Frostbound

[Jade Harley]

Continued from [S] Jade: Enter more casually!

The glare of the Nexus fades. Reeling, teeth-chattering cold replaces it.

This isn’t just your average, everyday ‘freeze your tits off’ cold. This is a ‘kiss all of your worldly, fleshy appendages good-freaking-bye’ cold.

All around are snowy wilds covered in a healthy sheen of softly-twinkling flakes, almost akin to the breast feathers of a ring-necked turtle dove in their downy-white pallor marked with gusty grey. Jade touches down with a scurrying of her red-slippered feet and much needless fretting of her arms, landing messily in a snowdrift. Flurries of powdery white fly in all directions from her point of entry.

With a huff, the girl shakes her head to clear it of any wayward flakes or icy dregs, the tips of her fuzzy ears, nose and cheeks already beginning to turn a wind-burnt, gaily rosy red. This only succeeds in sending bothersome frozen droplets into her eyes, where they stick fast to her eyelashes.

Jade grumbles, and removes her glasses so that she can rub furiously at her irritated eyes. Upon returning them to her face, she pauses, considers, and then stuffs the shades into the front of her shirt. Feeling quite pleased with herself for getting rid of a very immediate issue, Jade then pushes her regular, round glasses onto her cherry-tinted nose. She blinks owlishly at the surrounding expanse of ice-stippled ground.

Fiercely windswept slopes taper off into the snow-blurred horizon. The moaning of the wind is prominent and nearly deafening; it assails her limbs with chilling cold, striking right down to the bone. There is a terrible sifting and grinding noise that marks the blizzard’s advancement.

It does not escape her notice that it was barely three years ago that she had seen snow for the first time in her life. She should be sick of it by now, what with all of the sorrowful, blood-speckled memories it holds for her, but she finds that her arrival in this frozen land feels much like a homecoming of sorts. Like it was meant to be.

But goodness, is it cold! Her breath fogs up around her face, looking much like a dragon’s smoky puff. Jade titters lightly at that mental image; her, a dragon! Preposterous! Her lips chafe as they pull into a dewy smile, and she makes a disgruntled face at the smarting, needlepoint sting.

Bundling the twin hoods of her god-tier outfit in her hands, Jade ties them around her mouth and chin, leaving her nose exposed to the worst of the elements. She snuffles softly, only shortly thereafter, her nose already dripping a tad, and quickly moves to cover that, too. It would stink to have icicles hanging off her schnoz, anyways!

Thousands of delicate, tiny flakes are already beginning to pepper the fabric of her dress, sinking into the material and leaving wet droplets in their wake. Jade frowns at this, but resolves to ignore it in favor of the expedition. This sure beats frog hunting and breeding! Or, at least, she hasn’t exactly been tasked with a mission that will determine the fate of the universe, yet. That’s an entire world of progress in her book.

Setting off at a brisk walking pace, Jade clasps her arms to her chest, glad for her outfit of choice. The breeze whistles and howls, nipping at her exposed fingers with particular venom. Her eyes redden at the corners and water; the crystal of her glasses fogs up around the edges, causing nigh-invisibility in her peripheral vision. She considers conjuring up woolly mittens with Omnilium, but that might be wasteful. Jade thinks herself to be a rather quick-fingered, thrifty individual for having this kind of foresight.

Five minutes later sees Jade mumbling “Fuck it,” to herself, and going stock-still so that she can call up some goddamn mittens. A malleable, sure-as-day sphere appears, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow and then some, and Jade wills it to produce the softest, loveliest mittens in the entire universe, preferably without any jangling bells or itchy price-tags.

There are a pair of mittens in her tingly-numb hands soon enough, although it regrettably takes a few minutes for them to fully appear. They certainly feel soft, but that might just be Jade’s current lack of feeling in her fingers and joints. As for the lovely part, they are a pleasant yellow color that reminds Jade of sunny days and a dollop of half-melted butter setting atop a stack of warm, syrupy-sweet pancakes.

She doesn’t hesitate to pull them over her fingers, sighing as the fabric cups around her knuckles and warmth gradually begins to pool in her palms. With a tranquil smile spreading across her face, Jade takes another step, intending to continue her arduous trek.

Unexpectedly, the ground sways and dips beneath her feet, and Jade finds herself thrown off-kilter as the slab of ice she had just stepped on sinks low into the ground. With a startled shout, she hops over to the side, sliding gratingly against the icy ground and sending tinkling bits of it skittering off.

She watches, overwhelmingly startled, as the ice plops back down again with a watery splutter. For a moment, she simply stares at it, trembling against the cold. Her brow furrows accusingly at the jagged cracks surrounding the wedge, and she wonders just how she could have missed something so obvious. It must be this new universe messing with her brain. Or something.

Nevertheless, as she is shaken by the narrowly-avoided trip beneath the surface of a freezing lake, Jade is sure to be careful of where she places her feet from then on.

The cold is unstoppable; it reigns supreme over this land, an icy maw filled with glacial fangs bearing down hard on any outsiders. Jade is somewhat accustomed to this sort of weather, but that doesn’t make it any easier. She is sure that, if she had been any less prepared, death would have been certain. It is not a comforting thought.

