Florette X: The Insect
It seemed almost impossible, at this point. As Florette’s head began to finally clear, that only became more obvious, the delusion of success harder to humor.
For all that Glaciel’s castle was embedded deep in a pit, the Hiveriiens were still managing periodic sorties, covering their ascent with a hail of javelins and retreating back before Lucien’s wet and scattered forces could manage to regroup from Levian’s waves. Apparently all of the boats had capsized too, which meant that Florette’s plan there would amount to nothing either.
The only upside was that Fernan was alive, and being taken to safety far away from this battlefield. Only to wake up to the news that this entire endeavor was a failure.
Florette had had a plan, had taken time to consider every angle and come up with the best solution, but now that was all in ruins. And yet, what else is there? She had the Ring of Glaciel, at least, allowing her to traverse the ice by smoothly sliding across, rather than clumsily slipping and stumbling, but she was still just one person. She could only do so much against the Hiverriens, let alone Glaciel or Levian.
But is that truly all it can do? The ring had turned the water around it to ice, when it had rested on her finger. That didn’t mean anything else for certain, but…
Florette pushed herself forwards, sliding up to the edge of the island. She planted one boot firmly on the ground, and lowered her bare foot bearing the Ring of Glaciel towards the water.
Yes! Where it touched, ice formed beneath it, floating on the surface of the water.
Cautiously, Florette shifted her weight towards the water, but the ice beneath it held. She pushed off Glaciel’s island out over the water, and skated across the surface as if it were solid. All the more useful, then. That opened up genuine possibilities.
And also makes me an absolute idiot for swimming after Fernan. I could have died for no reason, even trying to take the more cautious course. The days of being bludgeoned over the head with her own follies, apparently, were far from their end. But that was no reason to stop now.
Fernan had been saved, and there hadn’t been time to mess around with the new artifact while he froze to death. What’s done is done. Now it fell to Florette to use it as best she could.
She awkwardly paddled forward, trying to get a visual confirmation of Levian’s presence before the next wave hit.
As if that would be possible. Florette pushed herself back to the shore with a frown, her efforts at spotting the water spirit come to naught.
The Torrent of the Deep lurked beneath the waves, not even poking his head out. Maybe Fernan or Mara would have been able to see his aura through the water, but as it was he could wreak havoc on the island with impunity from underwater, completely unreachable by normal means.
And Glaciel, locked up tight in her regenerating castle, was little better. Florette had barely managed to infiltrate once with the element of surprise. Even with a Cloak of Nocturne, Glaciel would be watching vigilantly this time, spreading her presence and awareness through the castle.
The spirits were just in another realm entirely, their power exceeding armies a thousand times their number. They were mortal, ultimately, even vulnerable, but chopping off a toe with the element of surprise differed so vastly from winning an honorable duel with her ace in the hole gone that committing to it would practically be choosing to die.
That wouldn’t make it the wrong decision, necessarily, but…
The Winter Queen seemed most invested in restoring her castle, thickening the areas she’d weakened and smoothing out walls that had collapsed entirely. Occasionally her face was visible in the side of the castle, or poking up above it, but she never ventured out directly. Probably no need, when her soldiers can pour out the moment the Fox-King has his britches down.
Still, it seemed strange. Why not dispose of the invaders first, then repair in peace? Lucien Renart was hardly threatening the physical integrity of the castle at the moment, so busy with keeping some semblance of order amongst his sodden, freezing forces. Why fixate on the structure?
Levian, too, remained out of sight, and clearly he didn’t need to show himself to be effective. Waves continued to sweep over the ice every minute or so, knocking most of Lucien’s forces out of formation, even pushing the most remote off into the water. They came fast enough that few had even quite recovered from the last when the next arrived, though some of his field engineers were making a valiant attempt to build up the wooden walkway on stilts to have a protected platform.
Glaciel and Levian. They’re the real problems, and they refuse to show themselves. Doing anything about them even if they did would be hard enough, but as things were, they were untouchable. Put that way, it was easier to envision a course of action, perhaps a way to accomplish something, at least, whether it could salvage this effort or not. I could hardly do anything less.
The next wave arrived, no doubt sweeping many behind Florette off their feet, but she was focused on the source, looking for Levian. In the murky dark, it was hard to tell with any certainty, but it did seem to be rippling out from a central point, thankfully. That meant there were options.
Florette jumped into the air, planting her foot down on the wave as it reached her and vaulting over, using the bit of ice that formed to lengthen her reach. Levian would be under the water beyond it, though he still had not deigned to surface.
“Coward!” Florette shouted, directing the sound of her voice towards the water. Flammare had definitely had an ego, and Soleil all the more so. This might work, so it was worth a try. “Afraid to show your face in front of a few humans? It’s pathetic.”
Her words were greeted only by the crashing of mundane waves against the icy shore.
Levian, apparently, would not take the bait.
Fine.
