Hraf's Rescue
Hraf is sprung by Bianca after he intentionally gets himself captured... honest!
The contact with Hrafnkel comes like an icy wind.
The image of Hrafnkel is in the dark. The smell that comes on the chill wind from it is awful; sweat and sewerage mingled in dank combination. "Love?" comes Hraf's voice, at the contact, slightly hushed.
To the image of Hrafnkel, Bianca is dressed in understated broiled leather - a wide belt wound round her emaciated hips. The harness sports miscellaneous paraphernalia of vials, pouches and deceptively harmless tools. The tiny woman's blond tresses are swept severely from a broad forehead, tethered with a sliver of Penglai silk into a lengthy ponytail that sweeps the scrawny breadth of her shoulders in hypnotic rhythm. "Commander," comes a hushed and affectionate inflection.
The image of Hrafnkel's breath seems to flow a touch easier within the gloom that it's difficult to see into. "As faithful as ever. Question for you, though," he murmurs, sighing and sitting up along with a slight metallic rattle. "I might have impressed them a bit too much. How are you with locks? Uhm... or chains?"
To the image of Hrafnkel, Bianca's eyelids droop - flaxen lashes veiling the genuine nature of her stare, though metallic splinters rivet matte nadirs of her shrunken cerulean blues. Hrafnkel finds himself on the opposite end of _the_ look. Her coral mouth slims virtually out of existence.
The image of Hrafnkel produces a dismal grunt. "Yeah, well, it was a bit unforeseen. What sorts of people keep you chained up -in- a prison cell?" On his feet he begins to heave against the chain, hard.
The image of Hrafnkel manages to make the chain creak, but it remains unyielding, fixing him to the cell wall.
The image of Hrafnkel adds disgruntled, "A bit like a belt and suspenders, if you ask me."
To the image of Hrafnkel, Bianca allows herself the liberty of a skewered smile, one that forges a delicate groove of waxen flesh at the corner of her coral mouth - emaciated lips unfurling back into existence, "I don't know. It's not a bad look for you," She muses, alto lasciviously laid-back.
The image of Hrafnkel manages a weary glance in reply, his frank gaze plaintively accusing her of enjoying this a bit too much. As though her observation might somehow renew his strength, he heaves again, shifting his grip and setting a foot firmly to the wall, his muscles flexing with the deep strain of his effort.
The chain laughs at Hrafnkel.
To the image of Hrafnkel, Bianca stifles a hint of a throaty laugh that froths through a scrawny leather-clad chest, materializing in an-all-too-jovial chortle. "If I were your shackles, my world, I too would loath to let you go."
The image of Hrafnkel lets the chain drop and lets his hands rest on his hips, fixing the locked links with an affronted, malevolent stare. He is about to reply, when there comes a metallic scrape, a creak and a thunk, and Hraf turns to regard his cell door being opened.
To the image of Hrafnkel, Bianca's exhalation is less an annunciation of his name than a breathy bark, "Hraf?!" The kittenish allure of her toying expression pales into a vision of vigilance. Reaching for him with one hand gloved in a modest make of Montevalno leather, her senses are keenness incarnate, eyes stretched unbearably wide, "Can you bring me through?"
The image of Hrafnkel at the limit of his chains he cannot reach the door, apparently by design. He has no objects around that will make a useful missile, either. He's good, but even Hraf can't quite kill someone by lobbing a straw mat at them. Before him, the magi is already beginning to bathe the cell in a brighter light, from the flames he is shaping into a weapon. "Grab an extra sword?" Hraf asks, extending his hand to Bianca.
Bianca appears suddenly, grasping Hrafnkel's hand.
Through his gleaming mask's eye slits, the mage's eyes widen at the apparition of Bianca, but he doesn't halt his preparation of his flaming magic. On the contrary, it had been a leisurely matter, supposing Hraf to be helpless, but now he hastens his efforts several fold and begins calling for guards.
Quick to release Hrafnkel's hand - fervently thrusting it aside - Bianca unhinges the ebony cane harnessed along the reedy pillar of her back with a swiftness and damnable gaiety that suggests she has done so many a time before. Even as the flat span of the faintly shimmering card vanishes within the bold folds of broiled leather, the blunt end of her cane aims an efficient arch to bludgeon the caster upside the tender spot of his temple.
Hraf watches Bianca brain the guard with deft precision, the air sighing a low grown around the force of her swing that abruptly ends the masked man's movements, form impacting of the door frame to sprawl on the stone. However, more shouts emerge from the dungeons beyond, and it seems like more guards will be here eminently. Hraf is already grabbing up the chain to try pulling, again.
The splinter of bone echoes within the hallow walls of the stone cell, a moist squish and soupy splatter heralding the collapse of the mage to the cold cobbles of the gibbet-and-blood spattered floor. His fluids seep thick as molasses forcing Bianca to stride over the fractured form, thus sparing her boots the stain. Her left hand - the cane held aloft in her right - latches onto the joint that welds the chains into place. In a feat of unfathomable strength with waxen features set thoroughly mask-like, she yanks at the binding. Clang of metal against stone is deafening, birthing a spark of friction.
Hrafnkel makes room for Bia to grab a hold of the chains, "One, two... threeoooof...." he counts off, heaving on signal with a glance to her. As he pulls and the links strain against each other, he murmurs, "You brought my deck? We'll use the trump of the city..." as the hall beyond the still open door and the corpse is filled with the sounds of echoing approach, and the murmurs of the ever more curious other prisoners.
Overwrought by their collective effort, the metal whines shedding begrudging glints ignited by force and friction "Second back pocket on the left." Bianca sounds nonplussed, directing Hrafnkel in navigating the many compartments of her belt (itself an adventure). Ripping the joint of the chains that kept him captive from the wall amid a medley of rocky splinters the pint sized proprietress steps nearer to him, steel-sifted eyes cast over the insignificant slope of her shoulder.
Hrafnkel takes a few steps back, unbalanced when the chain gives way, heaving a sigh of relief. He doesn't take the time to argue, for the moment, or even grumble, though Bianca protecting him with a sword as he works the trumps is clearly not something he's accustomed to. They come to the door, their robes bloody crimson, their masks somehow more ornate than the others. Only two of them are visible, and like the others, these are unarmed, one's hands already crackling with lightning, the other wafting wisps of frosty mist in the air as ice begins to form in his grasp.
Poised between the advancing mages and the recently liberated Hrafnkel, Bianca twists the bloodied hilt of her cane parting - in a flash of blinding brilliance - the durable wooden sheathe from a pinprick-tipped blade. In one hand she wields a bludgeon and in the other a blade, "Woe to you Magi - for Hrafnkel shall see the Resistance Rise and have you weep to behold a new Reign of Relgan!" Her voice - an alto schooled at theatrics - exploits the acoustics of the dungeon, drowned in the dissonant cheers of hope versus anguish from the other prisoners!
Hrafnkel's fingers nimbly sift through the tiny plaques, finding the one whose face yields up the image of Amber city. Both deft and anxious, still, he hesitates a moment, but only one, at her speech and the resulting cheers. He cannot resist indulging a moment, even here, to properly gaze in adoration to the tiny woman, before dragging her off with him into the rainbow hues. His arm not holding the card slides to coil about her slim hips, and she is held aloft to his side as they find the familiar cobblestone beneath their feet, even if hers don't have to support her weight.