HARPG - The White December!

[Naukha]

The rope had been shoved into Azzie's hand, and now, she felt as though her gloves were frozen solid to it. Wind lashed at the horses, snow stung at her eyes- and every so often, the sky flashed a wicked purple, followed by an ominous sky-shattering rumble. She had been following at the back of the group, and the rope was proving to be the only thing keeping her moving forward in the right direction. She brought down her goggles to protect her eyes from the ice, pulled up her hood, and brought her bandana up over her nose to shield herself from the wind.

The rumbling was getting louder again, a lightning flashed through the darkness, leaving horses and riders scared. While Ace was more focused on not losing the group, Amazona made a quick movement to the left as one of the other horses got too close to her. With her ears laid back she moved onward, forced to trust her rider to lead her in the right direction. And Ace sure had his problems doing so. He more and more lost focus and as he was trying to push Amazona closer to the others again she just refused and tossed her head up high. Ace normally had steady nerves but now? Not really. With an irritated sigh he started one last attempt on pushing his mare towards another participant and in his anger he definitely wouldn’t let her refuse his purpose again.

Azzie looked around, her eyes squinted to try to make out the shapes of people in the darkness. Lightning flashed again and she caught the movement of horse and rider out of the corner of her eye. Eerie, distorted thunder rippled through the icy skies. Ice let out an unsure snort, her blue eyes wild and white mane a wind-tossed mess. Azzie seemed to disregard her mare's worried behavior as she held out the coil of the rope towards the rider. "Hey! Take this! Unless you want to get lost in this mess!" The last of her words were nearly inaudible over the howling of the wind.

Ace narrowed his eyes to slits to see what exactly the other rider was helding towards him. The snow surely limited his sight but he could recognize that it was a rope. Immediately he knew what to do. He took the reins in one hand, grabbing the rope with the other one, pulling it close to him. Luckily Amazona was too busy fighting the storm while moving forward so she didn’t refuse going that close to the other horse. „Thank you!“, Ace shouted, not sure if the storm did swallow his words. „Guess you just saved me from getting lost.“

Azzie gave a quick nod and a thumbs-up with her own length of the rope in-hand. She brought her bandana back up to cover her mouth, not bothering to speak through the wind any more than she had to. The snow was near whiteout conditions so she hunkered down in her saddle and occassionally wiped the ice from her goggles. Her mare stayed relatively calm beneath her. The first few strikes of lightning had certainly surprised her, causing her to lunge and wheel around, or to spook sideways if it was particularly loud, but now she trudged obediently through the snow, pointing in whatever direction Azzie guided her, and Azzie guiding her only by the direction in which she felt the rope move. Soon though, the snow would begin to lessen.

Amazona followed the other horses, still not very happy about being that near to them but she would rather team up with them than getting lost in the snow. So she just let Ace lead her and he on the other hand let the others lead him. Well. Actually the rope led him. Because he couldn’t really see the others. Neither hear them. Ohhdear he just hoped this storm would be over soon. And indeed, it seemed like the storm was passing by. Slowly. But at least the thunder disappeared, leaving the whole group in a mixture of darkness and the vibrant white of the snow. Amazona snorted and Ace patted her neck in relief, she was actually behaving quite well now. „Good girl“, he said, even though the wind blew his words away before they could reach her ear. He looked up, seeing this white horse in front of him and he let Amazona gain some speed so they could catch up with the other pair. The wind was giving the mare a hard time trying to speed up, but she somehow managed.

Azzie had been mostly hellbent on moving forward and not getting lost, so when the other rider approached, she hadn't noticed him at all until he was right beside her. She grumbled, looking rather flustered as she pulled her bandana down around her neck, pushed back her hood, and slid her goggles up into her messy red hair. The wind was still blowing harshly, but not as bad as it had been earlier. She ran one hand through her hair, only to mess it up more, while the other rested on her reins and the rope.  She looked over to him, raising her eyebrows. Her eyes were a striking blue contrasted against her mess of red hair. "Oh, hey, look. You made it. I thought for sure you'd have gotten lost back there or something." She said flatly.

Ace looked at her, his eyes observing her reactions. She had a similar body language like he did. „Yeah, kinda thought that too for a second“, he said, shrugging his shoulders. Then silence. After a while Ace raised his voice again. „I need to thank you. You really saved my butt back there.“ His voice sounded a bit warmer than before, still quite distant but nevertheless grateful.

