Scene #3563: Up and Away

Owner	Pose
Yalai the Stave	Slowly, over the course of months and years, the Skyloft Knights and the Sheikah who serve the Goddess have come to an accord, working together and pairing off their members into mixed units. They have come to serve different purposes, ranging from self-defense units to attack units dispatched to actively seek out and destroy Demise's demonic minions where found. Still others have been tasked with scouting and exploration, reporting back their findings to Impa, Zelda, and Link; and the captains of the Skyloft Knights. It's the latter purpose that Yalai the Stave has taken to, with a keen eye for detail and an almost photographic memory for remembering locations by air. It hasn't hurt that she's an expert Loftwing rider, capable of daredevil flying and acrobatics in the harness that have set her apart from even her fellow Sheikah. With the defeat of Demise, she's also garnered quite a lot of experience, sent out either to bolster the attack-units or to scout and explore with her Hylian partner, Aedan. She's seen a lot, and she's more mature and capable than her twenty-seven years might suggest. There are some things she hasn't seen, though. They'd gone out flying today as they have most days, pushing the bounds of their territory with every dispatch. Today they had gone north from Skyloft, and kept going, passing far beyond the Thunderhead and the cozy isle the former Skyloft Knight, Peater, had taken to cutting bamboo on. Her Loftwing had cut a determined streak through the sky, pushing Aedan's larger and heavier bird to its limits to keep up, lingering every so often in wheeling turns so he wasn't completely left behind. Something, though, had gone wrong. Some distance north of Skyloft, both bird and rider had disappeared into the clouds. That alone was a sign that they had crossed the bounds into the multiverse, for normally Skyloft was well above the clouds. Then, furtherin, the air had turned cold. As they'd soldiered on, the air had turned even colder. The clouds loomed, grown ever darker with distance. And then the snow had begun to fall. Aedan might have heard the sound first from far above -- a confused, surprised yelp from Yalai, perhaps coinciding with a snowflake finding the exposed back of her neck, whipped along by the wind of her Loftwing's passage. Now, pelted and stung by this white assailant, Aedan will see -- whether he's close or far -- both Yalai and her bird suddenly drop like stones, going to ground to evade this mysterious foe. A few scattered sky-islands lie below them, so maybe she's thinking to hide or wait there until whatever-this-is abates. Except the islands below look somehow /wrong/. Their earth is stable, and it's even big enough for both birds to land, but... but... It's covered in /white/. Why is it covered in white? Yalai's Loftwing shrills its alarm-shrill, dancing sideways even as its talons sink into the snow, which surely must be a comical sight from above; it skitters dangerously close to the edge, even as Yalai leaps from the saddle into the snow, only to yelp again at the sudden shock to her shins and feet. Not from impact, but... "/Aiyaaa/--! That is being /cold/!"
Aedan MacCarvill	The cold wasn't abnormal. Being above cloud level meant that the air was naturally thin wherever they went, and the temperatures were never very high. Down lower, it became practically trivial to get the oxygen you required, but it also got warmer and the weather got stranger. It does not, after all, tend to rain or snow above the clouds. And when it does, it means that something is very very wrong with the universe. Not to mention, flying in clouds themselves is about as dangerous as it comes. Assuming there's nothing in them, you can collide with one another as well. So Aedan has steered down below the clouds as soon as they'd hit them, and he'd been greeted with the most unpleasant substance. It wasn't rainfall, which he's run into before, but gods-damned snow. Hyrule is simply too naturally warm to experience it, so even on the ground he hadn't really seen it except from afar on mountaintops. The chill of his armor against his skin makes him look for a place to land and change right away. It really won't do to get frostbite all over. ... But Yalai is dropping comically quickly. Aedan gives a great bark of a laugh, both at the noise Yalai makes and her reaction. He lands a small while after her, though plenty enough in time to manage catching her reaction to the snow. He makes a point /not/ to jump off of his loftwing, instead turning sideways in his saddle and simply contorting awkwardly as he pulls off layers to shuck off his chainmail. "Damned unpleasant, whatever it is. The stuff of mountaintops, by the look of it. Never bothered being on one, there's nothing worthwhile on mountaintops that I know of." He complains at Yalai, with less immediate alarm than she's displaying. There's a jingle of metal as he places his chainmail into the saddlebags of his loftwing. "Or maybe it's just clouds that have decided they need to have a lie down." Aedan ponders aloud, as he slides his tunic back on over his head. "What's it feel like?" Like hell if he's going to get down in the stuff after Yalai's squealing.
