2018-08-15: Into The Depths Of The Abyss

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<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    It's cold here, out on the wastes. Perhaps this may be what it is like in Arctica: as far as the eye can see, the glaciers stretch across the land and seem nearly as if they are yearning to consume the sea and sky. The world is locked in an expanse of blue and white.

    Somewhere, the sun must shine. But though the sky is blue and clear, even if one turns in a full arc it can't be seen.

    Wherever it is, it grants no heat.
    Wherever it is, it does nothing except make the glassy ice glitter.

    The wall of ice simply extends out into the distance, barren and empty. Walk one mile, and it is as if you have barely walked a yard: nothing changes here out on the ice, with no companion except the biting wind.

    Blue and white, glittering, cold: a person could go mad out here, alone on the plain. 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    A figure garbed in thick, heavy clothes crunches through the snow, alone. Ida was not expecting to find herself in a scene of eerie desolation, but here she is, in a world where everything is either ice or sky. She stops before the wall, and looks up at it, as if pondering what it might mean. Her face is hidden beneath scarves and a hood. Slowly, she reaches out to press a gloved hand against it.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Is this really the right dream?
    Is this anyone's dream?

    If one held their breath, it would be possible to believe this is a lifeless world. Only grains of cold dust dance in the wind. Nothing moves. Nothing changes.

    Save for that trickling of ice crystals down a section of the wall.
    A low crack, a boom, a roar rumbles out into a changeless world.

    Is the glacier moving?
    ...If it is, it's doing it only just. Only barely. This is a land where even an eventual catastrophe is slow to render.

    The wall is rippled where Ida places her hand against it. Cold, even through her glove.

    And strangely distortedly reflective.

    It's as if something moved just now, deep under the ice.

    GO beats the pulse, like an insistant heartbeat. BEGONE FROM THIS PLACE

    And with more force yet: DO NOT RETURN, DARK TRAVELLER

    It's no voice. No identity can be tagged to such a pure intent. It's akin to a guardian placed at the gate to hell: none may pass.

    Unless, that is. None may pass unless... there is a certain permission granted.

    The ice ripples again, catching all the light from that missing sun.

    More inviting, now.

    And in counterpoint, a different impulse for mind alone:

    Give me both of your hands 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida sees her own reflection in the wall of ice, twisted in ways that make no sense. She takes a breath, holds it, and lets it out--it mists in the air before her. She looks deeper into the ice, as if trying to make out the source of that movement, but anxiety starts twisting in her guts. She remembers what happened when she paid Lily and Fei visits, and if she is in Avril's mind--as she focused on her as she went to sleep--she does not want to repeat her past mistakes. She removes her hand from the wall, and shakes her head. "No," she says. She turns and starts to walk along the wall, still searching for something, anything, that might bear fruit.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    It's hard to get a good look at just what that's supposed to be under the face of the ice. Perhaps it's Ida herself. Or another person (Avril?). Or something inhuman altogether, more force of nature than anything made of flesh and bone.

    It requests, in not so many words, her hands. Again.

    Ida refuses, takes that step away. Puts a barrier between herself and that shifting presence under the frost and snow.

    Frustration coils dimly, at least at first, but even that settles. Watching. Waiting. Waiting...

    The no-sun that cannot be seen or felt, only known as the impression of the light it shines forth, cannot melt this ice. One person alone, even with a flame or ancient tool, could not hope to carve through a wall like this.

    And yet, there's another low groan; the whole edifice shudders as if it's about to move another fraction of an inch.

    In time, this wall will collapse into the sea. In time, what lies beneath...

    But it is no concern for now. Ida's trek takes her away from the wall that encircles this unknown continent, down towards where the ice meets the sea. Little pieces come off here and there, providing platforms off and away from this place.

    But there are also the depths of these frigid waters themselves; a light like a lost moon shines from the depths.

    And a crevasse, separate from the icewall that goes down into the icepack.

    The impressions -- warnings and invitation both -- are gone, muted at this place. 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida stands at the foot of the glacier, watching chunks float off into the vast beyond. If nothing else, this experience is serene in its desolation. It might not be useful in the long run, but it's so, so easy to lose oneself in a place like this. Several paths lay open to her. After a few moments of deliberation, she chooses one. A rope and piton appear in her hand with no explanation whatsoever. She approaches the edge of that glacial crevasse, pounds the piton into the ice with repeated stomps, and gives it a tug to make sure it's secure.

