Incline 7: Nin

"I told you Rose-sweerui, I told you. Yes, I told you." I growled out through the harsh and cold winds that bitterly bit into me as I climbed this particular part of the mountain. My head constantly turning back towards the bag as Rose was suffering badly in these conditions, even with her pocket of warmth. So I was trying, I was trying as hard as I could to get up this part of the mountain but something about it made it so cold. I could barely feel any part of my body and it was slowing me down.

Grips I was formerly sure of I had become paranoid about and my inability to see through all the snow only made it worse. For I could not see any specific details anymore, just vague outlines. But, I was not going to let this stop me and I had been cultivating something within me that had only grown since I got lost in this cold. My body felt stiff and frozen, but the blood that my heart pumped flowed freely despite it all with esoteric heat.

So with it, I was able to slam my hands into the mountain and drag myself up with pure force of will and the strength my steadily weakening body held within it. Sometimes this strength barely moved me, other times it would be as if I was lifting myself up with a lonely arm that bore the entire burden I put on it. This strength was fickle, however, and the icy stone fell apart often before slipping free. Causing me to desperately cling to the mountain for dear life so I did not fall down into the depths I had climbed out of.

"Hang in there, Rose-sweerui, hang in there..." I heaved out while hoping the god responsible for our current detriment was not near. Was he actively making the situation worse, did he want me to return into his grasp so that he may finish what should have happened to me? Was he that uncaring as to drag in the lives of others into a debt I might have owed him? It did not matter in the end, I just had to get the one who calls me her beloved out of this cold.

A cold I thankfully knew had an end for some of the mountains I climbed and looked upon did indeed had snowless peaks. And an end this mountain did, so this being in my mind only helped me go on and on up this frozen misery. Panic filling me as the noises Rose had been making throughout had properly died off. The clattering of teeth and the subtle shaking of the bag was gone, it had gone silent...

"ROSE!?" I shouted out to her before sending a reinvigorated fist into the ice that we were in front of. Even with the loss of decent vision, I could tell it blocked a tunnel and the blast only helped highlight it. For now, I was resting in the snowy mist that briefly filled it before it all settled down. Only what was coming in through the entrance keeping any movement.

And once we were in, I took it all off, my bag, what clothes I could, and I opened the bag in such haste as to tear it. With Rose in my sights, I then crawled against her and hugged her tightly while making all our stored supplies a cacoon for us. Keeping my mouth open and breathing all over her face in hopes the warmth would get her moving again. Which it seemed to have done, for now, she had her eyes opening again.

"It'll be alright..." was what I chose to say right now to the shivering aelenvari whose hand sloppily placed itself somewhat inside of my dry jaw. The winds having taken away any saliva in it and blocked the rest up with frost.

"M... My... Love..." she barely got out with a ghost of a smile as her eyes fluttered, the telltale signs of her going in and out of being conscious. My eyes locking on to the barely visible cloud of steam her mouth was producing before I then looked at my mask.

"Make sure not to lose this, okay?" I said to her as I put the mask on her face along with a few small pieces of clothing I could stuff in there. Or, along the rims of the mask. My plan to get her to stay with me, to keep her alive. I would pray for it to work but I was so caught up in the idea of keeping her warm I did nothing regarding it and I just kept fiddling.

I laid her straight and wrapped her up before balling her up while surrounding her with everything that might keep her warm. I moved the bag to my front and placed her exposed portions against me so her face was always near mine and I made sure it was tight against me. From there, I stood up once again and kept moving around in this tunnel while I thought of something. Doing whatever I could with my magic to help in this but for some reason, I just couldn't make heat with it.

I could only make this little extension of my fingers...

"Do anything, anything at all, Rose-sweerui if this hurts you." I tell her desperately while putting a hand against her and performing my magic trick. I was hoping this expansion of my hands in a way would help trap more heat on her head, but, I just wasn't sure. I did not want to apply pressure in case I killed her but at the same time I was unwilling to just let her head remain in the open. And then, in a fit of rage where I kicked at some icy stones.

I got an idea... The same one I had been using for a while...

Jump.

Jump as high and as far as I have ever gone before.

No, go beyond it!

