After finding the terrified messenger still cowering outside of her room, Ashe sent him off to request for her leave of absence from the League of Legends while she headed to the Freljord. If her husband was right, it was just a few hours until the squad would depart. She then made her way to center of the Freljord's wing inside of the Institute of War, where a message board sat. She wrote up a letter explaining the situation and pinned it up. Most champions checked the board daily, and would immediately notice the new message. Ashe did not want to wake and gather all of her country's champions in the middle of the night; especially the ones who had already fought that day.
With the leadership duties out of the way, Ashe went back to her room to get her bow. It sat in a special wardrobe-like area that was built to endure its cold temperatures. She would have built a lock on it, but the bow seemed to freeze the hands of anyone who touched it but her. The weapon was built from true ice, and the arrows materialized out of thin air, which proved for a reliable combination of durability and consistency.
Ashe piddled around for a few hours with her bow while trying to decide what her plan of action was once they had arrived in the Freljord. Sadly, the most successful way for her to protect her people would be to kill Sejuani. Without her, the Winter's Claw, her faction, would diminish. With their strong and ruthless leader gone, they would see the error of their ways and the improbable success of their methods.
Once the sun had begun to rise, she finished messing around with her gear and woke Tryndamere.
"Uuuggghhh…" he moaned at her.
"Get your ass outta bed," she told him.
"But I LIKE my ass in bed. But you know… I like yours in here too…" She rolled her eyes at him and smacked him on the rear end with an open palm. "OW!" he shouted in pain.
"Still like it in there?" she retorted.
"Not particularly…" he sulked as he literally rolled out of the bed and onto the floor. He gradually picked himself up and walked half-awake out the door of the bedroom. Ashe smiled in self amusement and followed until they got just outside of the League of Legend's front gates. Not to her surprise, Jarvan, Xin Zhao, and Shyvana were all already there.
A crisp wind blew through Ashe's hair as she walked towards Jarvan and his crew. They were fully dressed in battle armor, but poorly suited for the harsh, freezing, gales that ruled the lands of the Freljord.
"Good morning Prince Jarvan!" Ashe called out as she and Tryndamere joined up with the group. He looked at her and nodded with a slight smirk on his face.
"It's a morning... But I'm not so sure about a good one," Tryndamere added. A sharp elbow to the ribs from his wife shut him up quick as they huddled around to discuss how things were going to happen.
"Shortly, we will be joined by a group of summoners who will teleport us to the edge of Freljord," Prince Jarvan began. "From there, we can track down these barbarians that are causing the king and queen their troubles. Sadly, we do not have a readily available transport home, and communication with the League will be very limited. We will figure out exit plans as the time draws nearer. Hopefully, this should only take a couple of days. Does anyone have any questions? Now is the time to ask." The champions all looked at one another in an attempt to spot who they should pay attention to as they began to speak; but no one had anything ask. A silence persisted for a few moments until the front gates to the Institute of War came flying open. They all turned to face the new arrival, pondering why someone else would be showing up; everyone traveling was already accounted for.
Ashe recognized the person as Quinn, a Demacian champion for the League of Legends. As far as she knew, Quinn was not going along too.
"Quinn?" Ashe said questioningly. "What are you doing here?" She responded to Ashe by blushing a bright reddish color and stammering a little bit. She obviously had some business that pertained to just one of the people standing outside, not the whole group. Jarvan spoke up a few moments later and covered her mistake. He guised the excuse so well that Ashe genuinely wondered whether or not he was telling the truth in saying that he had planned to speak with her previously. He left the group and spoke a few words to her in private, but rejoined the pack shortly afterwards.
By that time, the summoners who planned to take the squad to the Freljord had showed up. They brought some extra winter weather garments that Jarvan and Xin Zhao graciously accepted. The summoners barely spoke a word, apart from their incantation, as they prepared their spell to teleport them off. Ashe bowed her head and closed her eyes as she felt the all too familiar sensation of the teleportation taking place. It was a bit odd to experience off of the Fields of Justice, but it was what she had expected.
The temperature difference was noticed literally immediately by everyone in the squad. Ashe and Tryndamere were beyond used to the cold weather, and it showed simply by the way they dressed in preparation for the trip. The others seemed to be a little more affected by the change, but the warm gear kept it bearable.
They pushed through the snow while the weather began to calm and become traversable. They did not talk a whole lot for the first while, but it became obvious that the silence was bothering Tryndamere.
"Who made this place so damn big any who?" he barked at essentially no one.
"Avarosa did," Ashe replied.
"Well Avarosa musta been some kind of a fatass if she needed this much room..." he said in response.
"WHAT did you just say about her?!" Ashe demanded.
"Nothing wrong with being a fatass! I'm just saying there is no other reason to need this much empty space! Well... Unless OTHER parts of her were largely proportioned..." Ashe then spent the next few minutes whapping him over the head with her bow while the company just stood around and watched. Jarvan and Shyvana grinned as they viewed the scene, but Xin Zhao remained as stone faced as ever. It was expected though; after serving so much of his life under the royal Lightshield's family, he had to have a strong dedication to his duty to protect them.
