A deal worth making

Hildegard is writing a letter. That requires her to confront a sad truth. She is not needed at home. Not with Ragnarök having arrived. The Fimbulwinter amounts to a siege. She’d be another mouth to feed. That does not mean that she has no important tales to tell. There are things her father needs to know and a few things her mother deserves to know, most of all to prevent them from acting foolishly out of ignorance and deeming themselves threatened. House Rabenstein must stand firm and calm to endure.

Beloved parents, this is your loving daughter Hildegard writing to you after having escaped captivity.

I was abducted and fell into a wizard’s hands to be used in a human sacrifice. I have escaped unharmed, but am stuck far from home.

It is my sad first duty to inform you, in case you were cut off from news, that I have credible confirmation that Atlanteans deem Ragnarök to have begun. The obvious inclement weather is indeed Fimbulwinter. Secondly I regret to inform you that I have no knowledge about the fate of our troop including how my beloved brother has fared beyond a surprise attack being sprung on us. Our foes had access to at least one battle mage. I cannot with any confidence state who was the core goal of our enemy’s action or whether we were a target of oppurtunity or victims of a planned attack.

I am currently residing in a captured mountain stronghold near the Adriatic Sea.

She hesitates. The message better be transmitted as a mage sending, lest it take months to be literally shipped. Nobody will cross the mountains during a normal winter, let alone Fimbulwinter, for mail or much of anything else really. How much would he let her write without repercussions? Nothing that would jeopardize his keeping this base or the loot in it. Obviously also nothing about her intent towards him and everybody else should be in the message. It will also go through the hands of the family’s overlord and his court wizard. If they were behind the attack on her troop, this message will not get through. So she will only worry about her wizard. She better use a vague turn of phrase hidden among formal aristocratic words.

We, the intended victims of the hostile wizard’s scheme, have banded together. It is our hope to be able to stretch supplies so long that it allows us to overwinter without being forced to relocate as Loki uses Fimbulwinter to lay siege to the peoples of man. I am confident to turn into no further burden on our venerable house and hope that I am even able to use my unblemished reputation to draw strength so much in need in these dire times.

Your faithful daughter

Hildegard von Rabenstein

Anjali is perplexed. Many options are open to her. Yet she does not know how to pick among them. She is honest and reflective enough to admit that this is far less vexing than facing eventually inevitable doom without a way out. She does not know what she wants.

Sipping tea from a cup while standing watch gives you time to think and makes it even easier to maintain a facial expression impossible to read. She does know what she wants to avoid or at least postpone for as long as possible. Yet it leaves her ill prepared to choose positive goals. Owing that degree of strategic clarity to the teachers her grandfather provided does show up in the shape of her mouth and the way her jaw tightens. She puts the beaker down onto a ledge apparently designed for that exact purpose. It even features little depression that the beakers fit into. This is speaking of a level of preparation she can only fear. That triggers even more fear. Why did Marental feel a need to do something risky? Was it greed or fear? She wipes her hands on a towel, which, again, a hook to hang it onto is planned in. Then she straightens her clothing. Her hands avoid the part of the band of cloth she uses as a belt on her newly tailored pants looped into a nice bow. Their northern compatriot had at first complained a little at wearing pants indoors.

She keeps mulling this. On her own she won’t survive here nor be able to escape. The basic conundrum remains. You cannot learn from a man what he has forgotten himself. The best questions won’t help.

Zewrepa is checking the sleds. They do not fall apart upon moderate shaking. Preparations for an evacuation have been completed. There is the beginnings of a plan, provided they find a way off this peak without losing one more. Of course the Atlantean chose it for inaccessability by conventional means, but she is not ready to just accept that. She makes a movement that might in a human have resulted in knuckles producing sounds. She proceeds to take the small bag her clothing is stored in to the shelf next to the bed she has claimed. The silly humans wanted here to wear them needlessly. She is not going to risk wear and tear of stuff she may depend on for warmth in an emergency.

Melo winces each time she breaks off a rotten twig. Yes, technically wood is dead. But it is still part of her. Removing them herself is deeply distressing. The door to her chamber is opened.