Frostbound

[Jade Harley]

With a sigh, Jade switches her Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles out for her normal glasses, mulling over the possible implications of this primordialPersistence commending her for being particularly brave in venturing out into the Frozen Fields. Could it mean that she is totally alone out here, or in danger? That the only company she will have for the rest of her time in this Omniverse will be big, ambling snowbeasts?

No! She refuses to accept that. Someone will wander by eventually, like Karkat or Gamzee or anyone else, and even if they don’t, Jade will speak to someone again in person. Even if she has to strap herself to a meteor and launch it right out of this dumb, lonely universe— although that would be mighty difficult without her full cosmic-awareness arsenal.

For now, however, Jade feels oddly content and warm. Especially with the knowledge that Karkat and clown troll are here, too! It must have really helped to get all of that dark gunk at the back of her brain out, and it would have anyway even if she hadn’t been talking to anyone! She’ll have to try that out again, at some point.

Standing, Jade pats down her star-spangled skirt to get the muddy flakes of mineral-starved sediment off, a little pucker appearing between her eyebrows and on her lips as some of it clings stubbornly to her mittens. It’s cold enough that it almost feels wet, even through the snug-fitting cloth, a disgusting sensation that she can almost visualize chafing between her knuckles.

Jade wrinkles her nose in revulsion, sticking her tongue out like the child she is. “Ugh, gross.”

While doing her very best to ignore the globs of mud stuck to her once-pristine mittens, Jade walks back over to the rock she had considered using to stake out the land. With a grunt and a great foggy huff, Jade hefts the miniature boulder into the air with only a small amount of difficulty, and staggers over to where she would like to place it. Once it has been dropped into the snow with a crunch that sounds comparable to sugar grains graveling over her back molars, she moves on to another settled a short distance away and rearranges it in the same manner.

It takes roughly half an hour for Jade to complete this task, and afterwards she finds that she has worked up a bit of a sweat while sloshing those few rocks around in the snow, like a toddler playing in a sandbox. Jade isn’t particularly fond of that silly comparison, especially since her own mind came up with it, and so she chooses instead to consider how she is going to accomplish building such an enormous tower.

Well, it’s going to be a lot of work as far as she can tell! She will have to omit a few floors, because it would take forever to recreate them all, and she isn’t even sure if the furniture will appear with it! Whatever the case, as long as she has her grandpa’s lab, her bedroom, the grand foyer, and her beloved garden atrium out here, Jade thinks that she should be just fine! Oh, and the ginormous stairwell that links the lower levels to the upper floors of her house. That, too.

For a moment, Jade simply stands and admires her handiwork, contemplating the frozen wastes all around. When she looks at the snow-covered ground, probably over two feet thick with frost, she imagines that a colossal moon has been blown up in the heavens, and that all of this is the resulting layer of ejecta and grey-white moon dust, sort of like the KT Boundary only much, much thicker.

A sudden rumbling noise stirs through her gut and the first noticeable needle-point pangs of hunger hit. Jade frowns down at her stomach, because honestly. Rude.

Nevertheless, eating sounds really great right about now. Jade thinks it would be a good idea to go back under the shelter of the cave to start a fire, so the flames aren’t immediately doused out by the dwindling clumps of snow falling from the sky. She’s not exactly sure if there is anything she could start a fire with, but she’ll have to try! If worse comes to worse, she might have to use some omnilium. No big deal.

With this thought in mind, Jade turns and heads back inside of the cave, trying to keep on high alert despite the gnawing feeling in her empty stomach. She could just call something up right now using the omnilium, but she’s not sure if she could trust something not produced by nature. High fructose corn syrup and all that jibber-jabber.