As she walks on, feet sinking deeper and deeper into the bone-chilling snow with each step, Jade tries to keep her mind on other things besides the abysmal temperature and her numb toes. For instance, the time when she messaged Rose, Dave, and John from her island’s beach, comfortable in the sun and with the foamy white waves lapping gently at her toes; one of the days where she was planting pumpkins, earthy soil clinging just about everywhere and Bec snuffling in the brush beside; or even being set aflame, the blinding blaze of the Green Sun cleaving through her very being and creating her anew.

Jade grimaces and decides to think about something else to pass the time. Maybe her place in this new universe? She wouldn’t die here— would she? That would be just plain inconsiderate. Why would she be allowed to venture to this place, if only to perish from the cold?

Then again, SBURB wasn’t so kind to ensure her continued life. Death was practically a necessity from the beginning, and it was the only way to grow stronger; whether it be through slaying imps or dying on a Quest Bed. She wouldn’t be surprised if this universe were the very same, although it would be a real downer.

She should really locate a weapon at some point. Maybe there are trees here, the tall thin trunks of firs or pines peeking out somewhere amongst all this ice-covered despondency, and she can fashion something together out of a branch? That would be one shoddy weapon, nothing more than a big, spindly stick, but she thinks she remembers a saying of Theodore Roosevelt’s about a big stick that was mad inspiring. If only she could remember it, now.

Perhaps, if given enough time and resources, she can even establish a homestead for herself somewhere. She doesn’t know where she might go about doing that, especially in an inhospitable place such as this, but Jade feels a strange sense of rightness just thinking about it. Based upon how following her gut instinct in the past has gone, she can only assume that this will be a Good, even Stellar, Choice.

Gosh, it feels like she has been walking for an eternity. Although this extended amount of time to contemplate her existence is sublime, it would be great to happen across a warm hearth at some point.

That is not to say Jade feels any sureness in stumbling across such a fortuitous thing. She imagines that there aren’t many people living here, but she does see a certain appeal in the relentless onslaught of the snowstorm. Namely, the weather would likely discourage any ill-intentioned crooks from coming after her. That’s always a plus.

Suddenly, an ear-splitting wail cuts through the regular whooshing and whirling of the gales around her, almost indiscernible from the speech of the wind itself. Jade immediately draws to a halt, looking frantically about for the source of the sound, green eyes wide and glasses tossed askew in her alarm. She balls her hands into fists at her sides and braces herself for an attack.

Nothing is forthcoming from the swirling grey mass surrounding her on all sides; no heavy footsteps nor blizzard-distorted threats, no matter how hard she strains her ears to listen for any traces of trouble.

She had expected to have to wallop some basic ground enemies into the dirt, but that certainly had not sounded anything at all like a scurrilous little imp. It had almost sounded like… well, her friends would probably think she was ridiculous for even considering this, but it has almost sounded like how she would imagine an Abominable Snowman would roar.

“Please don’t be an Abominable Snowman. Please don’t be an Abominable Snowman. Please, please, please don’t be an Abominable Snowman,” Jade chants under her breath, starting up a petrified mantra under her breath as she carries on walking. “Or a Yeti. I mean, any gargantuan primate, really. Please.”

The snow crunches and bunches below her, steadily growing more and more substantial— less liable to shift out from underneath her feet, anyways. She finds herself feeling more confident about where she treads, taking longer and more decisive strides, and starts to pay more attention to what is in the distance rather than what dangers might be prowling right around her.

Rising up and out of the pale gloaming ahead is the barest hint of a silhouette, composed of nothing but sketchy clumps and dim shadows. As Jade begins to draw nearer, however, she notes the jagged rocky outcroppings, like the back of a monstrous, barnacle-bellied beast that might dwell at the bottom of the ocean, as well as the faintest lines of collected vapors swirling around their snow-speckled tops.

She realizes, then, that she is looking at a chain of mountains, and pulsating, throat-coiling awe swells in her breast.

“Oh,” the girl says, very small and very insignificant in comparison to the immense shapes looming in the distance, nothing but a black speck standing on a plain of frost and snow. “That is so cool.”

Beneath the coalition of veiled obscurity and clouds, Jade can just barely see the hints of other natural formations. Gigantic boulders, likely stirred from their places higher up in the mountain passes by glacial movement, are the most obvious and easy to recognize. She can also see a few smaller hints of rock or stone, flickering in and out of view like dust shining in a ray of sunlight.

The emotion Jade is feeling is… nothing short of triumphant. Here she is, the wind kissing her cheeks and a delightful realm of possibilities splayed out before her. Shall she mount an expedition and spend her days excavating dank frozen caverns and searching for new puzzling conundrums to solve? Or shall she simply settle down and live out the rest of her days in the shadow of the mountain, living with the anxiety of a damaging avalanche? Perhaps neither, or even both?

The winds clamor all around. Whatever the case, the only thing left to do now is to take the first step.

A determined grin tugging at her lips, Jade does so.