Of Ice and Blood
Eighteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 293 AC
Apartments of Rina Cox, Sorcerer's Deep
The evening had started awkwardly enough. How could it not with her mother here of all places, in the heart of the Sorcerer King's power, being served tea from Yi Ti? But Rina had wanted her here, had wanted to try to have her mother in her life in truth, not just a part of her past that she could visit on occasion. She had missed her and from the looks she was getting over the blue and white porcelain rim of the cup the feeling had been mutual.
They could not talk about everything of course, some truths should not be shared with those not warded against divination, others were too grim to announce over tea, but sitting here in
her rooms surrounded by the cozy tapestries featuring pastoral scenes and gamboling lambs just this side of good taste Rina felt comfortable talking away the evening as she could never quite manage in the keep surrounded by memories and ghosts. It had been a little awkward to ask the Queen for permission, especially when she had been working in secret to gather more Reacher lords, but both the House of Mirrors and Rina's own divinations had made it clear that no one would remark on her mother's absence for a few hours in the evening after she had begged off from diner with a headache.
A suitably genteel ailment for a lady of her rank, the young sorceress thought with sarcasm that surprised even herself a little. Well, one could not spend as much time as she did around Princess Daenerys, Lady Tyene or for that matter Vee without developing a disdain for notions of supposed feminine weakness.
And what about you Rina? a soft insistent voice at the back of her mind reminded her.
You have fought too, you've killed, with shards of ice and killing frost.
That thought however was quelled almost as easily as it had occurred to her, her mother might be surprised to know she had fought and killed the King's enemies, but the idea itself should be easy enough to understand. Was that not what every lord and knight pledged to a banner swore? And so they spoke of kith and kin, births, marriages and passings, of harvests growing through sorcery and other new things the King's rule might bring to Westeros.
Alas that the evening could not end on quite so lighthearted a tone. Rina heard the soft hiss of displaced air in the foyer before she saw Vee, but one look at the girl's face made it clear that she was needed elsewhere.
"A moment, I need to get my... er... things." Rina said, not wishing to mention armor and weapons in front of her mother. Unlike some among the Companions of the King she did not walk about armed and armored every moment of every day.
"I think you might actually be worse at lying now than you were at seven when you 'most certainly did not climb that apple tree'," her mother sniffed, but there was a smile on her lips.
"Not lying, they're definitely things," the girl replied, struggling to keep what an uncharitable person might describe as a whine out of her voice. Strange how the ice in her veins didn't help now.
"We're off to kill efreeti raiders and slavers," Vee said, blunt as ever. "It'll be fine, there's a whole fleet on our side."
"And let's not mention that the fleet is half other raiders and slavers and half enthralled enemies," Rina sent upon a minor spell-wind.
"You can..." her mother swallowed. "You can tell me when it's over right?"
"Sure," Rina replied quickly before she could lose her nerve, rushing out of the room in search of her armor and weirwood mace.
***
Great Cabin of the Golden Wind, Sea of Fire, The Eternal Furnace
Some small part of the sorceress marveled at how she could feel calmer in a fleet of murderous spirits who might be older than all of House Cox from the first Andal adventurer to set foot on Westerosi soil than her mother over tea, but with the ice flowing in her veins the answer was obvious, the map of the battle laid out before her. With her mother she had been Rina, with these sons of bitches she might as well be frozen death come to claim them, and seeing herself in the eyes of Melisandre of Asshai as shadow and cold wind danced between them she found that she did not regret it at all.
"Thank you for coming, we will need all the help we can get," the red-robed priestess said gravely, nodding to Vee and Rina. "I am not certain how but our deception was discovered at least in part. Between Zavaenia and myself we were able to overhear enough conversations and...
deeper thoughts to establish that. I sought the counsel of the Lord of Light again and discovered that the admiral aims to use
sorcery to proclaim the enchanted captains no longer legitimate so that the officers might be freed to their geas. However, only one mage under his command is capable of casting such a wide ranging message and he dared not summon others with the skill from the City of Brass lest he reveal how much control he has lost over his command."
"So we send an assassin to deal with the mage just as the attack proper begins," the dragon wearing the form of man said reasonably. "You and Zavaenia managed to infiltrate the command ship once, doubtlessly you could do so again."
"Killing the mage will not be as simple as overhearing and quietly interrogating officers," the Lady Melisandre said, though she did not seem particularly daunted by the prospect. "Still, every person we send to slay the mage is one not available for the opening of the battle proper against a foe that has already proven cunning indeed." Admitting that her first visions in the flames must have been false pained her Rina could see, but she did not hesitate to do so if it aided them in the end.
How do you attack?
[] Withdraw the bespelled ships entirely and only use the salamanders (risks the raiders defecting)
-[] Write in
[] Send in an assassin to deal with the mage as the ships begin to engage
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: A blow by blow of the scouting did not feel that interesting to me so here's a little look into Rina's head on the eve of battle.
