[center][color=007fff][b][u]Azura[/u][/b][/color]
Level 2
Day 3
Location: The Land of Skyrim
[b]Experience: [color=orange]||||[/color][color=black]||||||||||||||||[/color] (4/20)[/b] 
Word Count: 652[/center]

Though she did expect the more vocal individuals among the troupe to speak out against the iron-handed ruling of the Boss and his new lackey, Azura offered no support should they look to her for any.  Instead, yellow eyes dull and listless, she waited in placid silence.  Though they delivered their objectives with temerity, perhaps meaning to take Azura's side, they found neither ground to stand on nor any vulnerability to exploit.  The Boss would not yield, and if he would not give an inch, neither would his parrot.  All Vent and Piper were doing was to stack their stubborn allies' resentment against them, and Azura knew that such a thing would be far more toxic to a team than simple split opinions.  [i]No matter how the wind howls, the mountain does not bow to it.[/i]  That idiom stood for the steadfastness of righteousness against its persecutors, it it applied just as well to pigheadedness standing before reason.  Then again, weren't the Boss and Ruben righteous from their perspective.  Azura took a deep breath.  In usual form, she was overthinking this.

In her overthought, though, she managed to zone out through most of what her would-be defenders had to say.  Her reprieve was broken by the scolding of the Boss, and she glanced skyward as though to ask for strength from whatever powers be in this unfamiliar world.  [i]It never occurred to him that he could be wrong.  No amount of reason will break through that armor.[/i]  Wordless, she followed along with the group, using her lance as a walking stick.  The distance to Ulfric's camp was short, and upon arrival, that commander informed the team that they would be spending the night before making an offensive the next day.  She narrowed her eyes at the man's certainty that no assault would come under the cover of night—did powerful entities of metal and energy, like the golems raised by mages in her world, really have anything to fear from nocturnal wildlife?  Reasoning that Ulfric would know far better than her, she nodded and followed him across the fort's interior.  Her gaze grew baleful when the Boss questioned sleeping arrangements; his unnerving smile was not, she didn't, a product of fascination with a male medic, a sexless artifice, or whatever exactly Vent was, though with a shiver she wondered whether or not such a desire would be past the man.  The moment she entered the big tent and glimpsed the markings on the floor, she realized that she was to be part of a strategy meeting.  Never before had she participated in one, but as a person of nominal royalty she bore witness to a fair few while in both Hoshido and Nohr.  She perked up just a touch as she realized that she might be of good help.

When the map unfurled, her catlike eyes grew bright, and they pored over every detail of the city Markarth.  [i]Nonstandard layout, multiple levels of elevation, many angles of approach.  Where uniformity fails, opportunity rises.[/i]  Around her, the others began to talk, but she kept the gears in her head turning.  So focused was she on trying to think up a perfect stratagem that she jumped in fright when the Boss sneezed.  Suppressing her intense dislike, she listened to his makeshift plan, and noted that it seemed too solid for him to have come up with on his own.  The question at the end of his declaration, no doubt rhetorical, almost choked a laugh out of her.  [i]As if any criticism of that plan would be heeded.[/i]

[color=007fff]”I can do that.  If this 'Chill Penguin' employs ice magic, or its approximate, I am fairly resistant.”[/color]  She pointed a gloved index finger toward the map, indicating a squiggle at Markarth's southern edge.  [color=007fff]”Additionally, if we can coax his entourage near that river, or into a snowy area, I'll be able to help out a great deal.”[/color]