After Tryndamere's small escapade, they continued onward quietly for multiple hours until they came across an Avarosan village: it was small, like most, and distinguishable by the flag bearing the faction's insignia that flew high in the Freljordian sky.
Once inside of the village, Ashe was warmly welcomed in an instant. Tryndamere was respected, but most looked much too afraid of the man to speak a word. It was no real surprise that Ashe did the majority of the talking.
"We are looking for a potential group of barbarians that may have ambushed an Avarosan village," she told one of the men inside of the village. "Have you heard of any attacks recently?" The man scratched his head for a moment before piping up.
"Yeah, I dink I saws some smoke f'om da east. Don't know nuttin' bout it, but dat was jus' dis mornin'."
"That's all I needed to hear. Thank you," Ashe said as she turned to leave the village eastbound. The man watched as the group traveled out, most likely questioning why the king and queen were roaming the Freljord, and why she had not bothered to stay very long.
They trudged along and came across a town in ruins; it looked like the aftermath of a war. They had surely just found the village that the League had been talking about. There were people moving about as quickly as possible, clearing rubble, grabbing what supplies remained intact, and doing their best to aid survivors. The sight of it all almost brought tears to Ashe's eyes but she held them back: she had to stay strong for her people. She gave her blessings from Avarosa as she passed by survivors and Tryndamere helped people lift and haul things as he passed by. The Demacian crew did what they could to help, but most of them were fighting their own battle against the temperatures alone.
They stuck around to aid the situation for quite a while, but they knew that they had to press onwards. If Sejuani and her ally attackers were not stopped, there would just be more bloodshed.
"When do we get to punch things?" Tryndamere asked aloud.
"Yes, punching things sounds good," Shyvana, the half dragon, added in.
"We are not here to 'punch things'," Ashe replied to both of them. "We are here to stop the people pillaging our towns."
"So… We are here to punch assholes?" the Freljordian king said sarcastically.
"That sounds… unpleasurable. Is it too late to return to the kingdom?" Xin Zhao asked Jarvan.
"What? You are going to chicken out now, old man?" Tryndamere bellowed. "Your decrepit ass can't take a few punches?"
"I would not take punches to my behind for the likes of you," Xin shot back.
"Oh? So you would take them for someone else?"
"I would do anything for my country and its king," Xin Zhao proudly declared. At this point Tryndamere had totally lost himself to hysterics, Jarvan stood still staring at the sky in disbelief, Shyvana clung to the Prince for support as she laughed, Xin remained in place quite confused, and Ashe was on the verge of putting an arrow into her husband's forehead.
"GUYS!" Ashe yelled. "We have a mission to accomplish! Tryndamere: shuddup! If this village was attacked half of a day ago, and the weather has been nice, perhaps their tracks are still visible. Let's look around the outskirts of the village for a lead." The group split into a Demacian team and a Freljord one as they began to scout the perimeter.
Ashe and Tryndamere kept their eyes peeled as they scanned the snow, looking for foot prints or a potential unnatural drift. While snow had not continued to fall from the sky, the wind could quite quickly blow old snow over the tracks, but a small divot would remain. They continued to walk around and found nothing of interest. Eventually they met back up with the Demacian group who was standing still waiting for the king and queen to meet back up with them.
"We found something of interest," Jarvan said to them as they approached. "Xin Zhao noticed that there is a large drop in level of the snow over here. He suggested that it was smashed down by mounted units moving this direction." Jarvan finished his sentence while pointing out where he was talking about.
"I'm surprised his old eyes even work anymore…" Tryndamere stated before receiving a smack to the back of his head from Ashe. They pursued the route that Xin Zhao had pointed out until they saw a red speck in the distance. The group picked up the pace until they made it to the sight. There was a soft portion of red snow and nothing around to indicate what could have left it behind. Ashe crouched down and analyzed the area in hopes of finding any information that could give the party a lead. Xin pointed out that there appeared to be heavy steps leading away from the location, and just slightly away from the town that they had just left; presumably the neighboring village to the one in ruins.
"Why would tracks be leading from here, back to the village?" Shyvana asked.
"Perhaps it was a survivor," Jarvan pointed out.
"And someone rescued them?" Ashe questioned.
"Look that way," Xin stated, gesturing further to the east. There seemed to be very large imprints in the snow that scattered to random locations around. The group was fairly confused, but pushed on in the direction of the awkwardly placed footprints. While the path strayed frequently and often required the group to backtrack and figure out which path was the correct one, they managed to make their way to what appeared to be one of the barbarians' camps; and being so close to the village that was ambushed, it was quite likely the one used to rest and recuperate.
The party pushed up to the camp and it appeared to be empty. Night was beginning to fall and the wind had picked up significantly. They stood on the outskirts of the collection of tents and listened intently. Through the howling wind, voices and light clattering of metal could be heard: they could have found the attackers. In unison, they readied their weapons and slowly began to walk through the camp. They started to approach a tent where the sounds could be distinctly heard, just as five figures stepped out and prepared their weapons.
"Get ready…" Ashe said while pulling back her bow's string, creating an icy arrow in its wake.