#swordflown

but it didn't get this cold on the luofu, at least not in a way he'd ever experienced before. even having to choose between keeping his hands under the blanket shrouded about his shoulders or risk taking them out to seek some additional flecks of warmth from the sputtering fire isn't something he'd ever had to think about.

but he sobers discomfort with the knowledge that he can always board the starship with the general and go back home anytime they want. this situation was dangerous and uncertain, but they could always choose to leave. not that he could imagine the general doing that, but. . .

yanqing looks over one shoulder at the hazy silhouette of makeshift lean-tos just on the fringe of the fire's feeble glow. it was different for the people who lived here and called this place home. what kind of righteous warriors would they be if they left them to suffer through these hardships alone? the general had said that when belobog had lost connection with the outside during the last eternal freeze, it'd been impossible to help. . . and maybe it was just his imagination, but he'd thought the general had sounded regretful when he'd said it.

the unyielding stream of thoughts only gives way when trained senses pick up on the arrival of someone else. "hm?" gaze lifts from its fixed place on the ice-bitten stone, and he turns with a shuffle of furs to see a young girl coming toward him, ostentatiously dressed and with the air and expression of someone significant, or at least who believes herself to be. had she been assigned to the next watch, or was she just unable to sleep? he tries to offer her a kind smile, strangers though they were. "i'm not tired yet. so if you have the next watch, you can just go back to sleep. i'll cover it."

Oh, a child. Herta blinks, a little surprised despite herself. 

It’s not that the authorities had set someone so young to guard duty, which most people would probably call irresponsible. Or that a cursory check revealed him to be a far more powerful Hunt pathstrider than one might expect for his age. What truly gave the genius pause is simply that she hasn’t seen the face of a true, organic child in a few Amber Eras, not one that isn’t of her own likeness.

Kids are so unbelievably stubborn. When they set their mind to something, there’s nothing they wouldn’t do to achieve it, though, judging by this boy’s energy readings, his obsession is of quite a different nature than Herta’s was. Funny, isn't it, that her precocious self from the past is Herta’s chosen form even now? Any genius should know that childish tenacity is one of the most valuable, precious things in the universe—something Herta refuses to let go of for herself.

Herta huffs a laugh. What to tell him? This body is an automaton, she could say. She could say that this puppet needed far less sleep than he did, and it would be true. But it’s also true that she has work to do, and even then, everyone deserves the opportunity to make their own mistakes. 

so of course he'd opted to do his part to help any way he could to make up for it. of all that had to be done, to be honest, he'd rather be out there fighting off the monsters of the ' fragmentum ', ghost-like abominations not too far away, he understood, from the endless waves of the abundance's legions, but no task was too small where survival was concerned. gathering fire. . . well, not really wood so much as just anything, even a little bit, meant that someone might be saved from a fate of frostbite or worse.

and it kept him moving, which helped with being underdressed himself.

so when he hears footsteps approaching in the otherwise silent street, he doesn't even look up from the towering pile of rubble and pipes that'd collapsed under the weight of the sudden snowfall the previous night. it'd be the third person in the last hour who'd come to offer to relieve him in his search or hand him a precious coat for weathering the brutal cold. but he can't accept that, not when there were plenty of others more in need. "thank you for thinking of me," he repeats the same words he'd said to the last two as he overturns a large stone with his foot, "but th——"

the large pipe leaning precariously above them both gives a grating moan ; head snaps up, eyes wide, to see it beginning to tip, and a hand flies out to the woman on the other side who's too far away for him to reach in time.

"watch out!!"

seems this city in crisis is not beneath accepting hard labor of any kind from anyone willing to provide it. she has little intention to actively volunteer herself for much of anything around here, but the harbinger does wonder if observations can yield interesting opportunities. a walk through a section of now-quiet, once chaos-stricken streets brings arlecchino to a young blond man who looks to be about the age of some of her children digging through snow-covered rubble. lyney, lynette, and freminet thinking to help their homeland without a second thought in a crisis come to mind as she watches wooden chair legs and pieces of shelving being set on a slow approach...

but at the same time, this lad looks underdressed, unlike the bundled locals that she's observed in other parts of belobog. and it seems he hears her heels even on snow-covered cobblestone... sharp hearing, too. her steps stop, and arlecchino folds her arms as lips part to wonder aloud what he thought she would have offered --- but marked eyes widen and glance up fast as he shouts a warning. own feet dart towards him in the same moment she sees an arm reaching out to her: a dark hand grabs on, and weight leans back almost instinctively to try and bring them both out of the way.