Asgard: Alison and Amanda
Aug. 4th, 2004 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsWhat Happened Next. Alison and Amanda end up in a difficult situation in an Asgardian tavern, but they have things under control until Amanda loses Romany's amulet. Then all hell breaks loose, until they are rescued by the Enchantress, who takes far too much of an interest in Amanda. When Alison makes her objections known, the Enchantress 'deals' with her.
Dropping to her hands and knees, Amanda fought the urge to throw up. Teleportation spell, it had to be. Nothing else made her dry heave so much. But she hadn't cast it... Then she realised there was wooden floor, strewn with beer-soaked straw, beneath her hands, the smell of roasting meat and woodsmoke and beer and a lot of large sweaty men who didn't bathe much, if at all, and she looked up, pushing herself upright. "~I'll be a Caananite's testicle...~" she said in Askani as she took in the scene. A... tavern. Not a bar, not a pub, but a tavern, all set up like one of those re-enactment society fairs, only with more dirt and grime. And less girls in flowy dresses claiming to be elf-maidens - she was surrounded by large - no, very large - men dressed in jerkins and leather boots and capes, some with swords, some with axes, some with wooden clubs, but every man had a weapon of some sort.
"Oh, bugger," she said with feeling. Then there was a fit of coughing - feminine coughing, not one of the tavern men - and she glanced across to see Alison picking herself up off the floor. Indescrible relief flooded Amanda - at least she wasn't alone.
"~I told you being creative made Askani very swear worthy,~" Alison once she'd straightened, scanning the room casually. Her attire was clearly garnering her some attention and judging from some of the leers (and rather irked looks from the few women in the room, all of them in "wenchly" Faire type gear and displaying their assets very generously indeed) this wasn't necessarily a good thing. She fought down the urge to explain her shorts and tank top (a very skimpy tank top at that) by pointing out is had been hot back home (this clearly wasn't back home, thank you very much and it didn't take a genius to figure that out).
"We ain't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy," she moved towards Amanda, trying not to obviously set herself back to back with the girl, wondering what in the world was going on. "This looks like a set from The Thirteenth Warrior or something."
"That movie was shite," Amanda replied, grinning briefly even as she took in the generally unfriendly - or overly friendly - looks they were getting from the locals. She opened her mouth to say more when one of the larger men stepped forward, a challenge in his voice as he said something that most definitely was not English. The witch frowned, her lips moving soundlessly. "Oh bloody fuckin' hell. They're speakin' some kind of ancient Norse. Which I know about five words of, an' that's from an' old curse."
"Don't say it," was the hurried response. "Norse. Right. Makes perfect sense." Alison shifted automatically, keeping herself between their challenger and Amanda, hands open and held losely at her sides, projecting 'non-threatening' as best she could. The barmaids were still glaring at her, one of them flouncing behind the bar with her tray, while shooting unfriendly looks at the duo. "Hi! We're lost but if you'll just show us the way out..." she had to try of course, offering the man a calm, friendly smile. "And if you so much as try and grope me I'm going to have to do something very regrettable to you," she added as an afterthought, smiling pleasantly the entire time. She leaned a bit into Amanda, nudging her a bit to the side and placing herself fully between herself and the crowd's 'representative'. "I'd ask you for a translation spell, kiddo, but somehow I don't think now is the right time to do anything they might not like us doing."
"At the moment I think 'existin'' is covered by that," said Amanda, watching the man frown and make a remark to the men immediately behind him. There was laughter, harsh, ugly laughter, and then the man repeated his question, hand dropping meaningfully to the handle of the short sword hanging from his belt. Amanda gulped and began reciting a protection spell under her breath. It wouldn't kick in until they were actively threatened - she just hoped the threat wouldn't actually include anything metal, since her spells were still useless against it. Despite herself she was backing up, away from the first man - she bumped into something warm and slightly yielding and was rewarded by a pinch on the behind as she backed into one of the men behind them. With a yelp, she spun and glared at the offender, ignoring the roar of laughter around her. "Oi, you, hands to yerself!" Not a great day to wear shorts and a rather short t-shirt, she reflected.
The look Alison snapped around to the offending (and still laughing) man was a far cry from the pleasant one she'd been directing a few seconds earlier - apparently going from "nice girl next door" to "will rip out your spleen and feed it to the crows" looks wasn't much of a problem for her. "Whatever happened we need to get out of here for now." Alison scanned the tavern quickly, searching for any decent exits (and planning to make one if needed). There were far too many of them surrounding them, which would likely actually work in their favor if (ok, when) this degenerated into a brawl.
"No arguments here," Amanda said, still giving the man with the wandering hands the evil eye. Not literally, of course, since she didn't do that stuff any more, but it was very tempting to drag out that Norse curse. The spokesman was growing impatient, it seemed - with a few barked words, several of his cohorts stepped forward, obviously intending to grab them. One of them was Amanda's "friend", and as he made a grab at her arm she cast her shielding spell. Blue sparks shot up from her skin as he reached for her and his yelp was comically like her own before. The yelp turned to a grunt of pain as she shoved at him with the telekinetic spell, intending to only push him back into the crowd. Instead the shove slammed him into the wall. Amanda looked down at her hands, bemused - that wasn't supposed to happen. Then she caught sight of the muffled glow coming from beneath her t-shirt, and pulled out Romany's charm. It was almost burning to the touch and glowing white-hot. "Whoops. We _really_ ain't in Kansas any more."