Azzie gave a tired sigh, slumping ever-so-slightly in her saddle in relief as the last of the winds died down to only a chilling breeze. Azzie snorted at his words with a quiet, "Heh." She began brushing some of the snow from her coat. "No problem, unless you like... win this race or something..." She reached inside her coat and pulled out a small metal flask and took a quick sip of the warm liquid inside. Then, with one eye closed, she inspected how much liquid remained, as she asked, "What's your name, anyway?"

A small, hardly recognizable smile appeared on Ace’ lips as he heard her statement. He shook his head, causing the snow to finally fall off. „Just call me Ace“, he answered while knocking off some snow from Amazonas croup, his eyes still facing the girl beside him. Even though ‚Ace‘ was more of a pseudonym or nick name, he used to introduce himself with it. He just was more fond of getting called with that name than with his real one. „And what’s your name if I may ask?“, he asked in return, still being busy wiping the snow off his horse.

"Azzie Alexander." She stated plainly, not bothering to look up from inspecting her flask as she said it. "Azzie" clearly wasn't her birthname either, but it was also what she preferred.
   After a moment's hesitation, she held out the dented, beaten up metal container to Ace. "Uh, you want some?"

((We can continue from here! ))

[BiscuitAli]

Ace now had finished freeing himself and his horse from all the snow and turned his head to Azzie. "Nahh I'm fine, thanks", he answered with a slight grin on his lips. He kept looking at her for some seconds, remaining silent. As his grin slowly faded, he raised his voice again. "Soo, what brings you here?", he asked, raising his eyebrow in interest.

[Naukha]

Azzie gave a shrug then, mumbling "More for me then.." She leaned back into her saddle and screwed the lid back onto her flask before glancing up to catch Ace's gaze. She was caught a bit off guard, and only stared back with those impossibly blue eyes of hers..
His question nearly floated right over her head.
"Uh, hrm. Well." She cleared her throat, hastily unscrewing the flask that she had just closed right back open. She took a hearty drink before attempting to answer that question.
"It's- It wasn't exactly. Ahem. My idea. Of a good time. At all, actually." She tilted her head from side to side, trying to judge exactly how to explain the situation. "It's more like a wintery hell."
She seemed to arrive at a conclusion, which she stated very matter-of-factly. Word for word.

"I work for dickbags.
That shipped me off to a wintery hell."

She turned back to Ace and offered a shit-eating grin and a sickeningly sarcastic tone of voice.
"So what brings you here to paradise?"

[BiscuitAli]

"OHHman, that doesn't sound like too much fun", Ace said, his voice being calmer and quieter than before. Compared to Azzies reason to go on this trial, his was... unspectacular. Boring. Just more enjoyable. However. "Well, I just needed some distance to a few things back home. There was too much trouble going on for me to handle", he started, still not averting his eyes from Azzie. She was looking at him too, what made him become quite... tense? In his eyes his words just seemed pretty dumb. "And I wanted to go on an adventure actually. Soo, you see. Quite boring reasons. Or just the reasons most of the participants got too", he continued, shrugging his shoulders. Then he looked down, the vibrant white of the snow forcing him to close his eyes for a second. Now that he thought about it, all the stuff at home seemed so unimportant. A deep sigh left his throat.

[Naukha]

Azzie's face sobered a bit, "That's not that boring. I mean, what's life without a little adventure?" She gave a bit of a mischievous smirk at him before looking down at Icy. She'd stowed her flask of whiskey, and was now running her fingers through a bit of Ice's white mane. She was quiet for a bit, and when she spoke up, her voice was a bit quieter. Less bitter. "...It is a nice escape though. It's so...quiet out here."
She looked up at the sky. Snowflakes drifted down gently now. "And at least it seems like the weather will behave for awhile now."
She shook her head around, causing a shower of snowflakes to let loose from her red hair, and drift down to the ground.

[Chihuahua4446]

Okay, here's my in! Sorry for bursting through the moment guys!


Once the sudden storm had settled and the majority of the snow rested on Dusty's shoulders or Java's dark mane, a new challenge presented itself; the crazy mare on which he sat. Dusty weaved through the snow, attempting to slow the prancing horse down. From where he was, he could see the group, keep an eye on them, but he wasn't close enough for Java to work the rest of them up.

That was, until Java decided that a bit of snow falling from a branch on her left was most certainly a monster. There was no doubt, in fact it was crazy that her rider didn't see the terribly horse-eating creature jump from the branches and prepare to pounce.
"Whoa, dammit!" Dusty said, pulling harder on the reins and attempting to turn the rampaging mare and she made a mad dash back toward the herd like a rampaging elephant on a mission. As they got closer Dusty began to feel panic. Surely, at this speed, they were going to collide. Currently, they were aimed at two riders who were a bit apart from the others, walking and talking quietly, peacefully...until, "Watch out! Coming through!"

