"Your Father did say you would be obstinate and disobedient. I had hoped he was wrong, but so be it. One way or another you will be returning with me, milady," the supposed Tristan states gently as he takes a few more steps towards the fey girl and her ... puppy. The closer he gets, the taller he seems too. Even his delicate hand that he extends towards Hannah seems abnormally large.
Hannah folds her arms around Rosy and looks up at the man hovering above her. "Then I guess you'll just have to carry me," she says, shrugging. "I'll not play your little game willingly."
The terrier yaps at the knight from Hannah's arms.
"As you like, milady," the knight says cordially. And so, he reaches own, hefts the girl up, and throws her over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables. "Please do not squirm, it will only make the trip home longer and I fear the night will only get colder from here. An ill wind blows this winter; one I fear that will last for a long time."
Actually, Hannah does squirm a little bit - but this is to wiggle around so she can sit on the knight's strangely large shoulder, and so she doesn't drop Rosy. Still odd, but better than wandering around in endless circles, I suppose, she thinks.
From this new high vantage, Rosy seems more excited than usual. She lols her tongue and wags her tail and sniffs the air in great sucking snorts.
"A lady should wear a proper bustle," Tristan comments as he turns and resumes walking, "Even a young one. It is unbecoming that you do not." Ever have a trip where the amount of time and the things you pass by seems to blur? Well, this is one of those times as everything seems to pass by far faster than it should.
Hannah scratches the terrier behind the ears and murmurs, "At least you're happy again, so that's something." To the knight, she says simply, "The last bustle I was forced to wear I used as an archery target. Father never asked me to wear one again." This memory actually makes her smile, just a little.
Rosy sneezes.
"Scandalous. I am certain, then, he does not permit you at court. You would be considered no more than an uncouth wolf. Well, hawk I suppose in your House," the knight notes. Things seem even less right ... because the woods seem to part before them and Hannah can see the treelike spires of House November just over the next hill. It should have taken longer.
Hannah looks at House November in the distance and comments idly, "You know, for someone who loves me so much, you seem to insult me an awful lot. Why is that, I wonder?"
"Love? You are far too young to be courted by anyone. Perhaps in a few more seasons, but certainly not now," Tristan comments. Wait, how did they already reach the top of the hill? "Your father was called away House matters, but his instructions are clear. You are to be returned to your room and kept under guard."
Hannah laughs. "Let's just say I'm older than I look. And Rosy here is larger than she looks, isn't that right?" She glances at the dog fondly as she says this and doesn't seem to pay attention to the 'under guard' part.
The terrier growls like a wolf. Or at least like a terrier-sized wolf might sound. It'd certainly be frightening to a rat.
The next thing Hannah notices when she looks up is the wind has stopped blowing and she's going through familiar halls decorated with the vibrancy of Fall's color. The air is cool, crisp, and calm, a calm like which follows an Autumn rain.
"Well, at least if I'm going back to my room, I've got lots of books to entertain myself with," the girl says conversationally. "Quite a few on the Lord Explorer, if I remember right..." She glances towards the knight, to see how this comment will go over.
"You could spend your time better by learning things of value, not flights of fantasy, milady," the knight offers, expression calm and unconcerned. "But I suppose this too will pass. When you are older, you will learn to appreciate all the things that the legend supposedly held such disdain for." The knight then stops, and Hannah can immediately tell why. They're just outside the door to her bedroom. The ornate carving of its wood, topped by the spread wings of a hawk in flight are quite familiar to her. He lifts the girl and her dog off his shoulder and lightly sets them on their feet.
Rosy wags her tail excitedly. She's probably planning to jump on the furniture.
So, let's see how good these illusions really are; they've not been bad so far, Hannah thinks as she opens the door to her old room. Except for the rippling effects and size and distance issues, of course...
The door swings open quietly thanks to her father insisting that hinges are oiled regularly. The room beyond is disturbingly similar to how Hannah remembers. It looks more like a hidden place within a grove of trees than a room, but that's the way Hannah had wanted it when she was young. Trees had been specially grown by the house magicians to take on the shape of bookshelves, and accurate to her memory, they're lined with books depicting the numerous (and sometimes questionable), exploits of a famous explorer from the past. Her bed ... well, it still looks more like the nest for a large bird than it does a traditional bed. Round and slightly bowled, but thankfully padded with the best down and silks instead of twigs. Perfect to curl up in and snooze on a cold night. The far wall, though, has one detail she doesn't remember, a full-length mirror.
Hannah hmms and walks towards the mirror. "Now how did this get in here?" she wonders aloud.