That was more than enough to trigger the rest of the crowd, the apparent leader reaching out with a snarl to try and grab Alison's arm. An open hand push on his elbow send him wide from his target, the blonde following up with a sharp punch, sending the man reeling backwards into his companions with a strangled cry of fury.
"Close your eyes," Alison warned Amanda before letting lose with a blinding burst of light, getting a firm grip on the young witch before making a beeline for the door in the path she'd picked out previously, intent on getting them the hell out of there _now_ rather than linger here any longer.
Find a safe place. Regroup. Think up a plan, or at least that was the idea.
Having done the same thing herself with the werelight, Amanda reacted instantly, closing her eyes tight, only opening them again when she felt Alison tug her towards the door. Around them men were staggering around and swearing (presumably), rubbing at their eyes or groping around them blindly. They were almost at the door when one of them - perhaps recovering faster, perhaps just managing a lucky shot whilst blinded, grabbed the back of her t-shirt and jerked her back. She yanked herself forward, Alison's tugging adding to the movement, but somehow his fingers had gotten entangled in the leather cord Romany's charm hung from. For a second Amanda thought she was going to choke as the cord pulled tight against her throat, but then the leather, weakened by water and sun and chlorine from the pool, snapped. She plunged forward, dimly aware she'd left the charm hanging in the man's fist, even as the full power of this strange place hit her full force.
Limbo had been bad enough, but at least she'd been mainlining Cain's power just before that, so she'd been prepared. This place, after months of being rationed, hit her far worse. Mystic energy poured into her, until she felt her skin would burst with it - indeed, when she looked down at her hands, her skin was glowing like the filament in a light bulb. A spot of red appeared on the back of her arm, followed by another; when she touched her fingers to her nose, she found her nose was bleeding. Desperately she tried to clamp down on her power, but there had been too much.
Alison didn't notice at first, gasping at the sight before her as they burst from the tavern. If the inside of the building hadn't been enough, what she was seeing now certainly drove the point home - they weren't home anymore. It was only a few seconds but it felt like an eternity as her eyes flicked up and down the "street" which was in fact nothing more than a dirt road, some attempts at flagstone pavement present in a few spots but nothing more really. The sky opened above them, the stars easily visible in a million twinkling lights, something that was impossible to see from the cities Alison knew and even in the countryside, not with this level of clarity. "Holy..." She turned to look at the door, starting to move away before company joined them once more and only pausing as she spotted the blood trailing down Amanda face. Nose bleed. She stepped closer instead, aware of the still closed door and ready to react if need be, one hand reaching out to rest on Amanda's cheek, wondering if she'd been hit while they left the building.
Sparks crackled where Alison's fingers touched Amanda's skin, and a warm wetness running down her neck told the girl her ears were beginning to start bleeding as well. She tried to speak, to warn Alison to get clear, but it was impossible to get the words past the enormous pressure that was settling on her chest as her system tried to cope with far more power than her body was ever intended to absorb. Instead she dropped to one knee, then to both, arms wrapped around her body in an attempt to keep it from flying apart, as it surely must.
"Power overdose," Alison murmured to herself, kneeling down next to Amanda, ready to blast anyone even thinking of coming through the doorway of the tavern. There was no way she was going to run for cover and leave Amanda alone. "Hang on, kiddo," she whispered. "Hang in there." She took a calming breath, preparing to call up her light shield and hope it'd be enough to protect her from whatever was slowly building up as energy crackled around Amanda.
What Alison didn't expect was the sudden greenish lightburst and the appearance of a tall, majestic-looking blonde woman, dressed (or rather, half-dressed) in a green gown that covered as much as was required for decency and no more. She ignored Alison entirely, focussing in straight away on the fallen witch, frowning a little. Before Alison could do much more than blink at the woman's sudden appearance, she gestured at Amanda and said a few words that sounded nothing like the language used by the men in the tavern, and the air shimmered around Amanda.
Amanda lifted her head, blinking as she realised the energy was gone, looking first at Alison and then at the strange woman - to her magically-charged vision, the stranger was crackling with energy of her own. Then she paled alarmingly and crumpled onto the muddy road with a small sigh, the woman's spell still hazing the air around her.
Moving instantly, Alison caught the girl and steadied her as best she could, still crouching herself and not about to push herself to her feet with the additional weight, her leg already protesting the abuse she was putting it through with just keeping Amanda from falling face first in the mud. Still, the light shield clearly wasn't needed anymore and Amanda's own power surge had stopped - so why show what she herself could do when she could just play along instead when presented with a possible friendly stranger?
"Thank you," she said instead, because it wasn't hard to guess that the woman's actions had everything to do with Amanda's power stabilizing. I guess offering to just leave now would be stupid, Alison reflected grimly, seriously considering just slinging Amanda over her shoulders in a fireman's carry and walking off - somehow. She winced a bit just at the idea as her leg twinged in reminder of her barely healed wound.