Florette kicked out further, gliding across the water and leaving a trail of ice behind her on the surface. As she looked back, the part of the trail closest to shore was already beginning to break apart with the movement of the waves, but that was fine. There were other ways to return.
“I met your High Priestess, Levian,” Florette shouted again towards the water, reasonably confident that the spirit would be able to hear her. “She was much like her master: callous, selfish, and weak. She wielded your power deftly, yet it all came to nothing. She failed against Soleil’s sage, and again in the city of her birth. I would say you chose your champion poorly, but really, she suits you. One self-absorbed coward playing at power to serve another.” That was slagging Camille more than even she deserved, really, but Florette had no prohibitions on lying, and the point was to piss him off.
Yet still, he remained silent.
“When I return to Malin, I think I’ll kill her. Finish the job that Lumière started. I don’t expect it will be difficult.” Florette reached a distance that seemed about right based on what she’d observed on shore, the rough location Levian might have been several minutes ago. As if he isn’t constantly moving anyway.
“Emile Leclaire is no better. He turned his tail and fled the moment his people lost control of the city, then spent months licking his wounds. He made a deal with Glaciel on behalf of humanity, working against your partner for the sake of us lowly insects. Doesn’t that make you mad?”
Another tall wave approached, destined to sweep across the ice once more, but nothing marked it for Florette in particular, no indication that her words had reached him.
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What the fuck? All she had to do was get someone to try to kill her; that was supposed to be the easy part! It happened all the time.
“If you’re helping Glaciel, that must mean you think she can win. Otherwise you’d just be ruining your reputation for nothing. If that’s so, where do you think you sit in all of this? Your followers will die if she prevails, along with any potential others. The only remaining humans in the world of eternal night will be kin to Glaciel, eager to serve her and no others. Your influence will wane as the oceans freeze over, gradually whittled down to nothing. It just doesn't make any sense.” It actually doesn’t. “What do you even want? What are you hoping to get out of this?”
Thinking like a spirit, an embodiment of power and ego, with humanity a distant concern at best… It still didn’t fit. Whatever the details of Emile Leclaire’s deal with Glaciel, Levian surely couldn’t have been bound to them without choosing to be. If a victory for the Winter Queen didn’t help him in some way, he would never have agreed to be bound by a deal. And if he hadn’t, then why was helping her?
“You don’t think she’ll win,” Florette realized, gliding to a stop over the water. “You’re killing the humans fighting her, but…” He could never have expected us to be able to kill her. I came the closest, and I still never had a real chance. That was with Magnifico’s artifacts, which Levian wouldn’t have known about. “But we’re no real threat to her. Rats nibbling at her toes. You’re wiping us off the board so there’s no chance we can drive her to flee before Flammare can finish her permanently.”
Perhaps it was Florette’s imagination, but it looked like the pattern to the waves stopped for a moment, an interruption that said as much in its silence as a thousand words.
“Perhaps I’ll tell Glaciel that. I could swear it to be truth before her and watch when she realizes she can’t claim my soul. How might things go for you then, Torrent of the Deep?” Florette could barely finish talking before the water began to swirl around her, a draining vortex pulling her down and in.
She kicked uselessly against the water, failing entirely to outpace the current. Well, I guess I got what I wanted. Would Levian emerge from the deep to drag her under, or allow the whirlpool to do the work for him? That affected how to approach things.
The Ring of Glaciel could maybe let Florette push off of the water spirit the way she’d vaulted over the wave, using the right burst of energy at just the right moment, but the window would be narrow, and it depended on Levian deciding to play with his food.
The Blade of Khali could threaten him, but out on the water, there was hardly a chance Florette could land a blow against the serpentine spirit, and he would know that. If anything, brandishing it would make it more likely he’d stay at a distance, giving her even less to work with.
That left the Cloak of Nocturne, and hiding herself in darkness. Glaciel hadn’t noticed, so there was at least a good chance it would help hide her.
And then what? She could dive into the water and start swimming and maybe fare a bit better against the current than paddling with her feet, at the cost of probably freezing to death. She’d barely made the swim last time, and that was without a spirit of water actively trying to kill her.
I just had to taunt him, had to run my fucking mouth…
At least she was distracting him. On the shore, lit torches illuminated a raised platform around the hole Glaciel’s castle had fallen into. Lucien and the others were taking advantage of the reprieve to strengthen their position and gather themselves back into a semblance of order. In the gloom it was hard to be sure, but it looked like stakes for the stilts they sat atop had been buried deep into the ice. It might even be enough to ride out Levian’s next assault unharmed.
I set out to goad him, and that much did work, sort of…
Swirling in a wide circle towards her doom, Florette began to laugh. “That was so easy, Levian! I expected better of the Torrent of the Deep.”
He didn’t respond directly, but that didn’t necessarily mean this wouldn’t work.
