RP:The Coldest Hour Part II
Part of the The End's Not Near Arc
Part 2 of 2. Read Part 1 here
Summary: The Second Part of Muzo, Yozenra and Pilar's journey to Frostmaw to seek out Reginae's body. Lisbeth brings the trio to the War Room, where the Queen has been frozen to await her funeral rites. Pilar uses her pyromancy to free Reginae from the ice while Muzo administers the antidote. Yozenra and Lisbeth watch on in amazement as the formerly 'dead' naga reanimates before their very eyes.
Frozen Throne
Lisbeth paces around the throne room, waiting for the guests who will come to retrieve the naga Queen’s body. Hildegarde had instructed her to show Muzo and Pilar to body’s location and thus, she waits for their arrival. Upon recognition of Pilar, Lisbeth will give the vampire and Eyrie member a smile. “My condolences,” she begins. “I understand you are here for Reginae?” Her composure remained respectful while awaiting their replies. “Sadly, other business has kept the Queen away and I’ll be assisting with the funeral services. Right this way….” The Queensguard gestures towards an obscure doorway behind the Throne and ushers them through the opening tunnel.
Pilar smiled softly to Lisbeth. “Thank you, Lisbeth.” She didn't correct the guard, nor did Yozenra. No need, she'd see the truth of their mission soon enough. She was secretly glad Hildegarde wasn't here, though. Their last meeting had been tense. They followed Lisbeth as she opened the chamber.
Muzo stammers out his thanks and follows likewise. He's only just warmed up again, and, much to his anxiety, the descent is already a chilly one. No time, though! No time for cowardice or faltering convictions. No time for frailty of limb. His tongue gives a flick of confirmation as Lisbeth leads them downward, downward into the arcane bowels of the City of War.
War Council
Lisbeth stops at the base of the steps, to linger beside the expansive ghost map of Frostmaw in it’s entirety. Beside the town, is a perfectly frozen ice sculpture of Reginae, leaned over on her side, resting atop navy down blankets. The illusion of the statue gives way to the horror of reality. Inside the ice sculpture is Reginae herself. Frozen, just as she’d been before Hildegarde had carried her out of the Coronation. Her pale skin is a sickly blue, tinted with frost and miniature lines of snow. Her eyes are closed, giving the impression of someone asleep instead of someone dead. “Hildegarde left instructions. We have men who would construct the pyre or the plot, whichever you prefer for her service-” She begins solemnly.
Pilar sucked in a breath. “Reginae...” Yozenra grimaced. “How will we get her out of there to administer the antidote?” Pilar shuffled her feet. “Um... I... I know some basic pyromancy...” Yozenra nodded. “That'll work.” She looked to Lisbeth and offered a small smile. “I'm sure you're confused, but everything will make sense in a few minutes. Muzo?” With Muzo's go-ahead, Pilar would start the process of slowly, carefully melting the ice.
Muzo holds up a finger, interrupting Lizbeth sharply. "Ah, no! No cremation! No last rights. Inappropriate as, ah, no one in this room is deceased. Or, well," he gives Pilar an exasperated glance, "we can quibble over the particulars of that last statement later. Urgent matter at hand. May need a gurney. Reginae. I poisoned her. Rather, she poisoned herself with my poison." That should clear things up perfectly, shouldn't it?
Lisbeth does not appear to be less confused by these statements. Pilar was talking about pyromancy and Muzo was saying no one would be cremated. The warrior lofts a hefty brow at them, waiting patiently for some kind of explanation before saying “Are you saying you are responsible for her death?” Their actions were stranger still as they discussed antidotes and gurneys. “I’ll go see if I can find one.” She nodded, retaining her formal demeanor and wondering what Hildegarde would make of this if she had been here in time to welcome these crazy beings instead of Lisbeth. The knight vanishes into a store room to the west, where several minutes of quiet shifting of objects yields a gurney, that’s moved back out into the room beside the ice sculpture.
Pilar evidently was not going ahead with the melting. Instead she and Yozenra facepalmed. Again. Oh Muzo. At least Lisbeth was taking it in stride. Pilar went to Reginae's side and looked to Muzo. “Now?”
Muzo blinks in utter shock at the suggestion, and he hurries to deny any role in Reginae's (hopefully not) actual death. "No! No, no, no. Mean to say that she is NOT dead." No matter how dead she looks. Muzo's heart rate doubles, and he swallows thickly. "And that we have come to revive her presently. Expect she will need some time." His eyes sweep her up and down, then snap to Pilar. "Now? Now what? Yes! Yes yes yes. Thaw her. No time. No time!" He raises his hands in a vague, frantic gesture.