The woman blinked at her words, then nodded. "You... are welcome," she said haltingly in English. She seemed to want to say more, but didn't have the words - impatiently she incanted another spell (that she was a magic user of some type was clearly obvious), and tried again. "Your companion requires aid," she said, her voice husky and somehow seductive without apparent effort. "And it appears you have incurred the wrath of these louts..." She indicated the tavern as the doors were flung open and many angry men poured out. They halted when they saw the woman, though, expressions of fear on their faces. "I would offer you sanctuary, if you would take it."
A look at the cringing crowd, which likely would resume hostilities as soon as the woman left was a rather convincing argument for acceptance, despite Alison's reluntance to throw herself upon the mercy of the first stranger to offer help. I'm turning into a cynic. Joy.
Carefully gathering Amanda close as best she could, Alison nodded briefly in acceptance of the offer of sanctuary. If nothing else, the old tales did say that it was a sacred offer or something and a bond not to be broken, right?
"Yes."
A brief moment of triumph crossed the woman's perfect features, gone before Alison could be sure she'd seen it. "Very well. You shall come to no harm within my walls." And with that, she spread her hands in a rather dramatic gesture (Alison thought with a mental snort) and the threesome was enveloped in shimmering light. A stomach-wrenching lurch, and they were somewhere else.
A throne room, to be exact. Well, the large chair at one end of the stately stone hall certainly looked like a throne. The woman bent and lay her hand on Amanda's forehead, then grasped her chin gently and turned her face towards the light. "The child is magically adept, yes?" she asked, although her tone clearly said she had no need to ask. At the same time, though Alison hadn't heard or seen a summons, two girls in plain long dresses (again in the Renfaire style, although less bodice-y than the tavern wenches) appeared at one of the doors to the room, bobbing nervous curtsies before approaching. The woman snapped off a series of instructions in the language Amanda had identified as "old Norse" and the maids practically scurried out again.
"Rooms will be prepared, for you and your companion," the woman said, turning back to Alison. "Fear not, for you are under the protection of the Enchantress, and no harm will come to you here if I do not wish it."
***
There had been a time, once, when she was perhaps fifteen, when Amanda had stolen a bottle of bourbon from an off-licence and drunk the lot on her own. The hangover she'd had the next day was nothing compared to the way she felt now. Carefully she prised her eyes open, peering blearily at what seemed to be some kind of theme room in a swanky hotel, all stone walls and dark wooden beams, tapestries and flagstone floors. The bed was an enormous construction of silks and furs and gauzy drapes, and she fingered the fine linen of the sheets in puzzlement. Something had happened, but what? She sat up, and immediately regretted it as her stomach rebelled and she gagged, desperately trying not to throw up on herself.
A beaten metal basin appeard under her nose, and she clutched at it gratefully. When the nausea had passed, she looked up into Alison's concerned face. "Hey," she said wearily, lying back down as what had to be the great-grandfather of all headaches made itself felt. "Where are we?"
"If I understand right, something like the local high sorceress' place." Alison set the basin down but a young girl scrambled inside the room to bear it away. The servants scurried too much for Alison's taste and the tone of the woman's voice combined with how her body language kept shifting set her on edge - but she remained calm for Amanda's sake... and in case they were being watched, somehow. "She said you should drink this when you woke up." Alison glanced at the mug on the table nearby, set just out of reach of the girl in the bed and hoped the message would be clear to the street wise mutant. "I don't know what's in it, though," she murmured lowly, reaching down to place the back of her hand on Amanda's forehead.
Message received, loud and clear, even through the pulsing of her head: Amanda gave the mug a distrustful glance. "'M all right," she said, even though she felt anything but. Overload, by the feel of it, but what kind of place on earth had that much power? And why wasn't she feeling it now? "Sorceress, you said?" she asked, sitting up a little further, but much more carefully this time. "I take it we ain't even close t' home, are we?"
"Not one bit," Alison shook her head a bit, sighing. She reached out, gently pushing Amanda back down. "Migraines suck - I had those for months, when I was a bit younger than you." Translation, when my powers manifested. She pressed her fingertips against Amanda's temples, starting a light massage. "This might help a bit." And it made leaning forward all that more normal. And then she switched to Askani, hoping that might foil listeners, in a sing song voice that had a lullaby-ish quality to it. "~She did something when you were overloading earlier. It seemed to help you, but the people in the tavern were scared of her.~"
"Stupid power. Manuel's right, I need to learn how to control this," Amanda sighed in English, before switching to Askani. ~"I can feel... something. A spell - I'm not sure what, since my senses are still overloaded, but she's doing something.~" A frown appeared on Amanda's face, despite Alison's light massage. "~How scared were people? Fearing a diety's wrath?~" With a roll of her eyes, she corrected, in English. "Fear of God?"
"Well. Yes." To put it bluntly. The woman was all sweetness and light whenever Alison had spoken to her, but had shown a flash or two of annoyance at her refusal to leave Amanda alone. She smiled urbanely at the dark-haired witch, as though there were talking about the weather. "~For all I know of course, she has a way of understanding Askani, too.~" She was betting if nothing else, it might take some time for whatever spell she might use to work through things. Well, hoped so at least. "How's your head?"
