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.

[Jade Harley]

Strong currents of air and fleecy snowflakes spin kaleidoscopically in the clouds, the great bowl of the sky wide and the stratum of vapors furling within it dappled a bonfire-smoke gray. Cutting drafts of the breeze tear through the spaces between jumbled masses of stone, whistling cacophonously, for nature’s cathedral is home to the blusteriest and cruelest of choirs.

Jade slips and slides across a few loosely-strewn patches of ice and sleet, finally arriving at the mountain’s base after a few more hours of walking. Her feet hurt, pinched and most likely skinned raw around the edges from the long journey, but she steadfastly ignores that in favor of admiring the immense heap of rock before her.

The remnants of sunbeams long-past melt around the edges of the frost-stippled mountain, gradual plumes of deep cold setting in where they once traveled across the sheer, toothed face, rumbling like hushed thunder. There is not a speck of green vegetation in sight.

This is to be expected— not many large plants could survive in an area stricken by permafrost. It is likely that there will be smaller, more sparsely-rooted plants tucked in between the crags of rocks or growing in mats under a thin layer of snow. Lichens, Jade reasons, would be a more probable find. They aren’t necessarily the most ideal option or, more specifically, the most palatable, but at least they would be something.

Her footfalls in the snow are soft as sleep. Strangely, even the howling of the tumultuous air around her seems muted in the shadowy magnificence of this mountain. She keeps her head bowed down so as not to trip over any slips of stone or take an unasked for plunge into a hidden gorge.

Pausing once to take a hasty look at the rocks all around her, Jade notices a hint of sly greenish-white peeking out from beneath a fold of snow. She quickly slogs over to it, carefully extracting the whole plant out by its winding network of roots layered further down in the slush and rigid soil.

It feels delicate to the touch, spongy shoots branching out like flowers, with fragile hollow stalks binding the plant together. She could probably boil it later until it is soft— make porridge or something. Nodding distractedly to herself, Jade tucks this plant into the front pocket of her dress and industriously scouts around for more.

There are many jagged cracks at the edges of boulders from where they have either been struck or gradually worn away, and quite a few contain more of these plants. Whenever she happens across one that she does not recognize, however, speckled with sulfuric yellow or blood-colored flecks, she slips one or two cuttings into the front of her hood. Just in case she is ever in need of poison.

Soon enough, Jade has what she would consider the right amount of plants to at least keep her fed for several days. Not willing to abandon her task, however, she continues to quest higher and higher up in latitude, where the air is crisp and clear and filtered bits of ice scrape along the narrow passages. With a keen eye and pursed lips, Jade digs and searches through every nook and cranny she can find, even as her lungs strain for breath— she hasn’t even reached the midlevel echelons, yet.

After a while of diligent searching, Jade does eventually tire. The stars in her dress are beginning to falter with how much ice is caked over them, and her dark hair is uncomfortably stringy and damp. With great reluctance in her heart, Jade calls off her search for food and resolves to locate a source of shelter in its place.

Several areas appear to be cave-like, but as she draws closer they turn out to be nothing more than dark deposits of some mineral or merely the shadow of an outcropping further up the mountainside. It is immensely frustrating, and more than once Jade finds herself liable to stamp her foot in irritation.

At some uncertain point in time, for the doom and gloom of this icy wasteland does not provide much reference for the passing of hours, Jade passes an impressively-shaped snowdrift by, no doubt naturally carved out by the wind to be in the likeness of a crouching beast. This is a totally insignificant component of the landscape to notice, and so Jade completely disregards it.

Okay, that was a lie. After a few more increasingly maddening and unproductive minutes, Jade finds her thoughts drifting back towards that lump of snow as she regards yet another space of white emptiness that she assumes leads further up the sloping mountainside. It just so happens that, for a good while now, she has come under the distinctly mind-rankling impression that she is being watched. Hunted, perhaps.

Eyes widening, Jade whips around to face where she had last seen the mound only to find that it is no longer there. This is particularly unsettling, for she knows it was there. She had just walked past it not even six minutes ago, she’s sure.

For a terrifying moment, Jade thinks that she might very well be going insane. That this is it, this is the moment where she plunges right off into the deep-end from the shallow, secure waters of rationality.

She considers this far, far too soon.

Every last hair on the back of her neck stands up in quick, prickling succession, and despite the cold pressing in on her from all sides, Jade’s body temperature drops down a few more degrees. Plummets, more like.

Jade turns. There is another mound of snow placed about a yard behind her, right where she had just been staring off into what seemed to be a very clear mountain pass. Only, this snowbeast is much larger, almost standing upright, distinctly humanoid, and with a great amount of shaggy, matted fur covering its burly forearms as well as the rest of its fearsome bulk.

With incredible speed, the creature charges straight for her, uncannily-glowing yellow eyes piercing through the cascading, out-of-focus mass of snowfall. She can hear the crunch of the beast’s claws against the ice as it lands; the deep, lethal scrapes that could effortlessly rend flesh from bone.

Since her arrival in the Omniverse, Jade has never wished for one of her guns more.

Because she does not have a gun with her, she instead chooses to duck her head down and take off running. The creature barrels after her with a dreadful roar, scrabbling with its talons in an effort to rise from where its shoulder had collided with the ground, terribly loud and hurtling across the snow-covered slope. The ground shakes with each of its footfalls; Jade struggles not to spill over onto her face in her mad dash, and mercifully avoids doing so.

Unfortunately, this is a mountain. There was always the eventuality that she might stumble over a cliff face because of the nearly nonexistent visibility factor, utterly none the wiser to the existence of a deadly, steep drop.

Luck seems to be on Jade’s side, however, for she manages to stop right before she goes careering over the edge like an unlucky fool. She gapes over the side in shock, teetering backwards a ways so that she won’t topple over the edge in her stupor. A few shards of ice detach from the ledge she stands upon and smash at some indiscernible distance below.

The massive whirlwind of fur and frenzy is still fast approaching. Jade is struck with the vicious-tasting, terrifying realization that she only has a few seconds to think of a plan that will keep her alive for at least a little while longer.

Jade’s foot grazes against something in the snow, something solid and grounding. She grasps blindly at the object, stooping down a bit in order to do so, her vision impaired by a mixture of frozen tears and snow pollen. Her fingers close around the curve of something that seems like the hilt of a blade.

Eagerly, Jade wrenches the rest of the unknown object up into the air, an airless surge of hope flowing through her. Her triumphant expression crumbles in the next instant only to convert into one of horror.

She clutches a tusk in her white-knuckled grip, made up of partially-cracked bone that has broken up part of the way with time. The rest of that tusk is attached to a horrible, grinning skull, patches of green skin still grotesquely attached and whispering around its bared yellow teeth, which then stretch down into a well-preserved and very dead body.

This jerking movement succeeds in collapsing the ledge of ice and snow that had been supporting Jade’s weight beforehand. Somehow, with its placement and girth, this corpse had been a very excellent prop of support for this shelf. With its removal, the ground underneath her feet is just gone.

With a shriek, Jade drops in a torrential deluge of frigid snow and rock.

---

When Jade opens her eyes again, her head feels fuzzy and like it might be stuffed to the brim with cotton. All of her limbs are numb, but to be fair she hasn’t really tried to move them yet.

It is a goddamn miracle, Jade recognizes as her senses return to the land of the living. She is still alive. If she weren’t covered in so much heavy snow up to her chin, maybe Jade would be more given to a silly demonstration of arm-flailing and delighted shin-digging. As it is, she merely smiles feebly up at the serrated layer of rock hanging overhead, marveling at her stupendous luck.

But, she can’t laze around all day! There are things to do, people to meet and butt heads with— probably. With an exaggeratedly pronounced effort, Jade wriggles her toes and fingers, trying to measure the extent of the damage done to her body.

To her surprise, it isn’t much. Nothing outright hurts or makes her want to wail into the lonely ether, although her neck and back do feel kind of sore; that’s nothing new. Hefting enormous firearms around during her SBURB session didn’t do anything to help the state of her muscles, after all. A good night’s sleep should do away with that!

Without further ado, Jade knocks her way out of the shabby clumps of snow piled on top of her. It’s a wonder that she can even do that— if she hadn’t landed beside this dead green guy, who took much of the brunt of the spill and deflected a fair amount of rocks away from her, she might have been buried alive! Or dead, depending on whichever way you choose to look at it.

As she goes to pat down her legs and reawaken her iced up limbs, chattering her teeth all the while, Jade notices that she is still clutching the skull’s tusk in her hand. Huh.

Cautiously, Jade shoots a glance up the rock face she had once been directly above, listening intently for any signs of danger. The tusk fits into her hand like a spur-of-the-moment blade, and Jade is not afraid to use it.

Nothing happens. Jade can’t tell if she is supposed to be grateful for that or worried that she is still being observed, and so she merely settles on being indifferent. Still, she examines the sharp tusk in her hands for a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

It seems wrong to take it, really, and so she does her best to slot it back against the poor fellow’s mostly-shattered face. Gosh, that fall must have been really hard on her corpse-pal.

“There we go. Good as new!”

Still attempting to shake out an annoying stiffness that clings to her limbs, Jade turns around to find that she seems to be on the precipice of a cave, with only a short hop down landing her inside. A faint, scuffing echo marks her entrance. After a short-lived instance of hesitation, Jade starts venturing further into the hollow space, gloom settling around her and the howls of the wind dissipating into nothing.

The edges of the tunnel seem meticulously scratched out, but Jade notices that the claw marks are much larger than those of the snowbeast that had been on her tail before. She finds this to be very odd, because what kind of creature could make such big, jagged indentations? And why? It all seems very old-fashioned, if you ask her. Like a lame monster movie, but with less gushing blood.

Although, Jade thinks, looking nervously at the long scratches she walks alongside. Those are pretty scary. I don’t think I want to meet whatever made them.

Hunching her shoulders inwards and checking her pockets for the lichens she had gathered earlier, Jade tiptoes carefully along the tunnel’s side, the dark coloring of her clothes blending in nicely with the gloom. She is the sneaky sneakster, it is her. That is, until she comes upon the mouth of an even larger tunnel, which opens up into an enormous grotto with a sprawling, rounded ceiling shaped very deliberately into a dome.

Crystallized stalactites hang from the ceiling, glittering with silvery condensation and surrounded by gorgeously warped drapery, shaped like the waves of the ocean; the walls are inlaid with a grooved texture that seems almost accidental in its resemblance to scales. Each individual scale indentation is about the size of Jade’s head, depressed sloppily into the dreary earthen walls.

