"I really should've seen this coming..."

Currently, her dragon was resting in her arms, his fire-attuned scales steaming in the cold air. Not her arms. Her arms. He looked up at her from his position and tilted his head. "I guess?"

At her feet, wrapped in a cloak, was, well… herself. Her twin in everything save for the set of daggers strapped to her belt, the blue of her still-icy skin, and the emptiness of her dull-eyed stare. Even now, with the skies warm and sunny overhead, she continued to shiver, teeth chattering as she curled desperately around Adriel for warmth, her dragon dutifully breathing hot steam against her skin to help. She hadn't spoken a single coherent word since she'd been freed from the ice. Hadn't even once truly seemed to wake. She just lay there shivering amidst the remains of the broken ice block, unresponsive to anything but heat.

The plan had been simple. The best plans were, she always believed. The two of them would fly to Oaklore in secret, using her illusions to keep them hidden, where she would then free her younger self from the ice, use her abilities as a Cryptic to give her the memories of defeating Yalla, then send her to Falconreach. In keeping with the inn's objectives, she would tell her nothing of the future, no matter how tempting it was to warn about Caitiff or Sek-Duat or Akanthus or… well, any number of threats, really. After bringing her to Falconreach, she and Adriel would find a way home, somehow. Simple. Easy. Aside from the last bit, which was admittedly a work in progress, it should've been a cinch.

She hadn't realized that she—the younger her—would come out of the ice near-catatonic.

But she was. In fact, it was so bad that, when they'd first broken the ice enough to begin dragging her out of it, they thought that she was… well, she wasn't breathing and didn't have a pulse, it was a natural thing to fear (Adri nearly started a forest fire in his panic). She started to breathe, albeit weakly, after a few minutes of them fumbling but those first few minutes had been terrifying. She had never felt so much fear from her dragon before. As it turned out, what she really needed was heat; the fire Adri had inadvertently started had actually been infinitely more helpful for her condition than her attempts at resuscitation. In hindsight, it should've been obvious but…

And it quickly became apparent how desperately she needed warmth. The first time she opened her mouth, it wasn't to speak but to all but cough her lungs out, chips of ice flying from her mouth every time she did. Had Riese not stopped her, the first thing her younger counterpart would've done was to drag herself head-first into the fire Adriel had accidentally started. Now that Adri was with her, she'd mostly settled down, aside from intermittent bouts of fierce coughing, but it was very, very clear that she was far from alright.

Given that as far as the King, Jaania, and quite a fair number of people knew, a very much whole, hearty, and healthy Hero of Falconreach had just single-handedly and very publically killed the head of a conquering army with apparent ease, the condition of this time's actual Riese was going to be an issue.

(Of course, she could stay. Could come home now and be with her family, be with them, make sure they would never feel the grief and loss her own had been forced to endure. Mitigate the tragedies she knew would come. Only until her counterpart recovered—

But that wouldn't be right and she hated that she even thought of it.)

Riese had thought that she would be… okay, more or less. Like she had been, once she'd freed herself from the ice. Not necessarily alright but… able to manage it. Keep it under wraps.

In hindsight, the reason why she wasn't was perfectly understandable. When she'd freed herself, the ice had already been melting on its own for quite some time, the magic that kept it regenerating dealt with thanks to Warlic's help, even if it had taken a while to fully fade away. Feeling the ice begin to melt, feeling her actions make a difference while within the ice… it helped her keep herself together. In this case, she'd broken it immediately, while the ice was still at its coldest, its most overwhelming, its most unyielding, and this version of her had been suffering, unmoving, for what would've felt like forever. It was no wonder she was still so… not good.

(In a lot of ways, she could sort of understand why Jaania was the way she was, even if she could never forgive her for inflicting that hell on her. After all, having suffered it for centuries… shouldn't she, of all people, know better than to put anyone else through that same pain?)

"I guess I just… forgot how bad it was. It's not like it's something I want to remember," she mused, sounding bitter, though her eyes softened as she looked down at her dragon, still trapped in her counterpart's arms. "You alright, Adri? I'm—she's not squishing you, is she?"