"On a scale of one t' ten? Twenty." Amanda sighed fretfully. "Worse than Limbo, but that's only 'cause I was usin' some pretty heavy magic there, an' I'd been mainlinin' that power source that got me hooked for a couple of months. You didn't find Rom's gizmo, did you?" She added in Askani. "~The sooner we leave here, the better, sister. I don't like the sound of this woman at all.~"
"I didn't have the time," Alison replied softly, wincing a bit. That was a lot of information given for free all at once, right there. "~I agree. But where to go?~"
She sighed and looked out the window for a moment, thinking. Amanda was her responsibility now. Finding a way out of this mess would prove to be tricky to say the least, but the first priority did indeed seem to be the crystal. "~We could try to go back and find it, later, but there's no garantee it's even there anymore.~"
"~And I'm not sure I can leave here. If this woman's power is what's stopping me from overloading now...~" Fear flickered in Amanda's eyes. "If she's stoppin' me from overloadin', I could be stuck here," she said in English. "This place is too much for me t' handle."
"~I won't leave you alone.~" The words were instant and Alison meant what she had said. "~We'll figure this out and go home.~" Somehow they would, although she had no clue as to where to start going about that, really. Not that she was going to point that out just now.
"~You won't?~" Suddenly Amanda looked very young in the candlelight, and she reached out to take Alison's hand. "~I can't ask you to do that, sister. You should go, while you have the chance.~"
"~I won't leave you, little sister. I promise you that.~" She held Amanda's hand firmly in her own, shaking her head at the offer. "~No one gets left behind. You know enough by now to know that, clansib.~"
"I know. Just hard t' remember sometimes." Amanda was about to say more when the door opened and the Enchantress swept in. The amount of power emanating from the woman scraped against Amanda's raw nerves, and she cringed involuntarily, her hand tightening on Alison's.
"So, she's awake. This is good to see," the Enchantress said with a smile that was meant to be charming but to Amanda was full of possessiveness. She'd seen that look before way too many times. "Soon you will recover your strength, child, and we shall see about your future here then."
Alison blinked slowly once, the accented English not hard to follow at all in light of what the woman was saying. Future here? Don't think so. She got up and casually placed herself between the women and Amanda, smiling a bit. "We'd like to thank you for your help," she said smoothly, thinking fast. Horse was probably the main way to travel and wasn't she happy Sam had taught her how to ride. "If there's anything I can do while Amanda is recovering, to show our gratitude..." The staff would be no help from the way they were always scared of the woman, but Alison had faith she'd find something, somehow, that would help them to leave. A thank you note would have to do, as opposed to Amanda herself.
The Enchantress's eyes narrowed as she clearly picked up Alison's mental dialogue, but she hid the reaction well. "It would have been most remiss of me to ignore the child's pain, especially when she is also adept in the mystical arts. I was merely helping a peer, as it were."
Amanda, meanwhile, was watching the exchange silently, taking comfort in the grip Alison still had on her hand. 'She won't let anything happen.' she reminded herself. "I ain't that good," she said, almost diffidently, hoping to put the Enchantress off any thoughts of using her powers. "Wouldn't call meself a peer. 'S luck, most of the time."
"Still, it is a rare thing in a child of Midgard..." The Enchantress reached out to touch Amanda's brow briefly, ignoring the girl's flinch, and then raised her eyes to Alison. "There is something, perhaps, that you can do for me, my dear. Would you join me outside? The child needs her sleep, to let her body and mind recover." And indeed, Amanda's eyes had grown heavy under that slightest touch, her grip on Alison's hand slackening.
It was a hard decision, regardless of how simple it seemed on the surface, but finally Alison nodded and turned to give Amanda a small smile, squeezing her hand before setting down on the bed. "Rest up. I'll see you later, ok?" Besides, getting the Enchantress out of the room and away from Amanda, even if a little bit, did have some appeal.
Again those green eyes hardened slightly, but the Enchantress smiled as she led Alison from the room. Closing the door, she said, without preamble: "If you take the child beyond these walls, she will die. And I have no intention of alowing that to happen."
"That's not your decision to make, but hers," Alison answered simply, not budging an inch. "Considering she is my responsiblity and it's my decision to allow her that choice, she will have a say in the matter." And you sure as hell aren't the only person who can help her here anyway, I'll bet.
Raising a perfect blonde eyebrow, the Enchantress gave Alison an amused look. "And what, pray tell, makes you believe either of you have any choice in the matter? She is one of us, not one of you, and I will not allow her talent to be wasted."
"One of us?" was the mild reply. "Sounds like a few people I know back home. Don't misunderstand me - I am grateful for your assistance earlier." And they'd be leaving first chance they got. That decision was now firm in Alison's mind, though the woman didn't need to know that. "We should probably stay until she feels better," Alison said, with a show of relunctance. Not mentionning the sudden lack of choice that seemed to be far from subtle.
"She will stay. You will not." The Enchantress's voice turned cold, and the air suddenly crackled, as if it had been electrically charged. "I see your thoughts plainly, woman, and I will not have you spoiling my plans for the girl." Alison opened her mouth to speak, to tell this woman that there was no way in hell she was leaving, but the Asgardian woman gestured. "You are overly fond of your own voice. Hold your tongue," she commanded, and Alison found herself completely unable to speak, or make a sound, for that matter. "Begone from my sight."
