END OF ARC 2: PART ONE OF THREE

[asgardmods]

Who: ANYONE going on the infiltration into Thrymheim!
What: Lots of travelling and also rescuing Freyr's soul.
When: Days 278 - 279 ( June 10 - 13 )
Where: Asgard, Thrymheim, and the road inbetween.
Rating: PG-13. Anything that might go higher than that should be taken to a private log, please!

[ Before even the first crack of sunlight over the horizon on Day 278, every bracelet in the city will give a quiet blip! as they activate with a short mass text from the gods:

The time to act has come. Gather at the Gate of Frost by the Sun's first rays if you will, and be prepared to strike at the heart of ice. There is no room for failure.

Exactly as the message implies: it's time to ship off to Thrymheim. Gear up in your best winter clothes and bring whatever weaponry you need; there are wagons thinly concealed and waiting for you at the southern gate that leads to the home of the Frost Giants. Inside the wagons will be those portable heaters that you guys bought in Utgard, along with spare gloves, jackets and scarves for anyone that foolishly believed summer might touch the kingdom of ice. Travellers can also find food rations to last a week alongside a generous amount of medical supplies that may or may not be a bit foreboding.

The caravan will leave at precisely 5AM, driven by the barest amount of Natives to keep travel at a minimum. Secrecy is of the utmost importance, and a severe silence will fall across the few sitting in the back of the wagons with the Travellers. They know the weight of this mission: if you fail, Freyr's soul will remain trapped forever. It is dangerous and no one's lives are guaranteed, so prepare yourselves for a fight quite unlike any other this far.

As you travel further from Asgard, you might notice the terrain getting a bit more uneven as the wagons move through undeveloped areas. There may be the odd village noticeable in the far off distance, but they are nowhere close enough to make out any distinguishable details because you don't want them distinguishing anything about you in return. These villages are few and far between, and grow even less in number the closer the caravan gets to Thrymheim. The terrain goes from rocky but arable to colder and harder, the temperature dropping increasingly as the earth grows solid and unforgiving, eventually peppering with light snowfall even in the midst of Yggdrasil's summer.

It will take two full days to reach Thrymheim travelling at as fast a pace as they can without wearing out the horses or catching unwanted attention. They will make short stops to feed and brush the horses, switch drivers, and allow for any necessary relief - but these breaks will last no longer than ten to twenty minutes at most. Simple meals will be served by the Natives thrice daily, and Travellers are welcome to attempt sleep on one of the meager pallets stocked up if they think they can manage it. Space is not abundant and neither is time. ]

[ OOC NOTES: This is part one of three for the Save Our Souls plot! Please put the day/location in the title of your comment along with [OPEN/CLOSED]. The second log can be found over here and the third and final log can be found here. Let us know if you have any questions! ]

Comments

[conquering]

[ she laughs and the sound is heavy and tastes of loneliness and anger and bitterness. ]

Do you the truth of me, Lavi? I would tell you. Some would claim there is no truth to me at all.

[historyrabbit]

There's truth to everyone, milady, even me. Even you.

Most of the time we're just human, though we like to deny it, gifted with powers or great minds. But human, we have needs and feelings, things that drive us to live. We all have the chance and the choice to do great good or great evil or nothing at all.

[conquering]

You are a writer of history, Lavi, do you truly believe in good or evil? I am no historian but I know that evil to one is good for another. My people were all massacred, burned and drowned and an entire kingdom celebrated their deaths for they believed it was good. History will remember it as good and history will remember me as evil, will it not?

[ she turns to look at the sky, returns her gaze to him. ]

You are a wise man, you must know this truth of me, an easy one; they called me the Usurper Queen, the Witch Morgana and I killed and I tormented and I burned and I took vengeance. A vengeful queen. The Deities have shown me that much.

But I am here still. Perhaps you are right, perhaps one can torment and conquer and enslave or they can free and assist and build. Whatever truth that my world will know of me, whatever truth will be written of me, I cannot change it, it is beyond my control; it lies in your world and in Camelot and in countless of others. I know only one thing of myself.

[ something she had known when she was Uther's ward, long before she was queen, something she has forgotten. ]

I do not wish to conquer or enslave, I wish to punish still, certainly; I wish to punish and tear apart those who had me hide my gifts like they were a disease. But those are secondary now. I only wish to be myself and that is the one thing I seem to have lost sight of.

[historyrabbit]

I believe in the truth, no matter which face it takes. If the ruler is a tyrant then his dark deeds go down in the ledger, if he is kind and loved by all then it too is written so. My words won't make anyone be seen in a better or worse light, I'm not digging for rumors or making them up. All I write is the truth.

It's the victors that often turn the losers into something more horrible.

Yes, I would write of your titles, your doings, but I wouldn't make them worse than what they were or any lighter. It's not for me to judge or change the truth in any way. But it also doesn't change who you are as a person.

To me, my job aside, you've been kind and willing to talk to a gangly teenager still new to this place. Not many would have patience with all of my questions, not even I would when faced with myself. Yet I cannot write even that, only if I see you acting the same way with others.

But I'm not one to ask on how to find one's self again. I've never found it in the first place.

[conquering]

[ she smiles; he is clever for his age and she would argue that some loved kings are tyrants for they only appeared to be love but he sparks her curiosity on another subject. ]

Have you lost it?

[historyrabbit]

[True, but then he would write that although they were loved their deeds were not well liked.]

No, nothing like that. Hard to find out who you are when you're focused on learning and having no opinions. No feelings.

[conquering]

You are here now.

[ and that is one of the only advantages in this damned city. ]

You are free to find out.

[historyrabbit]

At least until the old man shows up anyway, if he does. [Lavi doesn't expect he will but his anger at finding his apprentice has fallen off the path won't be pretty.] And like you I'm not sure where to start.

[conquering]

Well. Start by asking others. After all, they would see you more clearly than you do yourself.

[ he is not like her, surrounded by people who saw three different women nearly. what do they know of herself? not more than she does. Lavi seems more whole but she thinks she must appear as whole as well, so one can truly never know. ]

[historyrabbit]

The ones that know me best know me for what I am. [He thinks of Allen and his distance, Link and the harsh observings that are not unlike that of a Bookman. Lavi won't even think about what Tyki might think of him, he doesn't want to know.]

Suppose I'll just start with what I know I like and dislike and go from there. After all, people just tell you what they think you want to hear most of the time.