Yalai the Stave	Cold by itself isn't anything the Sheikah exactly shirk from, but the unpleasant white stuff is a new experience all by itself. Maybe some of the more experienced Sheikah are aware of snowstorms, with their mountaintop patrols, but even the highest mountains are rarely snow-capped. Hyrule, or what Hyrule will someday become, seems to enjoy unseasonably temperate climates even in the dead of winter. Unlike some of the Skyloft Knights, the Sheikah seem to favour only a harness around their birds' neck; they brace themselves against the bird's neck and shoulders to stay situated, using the harness as a hand-hold and otherwise moving with their Loftwing to keep their balance. Dangerous, perhaps, but not when they've been raised from it since birth. It means no saddlebags but a dramatically lighter bird, and better manoeuvrability in the skies. Now, Yalai looks like she regrets letting go of her harness. Bitterly. She can feel the wet creeping into her boots and looks about as pleased as a cat that's just been drenched in a firehose. The Sheikah is still bristling mightily when her companion lands to have a laugh at her expense. "Yes, yes; it is being unpleasant, I am /knowing/ that already!" she snaps, shivering and rubbing her arms. "Cold," she adds, in answer to his question. "Cold-cold-cold. And wet. It is being... not water, though. But when I touch it, it is feeling wet." Crouching, she picks up a handful of the stuff in hands already bloodlessly pale, but something about them suggests it /is/ as cold as she says. There's almost a hint of blue to her normally-pale skin and her fingers move with uncharacteristic clumsiness; stiff and unresponsive. Frowning, she picks a handful of the stuff up, only for some of it to melt against her fingers and run through them. "It is being cold, so cold it is burning. What /is/ it?"
Aedan MacCarvill	"Well, it's falling out of the sky, so it's like rain in that way." Aedan observes, wrapping his arms around himself in the hopes of re-heating himself from halfway stripping down to avoid frostbite. "Thicker than rain, though. Makes flying trickier, and it accumulates." He swipes at his cloak and saddle, dusting the powder off of it, then slides off into the snow below. Immediately he regrets this, making a bit of a face. It's a clingy kind of cold that he can't appreciate much at all, but it's distinctly different from just /cold/. It's kind of like an icebox in principle. He observes Yalai holding the stuff, which melts away pretty quick with skin contact. He rubs at the back of his head, and then gives a great big shrug. "Water, I guess. Or some form of it. Let me see." The knight leans over and scoops up some on his index finger, plopping it into his mouth thoughtfully without offering it much more consideration. This probably isn't uncommon coming from him. "/Tastes/ like water." He confirms, reaching back to grab one of his hatchets and using it to shuffle some of the snow on the ground around. It gets harder and crunchier in the lower layers, though it doesn't seem to properly have become ice down here. "... So, I guess it pretty much just IS clouds having a lie down." He ponders aloud, swiping his hatchet about and making a mess in the snow. "I don't s'pose we can take any of it back with us. I brought camping equipment after that last long-term ranging. We want to set up here, watch it for a while?" "... Well." He looks towards Yalai. "I guess want doesn't come into it. Do you think we SHOULD do that thing?"