"What? No, of course not." He snorted, sending warm steam across her counterpart's skin, making her hold him even more tightly, before snuggling against her. His eyes continued to glow white, signifying that he was using his protection training even now. "Don't worry about me, just focus on making her better."

"I'll do my best," she said, going to kneel by her side, palming the packet of seaweed in her pocket, as well as the potions in her holder. While she did know first-aid, she wasn't really sure how to make an unconscious person consume such things and her healing magic was spotty without her Paladin armor or Pyronomicon copy to act as a focus... but she should be able to manage. Healing using medicine was just poisoning in reverse. If she just thought of it that way, she'd be fine. As someone who was a Rogue first and foremost, she was excellent with poison. "I'm an expert when it comes to that..."

It was... odd and more than a little unnerving, being literally beside herself like this, treating her wounds but... it was fine. She was fine. If she squinted, she could pretend it was someone else she was helping and that made it so much easier.

"It's a good thing no one's tried to bother us," Adri commented after a few minutes. His counterpart was still all but smushing him in her arms, not that he'd complained even once about it. If anything, she thought he seemed a little pleased at how her grip had strengthened. "I was surprised that I wasn't here."

"This place has never been a part of the Pactagonal Knights' patrol routes. Besides, I made sure we won't be bothered," she said, briefly turning in the direction of the Keep. "Not by the knights, anyway."

From her point of view, a gleaming wall of translucent lilac shimmered between the way to the cliff and Oaklore Keep. From the other side of it, however, what would be seen were the forests leading up to the cliff and, through them, the broken ice and nothing else. She knew her illusions well enough to know they would be effective. If anything came from the other side, and that was so unlikely she hadn't bothered setting an illusion wall, she'd just turn them all invisible.

"You, on the other hand..." If the Adriel of this time came around... while she didn't know what would happen for sure, Adriel would never be her enemy. That was just a fact. "...Didn't you say you just left me there?"

"I did," he said, scowling, sticking out his tongue at her. "Doesn't mean I didn't come back."

She chuckled. "I know, I know…" Feeling just a bit lighter, she took a step back to survey her work. To her relief, the seaweed she'd managed to 'poison' her counterpart with really did seem to help. Her skin was no longer quite as blue, which really did help her look less like a frozen corpse, even if her open eyes still looked unnervingly dead. If she had her potion-making kit with her, she could've made hartshorn's solution and tried to revive her but they had to work with what they had. "... No one's going to believe she killed Yalla, looking like this," she grumbled as she brushed her younger self's hair over her eyes, obscuring her dead stare. "Ugh, I really didn't think this was going to be a problem…"

There was no point in being resentful, not when it was quite literally herself she was looking at. If it were her in the exact same position... well, it really was her. They were the same person. She closed her eyes and exhaled, long and slow. Helplessness did not suit her. They would find a way to manage, somehow. They were heroes.

"I didn't know you felt this bad."

Adriel's voice was uncharacteristically somber. She looked at him questioningly but he was looking at her counterpart, studying her open, blank eyes. He nuzzled her forehead and seemed a little upset when she, her counterpart, didn't react.

"When you first got out, I mean," he clarified, finally looking at her. He seemed like he was holding his breath. "Was it… were you like this when you got out of the ice?"

"I…"

coldunendingfreezingcantbreathehelpmetoocold

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "It's different. We're different," she said, maybe more forcefully than she had to. "I'm—once I realized the ice was melting, it got better for me. I—it gave me something to focus on, something that's not… before that, there wasn't…"

toocoldforhungertoocoldforthirsttoocoldtosleepcantbreathehelpmesomeoneplease

"It got better for me," she repeated, at last, unconsciously pulling her cloak tightly around herself, her eyes distant as she fought to calm her breathing, to force it all back down. This wasn't the time for it. "By the time I got out, I was mostly back to normal and I tried my best to stay that way." She wasn't cold. It was a warm day and would be a warm evening. The sun was bright in the cloudless sky. She repeated the facts to herself again as she slowly released her grip on her cloak. "I'm fine now. I'm doing just fine."

"I'm sorry I didn't notice." He sounded subdued. Rare, coming from her dragon. "I should have realized."

