Meet the Landers: Yuki-Onna

It's the middle of February within the Yamato region. It's nasty. There's hail coming down in the midst of snow, she had set on at the time that Prophylaxis was making his way to the east - to try and make his way to the Palace Lands. The chill bites at him, and while he might use fire to resist it, nature doesn't exhaust as easily as his supply of mana.

Frozen steps slowly bring him to the protection of some trees, as the wind chill bites into him. His long Bunbun Cait Sith ears hidden beneath a hood or a cap, lest they risk being frozen off. As he moves from tree to treat, making those last few hours of trip, he suddenly comes to a stillness. The cold is still freezing, but the wind is no longer biting into his clothing.

The air is almost eerily still, as he takes a few steps forward. Finally able to hear the crunch of snow beneath his snow boots. Until finally, he stops near the center of this still place, with a woman standing in front of him. Observing him. Her black hair slowly waving through the air, her white-and-blue dress similarly seeming to slowly move in response to an invisible wind.

It's not that Prophylaxis doesn't /like/ winter. There was certainly something undeniably beautiful about watching a driving, howling blizzard swirl inexorably outside one's window, blanketing the world beyond in a thick layer of clinging, all-consuming frost. But this? Being caught in the midst of what could be the worst blizzard of the season? Its awful. Absolutely awful.

He's at least dressed for the work of trudging through the screaming, bone-chilling gales, layers upon layers of warm cloth wrapped around his body from head to toe to the tips of his long fluffy ears. But even that can't stop the cold from finding its way in through the cracks. It's stubborn, and only by ducking between trees for cover is he able to find brief respite. But then...

He has to stop and blink, a difficult task when his eyelashes are partially frozen. The air has gone still and silent, almost as if he'd stepped into the eye of the storm. It reminds him of something, somewhere he'd been once before. And then he sees her.

"You...?" The doctor asks, and everything clicks. He approaches, then immediately drops into a deep bow. "...I wanted to thank you, but couldn't figure out how. For what you did for me, on the eighth floor, I mean. I don't know what would have happened if you weren't there, but I can tell it would have been so much worse."

Then, he slowly rises, and presses a hand over his heart, "Please, if there is a reason you've come to find me, I will do what I can to help."

The woman looks at him with her typical cold eyes and expression. It is hard to figure out what may be going on within the Divine Being's head. She doesn't even talk about the eight floor. She just stares at him for a while, before raising her hand up as he mentions doing what he can do to help, aiming to silence him.

His lips seem to almost freeze for a moment. But perhaps that's just coincidence.

Yuki-Onna then motions for him to step closer, as she pulls something from her pocket. It looks like an opal of sorts. When he gets close enough, she lays it into his hand, as his fingers begin to freeze. She closes his fingers around it, and then steps back, so he is not in danger of immediately freezing to death, simply by being touched to her.

Her very existance is deadly to him and all living things around her.

"Take this, and bring it to Longwang within the Palace Lands on the Southern region. His home has long been beseiged by apes. Clear out some of them, and lay this at the altar." She demands of him. "Then, keep it on you, until the end of time."

Absolute cold is as antithetical to life as a towering inferno. To linger too long in the Yuki-Onna's presence is a lethal prospect, and her wrath is certainly not something Prophylaxis wishes to incite.

...Again.

He is silenced, and he makes no attempt to un-silence himself, instead simply stepping forward and receiving the item she offers. The gem is... beautiful. Opals are gorgeous even in their simplest forms, in spite of the fact that they are, chemically speaking, extremely unremarkable.

'It shall be done,' he would say through frozen lips, frostbitten fingers clutching that crystal. He can't, though, because his teeth have started chattering behind his still-frozen lips. Instead he just nods, and inclines his head as if to express curiosity about the last part of that statement.

...And about something else as well.

When they met last time, she hadn't spoken even a single word. He wasn't sure if she /could/ speak. But then she appeared in his mind, and again here, and dispelled that delusion. He wonders if she is somehow lonely, bringing death by frost everywhere she goes.

Perhaps there might be something he can do about that, sometime in the future. Hm.

The woman, her voice beautiful and smooth, unlike anything one would expect from such a frigid being, turns afterwards. She gives him nothing more. No hint on where to find this altar. No hint on what might be waiting for him in the Palace lands. No warning of the extremely dangerous monsters that far out from the nearest Root Town. Instead, she motions her hand towards the port that he was traveling to...

And motions her hand once, creating a tunnel in which the wind stops moving, going on for miles with but the motion of a single hand. Her head doesn't turn back to him. Instead, she retreats northwards through the woods, and leaves him alone. And it is not long before he is alone once more.

A short interaction. One that makes one wonder what the point was. Yet, within his hand lies a strange stone. Whenever he moves it, the facets within the opal seem almost like perfect hexes. Were he someone who knew about rocks, he might recognize it baring similarities to an Australian Boulder Opal. There's a small spot in it however that reveals it to be more than what it seems. A small metalic 'tack' that sticks out from it that is made to be inlaid into something, or allow it to be hung from a cord of sorts.

Short perhaps it might have been, but you /never/ write-off an interaction with any divine being, especially one to whom you owe a significant favor to, /ESPECIALLY/ when there's a strange bond there that you don't quite understand. Prophylaxis bows deeply again as she departs, the last lesson in etiquette firmly (freezer) burnt onto his brain. He goes his own separate way then, as well.

...To cut through a blizzard like that with just a gesture, though... Well, they /are/ called Divine Beings for a reason, after all. Perhaps even some kind of 'Elemental Lord...?'

Regardless, he has a mission to take care of in the Palace Lands. Two, now, in fact. But it seems as though he's going to have to... reorient his priorities, somewhat, in the light of today's events.