Falling Snow Angel | Job | Felicity, Yseult

t. Hakobe was no stranger to the cruelty of blizzards but on this day, it suffered one more brutal than most of the residents of the summit were prepared to face. No villager at the base of the mountain was to be found, for they had surrendered to the temperature and retreated to their little houses. One would occasionally peek out their window but would see little more than a white abyss slapped against the panels. Others would notice the snow sneaking in through the cracks of their rickety doors as if the snowstorm were clawing to get into in and would decidedly huddle next to the fireplace for protection. None of this dampened the mood of the villagers, however; they lived in the constant shadow of Baslisk Fang after all and were rarely joyful anyway. The only sound that remained in the settlement was the wind rushing through the mountains and echoing out whilst the only soul to be found wandering about was a lonely little figure on the town's bridge.

Severely under dressed for the weather, Yseult Gans stared into the storm as it wept her hair past her shoulder and stung her skin with coldness. She had somewhere to be, but she could no further. The storm did not impede her, however; no, she had grown use to such occurrences that seemed to follow her everywhere. It was instead the beautiful sight from atop the bridge which caught her attention and forced her to admire it. Though one would not suspect it from the dull expression painted on her face, the snow brought her much comfort in contrast to the inconvenience the villagers beneath her felt. In fact, she felt the houses of the village below only served to take away from the elegant dance of the snow.

She appeared perfectly calm and yet her heart raced as if she was watching an exciting opera. It had been that way ever since she had arrived at the settlement but now, Yseult wanted to see the snow in a new light. She reached her gloved hand out into the sky and held her palm out. Her heartbeat slowed down and she felt a tug inside her chest as a faint magical aura surrounded her. As she expected, the wind whipping the snow came to a halt and things were suddenly peaceful. The snow fell straight down in slow fashion as if it were a peaceful winter morning, and snowflakes began to gently accumulate within Yseult's palm. It did not surprise her that the snow apparently obeyed her selfish whim since it had done so before, but it did invoke her sense of endless curiosity. She had long pondered how she commanded such storms and the conclusion was all ways the same: the blizzard thought her a part of itself.

"Would you protect me as well?" She whispered as if the snow were a living creature. Her expression changed to annoyance when she (obviously) received no answer back from the snowfall. She wanted to know more of her own power and so she resolved to test how well the snow the would submit to her. As the snow overflowed her palm and gently fell down toward the village, Yseult leaned her body forward until her body began to tilt off the bridge.

"I know you'll save me... You have to." She muttered as she felt herself about to fall. She did not know if she was speaking to the snow or to herself anymore. She closed her eyes and resigned herself to what was about to happen. If the snow would not obey her and protect her from the fall, she could achieve nothing anyway. She would rather die than be powerless.

string of words from an obnoxious tone of voice filled Yseult's ears and shook her into pulling her full body weight back until she clumsily managed to shift away from the edge of the wooden bridge. Her mind made no sense of the words coming at her, for she was far more surprised that someone had been boldly wondering through the blizzard just moments ago. The white 'witch' turned her jerked her head just as she stepped back but was greeted with a ball of snow smashing into her unsuspecting face. Her reasonably winced from the sudden shock, though, she was spared the sting of coldness that she had long grown immune toward. She coughed and shook her head until the snow dissipated into a pile of white dust on her clothes. For a moment, she suspected the snow actually had saved her until she saw a figure at the far end of the bridge and recalled the brave (or stupid) voice that had called out to her.

As her shaken vision recovered, neither anger nor annoyance fermented in Yseult; simply surprise and extreme curiosity. A great and almost awkward pause followed as the woman clad in white had no words to share with her savior. She suspected she was not staring at any ordinary woman as no sane soul nor weak body would have trekked through Yseult's violent snowstorm. In fact, an obvious mystique radiated off of her, but Yseult could not pin it down as exactly dark or exactly playful but a combination of the two. It was almost creepy to Yseult who had become accustomed to the fear and contempt felt by the locals of Mt. Hakobe who had nicknamed her the "White Witch." This woman before her, however, showed neither of thing things and it sent a chill down Yseult's spine.

There were a thousand things Yseult could have said in a special situation like this. She could have asked for a name, for what she was, or even what she was doing up on the bridge at such a time. She was not used to being so caught off guard, though, and instead a few simple, if not dumb, works squeaked out of her pale lips.

