Abax: Application
Jan. 12th, 2012 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roadstotheriverplayer information.
name: Gail
are you over 18?: Yes.
personal lj: cacopheny
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: cacopheny@gmail.com
characters in abax: Not yet :)
in character information.
series: The Old Kingdom Trilogy, by Garth Nix
name: Lirael
sex: Female
age: 19
race: Human, with some magical blood
height: 5'3"
weight: 117lbs
canon point: About a month or so after the end of Abhorsen, the last book in the trilogy.
previous cr: None
history:
Wikipedia article
Book reviews
The powers and outlook of an Abhorsen, if she was a D&D class.
Lirael grew up in the Clayr Glacier in the Old Kingdom, not knowing her father and barely remembering her mother, feeling vaguely abandoned by the lack of both. While her earlier childhood was relatively happy despite this, playing with all the younger children, taking lessons, and anticipating the day when she would join the ranks of the future-Sighted Clayr, she still stood out from her peers in many ways. It was around when she turned eleven that she realized how different she really was: in appearance, she was pale, dark-haired, and slight while her cousins were tanned, blonde, and beautiful; in interests, she thought about death and darkness and was serious in nature rather than sunny and cheerful; and in powers, for all the other Clayr had the Sight, the magical ability to see into the future. Lirael, despite doggedly growing older while the Sight woke in her younger peers, never had it. That was the start of her first spiral into depression, and of her feelings of worthlessness. Without the Sight, she was not a proper Clayr; without the Sight, she didn't belong, and she had no way to relate to anyone around her.
On her fourteenth birthday, still without the Sight, Lirael's depression and morbid nature led her to nearly kill herself, stopped partly by fear, partly by chance, and partly by a lack of proper opportunity. While she got herself help from the Clayr who caught her at her not-quite-death, a new job as a Third (and later Second) Assistant Librarian in the Great Library of the Clayr, and eventually a new friend in the Disreputable Dog, it didn't make her feel any more accepted, and her low self-worth never rose. She didn't speak to anyone but the Dog, avoided social gatherings, even avoided making eye contact and took to hiding in her own long hair, so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone who had the Sight or who might take her for as alien as she felt. She fell to such levels of asocialness that her shyness is now ingrained in her. Large groups of people and strangers make her severely uncomfortable, unless she has a job to do among them.
That doesn't mean she was never brave. Before summoning the Disreputable Dog (on accident, while trying to create a magical creature called a sending, to be a friend for her), she used her magical skill and great curiosity to explore a room in the Great Library and (equally accidentally) set free a monster called a Stilken-- a Free Magic creature of terrible hunger-- from its binding magic. In facing down the creature, with the help of a borrowed magical sword and the silent support of the Dog, she learned how to be brave. After that, she took it upon herself to protect the other, proper Clayr, to the best of her ability and often at great risk to herself, from potentially dangerous creatures or rogue magic lurking in the library. Given how dreadfully curious she is, as well, she wound up in that position rather often while poking around the Library.
Only recently in her life has she ever been given a purpose outside the life of the Clayr, a reason to live as it were. A month and a half ago, she was sent away from the Clayr Glacier where she'd lived all her life, out into the Kingdom itself, to save a young man from himself and stop the end of the world... though all she knew at the time was she was out in the world, alone, facing more monsters than she could imagine, with a new ability as a Remembrancer-- a "gift" on her nineteenth birthday that the Dog led her to find-- and a very whiny Prince she didn't know how to talk to. Thankfully, from him she learned of (and read) The Book of the Dead, was given the bells of the Abhorsen-in-Waiting-- weapons with which to fight the Dead and Free Magic creatures-- learned the identity of her father, the previous Abhorsen, and of her calling: to put the dead to rest, to protect the living, to walk the path she is set. Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker? as The Book of the Dead asks. She can, when under the office of that calling, act with confidence and deal with confrontation, showing the strong will all Abhorsens are born with, but it's still such a new thing to her that she always falls back to her old ways in times of stress.