Opposite to where Jade is standing, there is a hole about the size of a person letting shafts of pale, warmth-starved light stream in. If anything, this cavern is much colder than trudging out in the frigid elements; if this is her only exit, she’ll have to traverse the whole cave to get there.

The only sound to be heard is the steady drip-drop-plink of the snow from above ground slipping sluggishly down into the cavern, and so Jade very slowly sidles out from her hiding place and into the enormous dug-out chamber. Casting her gaze this way and that, she does not see any signs of apparent danger. The coast is clearer than crystal specs.

Jade takes an agonizingly slow, careful step, and then repeats that process at least fifty more times to make her way through the rest of the room. All the while, she keeps her eyes and ears peeled for anything out of the ordinary or outright bloodthirsty. For some reason, she gets the general impression that there are lots of things in this universe that would like to eat her.

She makes it across the cave in one piece. Taking one last look at the cavern behind her, Jade takes a step through the narrow shaft and returns once again to the chilling hold of the snowstorm.

[Jade Harley]

This side of the mountain isn’t as hostile, at least weather-wise. Jade wonders if she may have wandered into its rain shadow, because only a few twinkling flakes of snow flutter down every now and then. Furthermore, the wind isn’t as forceful, only the lightest of breezes rustling through her skirt and wind-tousled hair. A susurrus of air currents coasting across the frozen-solid ground luffs against her furred ears.

When she turns to gaze up at the mountain again, Jade can see that she actually didn’t even make it a sixth of the way up. In fact, she realizes while peering reflectively at the additional polar-white mountains breaking through the impassable mist of swiftly whirling snow, she has hardly made any progress at all. It’s almost as if she merely walked a half mile around the edge rather than straight up into the thick of things.

Other than that, however, it is still rather chilly out! Jade thinks she might be about to shiver right out of her glittery, dew-sequined slippers. Oh, if only she could click her heels together and be transported back home! Except, she can never go home. Not now, not ever.

Yikes, what a downer. She isn’t usually so given to such disheartened musings. After shaking her head a few times to rustle those sour thoughts right out of her brain, Jade focuses again on the glacial world around her. Her troubled mood is speedily whisked away as if by the whistling wind.

She appears to be in a seventy by fifty-something yards-long span of land, similar to the enclosure of a courtyard and cleansed of any kind of unnatural disturbance.

There are several lofty stones settled in an almost quarry-like arrangement around it, making the field seem rather defensible. They tower high above her head and stick out of the snow in a bizarrely lopsided pattern that has no clear cadence to it. Some touch at the tip, others at the center, while some are just piled one on top of the other, like a train of dominoes that have been thumped over. The stones form a hexagonal loop, practically a coliseum-like formation, from where they poke up out of the mountain’s roots.

“Huh,” Jade remarks to herself, voice muffled and rotund through the thick cloth of her hood. “That’s funny.”

She walks further out into the center of the naturally-formed stadium. Faint, shallow tracks define her footfalls. They are nearly soundless, feather-light under the heavy, stifling presence this area holds over her. Once there, she stops and turns this way and that to better scan the land over, a strange feeling of delight bubbling up in her chest like cream soda pop.

With new determination setting her soul aflame, Jade dashes through the slush and ice towards one of the surrounding rocks. Her mind is filled with the high hopes of gaining a better vantage point. Once there, she spends a few precious seconds searching for a foothold before scrabbling clumsily up the side. The stone is bitterly cold underneath her fingertips and grazes across her palms, even with the mittens on. Still, she does reach the top after several wild, scrabbling instants.

From her new height, Jade can better see the snow-dusted expanse before her. A thrilled, megawatt grin takes shape on her lips as she looks down at the field. Jade gazes straight across from herself at a rugged slope, a thoughtful aspect slowly manifesting in her expression.

The land is suitably flat, as if stamped down by the heel of some immense giant of frost. Because of the defining backdrop of dark stones, it is easy to pick out a nearly straight-cut edge along the organic shape of the mountain's side. There are five other lines of similar designation to complete the ring. As she looks around, Jade’s cheeks are beginning to hurt with how hard she’s beaming!

She is remembering her island, of course. How could she not? Her home, an incredibly tall white tower rising high above the treetops, glinting sweetly in the morning light, pinkish and molten-yellow dewdrops of colour slipping around its edges as the sun rises. Far below, a sprawling and intriguing dark jungle spreads out across the landscape, rife with crawling vines and blooming, bursting stipples of vegetation and exotic plants. A looming volcano is settled at a fair distance from her house, riddled with dark obsidian rock and steaming, wavering fumes of pure inviolate heat. Over beside it, amongst the dark foliage and covered in veins of archaic sediment and dust, there is an ancient frog temple, cryptic and ripe for exploring.

Then, SBURB had happened, and her lonely tropical home had been transported right smack dab into the middle of a winter wonderland—antagonistic imps and ogres aside. Lovely wooded areas had been placed in various regions across the planet, the trees enclosed in green bark and fragrant red flower petals peeking out from powdery, soft snow. Little spots of flickering, heartbeat-quick purple plunged and fluttered around in the tree canopy— thumb-plump hummingbirds, thrumming merrily along and characterized by their beady, milky-white eyes, each like a precious little pearl. Before its eventual thaw, the Land of Frost and Frogs had been gorgeous, albeit with an alien, curiously graceful charm to it.

Now, looking at this spot of land with a prospective eye, Jade sees an overwhelming, shining spark of sheer potential. She can see another opportunity to create— to reinvent her purpose, but more importantly herself. It is like a figurative pillar rising out of the land, pulsating with a beckoning, welcoming light.

With her fingers, Jade frames the exact spot that she imagines the tower would stand. Her tongue pokes out from in between her teeth as she runs through several casual mental calculations, attempting to adjust her sense of Space to this universe’s own dimensions and mathematic principles. It is a tough effort, and the course of it is bumpy and in places jagged, so the measurements are most likely skewed far beyond the outline she has pictured at the forefront of her mind, but it will have to do.

Maybe this omnilium stuff is good for more than just summoning sunglasses and mittens. Maybe, and Jade desperately, fervently, ruefully hopes that this is true— maybe she can build.

The last time Jade felt this hopeful, she had just ascended to the god-tiers. This is certainly something worth celebrating with jingling bells and lavish tassels, but the soft curve of Jade’s lips will have to suffice.

There must be someone she can tell about this. This land may be frigid and encased in ice, glaciers stirring slowly but surely like flotsam across a boggy pond, but Jade is plumb tired of being lonely. She had been alone nearly all of her life— no offense to Bec, but animal company just doesn’t cut it. She had been in want of intellectual conversation for too long. Heck, just plain conversation! Yips and growls leave a lot to be desired in that department.

Thankfully, she had managed to befriend John, Rose, and Dave over Pesterchum. In this Omniverse, however, Jade is fairly certain that the Game’s universal internet connection does not apply. She will have to investigate this further, or, in the event that everything else fails, scrounge something up herself.

While she cannot access her sylladex with its plethora of computers and guns— gosh, her grandpa would be so distraught about her wandering around unarmed!—, that omnilium stuff has proven itself as useful in the past. Jade believes that, with enough studious concentration and sheer gumption, she can recreate at least two of her favorite communication devices. They’ll have to be compact, though. Jade really doesn’t want to have to lug a bunch of annoying mechanical components around, after all!

Still thinking on what she would like to call up, Jade slides down the side of the rock, careful not to scrape her knees on the way down. Her feet hit the ground with a satisfying crunch. With one last careful glance around, Jade raises her arms out before her, humming a little to herself as she surveys the warm and cozy mittens covering her hands and experimentally wiggles her fingers about.

She’s sort of sure that she can do this without getting mauled by an enormous rabid snowbeast. It will only be a couple minutes, after all— that is, if she hasn’t already breached the finite amount of omnilium that has been allotted to her.

To be honest, Jade isn’t sure of where she stands on the merits of this strange new universe. On one hand, it doesn’t seem so bad. She’s alive, isn’t she? That little skirmish with the snowbeast was hardly something to get weepy over. At least, in comparison to SBURB. For a moment, Jade’s thoughts are transported back to a time when she had still been trying to stoke the forge, hunting for the right frogs in the snow with Dave. How, when a ferocious shadow had swooped down towards them, blade already wrought with blood and wearing her dog’s face, she had accidentally— well. She doesn’t like to think about what happened after that.

Whatever this Omni guy had expected her to do, Jade has already decided to just do what she thinks is right; and right now, while trying to tap into the reserves of omnilium she can almost-but-not-quite feel welling up inside of her, Jade trusts in herself enough to know that this is right.

Probably.

A shifting mass of rainbow colours appear between the confines of her hands, warping like heat waves over a desert. It is a peculiar comparison to draw while standing in the most desolate, frigid place imaginable, but it’s the only one Jade can muster up at the moment.

She starts by trying to picture her Lunchmuffs in her mind’s eye. Red in colour. Stylish. Functional. Part computer and part comfortable winter wear— the height of fashion, in Jade’s humble opinion.

After several minutes of attempting to give her thoughts a more definite shape, the item she had been wishing for appears in her hands and settles quite nicely between her palms. Jade’s fingers immediately latch onto the earmuffs, relishing in the familiarity of the Squiddles drawings on the sides.

Green eyes glittering like stars, Jade gracelessly fits the muffs over her pointed dog ears. Now all she needs are her goggles, and she’ll be ready to chat someone up!

Again Jade reaches into her reserves of omnilium, this time with an entirely new picture in her mind. They will be like her glasses, round, concave, and smooth to the touch. The glasses will have crucial designs for sooth-saying inscribed on them— pale lines drawn so that they overlap one another in the shape of a star. She imagines that they will be very useful, but also fidgety at times, and that she will have to be very careful with this sensitive piece of equipment.

With a final polychromatic-hued eddy casting a shimmering glow across her face, the Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles pop into existence and drop into Jade’s hands. The lenses flicker to life, reddish digital lights already beginning to run across the screen.

She promptly replaces her normal glasses with them, securely tucking that pair in with the sunglasses. Her pockets are full of wiry, brittle plants, after all, and she doesn’t fancy having to scrub her glasses clean of nitty gritty vascular bits later.

Shrugging her shoulders so that her sleeves once again shield her wrists from the unpleasant cold, Jade looks interchangeably between a nearby rock and the wide, level slab of ground. The rock seems to be around thirty pounds dense, and there are several others within walking distance. She could use them to stake the grounds out later.

With this thought in mind, the long-haired girl strides back over to the tunnel she had exited the cavern through, planting her bottom on the nearest available space that is free of snow. Grinning softly to herself, Jade sets the Spectagoggles to open Pesterchum only to discover that her chat client of choice has been updated. She thinks that this is a little odd, but as long as she can communicate with someone, it’s certainly tolerable.

