RP:Breath of Life
Part of the Thy Kingdom Come Arc
Summary: Leone revives Hildegarde through her divine connection with Aramoth. Using her divine abilities as the high priestess, Leone resurrects Hildegarde with the knowledge that they will have to flee immediately. With Hildegarde's returning roar, the giants of the fort who have fallen to the promises of the usurper follow his command to attack the door to try and gain entry to the room to put an end to the priestess and now former Steward of Frostmaw.
War Room
Leone is nervous, her hands wringing together in cyclical fashion. Her faithful Paladin sidekick, Bertram, stands at the door to the war council room, ready to deny those who have not been invited entry - and the list is certainly short. The steward's body is still laid in state, the sarcophagus of ice that had surrounded the Silver in the weeks since her death now melted away, the soft patter of water still dripping down the sides of the table she is placed upon tapping out a rhythmless cadence upon the floor. The farrier delicately traces a finger over the sutured hole in Hildegarde's center mass, the pad of one digit following the stiches up and down as she waits, stalling for time to see if Mikael and Lisbeth will appear as requested. The missive sent to the two Queensguards in the middle of the night was cryptic, almost suspicious in its vagueness, and would require some thought and a significant amount of insight to decode.
Mikael had received the note first, given that he had been awake to receive it while Lisbeth slept on. Mikael hadn’t slept much since Hildegarde’s death. He felt the weight of responsibility upon his shoulders and the demon of guilt settle on his back to whisper in his ear that he could have done more to save his friend and leader. The giant had woken Lisbeth, urging her to don her armour, to done her proud uniform and join him in following Leone’s request. The pair of giants arrive in full armour, Lisbeth’s hair tousled from sleep and Mikael’s face grim and wary with suspicion. “Pardon, priestess,” he said quietly, “but… some giants have been watching us. Things are not right. It felt as though we had to sneak out of our own barracks.”
Leone looks up when the door opens. Bertram is on guard, and recognizes the dual Queensguard almost immediately. He stands down long enough to allow the pair entry, and then ensures that the door closes firmly and completely once again. "Yes," the priestess says in brief, a sigh following the punctuated word, "There is treachery afoot. But we will speak of that later. For now...it is time for the Stormbringer to return," the priestess states firmly, her voice cracking in the middle of the declaration. "Though we are hidden, this will most certainly cause no little disturbance. Resurrections are...eventful," the cleric admits weakly before sighing heavily, "You will need to help Bertram hold the door, Mikael. Lisbeth, I will need your assistance once Hildegarde is awake. She will be disorientated and in pain. We need to reassure her, keep her steady, and make her comfortable. Did you bring her armor? She'll want it," the plover queries. Even throughout her speech, the woman is not static. Already, the air has begun to thicken. Static crackles across the walls, causing starbursts of energy to erupt in cascades of noise and light. Flashes of spangled lightning arc across the ceiling, as if streaking across a cloudy, spring sky. Errant silver and sable hairs, those loosed by time and untamedness, begin to stand straight up from the metallurgist's crown while an aura of twined azure and white seeps out of her form, every pore oozing holy power.
Mikael drew his blade and readied his tower shield for action. He could hold the door, but he’d like to be prepared for any event of violence. “As you command, m’lady,” he assented, moving to join Bertram at the door with a little grin passed the paladin’s way. Although they were both Frost Giants and both served proudly, there were differences in their chosen paths. Lisbeth nodded to Leone, “I couldn’t get her proper kit,” she replied sadly, “the room has been barred and sealed. The men who stand guard at it… they are no friend to our cause, priestess,” she explained. “I have some old kit, though. It’ll fit her, but it’s not going to withstand any heavy blows.” Not that Lisbeth believed Hildegarde would withstand any heavy blows post resurrection.
Leone nods to Mikael first, acknowledging his pledge before the luminous, green orbs are swung toward Lisbeth. The farrier listens closely, nodding in approval of the Queensguard's actions in the stead of Hildegarde's preferred armor. The smith dares not ask about the Steward's weapon. As Lisbeth explains, a livid, black aurora collects over the farrier's head. The pillars of mysteriously obsidian light undulate, growing taller and shorter, reaching up to the ceiling or alternately alighting upon the plover's head for a fraction of an instant. The sacred blacksmith's hand curls around a knife laid alongside Hildegarde's body, and is promptly lifted to slice at the flesh along the inside of her own foream, flaying a wound from the wrist nearly to the elbow. The dagger is replaced, and the farrier begins the slow task of coating her index finger in the blood weeping from her arm. The gruesome, claret ichor is then used as an ink, the priestess drawing runes and sigils upon the edge of the table all the way around the Steward's body. Each one hisses and smokes as it is finished, darkening to a burnt hue as tendrils of intermingled cerulean and argent energies lash out over them, thereafter leaving them to smoulder, their edges glowing red like fiery embers. Only once the circuit has been closed, the circle complete, does the clergywoman approach the body proper. She reaches both arms forward, and begins to gather a wispy, pewter-colored film into her arms, pulling it directly from the Steward's from to coil and fold like so much shimmering silk into her arms. Once the last remnants of the spidery strands are in hand, the farrier's holy aura collapses inward onto it like the deluge of a flood, turning the dull grey into gleaming, pristine white. The priestess pauses, her lips moving to produce a muttered, unintelligble chant before the waspy gossamer haze is slammed back into the redhead's body. So, too, do the blacksmith's hands meet the deceased's form, causing a torrent of onyx lightning and sapphire flames to erupt in all directions. The magics are harmless to the living, (and beneficial to the object of their focus), and will pass through Lisbeth, Bertram and Mikael with little more than a creeping shiver, and a flash of heat.