The Enchantress gestured again, and a shimmering green light surrounded Alison. When it dissipated, the former rock star had disappeared.
Dropping to her hands and knees, Amanda fought the urge to throw up. Teleportation spell, it had to be. Nothing else made her dry heave so much. But she hadn't cast it... Then she realised there was wooden floor, strewn with beer-soaked straw, beneath her hands, the smell of roasting meat and woodsmoke and beer and a lot of large sweaty men who didn't bathe much, if at all, and she looked up, pushing herself upright. "~I'll be a Caananite's testicle...~" she said in Askani as she took in the scene. A... tavern. Not a bar, not a pub, but a tavern, all set up like one of those re-enactment society fairs, only with more dirt and grime. And less girls in flowy dresses claiming to be elf-maidens - she was surrounded by large - no, very large - men dressed in jerkins and leather boots and capes, some with swords, some with axes, some with wooden clubs, but every man had a weapon of some sort.
"Oh, bugger," she said with feeling. Then there was a fit of coughing - feminine coughing, not one of the tavern men - and she glanced across to see Alison picking herself up off the floor. Indescrible relief flooded Amanda - at least she wasn't alone.
"~I told you being creative made Askani very swear worthy,~" Alison once she'd straightened, scanning the room casually. Her attire was clearly garnering her some attention and judging from some of the leers (and rather irked looks from the few women in the room, all of them in "wenchly" Faire type gear and displaying their assets very generously indeed) this wasn't necessarily a good thing. She fought down the urge to explain her shorts and tank top (a very skimpy tank top at that) by pointing out is had been hot back home (this clearly wasn't back home, thank you very much and it didn't take a genius to figure that out).
"We ain't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy," she moved towards Amanda, trying not to obviously set herself back to back with the girl, wondering what in the world was going on. "This looks like a set from The Thirteenth Warrior or something."
"That movie was shite," Amanda replied, grinning briefly even as she took in the generally unfriendly - or overly friendly - looks they were getting from the locals. She opened her mouth to say more when one of the larger men stepped forward, a challenge in his voice as he said something that most definitely was not English. The witch frowned, her lips moving soundlessly. "Oh bloody fuckin' hell. They're speakin' some kind of ancient Norse. Which I know about five words of, an' that's from an' old curse."
"Don't say it," was the hurried response. "Norse. Right. Makes perfect sense." Alison shifted automatically, keeping herself between their challenger and Amanda, hands open and held losely at her sides, projecting 'non-threatening' as best she could. The barmaids were still glaring at her, one of them flouncing behind the bar with her tray, while shooting unfriendly looks at the duo. "Hi! We're lost but if you'll just show us the way out..." she had to try of course, offering the man a calm, friendly smile. "And if you so much as try and grope me I'm going to have to do something very regrettable to you," she added as an afterthought, smiling pleasantly the entire time. She leaned a bit into Amanda, nudging her a bit to the side and placing herself fully between herself and the crowd's 'representative'. "I'd ask you for a translation spell, kiddo, but somehow I don't think now is the right time to do anything they might not like us doing."
"At the moment I think 'existin'' is covered by that," said Amanda, watching the man frown and make a remark to the men immediately behind him. There was laughter, harsh, ugly laughter, and then the man repeated his question, hand dropping meaningfully to the handle of the short sword hanging from his belt. Amanda gulped and began reciting a protection spell under her breath. It wouldn't kick in until they were actively threatened - she just hoped the threat wouldn't actually include anything metal, since her spells were still useless against it. Despite herself she was backing up, away from the first man - she bumped into something warm and slightly yielding and was rewarded by a pinch on the behind as she backed into one of the men behind them. With a yelp, she spun and glared at the offender, ignoring the roar of laughter around her. "Oi, you, hands to yerself!" Not a great day to wear shorts and a rather short t-shirt, she reflected.
The look Alison snapped around to the offending (and still laughing) man was a far cry from the pleasant one she'd been directing a few seconds earlier - apparently going from "nice girl next door" to "will rip out your spleen and feed it to the crows" looks wasn't much of a problem for her. "Whatever happened we need to get out of here for now." Alison scanned the tavern quickly, searching for any decent exits (and planning to make one if needed). There were far too many of them surrounding them, which would likely actually work in their favor if (ok, when) this degenerated into a brawl.
"No arguments here," Amanda said, still giving the man with the wandering hands the evil eye. Not literally, of course, since she didn't do that stuff any more, but it was very tempting to drag out that Norse curse. The spokesman was growing impatient, it seemed - with a few barked words, several of his cohorts stepped forward, obviously intending to grab them. One of them was Amanda's "friend", and as he made a grab at her arm she cast her shielding spell. Blue sparks shot up from her skin as he reached for her and his yelp was comically like her own before. The yelp turned to a grunt of pain as she shoved at him with the telekinetic spell, intending to only push him back into the crowd. Instead the shove slammed him into the wall. Amanda looked down at her hands, bemused - that wasn't supposed to happen. Then she caught sight of the muffled glow coming from beneath her t-shirt, and pulled out Romany's charm. It was almost burning to the touch and glowing white-hot. "Whoops. We _really_ ain't in Kansas any more."