Lisbeth was no clinic worker or mortician but she -thinks- she knows a dead body when she sees one, thank you very much. Instead of arguing, the woman simply steps back with the intention of keeping an eye on the scene (aka making sure this isn’t some elaborate attack on Frostmaw from outside forces.) Maybe the Naga woman was full of Red Dirt and Pilar had gone to some dark side of things and was going to destroy the fort! Lisbeth inhaled, regaining her composure, and watched in silence as the ice starts to melt away from the naga woman’s body.
Pilar began the painstaking work of thawing Reginae the moment the word 'yes' passed Muzo's lips. She didn't summon a real fire, but her hands began to heat up. She rubbed the frozen naga down, trying to melt the ice as evenly as possible. Yozenra watched, tail tip twitching.
Muzo waits with bated breath as Pilar sets to work, shooting alternating glances of urgency and apology between the vampire and the giant, respectively. Before long, he is twiddling the index fingers of his hands over one another, nodding with each passing of the vampire's heated palms until he's sure that he's fallen into another temporal anomaly (probably a loop) and eternities have already passed in the span of a few moments. To give himself something else to focus on, he pulls out the antidote and tips it to and fro, eyeing it through the vial, double and triple checking that it will be ready the moment Regi's lips are supple enough to accommodate.
Lisbeth continues to watch Pilar run her hands over Reginae, the ice making an audible dripping sound as it completes it’s shift from solid to liquid. She isn’t in the business of interrupting weird rituals, so she continues to stand by as Pilar works. Reginae’s face was starting to surface, like a diver coming up for air mouth first. The ice gave the impression of a frigid pond or lake. She moved the gurney a little closer with her foot, just in case.
Pilar finished Reginae's head and moved down her body. It was a bit awkward, how intimate she was getting with her teacher and former crush's comatose form, but she tried to keep the mindset of a healer. Soon, Reginae was freed of her frozen prison. “Muzo,” she said, letting him know she was ready.
Muzo needs no further prompt, and he practically leaps in, unstopping the vial and carefully pinching poor Regi's cheeks just enough so her mouth will open and he can tip the antidote in. Gingerly, worriedly, he rubs her throat a bit, hoping to help ease the medicine down as he throws Lisbeth looks that are MEANT to be reassuring. He looks reassuring doesn't he? And not a frantic, nervous wreck?
Lisbeth isn’t comforted by what’s happening. Muzo looks insane and she’s putting a stop to this right now. “I’m not sure what you’re doing-” She starts, looking sternly at the male then back to Pilar and Yozenra as if they were somehow responsible for the manic look in his eyes. Just as Muzo encourages the frozen naga to take the antidote, her thawing muscles respond automatically and the antidote is consumed soundlessly. Most of it, anyway. A nerve in her face twitches, her now warmed face is still clouded with blue beneath her skin. A thin line of the antidote colors her cheek and drips onto the ice Pilar is hard at work melting. She’s been frozen for quite some time. There’s not other real reaction. Reginae’s body still appears very much dead. Could the giant have imagined the twitch of her face? Blasted kids, they had her believing in their magic for a minute. “Maybe it would be best to head back upstairs and rest for the night, you’ve had a long journey…” She says, sympathetically. This is grief, straight up. There is no antidote for the dead.
Pilar saw that twitch. “Regi...?” she asked hopefully. Yozenra came closer and put a hand on the vampire's shoulder. Pilar placed her hand on Reginae's cheek and tears started to form. “She... she's getting warmer.” Yozenra touched Reginae's forehead, to confirm it for herself. Her face split into a grin. “She is.”
Muzo sees the twitch. She twitched! "Ah! Yes, hey, what, no, nooo you. Youuu." The naga turns on Lisbeth, narrowing his eyes in warning and slithering up to her, pointing at the giant with whatever authority he can muster. "Youuuuu aren't going to shoo us along, not now, not just yet!" Muzo hisses, tongue flickering dangerously as he careens in a U turn and rushes back to Reginae, checking her pulse. "Wouldn't be surprised if the antidote takes a moment to kick in." Pilar's right, though, she's already much warmer than she was…
Lisbeth narrows her gaze on Muzo, neither stepping back or taking this pointing with much concern. If push came to shove, she had no doubts about who would win that particular match up. So she watches and waits as Reginae warms to the touch, the ice on other parts of her body begin to melt away very, very slowly. Her eyes roll beneath closed lids, searching frantically for something. Brain activity. A very good sign but her skin is still so blue. Is it working the way they’d intended? A small silence passes, Lisbeth is staring at the naga woman’s face, searching hard for more obvious indications of revival. Who are these snake people? Then, Reginae’s chest heaves, drawing in a raspy and hurried amount of oxygen. Her mouth opens as she coughs out small flecks of frozen ice, her eyelids draw back to reveal underwhelming grey pupils where once lively azurite had been. This lunging forward roughly separates her still frozen hair from the thawed out portion, shortening her once waist length snowy locks to just below her chin. Her shoulders convulse violently as she continues to cough, eyes darting around the room, hazy and momentarily blind. All she can see is white. Snow, she thinks drunkenly. There’s so much snow. Lisbeth jumps back, likewise startled and weary, looking now to Muzo and Pilar as witch doctors instead of mad scientists.