The knight behind her shuts the door. It closes with a bang far louder than it should. The sound of the tumblers in the lock falling in place are also far louder than they should be. And for the time being ... Hannah finds herself a prisoner in her own room; her only companion ... a dog that could easily be mistaken for a stuffed animal.
Hannah ignores all that and examines the one thing in her room that she never remembers having - the mirror. She never cared how boyish and windswept she looked, so she never had use for one.
The mirror radiates cold. In fact, up close she can see a layer of frost and mist covering its surface.
Not knowing that the mirror is out of place, Rosy goes about sniffing all the corners of the room.
Hannah pulls her sleeve over her hand and wipes the surface of the mirror with it, hoping to clear it somewhat.
It takes some effort, but Hannah is able to brush away some of the frost and mist. What she sees beyond isn't her own reflection ... but a scene of winter. Not only that, but she sees Minstrel Sam working on a feeble fire ... and Agatha? No, whomever that is ... is transparent. But the real horror stands just beyond them; Tristan. He sits motionless atop Souhait, a thin layer of ice and snow covering him. There's no movement, not even signs of drawing a breath.
"Oh no!" Hannah gasps, peering more closely at the motionless figure of Tristan. "What's happened to him? More to the point, how do I get to them?" She bangs on the surface of the glass, feeling helpless and lost.
Hannah might as well be hitting stone for all the good it does. All she gets is a dull thump in reply to her hands hitting it. It doesn't even move.
There's a whine as Rosy puts a paw up against Hannah's leg, unsure of how to help.
Hannah takes a step back, surprised. "Um, I don't think glass is supposed to act and sound like...wood. Then again, it's not supposed to frost over in a warm room, either." She examines it more closely, looking for anything else out of place on or near it.
While Hannah doesn't notice anything more about the mirror, she does notice that Agatha is about to cleave Sam in two, Peaches has exploded out of the forest and yanked Sam off his feet by his collar. She's running at full speed and her Knightsteed heritage, for once, can't be questioned. There's one minor worrying moment, though ... the knightsteed is heading right towards Hannah!
Without taking time to blink, Hannah scoops Rosy into her arms and dashes to get out of the way!
The mirror explodes outward as Sam and Peaches surge through it. The shards fly everywhere ... but unlike glass, they seem to dissolve into mist on impact. Behind the mirror, well, is nothing more than a stone wall. Peaches' hooves crash hard onto the floor, digging long gouges into it as she skids to a halt. Poor Sam finds himself still soaring through air, where he lands right in the middle of Hannah's nest-like bowl-bed. And if things weren't odd enough yet ... Hannah suddenly finds herself back to normal ... and Rosy finds herself full grown again and shuffling around on the floor on her hands and knees. Hard to say if that's normal for Rosy, though. How does one define normal for a doglin, anyway?
BWANG! Sam's face bounces off the strings of his lute as he rolls across the bed. "Ow!"
"Hey! Hey!" Rosy barks, before getting back up on her feet.
Princess Peach-Blossom Marigold Honeydew of February shakes the snow out of her mane and immediately noses Hannah's cheek.
Hannah looks herself over quickly and thinks, Oh thank God, no more damnable, courtly dress! Then she flings her arms around Peaches' neck and says, "I'm glad you're all right! I'm glad- oh, Sam! You didn't get hurt, did you?" She immediately changes direction and rushes over to the minstrel and looks at him, worried.
"Did you see the poetic license of the giant that threw me?" wonders the old fae as he sits up, then falls over again dizzily.
Hannah releases the breath she didn't know she was holding. "Oh, that was just the Princess, saving you from getting cut in half! Didn't you see that ghostly figure behind you?"
"That was a neat entrance," Rosy tells Sam. "Hey, you'll never guess what happened to us! Go on, try!"
"Is that what it was? Much obliged, Princess," Sam says upside-downly to Peaches. "She claimed to be an 'Agatha Cunningham of Ainigton'. I don't know how well ye know Lady Redmane, but that rang a bell right off with me. 'Cept she claimed it was right when Tristan'd brought her over that monsters'd killed her, which didn't happen to any Redmane I know. Oh, an' speaking of, where's Tristan?"
Hannah does a double-take at this. "What, you don't know?" she asks in surprise. "But I saw him with you...sitting astride Souhait...it was as if he and his Knightsteed were frozen over. He didn't even look like he was breathing."
The answer to 'Where's Tristan' gets answered by the door to the bedroom being thrown open and a very solid-looking fey knight steps through, sword drawn. His winter jacket has been stripped off, but not his gleaming mail shirt. Around his neck, well, rests a softly glowing chain and pendant. "Will you never tire of fighting?" the man says in Tristan's soft and recognizable voice, though he sounds very tired. "Fear does not turn you, uncertainty does not turn you. Comforts do not turn you. This has become quite trying."