Opening a new memo, Jade begins to blabber about everything and nothing at all in equal increments. It is immensely comforting.

[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.

[Jade Harley]

Jade really hopes that she will be able to get in touch with Karkat again, because it sounds as if he could really use someone levelheaded to talk to. She can’t remember much of Gamzee, or even if she ever interacted with him personally, but she knows that some bad stuff went down in the trolls’ session that had to do with the juggalo troll. Hopefully, when they all come together at last, nothing too terrible will happen.

That is, if she manages to stay alive that long. That would be a real bummer if she didn’t!

Abandoning her metal pot and the lingering embers of the fire for the moment, Jade wanders over to peer outside of the cavern again. The world is still just as it was before, snow and frost cascading down and cluttering the ground with their bulk. There is an unsettling lack of visibility; if someone were to stand about six feet from where she is currently standing, she is quite sure that she would not be able to see them at all.

She wonders why the snowbeast from earlier did not clamber down and finish her off while she had clearly been knocked out cold. It would have been easy— if Jade had been the snowbeast, she would have certainly done just that. Maybe it has something to do with her proximity to this cavern, although she can’t imagine why such a large creature would be scared of a little grotto.

Then again, as Jade’s gaze roves over the scale-like indentions that have been carved into the earthen walls, she ventures if it might not be so much the cave itself that warded off the snowbeast but the fearsome creature who dug it out to begin with.

Jade sniffles a bit, soon after wrapping the tail ends of her god-tier hood around the lower half of her face again. She won’t be using her chat client for a while yet— and, besides that, it is very cold. It wouldn’t do for her to develop a severe case of pneumonia by piddling around without any precautionary measures taken to prevent it.

She sure does miss having her Grandpa around to remind her of this kind of thing. While most of his stern lectures were grating and often had her wanting to vacate the premises as soon as possible, Jade wishes he could be here to tell her a thing or two about surviving in the frigid cold. In fact, she’s sure that her Grandpa would know how to adapt to and conquer these elements, and that he would have a tower already well on its way.

Unfortunately, her Grandpa has been dead for a long time now. Ever since she was a little girl, his stuffed corpse had stood before the fireplace in her tower’s foyer, always ready for a good strife session or with a speech already prepared to be delivered, Becquerel sleeping soundly at his feet.

Bec. She misses Bec, too. Her best friend in the whole wide world who, even when merged with that horrible, homicidal carapacian Jack Noir, had refused to kill her. She wants to see her best friend again. He was such a good dog, too, always trotting at her side when she was exploring the island and nosing around for any stray mechanical bits and bobs when she was attempting to cobble together a cutting-edge, innovative device. Even when she had wanted to venture into those ruins on her island, Becquerel had only wanted to protect her when he’d prevented her from doing so. No matter how mad she got about it at the time.

None of this is any good. Jade is sad, cold, and her clothes are unpleasantly wet from the melted ice. She just wants to go home— this isn’t a fun test of her survival skills anymore, no matter how many times she has tried to convince herself of that. She doesn’t even think she could muster up the motivation to join in any old cause while in this universe, even if she tried or really wanted to.

Jade stares unhappily at her hands, willing them to create some kind of distraction from her recurring troubles. Surprisingly, she hasn’t started bawling her eyes out yet— they sting a tiny bit, but other than that they are blatantly dry. Her head hurts. She can’t tell if it’s from this universe’s confounding atomic make-up or from all the worries churning about in her skull like sea sludge.

A discouraged whine slips past her lips as she plops her head into her hands. Gosh, when did everything become so darn complicated?
If only she had done what her Grandpa had gone to the trouble of doing for her and constructed some kind of bot. For instance, instead of a dreambot, a fully-mechanized body capable of carrying out real conversation and adventuring like he always used to do. Her Grandpa must have been a fantastic man, full of spirit and courage, and she’s sure he would have made a great guardian if only he had stayed alive long enough to do so.

Her actual guardian, Bec… she knows that he is technically a part of her now, what with the pointed ears pricking up from the top her head, but his entire personality had been erased because of that very fact. She still gets canine urges to chase cats and eat weird, strong-smelling dead things, but she isn’t about to do any of that and it isn’t the same at all.

Snuffling wetly to herself and dragging a sleeve over her eyes, Jade tries to throw off all of the negative emotions weighing down on her usually chipper mood. Another snuffle answers her, warm and more like a good-natured sneeze than a pitiful snivel. There is then a heavy metallic clink from directly in front of her, like two dense steel-toed boots touching down onto the ground.

Green eyes wide, Jade looks up. A tin man is stood before her, rectangular lenses shining a merry red like headlights through her mental fog. He has an impressive mustache over his upper lip and a bulky blunderbuss held aloft in his sturdy grip. At his side, a large white dog yawns, flashing a startling neon green tongue at her.

“Hello, my dear girl!” Grandpa chortles at her, voice remarkably full of sentiment despite the tinny filter in place behind his faceplate. His barrel round chest emits a strange whirring noise, jilting faintly in an artificial imitation of breathing. A burst of heated air ripples out from underneath his steel hunting cap and the bolts locked into his neck, indistinct exhaust fumes blowing into the air and curling up around his face.

Jade blinks up at him, mouth agape in her astonishment. Then, a slow, hesitant grin spreads across her face, a tad wobbly but definitely there. Her hair frizzes with green sparks in her excitement; her ears become pricked and alert.

“Grandpa!” Jade shouts, throwing her arms around the robot standing before her in a tight hug. Her head hits his metal chest with enough force to topple a one hundred pound boulder over, but he remains steadfast and Jade is unhurt due to her god-tier strength.

Becquerel noses at her side and Jade releases her robotic grandfather to tug him into an embrace as well. She shoves her face into the wolfdog’s thick white fur, giggling delightedly when Bec huffs against her ear with a long-suffering burst of air.

Standing, Jade scratches behind Bec’s two pointed ears, sinking her fingers into the soft fur there. The wolfdog’s bright green tongue lolls out as he shoves his muzzle into her palm as if to say, ‘Cut that out, you silly human. You have a mission report to give!’

Now fully at attention, Jade beams happily at her grandfather. She’s so used to seeing him dead with an electrical fire burning at his back that this change is a little astonishing, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t glad for it! Also, she thinks that she might actually be about as tall as he is, now! Wow, it’s been a really long time since she’s last spoken to him.

“Grandpa,” Jade says, trying to sober up her happiness but ultimately failing to do so. “I don’t know what to do! We’re in this Omniverse place and Karkat’s here too and I don’t know about anyone else and I just— ugh! Everything is so difficult. I think that I might want to try and build another tower here so that I can conduct research in the labs, but I can’t use my Space powers so that’s going to be tough. It just… really stinks! What should I do?”

By the end of her long stream of complaints, Jade finds that her breathing has become a little rough. Snuffling again, she pulls the fabric of her hood-tails down and rubs at her raw nose. Ugh, being upset is gross.

Grandpabot seems to understand her frustrations though, and gives a short bob of his head in acknowledgement. The high-tech mechanisms that control the movement clack ominously, causing Jade to cringe a little with worry. It would totally suck if he were to fall apart on her, mostly because she isn’t sure that she can obtain any of the materials to put him back together again.

“That is quite the problem,” Grandpabot returns. A stiff-fingered hand comes up to twiddle at his mustache, and Jade marvels at how this AI knows to replicate such menial expressions of emotion. It’s immensely interesting, but she thinks that it might be using up energy that could be utilized more efficiently elsewhere. “But you’ve certainly got the right idea, poppet! Building a home in the most hostile place possible is a fine plan, if you ask me— it nearly guarantees no unwanted visitors!”

Jade pouts at him, crossing her arms across her chest like a petulant child. He’s just not getting it! “I don’t want to be alone, though. This place is filled with vicious snowbeasts, too!”

Grandpabot looks at her, the rectangular lenses of his mechanical chassis glowing with a medallion of orange intensity at each of their centers. “A satisfactory challenge for a Harley!” Somehow, this suit of nuts and bolts seems absolutely delighted by the prospect of being torn to pieces by abominable snow monsters.

Bec snorts in agreement. Traitor!

“Uuuugh,” Jade groans, covering her face with a hand. She’s glad that she summoned them, but her Grandpa has always been eccentric. She doesn’t think he was very practical in life if his attitude now is anything to go by. Becquerel is just being a big, dopey goofball.

A frown twisting over her lips, Jade toes at the nearby metal pot with a foot. A little bit of lichen jelly rests at the bottom, already congealing into some vile half-frozen substance. It jiggles a touch to the right with a disgusting ‘squirk’.

Finally, after the gross goop has finally been jostled around to Jade’s satisfaction, she turns to look out into snowy wastes once more. There is a lengthy pause.

“I guess you’re right,” the Witch of Space finally admits, shrugging her shoulders and then squaring them doggedly. A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, it’ll be totally cool to show my cool house off to Karkat when he shows up! I can’t wait, he’s gonna be so impressed. Clown troll, too!”

With a hearty skip added to her step, Jade fastens the twin tails of her god-tier hood around her mouth again and heads out into the chaotically tumbling snowfall again. Grandpabot follows behind, his footfalls heavy in the snow, crunching loudly and leaving deep indentations in his wake. Becquerel runs off ahead, circling back around towards Jade and snuffling at random dips in the snow as he trots from one place to another.

Raising her hands into the air, Jade focuses on the ground before her, the wide open space and all the dimensional irregularities contained therein. She envisions a tower there, almost imperceptible against the revolving blizzard all around.

This is going to be so great.

[Jade Harley]

Her eyes rove over the ground, searching for any uneven spaces or unanticipated miscalculations made during her earlier exuberance. Nihil. Nada. She should be good to go!

The ground level will have to be created first, Jade assumes. If she began at one of the upper floors in her grand project of visualizing each and every room down to the tiniest little detail, the entire place would cave in. At least, she guesses it might do that. Jade isn’t totally sure, but it seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw.

Starting with the front door, with an atom insignia engraved upon it, Jade imagines herself stepping inside of the grand foyer. The room is dim, the walls a shadowy slate grey. Globes are scattered about the room alongside crumbling, mummified bodies and the taxidermied heads of many beasts hang from the walls. Suits of armor glint slightly with the light spilling out from the hearth.

There are two comfortable-looking lounge chairs with several almost indistinct figures sitting upon them, among them being a valiant knight and a decrepit mummy. They are the most distinguished of house guests, dressed in their best formal wear and partaking in the proffered tea and civilized discussion.