Hildegarde’s state of death was being undone by the holy powers of the High Priestess. One might imagine a resurrection to be a beautiful and wondrous affair, but this was not the case. Wondrous it was, awe inspiring to be sure, but it was by no means a gentle or peaceful awakening. The knight’s body – pale and lacking in some former muscle – jerked back into life along with a shuddering, gasping breath. The Silver’s eye opened and then shut immediately, the light was too bright! The woman moaned as her arms attempted to lift up and cover her face, but they were uncoordinated and awkward at best; she slapped her own face in her feeble effort to shield it from the light. Her muscles would not abide by her will, her body burned and froze and that damnable ringing in her ears felt like being trapped in a torturous bell tower for all her days. She cried out in pain, a gasping kind of cry that would only ever come from the weak and the confused; the type of poor soul that would undoubtedly be lost in the wilds of Frostmaw and near the verge of death. The ringing in her ears feels as though it’ll never end. Her body is shaking and shivering as it feels again for the first time in a long time; every hair stands on end; every part of her is dangerously alert and overstimulated. In all that pain, all that fury and confusion, the knight unleashes a mighty – and agonised – scream that contorts into that all too familiar saurian roar; reverberating throughout the fort.
Leone keeps her hands on Hilde's torso, one gently pushing on her stomach, the other on her sternum. "Lay still," the plover soothes toward the Steward, "Things will start to come back gradually. For now, I have you." A panicked look is tossed toward the two guarding the door that toggles between Bertram, the door itself, and Mikael. "Be ready," she warns. The peridot sights are promptly thrust onto Lisbeth next, the blacksmith's jaw tightening, grinding her back teeth for a moment before she insists, "Let's get her into that armor. They'll be coming soon, I suspect."
Hildegarde groaned at the touch. It was a little too much all for someone who had been dead for a while. It was hot, cold, light and heavy all at once, it was too much on this dragon’s senses. “No,” she huffed, her throat was dry and her voice was raspy with disuse, her body wiggled; arms that were once powerful and strong feebly attempting to push Leone away from her but only managing to plant against the priestess. Lisbeth had been staring on in shock, evidently terrified at the sight of her fellow warrior and her leader in such a weakened state. “Yeah… Yeah, of course,” she said with shock, shaking her head before stepping forward to try and figure out how best to get Hildegarde – as unwilling and pained as she seemed – into her old kit of armour. “She’s not going to fit,” she reasoned quietly.
Leone nods to Hildegarde's retort, only too aware that the Steward would never see it. "Ohhhh yes," the petite priestess insists, gesturing toward Lisbeth to hand her a piece of armor so that she can begin strapping it to the Silver. A bald look perpetraited by those keen, citrus-hued sights lands squarely upon Lisbeth as the sacred shoer pronounces, "Then we get her in as much of it as we can. Even if it has to be lashed on." A pregnant pause spools out like so much thread from a loom, a quiet that is invaded by the ruckus from beyond the disguised door into the throne room. "There are Frost Giants coming: usurpers. Traitors that see both of us as outsiders, and unfit to lead Frostmaw. They have used Orikahn's betrayal to support their claim to the throne, and now that you've returned in such spectacular fashion, they'll be looking for both of our heads. So yes. Armor. And yes, you will be moving soon, so get yourself prepared." The diminutive farrier huffs a breath before her phosphorescent eyes pin Mikael with a stare. "Is there any other way out of this room?" The question is straight to the point and unabashedly blunt.
Hildegarde shook her head from side to side but it was not a sign of protest, it was a sign of discomfort if her scrunched up face was anything to go by. Like a petulant child, the knight was refusing anything and everything. As Lisbeth passes over a piece of armour, the knight groans as Leone straps it to the Silver. Lisbeth forces the knight into an upright position to strip quickly strip the remains of the now raggedy dress and force a leather tunic over her head and attach what armour she could. The chest piece was loose, the arms needed tightening. The door shakes with the tremor of impact, Bertram and Mikael pressed against it quickly to bar entrance. If they could not find the lever to access the door, they would have to take the time to batter it down. “Aye! Far corner of the room, hand to the wall, feel for the coldest spot,” a hard task in any room in Frostmaw, but for the Queen who controlled ice and snow. “Push that spot and then you’ll have to wiggle or slide.”
