RP:A Ghost Amongst Star-Crossed Lovers
Heavy Snow Fall
The soft snowfall that once was is no more, and heavier snow begins to drift down from above. High within the sky a large swirling cloud sits, unnatural and clearly of magical means. The center of the cloud seems to radiate over a particular area further north. You may leave this place and travel south, where the snow lightens or continue north where its gets worse.
Ranok || Sylvia, a youngish human girl, was lost. She had taken a wrong turn somewhere, coming out of the town. She had left it to have an elicit meeting with her love affair, who had promised sweet nothings in her ear. She was at that age where the heady mixture of 'love', teenage hormones, and a healthy mix of parental defiance over rode her good sense and sent her out into the outskirts of town, 'looking for snow mushrooms'. In other words, she was about sixteen. Bundled up in the cold, she wasn't really prepared for the sudden snow storm that had enveloped the girl as she left the town. As the snow thickens, so does she slow as she became more and more concerned that this wasn't the place to be. She was fairish and small, in the homely way. Most of her was covered by the cloak and mittens, though her face peered out into the drifts. All too soon, she lost all sense of direction. Trying not to panic, she halts.
Satoshi is most assuredly not lost. She's tread these snowy paths countless times, every frozen tree a familiar face, every hillock of snow an ever-growing companion. Upon one of these hills the fox pads now, delicate footsteps leaving hardly a dent upon the frail ice to mark her weaving course. Aimless wandering the faint map reads at first until, quite suddenly, it takes on a more purposeful movement pattern, marks of frequent stops and crouches reminiscent of an animal stalking prey. And that's exactly what Satoshi is doing after happening upon the lost girl. It's an unfortunate thing the young woman has picked today of all days to cross Satoshi's path, for rather than a magus attempting to guide her back to Frostmaw, she'll soon be met with a hungry kit-vampire that's waited far too long since murderous killings. Today is not the day for gentle feedings, and the promise of fresh blood has Satoshi licking icy lips while the amber flecks of her eyes glimmer in malicious delight. 'Just a little closer, pigeon. Come now, stopping will be your death~,' the words are hardly whispered, drifting into the air in a barely audible melody, a soothing lullaby to a lost mind, a vampire's coaxing call to a child's blood.
Ranok || Sylvia snaps her head around. The whisperings in the air might have soothed her were she not so panicked as she was then. She was unnerved. But, the whisperings meant that someone was there. And, in her terrified state, that didn't mean death. It meant help. The fool girl does stop, for a time. "He...hello? Is someone there...?" Hands huddle to her chest, and her eyes peer into the wandering flakes. Eventually, good sense kicks in. As a citizen of Frostmaw, she did know a little something about snow. Standing still would have seen her frozen faster then wandering. Lacking a shelter, gambling to move was a better option to survive then sitting tight as you're taught to do. The girl takes halting steps into the drifts. By chance, she was heading in exactly the right direction to town. Though, in her flustered state, it would be relatively easy to lure her elsewhere with vague promises of help. Her breath comes out in puffs, hot, and alive. And very tasty looking.
Satoshi, from her vantage point, observes the girl beginning to move once more and smiles to herself. Like herding tundra ducks, minus the tusks and deafening quacks. Toward the town is exactly where she wants the girl to go, for the kit lurks directly between the two, and so each time Sylvia's footsteps stray too far left or right, she'll find a heavy fall of snow dropping from tree branches, or the icicle-laden branches of a bush shivering ominously under the dulcet workings of the hunting cryomancer. As Sylvia progresses, she'll hear that earlier gentle melody grow marginally louder, whispered promises of safety and warmth that seem to emanate from a solitary Winter Willow that stands sentinel in a small clearing. The pull upon her blood increases with each step as well, muscles subtly urging the girl toward the waiting tree that seems to be promising to help her home--while the foxkin plays puppeteer, drawing in the strings she's wound around the child's watery essence.