The dark of the cave swallows her up again, and Jade subconsciously hunches in on herself, ears pricked up and listening for any signs of danger. Her glasses cast only a faint red-tinted glow in the gloom, but she can still see the stalactites bearing down from the ceiling like the maw of an enormous beast. There’s something else, too, that she didn’t notice before— a scent, almost metallic, like fresh pennies or some other kind of coppery metal. The air is crisp and clean in her lungs, to the point that it feels almost like puncture wounds are being dealt to them by prickles of ice.

It is still quiet, however, as if all noise were locked away someplace for safe-keeping or sucked into a ravenous vacuum. Even Jade’s footsteps are muffled, although that could just be the soft slippers she is wearing, which twinkle faintly in the dark with a sequin-speckled glimmer.

Taking extra care to be silent, Jade seats herself upon the ground and crosses one leg over the other. Her striped stockings, Jade observes, do not yet have a single tear in them from all of this adventuring and falling off of cliff sides. She is quite sure that this is a Good Thing that should be appreciated, because she might just have to create new clothing in the future.

Which wouldn’t be so bad; her Squiddlesneaks and Squiddlejacket would undoubtedly be super comfy, fuzzy, and warm. Plus, they double as computers! Although, Jade must admit that she has grown very attached to her god-tier pajamas and would be loathe to wear anything else.

After she has finished arranging her legs and wriggling around until she has found a more comfortable position, Jade focuses on calling up a small, healthily-burning campfire. Nothing big, just something to start off with. The pans and cutlery will come later.

Jade raises both of her hands in front of her, leaning forward a bit from her seated position so that she can better see what she is doing. Sure enough, the tiny gleam of rainbow-colored light comes into focus, a round, animate mould of energy appearing between her palms. It ripples, warping in an amazingly pretty way for something so simple. Jade can’t help but be reminded of primordialPersistence’s cause as she attempts to concentrate on the quivering orb, and for a minute or two she can’t seem to get back in the rhythm of procuring what she wants from the omnilium. Finally, however, after several frustrated grumbles and exaggerated hand gestures at the universe in general, Jade has a nice, warm fire licking at the air just a few inches from her fingers.

She grins at it, and carefully removes her mittens. Her skin becomes peppered with gooseflesh from the cold air nipping across the cave, but once her hands are near the flames they become pleasantly warm once again. A sizzling bed of coals snaps at her knees, but can’t quite seem to reach them.

With a pleased hum, Jade concentrates of creating a metal pot, with four attached legs about an inch or two long and a lid with a slightly-raised brim around the outward edge. One that she can settle above her homely little fire, and which can easily be filled with snow from outside the cave. This takes around four minutes, this time without any more intrusive thoughts pestering at her brain, and soon Jade has procured an iron pot to set over the open flames.

Lifting the pot into the air with a totally-imaginary ‘yoink’, Jade stumbles out into the snow and carefully scoops up the cleanest snow she can find, which means she has to venture beyond the mouth of the cave. When she has all of the snow she wants gathered up, Jade heads back inside because her hands are already starting to go numb from the blustery weather.

Jade sets the pot over the flames, watching with satisfaction as the snow begins to melt. The water pools slowly around the base of the pot until the container is about one-third of the way full, giving off a gurgling hiccup every now and then from the heat. Then, Jade reaches into her pockets and plops the lichens inside. The tongue-like protrusions of the plants sink below the surface with barely a warble, already beginning to soften.

Feeling content just to watch her food cook, Jade idly glances around at her surroundings, the orange-yellow glow of the fire illuminating her face in profile and causing her glasses to shine. Yep. Still dark, still gloomy. She just can’t imagine what sort of creature could have made the scale-like indentions in the cave’s wall. Perhaps an enormous snake? Gosh, she hopes not! She’s heard enough about enormous snakes for one— well, several, to be honest— lifetimes, thank you very much.