Sam peers over at the doglin wobbily. "Um... I'm gonna guess that it involved large monsters an' a lot of runnin' around?" He shakes his head to Hannah, "As many illusions as we're runnin' into, I figured it could have been--"
"Bark!" Rosy yells at the knight, forgetting that she's not exactly a dog at the moment. "I mean.. uh.. HEY!"
"Well, see, like is this Tristan, or is the poor chap stuck in a mirror frozen solid Tristan, or is he off in yet another illusion all his own? And if it's not Tristan, is this the director of our misfortunes, come to tell us we're doin' it all wrong?" The old fae shakes his head as he right-side-ups himself and swings his lute back over his shoulder.
Peaches just looks at Sam and splays her ears trying to figure out what he said.
Hannah turns around to face the knight, placing a hand on the hilt of her own rapier (which she is relieved to find at her side again). However, she doesn't draw it just yet. "I cannot stop going forward," she says, firmly but softly. "I have a task to complete and so I shall. Are you the one who brought us into these illiusions?"
As an aside to the minstrel, she whispers, "I don't think this is the Tristan we know, Sam."
Sam grins at Hannah, "It didn't sound much like him, no."
"Brought you? You brought yourself in, I am merely doing my duty," the knight answers simply. "You trespass, the home reacts in kind. Admittedly it was designed for another, but that is of little matter. Will you surrender and live out the remainder of your days quietly as prisoners of the Mistress, or will you insist on pushing this to an unhappy end?" The air around the figure beings picking up strength, sending his blonde hair into whirling chaos.
"Aaaaagh, he's messing with the hair!" Rosy whines.
"Does this 'prisoners of the Mistress' business include a salary an' days outside if we're good? An' free food and lodging?" asks Minstrel Sam.
"Food and shelter, nothing more. I am sorry," the strange man says as he approaches Hannah. Oddly, the apology does sound sincere. His hand visibly tightens around the sword he carries and the pendant he wears flares even brighter. "Please drop your weapons."
"I dunno about you but I think we can get a better deal than that elsewhere," Sam says nonchalantly to Hannah.
Hannah gives the minstrel a faint grin. "That sounds nice, Sam, but we still have a Prince to find." Then she does draw her rapier and says to the knight. "I would not be a prisoner to my father or my House, and nor will I be a prisoner to your Mistress. Do as you must. Be assured that I will!"
Peaches whickers warningly, but doesn't exactly have room to maneuver around to pose a threat to the armed knight. Rosy, however, just runs between his legs.
The figure sighs softly. "So be it," he says as his expression falls. The wind around him explodes outward, slamming in to all present; it feels like trying to walk through a terrible thunderstorm. His arm visibly shakes as he raises his sword; almost as if he's righting doing it. When it seems to start to lower, the pendant flares brightly and back up it goes. His jaw sets and the sword turns ... and the man looks ready to stab the doglin that just dared run between his legs.
"For Lord Eion!" Rosy barks, and... bites the knight on the behind.
"And watch yer own rear, Rosy!" Hannah shouts through the maelstrom, seeing the knight's sword come down. As he's distracted by Rosy's bite, however, she fights her way forward and tries to get the tip of her rapier underneath the chain around his neck so she can yank it off.
"Hey, hey, let's be reasonable and talk about this," Minstrel Sam protests. "If we're not really the ones this little trap's meant for, better to just let us go, right?"
Rosy discovers that ... yes, knights do wear chain mail underwear! Hopefully they better wear something under that ... or at least just don't think about how much hair it probably tears out when the knight walks ... and where.
True to her terrier half, the doglin doesn't let go, and keeps trying to drag the knight (or his pants at least) down.
Hannah's rapier gets under the necklace, all right, but the wind is so strong that she finds herself suddenly stumbling forward. She trips over Sam, sending him hard to the floor. Once more head meets lute and well ... he's out. The next thing she knows she slams into the knight, her hand and rapier now entangled in that pendant. She finds herself looking into those deep blue eyes ... and up close they look so very old.
Unable to attack, Peaches does the next best thing: she drags Sam back out of the way so he isn't tripped over again.
Only hoping the knight can hear her amid the howling winds, Hannah says to him, "I don't mean to hurt you, truly. I just want this to end." Then she yanks backward on the chain, hoping her weight will carry her back and take the pendant off.
When the chain snaps, it not only sounds like thunder, the whole room shakes from the shock wave. Hannah, Rosy, Peaches, and even the unconscious Sam find themselves blown back and slamming into the stone wall behind them, nearly knocking the breath out of all of them. The room goes completely dark, the wind dies down, and everything seems so still. "Thank you," comes a whispery voice from the darkness. A pinpoint of light appears where Hannah thinks the knight once stood.