Jade doesn’t like them very much. Especially the sun-bleached beauty doll. She has always been suspicious of that one, although she now realizes that it was kind of silly for her to think that a dummy had murdered her grandfather.

The odd group is seated quite comfortably beside the big fireplace, which has an electronic fire burning within. Each flank of the fireplace is painted a different color, one a gilded gold and the other a solemn purple. Above, sitting upon the mantle and in the most hallowed place of honor, is an image of Jade’s dream self in her terrific golden dress, smiling cheerily over the socialites in the room. A few candles flicker mistily from where they perch atop the mantle.

Her grandfather’s stuffed corpse is cut in profile by the light of the fireplace, a shadowy silhouette against the orange-gold flames spitting at his back. Jade eyes him uneasily and moves on to the next room.

The first thing she sees upon entering this room is the Transportalizer platform at its middle, which will assuredly take her up to whichever floor she wishes it to in the tower. The second thing she notices is the big-ass green serpent monster sticking out from one of the side hallways. It is apparently blocking the way to some mysterious room as well as the Transportalizer she had just been looking at. Jade wonders how on earth she hadn’t noticed it beforehand. Red flames flicker all around on their pointy-ended candle sconces.

Jade scuttles around the edge of the green-scaled beast and up the spiral staircase curving along its frame. This leads into yet another useless room, consisting primarily of her grandpa’s old junk and some very unexciting bluish sun-bleached photos of women that have been sitting in the front window of a beauty parlor for some twenty years. She bypasses most of the clutter by persevering up yet another curving stairwell.

Oh, bother. There’s just a bunch of arbitrary crap up here, too. Really, this is getting pretty annoying. Jade glares accusingly at the various sarcophagi scattered about the room, some cast wide open with mostly-preserved bodies peering at her from within. They are withered and blackened with age, skin peeling disconcertingly back from their skulls. More big game trophies and suits of armor regard her, a faint pink glow reflecting in their glassy eyes and chainmail, respectively. Jade squares her shoulders and again proceeds up the staircase and into the next room.

There isn’t another Transportalizer here, either. A strange orange light permeates the room. Every which way Jade turns her head, there is a spear, mace, blade, or an axe being held aloft by some valiant knight. With a grumpy huff, she ascends the stairwell and continues on towards the room above.

The contents of this room are an assortment of undeniably mythological creatures and other considerably less mythological specimens of fauna naturae. All stuffed, of course. There is a Transportalizer at the center of the room, but Jade supposes that she might as well use the stairs and continue on to the next room.

Sunlight immediately assuages her senses, although Jade quickly modifies this feature to be substantially gloomier according to the miserable Frozen Fields outside. Her imagination has to be as realistic as possible, after all!

When Imaginary Jade takes a look around once again, there is a blue pallor cast over the contents of the room. Potted plants of all kinds are a colorful contrast with the clinically white tables positioned in the room. The earthy smell of flowers, fruits, and vegetables infuses the air. If Jade looks out the window, she can see the glassy reflection of another one of the four wings of the garden atrium through the falling snow outdoors.

Turning on her heel, Jade heads into the area that marks the exact spot where all four wings of the garden atrium overlap to look for a Transportalizer. Thankfully, she actually finds one this time, and steps on it. In a plume of green light, she is rocketed through Space and is simply delighted when she appearifies in yet another boring room. This room is mysteriously lacking in any metal boxes for containing dreambots.

It is, however, remarkable in that it has one more staircase leading to an upper floor. You would think that being upgraded to godhood would make stairs easier to navigate. Ha! Not so.

Jade fists some of the fabric of her dark-colored skirt into her hands, hiking it up a small ways above her calves. An irritated scowl curling her upper lip and crimping her forehead, Jade marches up the remaining flight of stairs.

When she arrives at the top of the staircase, Jade is greeted by the sight of her bedroom. This improves her mood spectacularly, as her bedroom contains all of the objects that pertain to her interests, such as her Squiddles doll collection, posters of anthropomorphically persuaded fauna, several potted and hanging flowers, as well as some of her unfinished experiments and optimistic inventions.

Strangely enough, all of her prized rifles are missing. Jade notes this with some confusion, but accepts the puzzling reality for what it is. That is, she will have no guns for an even longer time than originally anticipated.

Her bed sheets are a hearty sky blue and are generously decorated with images of poufy white clouds and a stylized sun, which is reminiscent of Rose’s Light symbol. Jade wishes that she could flop down on her bed and take a nice long nap, but unfortunately this is only an incredibly detailed, totally imagined representation of her bedroom. Which really stinks, because Jade is dog-tired.

She wonders if there is a Prospit or Derse here. That would be interesting; although, she wouldn’t be able to access the moons without a living dream self. Jade used to have issues with telling between whether or not she was awake or asleep— having a dream self was kind of an in-between state for her. She supposes that she is most likely not dreaming as of right now, seeing as she hasn’t been privy to visions of her thirteen-year old self dying horribly in the clouds.

Now, back on the subject of her tower. Built by her grandfather when Jade had been just a wee little tot, barely big enough to heft a pair of flintlock pistols (which small children should never be given, by the way, just ask Jade’s dead grandfather), it is surely falling into disrepair at this very moment while suffering under the ruthless weather conditions of the Land of Frost and Frogs. The winds are most likely buffeting the stuffing out of the poor old casa de Harley.

Alas, Jade cannot access her sylladex at the moment and will not be able to pay her planet a visit for quite a while yet, which is really such a shame. She has already decided that she will just have to recreate the tower using her stored omnilium, although it will most likely take a lot out of her.

Nevertheless, any loss of mysterious conjuring energy will totally be worth it if it means that Jade will have a warm hearth and a bed to return home to again. If everything goes according to plan, the comforts of the Harley home will be numerous in number, the stony walls thick and difficult to pierce, and best of all, Jade will be able to invite her friends over without an ocean in the way! Fantastic!

Despite her cheery attitude, Jade is finding it a little tough to stay optimistic with her butt freezing off as it is. Nearly ten minutes into the summoning process, she had found it difficult to remain standing and had reluctantly planted her bum into the snow. Bec had chivalrously offered to let her sit on him, but Jade had declined for fear of accidentally hurting him. With a huff, Bec had then settled for lying heavily across her legs as Jade did her very best to concentrate on summoning her family residence.

But, wow! Is it taking forever. She supposes that she shouldn’t be surprised based upon the humongous height and size of her home, but geez! She’ll be lucky if this pile of rock and shiny glass windows appears within the next century.

At one point Jade considers calling up her chat client and babbling aimlessly into the memo she has going, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea when she thinks about it. She can’t afford to let her thoughts become side-tracked and keel off the rails just yet, at least no more than they already have. For some reason, she has been thinking a lot about LOFAF during all of this boring inactivity. She is just a bit worried that this might affect the outcome of her summoning, but even if it did it probably wouldn’t be too big of an ordeal.

Well, it might be for the hummingbirds and spring-fresh flower petals. Jade isn’t a licensed meteorologist or anything, but she can kind of tell that this blizzard isn’t letting up anytime soon. Maybe she can move them into the garden atrium?

“Hmm,” Jade says to the incandescent light that is slowly but surely cumulating into her home base, maxing out just below the poufy grey drape of dreary sky hanging over her head.

“Ah,” she says to the small patches of vegetation that flicker in and out of existence beside the tower, a smattering of rugged green trees with soft specks of poppy red blossoming here and there.

“Welp,” Jade says to the world at large, to Time and Space and all aspects in between. This sure is taking a while. She thinks Grandpabot might be starting to rust a little.

Speaking of her bionic Grandpa— where the blooming heck is he?

With a frown crinkling across her face, Jade whips her head this way and that in an effort to catch a glimpse of her wayward mechanized guardian. The shifting rainbow form before her stilts and stutters dangerously, however, and Jade has to abandon her search for the moment in favor of lending more attention to the pressing task at hand.

The white wolfdog slayed out across her legs is warm and unconcerned by Grandpabot’s apparent absence. Sticking her lower lip out, Jade jostles Bec into wakefulness with her knee until he more or less looks at her. Like always, it’s kind of hard to tell if he really is, seeing as he has no visible facial features to speak of.

A foggy puff of air whuffles out from his snout and into her face. Yep, Becquerel is definitely paying attention.

“Bec,” Jade whispers, not really getting why she feels the need to whisper but also not especially bothered by the fact that she is in the first place. Bec’s left ear cants to the side. “Where’s grandpa?”

Bec proceeds to yawn directly into her face, causing Jade to wrinkle her nose in disgust. Yuck, dog breath! Deciding that this isn’t enough torment, he then rolls over more heavily onto her stomach, tilting his head all the way back so that his light green nose nearly touch’s Jade’s shoulder. He grumbles something again, cold doggy nose pressing meaningfully against her upper arm.

Brows drawn together in her confusion, Jade turns her head and— “Oh!”

Grandpabot is sitting atop one of the rock pillars, red lenses glowing through the pall of snow and furling cold air. Jade wonders how the heck he got up there, being a feeble senior citizen and all, but then the obvious “d’oh” moment occurs. He’s a robot, of course he can climb up a couple of dumb rocks! How silly of her to even think otherwise!

Curiosity satisfied, Jade returns to her task of epic proportions. Seriously, this is one ambitious project. She just hopes that it will turn out as grand as she wants it to!

Like the scratching of a disc, Jade’s errant musings draw to a stuttering halt. An image, wavering almost akin to how a mirage might in the midst of sizzling desert sands, takes shape in front of her.

There is a blocky, solid grey mass of stone a few feet away from where she sits. When she tilts her head all the way back to take in its entirety, her hair spilling out across the ground and icy snowflakes prickling at her eyes, this grey form grows, and grows, and grows, spiraling up until it reaches a magnificent height that barely scrapes the belly of the sky. The image sluggishly metamorphoses into something concrete, two misty-coloured, regal bulbs twinkling faintly at its top.

Jade’s mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ as she scrambles to her feet, Bec rolling lazily off of her with a grumpy snort. The sapping of omnilium abruptly ceases; the splendid rainbow gleam of its summoning dies away. She looks upon her tower, real and ensconced in a jeweled halo of frost.

The last time Jade saw her tower, the winter had been fading fast in thin blue streams. Every morning it was cast in an illustrious, blithesome fire-mist, and would shine almost as bright as the golden towers her dreams once held, a prismatic mountain nestled beside.

On one hand, Jade feels excitement course through her soul like warm sunshine at the sight of her family home. On the other, an ink-drop spot of vile darkness sinks into her heart, and makes her detest this tower down to the very marrow of her bones, mostly thanks to the conflicted memories it holds. It is the place where she lived without human contact for so long and grew up fearfully wondering if her grandfather’s death were an accident, suicide, or something far more sinister. But, it is also where she learned to shoot a gun, speak, work with electronics, garden, and so much more.

