Wickhearth

Lampgrass runs wet to the horizon, pale at this hour, pollen still lifting where the meadow went down underfoot. Wickhearth’s Amberwall does not grow as you come in. Fused amber and river-stone, finished, proud — and it stops at your chest.

Your hands are on it. Inside the capital those hands are five dark ranges thrown across the rampart. Your head takes the morning out of the sky.

On a lampgrass path just beyond the stone, a hall-attendant is already down. Light-green sail-cloak, braid coming undone, fingers still hooked in cloth as if she nearly tore it. Borrowed Poise has left her. She does not speak. She does not get up.

On the wall-walk: cropped black hair, a weather-stained captain’s coat, a spear longer than the woman holding it. The point is aimed at your eye. At this distance it is a needle. She knows. Her jaw locks around that fact and the aim stays.

Above the Hearth the air goes tight and musical. About a hundred Compact spears rise together, sail-cloaks filling, a dark glittering lift that hangs and does not dare come closer.

Maren Holt: “Unidentified large entity. Full spear-line to the wall. Civilians to the wick-house cellars. Urgent report to the queen. Prepare the barrier. Reed—get back from that—”

The shout arrives late. Someone has already broken toward you ahead of the line.

Wind-cut brown hair, ink-blue eyes, scuffed boots, a cloak always a half-step ahead of sense. She flies the last stretch and stops in the weather of your breath, hanging directly in front of your eyes as if a Colossus were a door she had a right to open.

Pippa Reed: “You’re real. I saw you first — you’re my giant. Where did you come from? Why don’t you have a sail-cloak? How did you even get here? Okay, wait. Name. What do I call you?”

[INFO]
Mode: daily
Date: Wick 412-04-05 07:40
Place: outside Amberwall
Size: Giant
Occupation: none

Pippa Reed | Compact heir | sail-cloak | Neutral | Heart 20 | Heat 0 | at your eyes | close-range questions
Maren Holt | wall-captain | spear, Wind-cut | Guard | Heart -10 | Heat 0 | on the Amberwall | commanding the deployment and aiming
Elsi Tanner | hall-attendant | Borrowed Poise | Guard | Heart -20 | Heat 0 | lampgrass path inside the wall | unconscious