• Closed • A Somber Search (Arlo and Vega)

[Aegis]

Zi'da 93rd, 717 - 7th Break immediately following their departure from The Derby

Singhar was stoic as he watched the crowd disperse, his mouth a tight line of displeasure. Politics. Money. He had no stomach for such things. But he'd learned inactivity had done some severe damage to his organization, damage from which they might never recover. But the young woman, Biffuno's sister, smiled at Vega and Arlo softly, grateful that they'd agreed to find her brother with her. It wasn't going to be easy.

She shook her head at Vega, "It is what it is. He's with the mountain now. And I will give him a Ranger's burial. He'd always wanted to join... ever since I left home at thirteen to join their ranks. No one killed him. It's not your fault, not mine, not his. No ones. Death happens... when we find him, and bury him, we will drink to his name, and celebrate his life."

Serenika heard Arlo's offer of hope, and stared at him, unsure of her feelings. Everyone had heard of what Lady Faith of Scalvoris Town had done. But Serenika didn't live there, wasn't there to see it with her own eyes. She assumed it was a miracle of a healing, not a true resurrection of the dead, a story of her work that got exacerbated as it was told over and over. People coming back from the dead? It was so... unnatural. And if it were real, would Biffuno want that?

Because she would. She'd give anything to get her little brother back.

A few more tears streamed down her face, as she nodded at Arlo's words, but gave no reply or further acknowledgement. She waved over a few younger Rangers, a man and woman in their late teens it seemed, heavy laden under a few over stuffed packs. Serenika was handed her own pack, one that looked custom built to hold each tool on the outside, the rope, the picks, and was fur lined inside. Looking at Vega and Arlo after shouldering her pack, "If you need any supplies for this hike, Rennan and Noralai here will give you anything you could possibly want. Then we make haste."

The dark haired woman waited a moment for final preparations, then she made her way over to the side of the gorge, where the remaining rope bridge hung, untouched. She secured a rope to the bridge's post. She then threw the rest of the coil down into the abyss. She kicked away a bunch of the snow away from the departure area, clearing it down to the stone. Pulled a spike and hammer from her pack, and drove the spike into the stone, and secured a second rope to it. This one she tied below her groin, around her waist, and over her shoulders.

Her boots were spiked on bottom, clawed on the toes. She kept her hands bare, and began to climb down. As she descended, she hammered in hooked spikes, and wrapped the harness rope around it. She continued like this the entire way down, until she reached the bottom, lost in the darkness. Then her torch lit, revealing her position, followed by a yell, "Come on down! Don't fall!"

[Vega]

Vega put her hand on the woman's arm and nodded. There was nothing to be said here, nothing that words could do. Or not words that she had, anyhow. But then, Arlo said that he knew someone who.. this was the woman with long black hair who was happily married and pregnant? The one who owned the very expensive restaurant they'd been to and who, by all accounts, saw ghosts? Vega didn't say anything but she had to wonder about what kind of morbid weirdo Arlo had befriended. Still, if it was the kind of morbid weirdo who could offer hope to Serenika, then Vega didn't mind. "Then, we need someone, or someones to get 'er first, yeah? Should you go fetch 'er while I go help find Buffino?" Vega asked, or of course vice versa or some other option, if he could think of it. Whatever way he thought was best, it was worth to do.

Vega was a traveller by choice, by trade and by nature. Her backpack was well packed and ready to go, but climbing wasn't something that she was particularly skilled at so she made sure to pick up some extra rope, spikes and a hammer. Anything that looked like it was useful, which she didn't have (warmer clothes or such, included), Vega didn't hesitate. But she didn't waste time faffing around, there was no point to so doing and so as soon as she could, she joined whoever was going, in the search for Buffino's body.

Vega didn't like this, this feeling of guilt that she had. She knew that she hadn't intended Buffino to die, it was the last thing she'd meant to happen, but he still had and it was still as a direct result of a consequence of her actions. If she hadn't been so bloody-minded, determined and competitive, maybe he'd be alive now. Maybe, could have been, what if and should have thought. Small words, big meanings, Vega knew and the frown on her face along with the swirling patterns of her eyes, they told the story of her inner turmoil. She didn't say anything, though, here and now wasn't the place or time, so she focused. Just focused.

Climbing down? That caused her to glance at Arlo. "At least Stu an' Jeannie aren't 'ere." They'd been a pair of lost travellers the pair had helped and Vega had threatened to turn Stu'd face inside out when he had tried to stop her climbing down a sinkhole Arlo had tumbled down. Or, a chasm he had discovered and claimed in Cassion's name, depending on who you spoke to, of course. Still, she made sure to secure herself, leveraging the rope so that she could lower herself, and she looked at Arlo with a half smile. "If you fall, I'll be 'avin' something to say to you. I'll see you down the bottom, a'right?"

It was as close to romantic as Vega got if she wasn't giving him random shells so, once they'd both checked the harness she made for herself, Vega slowly began to climb down. She didn't dawdle, she went down as fast as she could whilst remaining safe. There was no point, after all, in burying two of them.

[Arlo Creede]

Biffuno's sister could say all she wanted that nobody ought to feel any guilt over the man's death. Arlo though would continue to feel a bit. The man might already have been dead by the time he'd let go of the log and gone floating face first down the river. But at the least, if Arlo had known, there was no race, no prize worth a man's life, and he'd have given up his own perch on his own leg in order to pull the man out of the freezing water. There was no going back now though and guilt was no comfort to the dead. The least that he and Vega could do, was to find the body.

Maybe there was more though, if she decided to give resurrection a try. "You don't need to decide now," he said when tears streamed down her face by way of an answer. "We need to find him first." Truth was, he found the business of bringing folks back from the dead, was it actually possible, to be a little morbid. But would he want it if it was someone he loved, like Vega? If he was pressed, Arlo would have to admit that he would.

He had a climber's kit that he'd bought sometime back and had wondered if he'd ever have reason to use it, in spite of often storing it in his bottomless sack. Seemed that this trial it would come in handy, but like Vega he'd also take whatever the rangers were willing to give him for the trek ahead. What would help him keep his footing on the ice though, was the first thing he'd put on. "We stay together," he told Vega, unwilling at this point to let her out of his sight. But it wouldn't hurt to make sure that Faith was aware, was anything to come of it. So with that in mind he asked one of the Rangers to make sure a message got back to the Order that a body might be coming, and could they contact Faith in light of it.

Arlo grinned back at Vega though as they were peering together over the edge of the gorge, when she reminded him of Stu and Jeannie. "Well at least there won't be anyone nagging us from atop the rim while we go down." And if she took any unnecessary risks, he told her in response to her warning, they'd be having more than a few words once they got back. He kissed her for good luck as she went ahead of him, then cleared his head to make room for the serious business of scaling down the rock wall. Spiked shoes, harness, hammer and spikes, steady going and all. Not so quickly as to cause foolish mistakes. But no dawdling either considering what was at stake.