Impatiens

Absent from Northslope Long-Term; In Trial By Ordeal

Absent
Impatiens is a prisoner. She has been bound with ropes and vines, injected with burning Nature-venom, and locked in a room reinforced with permacrete and Nature-crafted thick wood. She is guarded by the Starbear that was sent to keep the other from running off to ill things again, and by Haskaharr outside the door.

Impatiens saw Topaz as a teacher and friend, though everyone now says that she was an evil enthraller and are congratulating her killer. Impatiens does not--at least so far--believe them, though with coaxing she is beginning to remember her beholdenment to Earthshaker. She still wants to claw out the nameless Tundra's eyes, however.

Other dragons have tried to talk to her, and they all keep telling her how terrible Topaz was. Strychnos came by a few times to put more poison into her. He said he did so to purge enthrallments Topaz had left, but it burned her everywhere and made her sick and dizzy. She wonders if he is crazy, or if he hates her, or if Firecoat has told him to do it. Topaz said that Firecoat hated all Arcane dragons for no reason. Others said that Firecoat was listening to the Carmine Tundra though, maybe that was a lie or maybe the price of his trust for an Arcane dragon was to kill another Arcane dragon.

Maybe Impatiens is going crazy.

*

After speaking with Allspice and some of the clan's Earth dragons, Impatiens seems very penitent, enough so that she has been permitted to remain legally bound to Northslope as the waning of Fire ends. She has been asked, in order to prove her loyalty, to travel to Dragonhome, and there complete a quest. She is to trek to Cairnstone Rest, and there obtain one of the skeleton-guarded jewels. She will return with this to the clan, and be allowed to rejoin them. She may not take supplies, and, once arrived in Dragonhome, may not use any forms of speeded travel--be they Winds, Gates, or Arcane teleportation--relying only on her own wits and the grace of the gods.

She accepts the terms, and her restraints are removed. Strychnos draws out most of the Nature that he put into her. The remainder clings to her skin in strange itchy patches, choking her thaumatophores but no longer penetrating. The Starbear has left. They enter a formation; Oreamne leads, Chlorastrolite and Echinocereus flank her, and Firecoat follows directly behind. As they ascend, Akari takes position above and WinterKnight below, so that Impatiens is completely surrounded. The seven dragons take the Winds.

They arrive without incident in Dragonhome, landing in an unpopulated area, without sign of dragon or Longneck habitation anywhere in sight. A few bits like dried leaves or grass are flaking off Impatiens' wings--presumably the remains of the Nature energy. Chlorastrolite tells her "Remember why you're here." And then the others take off for the Winds, leaving the Fae alone.

The ordeal has begun.

*

Someone is following her. Maybe more than one someone, she is not sure. But she is being pursued, and not with friendly intent. Ever since the last of the Nature flaked and fell from her skin, she has felt the spikes of Wind-magic dogging her path. They are not always there, and she has not seen their source, but they always return and they focus on her unnervingly.

The spikes burn her thaumatosensors. Their hostility is undeniable. Someone wants her to fail. Someone is trying to kill her. Impatiens looks over her shoulder more than she looks ahead. She jumps at shadows, aiming a Contuse at nothing, at an innocent stone-chameleon, at rats. She tries to cast a curse at the hostile someone, not sure if it is cheating or if that is what they want. As far as she can tell it finds no mark.

Her progress slows as she zigzags across the Shattered Plain, stopping only to sleep where she can be sheltered on all sides, going far out of her way in vain attempts to lose her pursuers. She no longer gathers, more than snagging enough insects to sustain herself. She has even left the bits and trinkets dug from the earth or old middens in the early part of her journey behind--none of it is more useful than its weight, and she cannot be caught. They are trying to kill her. They want her to fail.

Paranoia grows ever deeper, but she knows she is not wrong. Someone wants her dead. Someone is following her, someone who means to kill her, to make her fail, to make her cheat. It is all the same. She dismembers the insects she catches, checking them for traps. She finds none, but the Wind flares keep following her. They are getting closer. How can she lose them? How can they still be following her?

They are coming. She is afraid it is someone at Northslope. Maybe the whole thing is a sham. Maybe they're acting alone. She cannot tell. She keeps watching, she keeps fleeing, she keeps hiding.

