Endurance B2C7/B2C8

"This isn't a snow plain," Kaedin cried, "It's an ice sheet!"

[...]

The world before me shifted. Or rather, I shifted – and the ground that was under me. A great crack rent the ice, a fissure that cut across the ground like lightning through the sky, and the grinding of ice against ice as the world gave way. The others cried out. I did too, even as I struggled for purchase and to stay standing. One hand grappled with the ice, as my feet struggled for grip.

"Jaune!" Blake's voice reached my ears, the Assassin visible before me, on the safer ground and with one hand extended over the edge. "Jump," she shouted, "it's your only chance!"

My only chance, yet the rapidly giving way ground didn't give me it. I staggered forward as the ice behind me gave way, fell onto one knee with a gasp – but as the cracks grew larger, I pushed forward and leapt for her.

My hand missed by an inch, and for a moment I expected my death. Blake howled and reached further, and with a gasp, her hand gripped my wrist, holding it tightly.

It was a mistake.

My height, my weight, not to mention the armour I wore… Blake had not the time for to scream, only to stare into my eyes with wide golden ones as she was torn from her spot and dragged into the depths with me.

The world lost all light, little more than blue glimmers of reflected sunlight as the walls seemed to shudder and quake around us. In one last attempt, more desperate than hopeful, I dragged the girl close to my chest.

Ice slammed into my back as I struck and bounced off something. A gasp and a cough escaped me, followed by a startled shout as we fell again – cut off by another impact on solid ice, and then another. Blake's face was crushed into the fur cloak over my breastplate, my bruised and battered body taking the agony as we skittered and slid across jagged protrusions and the icy walls. Rather than fall elegantly to one, merciful impact, our bodies struck every piece of rock and wall on the way down.

With a cry, we both landed on a slanted outcrop, slipping down as gravity and momentum took us. My eyes opened, past the pain and the agony, to see a solid wall of ice approach.

I flipped us over, kept Blake before me – and as my body struck the ice – knew no more.

–B2C7


Everything was cold. That was the first realisation upon waking up, that the world I lay within was freezing cold and, as I opened my eyes, curiously blue. The walls were various shades of it, along with the ceiling and the floor I lay on, but for a furred cloak draped out beneath me, and a second over the top. It did precious little to offer warmth, but I had a feeling I'd be dead without it. Come to think of it, how was I still alive in the first place? The last thing I could remember was the Duneyrr, the big battle and then… an earthquake. Shaking ground, ice walls – Blake! I sat up quickly, eyes panicked as I looked around for any sign of the Assassin. There was none.

"Blake!" I called, pushing up into a sitting position and then cursing as pain lanced through my arm. I gripped it with my other, drawing it back to reveal no blood. There was a black bandage wrapped around his arm, however. Was that Blake's hood?

"You're awake."

"Blake!" My head snapped around so quickly it hurt, in time to see the girl detach herself from the nearby shadows. Her eyes glowed faintly through them.

[...]

"We need to move away from here as soon as we can. I've tried to keep you as warm as possible, but there have been a few more tremors while you were unconscious." She glanced nervously about the cavern, which was crafted entirely from ice. It looked like we'd fallen from a chute a little further up. "I'm not sure this would hold if another earthquake like the last struck."

"I guess so… have you tried calling the others?"

"My voice echoed and was lost among the ice," she said. "I've been unable to hear anything from them, either, and my hearing is better than most. I think we fell a long way, Jaune. I'm not sure we're even close to them anymore."

–B2C8