Yalai the Stave	Eyeing the cold white underfoot and ignoring the rapid numbness accumulating in her feet, Yalai takes one of her throwing knives and prods suspiciously at the snow as she listens to Aedan's experimentation, shuffling it this way and that with the short blade and watching it suspiciously all the while. She then proceeds to eye Aedan suspiciously as he stuffs some of the snow into his mouth, boldly going where no Hylian has gone before, and eating stuff of questionable provenance that probably ought not be eaten. "One of these days," she points out, gesturing with her throwing knife, "you are going to be eating something that is better being not eaten, and then you are going to be most sorry, I am thinking." "Clouds having a lie down," she repeats, flatly. It makes as much sense as anything else, though, and she shrugs; standing back up and kicking a spray of snow with one wet boot. "Back? I do not know. It is turning to water when I am touching it." She frowns, prodding at it with her dagger some more. "If you are. And if you want to be dealing with the wet." The cold's not so much a problem, but the cold is made exponentially worse when there's any kind of wet involved. And Yalai, unless there's an actual dedicated reason to be wet, like swimming or bathing, seems disinclined to want to get wet.
Aedan MacCarvill	"Doses are important for that kind of thing," Aedan answers Yalai, contemplating the situation in front of him. He could just use an explosive arrow to blast a clearing for them, but it's a matter of whether or not they actually want to stay here, "The thing with me is that I'm big enough a small dose of a lot of things won't do me in. Might keep me indisposed for a while tho'. Don't eat cave mold." He starts ineffectually sweeping the snow away in a circle with his hatchets, wishing he had an actual axe to work with. Or maybe something more practical in general. Like a rake. "But you're right. Sometimes I eat things and regret it. Not sure what else /this/ could have been, though, but what it clearly is." "You should try some. Might be able to do something good with it. Doesn't really have a taste of its own. Maybe put some honey or squeeze some berries over them." He adds, regarding the snow. "Doesn't look like anything normally lives up here, so I doubt there's anything to make it dirty." He scopes out the island, then looks up at the falling snow. The areas he's disrupted are filling themselves back in rapidly. Aedan is sure that when this place warms up this stuff will melt off, but how high will it get in the meantime? And when does this place warm? He hadn't looked at the side of it to check for layers. "Well," He says, "I figure there's a decent chance this stuff will knock over any tents by building up on it. So I suppose we may as well move on if we can." "... And if we're going to, we need to do it soon." He turns a critical eye towards their loftwings. "I doubt they're impervious to having that stuff gum up their feathers. Wonder if we could build a passable shelter out of this stuff... it's awfully powdery." Aedan kicks more snow around experimentally, sending up a great shower of the stuff as he does. This can't be anything but obnoxious to bystanders.
Yalai the Stave	"That is depending entirely on what sort of thing you are eating." Yalai makes her point both figuratively and literally, inclining a dagger toward Aedan, the blade winking briefly in the pale cloud-glare light. "Be eating something lethal enough, you will not be standing up again, yes? Like the most potent of poisons. Be having a care, that is all I am saying." Her eyes drop to the snow, considering their cold, wet conundrum in momentary silence. She regards it suspiciously; and when he suggests trying some, she regards it even more suspiciously. Finally she shrugs, scoops some up, and crunches on it for a second or two. "It is tasting like water," she observes, sounding almost disappointed. And it looked and felt so exotic, too. With a sigh, she backtracks through the crunchy snow to her Loftwing, which looks quite impatient to be off. Before she gets there, /paff/, a sheet of the stuff Aedan's kicking up is sent right in her direction before she can avoid it. Yalai stands there stiff-legged for a moment, the picture of serene dignity, even as bits of snow falls from her cloak. Her nostrils flare; the only sign of her displeasure. ...And then she smoothly dips down, scoops up a handful of the cold stuff, packs it into a sphere, and with a flash of that fox-grin, hurls it at Aedan as hard as she can. It falls apart before it reaches him, but hopefully she can catch him in some of the spray.
