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It had been some time. She wasn't able to stand, her legs shook too much with the cold. If circumstances were so, she was not so proud that she would not use hands and knees. Her uniform was stiff, the water in the clothe frozen and cracking in the winter air, excepting what of her was now wallowed in the mire of road slush.

She didn't know how long it had been since the Tiger's attack had thrown her off the bridge into the river, or her long swim to avoid the rescue teams and authorities, or how long since she'd found land and had alternately been laying in delirium or crawling along furtively. She was trying to reach the University district, instinct alone serving for turns. Hypothermia was too far set in to reliably make out streets or landmarks.

If I can get to the University...cousin is there. Quenton will find me...can help me. I have to get warm. Have to get warm and rest. It feels so warm, but it's a lie. I can't lie down yet. Nevermind that she was still powered up. Her cousin would never recognize Stroud for Schörl. She was too cold for reason to have sway anymore, just goals were left and a will to survive. The Tiger alone like that. Hindsight twenty-twenty. Now... alone in jeopardy, where most an ally would be useful.

She heard something, it could be a siren? No, it was nearer. Then a small wake in the slush and there was pressure at her upper arms and sides. The slush was moving away, falling. Or was she being lifted? There was an aura. She raised her eyes and saw beautiful green framed in red. Where had it come from? It was...no...he-he was marked with black and stars. Black stars.


"Stars-on-thars" She angled her head, lifting her ice-split hands to poke fingers against the mark revealed on his chest and the other to grip the uniform jacket at his shoulder and help hold herself up as he supported. It was still mostly him doing the work, but that's what beautiful men were for, weren't they? Picking people up off their asses with their beautiful muscles. "C-can't stand well. S-s-sSchörl. Lieutenant Schörl."

"Not...badly wounded. Just icejuts and fall. Off the bridge. Tiger. Tiger on the bridge. You can help me?" Then she made a face at herself. He'd just said he was there to help. Hypothermia made one dumb. She literally had The Dumb.

"Carnelian...." She said it like it was a question, but one posed to herself. "Chalcedony. The cabochons of queens and kings and priests and blood the breast in central casing to ceremony. Wax ...wax won't stick but seal on you."

"Cagey but not caged. Didn't get a name." He'd met the tiger? Well, that was something and fortunate. When her brain worked again she'd have to see what he knew. She tried to help and hold onto him, "Safe...Glad to be safe. Thank you."

"Euclase is safe?" Who was Euclase? He said it like a person, but all that was coming to her mind were maps of Columbia. This was not useful. What would a person made of euclase be like? "Isn't euclase brittle and translucent?"


They were coming to buildings, and his path seemed purposeful. Schörl wasn't going to offer any complaints, not that she had any. The prospect of Indoors was positively electrifying. It meant warmth, carpet or rugs, couches, the likelihood of blankets, warm mugs, incandescent lighting, and in general everything that wasn't slush, snow and asphalt.

"Women are trouble. Don't suggest getting involved with them, " She wheezed a chuckle. When she was let down, she pulled experimentally at her uniform. 'If you can.' Can I? How do. How do power down. I remember how to do this, yes? Remembering Stroud, letting the black recede from her fingers that she couldn't feel, back through her elbows, to her shoulders. Then all back stoppered into her starseed, into her chest. And she was there, Stroud Marinus, knelt on her gangly, wirey hip and wearing low-slung jeans with a tatter-thin mesh of a sweater over top of her Fibonacci tree t-shirt. Well, the dry clothes are very, very welcome.

She let her brain dial tone for a few moments as he turned away to deal with keys and opening doors, gratefully watching his a**. "Oh, a blanket....you read my disjointed thoughts."

Stroud pulled her feet up to curl in a ball on her side on the sofa, nuzzling her face into a worn throw pillow for a moment. She didn't bother moving her face when she talked, so it came muffled through the fluffy stuffing and casing, "How did you find me? If scouts are stars and you're a scout, if I thank my lucky stars does that make you lucky?"

She finally turned her face to look at him as he moved about, "Do you have field medical training?"

Whoever I am now? Had it changed? they wore different clothes, had powers, there was something that prevented them from picking out and remembering faces between if they saw each other on the street...
But she didn't feel as though she'd become someone completely different. It was certainly something to consider. How far and deep wrought the changes in their souls. "It's a pleasure, Caleb....at least from my end. If not for you it wouldn't matter who I am or was. It would end up a 'was'. Do you suppose we stay in uniform, or revert back if we die?"

"You can call me Schörl, still. Or if you prefer, Stroud. They are both the same." She wrapped in the throws like capes until only her head and neck were visible. "I do feel b-better alread-dy, d-dry clothes and soft-t-t surfaces. It hurts a bit. Thawing. But that's better than nothing at all. "

She wanted to laugh at the comment about 'young lady', but in thawing her teeth were starting to chatter so she thought better of it. No use risking biting her tongue. "Police mayb-b-be look-k-king for it. "

"They ar-r-r-ived on t-the scene after I was in the r-r-r-iver." She made a face, annoyed at being unable to just speak. It would get better with the soup warming her up from the inside out. But maybe....maybe it wasn't a bad thing. Maybe if she presented herself as an innocent bystander, if she talked to and gave a police report, it could help build the case against the senshi as terrorists- attacking innocent civilians and throwing them off wintery bridges. Then again, she didn't want any of this 'coming home', so to speak, and having any association at all to Stroud Marinus.

It related some to the reasoning in keeping the two names and identities so polar separate in the mind, she supposed, for others.

Help sitting up was unexpected but really, well, helpful. She gladly accepted the soup, focusing as much as she could command her brain to and sipping on the mug to help her body with heat and blood sugar. A guest room as a really fantastic idea. Her place, being a loft studio, wasn't so mucuh rooms, but maybe she should look in to putting up some screens and a second bed just in case. Or some bunks. Or just a giant padded, heated floor section with pillows and scrims like a hookah den where more than 5 people could happily floor-camp. What she wanted was a squad to call her spartan family- shield and spear bothers all.

"This is a lot. On short notice. Thank you, really. I'll stay. hot bath or shower after soup would be great. And sleep. " She had a feeling that after that, she'd be warmed right up and after the shock to her system- exhausted. "Do you have a t-shirt I could borrow for sleeping?"

She actually didn't mind sleeping bare, but if there was something available it tended to be more polite. "If I can ever return the kindness in the future, just let me know. Definitely taking pointers though. Good idea for team help. "

She kept sipping on the soup, holding as still as she could while pins and needles felt to spread outwards from her heart along her shoulders, arms, stomach, neck, everywhere. The shifting sounds and sifting were relaxing- domestic and normal like anchors in the face of the abnormal survival and hypothermia. In face of being picked up off the street and in a strangers house.

It wasn't her usual method of ending up in stranger's houses.
Not that she felt up to that sort of raucous partying right at the moment nor got the impression that Caleb or any potential roommates might be game for that sort of thing.

When he returned and offered the shirt, she squinted her eyes at him with catlike pleasure, "You're welcome to bother me all you want, sweet. You and anyone else in this haven."

"After the shower, anyway."
She'd get to that once her feet and legs stopped feeling like cactus jelly. Shower and bed. Glorious.


Still alive.