“I just had to distract you long enough for them to build those walls and towers, and you fell for it like a fool!” Florette watched for any change in the movement of the water, but none appeared. “You think I just figured out your plan just now? The Fox-King is betrothed to your High Priestess. It’s been obvious from the start, and all I needed to do to halt you was put on a little performance of discovering it.” She let out another loud, forced laugh. “Kill me now if you like. I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. A minor sacrifice, to render your efforts hollow. By the time your next wave approaches, it will break uselessly against their fortifications. You’ll have to go out and show yourself if you want to make any difference at all.”
Was that a slight hitch in the current?
“That, or you allow us to prevail. We were winning before you showed up. Glaciel is backed into a corner, injured, having spent inordinate power defending herself. Already, I swear, she was close to accepting a retreat when Corro spoke to her. Take my soul if that’s a lie. She refused because she believed she could win, but now that you’ve allowed yourself to be distracted and manipulated like a simpleton, her withdrawal is all but certain. All because you took your eye off the prize, chasing a gnat while your house burned down.”
The vortex stopped moving, and Florette felt a brief moment of satisfaction before glimpsing the towering wall of water forming in the distance, taller by far than any of the fortifications that had been built. Once again, ‘success’ can mean so much and yet so little.
No doubt Levian planned to splatter her against the ice, showing how wrong she was as he tore down humanity’s every toehold in Glaciel’s domain.That was at least better than killing her first, but it didn’t leave a lot of options.
And now I really have to pull this off, or I’ll have been better off shutting up and dying. Florette stabilized herself on her tiny platform of ice, way smaller than what should have been needed to hold her weight, come to think of it, and readied herself for the moment of impact. Sliding her foot slightly across the water made it large enough to stand on with both feet, and angling it forward would hopefully keep it straight once the wave hit.
Florette felt dizzy as the water swelled beneath her, but her footing held steady. Something about the ice from the ring made it easier, thankfully.
She rose higher and higher as the wave began to break, and before long the shore was upon her, and then the pit.
As she had when the castle collapsed, Florette cloaked herself in darkness, withdrawing from Terramonde to fade halfway into Khali’s world as she tumbled down onto the ice below. It felt euphoric, freeing herself of earthly ties in the midst of all this stress and chaos, but there was work to be done.
Resisting the pull into darkness, Florette returned the moment after impact, momentum sliding her forward across the ice as water sprayed high into the air.
The wooden structures were still standing, looking more precarious than ever up on their stilts.. The flame sages must have put up a wall to block the wave, she thought, before realizing that none remained. Had they just been crafted that well? It seemed unlikely, but whatever the cause, it wasn’t worth dwelling on.
Florette crouched down, took a deep breath, and pushed off, sliding across the ice far more smoothly than she had the water.
As she’d hoped, Levian’s water had half-submerged Glaciel’s castle in its hole, and taken off the top of the highest tower. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but there seemed to be more annoyance in Glaciel than before as she shifted her attention between the various damaged areas and dealt with the water.
I’m on the right track, then. “Hey Levian!” Florette shouted towards the sea. “I was lying about everyone else knowing. I did just figure it out! Take my soul if I lie. Now I’m going to go tell Glaciel and you can’t stop me!”
If there was anything human in the spirit at all, he would fucking hate that. Who knew spending time with Camille would be such good practice?
Sure enough, a vertical slice of water tore its way up the shore after her, Florette only barely managing to slide out of the way in time. Another two followed, coming at an angle that blocked another side-step from properly dodging. Nothing else for it, then.
Florette propelled herself towards the pit with as much speed as she could manage, waited until the last possible second, and jumped.
She reached the tower, tried to grab onto the ice, failed, and nearly fell to an ignoble death before her ringed foot managed to get solid traction against the sloped roof. That relief didn’t last long though, as another wall of water immediately began crashing down the side. This time it was continuous, submerging more and more of the castle from the bottom up.
Florette was so preoccupied that she almost missed another narrow blade of water, ducking down an instant before it would have decapitated her. Instead, it sliced through the top of the roof. A quick kick was all it took to send it sliding into the pit below.
Once she got the hang of it, scrambling about the tower was surprisingly easy. Only one foot had good grip on it, but that counted for a lot when she still had three other limbs to maneuver with, and the Cloak of Nocturne to help protect her if she missed a step, or if Levian cut out the ground from beneath her. Absent the stakes and the extremely high risk of dying stupidly before she could accomplish anything, it was almost fun, though it was entirely impossible not to think about the rest of it.
It only took a few minutes for Levian to cut the upper fourth of the tower to ribbons, sending the Hiverriens within fleeing to lower floors.
Then, finally, Glaciel showed her face, forming a physical body around eight feet tall on the highest floor still standing.
“Oh good,” Florette said, jumping over another of Levian’s attacks. “I was hoping to talk to you.”
But Glaciel ignored her, jumping out of the castle with inhuman grace, then landing on the edge of the pit above. She’s going to talk to Levian. She couldn’t be happy that he was wrecking her domain.
Florette tried not to feel too relieved. The hardest part was yet to come. The only thing that had happened now was that she had a chance.