"Ow ow ow!" Rosy moans in the darkness.
Hannah gets unsteadily to her feet, holding her head as if it might come apart otherwise. "You're - gah, ouch! - welcome. But what are you? And how did you get pressed into your Mistress' service?"
The light grows brighter slowly. Eventually, Hannah can see it floating in the core of wispy figure, its features crafted from dust picked up by the swirling wings that make him. It ... seems so tired and thin. "I am ... well, the best way to describe what I am in terms you may know is a djinn of the air. As for how .... it was so long ago now, so many passings of the seasons since then. She stole the object I was bound to, a simple fan, and rebound me to that ... that pendant. She placed me here to guard her maze and trap those who encroach on her lands. Though, in truth she wished me to capture one in particular, but he never entered her maze."
Hannah smiles wryly. "No, I guess he wouldn't. Thomas has quite the knack for avoiding pitfalls and traps. Or talking his way out of them. But by destroying that pendant...I hope this means you are now free to do as you will?"
"Yes. Finally. To feel the free air once more. To flow amongst the clouds on a sunlit day," the apparition says in its whispery-quiet way, "I had lost all hope long ago that someone could break that which trapped me here in this tomb, guarding old treasures for someone who has not returned to its halls in so very long. Once I thought I felt her presence again ... but no, it was just a goblin bearing her pendant. Those who wore her pendant were not harmed by this place and allowed to pass through."
"This is actually gladsome news to me, for it is this very goblin that we are seeking," Hannah tells the spirit of air. "Do you happen to know which way he headed once he passed through?"
"You mean Feezle got to just.. walk right through all of this?" Rosy asks, sounding disappointed. "Wow, he'll be so disappointed.."
"The far exit into the mountains beyond. A cold and barren place it is. Long ago it was the domain of the ice wyverns, but I cannot say who may dwell there now," the spirit answers.
Hannah remembers the cat-creature of smoke she saw in the shaman's hut and murmurs, "I may have an idea about that, but it is not for you to worry about, surely. Which brings me to my next question - would you lead us to this exit, so we may follow the goblin?"
"If you like," the spirit says. He goes quiet again for a moment, then adds, "And I am sorry about your friend, Tristan, was it? I cannot free him from the spell that now holds him. the Mistress crafted that one long ago and only the claws of a creature of ice can now rend its grip. All I can do is make him comfortable until something can be done."
Hannah bows to the air-spirit and replies, "Thank you. If I can persuade such a creature to return with us here and break the spell, I will do so. If not, I will have much explaining to do to Lord April. I...do not look forward to such a task," the girl admits sadly.
"Gather your unconscious friend, then follow me," the spirit says.
"Creature of ice?" Rosy asks Hannah, as she goes to help load Sam onto Peaches.
"Perhaps he means one of the fearsome cats that the goblin shaman showed to me," Hannah explains as she helps to move Sam. "I believe they live in the mountains we are heading towards."
The doglin can't help but growl a little. "I dunno about depending onna feline to help us," she notes.
Hannah somehow helps to get the minstrel astride (well, more like lying across) the Princess. "I understand your feelings, but we may have no choice," she replies. Then she says to the air-spirit, "Lead on. We are ready."
In short order the crew is heading through a long passageway through the decaying 'fortress'. "This place has no real answer to its traversal. Every challenge was crafted to end in failure, enforce a feeling of loneliness and of being lost. There was no path, and that was the trap. The Mis ... Elysia was furious that he never so much as set foot in the door. Not after all the work she put into it. After she got his letter ... which simply said 'Nice try' ... her rage could have taken down a mountain," the spirit explains as they go.
Hannah sighs at this. "Thomas really needs to learn a thing or two about not baiting someone who may become your enemy again one day," she says, shaking her head.
"Oh, she is long gone now, I imagine," the spirit notes as he turns a corner. Up ahead is a sturdy door with solid silver bands and a thick bar.
Hannah's mouth settles into a grim line. "Oh yes, you'd imagine," she mutters to no one in particular.
Rosy makes a note on one of her pads of paper. Always taunt your enemy.
With an effortless wave of the spirit's hand, the bar holding the door lifts out of its sockets, then clatters to the worn stone floor. There's a chill in the air now and the sound of blowing wind. The hinges creak and complain in protest, but the door finally swings open and bathes the hallway in sunlight. Given how long they have been underground, its rather blinding.
"I think we're going to need our cloaks now," Hannah says, shielding her eyes from the light until she's used to it again. She bows once more to the air-spirit. "Thank you for your help. We all greatly appreciate it."