.
What in the PETCH is this white cold crap?! Ayszel cursed, scowling through the flaps of her tent at the wretchedly cold thing swirling over the landscape. It had accumulated enough in the night that the fireplace was thoroughly covered and could only be made out by the bumps of white over the ring of rocks. The packs were decorated with little white caps and the horse’s heads were hung snuffling the top of it curiously while the white skittering substance stole a free ride on their backs. Now the slowness of the voices in the plants made sense, they were tucking all their energy away, slowing down their metabolisms in preparation for the cold. Nothing living can survive this cold.
She gazed at the blue and yellow lights in the distance, the same lights that had been the focus of her hallucination the night before. Whatever city that is…may be my only hope… She realized. A Dhani can’t survive in cold like this, we are bred for the warmth of the south The cold had already made her eyelids heavy and sleep was a tentacle sliding up her spine. Every cities slaves we got look like humans…so…she realized with cold dread what that meant. It meant there was a use for her new form.
It’s the only way to blend without alerting them. But the form is too weak to move through the cold completely naked… she considered thoughtfully, resentment for its useful as acrid as yesterdays vomit. I’ll need clothes, of which I have none. Gazing about her she frowned, the tent was the only thing with enough fabric to cover her entirety and she had used the last of her sewing string for dinner last night. She would have to tie it at the waist to hold it shut, she decided, uncoiling the net. The rough thick rope did not yield to her dulling knife very easily and it took several bells before she had hacked through it and had a rope long enough to tie around her center.
Stepping out into the snow in bare feet was unbearable, making her skitter through the campsite. Pulling her legs up to and away from the snow as fast as her limited control of her new limbs would allow she looked like a gangly wobbly deer dancing over mud during their first rainy season, unnerved by the texture and sucking sound. It was this image that danced through her mind as she danced across the mountaintop.
The tent came down with relative ease. Less easy was ripping open the end opposing the open doorway with the dull eating knife. Finally, she was able to stick her head through one hole and her arms through two others. Though the tent was long enough that it dragged on the ground, protecting her legs from the cold gusts, it didn’t protect her numb feet. Glancing about, eyes widening with desperation, she grabbed at anything within reach that would save her numbing feet. Unfortunately, that was only the horses side. A brush of her hand over the snowy back rid the fur of the substance but it remained cold and wet despite her attempts. She grabbed a handful of hair and yanked herself up, legs flailing as she tugged herself against her warm form.
She lay there, teeth chattering faintly and eyes squeezed tight, until the pain began to fade from her feet. The tent lay over her entire body and over her feet, keeping the wind from them but doing nothing for defence from the cold. Fortunately, the shorter of the mares was still trussed up in her pack saddle. As bewildered by the cold as she was, Ayszel guided the horse with relative ease using an image of her standing next to the packs. Reaching down, one hand grasping the taller mares mane so tightly they would have gone white if the cold had not already stolen the colour, Ayszel grasped one pack and yanked it up settling it into the holding net she had fashioned on either side of the pack saddle. She didn’t know how to tie knots, or properly pack animals and so she had made two net bags permanently attached to the saddle in which the packs could be placed. I am brilliant. she decided. Though the actions had been born of ignorance they proved enormously useful in this situation. Oh Siku, the luck you have granted me will not be forgotten! she prayed in elation as she settled the second back on the other side of the mare.
Fortunately the snow had coated the grass abbreviating that which might distract them from their path and so they listened to her gentle mental indications. Down the long hill they slowly plodded, and toward the brilliant cities whose hopeful warmth was as powerful as the reality of it.
42nd, Fall, 515 AV
What in the PETCH is this white cold crap?! Ayszel cursed, scowling through the flaps of her tent at the wretchedly cold thing swirling over the landscape. It had accumulated enough in the night that the fireplace was thoroughly covered and could only be made out by the bumps of white over the ring of rocks. The packs were decorated with little white caps and the horse’s heads were hung snuffling the top of it curiously while the white skittering substance stole a free ride on their backs. Now the slowness of the voices in the plants made sense, they were tucking all their energy away, slowing down their metabolisms in preparation for the cold. Nothing living can survive this cold.
She gazed at the blue and yellow lights in the distance, the same lights that had been the focus of her hallucination the night before. Whatever city that is…may be my only hope… She realized. A Dhani can’t survive in cold like this, we are bred for the warmth of the south The cold had already made her eyelids heavy and sleep was a tentacle sliding up her spine. Every cities slaves we got look like humans…so…she realized with cold dread what that meant. It meant there was a use for her new form.
It’s the only way to blend without alerting them. But the form is too weak to move through the cold completely naked… she considered thoughtfully, resentment for its useful as acrid as yesterdays vomit. I’ll need clothes, of which I have none. Gazing about her she frowned, the tent was the only thing with enough fabric to cover her entirety and she had used the last of her sewing string for dinner last night. She would have to tie it at the waist to hold it shut, she decided, uncoiling the net. The rough thick rope did not yield to her dulling knife very easily and it took several bells before she had hacked through it and had a rope long enough to tie around her center.
Stepping out into the snow in bare feet was unbearable, making her skitter through the campsite. Pulling her legs up to and away from the snow as fast as her limited control of her new limbs would allow she looked like a gangly wobbly deer dancing over mud during their first rainy season, unnerved by the texture and sucking sound. It was this image that danced through her mind as she danced across the mountaintop.
The tent came down with relative ease. Less easy was ripping open the end opposing the open doorway with the dull eating knife. Finally, she was able to stick her head through one hole and her arms through two others. Though the tent was long enough that it dragged on the ground, protecting her legs from the cold gusts, it didn’t protect her numb feet. Glancing about, eyes widening with desperation, she grabbed at anything within reach that would save her numbing feet. Unfortunately, that was only the horses side. A brush of her hand over the snowy back rid the fur of the substance but it remained cold and wet despite her attempts. She grabbed a handful of hair and yanked herself up, legs flailing as she tugged herself against her warm form.
She lay there, teeth chattering faintly and eyes squeezed tight, until the pain began to fade from her feet. The tent lay over her entire body and over her feet, keeping the wind from them but doing nothing for defence from the cold. Fortunately, the shorter of the mares was still trussed up in her pack saddle. As bewildered by the cold as she was, Ayszel guided the horse with relative ease using an image of her standing next to the packs. Reaching down, one hand grasping the taller mares mane so tightly they would have gone white if the cold had not already stolen the colour, Ayszel grasped one pack and yanked it up settling it into the holding net she had fashioned on either side of the pack saddle. She didn’t know how to tie knots, or properly pack animals and so she had made two net bags permanently attached to the saddle in which the packs could be placed. I am brilliant. she decided. Though the actions had been born of ignorance they proved enormously useful in this situation. Oh Siku, the luck you have granted me will not be forgotten! she prayed in elation as she settled the second back on the other side of the mare.
Fortunately the snow had coated the grass abbreviating that which might distract them from their path and so they listened to her gentle mental indications. Down the long hill they slowly plodded, and toward the brilliant cities whose hopeful warmth was as powerful as the reality of it.