That's it. Her life is over now. She is dead of sheer mortification. 

"I'm fine! Just getting him, uh, uh, home..." 

The man in the security uniform does not seem reassured. "Miss, listen to me, it's all right - I won't report it, you're not the one who's getting in any trouble tonight." 

Oh god what does he think she's doing. Does he think she's a prostitute. Does he think she's...selling homeless bathrobe guy drugs? Marian doesn't actually want to know she just wants this to NOT be HAPPENING. 

Ma'ar, on the other hand, can tell when someone means him harm and he needs to be elsewhere. 

:Sorry: he tells the young woman, the only person so far who's tried to help, and he shakes loose of her grip and runs back toward the bridge. 

...Or tries to, at least. He can manage to stay on his feet but he is definitely not moving in a straight line. 

"Hey! You! Where are you going? No you don't -" Security uniform guy leaves his car diagonal to the sidewalk where he stopped, door open, and goes in pursuit. 

Aaaaaaaah. 

"Please don't!" Marian calls out, though it comes out strangled and not loud enough for either of them to hear. 

In hindsight, the bridge was not the right direction to flee. Because now he's out in the open, he doesn't have time for a proper illusion, and the man who's wearing proper shoes and hasn't been out in subzero temperatures for hours can move a lot faster than Ma'ar can. 

A hand falls on his arm, gripping hard. 

Ma'ar is trained in hand-to-hand combat. He twists, jerking free - and stumbles right into the bridge railing, barely staying on his feet. 

"Oh no you don't." And apparently this stranger also has combat training, because suddenly he has Ma'ar's arm twisted behind his back. "You're staying right here until the cops arrive." 

Okay she has to do something before random guy gets arrested when he hasn't even done anything illegal. Unless being drunk in public is illegal on its own? Marian isn't sure, she doesn't think so, but she's never actually read up on the laws... Being disruptive in public is probably the sort of thing that gets you arrested, but he wasn't, he was just sleeping on a bench until she stuck her nose into this situation... 

"Hey! Stop! Please don't call the cops - he didn't do anything, I was just trying to help out - if you're calling anyone call him an ambulance, please -" 

Ma'ar is less than half following their exchange from surface thoughts. The man wants to...have him imprisoned by the local authorities for hurting the young woman? The woman is defending him, but claiming he needs to...be brought to a Healers' centre? 

Most of his mind is elsewhere, caught forever in the moment he saw the horizon flash white, and knew. Urtho.

It's all a confused nightmare and Ma'ar can't think when both of the others are yelling at each other. He wants it to be quiet and peaceful like before. He wants to be alone, without the pressure of their upset minds... 

If Ma'ar were thinking any more clearly, he would have come up with a better plan. This is very much not one of his better plans. But he feels trapped, cornered - pinned up against the memory of a world burning - 

He gets a grip on the bridge railing with his non-pinned arm, and starts swinging his leg over. 

"What are you - just hold still, motherfucker–" 

"Leave him alone!" Marian is vaguely aware that she must sound hysterical, which can't be helping her cause, but she hates fights and this is awful and it's her fault. 

He gets his leg over the railing. 

He jerks with his full body weight - the torque nearly breaks his wrist, but his attacker, startled, lets go first, and Ma'ar falls. 

He lands on his side, hard, there's only a few inches of snow over the ice and after a three-metre fall, the impact knocks all the air from his lungs. Something creaks alarmingly. 

No time. Under attack. 

He struggles to his feet and runs, or staggers, and makes it four paces before the river-ice gives way. 

Security guy stands helplessly at the railing, staring at the man now floundering in chest-deep freezing water, trying to grab at the edges of the ice. "I didn't, why did he...?" 

"Because you were hurting him and you scared him! Why did you DO that? I told you, I was just trying to help! You fucking idiot! He's just sick! He needed help! He didn't do anything to me and also I'm not a fucking prostitute thank you!" 

Normally yelling all of that at a stranger in the middle of the night would be mortifying in itself. But Marian is on the other side of embarrassment now. Her heart is hammering in her ears and her stomach feels like a lead weight, but in a sense, she's back on familiar ground. Emergencies are simpler, in a way. 

Bathrobe guy is still conscious, but it doesn't look like he's going to get himself out of the water, and he's already struggling more weakly. Damn it. She should have just called an ambulance in the first place. He clearly wasn't okay before, and now... 

She takes a breath. "Just call 911 and then catch up with me down there."

At least she wore her good winter boots. This would be so much worse in heels. Marian takes another steadying breath, and then starts scrambling down the snowy embankment towards the side of the river. 

Cold cold coldcoldcoldcoldCOLD - 

Yelling in the distance. Ma'ar is too busy floundering to track it. He's not about to drown, at least, the water isn't that deep and he can mostly keep his footing on the slippery, rocky bottom - though he's already slipped and scraped his ankle, he can't tell how badly, every part of him already hurts. 

He can't get himself out, though. There's no leverage and the ice just gives way, widening the hole, whenever he tries. 

This is bad. This is not a good situation. It was a bad plan. 

(Someone is yelling again, less distant now, but Ma'ar is facing away from the source, and his vision is starting to go hazy anyway.) 

...Focus. He's being stupid about this. Are you a mage or not? 

It's the hardest Gate he's ever attempted. His reserves are almost gone, he's so tired, and it feels like he's flailing around in a tub of razor blades, and he doesn't have a scaffolding to build on... 

But if he doesn't do this, he's going to die. 

The stark clarity of it helps clear his head, a little. There, if he puts it there in front of him, he can step through - along with half the river, but it'll do... 

It still takes an endless thirty seconds to build the threshold. 

Marian is screaming her throat raw, trying to extend a stick she found to the man, but he's facing away from the riverbank and he doesn't seem to hear her. 

There's a bluish glow? For a moment she feels a wave of relief, it must be an ambulance's lights, but the angle is wrong and it's not flashing and nevermind maybe she imagined it. 

Ma'ar puts the other end of the Gate on the snowy embankment beside the river. He got a decent look at it, before, and he doesn't think it's more than ten yards away. 

Finishing the spell is still the hardest thing he's ever done, and when the Gate snaps into place, it drains away the last dregs of his reserves and he feels the pull of blackness as it drinks deep of his remaining life-force... 

It only needs to hold for an instant, and Ma'ar throws himself through, along with several thousand gallons of icy river water, and collapses on the hillside. 

"What the fuck?" Marian twists around, craning her neck to follow the sound of cascading water. "How - what..." 

Bathrobe guy is gone from the water, which is now sloshing around the ice-hole.

She rolls away from the ice, struggling up on her knees; great, now her entire body is covered in snow, whatever, nevermind.

There's a dark hummock in the snow. It's not moving. 

The security guard runs over, phone in hand. "How did you get to him that fast?" 

Marian opens her mouth, realizes she has no idea what to say, and closes it again. Telling the asshole security guard that she might be hallucinating is not going to help anything. Clearly the guy got himself out of the water, one way or another. 

"Is an ambulance on its way?" she says instead. 

"Y-yes. Ten minutes. ...Are you, uh, going to...?" 

"Am I going to report you to the cops for harassment? No. Whatever. Just fuck off. ...Uh, after. Need your help right now. You got a coat or blankets or anything in your car?" 

"Huh?" 

"We're not letting him lie here in wet clothes for ten minutes! He can probably help us, he was conscious thirty seconds ago..."