Aedan MacCarvill	"True. Don't worry about it, I'm an expert at eating things I found on the ground." Aedan answers, with a broad smile. There are some things you just do not eat, and some animals that you do not approach. It's not the really obvious stuff, most of the time. It's the small ones that look truly harmless. The ones that you think, aww, lookit the little frog. Or the ones that you can't even see, like tiny little jellyfish. Aedan is much more worried about those things than about anything he might think to put in his mouth. "What'd you expect it to taste like?" He asks her, putting his hatchets away and regarding her skeptically. "I guess it could be softer, from the way it looks..." The knight is about to apologize when Yalai gets fed up with his flailing around and chucks a handfull of snow at him. It strikes without difficulty, even breaking up, because he's really not a large target. And like hell he's going to try to move around rapidly on a sky island covered with this kind of stuff. Likely as not, he'd fall off the edge. Or find a hole in the snow. The scattering of snow catches him across the torso and face, leaving his skin reddened and uncomfortable. As for his clothes, it's just a bit moist and aggravating on top of being cold. Aedan brushes himself off rapidly with a great big shudder, casting a bristly look at Yalai. He leans over, evidently deciding to counter-attack, but... "Hey." "This actually packs pretty good." He holds up the solid snow-blob, which does not really resemble a ball so much as perhaps a smooth stone the likes of which is ideal for skipping across water. "Take a look." Aedan tosses the snowblob to Yalai, with every intent of having her catch it. Hopefully it's sturdy enough not to just burst apart in her hands.
Yalai the Stave	When asked what she expected the snow to taste like, Yalai can only shrug, still eyeing the stuff somewhat suspiciously. Anything but water, really, but it just turns out to taste like water, and that's a little more boring than she had expected. It just looks and feels so exotic. Why would it be so plain? Maybe it might have a use, though, if they can figure out a way to transport it. Every time she touches it, though, it turns to water. Water... Yalai wrinkles her nose. "It /is/ being water. Look." She picks up a lump of snow to demonstrate, splaying her fingers to show how it runs between them. "And cold. So... if we were having such cold, we would be making water be doing this even in Skyloft, yes? But..." But how to introduce that kind of fantastic cold? Sages, maybe. She's still demonstrating her melted snow when Aedan's hail brings her to look up, blinking like a cave creature suddenly exposed to the sun. What is he... oh. It does pack pretty good. She crab-shuffles a little closer, unconsciously walking like a cat that's gotten its feet wet, disdainful and disgusted at the same time. Before she can reach him, he tosses the thing, and she drops her own half-melted blob to snatch his from the air. It's better-formed than hers was, and she turns it this way and that, studying it with those blood-red eyes and a perplexed frown. "I'm sure this is being useful to us somehow, but... I am not knowing how," she finishes lamely. She lets the snow fall, wiping her hands off on her cloak, although they're still stiff and painfully cold. "Maybe you can be using it somehow?" But if it is indeed just water as she suspects it is, it's pretty fantastically useless, and acquired far more easily than hauling a bunch of melt-prone snow from... well, wherever it is they are, anyway. Yalai finally clambers back up to her Loftwing, stiff and numb, and huddles into the thick, warm feathers like a disgruntled cat trying to dry off by the fire. Neyir has a dusting of snow over her back and head, and shakes it off, fluffing up those dusky feathers at the same time; even the Loftwing looks a little disgruntled at the white stuff. "Well, we will be marking this place to be coming back to, I think. Maybe we can be finding some use for this, yes? If this is happening often in places that are being cold, maybe it can be used as a weapon, yes? If it is packing so well as you say, anyway." She looks thoughtful. "If it can be made harder somehow... made into knives, yes?"