Pilar jolted as Reginae took a breath. She slid her arms around Reginae, not to restrain her, but to reassure her. “Regi! Reginae, you're okay, you're okay, we're here, we're here, we love you, oh Reginae...” Tears were streaming down her face, now. “Regi...” Yozenra maintained her composure, and took Reginae's hand in hers. “My Queen, you're in Frostmaw. You're safe.”
Muzo feels relief flooding through his every vein as Reginae finally comes around. Sure, she's lost most her hair and it looks like she has some sort of freak cataracts in her eyes, but she's not actually dead. Yet. "Ah, very good." He mutters through a sigh, and slithers up, procuring another vial and shaking some sort of vital essence onto a handkercheif as he does. "Welcome back, your majesty," he speaks loudly, hoping his words might cut through the haze. Reaching up, he fans the handkercheif under her nose, hoping to reinvigorate her addled mind with a bit of stimulant.
Reginae’s first instinct is to struggle. She’s being held back while muddled voices talk to her. Who in their right mind would try to hold her back?! The naga tries to twist her tail around beneath her but it’s not responding to her call to action (it’s still mostly frozen) so she huffed with annoyance and tries to wiggle weakly away with no success. The tone of the words spoken catch her attention. These are soft words, she thinks, trying to place the last thing she remembered with the person speaking. A woman, two women…a male. Then the smell hits her and her face scrunches up with horrid displeasure. “By Aramoth….” She wheezes. Pilar’s voice catches her attention first, sparking recognition. “Student.” Her voice is harsh, little more than an icy whisper. And then Muzo. The Queen can afford no words for the scientist. She can only close her eyes and open them, hoping for them to adjust to the lighting. Hazy figures come into view but the coloring remains, small wisps of her hair falling down on the ice in rebellion to this rapid change in her physical state. “...Where?” She asked, turning her face to all present, even Lisbeth who is stunned to silence.
Pilar was unable to speak, lest she begin sobbing with joy, so Yozenra answered. “Frostmaw, Reginae, we're in Frostmaw,” she repeated. “Hildegarde brought you here from the coronation. Do you remember?”
Muzo slithers back a pace, and he cranes his neck up to explain to Lisbeth. "Part of a deliberate plan," he points, letting the emotional Pilar administer immediately to the queen, "all the queen's thinking. Will have plenty of time to explain; expect she'll need a few days to recover. Encountered a few setbacks, you see," Muzo clears his throat. If snakes could blush he'd be beet red, but luckily... "Ah, didn't expect things to go quite as the have. Hildegarde's gesture was, of course, very kind, deeply appreciated, understand she couldn't possibly have known." He coughs. "Yes, and, glad to see she's already feeling herself again. Speaking words and everything."
It makes sense Reginae wouldn’t remember all the saucy details of the coronation, considering she went under before Jaize and all hell broke loose. So when Yozenra answers her question, informing her they are in Frostmaw she nods stiffly. No wonder it’s so damn cold. The rest of the ice continues to melt away but her movements are restricted, conserving the small burst of energy Muzo’s Antidote provided. “...like a charm.” She chimed in, roughly, to Muzo’s explanation while Lisbeth moves forward to hoist Reginae onto the gurney he’d requested. “Better get her into medical care immediately.” Thinking quickly, the giantess gave brief orders, though she knew very little about what this was all about. “There’s a food storage area, just off the throne room, to the west. We’ll set up a makeshift clinic there until she’s feeling up to speed. I wager this is also a secret of grave importance?” No need for an answer, their faces said enough. And with that, Reginae was back from the dead, and looking every bit the part.
Pilar wiped her eyes. “I know some healing. I'll watch over her until things get set up.” And perhaps even after that. Yozenra, for her part, nodded to Lisbeth. “Indeed. Thank you.” Pilar stayed by Reginae's side as they brought her to the soon-to-be clinic, stayed by her side as they brought in tonics and pillows and things for her healing, stayed by her side until the naga queen fell asleep, stayed until she, too, fell asleep in her chair.
Muzo likewise falls in and joins Reginae's entourage, slithering along and administering to her needs as occasion may rise, a bit of ointment here, a splash of tonic there, a dab of tincture when the moment calls. Likewise, he isn't afraid to run errands as the medics may require, eager to offer his services in whatever capacity the situation may allow. The makeshift medical bay becomes the hub of his orbits, and he is never gone for very long.