"Did... did you just throw a snowball at me?" A blank but slightly puzzled expression accompanied the monotone voice. She had hardly a need to raise her voice since the height at which they stood easily carried the echo of her voice across the great bridge. The rest of her body language was only less friendly: her shoulders tensed up and she clenched her small, gloved fists at her sides in a manner similar to a cat's hair raising up after being startled. After all, it did not bode well for chance meeting such as this on the same day Yseult had planned to change her fate irreversibly.

seult had never been laughed at; cowered at but never laughed at. It took her aback almost as much as the snowball to the face, and the growing scowl on her face made sure this other woman knew she neither liked it nor had the capacity to stand it. In fact, as her growing rant on the likeliness of her death and equally saddening funeral, the wind in the snowfall started to pick back up. At first, she naturally assumed she was simply angry with this woman for interfering with her dangerous yet necessary test but when she walked past Yseult, a sense of vulnerability overwhelmed her—she felt embarrassed! she had never experienced the awful feeling, for she had always lived too carefree a life. This morbid woman, however, knew just how to press her buttons. Had been anyone else, Yseult would have reacted with a violent freezing but there was still something so off about the stranger that had the snow mage intrigued.

As Yseult was about to turn around and follow the abrupt woman, she looked off in the opposite direction and hesitated to move for a moment when she noticed the cold and dreary path leading deeper into a part of the mountains that even Yseult herself had never traveled. The grand fortress of Basilisk Fang supposedly sat nestled in a safe spot beyond the path and it had long called out to her but for now, she had to stray from that path. This unsuspecting savior which had so far peaked her interest required her attention, and Yseult took to it like a cat on nip. She metaphorically and quite literally turned her back toward the path and followed with a hurriedness to catch up. She did herself did not seem to notice that the wind died down as quickly as it had picked up.

Yseult walked in step with the surprisingly energetic woman—contrasting severely with Yseult's slow rigidness—and appeared most concerned in addressing what she thought was an unfair accusation when she retorted, "Slow down. I wasn't gonna..." She spoke with a flustered and unsure tone that clearly wasn't used to this. She insincerely continued, "I mean... I was gonna jump, but I couldn't have died... It just wouldn't have happened." There was no way she could have explained the snow could have protected her without sounding crazy so she left it at that. The scowl on Yseult's face grew as she looked ahead and noticed she was being led toward the quaint little village which had bad heavily blanketed in snow from earlier.

Eager and frustrated to learn more as she tried to keep up, Yseult sternly asked, "Why are we going into the village? Who are you even?" There was obviously something annoyed in her tone as well.

seult stared with a nasty scowl through Jacky's ranting and questioning. She felt she was being mocked in some subtle (or not so subtle) way. She resisted the urge to lash out, however, and made due with a sour expression before turning her gaze up into the and toward the falling snow.

"Neither a sword nor any fall is going to hurt me as long as it snows," she said cryptically in response to the long-winded scolding. She didn't dare explain any further for fear of looking crazier after trying to jump from atop a bridge. The White Witch indulged her new company, however, and as if by magic, the snow in the sky began to split and fall diagonally and away from Yseult and 'Jacky' as if it was repulsed by them in magnetized fashion. That frown on Yseult's face only appeared to intensified as she looked back toward Jacky, making it clear she did not enjoy using her abilities for parlor tricks. More than that, she felt nervous not having the snow fall on her. That soft coldness had become a sign of protection to her.

"I'm called Yseult," she answered simply but with a hint of awkwardness. She had so few companions to whom she could give a name after all; she wasn't so used to saying her own name either. She had a surname as well but it always proved just as useless when there were so few Yseult's running around Fiore.

Abruptly, Yseult began walking ahead of Jacky. She was too embarrassed to answer the question or admit it, but she was extremely hungry. She had eaten berries for so long that the idea of a descent meal appealed to her stomach. She did not know if her new companion was going to buy her something, but Yseult was not going to leave the village without something to eat on the road to the Basilisk Fang fortress.

"What were you doing out in that blizzard anyway?" she called back as she walked ahead, "It's dangerous, especially with certain people running around these parts." She was referring to Basilisk Fang but she did not suspect this woman to be incapable of defending herself or lacking the endurance to survive a blizzard. In fact, the woman's timely appearance and eccentric behavior made Yseult highly suspicious. There was clearly more to her than she was letting on.