Welcome to Gaia! ::

Something is following the wagon... each night, tiny footprints seem to circle it, even though no one can remember having seen or heard anything. Perhaps something's being searched for? The strange happenings seem to have started after picking up that strange necklace...

whiteout

"Brrr..." Odilen shivered and drew her cloak around her a bit, tugging at the odd drawstring closures of her sleeves. The sleeves of the cloak were overly large to accomodate her wings, but with a clever bit of stitching they could be drawn in at the wrists for warmth. She fumbled with the strings for a moment with clumsy gloved fingers before finally getting them right. "That's better..."

"Wark," Kez complained, and held up one foot. Odilen sighed and bent down. Again.

The big chocobo was the reason she wasn't in the wagon with BoCo, nor even sitting on the sheltered wagon seat. With this ice and snow, the slush tended to get caked between Kez's toes, where it would freeze into unpleasant icey lumps that rubbed at the chocobo's skin. Too much of that would rub even tough chocobo feet raw. So here she was, walking alongside him, ready to pick the ice away when needed. She was not willing to risk her companion's pain for a little warmth.

Or at least, that was what she had to keep reminding herself as the wind seemed to cut through to her skin as though she wasn't wearing anything at all. Why was it so COLD? It was crazy. Out here on the open plains between Barton Town and Aekea, the chill breezes turned into knifelike gusts of freezing wind that drove the snow into everything.

She shouldn't have left Barton. That was rapidly becoming clear. They hadn't passed a single person on the road, and the armored guard at the city gate had raised one eyebrow when she'd asked to be let out. And now they were traveling at a snail's pace.

There was something up ahead, and Odilen realized, after a few minutes, that it was the bridge. Relief flooded her - she'd been afraid that in the near whiteout conditions, they'd gotten turned in an odd direction and were completely off the road.

"Let's stop by the bridge," she managed, patting Kez's icy feathers with one hand. "We'll wait for this to stop."

"Kweh," Kez agreed, bobbing his head wearily up and down, then stopping to hold up his other foot. Odilen sighed and bent to pick out the ice.

After fifteen slow minutes, Odilen carefully guided Kez just a bit off the road to shelter under a tree. She could barely hear the river in the hush of falling snow, and the bang of iced leaves above her head, but... it would be safe here, and she could shelter the lean-to under the tree.

Kez was already demanding to be let out of harness, picking up his feet nervously. She let him out, and he immediately ran to shelter behind the wagon, out of the wind.

Getting the lean-to up was difficult in the snapping wind, but she managed it, and sunk one of their last drying charms into the frozen earth. Kez curled up in the middle, shivering slightly as he let all his feathers fluff out in the new heat.

"You'll be soaked just from the melt... I'll get your big blanket and wrap you up, and some warm mashed greens," Odilen said soothingly, patting his beak. He let out a tired but happy "kweh!" and leaned into the patting before she finished and headed out. Odilen winced as the tough waterproof fabric that made up the lean-to snapped in her hands, rippling in the wind before she tied it down again.

The dart from lean-to to wagon door was like a slap in the face. Her scarf, having worked partially free from her cloak, caught the wind and snapped upwards, entangling itself in the branches of the tree above. "Oh, come on!" Odilen shouted, trying to tug it loose. "Dammit, it's COLD! I want to go INSIDE!"

The scarf remained stubborn. Angrily, Odilen grabbed the part of it that was still around her neck and pulled it off a bit harder than she needed to, shivering a bit as the warm knit fell away. The length of the scarf streamed in the wind, a mark of bright color in a world of white - normally a poetic image Odilen would love to write about, but this was definitely not the time.

The Ieldi clambered into the wagon in search of the supplies Kez needed, and emerged fifteen minutes later with a large, heavy blanket and a steaming pot of mashed greens. She stopped on the way to forcibly tug the scarf out of the tree, snapping branches in the process, before disappearing into the lean-to.


And in the snow, the necklace - which had been torn free along with the scarf - glinted briefly on the ground before the falling flakes began to cover it.