answer." I say, giving up entirely on the questions as I really have no clue at all.

"It doesn't matter if you do, conjecture is fine, it is all I have as well." she shrugs again, leaving me even more stranded than that bush she just went to. She even seems to know this, and that grin of hers only grows as she licks up some spilling berry juice from her bottom lip. I huff out a laugh.

"If that is the case, then, given how everything is very different to how it is back home. For me at least, I'd have to say it was likely always like this. With pleasant fields on the mountaintops hidden behind a frozen barrier. A naturally occurring wall to put some perspective on it." I go, more so waffling on than having any coherent thought whatsoever.

"I like to think the wind-people are responsible, it makes them seem more impressive." she says, offering her opinion, and while I'd rather let them stand on their own achievements. A city like Thrurstradtur and people like Vapooliar are certainly achievements that make it so easy to believe that they did this.

"I don't think you need to make up reasons as to why they are impressive." I can't help but say as I come to a temporary stop to just look at Thrurstradtur.

Why waste your time reinforcing your pride when you can call upon a marvel like this? I've heard of insecure people, but not to this extent at all. A truly confident people can just look around at all they and their ancestors have achieved and just say... Wow.

Tobaballe can only compare and that's a city founded on the idea of merit. Everyone goes up on their achievements, and only those with nothing to their name have a reason to be insecure. You work hard, you are paid for it well. Rising higher and higher as your life goes on.

But here...? Here!? Thrurstradtur is a city that follows the path of the very day bringer! Most people probably only have clocks or that to tell the day, Thrurstradtur's people have their entire city!

"I'm not! I just find it the most likely answer." Rose-sweerui goes, shifting her head slightly as a rare click of the tongue leaves her.

"If you cannot confirm it, it is made up." I insist, telling her that basic little fact to put a grin to my face while she walks away with a giggling strop to her body. Her tail whips at me, keeping the distance until she uses it to hook herself back in. Smooshing right up against me with a giddying hug.

"So what are we going to do when we finally get there?" she asks, her grip adjusting as the tight hug proves more bothersome that wholesome.

"Try and find Vapooliar. Seems like the best option." I tell her, not sure what else there is to do but try and get to her as quickly as possible so we can get somewhere quiet and explain certain... Complications. I need to make sure she's as at ease as possible, even when I am everything I am right now.

"The Valkinvar is going to be there?" she asks, though I swear she should already know. Either or, I nod and that slight smile of hers grows quite wide. It passes onto me, and it begins to hurt my cheekplates with how strong it is.

Although my mind is a battlefield of optimistic hopes and pessimistic dreads, I am excited. I'm going to get a chance to meet back up with her, and she'll listen carefully as she always does. Everything will be fine again, and we can follow on through with the plan we made back at Rose-sweerui's flower. If she doesn't end up looking at me as nothing but a monster...

I am one, yeah... But, I don't want her to see me like that...

"Yeah, she's going to be there..." I begin to say, coming to another stop as the air starts to warp. I stare off in the distance and look around, locking on a dark object in the sky. A flying machine that is headed straight for us.

Many machines have flown by throughout our journey, many I'm really not supposed to be avoiding. But this one right here is coming this way, the feeling in my gut is all but screaming it at me. No, not only is it coming this way, it's slowing down and angling itself as if it's about to land!

No, no... Maybe it's just someone doing a stupid drive-by? Like how some people took the piss on forklifts and other motor vehicles after it had rained heavily? Gods above, please just be something like that...

"Should we start running?" Rose-sweerui whispers close to my ear as her eyes also focus on the vehicle. I turn towards her, shaking my head as it would be pointless. I can't outrun something like that on an open field like this. There's no foliage at all to get lost in.

"There'd be no point, where would we go? This is a pretty flat place, even with the small woodland area we just went through." I point out, giving life to my thoughts.

"But what if it is something we should be concerned about?" Rose asks, her tugging not helping at all.

"Running would only make the problem worse!" I sharply hiss as a frown weighs upon my face. The vehicle's scale is certainly settling in, and it's only becoming clearer as a couple of smaller machines detach from it. Each far faster than the greater machine they've come from. Some kind of aerial motorbike to the larger vehicle's haulier-like position?

Well... Whatever the case may be, they zoom past us, and not in a calming way. They instantly turn and hawk around us, glowing magic circles propping up their rears as an otherwise heavy front keeps them moving. The larger vehicle lands, trapping us even when there's so much room to run.

Armed men spread out from the larger vehicle, their weapons glowing and sounding off with power. My arms bring Rose-sweerui in close, keeping her safe from a worrisome future. Hopefully. Whoever these people are, however, there's one thing that's indisputable about them.

"Citizenry identification, please," the government soldier politely demands, his sidearm at the ready.