    Only then does she throw the rope over, and descend, hand over hand, into the abyss.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Even the sound of the wind soon dies as Ida descends into the depths. Nothing can be heard at all soon save for the low slow shifts of a land under pressure. Her own blood, rushing through her veins. Save for whatever Ida might bring with her, there is no light down here in the abyss: just an endless, suffocating darkness.

    It feels like soft ice to the touch, yet firm enough to hold against Ida's exploration downwards; her rope won't betray her. Should she have light, though, a different scenario presents itself.

    Not ice so much as a sort of gel, nearly but not entirely frozen through, and carefully layered. Metal -- tubing -- threads through the layers, up and away to the world above.
    ...Moving heat away?

    Perhaps an answer is found in bottom of the nearly silent black abyss:

    The instant Ida touches bottom, light or not, a cold frosted glow starts up from the sections of metal struts lining the bottom of the chasm.

    Here lies Avril, or perhaps some version of her, eyes closed and arms folded across her chest, entombed in a coffin-like structure of metal and glass.
    She does not seem to breathe, looking for all the world more dead than alive. 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida climbs. The light fades. A little spark of light flits out from a coat pocket, and begins orbiting above her head like a tiny, glowing planet. It's just enough to see by, and what she sees immediately gives her pause. Ida prods at the gel with gloved fingers, frowning behind her scarf. If possible, she tries to peel a little of it away, to expose more of the tubing and ductwork. She squints at it, trying to see if any of it looks familiar, and then resumes her descent.

    She touches bottom. The crampons on her boots sink into ice once again. Ida walks towards the strange, coffin-like object, the glass(?) panel on the top coated with a layer of frost. It reminds her, vaguely, of those strange pods in Ash Hare, the ones that were large enough to hold people. Lily identified them as 'cryogenics', didn't she? That was the word.

    Ida presses a hand to the glass and wipes off the accumulated ice. Inside is Avril.

    Ida looks down at the woman in the pod. Her face would be unreadable even if it weren't hidden behind cold-weather clothes.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    If there's a name or some sort of indication of who occupies this coffin-like pod, there's no sign of it; just metal, frost, glass.

    But perhaps, it was never necessary for someone waiting out the ages to leave behind something as simple as a name for whoever would find her.
    If one can be said to be waiting, locked in ice. If sleep is the twin of death, what is this?

    Behind the glass plate, Avril's eyes slowly open.

    Whether Ida wills it or not -- even if she leans on the face of the pod and attempts to force the heavy door closed, its opening is an inevitability. Amidst a fog of frost, Avril rises to a seated position in her eternal tomb and immediately curls in on herself, shaking.

    "I'm... not free, am I?"

    A ragged breath. "It's always so dark and cold. I can't stand it..."

    She swallows down what just might be a sob. "I can't stand it! Don't--"

    She lunges for Ida.

    "Don't leave me here-- alone--" 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    The dreamer feels fear. In the darkness of Ida's shadow, something draws that feer in, hungrily.

    Avril's eyes open. A moment later, so does the pod. Ida stumbles back as Avril rises, staring at the young woman intently. The only part of her body that's visible are her eyes, and then only just. As Avril lunges, she takes another step back, raises an arm, tries to deflect the young woman's hands with an open palm. The voice that issues from her lips is anonymous, muffled.

    "Why?" the anonymous woman says.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    The terror is palpable in the air. If Ida had ever had the chance to ask Dean or Rebecca of what frightened Avril, they too might have mentioned that the young woman was uneasy about dark places.

    Particularly dark, cramped places.
    Anywhere dark, isolated and cold.

    The gloved fingers of Avril's seeking hand work to curl around Ida's wrist, to entwine between the other woman's own fingers. As if seeking contact, even if the desperate embrace she seeks is curtailed. "Don't--"

    Her grip might be stronger than anticipated, for a woman of her build.

    Her gaze locks with the mysterious woman's eyes and rests there, hovering on the precipice between confusion and the fear that chases her. Her lips echo mutely the other woman's question.

    "I've... because I've been... I'm always left alone again."

    She draws back, still holding Ida's hand if she's able.

    "...Who are you? I don't... remember..." 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida's fingers tighten around Avril's. "Why are you here?" the anonymous voice asks. She makes no sudden moves, nor does she try to shove the other woman away. "I was searching, and found you." Avril asks who she is. Ida reaches up and pulls away her scarf, revealing her face, reddened slightly from the cold and exertion. There is no sign of her Hellion nature at all. "Do you remember me now?" Ida says.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "Why are you here?"