Finally, Dusty managed to slow the mare to a trot, and somehow turn her head. Though the horse simply continue in her trajectory toward the two horses, shoulder first, like the worlds most undisciplined dressage horse performing the worst side pass in dressage history. Dusty bumped his leg against her side and finally Jaca came to a shuddering halt, tossing a bit of fluffy snow towards the two riders, to which Dusty gave a smile, half apologetic and half what-can-you-do-?.
"Heya, there," he greeted, as his mare panted below him, looking as calm and collected as a kids horse, as if she hadn't just charged down here like a raging bull. But on the plus side, most of the snow had been shaken off.

[BiscuitAli]

Ace sighed, enjoying the silence around them. Azzie was right. It was wonderfully quiet here. "It i-", he started but then got interrupted by some loud shouting he didn't quite unterstand. It didn't sound too happy in any case. "Well, it was", he corrected himself, turning around to face a horse slowing down beside them, its rider looking kinda relieved but also a bit excusing. Amazona set her ears back. Eugh. "Hey", Ace greeted back, inspecting the other rider with a chilly glance. "Are you alright?"

[Naukha]

Azzie turned to look at the source of the noise as soon as it had reached her ears. With raised eyebrows, she watched the spectacle unfold before them.
Her mare, Ice, hardly seemed to bat an eyelash. She lazily swiveled an ear back, and gave a bored glance at the horse and rider.
Azzie gave a crooked grin, dropped her reins, and gave the unknown rider a slow clap before responding in a sarcastic tone.
"Wow, that was smoooooooth."

[Chihuahua4446]

Dusty regarded the two riders, and their two reactions, before giving his hair a flip, a Dusty of snow fluttered from it. He smirked at the girl, not missing the heavy dose of sarcasm in both her words and her magnificent clapping, before replying, "Thank you. I try."

He gathered up his horse's reins and gave them both a lopsided smile before replying to the other rider, "Yep, had a bit of a break malfunction is all." He nudged Java forward, pulling her around a bit so that if the mare decided another run was in their future it would be straight into the other horses. Once Java was walking calmly, Dusty dipped his head down and introduced himself, "Dusty. And this," he nodded now to the grey Mountainer. "Is Java."

It wasn't that he wasn't aware that he was crashing the party (or that this man was most certainly into this woman), but still he had the audacity to give one of his more charming smiles to Azzie and say, "It seems Java has quite the taste for running into pretty people. Pleasure to meet you!"

[Naukha]

Azzie manages to give Dusty an unamused look paired with a crooked frown. She completely deflects the compliment and looks over at Ace thoughtfully before flatly stating, "Hm, yeah, you're right. He does have pretty nice eyes." Her frown turns into a rather cheeky grin that she shoots Dusty's way.
"The name's Azzie." She pats her nearly solid white horse on the rump, "..and this is Ice."

(Edited because I felt like my words were weird. :T)

[BiscuitAli]

(SOO late sorryyy, I'm stupid, yes. Sry.)

Ace had a hard time not trying laugh. Ohman. That was a good point. He turned his head to Azzie and looked at her with an amused expression on his face, chuckling silently for another moment before he finally pulled himself together again. His smile faded as he raised his hand to greet Dusty properly. "Ace", he said with a quite cold voice and then lowered his arm to point at the spirited mare beneath him. "And Amazona." The mare let out an unsatisfied snort. Maybe it was her way of greeting people. Or maybe she was just pissed about something again.

[Chihuahua4446]

(No problem! Sorry for my slow reply as well! Also, I apologize in advance for Dusty, he's sort of an a**)

Dusty nodded at both of the rider's as they returned the salutations and introduction. Dusty touched his heels to Java's side, which sent her stepping quickly forward, and Dusty countered by pulling back, steadying the mare so that she was near the white mare appropriately called Ice. He glanced over at Ace, with almost a smirk, before turning to Azzie once more, "so what brings a pretty gal like yourself to this frozen wonderland?"

[Naukha]

(Ahaha, no worries! Azzie can be a crazy b**ch herself. lol )

Azzie immediately dropped her grin of amusement, and instead raised an eyebrow in irritated skepticism. Glancing between the two other riders. She scoffed. "Frozen wonderland?" She gave her head a small shake, looking away, "'Nothin' good', is what brought me here, and I'll leave it at that." Her voice had become more curt. Her previously more personable demeanor had been reined in. She ruffled her hands through the pockets of her battered green coat and pulled out her flask, taking an quick drink.
This is going to be a long ride.

She gave a relenting sigh, "....And why are you here?"

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