storytellers

jesse · daydreamer Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 33

Brand new story. Inspiration hit me today. It's a rough draft, so feel free to tear it to pieces.

Sea of Ice

Della was so surprised to be falling that she was unable to make any noise at all. No one behind her had any time to react; they could barely see her in the swirling snow anyway. It was almost comically silent, she thought as she fell. Logically, the wind should have been roaring in her ears, but she couldn’t hear a thing. She fell face-first, her hood whipping back and letting her red hair loose. Snow collected on her face, and her eyes watered, the moisture freezing to her temples. She seemed to be falling into an endless abyss, as the snow made it impossible to see how far away the ground was.

Which made it all the more alarming when she hit. Sound suddenly returned, crashing in on her eardrums in a superliminal cacophony. Her senses were overwhelmed and she blacked out.

She came to before she realized that she had come to. She couldn’t see, hear, or feel anything, but she realized she was aware of not being able to do those things. Slowly, feeling returned. She should have been in intense pain, but she was only aware of being intensely cold. Her eyes were open, but she was in total darkness.

It hit her. She was buried in snow.

It made sense. Cliffs with a strong, consistent wind against them generally built up huge drifts of loose, soft snow. That would have broken her fall for sure. She felt oriented, and decided to try to move.

Della had no idea how long she had lain in the snow, but she wasn’t completely frozen. Her muscles were stiff with cold, but she flexed her arm successfully after a few tries. She dug through the snow with her hand to reach her face, and cleared a hollow in front of her, relieved to have the ice off her face. She still couldn’t see, but she knew a way of finding up without sight. She worked up a little saliva in her mouth and let it dribble out of her mouth. It ran up her cheek towards her eye. She was upside down.

She quickly wiped the drool off her face with her mitten as she pondered how to right herself. She could hardly dig upwards with her feet in the air, but the snow was loose, and she could probably twist around to point her head to the surface. She started to kick back and downwards, moving her legs lower and lower in the snow. The hollow around her face collapsed at this disturbance, but she ignored that as she worked her hands to her thighs. Gripping the fur of her pants, she hoisted herself up through the snow until she was in a position that she hoped was horizontal. Sitting up from that was easier, and soon she was crawling upwards, stamping the snow down beneath her to form something of a platform to work up from.
She could hear the surface before she saw it. The blizzard was still going strong, and the sound of the wind penetrated a foot into the massive drift where she had fallen. Her hand broke the surface above her, suddenly flapping in the open air. She pulled her head through and slowly crawled out, the wind whipping dully against her numb cheeks. She shivered, and didn’t stop. It was still night, and would be for most of the day, thanks to the thick clouds.

She had made it out of the drift, but now what? She was hopelessly separated from her party; even if she did know a way back up to them, they would have left long ago, forced to assume she was dead.

Which, in all likelihood, she was.

All the food and firewood was on the sledge. At the bottom of the cliff, she had only her fire kit and shortsword, and no hope of finding something to burn with the one or something to kill and skin with the other. She was in the middle of the Sea of Ice, and nothing grew or lived there. Meat could wait, though, Della reasoned. It was still several hours before hunger would creep up on her. Her immediate concern was heat. She had been lying in the snow for a while, and desperately needed to be warmed up. Images of her uncle’s missing nose and fingers flashed in her mind, and she pulled her hood back over her head. She would have cried if the tears would not have robbed her of even more body heat. She had climbed out of the drift only to die in the blizzard.

She began to stumble forward. Anything would be better than staying put, waiting to die. Maybe she could find a heat thief or an erne to quicken her death. She walked. She stared defiantly into the invisible distance, obscured by swirling snow. Suddenly, the angle the snow was blowing at shifted 90 degrees. Odd, she thought, lying in the snow. This wasn’t what she had always imagined hypothermia feeling like. There was no warm glow, no shivering, not anymore, and no goosebumps. There was only an overwhelming desire to hide, so she began digging in the snow. Her arms didn’t want to obey her, so she had to try several times to move any snow at all.

“Unbelievable,” said a voice behind her. She didn’t turn to look; she only wanted to be safe and enclosed, and kept digging with her stupid arms that didn’t listen. “You might be the luckiest fucker on this sunforsaken world.”

She didn’t hear any more. She didn’t see anymore, either. She was floating, floating away on a word that she had heard. Sun… oh, there was the warm glow…

<3

-Jesse

Lilith · circle keeper Joined: 09 Dec 2007 Posts: 38

Ooooo, sounds good. Very nice imagery. Happened to like the nice foreshadowing you had at the end, dreamlike, but very cool.

The bits of fantasy thrown in really keep you ssking questions, as well as the names, and mysterious voices.

And the setting! The imagery was truly mouthwatering when it came to the setting. A world filled to the teeth with jagged spines of ice.... how cool.

Good job, don't see much to pick at, but I'm not so good at picking. heh

eleison · Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:31 am Post subject:

Oh gosh, I feel teased... I want more.

I admit that I rolled by eyes at her "fiery hair" though... but maybe that is just something I personally have a problem with. I did just get back from reccomending children's fantasy books and therefore am reasonably sick of "fiery hair"...