They finally attack and she still cannot see them. A rain of Wind-charged arrows drives her into a stone pile, hiding as deep as she can and blocking the chinks. She can feel the arrows falling all around. They stop, then they start again; they don't break through the rocks, but Impatiens fears it is only a matter of time before they do. She begins to dig into the ground. It is hard and she is not built for it. She keeps on because she cannot think of any other way out. She cannot stay here forever, she cannot emerge or they will kill her. She cannot teleport, that would be cheating and then they might as well have killed her. She digs.

*

Finally she breaks through, into a space under the surface. She squeezes in through her tiny hole, and emerges into a still-small area. it seems to go nowhere, so she begins to dig into its bottom. She moves increasing bits of soft sedimentary rock with hands and face, until suddenly she realizes: she doesn't know where her enemy is. They are not immediately apparent. They could be anywhere.

She stops digging. Stops moving. Where are they? She focuses on her magic-sense, pushing it outward as though she could fit her thaumatosensors into every crack of the Shattered Plain. Seeks downward too--what if they are ahead, cutting her off? The Arcane and Earth energies inside her intensify. She blocks that out, it's noise and she needs to find them.

They start to come into focus, three flares, fanned out, all above her. She tries to get a better sense. Whoareyouwhatareyoudoingwhyareyouafterme.....

Her own magics flare out, suddenly too intense to ignore. She is somehow impacting rock from every direction, suddenly falling

Instinctively she catches herself with her wings, flying dizzily but somehow still avoiding columns of rock barely visible in the gloom. Somehow she makes it to the cavern floor, landing hard and strangely, in an unfamiliar position. There is a trickle of water here underground, but it seems almost elementally devoid. She moves away from it. Her magic-sense is sharp and intense; she can feel all three Wind-flares, now far above her. They are not coming closer. She leans up against a column, suddenly exhausted. It seems the transformation--for such it was--has consumed nearly all her energy. She hopes this is a safe enough place to rest before continuing, since it seems she now has no choice.

*

Impatiens doesn’t know how much time has passed when she wakes, but it feels like longer than she would have usually slept. The flares of Wind are gone, so she orients herself, calling on Earthshaker, and moves toward her goal. She walks on underground, following streams and tunnels. Some parts glow with internal light, others force her to navigate by magic, by sound. Cave insects scurry through the tunnels, and she eats what she can find, with little else to track time’s passage.
Gradually she becomes accustomed to her new shape, always reaching out with magic sense, always searching. The Wind flares do not return, though cave creatures begin to attack her. She fights back, driving them off. She can carry more now; she collects a few small things, but saves most of her capacity for insects when there has been a glut.

The trek and the fighting continue, alone until she encounters an odd creature—a biting chest that she can feel no hostility from at all, instead it radiates friendliness. As she passes on, the creature follows her. She tries to make it clear she must go on, must reach Cairnstone Rest and complete her quest. The chest seems unfazed, and follows her anyway.
The chest turns out useful indeed. It brings her items—some she has no use for, or has to leave behind, but it brings her some pieces of armor, and a set of climbing tools for which she is massively grateful. It is helpful in battle also, launching vigorously into the fray. Fighting beside the chest, she relies more and more on her swift claws, though she keeps a few spells to mind just in case.



An unknown length of time later, Impatiens and her chest reach the end of the endless trickling water in an underground lake. The chest has brought her a small source of light, but it is far from enough to see the other side. Long unheard-from, her Wind enemies are not forgotten, and she reaches out with magic-sense and her now much better developed sense of other minds, but finds nothing of the kind. She does sense another mind, however—some ways off, and this one does not seem hostile.
If her orientation is not lost, she will have to cross to reach Cairnstone Rest. Since there is no good pathway, she will need to go around. The someone seems closer turning left, so she allows that to make her choice, and sets out.
Every living and construct inhabitant of the lake seems to object to her presence. Fish and crustaceans, mostly, an occasional larger beast but nothing able to plot a strategy or respond when she reaches out. The mysterious someone continues ahead.


A shift in the composition of the caves tell her she’s gone deem into Dragonhome. How close she is to Cairnstone Rest is unclear, but the richer stone feels like hope, while her orientation still points in a single direction.
She comes more frequently into conflict with cave creatures now, and what she is finding seems larger and stronger. The fights are harder; while she too is stronger she worries about the reduced respite between them.
It is in one of these fights, against another giant crustacean her presence has offended, that she first sees the other. Jumping into the fray suddenly, with magic that flashes out her sense of it and paralyzes her foe, the small biped is clearly an elemental. But at their victory, the possibly-sprite vanishes as quickly as they appeared, becoming again just a presence some distance ahead.