Mary
*`The cold of winter is replaced with a chill that echoes down one's spine, intimating an almost divine nature as it creeps through one's body.`*
*`Trees of an ashen bark jut forth unnaturally from the snowy ground, their branches baring sparse leaves that glow an azure glow — like the stars of the sky, yet utterly distinct in their unique nature.`*
Gerald
*...Hhhh.. Hhhh..*

His breathing became thinner and thinner.

Despite what seemed like clarity for a moment, the world was closing around him.

*...Hhhhh.. ..Hhhhhh..*

With every step he took, he could feel his lungs start to tear inside. He was pushing his body to it's limit.

But he wasn't willing to die here.


He finally found a moment to catch his breath, feeling numb on his hands. Surprisingly, the boots he had had just the bare minimum amount of insulation for the muscles at his feet to work. But his hands were starting to hurt. He had stashed the fingers thankfully, but he could no longer really move his muscles, his hands stuck as fists until he could heat them back up again.

His breathing was getting calmer.

Now that he could clearly think again, he observed his surroundings. He knows this is a tower, but, he couldn't help but feel like he was outside. The environment just seemed all too organic for it to actually be an enclosed area.. Well, all but the trees. He wasn't about to complain however. His home had been forests for the longest times, and he was finally starting to feel familiar.

He'd survived harsher winters than this, and he's sure he's escaped mightier foes than whatever was out there to get him with those knights. There was just one problem though..

*..Where the hell is the exit?!*

He could swear up and down that he went backwards, but there he was, in a forest of all places. Maybe he was outside, and he didn't figure it out just yet. Maybe he's still in the tower but in the process of leaving, and he's about to do the dumbest move of his life! He couldn't tell and it was disturbing him!

..
But, the silence in this forest was calming him down. Did he feel safe? Absolutely not, but he felt safer than he did out in the blizzard.

*..I'll get you back up and alive again no matter what, ALOIS..*

*..ALOIS, huh..*
*..A being that can be resurrected with just a few body parts..*
...
*..What if the fingers won't work?*

It was, a foolish idea. The red lady very clearly told him that all he needed to take was just a finger or two and bring it back to her. He would be good as new, and his old body would just rot there.

..But it didn't sit right with him. If it didn't work, what would guarantee the body still being there? He could feel something watching him, but it was clearly just observing if he's alive, now in the woods seperated from the blizzard. Still, morbid curiosities of observant beings will push them to toy with their prey, by taking everything from them little by little..

..Including the body.

Could he survive in the blizzard again? He now knows how harsh it is, but it also is a horrible condition to go back to, especially with how he has no actual mobility in the snow with no walking stick..

..Walking.. Stick...

..He is now in the woods of this place, with many, many sticks..

Well it was decided. He was going to go and retrieve the entire body, whether it be a good deed for him or the stupidest thing he could do. He didn't care. If he drops dead here, who would remember him? They could just get someone else to retrieve the wooden kid, and he'd just be another body in the masses.

Thankfully, there were an awful lot of sticks in the surroundings because this is a forest with trees and branches on those trees. He doesn't need anything to keep his feet on top of the snow, all he needs is something to maintain his body upright and keep his eyes forward.
Mary
As the Weaver encroached further and further into the forest encompassed by the deific aura of the ethereal, azure blue glow, the howling winds of the terrible blizzard winter beyond its wooden clutch grew farther and farther, yet were *Never* Silenced in their entirety. Flickers of snow pierced past the dense underbrush of the tall trees, glittering in their icy whites as they reflected the resplendency of the azure of the living, glowing trees, plaguing still the Weaver with fleeting moments of cold against his flesh. Still, the towering trees of ashen bark provided a sort of shield, and as he advanced deeper into the midst of the strange forest, such faint interpolations would grow ever-sparse, and snow soon grew to be a sight of the past.

The cold of the winter was replaced with a chill that echoed down his spine. The numbness of cold was replaced with the numbness of dreamlike lucidity, the ever-shimmering sparkles of azure that glowed from the spectral form of the trees' celestial leaves granting the realm of the forest an almost cosmic nature. The harshness of frigid winds was replaced with absolute stillness. And as the snow disappeared, there was, put in its place, the shimmering of white-and-blue starlike apparitions, which drifted through the atmosphere freely as did fireflies. 

Indeed, as the *Vektet* Was an entirely separate realm when compared to Earth, so too was this forest an entirely separate realm when compared to the Second Floor. It was like a realm within a realm; a dream within a dream.

And as his feet tread forward, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the sight of ubiquitary blue, and as his flesh grew familiar to the universal stillness, and as his nose adapted to the pervading voltaic scent, he could swear to hear




```
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐳𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐦.```




*`ʳⁱⁿᵍ`*
*`ʳⁱⁿᵍ`*
*`ʳⁱⁿᵍ`*





_ _

*`As the muted silver chime thrice rings`*
*`the omen's mellow voice so gently sings`*

*`The prince who was forsaken of kings`*
*`here was lost searching of greater things`*

*`To travel beyond dream's heav'nly springs`*
*`all he sacrificed, might he gain 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬.`*





_ _
Todd
*```ini
[ "𝙳𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚎𝚕𝚕?" ]```* 

Like a voice that called through slumber, the man's voice, as clear and smooth as white crystal, called out to the Weaver.
Most odd was his sudden appearance, breaking the almost trancelike state of the outsider—

*—for he stood upside-down, gravity's pull inverse upon his body, his feet rested atop a branch ahead and above the Weaver.*
Gerald
*..Who.. Is he?*

He was unresponsive to the person. Him being upside down was the least odd thing he found about him, more that his voice seemed way too divine to be trusted, like a mermaid singing it's song. 
Still, he couldn't help but feel.. Reassured.
Maybe not everything here wanted to kill him.

The Weaver simply stopped walking, looking at the person for a moment. He planted the (count 'em) two walking sticks he'd made for himself into the snow, staring back at the ground.

*"I'm.. Alive, aren't I? If that counts as being well.."*
His voice had gotten croaky from breathing so much from his mouth, but he could still speak. He cleared his throat.

His weariness of the place seemed to slowly wither out from his mind. He realised only now the atmosphere of his surroundings. 

This wasn't the same blizzard as out there. It was calm.. Healing of the mind.. A sanctuary.

*"..Where are we?"*