Strangers in the Snow [Private][Renown]
Jan 28, 2023 0:06:53 GMT -5
Post by Xhavian Navarre on Jan 28, 2023 0:06:53 GMT -5
It had been a mistake. He knew it had been the moment he had stepped outside of the Pale City and followed the frozen roads that extended outwards. Past the outskirts. Past the Coldwood. Past the furthest he had ever been within the Frost Gale, lingering always to the city. Close to home, to the memory of the family that he had been, and to where his mother would come back to if she returned.
When.
When she returned.
She would. Xhavian knew she would. It was just the cold that was talking. Freezing and biting. Unfelt in its natural form in most of his outings. But in this extreme, when the wind made it penetrating, the snow like daggers that cut into exposed skin and latched itself onto your very bones, not even one who was tempered by the void and the lack of warmth within could deny it. Fingers and face numb in a way he couldn't help but fear. His cloak and gloves only doing so much and so terribly little. With the way the cold festered, with how it swelled around him in a wall that only a storm could manage, it was no wonder that such thoughts, twisted and torn, would corrupt the rest. Darkness to smother a light that had been kept safe for so many years.
A light that couldn't be extinguished now.
Breath coming in ragged pants, freezing with the kiss of unending winter that was now violence within a blizzard, Xhavian pushed himself forward. Every step breaking through ice to plunge into deepened snow. Every second snatched from him with the snap of whipping wind. Every sense of direction gone, blinded by the curtain of white that fell and was kicked up around him as he fought his way toward where he hoped and prayed and begged was the rest of the caravan he had been traveling with to gather and forage across the Ice Feilds had gone in search of shelter to wait out the storm.
What he wouldn't give for a bit of warmth, though. To not feel as frozen as the distance between stars was. Without time.
"J-just a... a l-little f-further now," Xhavian told himself. Again. Words bloody with cracked lips. He couldn't remember how many times he had said it before. Or how many steps were in between the last time he had and now. A part of him, or all of him, really, didn't want to know. The world as it was might become even colder with that knowledge.
A broken sound of alarm tore free from him as his next step had him tripping over the layer of ice that coated the snow-covered ground. Falling. Tripping. Landing painfully as his body all but cried out in protest. Muscles frozen. Bones heavy. Body weary and almost spent in this endeavor. It only added to the way despair and desperation overwhelmed him. Fading into nothingness in its presence.
But he couldn't give up. He wouldn't give up. They were nearby. He was sure of it, and as he forced himself to his feet, he could make out the vague outline of wagons. Of the horses that pulled them. Of people and safety and warmth, he so very much hoped for.
With much more life to him than before, Xhavian made his way over to those figures. "Hey! H-hey, I'm o-over here!" he shouted, stumbling as he managed as much of a run in such uncarved snow as he could. "I th-thought I'd l-lost you guys in a-all this s-snow!" he was closer now, and could practically feel the softness of the blanket he had brought to huddle underneath in his tent. "Are w-we close to the—"
His words died when the caravan was now in view, a few blinks of nebulous eyes as he found himself looking at the faces of people... he didn't recognize. And were just as shocked to see him as he was to see them, no doubt. Strangers in the snow. Caught and trapped in the same storm.
"Oh... y-you're not... you're not the c-caravan I was with..." he said, that life he had captured for himself in the moment drained from him as his stammered words matched his shivering body.
When.
When she returned.
She would. Xhavian knew she would. It was just the cold that was talking. Freezing and biting. Unfelt in its natural form in most of his outings. But in this extreme, when the wind made it penetrating, the snow like daggers that cut into exposed skin and latched itself onto your very bones, not even one who was tempered by the void and the lack of warmth within could deny it. Fingers and face numb in a way he couldn't help but fear. His cloak and gloves only doing so much and so terribly little. With the way the cold festered, with how it swelled around him in a wall that only a storm could manage, it was no wonder that such thoughts, twisted and torn, would corrupt the rest. Darkness to smother a light that had been kept safe for so many years.
A light that couldn't be extinguished now.
Breath coming in ragged pants, freezing with the kiss of unending winter that was now violence within a blizzard, Xhavian pushed himself forward. Every step breaking through ice to plunge into deepened snow. Every second snatched from him with the snap of whipping wind. Every sense of direction gone, blinded by the curtain of white that fell and was kicked up around him as he fought his way toward where he hoped and prayed and begged was the rest of the caravan he had been traveling with to gather and forage across the Ice Feilds had gone in search of shelter to wait out the storm.
What he wouldn't give for a bit of warmth, though. To not feel as frozen as the distance between stars was. Without time.
"J-just a... a l-little f-further now," Xhavian told himself. Again. Words bloody with cracked lips. He couldn't remember how many times he had said it before. Or how many steps were in between the last time he had and now. A part of him, or all of him, really, didn't want to know. The world as it was might become even colder with that knowledge.
A broken sound of alarm tore free from him as his next step had him tripping over the layer of ice that coated the snow-covered ground. Falling. Tripping. Landing painfully as his body all but cried out in protest. Muscles frozen. Bones heavy. Body weary and almost spent in this endeavor. It only added to the way despair and desperation overwhelmed him. Fading into nothingness in its presence.
But he couldn't give up. He wouldn't give up. They were nearby. He was sure of it, and as he forced himself to his feet, he could make out the vague outline of wagons. Of the horses that pulled them. Of people and safety and warmth, he so very much hoped for.
With much more life to him than before, Xhavian made his way over to those figures. "Hey! H-hey, I'm o-over here!" he shouted, stumbling as he managed as much of a run in such uncarved snow as he could. "I th-thought I'd l-lost you guys in a-all this s-snow!" he was closer now, and could practically feel the softness of the blanket he had brought to huddle underneath in his tent. "Are w-we close to the—"
His words died when the caravan was now in view, a few blinks of nebulous eyes as he found himself looking at the faces of people... he didn't recognize. And were just as shocked to see him as he was to see them, no doubt. Strangers in the snow. Caught and trapped in the same storm.
"Oh... y-you're not... you're not the c-caravan I was with..." he said, that life he had captured for himself in the moment drained from him as his stammered words matched his shivering body.