Aedan MacCarvill	"I guess it would be reasonable to expect it to be... /fluffy/." Aedan muses, a little further. He eyes Yalai's movement when she shuffles closer, a little critically. This is not the sort of movement she usually makes. It must be seriously cold for her. Idly, he ponders some sort of warmth potion. Nothing to be done about that just now, he decides, but he scoops up some more of the snow, pops the top on one of the bottles at his belt, and pours some of the snow in just to see what comes of it later. Probably not much. It /is/ just water, after all. A tiny cloud of steam rises up from the potion before the stopper is put back in. "Well, we've got iceboxes. This is a little different. We'll have to see what everyone else has to say. And also, what that potion does. Later. In front of a fire. In verrrrry small doses." He makes a pinching gesture with one hand, to emphasize the smallness of the proposed dosages. Since Yalai is climbing back onto her own loftwing, Aedan does the same. He hefts a marker out of one of the saddlebags, hurling it down in the snow so that it sticks up clearly in the air. Hopefully it won't just get snowed over, but he doesn't think there's any real stopping the accumulation of the stuff. Not, at least, without giving up some supplies that aren't worth the marker. It's fine. The local weather is distinct enough on its own. "Not sure making knives out of frozen water is really a great idea," He answers Yalai, raising a hand to wiggle it oddly, "It would melt in your hand, the same as it has been here. I don't see how you could really use it as a weapon very effectively, but you could probably build temporary fortifications and tunnel through it if it's deep enough. Not sure how sturdy it is as a surface over your head, tho'..." "Lead the way! You look like you desperately want to bury yourself someplace dark and fuzzy." He calls to her, waving towards the sky.
Yalai the Stave	The Sheikah doesn't offer any decisive answer regarding whether the snow should be fluffy or not. She looks like she's much more involved with trying to dry off as best she can; and she still looks like she's swallowed a few sour grapes, even perched on the harness-ring of her Loftwing. She's huddled herself down as far as she can get in Neyir's thick feathers, and the Loftwing ruffles them in response, perhaps made unhappy by both the sudden cold and wet in her plumage, and picking up on Yalai's own annoyance. Yalai does pause to eye the potion as Aedan dumps a little snow in there, and looks at the steam a little longingly. Steam means heat; even if Skyloft is too high for snow, she's no stranger to bitter cold. Ordinarily she wouldn't mind, but being wet while trying to stay warm is the worst. "In very small doses," she agrees, squinting a little suspiciously. No mad science for her, thank you very much; she prefers not to test mystery potions. He can leave the guinea pig routine to himself if he's that curious. Maybe someday she can take one of those surface demons alive, and they can clap it in irons and use it for testing potions... "I was going to be suggesting that next," she calls, as he drops the marker over his bird's side. Now they can find this place more easily later, if the snow doesn't completely obscure the marker. Bright colours only go so far when there's so many feet of snow. She strokes her Loftwing's neck, waiting; she can feel the bird's tension and eagerness to be off. They're clumsy fellows on land, and so she lets Neyir pace to the edge, step over the edge, and spread her wings with a bone-jarring /snap/ of flight feathers catching air. Even as her form recedes, he might hear her voice trailing back to him. "Last one to Skyloft is--!" But the rest is lost to distance, and the wind.
Aedan MacCarvill	The outcome of the race is all but foreordained. In terms of short-term bursts Aedan's mount is plenty good, but in the long haul Yalai simply has more opportunity to get ahead than he does. He mounts up after her, and clumsily chucks a second marker near the edge of the island in the hopes that maybe the accumulation falling off the edge will allow it to be seen even if it keeps snowing around here. His loftwing shakes itself heavily, making a remarkably aggravated noise as it takes off into the air. It's a big, lumbering tub of a bird, especially with the extra cargo space. "Is WHAT?! I can't race--" And then, like Yalai's, the sound of Aedan's voice is overtaken by distance and the rush of wind. The great Loftwing putters on behind Neyir, never quite catching up. Especially while they remain within the snowstorm, which the Knight finds surprisingly treacherous given the sorts of hazards they can encounter throughout. He makes several mental notes on the sort of equipment they'll want when they return. Firewood. And a kettle. For something to keep them warm. Wine, maybe. After a few moments of thinking that there is simply no way to communicate, Aedan leans over and pulls the end of a radio out of the foremost saddlebag, clicking it on and demanding, <<What're we racing /for/?! Or will we decide when we get there?>> Truthfully, he expects no answer. It'll come on arrival.