But other then that... nope... I have nothing important to say. I will probably deep read this again later in hopes of being more helpful.
_________________
Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.
~Sigmund Freud~

jesse · daydreamer Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 33

Oh, man! You're totally right! "Fiery" is definitely eye-roll-worthy. I'll change it.

<3

-Jesse

jesse · daydreamer Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 33

Della awoke to the sounds of wood hissing and popping on a fire. She wasn't sure if this was still part of her dream, at first. She had been flying on the back of a giant bird made of fire, up, up, up towards the distant pinprick of the sun, which was slowly getting bigger, brighter, and warmer. She opened her eyes, squinting at the daylight, and realized her whole body was clenched into a tight ball next to the fire. She turned her neck slowly, painfully to look at the figure who was sitting beside her.

Her savior's gender was impossible to tell, because under the hood, their face was totally wrapped in fat, insulating bandages. The hood had the same braided tassels that Della's own had, but there was a man's broadsword hung from the figure's belt, too heavy for a woman - at least, any woman in Della's clan - to wield properly.

Della opened her mouth to speak, but it took a few tries for her to get her voice to work. "Thank you," she finally managed.

"Hungry?" came the reply. The voice was distinctly masculine, and Della decided this was a man.

"Yes," she said simply.

"Me too. I saw a buzzard fly overhead a half hour ago, to the south. Its nest should be to the north. How do eggs sound?"

"Delicious." Della started to unfurl herself, every muscle protesting against moving. She gritted her teeth and sat up.

"Then get moving." He tossed her a leather bag, then turned back to the fire.

Della sat there holding the bag for a second, then stood up, wincing, and started walking.

<3

-Jesse
_________________
I've always been Jung at heart.

eleison · Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:20 pm Post subject:

I love how Della pieces together the stranger's gender... it is a very real situation.

Also, I thought I would let you know that I am still loving this and looking forward to more.
_________________
Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.
~Sigmund Freud~

jesse · daydreamer Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 33

The snow had stopped completely, and Della could see for miles through air that was devoid of water vapor. The sun's tiny pinprick was high in the sky. From the angle of what seemed to be its course, she estimated her latitude at around 31 degrees. Her party had covered a lot of ground before she lost them last night. She hoped they would reach their destination; they would be at a distinct disadvantage without her expertise. The next-best trained navigator was her apprentice, Johan. If he made it to Emberheim alive, she resolved to promote him. Assuming she ever made it out of this mess herself.

She looked to the north and spotted some cliffs that were likely candidates for buzzard nests. They were only a mile or two away, composed entirely of ice, snug under a fresh foot of snow.

Before long, she had reached them. They were far less vertical than the cliff she had fallen off of, sloping back slightly with plenty of small ledges and outcroppings to climb on. She mulled silently that if she had fallen off such a precipice instead of that sheer drop, she would surely be dead, having hit the ice several times on her way down. She began to climb, her crampons digging solidly into the ice, looking for evidence of a nest somewhere along the way.

She was also alert for the possibility of the buzzard returning to its nest, in which case she would have to fight it while clinging to the ice face. She did not relish that thought, since a buzzard was almost a match for a well-trained fighter on an even footing, and she was hungry, off-balance, and a scrapper at best.

She finally saw the droppings frozen to an outcropping above her and to the right. She made her way towards them carefully, recalling her climbing trainer saying, "Three points of contact at all times!" When she was directly below the nest, she began to pull herself up. As her head came even with the nest, she got a nasty shock.

The nest was not only occupied by three large, speckled eggs, but the buzzard's large, angry mate. It was at least 150 pounds, and its sharp, serrated beak, designed for cutting through frozen carcasses, was less than six inches from her nose. The sparse feathers on its ugly head bristled as it saw Della.

The huge bird shrieked at her, a normally deafening sound applied directly to her face. It then made a few "hork hork hork" sounds, and Della instinctively pulled her hood down over her face.

Not a second too soon, either, as a stream of steaming vomit splattered against her. The buzzards usually used that mechanism to help them bring their aforementioned food to an edible temperature, but it could also serve as a defense technique. The bird's head lunged forward, snapping at her, and she ducked down to avoid it, but not before catching a gash on her cheek. Blood dribbled down her face, and vomit dripped off the edge of her hood. Della drew her shortsword and slashed at the buzzard. It quickly took off to attack her from the air, sensing the danger her blade held.

No sooner had it taken wing than a thick, black arrow shot through it and pinned it to the side of the ice cliff. It let out a little "wark" as it died.

Della looked down to see the man in the woman's parka standing at the foot of the cliff, some 200 feet below. He leaned his stout crossbow over his shoulder and waved to her.

As quickly as she could, Della wiped off the vomit from her hood in the snow, collected the eggs into the leather pouch, and began to climb down again. After a second's thought, she returned to the nest, pulling the buzzard's corpse off the wall and dropping it and the crossbow bolt down to the man.

"I got sick of waiting," said the man, when she had come within earshot. "Good thing I did, too." He gestured to the buzzard's corpse. "Those fuckers are not fun to fight. You catch any regurge?"

"On my hood," replied Della.