This kind of response definitely deserves an interrobang, otherwise known as a combination of a question mark and shout pole. “Great‽” she asks/exclaims, hence the interrobang.

The tower isn’t alone, either— the forests of LOFAF, or at least several small cuttings of them, have also materialized nearby. Deep green boughs already weighed down with snow rise up in blotchy patches here and there. Jade can already see the budding beginnings of flowers peeking out from the snaking vines that wrap around the trunks of deep green trees. Lavender-colored hummingbirds dip and bow in graceful flight, without a doubt searching for nectar. They seem unbothered by the extreme climate.

Jade would really like to go indoors right now— she’s about to turn into a pupsicle! – But, first things first. She has to make sure that nothing has been overlooked!

There are four small groves in all; one nestled at the back of the property in the tower’s shadow; two allocated to the east and west; and a third behind her, sprawling and storm-stippled with grey. It is peculiar to Jade that, in this coalition of brisk squalls and sheets of rugged ice, that these plants appear to be right at home. This has been an extraordinary phenomenon that has not yet ceased to confound her since her first entrance into the Medium, and which doggedly persists even while in a new universe.

Turning her head to the side, Jade sees that Grandpabot has left his perch. Just as the beginnings of distress start to tug her lips downwards, the trumpeting of a petroleum-smoke gasket alerts her to his whereabouts. He is stood stock-still among the eastern grove of trees, apparatuses whirring and twanging inside of his head and lenses gleaming as he regards the odd foliage around him. He appears content to merely observe the distinctive swaying of the tree limbs.

Yep, that’s everything. Grandpabot will come indoors on his own time. She should be good to go inside, now, and get out of this horrible cold!
Her feet crunch in the snow as she walks up to the door, which slides easily aside to let her in. Ducking her head a bit out of habit from the Prospitian battleship’s low-hanging entryways (some carapacians sure are short!), Jade blinks in the face of the warmth and immediate dimness that assuages her numb senses. Becquerel squeezes in beside her, sloshing snow across the floor.

The door slides shut behind them with synthetic muteness, only a faint hiss indicating that it has closed. Jade blinks at the foyer all around. The fire in the hearth crackles and snaps at the air, reddish light spilling across the room.

It is just as she remembered it. Her grandfather’s taxidermied corpse stands watch over the entrance hall, a glassy-eyed and disconcerting vigil illuminated by the fireplace's glow. The odd assortment of doll house guests sit in their usual seats, as if the game had never even happened and they had never been cast into the Earth’s orbit by Becquerel’s green lightning.

Jade turns and walks into the room with the minion of Typheus, the green snake beast, and observes that it is still splayed out over the Transportalizer that she could use to access upper floors. She glowers at it, but takes the stairs. These steps lead her to the room of sun-bleached beauties, then to the one filled with decrepit mummies, then through the room of valiant knights, and finally into one of the wings of her garden atrium.

When she rushes over to look out through the smooth reflective windows, the only sights evident are the snow clouds hung in a thick mist. If she scrunches up her eyes, however, she can vaguely discern dark shapes burrowing like moles on the silvery-white mountainside. They look almost...people-shaped. Or like ants.

“Hmm. That's pretty neat,” Jade says. Becquerel whuffles at the glass in possible agreement, causing it to fog up. Giggling a little, Jade pats him on the head and tugs his ruff towards the zone where all of the divisions of the garden atrium intersect.

She eyes the Transportalizer there for a time before stepping a foot up onto the engraved platform. Jade knows that she will have to create a pass-code to activate it at some point, because it would be silly to have a bunch of portals lying around that any old traveler could use. Then, the Transportalizer activates with a barely palpable hum.

In between one moment and the next, Jade is warped up through the tower in a blazing flash of green light. Her atomic make up proceeds to break apart and spiral through Space, mingling jubilantly with snow-drop speckles of frost, ivied walls, and green-gold gases in equal measure. She becomes merely a collection of effervescent particles, fizzling silently through the upper atmosphere.

Then, Jade’s red-slippered feet touch down, and she is left with a strangely hollow ache behind her sternum. It’s probably just the fact that she can’t really do that kind of thing on her own without technological aid anymore getting to her. (Or a serious cardiac condition, but she highly doubts that this is the case.) That’s okay, though. Jade will be fine; she didn’t always have those super neat Space powers, anyways, and can get along well enough without them.

There still isn’t a box containing her dreambot on this floor— as expected. That’s pretty alright, too, because Jade isn’t sure that she wants a robot wandering around her property while she’s asleep— excluding Grandpabot, that is! She trusts her Grandpa enough not to get into too many crazy robot shenanigans or to blow up their house. The only thing between her and a terrible, fiery death is her Grandpa’s good judgment!

Not delaying any longer on this largely empty floor, Jade takes the steps two at a time as she climbs to her bedroom’s level. She just hopes that everything will be in its rightful place when she gets there.

“Aw, this stinks,” Jade grumbles when she enters the room. Sure enough, her guns are still missing. Even when she drops down to the floor to check underneath her bed! “How am I supposed to go exploring without a gun?”

The answer is simple: she shouldn’t. It could be dangerous to go out without a proper weapon to defend herself with, and Grandpabot would probably be very disappointed in her if she returned home all scuffed up from trying to pummel abominable snowmen with her fists. So, Jade will probably have to hang around the homestead for a while before venturing out.

As Jade walks further into her bedroom, she is hit with a sudden unruly blast of cold air. She proceeds to reenact that one photograph of Marilyn Monroe taken in 1954, you know the one, with the flying skirt and purportedly suggestive pose. Although, Jade doesn’t bother acting nearly as suggestive, and if she’s suggesting anything here, purely for the sake of suggestion, it’s probably violence.

Flapping her arms about wildly and shoving her skirt roughly back down below her knees, Jade stomps over to the open window and tugs it closed. Alright, none of that funny business! She’ll have to get John to rein that rowdy Breeze in. That is, if he ever shows up.

The Witch of Space sighs. Wow, nice one, Harley! Way to bring your mood down in two seconds flat. Bull’s-eye.

Well, all the more reason for her to start messaging someone! Flicking her Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles onto her face, Jade flops back onto her sky-blue bed sheets. Her candy red Lunchmuffs bunch up around her ears awkwardly as she settles in to begin pestering the Omniverse, hopefully not in a futile attempt to communicate with someone. Becquerel noses at her feet and she shifts her legs aside to let him hop up onto the bed, too.

After a few hours of babbling into her memo, Jade falls asleep in a very uncomfortable-looking position and with her body strewn out across the bed, legs and arms splayed like an upended spider. She snores, loudly.

Meanwhile, Grandpabot stands outside in the snow, watching the ant-sized shapes in the distance move at a slow crawl along the mountain range. They do not appear to have noticed the tower, yet; And hopefully, if their presence bodes ill, things will stay that way.

[Jade Harley]

The barometric pressure plummets by several fleeting millibars, just like that. Incredible.

Cold air arcs through the pale blue of the stratosphere before descending once again to torment the frozen earth below, whipping up gusts of icy powder over the fields. Winds from above course from extraordinarily high temperatures to much lower ones, surging around the leaden heavens as if through the veins of some colossal unseen beast.

Falling droplets of any present moisture that are caught up in these winds immediately freeze, crystallize, and then are promptly dashed upon the ground. Relentless gales jettison several inches of snow across the whole of the Frozen Fields in less than ten hours while Jade Harley sleeps soundly in her bed.

The white-furred wampa, which is native to this area, would be nearly impossible to detect under such trying conditions; the ice dragons slumber in their secluded mountain caves. The velocity of snowfall spins swiftly out of control, entire cloudlets of vapor joining the chilling deluge.

Jade’s tower windows are flush with pale white frost and the odd spirographic snowflake. Clouds spread like a fleecy grey coat over the sky from horizon to horizon, unbroken by the warm golds or dusky indigoes that would be present in a more temperate climate. The mountains cut a dark and foreboding shape against the sky.

Wind howls down the mountainside, storms of bitter ice and snow picking up to buffet a crew of motley travelers. They have trudged on across many treacherous miles of slippery slopes and steep cliff faces, now, with heavy packs weighing down upon their shoulders and icicles hanging from their beards.

There are four of these determined trekkers, all of dwarven birth yet varying significantly in nobleness and familial ties. At this time, they are engaged in a quest for precious metals that have been rumored to lie on this side of the grit-addled mountain range.

The eldest of the squadron, Gregor Fulvousbolt, has recently concluded his two hundred and twelfth year of living. His sawdusty beard reaches past his knees and is greatly weighed down with decorative plaits of bejeweled gold, all passed down from generations long before his time. They have been so well looked after that not a speck of grainy rust has appeared on their noble shiny surface.

Although his voice is loud and brasher than a bull in a china shop, his calloused hands are able to meticulously assemble the tiniest and most delicate appendages of a mechanical cricket.

Following shortly behind this imposing figurehead is Caddock Sandyberyl, having just gained his warrior’s marks after nearly eighty years of apprenticeship under the Fulvousbolt clan. His eyes glint a steely blue, dark eyebrows like fuzzy caterpillars lowered over them. At one hundred and eighty two years old, Caddock has a keen eye for fumbling mistakes in even the sturdiest of his opponents, as well as a finely-crafted claymore sagging from his belt.

Glaring steadfastly off into the snowy wastes, another dwarvish fellow with a fiery red beard jostles the last member of the party aside, seemingly taking no notice of him at all. Of course, he really does, as dwarves are rarely ignorant of their kin. His name is Kenan Badgerburrow, and he is nearly ninety years old and just a little too big for the bronzy armor strapped tightly across his barrel-round chest.

Nevertheless, he wears it with pride. His younger brother, the jostle-ee, isn’t fit for these sorts of excursions and should have remained safely at home, in his humble opinion. It is very likely that they will fall into a Trollish skirmish, and he just knows that mother would never forgive him if anything were to happen to the squirrelly buffoon.

Said squirrelly buffoon, with a scrappy fur hat tugged down low over his ears and a glinting silver blade tucked clumsily into the scabbard at his hip, happens to be the first to notice the enormous pillar rising up out of the snowy gloom. His name is Treacy Badgerburrow, and he is barely sixty eight years of age with the barest hint of a beard beginning to line his jaw. He has earned the embarrassing moniker “Big Virgin” among his peers for having zero experience in almost all fields possible.

“Halloo,” Treacy cries, pointing excitedly at the obelisk-like structure, his hazel eyes bright with enthusiasm. “Look there, brother! Et’s a tower, just as the Men build!”