That was more than enough to trigger the rest of the crowd, the apparent leader reaching out with a snarl to try and grab Alison's arm. An open hand push on his elbow send him wide from his target, the blonde following up with a sharp punch, sending the man reeling backwards into his companions with a strangled cry of fury.
"Close your eyes," Alison warned Amanda before letting lose with a blinding burst of light, getting a firm grip on the young witch before making a beeline for the door in the path she'd picked out previously, intent on getting them the hell out of there _now_ rather than linger here any longer.
Find a safe place. Regroup. Think up a plan, or at least that was the idea.
Having done the same thing herself with the werelight, Amanda reacted instantly, closing her eyes tight, only opening them again when she felt Alison tug her towards the door. Around them men were staggering around and swearing (presumably), rubbing at their eyes or groping around them blindly. They were almost at the door when one of them - perhaps recovering faster, perhaps just managing a lucky shot whilst blinded, grabbed the back of her t-shirt and jerked her back. She yanked herself forward, Alison's tugging adding to the movement, but somehow his fingers had gotten entangled in the leather cord Romany's charm hung from. For a second Amanda thought she was going to choke as the cord pulled tight against her throat, but then the leather, weakened by water and sun and chlorine from the pool, snapped. She plunged forward, dimly aware she'd left the charm hanging in the man's fist, even as the full power of this strange place hit her full force.
Limbo had been bad enough, but at least she'd been mainlining Cain's power just before that, so she'd been prepared. This place, after months of being rationed, hit her far worse. Mystic energy poured into her, until she felt her skin would burst with it - indeed, when she looked down at her hands, her skin was glowing like the filament in a light bulb. A spot of red appeared on the back of her arm, followed by another; when she touched her fingers to her nose, she found her nose was bleeding. Desperately she tried to clamp down on her power, but there had been too much.
Alison didn't notice at first, gasping at the sight before her as they burst from the tavern. If the inside of the building hadn't been enough, what she was seeing now certainly drove the point home - they weren't home anymore. It was only a few seconds but it felt like an eternity as her eyes flicked up and down the "street" which was in fact nothing more than a dirt road, some attempts at flagstone pavement present in a few spots but nothing more really. The sky opened above them, the stars easily visible in a million twinkling lights, something that was impossible to see from the cities Alison knew and even in the countryside, not with this level of clarity. "Holy..." She turned to look at the door, starting to move away before company joined them once more and only pausing as she spotted the blood trailing down Amanda face. Nose bleed. She stepped closer instead, aware of the still closed door and ready to react if need be, one hand reaching out to rest on Amanda's cheek, wondering if she'd been hit while they left the building.
Sparks crackled where Alison's fingers touched Amanda's skin, and a warm wetness running down her neck told the girl her ears were beginning to start bleeding as well. She tried to speak, to warn Alison to get clear, but it was impossible to get the words past the enormous pressure that was settling on her chest as her system tried to cope with far more power than her body was ever intended to absorb. Instead she dropped to one knee, then to both, arms wrapped around her body in an attempt to keep it from flying apart, as it surely must.
"Power overdose," Alison murmured to herself, kneeling down next to Amanda, ready to blast anyone even thinking of coming through the doorway of the tavern. There was no way she was going to run for cover and leave Amanda alone. "Hang on, kiddo," she whispered. "Hang in there." She took a calming breath, preparing to call up her light shield and hope it'd be enough to protect her from whatever was slowly building up as energy crackled around Amanda.
What Alison didn't expect was the sudden greenish lightburst and the appearance of a tall, majestic-looking blonde woman, dressed (or rather, half-dressed) in a green gown that covered as much as was required for decency and no more. She ignored Alison entirely, focussing in straight away on the fallen witch, frowning a little. Before Alison could do much more than blink at the woman's sudden appearance, she gestured at Amanda and said a few words that sounded nothing like the language used by the men in the tavern, and the air shimmered around Amanda.
Amanda lifted her head, blinking as she realised the energy was gone, looking first at Alison and then at the strange woman - to her magically-charged vision, the stranger was crackling with energy of her own. Then she paled alarmingly and crumpled onto the muddy road with a small sigh, the woman's spell still hazing the air around her.
Moving instantly, Alison caught the girl and steadied her as best she could, still crouching herself and not about to push herself to her feet with the additional weight, her leg already protesting the abuse she was putting it through with just keeping Amanda from falling face first in the mud. Still, the light shield clearly wasn't needed anymore and Amanda's own power surge had stopped - so why show what she herself could do when she could just play along instead when presented with a possible friendly stranger?
"Thank you," she said instead, because it wasn't hard to guess that the woman's actions had everything to do with Amanda's power stabilizing. I guess offering to just leave now would be stupid, Alison reflected grimly, seriously considering just slinging Amanda over her shoulders in a fireman's carry and walking off - somehow. She winced a bit just at the idea as her leg twinged in reminder of her barely healed wound.
The woman blinked at her words, then nodded. "You... are welcome," she said haltingly in English. She seemed to want to say more, but didn't have the words - impatiently she incanted another spell (that she was a magic user of some type was clearly obvious), and tried again. "Your companion requires aid," she said, her voice husky and somehow seductive without apparent effort. "And it appears you have incurred the wrath of these louts..." She indicated the tavern as the doors were flung open and many angry men poured out. They halted when they saw the woman, though, expressions of fear on their faces. "I would offer you sanctuary, if you would take it."