"Ah, good thinking. You got a little cut there." He pointed at her face. His mittens had a separate index finger, to facilitate firing a crossbow.

"I know." Della pulled out a little adhesive gauze and started tending to the wound.

"Well, ayway, let's eat."

He produced a small pot, which Della cooked the eggs in over a small fire while he skinned and boned the adult's carcass. They ate heartily, and rested a while after, letting the feeling of actually being fed wash over them.

"You got a name?" the stranger finally asked.

"Della," she replied. "Della Harcourt. How about you?"

The stranger didn't answer immediately. "Harcourt, eh? You're a long way from home. Aren't the Harcourts a northern clan?"

"We are. A few of us decided to look for Emberheim."

He chuckled at this, shaking his head. "You really thought it was a good idea to risk your lives going in search of a mythical city?"

"Emberheim is real. My friend Dimitri has seen it," Della retorted.

"Oh, I know it's real. I've been there, snowflake, and let me tell you, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

"You've been there? Is... is it warm?" Della leaned in.

"It's... tepid. Which i guess is better than being out here, for some. But it's not really a place to raise a family. Mostly thieves, bandits, and assholes."

"Oh..." said Della. She was trying not to show it, but she was crushed. To think that she had risked her life and the lives of her closest friends to come to... It couldn't be true. She wouldn't believe anything but her own eyes on the matter. She would see Emberheim. She decided to change the subject. "What was your name?"

"Fiona," the stranger said simply.

<3

-Jesse
_________________
I've always been Jung at heart.

eleison · Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 1:11 am Post subject:

I already told you what I think, but for the sake of putting it down somewhere for the record: I really love the melding of characters and setting in this story.

More specific to this piece of the story, I really love the facts about the buzzards slipped into the action.

And Fiona, I like Fiona.
_________________
Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.
~Sigmund Freud~

GeneralArnold77 · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:41 pm Post subject:

I love the imagry! The storyline is good, I'm waiting for more (comping at the bit might be more like it). I would be most interested to see if they end up going to this "Mythical city". I like how in depth everything is, even something as simple as sitting in the snow is well writian out!
_________________
“Fixed fortifications are monuments to man's stupidity.” ~General George S Patton Jr.

jesse · daydreamer Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 33

Della cleaned up the cookware as Fiona tucked the butchered buzzard meat into a drysack and shoved that into her pack. There was silence for a while as they did.

"Not that I'm not grateful," Della finally said, "believe me, I am - but what exactly are you doing out here alone? I mean..."

"It's the Sea of Ice?" finished Fiona. "Where nothing grows, nothing lives, and no one can survive?"

"Well..." Della had to admit mentally that the stories she had heard were a bit more extreme than the reality. Clearly animals did live here, so the Sea must have its own ecosystem of sorts. However, it was still a harsh and unforgiving environment. "Yeah."

Fiona sat back, leaning on her elbows in the snow. "I could answer that, but you have to answer me something first."

"What's that?"

"Will you travel with me?"

Della cocked an eyebrow. "Um, I don't know where you're going."

"Doesn't matter. You have two options." Her expression was inscrutable under the bandages as she squinted up at the sun. "You can come with me, in which case I'll let you in on my secret because you'll have to know, or you can go off and try to find your party. You'll probably die, but on the off-chance that you don't, I don't want you telling anyone why I'm here."

Della considered this for a moment. "I need to rejoin them at some point. Will you help me find Emberheim if I help you with whatever this is?"

"Sure, I don't see why not. I'll probably have plenty of free time when we're done on the Ice."

Della nodded slowly. "Yes, then. I'll travel with you."

"Great!" said Fiona, getting to her feet. "Let's be off, then." She turned and started walking towards the north-west. Della scooped up her things and scrambled after her.

"Wait a second! You never said why you're here!"

"Oh, right." Fiona stopped to let Della catch up, watching her over her shoulder. "I'm on a quest."

Della failed to choke a laugh. "A quest! Okay. What are you questing for, then?"

"Have you ever heard of the Element?"

Della shook her head, trotting to keep up with Fiona's powerful stride. "No."

"Good."

"What is... it?"

"Never met it myself. It's supposed to be a demon of fire from the centre of the earth. Nowadays it lives in the middle of the Sea of Ice. I'm going to it to get the power of fire."

Della stopped in her tracks. "A demon from the centre of the earth."

Fiona stopped, turned around, and looked dead into Della's eyes. "Yeah."

"You actually believe that shi-" The words had barely left Della's throat when Fiona's swordpoint was brushing it. The "shhiiing" of her drawing it registered a split second later. Della could practically feel the weight of the broadsword. Fiona was immensely strong.

"You said you would travel with me. I don't care if you believe me, but I'm telling you this: you will not tell another living soul because I won't let you. Either you shut your mouth and keep walking or I swear to the bitter daystar I will open you up right here and now and continue on my way."

Staring into her eyes, Della knew she meant it. She leaned away from the point of the blade to say "Sorry."

Fiona held her there a few more seconds before sheathing the great sword and resuming her blistering pace through the fresh snow.

<3

-Jesse
_________________
I've always been Jung at heart.