At the end of that "adventure", Lirael and a small group of friends, family, and magical beings of various kinds vanquished a great evil on her world, the Bright Shiner known as Orannis the Destroyer: a manifestation of all that is evil and bitter and destructive in the world, with the power of a sentient atom bomb. They defeated this evil, with unexpected help from Mogget and the unexpected loss of the Dog, and even with a month to recover, Lirael is still somewhat reeling from the events. Living without her best friend, the Dog, and without her right hand, has been difficult, but at least there she had a place in the world.
personality:
Lirael is a very serious person, taking duty and responsibility seriously, and is very practical-- and she doesn't really take teasing well, either. On the rare occasions she even realizes she's being teased and doesn't simply take the joking seriously, she is likely to get flustered and exasperated with the teaser-- even when her dearest and only friend, the Dog, teased her it put her on edge. She doesn't handle stupidity well, either, and while she might not say much to the offender, she will be silently judging up until the point where she can step in and right the situation herself.
Knowledge is important to her, as a Librarian and a clever girl, and she's perfectly happy to spend most of her time either reading or exploring when she doesn't have something else to do to keep her busy. She still doesn't think much of herself, though, no matter how learned she might be: she can even admit to being a strong Charter mage, but that was nothing to her compared to not having the Sight. All her life, she has considered herself less important than the other Clayr, and if ever a need should arise for a sacrificial lamb to protect the greater good, she automatically assumes it should be herself, and has in fact attempted to sacrifice herself for the good of the world before. Having a new purpose in life, being the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, might help her along towards wanting to stay alive for its own sake, but it wouldn't be hard to bring thoughts of worthlessness and unbelonging to the surface again.
After almost a decade of hiding from social interaction in general, Lirael is very shy. In anything where she doesn't have to make split-second decisions to save someone's life, she really would prefer to keep herself in the background and not talk to anybody. It makes her lonely and uncertain how to even reach out, much less make a friend. Her sense of responsibility is very strong, however, and a deep part of who she is. It leads her to put herself in harms way again and again to help others, usually with magic and sword. While she is afraid of people and social interaction, in any other situation, she has long since defeated fear, and she can, in an emergency, take command and control of a situation. But the minute one confronts her in a social context or insults her, she is quick to back down unless there is simply no other choice.
abilities/powers:
~Death: As the daughter of the previous Abhorsen, Lirael can sense the presence of death, whether it be recent or aged, and the undead. She can also enter Death, as if it were a separate plane of existence, made up of a flowing River that carries souls to the world beyond. When her spirit is in Death, her body is still in Life, frozen in place-- literally: her body becomes covered in frost, and a chill fog rises around it. The longer her spirit is in Death, the more the frost expands.
~Bells: (OOC NOTE: Obviously she does not have these bells in-game, but they're extremely important to her past and character, and if I get in for an item drop they're the only thing I'd ask for, so I wanted to include them here!) As part of her office as Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Lirael has a leather bandolier of seven bells that is worn across the chest. When rung, these bells have particular spell-like effects, particularly on the undead and creatures of magic, but also to some extent on the living. The bells can be rung more than one at a time-- but only if one has two hands. They require willpower and focus to ring properly, as the magic that made them gives them something of a mind of their own, or else the effect of the bell might harm the ringer, usually in a form related to the bell's power. Each bell has a name and a power:
* Ranna (the smallest) brings sleep, stillness, and peace. It is the most forgiving of all the bells of an inexperienced or clumsy ringer, and is the least likely to cause a bad effect if wrong poorly, though at times it might make her sleepy to ring it, as well as whomever it is supposed to be affecting.
* Mosrael wakes the dead, pulling the spirits into Life as long as there are bodies or spell-space prepared for them, while sending the ringer's spirit into Death, instead.
* Kibeth creates movement to the ringer's will, but is also tricksome and can make the ringer walk, as well, whether in a straight line, in a circle, or even in a jig, sometimes disrupting her concentration or just being annoying.
* Dyrim can restore speech to the mute, or still speech in one who speaks too freely, with some other subtle usages also aligned with communication, such as the revealing of secrets or even the reading of minds.