Despite everything, Riese couldn't help but smile and reach out to stroke his head through the vice of her counterpart's grip. "It's not your fault. I didn't want anyone to know. I mean, I didn't want to know. The moment I could, I tried… I tried to forget." Despite the warm day, she suddenly felt cold. "It's not like it was anything worth remembering."

"But you're okay now?" His wide red eyes seemed to bore into her. "Right?"

She nodded. "I'm fine now, I really am. It just... " Her eyes drifted to her counterpart's face and she has to swallow. "It just hit me again, looking at her. Me. Sometimes, it—but, really, I'm fine. Really."

He nuzzled her hand. His scales always felt so warm.

"And hey, worse comes to worst, I could try to use my Cryptic powers to erase my memories of the bad stuff," she said, trying to inject a little levity into her voice. It didn't quite work, she sounded manic to her own ears. "My therapist said no but, well, I won't tell him if you won't? I mean I won't," she had to say, in part to remind herself. "But if it ever gets too bad—"

"You can handle it," he said firmly, nipping her hand. "You're strong. And I'm with you. We can handle anything together."

It was just so typical, she had to laugh. It felt good. "We can! There's a reason everyone calls us heroes." She affectionately scratched under his chin, making him purr and wag his tail. The movement jostled him enough that, in response, her counterpart rolled roughly away from her, arms locking tight around Adriel as she mumbled something incomprehensible but clearly possessive. It shouldn't have been a relief but after hours of her younger self looking like nothing more than a shivering corpse, this kind of reaction was legitimately comforting to see. "You alright there, Adri?"

"I'm strong," he said from under her younger self's body, his voice muffled. "Really, really strong."

"You are," she said, unable to stop herself from smiling. "Really."

For a moment, her heart felt light. It helped that it was quiet. Calm. It really was beautiful here, she couldn't help but think. Nostalgic. While the land still bore scars, there were no uprooted trees in the distance. No Rose banners dotted the landscape. The air smelled clean and fresh. It felt like home in a way home hadn't in a very long time.

But it really wasn't. This wasn't her spot, was it?

She looked at herself, her younger counterpart, and this time forced herself not to look away. They hadn't exactly been able to perfectly replicate how she and the Professor had freed Jaania all those years ago but she did think that, if you ignored her dead stare and blue-tinged skin, her younger self looked fine. Uninjured, at the very least, thanks to her efforts and Adriel's protection magic, which would line up with the story of how she had defeated Yalla and came away unscathed. Her condition would be difficult to explain, but maybe they could pass it off as the exertion catching up with her or something. Going after Yalla, an apparent conqueror, alone immediately after being freed from the ice... even she could admit that sounded exhausting. Defea-Killing Yalla hadn't been hard for her but she had the benefit of foreknowledge on her tactics, surprise (given she had basically been teleported directly in front of her, bypassing the need to fight off her goons), and actually having been perfectly fine and not a hero-sicle directly beforehand.

"I guess we might just have to bring her to Falconreach like this. We can't just stay here forever," she mused aloud. "It's only a matter of time before people start coming here." Wind blew past, sending a small chunk of the broken ice skittering off of the cliff. "I guess we can pretend she collapsed on the way home and we picked her up or something. I can fake memories of that…"

"I'd be able to smell you," Adriel pointed out, after squirming his way out from under her counterpart, though not minding when her arm snaked around him so that he was once again trapped in embrace. "And me."

"I can handle that with illusions." Her eyes briefly flash lilac. "Try it."

He sniffed the air. "Smells like… cappuccino," he said, at last, just a little suspiciously. "But I guess I don't smell you..."

"Coffee's great. And if it works, it works." She undid the illusion with a snap. "The real question is, how are we going to get home? To our time?"

"That," an unexpected voice rang out through the clearing, making her instinctively pull out a weapon and hold it ready as she spun to face the source of the voice. From the corner of her eye, she could see Adriel wriggle out of her younger self's grip in order to fly protectively in front of her. "You can entrust to me."

"You're…" Riese's eyes widened. "The Avatar of Time…!"

Behind a tree, cloaked by illusions magnitudes more powerful than those of that self-proclaimed 'Hero', Sepulchure continued to keep watch as the so-called 'Avatar of Time' manifested in a swirl of glowing white sand and power unimaginable.