A look at the cringing crowd, which likely would resume hostilities as soon as the woman left was a rather convincing argument for acceptance, despite Alison's reluntance to throw herself upon the mercy of the first stranger to offer help. I'm turning into a cynic. Joy.
Carefully gathering Amanda close as best she could, Alison nodded briefly in acceptance of the offer of sanctuary. If nothing else, the old tales did say that it was a sacred offer or something and a bond not to be broken, right?
"Yes."
A brief moment of triumph crossed the woman's perfect features, gone before Alison could be sure she'd seen it. "Very well. You shall come to no harm within my walls." And with that, she spread her hands in a rather dramatic gesture (Alison thought with a mental snort) and the threesome was enveloped in shimmering light. A stomach-wrenching lurch, and they were somewhere else.
A throne room, to be exact. Well, the large chair at one end of the stately stone hall certainly looked like a throne. The woman bent and lay her hand on Amanda's forehead, then grasped her chin gently and turned her face towards the light. "The child is magically adept, yes?" she asked, although her tone clearly said she had no need to ask. At the same time, though Alison hadn't heard or seen a summons, two girls in plain long dresses (again in the Renfaire style, although less bodice-y than the tavern wenches) appeared at one of the doors to the room, bobbing nervous curtsies before approaching. The woman snapped off a series of instructions in the language Amanda had identified as "old Norse" and the maids practically scurried out again.
"Rooms will be prepared, for you and your companion," the woman said, turning back to Alison. "Fear not, for you are under the protection of the Enchantress, and no harm will come to you here if I do not wish it."
***
There had been a time, once, when she was perhaps fifteen, when Amanda had stolen a bottle of bourbon from an off-licence and drunk the lot on her own. The hangover she'd had the next day was nothing compared to the way she felt now. Carefully she prised her eyes open, peering blearily at what seemed to be some kind of theme room in a swanky hotel, all stone walls and dark wooden beams, tapestries and flagstone floors. The bed was an enormous construction of silks and furs and gauzy drapes, and she fingered the fine linen of the sheets in puzzlement. Something had happened, but what? She sat up, and immediately regretted it as her stomach rebelled and she gagged, desperately trying not to throw up on herself.
A beaten metal basin appeard under her nose, and she clutched at it gratefully. When the nausea had passed, she looked up into Alison's concerned face. "Hey," she said wearily, lying back down as what had to be the great-grandfather of all headaches made itself felt. "Where are we?"
"If I understand right, something like the local high sorceress' place." Alison set the basin down but a young girl scrambled inside the room to bear it away. The servants scurried too much for Alison's taste and the tone of the woman's voice combined with how her body language kept shifting set her on edge - but she remained calm for Amanda's sake... and in case they were being watched, somehow. "She said you should drink this when you woke up." Alison glanced at the mug on the table nearby, set just out of reach of the girl in the bed and hoped the message would be clear to the street wise mutant. "I don't know what's in it, though," she murmured lowly, reaching down to place the back of her hand on Amanda's forehead.
Message received, loud and clear, even through the pulsing of her head: Amanda gave the mug a distrustful glance. "'M all right," she said, even though she felt anything but. Overload, by the feel of it, but what kind of place on earth had that much power? And why wasn't she feeling it now? "Sorceress, you said?" she asked, sitting up a little further, but much more carefully this time. "I take it we ain't even close t' home, are we?"
"Not one bit," Alison shook her head a bit, sighing. She reached out, gently pushing Amanda back down. "Migraines suck - I had those for months, when I was a bit younger than you." Translation, when my powers manifested. She pressed her fingertips against Amanda's temples, starting a light massage. "This might help a bit." And it made leaning forward all that more normal. And then she switched to Askani, hoping that might foil listeners, in a sing song voice that had a lullaby-ish quality to it. "~She did something when you were overloading earlier. It seemed to help you, but the people in the tavern were scared of her.~"
"Stupid power. Manuel's right, I need to learn how to control this," Amanda sighed in English, before switching to Askani. ~"I can feel... something. A spell - I'm not sure what, since my senses are still overloaded, but she's doing something.~" A frown appeared on Amanda's face, despite Alison's light massage. "~How scared were people? Fearing a diety's wrath?~" With a roll of her eyes, she corrected, in English. "Fear of God?"
"Well. Yes." To put it bluntly. The woman was all sweetness and light whenever Alison had spoken to her, but had shown a flash or two of annoyance at her refusal to leave Amanda alone. She smiled urbanely at the dark-haired witch, as though there were talking about the weather. "~For all I know of course, she has a way of understanding Askani, too.~" She was betting if nothing else, it might take some time for whatever spell she might use to work through things. Well, hoped so at least. "How's your head?"