* Belgaer affects the mind, both restoring memories and independent thought in someone without either, or erasing them, and covers the lifting of bindings. It is perhaps the most dangerous of bells to ring without enough focus and attention, as it can damage the ringer's mind, and it likes to hear the sound of its own voice.
* Saraneth binds the dead or-- more rarely-- the living and forces them to follow the ringer's will, but it can also scatter the will of the ringer if rung without the proper focus and willpower. It is the best friend of an Abhorsen.
* Astarael (the largest) sends all who hear it into Death, and while it is not necessarily permanent, it is usually permanent for the ringer, meaning ringing Astarael is usually tantamount to suicide and thus is not done except in dire need.
~Charter Magic: Blessed by the magical Charter at birth, Lirael can mentally access the never-ending flow of that Charter-- structured, ordered magic-- and cast spells by stringing together symbols: drawing them, saying their names, or even infusing the marks into a whistle.
~Charter-skins: As a benefit of studying the book In the Skin of a Lyon, Lirael can create a Charter-skin, or a magical "fabric" that, when she fits herself into it, lets her "wear" a shape not her own. Creating skins takes at least four hours of spell-work, each skin can only be used once, and she can only wear a skin for a maximum of two or three hours before it starts becoming uncomfortable and fraying at the seams. The shapes she can make are that of a barking owl, a russet bear, and an ice otter.
~Sword-Skills: Lirael has training in using a sword, despite having recently lost her dominant hand. Though she's started training to build up her left side, she isn't very far along with it. The knowledge is there, but the skill is currently lacking. Should she come across a sword in-game, she will immediately start practicing again.
first person sample:
Situation Update (As in, Plotting, IC Style!: A visual network post. Most of Lirael's network activity in Abax will be text or audio, but she can do it when necessary!
third person sample:
It had only been a simple complaint of a pair of Hands, something Sabriel had been sure Lirael could handle. After everything else they'd done, how could a pair of Hands, probably left over from Hedge's minions, be difficult at all? Sabriel was far too far north to make it to Robles Town with any speed, and busy besides, but Lirael, at the House, wasn't far at all. So, despite her discomfort with it, Lirael had been the one to go. How hard could it be? Just a pair of Hands. She was confident in her use of the bells, and in her Charter magic, and in the strength of her will. Surely that was all she would need.
That didn't stop her from fretting the entire way there, though, second-guessing every plan she made as too likely to fail, coming up with ways to summon Sabriel should she need her, or even Sameth. The bells she could trust; herself, she was much less sure of, and she was alone now, with not even the Dog to help her. That seemed like a reckoning for disaster, to her.
So now, standing in the Second Precinct of Death, frustrated and exhausted after three days of tracking down some extreme canny Lesser Dead, Lirael could only think that she knew it was a mistake to come here alone. Dealing with the townsfolk had almost been beyond her, worse than dealing with the Dead: she'd felt awkward and uncertain, in the face of all their hopeful, expectant faces. Nothing had ever really prepared her for people looking to her with real respect, and she simply hadn't known what to do with it, besides hide in her hair, say as little as possible, and let the townsfolk do as much talking as they were wont. Thankfully, they were talkative, and helpful, and even sympathetic to her shyness, but if they hadn't been, what then? She didn't want to think of that, at least not until she got back to the House and didn't have anyone depending on her immediately, but it was hard not to think about it, to be certain that she would fail and prove their trust wrong, those three long days it had taken to hunt down and bind the Dead.
And the Dead themselves... well. At least they were finally in Death, and she was following them at least through the Fourth Gate, to make sure they didn't come back. They shouldn't have the strength to resist past the Fourth Gate, not as young as these spirits were. Of that, Lirael was at least moderately certain, and the way they fought Saraneth made her think that they knew, as well. She wasn't second-guessing, now that she was actually working with her magic, actually in Death doing the job she was best suited for, now that she wasn't trying to be something she wasn't. There was at least some satisfaction in that, at the least, in a job near completion. She wouldn't let down her guard until it was complete, but she could still be pleased and relieved that she had come this far, after the disaster that had followed everything else.