Indeed it is. When the company comes to a halt as one, they are all able to view the white stone tower jutting up through the dreary-coloured cloud cover. It plunges down into a heretofore indistinguishable portion of land, smothered by snowfall and the absolute whiteness of the vapors coalescing above, and so they are unable to see whether it has a distinct base or entrance.

After some murmuring amongst themselves, the group decides to investigate with the utmost caution. The last powerful Prime to venture into the Frozen Fields was murderous, and allied with the Trolls to boot— a whole dwarven village utterly destroyed and many bright lives lost forever. They must take great care to ensure that this sort of tragedy does not happen again.

The company begins to make the arduous journey down the mountainside.

---

the old man…. HASS THE FLAME signing on to Personality Processor;
Logging into server Beta; Registered System Tag “hi grandpa!! :D you remember the password, right??”;
Password Required. Submit Pass: ----- --
>“TALLY HO”.
Password Accepted.
You are now signed on.

Hass “The Flame” Harley regards the dwarven trespassers standing several yards away with the utmost suspicion. They, too, look upon him with similarly distrustful looks.

He has been monitoring their progress across the mountainside for most of the ten hours that his granddaughter has been asleep, save for a good five minutes where he had brought about a manual shutdown to scare off the purplish-pink hummingbirds that had decided to settle upon his shoulder plates. Their steps had been slow and the snow thicker than molasses, but he can definitely tell that these stout fellows have a right respectable constitution.

This does not indicate in any way, however, that they mean well towards his first-rate granddaughter. He will have to keep a close eye on these ones.

His processors pick up some kind of verbal murmuring, and he lends an ear to catch on to whatever they’re mumbling amongst themselves about, now. Unsurprisingly, he is the topic of discussion.

“See, look at it! It’s watchin’ us, ah say to ye. Ah’m not settin’ foot near it, axe or no!” A rather scrawny lad in a scruffy fur hat insists, punctuating each word with a hearty tug at the equally thin beard hanging down from below his chin.

A chap with a rotund belly and rosy red cheeks speaks next. “Et cannae mean us any harm. Look, et hasn’t even come after us yet. Et’s probably just seein’ after the tower!” He pats a calloused hand against the armor plated across his plump middle as if to prove some kind of point, the reddish braids in his beard rebounding tunefully off of the brass mail.

“Why can’t we just ask et what et’s got to do with the tower?” Another one of the company suggests.

They all pause to look contemplatively at Grandpabot. In return, Grandpabot doesn’t move an inch, the permanent smile etched across his faceplate giving nary a twitch or smirk.

His forehead severely creased with worry, the rust-bearded dwarf shakes his head. “Nah, lad. Too risky.”

The stalemate endures.

---

The light in Jade Harley’s bedchamber is dim, especially with the window drawn tightly shut as it is. Soft snores permeate the otherwise soundless room, occasionally interposed with the muffled wailing of the wind through the tower walls. A floor below, Becquerel sits at the foot of the stairs, his ears perked and his posture alert and vigilant.

Jade wakes up with an unbecoming snort to find that her cheek is plastered to her elbow by a thin stream of drool. She hurriedly sits up to rectify this, her dark hair a tangled mess and her glasses making a desperate leap for freedom over the edge of the bed during all the commotion.

When there is some more resistance against this action than she would have expected, Jade looks down to note with sleep-addled confusion that somehow she has ended up underneath the soft sky-patterned covers. There is a densely-fluffed pillow propped behind her head for good measure.

The tell-tale pitter-pattering of claws across hard linoleum clues her in— Bec must have tucked her in like he always used to whenever she fell asleep in some silly old place. If she were wearing her glasses, she probably would see him approaching from the top of the stairwell. As it is, Jade can only see unfocused, blurry masses of flooding color, mixing sloppily together like the paints of an artist’s palette.

As she goes about stretching her arms high above her head and letting out a roaring yawn, Jade’s back lets out a few satisfying, yet astonishing cracks. There is a small amount of burning soreness stemming from the motion, but that will fade with time. It has been so long since she’s slept properly! She ought to really try to go about making a habit out of this.

Well, Jade thinks as she searches blindly around for her glasses. For as long as I keep having sweet dreams, anyways.

Her dreams were truly very nice— and so vivid, too! She can almost smell the earthy soil, can almost feel the salty sea breeze ruffling coolly through her hair and about the delicate shells of her ears. They were… peaceful, warm, soothing dreams. Positively golden. Up until the part where her Grandpa died, anyway.

Finally, she fumbles her glasses onto her face, wincing as the red lights of her Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles flicker to dazzling holographic life and cast a harsh glare across the contours of her face. Her green eyes squeeze tightly shut as she waits for the lenses to automatically adjust to a dimmer brightness setting according to the time of day. Jade had programmed that particular feature in long ago, and boy is she glad that she did!

Kudos to you, past self! Jade thinks appreciatively. She’s no Time player, but at least she can say that much.

At this point Becquerel has started urging her out of bed, tugging at her sleeves and nosing wetly at her cheeks. Jade scritches idly behind his ears as she goes through her morning messages, of which there are exactly twenty four. Some are from a new person, too! She hopes this means that they will all be good friends, even if it’s only through internet correspondences. The god-child has a distinct feeling that she will need all of the friends she can get in this strange universe, because alienating everyone right off the bat by being mean would be just plain silly.

Plus, they’re really helpful! She had no idea about who those mysterious folks might be, but at least she has two possibilities now. Jade really hopes they aren’t trolls— she has a distinct feeling that these ones aren’t Alternian trolls, although she also knows that the ones she has come to know as friends can be just as murderous given the right circumstances and motivation.

Jade pats Becquerel on the head.

“I really hope we’re not headed into mortal peril,” she tells him, voice grave and face utterly deadpan.

Becquerel whines something at her that she can’t decipher at all, mostly because if she tried it would likely fry her brain. Face splitting into an impish grin, Jade imitates his response to the best of her ability, nonetheless, only with 10% more of a sarcastic inflection added to it for a little ironic flair.

The white-furred wolfdog sneezes at her, shaking his head reproachfully. Jade giggles and claps her hands together in delight, her slippers sparkling as she kicks up her feet. She hops up from where she has been sitting on the edge of the bed, carefully composing a response to her PesterOmni memo as she goes.

Okay, that was a total lie. She’s not being careful at all— actually, she’s just word-vomiting whatever comes to mind. Hopefully things will still turn out for the better!

Frowning at the soggy, muddy pile of snot yellow and torn fuzz that has become of her mittens where they lay at the foot of the bed, Jade looks accusingly at Bec. He watches her right back.

Seriously, he has the perfect poker face. And, inexplicably, the most adorable puppy-dog eyes. Without eyes.

As she glowers down at the ruined mittens that Becquerel has chewed to bits, Jade’s stomach growls, and so she switches her frowning scrutiny to her belly, instead. One half of her brain yips and barks at her for a distressingly rare steak to be brought to the table post haste, while the other remarks that a spot of cabbage or squash would be just as agreeable.

Jade sighs, admittedly torn between the two options. Her diet had mostly consisted of plants long before, but the canine portion of her nature begs and whines for meat. She can’t go out hunting, not without a hunting rifle— besides that, killing a poor, defenseless creature wouldn’t be something she would ever want to do, anyways.

At least not if said poor, defenseless creature hasn’t attacked her first!

But what is that funny scent that has just curled so tantalizingly about her nose? There is a warm, sweet smell coming from somewhere, like a mixture between pancake batter sizzling on a stovetop and a field of sunny dandelions… the Witch of Space turns her head to look at Becquerel again, a question already babbling off of her lips, when she stops short.

A small green pouch sits in-between his paws, an open corn husk belying the golden treasure that lies inside. It is corn, freshly prepared and giving off a lovely aroma of warmth and homeliness.

“Is that for me?” Jade asks, her fuzzy white ears pricked smartly up. She suddenly fully grasps that wow, is she just starving on this fine morning. Her stomach feels as if it is about to begin eating at its own lining!

In answer, Becquerel quizzically cants his head to the side; His neon green tongue lolls out playfully over his teeth. Jade squints perplexedly at him, searching for any gimmicks.

“How did you…” Jade begins, before she abruptly stops herself from further pursuing that vein of questioning. Why is she even bothering to ask? Breakfast in bed, heck yes! Or, she supposes, breakfast in the general vicinity of her bed.

She stoops down to scoop up the big green cornhusk, effectively cradling the pile of corn in her palm. As she does so, Jade pats the side of Bec’s muzzle, pulling her fingers away just in time to avoid getting dog slobber dribbled all over them when he moves to lick her hand.

As Jade munches happily on the golden pieces of corn gifted unto her by her best friend in the whole wide world, she starts to look around her room for any spare winter clothes. primordialPersistence was right! Hypothermia is a real concern. She should really invest in more winter wear if she plans to stay here for much longer, no matter how warm and comfy her god-tier pajamas are.

Well, she has to admit that they aren’t so comfy anymore. In fact, she might even venture as far to say that they are sort of rumpled and stale, especially after her excursions through the snowy wilds. She will have to clean them at some point, that’s for sure. But, that presents the problem of what she will wear in the interim.

Her Squiddlesneaks and Squiddlejacket are an option, but wearing bright red in a supposedly hostile area is about as bad as wearing pitch black all the time. At least then she could hunker down and pretend to be a rock or something. Or, well, that was one of the ideas she had come up with. Er.

Jade casts a wary glance down at her ruby red slippers, nibbling anxiously at her lower lip. But her god-tier outfit is sooo pretty and cool! How could she possibly devise anything as fancy or wonderful?

“Oh!” Jade claps her hands together, the cheery effect of the gesture a tad muffled by the pouch of corn clasped in one of her hands. “I know just the thing!”

She could take her super fancy Three in the Morning dress, make winter clothes with it, and keep her sparkly slippers to boot! She just knows that this will be the fanciest outfit ever. Maybe she can even wear it for more than just special occasions this time around?

Jade shoos Bec out of the room and slips out of her grubby old clothes. While it isn’t really possible to remove the god-tier insignia and general colour palette from her wardrobe now— some odd feature of SBURB that insists on following her across dimensions— Jade is willing to give it a try!

Her toes curl up on the cool tile floor, chilly gooseflesh rising up all over her arms and legs. She had better hurry this process up before she freezes to death! That would be such a ridiculous way to die, almost as absurd as trying to swim in lava.