    Avril only shakes her head, long silvery hair spilling over her shoulders and pooling about where she sits amidst the cracked open pod. "I... don't remember," she says again, looking increasingly like a child lost in some dark forest than the by turns capable if quite strange young lady Ida might remember. "I don't... remember anything."

    Her hands hitch tighter on Ida's arm.

    "...You were searching for me?" She draws in a breath; here in the depths of the abyss, such a sound carries, echoes wide.

    Realization scratches across her expression in the next moment, as Ida tugs her scarf free.
    Ida, as herself.
    Just herself.

    "Ida...? Ida, it's really you..." The syllables sound out slowly, as if she's trying them on for size.
    Her hands shake.

    And she moves to push Ida away, tear her hand free from the other woman.

    "No! Stay away! I don't--"

    Her right hand trembles as the magic surges and swells, answering a deeper will than this Avril's own.

    And shaking, she lifts a blade wrought of ice to point at Ida.

    Her voice when she speaks again is layered in triplicate:

    "...I don't want to kill you!"
    "I won't permit you to hurt him again!"
    "This... is simply what is necessary."

    For a moment even her face can't seem to decide which expression it should bear: distress? Anger? Or simply an all-consuming calm?
    She hangs like that, as if caught on the strings of something else.
    Before falling in and lunging for the other woman, with all the precision she has ever shown in her swordplay. 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    "You don't remember."

    And then Avril realizes who she's dealing with, and reacts like she'd just been burned. Ida allows Avril to shove her away, taking a step backwards, then another. Somehow, the air grows even colder in response to Avril's will--if it truly is Avril's will alone. The Hellion looks down at the blade, her eyes tracing their way down the gleaming ice, then Avril's arm, before locking on her face.

    "You're more conflicted than you look," Ida observes. She holds still.

    Avril's blade slams home. It tears through Ida's flesh, the point emerging from her back and burying itself in the cavern wall. She looks down at it, at her blood slicking the ice. She looks back up at Avril. "...Is it necessary?"

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    The blade sinks through, drinking deep of Ida's blood. There's only enough time, barely, to brace her arm and shoulder for the shock that follows, that of the tip of her glacial sword pinning the other woman to the wall.

    Avril breathes out, her gaze unfixed as if at some point beyond/between where the altercation between the two of them now plays out.

    Her gaze focuses.

    "I..."

    Her grip shakes but does not relinquish her hold.

    "I did not... want to..." she whispers. Her face is a mask, pinned on the edge of regret.

    "I had to. You would have hurt Dean again. I cannot... I cannot permit it," she says, her voice hoarse, as wounded from a scream. Her gaze shifts, glittering, cold.

    "It was necessary. It is the simplest way," she simply states. Now her expression bears no trace of emotion at all.

    "You cannot return to who you were. You are suffering, and causing others to suffer. Is this not what you wished for?"

    Tears trace Avril's cheeks.

    "No," she whispers, now again on the edge of grief.

    "Must this be?" 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    "You care for him," Ida whispers. She's pinned to the wall, blood pouring out from around the blade of Avril's sword--she should be dying, but she is not. This is a dream, and as much as she might wish, Avril is not the one in control here. "So do I." She closes her eyes. The blood begins to drain from her face, but she keeps breathing, keeps talking. She feels the heat drain from her body until she's almost as cold as the ice around them.

    "This is what ensnared me. I killed. I killed again. Each time, I felt there must have been another way--there had to have been another way. And I hated myself for it, because fighting was all I could do." Her eyes open again. They're still a pale blue-grey, but they look even more ice-like in this frozen hell. "That's a question you must ask yourself."

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "I do," Avril says, without hesitation, without denial. "He is important to me."

    Her hand remains on the hilt of the ice-hewn sword; the sword itself remains impaling Ida to the wall here in the depths of the abyss-turned-crypt.

    More than that, she does not elaborate. It would be an easy thing, indeed, to mistake such a blunt statement for a certain sort of confession...
    Even if at the heart it's merely a confession of a feeling of connection to the young man that stands separate to such tender emotions. He's important. Rebecca is important. That's all.

    "This is not the first time," she replies. "I know what these hands have done," and here her voice trembles, "if not why." Her hold on her sword eases. "I know that I regret it even so."

    Against the wall, Ida should be a corpse. But when has logic ever held sway in dreams?