While the two Dead spirits were simply pulled into the whirlpool of the Second Gate, to be churned out on the other end hopefully stunned and helpless. Lirael spoke the Free Magic spell that would give her steps down it, ignoring the burn of the words against her lips, and felt something close to pleasure when the stair appeared as instructed, and she started circling down. The Third Precinct was probably the most dangerous of all, and she had to be ready, but that didn't stop her from wishing the Dog could see her now, actually acting as a true Abhorsen, doing the day-to-day duties of the calling. The last time she'd been on this magical stair, the Dog had been with her....
There was no more time to think of that now, thankfully, before she could start to feel even more alone. Turning Ranna around in her hand, so that she held the tiny bell by its metal and clapper to keep it from sounding on accident, she took a deep breath, and then broke into a splashing run as soon as her feet hit the bottom of the whirlpool Gate's stairwell. The Third Precinct had waves, and to reach the Third Gate, she would have to outrun the one that her spell had held back.
She was almost there, drawing a breath to cry out the spell to open the Gate to her, when something caught her ankle. The hand of some spirit flattened under the ankle-deep water, braving the wave itself to stop her, yanked hard and sent her tumbling, splashing, and sputtering into the shallow River despite her best attempt at keeping her footing. Lirael hadn't really realized you could lose consciousness in Death-- or, really, that the River could drown you. She was only a spirit in Death, after all, not someone with lungs to fill and a brain to rattle. But when the massive wave came down on her, battering her against the mist-gate into the Fourth Precinct, drowning was certainly what it felt like. She had been gasping, coughing, flailing, trying desperately to keep a grip on Ranna, remembering even in her panic to keep it from sounding. Even a dying or distracted Abhorsen had enough presence of mind for that, and Lirael was no exception.
And then, when she actually hit the Gate, there was the terrible darkness of blacking out, which would mean certain death, indeed, if the River carried her beyond the Fourth Gate. Her last thought was that, after everything she'd done, she had finally failed. Somehow, she wasn't even surprised.
case no: 07-09-02, if it's not already taken :)
name: Gail
are you over 18?: Yes.
personal lj: cacopheny
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: cacopheny@gmail.com
characters in abax: Not yet :)
in character information.
series: The Old Kingdom Trilogy, by Garth Nix
name: Lirael
sex: Female
age: 19
race: Human, with some magical blood
height: 5'3"
weight: 117lbs
canon point: About a month or so after the end of Abhorsen, the last book in the trilogy.
previous cr: None
history:
Wikipedia article
Book reviews
The powers and outlook of an Abhorsen, if she was a D&D class.
Lirael grew up in the Clayr Glacier in the Old Kingdom, not knowing her father and barely remembering her mother, feeling vaguely abandoned by the lack of both. While her earlier childhood was relatively happy despite this, playing with all the younger children, taking lessons, and anticipating the day when she would join the ranks of the future-Sighted Clayr, she still stood out from her peers in many ways. It was around when she turned eleven that she realized how different she really was: in appearance, she was pale, dark-haired, and slight while her cousins were tanned, blonde, and beautiful; in interests, she thought about death and darkness and was serious in nature rather than sunny and cheerful; and in powers, for all the other Clayr had the Sight, the magical ability to see into the future. Lirael, despite doggedly growing older while the Sight woke in her younger peers, never had it. That was the start of her first spiral into depression, and of her feelings of worthlessness. Without the Sight, she was not a proper Clayr; without the Sight, she didn't belong, and she had no way to relate to anyone around her.
On her fourteenth birthday, still without the Sight, Lirael's depression and morbid nature led her to nearly kill herself, stopped partly by fear, partly by chance, and partly by a lack of proper opportunity. While she got herself help from the Clayr who caught her at her not-quite-death, a new job as a Third (and later Second) Assistant Librarian in the Great Library of the Clayr, and eventually a new friend in the Disreputable Dog, it didn't make her feel any more accepted, and her low self-worth never rose. She didn't speak to anyone but the Dog, avoided social gatherings, even avoided making eye contact and took to hiding in her own long hair, so she wouldn't have to talk to anyone who had the Sight or who might take her for as alien as she felt. She fell to such levels of asocialness that her shyness is now ingrained in her. Large groups of people and strangers make her severely uncomfortable, unless she has a job to do among them.