She wonders if she will really be able to talk to Karkat in person, and admittedly she feels sort of nervous about their eventual meeting. While she had been on her three-year journey on her Battleship, hurtling through the void of Space and with only the consorts of the four planets’ company, Jade had often held onto this hope— that one day she would be reunited with her friends. Now she’s going to meet someone she has only ever spoken to over Pesterchum, and who wasn’t especially nice to her throughout their entire span of knowing one another. It is a little daunting, but she’s encouraged by Karkat’s apparent relief at knowing that she’s trapped in this Omniverse as well.

It’s a lovely thing, to know that you’re appreciated. Jade understands this full well, and cherishes every second of it.

But are they really trapped? Without her Space powers at hand, Jade can’t find much evidence of a place to exit through, not even a tiny tear or frayed seam, and so it isn’t much use to try. Unless… maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to join up with primordialPersistence? Karkat was right in saying that the organization’s intentions weren’t exactly made clear, but at least that person was polite. Maybe they can talk about it when the shouty troll gets here— if he ever does, that is. Apparently Gamzee is holding him up, and Jade knows that Karkat would never abandon one of his friends.

Pursing her lips together, Jade scratches behind one of her ears. Well, she’ll just have to be alone a while longer. That’s perfectly fine; she can use this time to prepare! It would be super impressive if she had a home base all put together for their arrival, and it would probably be the politest course of action to take— after all, it is really, really cold out there! She doesn’t know how well a troll’s biology can hold up against the cold, but she hopes it will be sufficient enough for them to find her through the blizzard raging outside!

An odd, earthy smell tickles around Jade’s nose. With a start, she realizes that nearly thirty minutes have passed since she placed the pot over the fire! While leaning over the pot, with a fair amount of steam fogging up her glasses and causing moisture to build up around her cheeks and the creases around her mouth and nose, Jade grins at the gelatinous goop burbling inside. It looks almost like melted wax, entirely opaque and jellylike. Wonderful!

Re-donning her buttery yellow mittens, Jade grabs onto the pots handles, mindful of the immediate searing heat attempting to burn its way towards her fingers. She quickly stands and dashes out towards the snow, settling the iron container in a dug-out hole of ice. Steam rises all around it as the metal and the pot’s contents begin to swiftly cool. Jade shifts from foot to foot as she waits for the substance to decrease in temperature, making sure that there is nothing creeping up on her as she waits.

Finally, as the last wisps of musty-colored steam leave the pot, Jade lifts it up again and scurries back inside, the contents of the pot sloshing around sluggishly. As she reenters the cavern, Jade notices that her fire has gone down slightly in volume, but it still has several warm embers still sputtering around the nearly exhausted coals. She settles down beside it, again crossing her legs and placing the pot at the edge of the fire instead of directly over the open flame.

Jade leans forward to inspect her lichen porridge. It doesn’t necessarily seem like the tastiest meal in the world, but she sure is glad that she didn’t ignore her grandpa’s long-winded orations entirely! Otherwise, she might have become subject to starvation!

Grinning proudly at her goopy creation, Jade removes her mittens and carefully reaches into the pot with her fingers, mindful of the still-warm metal edges that radiate heat against her wrists. Her fingers prod the squishy substance, and she marvels at how weird it is. Does she really want to eat this?

Her stomach’s answering rumble is enough to answer that question. Picking up a lump of the jelly between her index finger and thumb, Jade raises the substance up for inspection. It drips a bit, but thankfully she had the forethought to hold it away from herself so it wouldn’t dribble onto her nice pajamas.

Wrinkling her nose just the tiniest bit, Jade places the gummy morsel of porridge in her mouth. Her nose then proceeds to wrinkle a lot more, as well as the rest of her face, because ew. That is not the best texture or taste. She really hopes that she isn’t poisoning herself by accident. She’s at least ninety percent certain that she didn’t put any of the yellow lichens in there.

Well, this is another deciding factor in the construction of her tower. She’s been missing her old forays into gardening, anyways, and there will surely be a lot more tasty plants to cultivate in there. For now, however, she will just have to make do.

With a mighty grimace, Jade eats her delicious lichen porridge.