Ranok || The girl is duped, as easily as she was duped by her sweetheart's promises that they would be 'together forever' and all the things a young male would say to a woman to get her to sleep with him. A shriek or two emanates from the girl as a heavier then average snowfall plops onto the ground. Avoid them she does, out of a partial mixture of fear, aversion to getting wet, and a dollop of good sense. And Sato's subtle callings, of course. To the Winter Tree she heads, though she didn't know why. Sylvia was shivering, and not just from the cold. The animistic part of her mind was screeching in terror, as it knew that something was amiss. Like a rabbit can sense when the fox is about to spring, as it were. But her higher mind processes attribute it to being scared of being lost, not a risk of death and a predator. She again tries to eek out some words, "Is...someone there? I can hear you...please, help me! Someone?" She tries to put her resolve into her words, but mostly fails. Her shout ends in more whimper then a thrust of words.
Satoshi's melody never falters despite the calls for help, the ethereal tune of lullaby and nocturne woven into her Phantom Song, used so often to coax skittish prey into range. Fear befouls the blood, no matter how delicious the expression might be, but the terror of being chased down before death is a flavor Satoshi has no liking for. Let the brutes race after their prey for hours, she'll savour the rich taste of a meal that's walked into her claws. And so the song continues, weaving through the frigid air to caress the girl's cheeks almost tangibly, shushing away fears and tears brought on by her foolish trek into the forest, the singular Willow playing the role of a mother waiting with open arms to receive the wayward child.
Ranok || The girl calms, but slowly. The fears of someone lost are hard to over come. She wanders underneath the willow tree, looking up into it. As if someone may be perched there, the source of the song. She ventures more words, another plea. It was even weaker then the first, barely venturing out of the clearing. And a plea it was, "I'm lost...is...someone there? Can you help me...?" Her hands huddle close to her mouth, breathing on them. She was shivering worse, but now it was cold more then fear. She hadn't expected to be out in the cold as long as this. She was supposed to be shacked up with her sweetheart by some warm cabin out in the cold somewhere, not standing in the open as the snow falls down. Her eyes dart around the clearing, trying to see where that song was coming from.
Satoshi steps around the bole of the tree, her left hand pressed softly to the delicate bark while her boots coax a short tune of crunching ice from padding pace. "Lost, pigeon~?" the magus croons, as always her words a song's lyrics. But these lyrics aren't merely simple chatter or just a means to calm the frightened girl. These lyrics are woven with arcana, a subtle spell that constructs a ring around the base of the little snow hill they stand on. While Satoshi is relying on her deceptively disarming appearance to put her prey at ease, she also doesn't take needless chances in wasting a perfect meal, and thus should Sylvia choose to flee she'll be met with the spell lurking at the bottom of the hill. For woven into the snows there is a trap waiting for the weight of a fleeing form to release into a thick explosion of icy spikes jutting up violently from the ground, eager to impale prey before it's had the chance to run too far. But Satoshi keeps such knowledge to herself, instead giving Sylvia a ghost of a befuddled smile, azure eyes wide and searching.
Ranok || Sylvia was utterly relieved to see someone. She didn't even question Sato's motives. She didn't even need the calming influence of the song. Sato was another (mostly) friendly face, and that was all it took. The girl rushes to Sato, hands outreached to grasp, but then she halts and gives a small gasp recognition. "Who...my queen! What are you doing out here? Where is your guard?" Belatedly, she remembers to curtsy to her queen, though it was clumsy in the clothes and the cold limbs she had. Her eyes are imploring to Sato, and completely open. She trusted Sato about as much as you could have a teenager trust someone.
Satoshi laughs in a lilting fashion and takes a step closer to the girl, hand outstretched to offer her an affectionate pat through the furs of her hood. "Silly youngling, this is the safest place in the world for moi~. I don't need a guard out here." The kit's hand drifts down from Sylvia's hood, tracing the fur and her cheek in a gentle path as it falls before, in a quicksilver movement, her claws lunge forward in a move to grab the girl by the throat. "Especially when I'm hunting."