That doesn't mean she was never brave. Before summoning the Disreputable Dog (on accident, while trying to create a magical creature called a sending, to be a friend for her), she used her magical skill and great curiosity to explore a room in the Great Library and (equally accidentally) set free a monster called a Stilken-- a Free Magic creature of terrible hunger-- from its binding magic. In facing down the creature, with the help of a borrowed magical sword and the silent support of the Dog, she learned how to be brave. After that, she took it upon herself to protect the other, proper Clayr, to the best of her ability and often at great risk to herself, from potentially dangerous creatures or rogue magic lurking in the library. Given how dreadfully curious she is, as well, she wound up in that position rather often while poking around the Library.
Only recently in her life has she ever been given a purpose outside the life of the Clayr, a reason to live as it were. A month and a half ago, she was sent away from the Clayr Glacier where she'd lived all her life, out into the Kingdom itself, to save a young man from himself and stop the end of the world... though all she knew at the time was she was out in the world, alone, facing more monsters than she could imagine, with a new ability as a Remembrancer-- a "gift" on her nineteenth birthday that the Dog led her to find-- and a very whiny Prince she didn't know how to talk to. Thankfully, from him she learned of (and read) The Book of the Dead, was given the bells of the Abhorsen-in-Waiting-- weapons with which to fight the Dead and Free Magic creatures-- learned the identity of her father, the previous Abhorsen, and of her calling: to put the dead to rest, to protect the living, to walk the path she is set. Does the walker choose the path, or the path choose the walker? as The Book of the Dead asks. She can, when under the office of that calling, act with confidence and deal with confrontation, showing the strong will all Abhorsens are born with, but it's still such a new thing to her that she always falls back to her old ways in times of stress.
At the end of that "adventure", Lirael and a small group of friends, family, and magical beings of various kinds vanquished a great evil on her world, the Bright Shiner known as Orannis the Destroyer: a manifestation of all that is evil and bitter and destructive in the world, with the power of a sentient atom bomb. They defeated this evil, with unexpected help from Mogget and the unexpected loss of the Dog, and even with a month to recover, Lirael is still somewhat reeling from the events. Living without her best friend, the Dog, and without her right hand, has been difficult, but at least there she had a place in the world.
personality:
Lirael is a very serious person, taking duty and responsibility seriously, and is very practical-- and she doesn't really take teasing well, either. On the rare occasions she even realizes she's being teased and doesn't simply take the joking seriously, she is likely to get flustered and exasperated with the teaser-- even when her dearest and only friend, the Dog, teased her it put her on edge. She doesn't handle stupidity well, either, and while she might not say much to the offender, she will be silently judging up until the point where she can step in and right the situation herself.
Knowledge is important to her, as a Librarian and a clever girl, and she's perfectly happy to spend most of her time either reading or exploring when she doesn't have something else to do to keep her busy. She still doesn't think much of herself, though, no matter how learned she might be: she can even admit to being a strong Charter mage, but that was nothing to her compared to not having the Sight. All her life, she has considered herself less important than the other Clayr, and if ever a need should arise for a sacrificial lamb to protect the greater good, she automatically assumes it should be herself, and has in fact attempted to sacrifice herself for the good of the world before. Having a new purpose in life, being the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, might help her along towards wanting to stay alive for its own sake, but it wouldn't be hard to bring thoughts of worthlessness and unbelonging to the surface again.