Closing her eyes and humming a cheerful tune under her breath, Jade thinks about what she would like to wear. A swathe of black fabric to cover herself with, darker than the hollow space between the stars, draping over her shoulders with a hood and looping smartly back up just above her ankles. Oh, and it simply must be festooned with little green teardrop sequins, glittering like dozens of diamonds alight with starfire! Maybe her Space symbol can be placed near her chest area, under a fuzzy ruff of thick black wool?

The cold draft that has been wafting over her gradually ceases to be over the next couple of minutes, accompanied shortly in its departure by the amorphous rainbow gleaming of twisting omnilium. Jade’s eyes flutter open, a small smile on her lips as she takes in the sight of the brand new star-dappled parka she is now wearing, accented with seams of sizzling neon green around the loose sleeve ends and dark cowl. Her hood is long and splits into two, just like her god-tier robes.

“Bec, I’m decent now!” she hollers down the steps of the stairwell, scooping her god-tier outfit up into her arms and glancing around for a place to stuff it. Her house didn’t really have a laundry hamper to begin with, and so she resorts to tossing it gracelessly behind a potted hibiscus plant along with the sodden mittens. She’ll take care of washing them later— there are much more important things to be done right now!

For one thing, she will have to reprogram the Transportalizers with a passcode. Jade has a Bad Feeling about leaving it open for just anyone to use. The secrets of the Harley family will only be imparted to the most trusted and loyal of visitors! Naturally, Karkat is automatically one of those special people. She will have to remember to message him the code later.

Besides that, it would also be a pretty neat advantage for Jade. If someone has to hike all the way up the stairs to get to her, maybe she will have time to escape with her gadgets and Squiddle plushes! Although, she isn’t really sure how she will land on the ground safely from so high up.

Just as Jade begins to take the first step down the flight of stairs, Bec sticks his nose into the room as he’s coming back up. She tuts impatiently at him with a click of her tongue, rolling her eyes in mild exasperation, and so he turns tail and heads back down with a sullen huff.

Once she arrives at the base of the staircase, Jade sets about working the side of the Transportalizer open with a fingernail, gently sliding the barely-visible seam there aside. She busily digs several varyingly colored wires out, tongue poking industriously out from between her teeth as she works. Bec snuffles at the top her head every once in a while, as if he wants to tell her something important, but Jade stubbornly waves him off.

Finally, everything is all set to go, as neat and tidy as Jade thinks possible. The girl presses the Transportalizer’s side back in, her hands a good deal more smeared with dark-colored grease than before. She doesn’t even want to know what that stuff is from. She stands up from where she has been laying heavily upon her side on the floor, shaking a little life into her limbs from the rigid position she’s been in. Her hair is a bit mussed up, but her clothes are thankfully still tremendously stylish.

Grabbing ahold of her warm and fuzzy hood and tugging it over her head, Jade steps up onto the Transportalizer’s shiny metal platform. A noise that sounds curiously like a dial tone rings out, carrying on uninterrupted for approximately thirteen seconds before a computerized voice pipes up. It is clearly synthesized to carry the most emotionally neutral cadence possible.

“Password, please.”

Jade clears her throat as softly as possible, looking secretively this way and that before replying in a clandestine stage whisper: “The Alcubierre Drive is a crapshoot and deep space is no place for a shout-out to Shakespeare or references to that damned yellow piece of schmuck bait from Carcosa.”

“Password accepted.” the computer reports back, voice a persistent drone. Jade grins at Bec as she disappears in a whoosh of blazing green light.

The world is pulled out from under her feet— or, rather, Jade is plucked off the ground and spatially drop-kicked all the way down to her garden atrium’s floor level. She lands with a small stumble and a light scuffing of her slippers across the floor. She must have messed up the coordinates a tad during her tinkering!

Another flashfire of green signals Bec’s arrival almost as soon as Jade has stepped off of the landing platform.

“Not bad for a first trial, eh, Bec?” Jade asks, paying more attention to her Spectagoggles than his response.

The white wolfdog sneezes uproariously at her. Jade frowns, tapping impatiently at the side of her glasses with her index finger when they glitch for some weird reason.

“That bad, huh?” Oh well! She’ll have to fix it up later. It’s not like a faulty teleportation pad can result in severe, oftentimes messy discorporation or anything.

Distractedly shooting off another message on PesterOmni with her Spectagoggles, Jade heads into the first northernmost wing of the atrium. She passes all of her beloved gourds, flowers, and springtime vegetables by, popping the last piece of corn into her mouth as she goes. She’ll measure how skewed her arrival range is on the next trip up.

It takes her about half an hour to scamper down the rest of the staircases and arrive in the grand foyer, Bec right on her heels. She tosses the soggy cornhusk into the roaring fireplace, which results in the fire spitting out a burst of singeing sparks.

Before she steps outside, Jade adjusts her sleeves and makes sure everything is in place for a snow day outing, already beginning to feel a little warm from just standing in the general vicinity of the large fireplace. A few tiny beads of sweat build on her brow, and she just barely resists the canine urge to stick her tongue out and start up a bout of ridiculous panting.

Goshdarnit, Jade, you have enough sweat glands! Jade mentally chides herself. There’s really no need to try and regulate your body temperature that way. Also, ew.

“Huh,” Jade says as an aside to Bec while the door takes its sweet time in sliding open, her lips pursed in thought. “I wonder where Grandpabot is this morning.” At least, she thinks that it might be morning. Wow, she needs to figure this stuff out!

The door to the tower slides open; a handful of stray flakes blow in. Though the volcano and frogs of LOFAF are gone, one facet of it remains; the unnatural, bitterly glacial winter, with its subzero temperatures and howling winds. The Frozen Fields are startlingly reminiscent of the Witch’s planet— she has yet to find out if this is a good omen or not.

Jade steps outside, and receives her answer by way of witnessing a group of stodgy little men edge towards her grandfather as if he were a ticking time bomb. Which he arguably may be, seeing as Jade has literally no fucking idea of how her alternate self made his very existence a possibility. He could conceivably blow up at any time.

Incredible.

Tiny bits of windborne fragments rain down from the sky, submicroscopic shards of ice peppering the ground as well as Jade’s dark coat. Delicate spider-webbing patterns of ice and snow cling fast to her sleeves. With a wave of her hand and a rapid shake of her head, the snow is brushed off of her shoulders and out of her hair.

“Grandpa!” Jade exclaims, starting towards him with quick strides taken across the downy snow. “Were you standing out here all night?” There is an air of disapproval to her tone. ‘The youth has become the caretaker’ and all that.

“Why, yes, my dear girl! I had to keep watch over these hooligans— they were about to go prowling most stealthily about our property during the night,” Is his cheery reply, although he punctuates each word with a meaningful pat to his gun.

Jade rolls her eyes, turning to look inquisitively at her visitors. She takes in their frosty bedraggled appearance with some concern, but wills it down into an open, earnest smile. Thankfully, she does not unconsciously stoop so as to better accommodate their height.

She thinks that these people may be the dwarves primordialPersistence told her about— they sure do seem pretty stout and industrious. They certainly don’t look like any trolls she has ever laid eyes on, either, all steel and leather and furs.

“Hi there! I’m Jade Harley, how can I help you?” Her coat glitters prettily as her body sways a little while she speaks. Wow, what a fantastic investment of omnilium!

The company of dwarves looks at her as if they are trying to puzzle something rather serious out. She wishes that they would just say what’s up already so she can help them out, but she supposes that waiting is just a part of life!

Just as Jade begins to suspect that she should be worried and might actually have to take primordialPersistence up on their offer, a fellow with an impressively decorated beard steps up to speak with her.

“Did ye build that there walking suit o’ armor?” he asks gruffly, inclining his head towards Grandpabot.

Grinning, Jade nods in affirmation, the dark curls around her face bouncing up with the movement. When the dwarf nearest to her looked close, he would swear later that he could see stars twinkling through their strands. “Yes! Well, I didn’t, but another version of me did. I’d imagine that it wouldn’t be all that hard for me to figure out how to do it again, though. Also, he’s my Grandpa.”

The dwarf casts his gaze off to the side, deep in thought. Like icebergs rising out of the sea mixed with interspersed sparks of veiny green spindrift, distant hills slope across the windswept landscape. The world is scabbed with deathly pale grey. The blizzard wails, still.

Bringing up a hand to tug at his rust-colored beard, a considering twist to what is visible of his wind chafed lips, the dwarf looks to his companions. They are prepared to hang onto his every word and will follow his lead in whatever decision he chooses to make.

The youngest Badgerburrow boy seems to be paying more attention to the young lass, however, and so he asks another question to distract the girl while he silently reprimands the dwarf lad with a significant lowering of his brows. The squirrely lad looks suitably abashed and ducks his head.

“Is that yer tower, then, too?” Gregor inclines his head up to regard the tall building in all of its colossal magnificence. He has truly never seen anything like it— even most buildings in the kingdom of Camelot did not reach heights such as this.

“Yep, it is!” the girl says, grinning toothily at him, her eyes crinkling merrily up at the corners. “You’re welcome to come inside, if you’d like. It looks like you lot have had one heck of an adventure!”

The noble Fulvousbolt thinks on this for a moment. Then, he speaks.

[Jade Harley]

The dwarves end up sticking around for a while. Bec steals most, if not all of, their hats throughout the course of their visit, and through her deepest expressions of regret and thwacking her misbehaving dog on the snout, Jade promises them that she will do her best to decontaminate them of all substances that are emissive of radiation.

She gets a few strange looks when she says that, but they are thankfully only transient.

Other than that, though, they have a great time! Her new friends seem greatly unsettled by the taxidermied corpse of her grandfather keeping vigil over the entirety of the grand foyer, but when Jade assures them that he died in an accident when she was very young that uneasy feeling eventually subsides.

Once they get past that, however, they marvel unreasonably at the gratuitous suits of armor and mounted animal heads decorating the room, especially the ones which bear tusks. When Jade explains that her grandfather was the slayer of many of these beasts, they begin to ask him a great many questions instead, much to Jade’s chagrin.

Nevertheless, Jade does what she has always done: her best. She delivers a grand tour of the property, making sure to punctuate her words with ostentatious sweeping gestures and various inane details that border on nearly insufferable levels of prattling. By the end of the tour, when they have all been laden down with large amounts of vegetable matter and carefully-tucked seed packets, Jade’s spirits have risen considerably.

They are elevated further by the last minute questions she is now getting—

“How many robots did ye say were wandering ‘round?” Just the one, she reassures them, although she doesn’t sound so sure about that.

“But why would ya build it that high?” Because reasons, she says.

“Why are the trees greenish all over like that?” I have literally no idea at all, Jade replies.

“Why are the birds purple?” Uhm…

“Are they any good fer eatin’?” Of course not!

