the golden age

[deepest_magic]

When the party has died down, Isabella, for one, is well and truly exhausted. She explores the palace until she finds a room with a bed in it, and into this bed she flops, still in her clothes and holding her staff and carrying the cordial in her pocket. She sleeps late, because the party kept her up so late and she hadn't really slept the night before; but around noon, she stirs, and gets up, and goes looking for James and wherever her backpack may have got to. The backpack she finds in the great hall where the principal mass of the party was; some enterprising creature took both bags from the battlefield at Beruna up to the castle for them, and she only wishes she knew who it was. She takes her bag to her room and carries James's with her and continues looking for her friend.

Comments

[deepest_magic]

"You took the muzzle off."

[jackfrostbite]

"It hurt me to hurt him."

[deepest_magic]

"And you saw us there, but you didn't tell the Witch. And he spared you, which I think was at least intended as a mercy. Is it only his name, whatever happens when you hear it -?"

[jackfrostbite]

"It's not always exactly the same. But it's always... a great terror. Like looking over the edge of a cliff into a black void, and knowing that if you fall, you will fall forever."

[deepest_magic]

"I get the sensation that I'm going to be very busy forever."

[jackfrostbite]

"You," says Winter, "are Aslan's creature."

He almost manages not to flinch from the name.

"And I... think now that I have already gone over the edge." He sighs. "I will give you your cordial. And then I will take you out of this place and wait for your rescue, if it has not already arrived."

[deepest_magic]

"Thank you."

[jackfrostbite]

He takes her cordial out of his pocket and moves carefully toward her until he touches her cloak.

[deepest_magic]

She takes the cordial out of his hand and drinks a drop.

[jackfrostbite]

"Probably best if I carry you out. No end to the trouble you could stumble into even just following me."

[deepest_magic]

If he'd kept her scepter instead of flinging it aside - "If you must."

[jackfrostbite]

"It was many years before I could walk these tunnels safely without a guide, and with a guide I often hurt myself at first, sometimes very badly. If you want to walk it yourself, I will carry your cordial, so that when you fall it will not be lost and I can give you some."

[deepest_magic]

"I will keep my cordial. I suppose I'd rather be carried more than trip into a mineshaft."

[jackfrostbite]

"So."

He picks her up and carries her out of the dead-end tunnel.

[deepest_magic]

Which is not the most comfortable Isabella has ever been, but she doesn't complain. Ringhugs - three in succession, just to differentiate them: something has changed.

[neverbeatme]

Ringhug, ringhug, ringhug.

[jackfrostbite]

When next he opens a door, there is a strong draft that smells faintly of the sea. He keeps going, turning away from the source of the draft soon afterward.

The path he takes corresponds exactly with the path that the ring says would lead to James.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella notes the draft, tries to keep loose track of step count and twists and turns but not doing a particularly good job of it.

[jackfrostbite]

Onward, onward. Sometimes the tunnel slopes up, sometimes down. There are a lot of turns, and he varies the length of his stride for unclear reasons.

And then he opens another door, and goes through, and shuts it, and carefully puts the queen down on her feet.

"It's safe enough for you to walk from here."

[deepest_magic]

So she finds the wall with one hand, and she walks, slowly, carefully.

[neverbeatme]

The direction to James seems to be changing awfully... fast.

[deepest_magic]

That's... interesting.

Isabella goes on following the wall in James's direction. She keeps her hood down over her face.

[neverbeatme]

After only a few more steps, the wall is no longer headed for James. The direction to James is perpendicular to this wall.

[deepest_magic]

Isabella doesn't really want to try to walk in the dark away from the wall.

Ringhug. If you've got an idea, Jamie...

[neverbeatme]

Ringhug.

And the faintest, faintest little bit of light - so little you could almost think you imagined it - and a shadowy figure in the imperfect dark, sword in one hand and scepter in the other, lunging for Winter where he walks several steps behind Isabella.