After almost a decade of hiding from social interaction in general, Lirael is very shy. In anything where she doesn't have to make split-second decisions to save someone's life, she really would prefer to keep herself in the background and not talk to anybody. It makes her lonely and uncertain how to even reach out, much less make a friend. Her sense of responsibility is very strong, however, and a deep part of who she is. It leads her to put herself in harms way again and again to help others, usually with magic and sword. While she is afraid of people and social interaction, in any other situation, she has long since defeated fear, and she can, in an emergency, take command and control of a situation. But the minute one confronts her in a social context or insults her, she is quick to back down unless there is simply no other choice.
abilities/powers:
~Death: As the daughter of the previous Abhorsen, Lirael can sense the presence of death, whether it be recent or aged, and the undead. She can also enter Death, as if it were a separate plane of existence, made up of a flowing River that carries souls to the world beyond. When her spirit is in Death, her body is still in Life, frozen in place-- literally: her body becomes covered in frost, and a chill fog rises around it. The longer her spirit is in Death, the more the frost expands.
~Bells: (OOC NOTE: Obviously she does not have these bells in-game, but they're extremely important to her past and character, and if I get in for an item drop they're the only thing I'd ask for, so I wanted to include them here!) As part of her office as Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Lirael has a leather bandolier of seven bells that is worn across the chest. When rung, these bells have particular spell-like effects, particularly on the undead and creatures of magic, but also to some extent on the living. The bells can be rung more than one at a time-- but only if one has two hands. They require willpower and focus to ring properly, as the magic that made them gives them something of a mind of their own, or else the effect of the bell might harm the ringer, usually in a form related to the bell's power. Each bell has a name and a power:
* Ranna (the smallest) brings sleep, stillness, and peace. It is the most forgiving of all the bells of an inexperienced or clumsy ringer, and is the least likely to cause a bad effect if wrong poorly, though at times it might make her sleepy to ring it, as well as whomever it is supposed to be affecting.
* Mosrael wakes the dead, pulling the spirits into Life as long as there are bodies or spell-space prepared for them, while sending the ringer's spirit into Death, instead.
* Kibeth creates movement to the ringer's will, but is also tricksome and can make the ringer walk, as well, whether in a straight line, in a circle, or even in a jig, sometimes disrupting her concentration or just being annoying.
* Dyrim can restore speech to the mute, or still speech in one who speaks too freely, with some other subtle usages also aligned with communication, such as the revealing of secrets or even the reading of minds.
* Belgaer affects the mind, both restoring memories and independent thought in someone without either, or erasing them, and covers the lifting of bindings. It is perhaps the most dangerous of bells to ring without enough focus and attention, as it can damage the ringer's mind, and it likes to hear the sound of its own voice.
* Saraneth binds the dead or-- more rarely-- the living and forces them to follow the ringer's will, but it can also scatter the will of the ringer if rung without the proper focus and willpower. It is the best friend of an Abhorsen.
* Astarael (the largest) sends all who hear it into Death, and while it is not necessarily permanent, it is usually permanent for the ringer, meaning ringing Astarael is usually tantamount to suicide and thus is not done except in dire need.
~Charter Magic: Blessed by the magical Charter at birth, Lirael can mentally access the never-ending flow of that Charter-- structured, ordered magic-- and cast spells by stringing together symbols: drawing them, saying their names, or even infusing the marks into a whistle.
~Charter-skins: As a benefit of studying the book In the Skin of a Lyon, Lirael can create a Charter-skin, or a magical "fabric" that, when she fits herself into it, lets her "wear" a shape not her own. Creating skins takes at least four hours of spell-work, each skin can only be used once, and she can only wear a skin for a maximum of two or three hours before it starts becoming uncomfortable and fraying at the seams. The shapes she can make are that of a barking owl, a russet bear, and an ice otter.
~Sword-Skills: Lirael has training in using a sword, despite having recently lost her dominant hand. Though she's started training to build up her left side, she isn't very far along with it. The knowledge is there, but the skill is currently lacking. Should she come across a sword in-game, she will immediately start practicing again.
first person sample:
Situation Update (As in, Plotting, IC Style!: A visual network post. Most of Lirael's network activity in Abax will be text or audio, but she can do it when necessary!
third person sample:
It had only been a simple complaint of a pair of Hands, something Sabriel had been sure Lirael could handle. After everything else they'd done, how could a pair of Hands, probably left over from Hedge's minions, be difficult at all? Sabriel was far too far north to make it to Robles Town with any speed, and busy besides, but Lirael, at the House, wasn't far at all. So, despite her discomfort with it, Lirael had been the one to go. How hard could it be? Just a pair of Hands. She was confident in her use of the bells, and in her Charter magic, and in the strength of her will. Surely that was all she would need.