"On a scale of one t' ten? Twenty." Amanda sighed fretfully. "Worse than Limbo, but that's only 'cause I was usin' some pretty heavy magic there, an' I'd been mainlinin' that power source that got me hooked for a couple of months. You didn't find Rom's gizmo, did you?" She added in Askani. "~The sooner we leave here, the better, sister. I don't like the sound of this woman at all.~"
"I didn't have the time," Alison replied softly, wincing a bit. That was a lot of information given for free all at once, right there. "~I agree. But where to go?~"
She sighed and looked out the window for a moment, thinking. Amanda was her responsibility now. Finding a way out of this mess would prove to be tricky to say the least, but the first priority did indeed seem to be the crystal. "~We could try to go back and find it, later, but there's no garantee it's even there anymore.~"
"~And I'm not sure I can leave here. If this woman's power is what's stopping me from overloading now...~" Fear flickered in Amanda's eyes. "If she's stoppin' me from overloadin', I could be stuck here," she said in English. "This place is too much for me t' handle."
"~I won't leave you alone.~" The words were instant and Alison meant what she had said. "~We'll figure this out and go home.~" Somehow they would, although she had no clue as to where to start going about that, really. Not that she was going to point that out just now.
"~You won't?~" Suddenly Amanda looked very young in the candlelight, and she reached out to take Alison's hand. "~I can't ask you to do that, sister. You should go, while you have the chance.~"
"~I won't leave you, little sister. I promise you that.~" She held Amanda's hand firmly in her own, shaking her head at the offer. "~No one gets left behind. You know enough by now to know that, clansib.~"
"I know. Just hard t' remember sometimes." Amanda was about to say more when the door opened and the Enchantress swept in. The amount of power emanating from the woman scraped against Amanda's raw nerves, and she cringed involuntarily, her hand tightening on Alison's.
"So, she's awake. This is good to see," the Enchantress said with a smile that was meant to be charming but to Amanda was full of possessiveness. She'd seen that look before way too many times. "Soon you will recover your strength, child, and we shall see about your future here then."
Alison blinked slowly once, the accented English not hard to follow at all in light of what the woman was saying. Future here? Don't think so. She got up and casually placed herself between the women and Amanda, smiling a bit. "We'd like to thank you for your help," she said smoothly, thinking fast. Horse was probably the main way to travel and wasn't she happy Sam had taught her how to ride. "If there's anything I can do while Amanda is recovering, to show our gratitude..." The staff would be no help from the way they were always scared of the woman, but Alison had faith she'd find something, somehow, that would help them to leave. A thank you note would have to do, as opposed to Amanda herself.
The Enchantress's eyes narrowed as she clearly picked up Alison's mental dialogue, but she hid the reaction well. "It would have been most remiss of me to ignore the child's pain, especially when she is also adept in the mystical arts. I was merely helping a peer, as it were."
Amanda, meanwhile, was watching the exchange silently, taking comfort in the grip Alison still had on her hand. 'She won't let anything happen.' she reminded herself. "I ain't that good," she said, almost diffidently, hoping to put the Enchantress off any thoughts of using her powers. "Wouldn't call meself a peer. 'S luck, most of the time."
"Still, it is a rare thing in a child of Midgard..." The Enchantress reached out to touch Amanda's brow briefly, ignoring the girl's flinch, and then raised her eyes to Alison. "There is something, perhaps, that you can do for me, my dear. Would you join me outside? The child needs her sleep, to let her body and mind recover." And indeed, Amanda's eyes had grown heavy under that slightest touch, her grip on Alison's hand slackening.
It was a hard decision, regardless of how simple it seemed on the surface, but finally Alison nodded and turned to give Amanda a small smile, squeezing her hand before setting down on the bed. "Rest up. I'll see you later, ok?" Besides, getting the Enchantress out of the room and away from Amanda, even if a little bit, did have some appeal.
Again those green eyes hardened slightly, but the Enchantress smiled as she led Alison from the room. Closing the door, she said, without preamble: "If you take the child beyond these walls, she will die. And I have no intention of alowing that to happen."
"That's not your decision to make, but hers," Alison answered simply, not budging an inch. "Considering she is my responsiblity and it's my decision to allow her that choice, she will have a say in the matter." And you sure as hell aren't the only person who can help her here anyway, I'll bet.
Raising a perfect blonde eyebrow, the Enchantress gave Alison an amused look. "And what, pray tell, makes you believe either of you have any choice in the matter? She is one of us, not one of you, and I will not allow her talent to be wasted."
"One of us?" was the mild reply. "Sounds like a few people I know back home. Don't misunderstand me - I am grateful for your assistance earlier." And they'd be leaving first chance they got. That decision was now firm in Alison's mind, though the woman didn't need to know that. "We should probably stay until she feels better," Alison said, with a show of relunctance. Not mentionning the sudden lack of choice that seemed to be far from subtle.
"She will stay. You will not." The Enchantress's voice turned cold, and the air suddenly crackled, as if it had been electrically charged. "I see your thoughts plainly, woman, and I will not have you spoiling my plans for the girl." Alison opened her mouth to speak, to tell this woman that there was no way in hell she was leaving, but the Asgardian woman gestured. "You are overly fond of your own voice. Hold your tongue," she commanded, and Alison found herself completely unable to speak, or make a sound, for that matter. "Begone from my sight."
The Enchantress gestured again, and a shimmering green light surrounded Alison. When it dissipated, the former rock star had disappeared.