"You are going to be okay, do you hear me?" I tell her slowly as I moved out into the open, my free hand holding the mountain tightly as I got out as far as I could. From there, I tried to reapply what I could do with my hands to my feet and just kept thinking over and over of explosive forces. Of items that sent themselves flying with kinetic energy that had snapped them in two or more. I just kept thinking of it all while my legs got lower and lower.

A few rapid breaths left me before I did anything else, my efforts to hype myself up they were. It was all I had left and I would wring out their value completely. So, with one final thought and breath, I launched up with an explosive boom that sent the surrounding snow away along with these clouds. A brief path into the air, a brief path into snow-less pastures.

I soared higher and higher, hoping, praying to whatever god or goddess that would hear me would keep us going up. And when I fell back down, I did not panic, I just sent my arm straight into the mountain and dislodged it due to it holding back all that force I came down with. A scream of pain filled the air as I hanged just above the potential graveyard. Miserable laughter devolving from the scream as I happily cried out my remaining pain before seething the rest of the way up.

Having freed my arm but not realigned it before I moved again. And soon, thankfully so soon, I was rolling on grass with soft, warm soil under it. A delicate Rose on top of me as I laid there on the grass, a distant light illuminating us while I kept my eyes on the soon to be demasked woman. A woman who was alive thanks to my efforts!

Albeit, barely conscious.

"Keep... Kee..." I tried to say to her before just getting her off of me and standing up, quickly placing myself against a tree before grabbing my arm. Clenching my jaw against a nearby branch before sending the arm back up into its socket with barely muffled pain and watering eyes. The branch soon having the flakey, splintery remains of it spat out of my mouth before I rushed back to her. Back to Rose.

A woman who had put me through all of that with her stupidity to come along. A woman I now held on to with joyful tears while rocking back and forth as her body came alive again. The winds of this mountaintop seemingly seeking us out so they could heal us. Or, maybe it was just that rule Futhans told me, where strong magic heals weaker magic.

It had to be... The mountain's reserve was so great it could heal and breathe new life into those who went to it. Maybe this was why it was a member of the Great Seven Peaks I heard talked about. Because it was so magnificent in its power it just attracted the weary into its grasp with its healing breezes.

"My love, we are here." Rose told me as she took the mask off, colour having returned to her face as she stumbled out of the bag. Even though her body was still too weak to stand on its own, so I was there with her. Supporting her as our eyes fell upon the distant majesty we had came up here to see, to begin with!

Thrurstradtur!

A city that seemed so close yet it was deceitful, for it was actually so big that it always seemed close, a mountain of brass and gold on top of another... A city whose highest point pointed straight into the glowing sky that flowed with the brightest emerald winds I had ever seen. All of it to the backdrop of a distant purple structure from which one could barely see a metal ring that orbited the world! No clouds were in the way...

Just magic...

"It's beautiful, isn't it...?" Rose asked me as she seemed to pull me away. Her tone seemingly off when she asked it.

"Of course it is... This thing is a marvel! It outshines Tobaballe's best in ways I can't even describe!" I told her with eyes that were unable to remove themselves from the great wedge at the centre of the city. The main attraction of it all. And, I swear this was real, but, it seemed to be very slowly moving in a circle.

And now that I realised it, it was following the moon currently eclipsing the others! We were in the middle of an alignment!

"Want to see something better?" she asked me as she tugged at me with increased ferocity. The kind a child would use when they brought their parent to see the unmistakably cool view...

"What the..." I found myself saying as I moved on from the city and towards a greater sight that made me go back and correct prior thoughts. For brighter, more plentiful emerald winds were now in my sight, and it was all around an impossibly huge mountain that must have been a lifetime away in distance yet it seemed so close...

And it just went higher and higher...

"The source of all wind-magic in the world, the heart of the wind-peoples, the tallest peak in the world and the home of the capital of the Union..." Rose began to expose as she stepped away from me and cried, "My love, this is, in the oldest tongue of them all, Jhroungijherammujhernosumonaterikra! The Great Mountain with the Greatest Size and the Greatest Air of the People! Your people!"

My arms soon wrapped around her after she said that to me as I felt like I needed to hold on to someone for support. And she clearly needed someone to cry against as she was just bawling with a degree of joy I had not seen before...

And, for some reason, my body seemed to scream for it, like it recognised it as my home? That was all I could describe the sensation as.

"Tallest mountain in the world, huh..." I muttered as I finally gazed at its peak, but a finger scrape away from touching the limits of the sky!