That didn't stop her from fretting the entire way there, though, second-guessing every plan she made as too likely to fail, coming up with ways to summon Sabriel should she need her, or even Sameth. The bells she could trust; herself, she was much less sure of, and she was alone now, with not even the Dog to help her. That seemed like a reckoning for disaster, to her.
So now, standing in the Second Precinct of Death, frustrated and exhausted after three days of tracking down some extreme canny Lesser Dead, Lirael could only think that she knew it was a mistake to come here alone. Dealing with the townsfolk had almost been beyond her, worse than dealing with the Dead: she'd felt awkward and uncertain, in the face of all their hopeful, expectant faces. Nothing had ever really prepared her for people looking to her with real respect, and she simply hadn't known what to do with it, besides hide in her hair, say as little as possible, and let the townsfolk do as much talking as they were wont. Thankfully, they were talkative, and helpful, and even sympathetic to her shyness, but if they hadn't been, what then? She didn't want to think of that, at least not until she got back to the House and didn't have anyone depending on her immediately, but it was hard not to think about it, to be certain that she would fail and prove their trust wrong, those three long days it had taken to hunt down and bind the Dead.
And the Dead themselves... well. At least they were finally in Death, and she was following them at least through the Fourth Gate, to make sure they didn't come back. They shouldn't have the strength to resist past the Fourth Gate, not as young as these spirits were. Of that, Lirael was at least moderately certain, and the way they fought Saraneth made her think that they knew, as well. She wasn't second-guessing, now that she was actually working with her magic, actually in Death doing the job she was best suited for, now that she wasn't trying to be something she wasn't. There was at least some satisfaction in that, at the least, in a job near completion. She wouldn't let down her guard until it was complete, but she could still be pleased and relieved that she had come this far, after the disaster that had followed everything else.
While the two Dead spirits were simply pulled into the whirlpool of the Second Gate, to be churned out on the other end hopefully stunned and helpless. Lirael spoke the Free Magic spell that would give her steps down it, ignoring the burn of the words against her lips, and felt something close to pleasure when the stair appeared as instructed, and she started circling down. The Third Precinct was probably the most dangerous of all, and she had to be ready, but that didn't stop her from wishing the Dog could see her now, actually acting as a true Abhorsen, doing the day-to-day duties of the calling. The last time she'd been on this magical stair, the Dog had been with her....
There was no more time to think of that now, thankfully, before she could start to feel even more alone. Turning Ranna around in her hand, so that she held the tiny bell by its metal and clapper to keep it from sounding on accident, she took a deep breath, and then broke into a splashing run as soon as her feet hit the bottom of the whirlpool Gate's stairwell. The Third Precinct had waves, and to reach the Third Gate, she would have to outrun the one that her spell had held back.
She was almost there, drawing a breath to cry out the spell to open the Gate to her, when something caught her ankle. The hand of some spirit flattened under the ankle-deep water, braving the wave itself to stop her, yanked hard and sent her tumbling, splashing, and sputtering into the shallow River despite her best attempt at keeping her footing. Lirael hadn't really realized you could lose consciousness in Death-- or, really, that the River could drown you. She was only a spirit in Death, after all, not someone with lungs to fill and a brain to rattle. But when the massive wave came down on her, battering her against the mist-gate into the Fourth Precinct, drowning was certainly what it felt like. She had been gasping, coughing, flailing, trying desperately to keep a grip on Ranna, remembering even in her panic to keep it from sounding. Even a dying or distracted Abhorsen had enough presence of mind for that, and Lirael was no exception.
And then, when she actually hit the Gate, there was the terrible darkness of blacking out, which would mean certain death, indeed, if the River carried her beyond the Fourth Gate. Her last thought was that, after everything she'd done, she had finally failed. Somehow, she wasn't even surprised.
case no: 07-09-02, if it's not already taken :)