Ranok || The girl gets out a screech cut short that warbles through the snow. She was helpless against the Kit's claws and strength. Hands claw at the ones around her neck, in a vain effort to get them off.
Satoshi hisses sharply, the sound made not from pain but to command the blood and tissue within her grasping hand to freeze. Sylvia might as well be clawing at ice by this point. Grip unrelenting, Satoshi lifts the struggling girl, whirling around to slam her head against the trunk of the willow. The tree shudders from the impact but remains as stoic as ever, its half-frozen tendrils serving as the perfect blanket to mask the sights and sounds of the scene.
Ranok || The girl goes mostly limp now, barely even the token effort of struggle fleeting. She was just a young girl, not built to take such abuses. Her world had already been going dark at the edges from the lack of air. The thunk of bone against wood and the dribble of blood that came out of her skull were both finality. However, the girl wasn't alone. Not technically. Her sweetheart had been looking for her through the cold and the snow. He was, at once, both much more intelligent about things and at once much more stupid in his approach. Rather then going back to town to get help in looking for Sylvia when she didn't show up in the love nest, he struck out on his own, filled to the brim with male bravado. He had been following Sylvia's tracks where he could, and her shouts that declined into the whimpers when the falling snow began to eat them. That final shriek led him to the place and the clearing. He was armed with nothing but a stick he had found on the ground, his hunting knife, and an over inflated sense of immortality and ego. When Todd, as his name was, strikes upon the scene, most of that bravado goes right out the window. He had been indulging in fantasies of being the hero, rescuing Sylvia and maybe getting a little more 'something' out of the deal then he might have had their illicit meeting had entailed. But at the sight of the Snow Wraith, that being who he thought he saw before him, the thing that stalked the forests and killed people who were alone in the forest and the frozen waste. He wasn't close enough to get a really good look at Sato and identify her as Sylvia had. He would freeze, for a long space of a few seconds, the scene before him working through his brain and words dying on his lips, "Sylvia I'm...here..." His arrival had been heralded by the crunching of snow and the whisper of furs rubbing on themselves, and of course, his words as he arrives. Perhaps Sato might have heard him in time to react before he ran, perhaps not. But run he would, all thoughts of playing hero gone out of his head. He was going to try to head to town to get help, warn them, or just hide under his bed. A task he would almost certainly fail in.
Satoshi's meal is rudely interrupted by another, one unbeknownst to her that had been intending to make a different meal of poor Sylvia. All she knows for certain is that she's been spotted, and that simply cannot do. Kasyr would have her head if he knew she had killed and been caught in the act. With a frustrated snarl, Satoshi's semi-frozen hand clenches shut, crushing Sylvia's throat in a sickly burst of muscle, blood, and bone, before the girl's limp body is dropped in the snow. A whispered lyric draws a blanket of frost over the corpse to hide it until she can return, and with that Satoshi stalks off toward the woods and the fleeing stranger, each step a little quicker until she's dashing with vampiric agility through the familiar forest. As she moves, the cryomancer calls the mists and snows about her into a cloak of ragged tendrils and sparkling frost, masking the most telling of her features as she gives chase through the woods. She's already been spotted once, best to avoid a second or third by keeping her features hidden away in the almost ethereal appearance of the Ghost of the Northern Winds Vailkrin had once called her. 'The things I do for fresh food,' is the irritated thought running through her mind as she seeks out Todd and the reek of fear he's left in his wake.
Ranok || Tood never really stood a chance, truly. He was just a human, and a young one at that. Nor did he even have years of experience. And he was scared, to boot. He was stumbling through the snow drifts as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast at all, all things considered. His limbs were uncoordinated, and his panic was making it hard for him to think straight. The stick was lost in his haphazard stumble through the forest, and his breath was short and ragged. A stream of cursing, pleas to a merciful god who would not save him this day, and more cursing.