Leone makes a faint gesture toward Lisbeth, a flopping hand and circling of her wrist to indicate the female should continue doing precisely what she is. Leone darts to the corner of the room, and begins to run her hand along the wall. The heat-sensitive farrier's fingers glide over the stones, searching for the one that is, as Mikael instructed, colder than the others. She pushes it hard, fingers working into the mortar line to make absolutely sure that the lever is depressed, and the passageway open. Sprinting back across the floor, the petite plover hooks one of Hilde's arms with her hand, and pulls it across her shoulders in an attempt to get the redhead up and moving. "Lisbeth, we need to move now. Help me get her to the passage, then you'll go first. I'll go with her, and the gents will follow. Neither of you be heroes. Just get out," the bantam cleric orders the paladin and knight.
Hildegarde groaned as Lisbeth forced the armour onto her and bound it to her as best she could; using the now torn fabric of the dress to lash it to the knight as best as possible. With Leone successfully opening the secret passageway and returning to her side, the giant nods and departs for the tunnel; hatchet drawn and ready for combat in case there was something or someone unfriendly waiting on the other side. As Leone moves Hildegarde’s arm, the knight groans from the movement, “I can’t,” she protested meekly, but now Lisbeth has returned to Hildegarde and Leone. “I can’t hear anything down there, so it sounds clear, but I’ll go first,” she informed the pair, using her size and superior strength to force Hilde up and onto her feet. The cries of pain from the dragon are pitiful at best. Noises of both a pained human and a wounded beast reaching their ears to make them uncomfortable as they dragged-walked the dragon to the tunnel entrance. “I can’t,” she repeated wearily, “it hurts,” that was true, “don’t die for me,” she instructed before Lisbeth let her go. Lisbeth shot Leone a look at those last words before entering the tunnel and sliding down to the end. The lads will wait for Hilde and Leone to slide down first.
Leone does not respond to Hildegarde's protests. She simply keeps moving, packing the dragon off as best she can, though Lisbeth does most of the heavy lifting. The blacksmith's head droops, bending forward until her chin nearly touches her chest. The frigid air from the newly revealed tunnel buffets against the plover and dragon combination, fanning curls of smoke from the diminutive human's frame. The scent of rapidly cooling, burning flesh fills the war room, and the tunnel beyond. Leone edges forward, half pushing, half pulling Hilde until she is able to lower the dragon into a seated position on the edge of the slide. Taking a seat behind the Silver, with her legs wrapped around the redhead's waist, the bantam blacksmith propels them both forward and down the slide with one last, great shove of strength and effort.
Hildegarde will likely need the support of Leone’s arms to keep her upright and to prevent her from teetering off course and possibly hurting the both of them. Mikael and Bertram are already approaching the tunnel to join them as they descend down the ice slicked rocky tunnel. “I hurt so much,” the knight said in a whimper, her sole eye moist with tears. Death and then the sudden return to life… it is all quite a terrifying journey for the knight whose body leaned against the plover’s.
Leone comes sliding out of the escape tunnel with a thud. She lands on her rump and comes to an abrupt halt. The farrier quickly unwraps herself from around the partially conscious Hildegarde and scrambles to her feet - all while keeping a firm grasp on the Steward's leather jerkin, in order to keep her upright. "Bertram and Mikael are right behind us," the plover states to Lisbeth, a sense of urgency in her voice, "We need to get the Steward out of their path. Help me get her up." Once more, the bantam blacksmith stretches the taller redhead's arm over her shoulders and, using her inside shoulder as leverage, begins to pull the dragon off the ground.
Hildegarde groaned again at the movement. Her entire body ached, everything was painful to her. The light was too bright, the temperature, the breeze upon her skin. Lisbeth’s hatchet was bloody and the spots of blood leading away from their location implied that she had swished her blade at something to chase it off. With a curt nod, the Queensguard knight is already helping Hildegarde to her feet without a word. Bertram slides down first, followed swiftly by Mikael. Mikael wastes no time in hopping to his feet and assessing the group for wounds and damages. “We should get to Lady Josleen. She’s a good friend of Hildegarde’s and she’ll let us stay for a time. But I leave the decision to you, priestess.”
Leone is smoking, and not in the leisurely sense. Great billows of white steam and gouts of black smoke pour off of the petite plover's back. Half-lidded eyes are forced in Lisbeth's direction, and a weak nod is shaken out toward the female knight. "To Josleen's, then," the farrier assents while directing them toward the mouth of the cave, "But I do not know the way. Do you? Does Mikael?" Surely if the Queensguard had been attenting Hilde in her travels, they will know where the half-elf lives.
Hildegarde’s arm attempted to wrench away from divinely warm plover, but with her lack of coordination and total feeble state, she probably only tugs awkwardly at the plover and forces her companions to stop as they straighten her out a bit. “Aye, I know the way,” Mikael assures. “Form up! Lisbeth, take the back, Bertram get the ladies, let’s move out.”