    "...But if it is to protect him -- her, the both of them, then... If there is no other way, I will..."

    But she looks Ida in her eyes, in those eyes nearly a match for these frozen halls.

    "...But it will hurt him. Even if it becomes necessary. Even if... I cannot forgive you for putting him in danger. He wants to save you. And thus, I..."

    She at last releases the blade, allowing it to return to nothing if that is what the heart of ice desires.

    She stands there as still as a statue, her gaze tilted up towards the black abyss above them. Only her lips move.

    "I want him to succeed. He... must succeed."

    It must (not) be. 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ida reaches up, and runs fingers across the blood-slick blade. "And how would he feel," she says, "knowing that you killed one of his dear friends to protect him? How do you justify murder to a boy who would risk his life to save even those that see themselves as worthless?"

    "Why is it so vital he succeed?"

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Avril's expression contorts in mix of grief and premature regret.

    "I know," she says quietly, gazing Ida in the eyes, "how he would feel. It would be as if I had betrayed him. And indeed, I... would have."

    Have, pulses the thought, in this moment.

    "Perhaps he would hate me. Perhaps not. That far, I cannot speak for his feelings."

    (No: she knows the real answer. He would still be her friend.)
    (How does she know that? She cannot say.)
    (But the loss of faith, the hero toppled from the pedestal -- she's seen that... before?)
    (Strange...)

    As if awaiting judgement herself, she stands before the impaled Ida.

    "I will leave that for him to decide."

    "But I wish for another future. Only if you harm him, Ida. ...Only if there is no other way."

    And then Ida asks perhaps the most important question of all:

    Avril shakes her head, her resignation shattering to give way to the utter loss that she so often finds herself mired in. "I do not know. But he must. It is... important."

    And she draws in a quiet breath, the thought cracking across her brain like a lightning strike. "Ah..."

    Why did it take her so long to realize it?

    "It is so vital because you are important."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Blood pools on the floor around Avril's feet. There is barely any left in Ida's body, but that does not seem to stop her. "...I see," she says. "...Important?" When she looks up, there's a sadness in her eyes, as though she'd failed Avril without even realizing. Like she'd fallen before she'd even known she could fly.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Avril makes not a move to step away from the spreading tide. Perhaps, let her be so stained if she must be stained -- maybe that is how the thought runs.

    But when Ida looks up at her with such eyes...

    "Important," she states again. "Important in a means yet to come."

    How does she know that?

    "I had a premonition of darkness for you. Perhaps, this is another premonition now. Ida--"

    She takes a step forward, reaching out towards the impaled woman.

    "It is not over." 

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    She can't do it. She could make Avril watch her die in front of her eyes, but she can't--and not because it would be difficult to do. The more Avril speaks, the more Ida sees in her. A woman struggling to maintain a sense of identity when she has so very little to work with, and almost all of it is tied to the two people who helped her get back on her feet. A woman trying desperately to strike a balance between compassion and necessity.

    A tear trickles down Ida's face, and freezes on her cheek. She grasps the ice blade and starts to pull it free, inch by inch. It doesn't hurt. Once it's freed, she drops it; it hits the bloody ice underfoot, and shatters like glass. Avril blinks, and the wound is gone, and Ida's face has its normal color again. "I cannot promise I will not fail," Ida whispers. "All I can promise is that I will..." She swallows. Promise what? She can't finish the sentence. She turns, and starts to walk off. "Be well," Ida says.

    Another setback. She stayed her hand, again. How much longer can she afford to do so?

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    And what is Ida?

    She was first introduced to Avril through Dean, as someone he had immediately taken a shine to. Perhaps in the end there is not as much at stake for her as there is for Dean, but--

    Maybe she knows little of how people interact with one another and struggle and try and often times, fail, but--

    It was a lesson from Rebecca, in the end. People have things they want to say, things they can't say. Roles and journeys they feel compelled to undertake.

    Avril -- yes, dreaming Avril, too -- remembers a dream with many disjointed facets, but among them there was a young woman struggling to be heard.

    In the end, the only thing other people can do, perhaps, is listen to each other and hear what they're trying to say.

    (and keep trying. that's the lesson of a certain young man)

    "To promise is enough," she says, reaching out--

    Before Ida -- unhurt, whole Ida -- pulls away from the wall and turns to walk away.

    Avril does not start after her, merely remains standing in the bloodied ice in the heart of what may be for her a sort of tomb.

    "I will remember that you promised."

    As long as possible.

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