Cable Cars and Soul Catchers
Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 1:09 am
13th of Ymiden 721
Woe had… a concern. A concern born of a rumor. But compounding that concern was a conundrum. How the hell was he and Nat to get across the channel to that… for lack of a better phrase, a castle on a rock?
Covering Woe's shoulders is a black, quilted wool jacket, stitched with cloth of silver in a diamond pattern. Beneath it, he wears a wool shirt of pale dark blue, which hangs freely over a pair of black breeches made of quilted leather, in the same diamond pattern as the jacket, with similar silver stitching. He wears a pair of black knee boots on his feet.
Natalia was with him, she was usually good to come along with him, perhaps not relishing the idea of being alone too much after the incident with that man Charles on the road. At any rate, he had to have a buffer between him and Faith, lest he spills his guts in the most embarrassing fashion once more, as he had in Ne’haer. He was convinced that his indiscretion was perhaps the reason their efforts had fallen through, but no. The famine in Ne’haer had been too far along, and too fast. There was little they could’ve done, other than mitigate the damage.
At any rate, she was here, his human shield against oversharing. He’d told her if he started spilling his life story to kick him in the ankle. He told her of the physical signs that he was about to do just that, having studied himself and engaged in some insightful soul searching of his own nature. His eyes would get wide, his shoulders slackened. Should she see that, he instructed her to pinch his arm, near the elbow where a nerve was located. If he looked like he was getting weepy, she was to kick him in the ball of his ankle. That would send a shock enough to interrupt the physical response to melting into a puddle.
There, thus fortified against any possible contingency, he was ready to face Faith, and see if there was any truth to the rumors that she sacrificed the dead souls of members of the Order to Famula. He only struggled with the most political and gentle and discrete way of putting it. It was a damned puzzle, trying to figure out the right way to put things when you were worried how one might take it. He would opt for forthrightness, but he knew all too well how well that’d served him in the past. Once the sluice fell, there was no stopping the deluge of over-information from Woe.
Maybe he just had dependency issues.
In any event, he had one obstacle between himself and that distant castle on the rock. A cable car access. Woe helped Nat in first, and then, only then, did he venture to jump in. He looked for the operator and signaled to make the thing move. And move it did.
Woe hated every moment of it. Although the ride was smooth, and the wind blew over his face pleasantly enough, he wanted nothing more than to jump out of the cart, and just walk across the bridge. Woe had an issue with flying, with being conveyed by something he had no control over. Mounting a horse was one thing, that he could contend with, and manipulate the creature. But a machine? A flier? A cable car barreling down a far too narrow track? No.
He felt his stomach churning, his head getting faint and dizzy as they barreled along in the cart. In a moment, he let the contents of his stomach fly over the railing, into the water below. He did his best to project the vomit, so he wouldn’t have to lean against the cart. He didn’t trust it enough to lean.
In a few moments, he had recovered himself, and mercifully the cart came to a stop near the entrance. Looking much paler than before, (he was wearing a ring of Paradigm, so not quite as pale as usual) and green around the corners of his face, he got out of the cart, stumbling. He waited for Nat near the solid ground, wanting no part of the cart, lest he risks setting it into motion again through the operator.
Once Nat was out, he said nothing, but nodded to her. He began making his way toward the door and knocked politely.