“What pumpkin?” What?

—all of which she is more than happy to answer. But, all good things must come to an end, and soon enough it is time for her dwarven friends to depart. They tip their hats to her and Grandpabot in turn and last of all a bit bemusedly to Becquerel, and then they are trundling off and wishing her well as they disappear over the far hills.

All in all, Jade thinks that it was a nice little visit. She had repeatedly told them over the course of the tour that they were welcome anytime, and she hopes that they will take confidence in her words, and maybe even tell their friends! Yes, things are going quite well for Jade, despite the rugged rocks and savage winds that ring incessantly around her property.

Then, Karkat starts trolling her through her communications device, and Jade has to take it into another room so Grandpabot won’t see how frustrated she’s getting. Geez! At least they agree on most everything that’s going on. She will have to do as she said she would and get started on that portal to… Camelot, was it? Camelot. Cam-e-lot.

Jade sighs. This is so utterly ridiculous; she cannot even begin to fathom how her life has come to be at this juncture of absolute stupidity. Gah, everything is so dumb! It was so much better when she was alone on her island and didn’t have to worry about magical and totally fake kingdoms, scruffy dwarves, or rude trolls!

Okay, she doesn’t mean that at all, but Jade is pretty upset right now. She really ought to do something to take her mind off of all these unreasonable feelings.

Stamping her foot, Jade tromps over into the room where the minion of Typheus is covering up a Transportalizer. She frowns at it mightily, but alas, it does not budge. Pale glassy eyes stare back at her, unblinking, probably because the snake beast is dead. Duh.

“Hmm,” Jade says, peering around for a good place to put her new Transportalizer. She will have to be sure to remember which ones are which, in the event that she gains multiple teleportation pads to other verses. Otherwise, things may start to get really complicated!

After rubbing a weary hand over her eyes and a frustrated exhale through her nose, Jade seats herself upon the floor and goes about summoning her teleporter to Camelot. She bids the omnilium to arise from wherever it may have been slumbering inside of her with imaginings of a rounded metal platform, only a small step up high from the ground much like her other Transportalizers. But, she knows that this one will have to be different, mostly because it will teleport things on a wider scale than usual.

Instead of the typical pedestal with a weaving fractal pattern on it, she decides that this one will feature a different symbol— one that resembles a spear or a sword bisecting two circles, ringed by inventively stylized, intricate foliage. That way, she will never confuse the teleporter to Camelot with any others. Still, she turns it a polished, glittering gold just to make sure.

Finally, as the nebulous multi-colored glow of the omnilium dwindles away into nothing after about fifteen minutes, Jade is able to examine her completed work. It doesn’t look half bad— although, now that she thinks about it, the gold sure does seem tacky.

Oh well. There’s not much she can do about it, now.

Bec trots into the room and inspects the teleporter, snuffling loudly in approval after a few moments of circling it. Jade snuffles back, only a little sardonically.

The wolfdog cants his head to the side and paws at the teleporters edge, looking back at Jade expectantly.

“Well, that’s as good as it’s going to get,” Jade grumbles. “I’d like to see you try, Bec.”

Looking away for a moment, Becquerel yawns noisily, snapping his jaws shut again with an audible click once he has finished being loud. Again, he looks at her, head tilted to the side and ears perked up.

Jade grunts and shifts her legs into a more comfortable position until she’s almost lying laterally on the floor. Bec promptly flops on top of her, causing Jade to puff out a startled breath of air before resettling. After a moment, Jade begins to pet him.

“I guess you’re right,” she comments as she scratches behind the wolfdog's ears. “I shouldn’t be so upset by what’s happening. A mythical kingdom, how cool is that? Even if it does seem really unbelievable. And I mean, at least I’ll get to see Karkat soon, right?”

Bec huffs. Right.

“He’s just so rude, I don’t know how we’ll ever get along…. Well, he’s nice every now and then, I guess. And some of the weird things he says are kind of funny….” Jade trails off, face scrunched up as if she is deep in thought. Becquerel looks at her intently, apparently expecting some huge revelation or declaration of undying love.

Instead, Jade moves to sit up, ousting the wolfdog from where he has been lying across her stomach. “That's it! Maybe I should whip up some kind of Recall Station, too? That way I’ll be able to come back right quick if trouble starts up around here. Yeah, I’ll do that!” She leaps to her feet and starts to do just that.

With an electric sneeze which has green-yellow sparks zapping around its snout, Becquerel gets up and lies down a small ways away from where Jade has decided to erect some fresh newfangled device for better getting around the Omniverse.

Silly human.

[Jade Harley]

Jade stands in the snow, buried up to her ankles in chilly frozen precipitation. More frozen precipitation rains down from the glowering clouds upon her head, but thankfully her cowl prevents most of it from icing over the crown of her head. Her ears are still pretty cold, though!

She can resist the temptation no longer. Here Jade has been for the past hour and a half, patiently waiting for Karkat’s arrival, a whole winter wonderland of snow laid out before her like soft, fluffy buttercream. While the snow in the rugged mountains was icy, slippery, and harsh, this snow is much more agreeable to her refined tastes. Jade is a total snow connoisseur, and right now this white stuff looks like a bag of powdered sugar that has been mistakenly poured across a kitchen counter top. Utterly perfect, in other words.

With a whooping cry, Jade tosses herself into the nearest snowdrift. Clumps of icy powder fly up all around her as she sinks gleefully into the snow, rolling over onto her side and laughing even as her skin begins to sting somewhat from the snowmelt seeping into her thick clothing. She flaps her limbs about, attempting to create a woefully lop-sided snow angel.

Bec comes over to sniff at her face to make sure she’s alright and hasn’t landed on a hidden boulder or anything, most likely because he mistakes her odd flailing behavior for some horrible injury, and then licks her nose. Giggling, Jade wraps her arms around Bec’s furry ruff to give him a quick hug before scrambling to her feet.

There. That’s one ridiculous urge satisfied! A grin on her lips and fluffy white ears pricked up, Jade glances around at her sad, empty lawn, nothing but snow to cover the wide expanse save for a few green trees. Her snowlawn. Incredible.

Well, she’ll just have to build some merry snowmen to spruce things up a little! Snowmen and snowtrolls, since Karkat is visiting soon. So, basically just regular old snowmen with horns and frowny faces, she surmises.

Jade wonders if Alternia had any snow days— before it was destroyed by a bunch of asteroids, anyways. In any case, she doesn’t doubt that Karkat will find some way to have the worst time possible, novelty or not. Probably with a bunch of complaining lathered with pseudo-poetic blithering. It’s one of his most charming features, after all!

Crouching down in the snow, Jade begins to gather all of the snow within reach into a pile and packs it solid with short, quick pats. Soon enough, a pile begins to form about a foot high, and so Jade rounds out the bottom with her hands to shape the snowtroll’s base.

Over to the side, she starts to work on a second large snowball to form the torso, this time rolling it around a little to build it up. With a grunt, she hefts the second closely-packed ball of snow atop the other one, and takes a step back to scrutinize her work for a moment. She pats and pokes in a few loose ridges of snow here and there, which rejoin their icy crystallized brethren on the ground after a quick swipe from her hand has been dealt.

For the head, Jade takes a handful of snow, rolls it, and gradually adds more to it until a fair-sized amount of snow can be placed on top. She shapes it into a slightly-lopsided spherical shape, interspersed with smooth and grainy areas of snow alike, which gives her a vague impression that she might be about to create a true Frankenstein’s monster among snowmen. Nevertheless, she cheerily goes about marking places for the eyes and nose by sticking her fingers into the snow. She is the Michelangelo of snow, it is her.

But, alas! She needs to give her beautiful snowtroll a face, and horns! How is it supposed to spew nonsense and half-assed insults at her without those oh so important facial features? She will have to go inside to fetch something.

Smiling, Jade hurries back into the tower and up the many flights of stairs that lead up to her garden atrium, taking the steps two stairs at a time. She passes Grandpabot by on the way up, but he seems far too preoccupied with cleaning his gun to speak with her. She will have to make the material selection alone.

Soon enough, she has stumbled into the toasty warm microclimate of the garden atrium. Artificial sunlight glows over the various assortments of plants, colorful blooms and vines glossy and bright under the lighting. Jade bee-lines straight for the carrots, hesitates, and then grabs three of the juiciest, orangiest tubers. Two are long and kind of spindly, with little hairy growths that can easily be clipped off, while one is short and stubby and perfect for her snowtroll’s nose.

Now for the buttons to go on his coat and eyes for seeing! Jade takes the transportalizer up after spouting the passcode at it and then scours around her room for good materials. She can’t seem to find anything, though, and this causes Jade a great deal of irritation. An artistic masterpiece is at stake!

With growing dismay, Jade clambers over her bed to search underneath her pillows and behind the headboard, and finally kneels down to peer under the bed. Nope! Nothing but dusty bunnies under here.

“Ugh!” Jade says, rubbing furiously at her face because she’s nine hundred percent certain that she just inhaled an itsy bitsy spider by accident. She stands and plants her hands on her hips, aiming a glower at the entirety of her bedroom. She just knows that she had buttons before. They must be hiding around here somewhere, like most missing objects are wont to do…

There is a sudden electric sneeze from behind her; yellow-green sparks flicker in her peripheral vision, but only faintly. Jade whirls around to look at Bec, sees that he has one of her Squiddles dolls in his mouth, and immediately gives her head a vigorous shake.

“No way!” she objects, gently prying the plush from his jaws and making sure to be extra wary of the delicate seams when they come near his sharp canine teeth. “That’s a limited edition, we can’t use that!”

Bec snuffles haughtily. Jade is sure that if he had eyes he would be rolling them at her.

Sticking her nose up in the air, Jade turns and proudly strides away only to have her legs get tangled up in what remains of her god-tier outfit. When she disentangles it from her legs and scrutinizes it, she notices that there are two white buttons attached to the hood.

“Huh,” she says as an aside to Becquerel. “I guess I’ll make a snow-Omni instead?”

The wolfdog whuffles at her, totally inscrutable.

Jade shrugs. Well, that’s probably the best intimation of an agreement that she’s gonna get! Might as well go along with it and go back outside to finish the job.

“We’ll give our snow-Omni troll horns, anyways,” she tucks the smallest carrot into her pocket, heading down the stairs. “I don’t think there’s any harm in that. Besides, a spot of color could really make our snowlawn look nice.”

Becquerel follows her down, whining under his breath. Jade laughs.

“Yes, of course we can make a snow-Bec, too!”

[Jade Harley]

Now posting over here! --- > Frozen Faygo Flyer (Acrobatic Fucking Pirouette, Take 2)