Satoshi is all grace where Todd is a blundering mess, but such is to be expected of a vulpine vampire that makes such a cruel, frozen world her home. Calculated strides eventually bring Satoshi in a wide berth around Todd so that she can all but materialize out of the snow mere steps in front of him. A looming ghost of ice and snow with a frozen claw outstretched to point at the man's chest as an unnatural, sibilant voice commands the snow at his feet to rear up and grab hold of his ankles. This one will not be food, that much she has decided upon first scenting the foul stench of fear wafting off him--and judging by that scent, his fear has led him to soil himself in the process. Hardly appetizing. No, instead, Satoshi intends to put her malicious imagination to use, along with her love of theatrics.
Ranok || Todd is subjected to the unpleasant feeling of having a part of your body refuse to move with the rest of it. Luckily, if you could call it that, for him, he didn't break anything in his halt. He just sprained both ankles something fierce, both of his legs twisting him to a halt. He seems to be deciding on which to do: cry or yell in anger at whatever it was that was chasing him. Or rather, was chasing him. Frostmaw wasn't for the faint of heart, and not everyone in the land was as soft as Sylvia was. Todd just was completely outclassed here, that was all. He tries to free himself, hacking at his ankles with his knife, in a desperate all out attempt to free himself. His legs were being cut up in the process, from mistimed knife strokes, and he wasn't even looking at Sato, such was his desperation to free himself.
Satoshi pads forward on silent feet, allowing the man to hack at the ice trapping his legs. It'd do him little good, as the enchanted frost rebuilds between each stroke, but let him try as it grants her a chance to close the gap between them. Lashing out then is the same hand that had crushed the life from Sylvia, but Todd's throat is not her target this time. Instead, the kit seeks to take hold of the human's face in a glacial hold, pointed nails sinking into the soft flesh of temples and cheeks as a jerk of her hand forces his gaze upward to meet her own. Glowing azure and smouldering amber glower down at the male in an almost hypnotizing stare as Satoshi whispers in sibilant tones the words needed to harden the ice within her hand, fingers slowly pressing deeper in their hold to ensure a firm grasp. It's then that her right boot is lifted and planted against Todd's chest, where it lingers a heartbeat before pressure is applied in a powerful downward shove, even while her hand gives a violent twist. With the unrelenting grip she has upon his skull, it's obvious her intentions are to part the man from his head in an unorthodox execution.
Ranok || Todd has only but enough time to give one good hack at Sato's arm before it was too late. He'd gone down swinging, at least, even if it was a little more literal then most. Combined with his legs being stuck fast and Sato's vampiric strength, his head would rip off in a grisly spray of blood and muscle fibers as the corpse twitches in its final stages of life. It would slump backwards, bending at the knee, as that was the only way for it to go. And there it would lie, a pool of blood already gathering underneath it.
Satoshi regards the head in her hand with a look of disgust--namely for the deep, parting score he'd managed to inflict where her bracer doesn't protect. "You had to run. The runners taste wretched," she chides of the dead man, giving his head a little wiggle to send his jaws flapping as she mimes, "I'm sorry. I won't next time." Private amusements aside, the kit sees to the art of murder clean-up swiftly, before her waiting meal grows too cold. When you want to frame another creature, the best method is to apply your magic into conjuring an icy version of the beast, and set it to the task of mauling, rending, and gnawing upon the corpse, and Satoshi does just that with the aid of a glacial wolf. She even allows the magical creation to gulp down a few strips of flesh before dispelling it, and leaving the rest to the real animals. Todd will forever be marked as another victim of Frostmaw's ravenous wolves after this, because as much as Satoshi would love to start a rumor about a deadly snow-cloaked ghost stalking the woods, it'd put potential prey on edge and make her occasional hunts all the more difficult.