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 Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:42 pm
As Farlest started off walking out in another way, away from the river and it's crack, Nathaniel himself wondered how much longer he could tolerate a climate of this magnitude. His poison green eyes stared with scrutiny behind his goggles. He really wasn't sure how much longer this could go on. Soon his feet would simply give out beneath him. Or he would find himself exhausted. Or something bad could go wrong. And then he found himself hating these thoughts, becoming angry at the very idea.
Yes, they had to keep moving onward. It was their only hope. However, he was getting hungry and unlike the others he had supplies left still. He hadn't packed jerky, instead he'd packed homemade granola. But was now the time? Surely there would be time later, and he didn't exactly want to remove his hands from the gloves right yet. So it would wait. Like resting.
"Better now than never," he muttered to himself.
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Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:31 pm
Elijah nodded, not feeling the need to add to the conversation as the decisions already seemed set. He had no objections anyway to voice about. Continuing to move along the river seemed the best idea, and though he doubted the existence of a bridge, they had the chance of finding a better portion of the river farther along that they could cross with ease.
The youth shook slightly, shifting his legs in their little pause, growing further uncomfortable in the moment or rest than actually moving. It was as though all of the aching of his body sparked at once, and was only eased as they continued once again. While he wanted rest, only a minute or two wasn't going to cut it. The others were surely feeling the same. Lifting his head, he looked farther out, hoping to catch sight of something in the distance...nothing seemed to give rise to interest.
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Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:43 pm
He started walking with the other boys. His legs gave an ache of protest, wanting longer to rest before laboring again. As much as he wanted to rest, he knew it was better to keep going. If they stopped now, he wasn't sure he could force himself to move again for a long while. And that wouldn't help the group in anyway. Hunger was starting to make his sides ache dreadfully.
Edward shook his head. He couldn't let any thoughts of pain and hunger slow him down. His gaze kept darting toward the river, looking for any signs of a way to cross it. He doubted there would be a bridge at this point. But maybe if they got to a point far enough away from the break, the ice would be thick enough to support their weight. The more he worried over this obstacle, the more frustrated he grew.
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Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:15 pm
At some point, Far dug out trail mix and shared, but even doing that, he didn't give himself enough time to stop walking. He had some water, but he was fairly confident that the state of that was similar to the state of everything else...frozen. The usually cheerful young man now had a determined expression on his features, trying to think of nothing but the trek before him.
Further away from that break, closer to progress...it had to be...Sooner or later they'd find themselves at safety, find the others, find the White Tower. It seemed like that Tower had become the solution to all their problems, or at least a symbol of it. Now...when would the ice be thick enough to support a crossing? Even without that worry, Farlest could just be content that they were moving forward.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:50 am
You've followed the river and come to a shallow lake. The ice here is broken too, but if you fall, at least you won't- Oh look. A bear is rumbling over. It looks curious. Now what?
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:11 am
Edward hoped that they would reach the White Tower soon. He wasn't sure how much longer he could take walking around in this weather. Breathing in deeply, he found his nose practically clogged all the way up. Recovering from this trip would be oh-so-delightful. But he didn't let the others know of his discomfort. They likely suffered from their own little aches and pains, so he had no right to complain when all of them were braving through it.
Then they happened upon a lake. More water! It seemed there was no getting around to the Tower without first crossing some body of water. This too had a crack in the ice, making Edward wary of crossing it. But what choice did they have? Going back wasn't much of an option. They already knew what obstacles lay in that direction. They had to press forward.
A sound caught his ear, and Edward turned toward it. The color drained from his face as he saw the bear ambling toward them. What could they do against that? They had thrown all their jerky away to distract the wolf. And he doubted that the bear would fall for that trick. "This... doesn't look good," he said weakly.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 11:27 am
When they reached the lake, to Nat's utter horror and dismay, his shivering legs gave out from beneath him and he dropped to his knees in the snow. There was no more strength left in all the British youth's little body. As a reminder to himself, he would begin to pay attention to his physical health when they got back to the school. If they ever got back to the school that is. There was a grimace on his features, not too prim or happy about what was to come. Walking and walking against the harsh conditions and the frigid weather had been enough, but the sight of water and all of it frozen and dangerous was beginning to make him ill. There was a reason why water wasn't poisonous just as there was a reason for it's ability to give someone hypothermia.
From his knees, he looked over at all the breaks and paled slightly. They had nowhere else to go but back now, and he wasn't sure he could make it. It was at that point that the other youth, who obviously seemed to be getting sicker as the day went on, noticed what had eluded them. He paled and thought vaguely of a class he'd taken before he left. A class with the boy named Canaan.
Hadn't Canaan said that the bear was his brother? Well this bear didn't much look like it wanted to be brothers with anyone! He raised an eyebrow, almost curious. In his mind, a quick thought ran by: what could poison a bear? And then his eyes widened and he quickly flit through his bag for his pouch of vials. Did he have anything to poison a bear? And even if he did, would such a small dosage be sufficient?
He wasn't even questioning if they should poison it, only if he had something to. And so strange times got stranger.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:40 pm
They followed along much like they had been doing for some time, moving about the frozen river with tired, but keen eyes. Slowly, Elijah observed, the river was opening up, becoming wider on both sides until he realized they had come across a small, frozen lake. To his dismay, the break in the ice still resided. It seemed no matter what direction they decided to choose, their only option was to cross. At least now if they broke through the ice it wouldn't be likely that they'd slip in and drown, but the idea of getting wet at all so close to night wasn't a pleasing notion. He turned to watch Nat move to sit, wanting to join him so badly, but didn't yet let his legs curl beneath him, despite their buckling.
The meandering pant of a large animal caught his attention, forcing his eyes toward the creature moving toward them. Those specks widened. Edward took the words right out of his mouth. "Oh...oh," he murmured, not even blinking.
At least the British student had an idea. Hah! Didn't he hear somewhere that most animals can be scared off by noise? Maybe yelling a bit would stop the bear, along with rattling whatever they had with them. He wasn't sure if this creature would be so easily distracted as the wolf had been, but they hardly had any time to think as the beast approached.
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Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:00 am
Farlest's eyes went wide at the sight of the bear, his knees quite nearly giving out much the same way as Nathaniel's had. Oh gods, this wasn't good. The bear only seemed curious, true, and well...so long as they did not provoke it, they could always hope that nothing bad would come of it? Swallowing hard, he glanced about at the faces of his companions. "I...what're we going to do?"
It was frustrating enough that the river had refused to comply and give them safe crossing. It looked as though they were running out of options, and quickly. This whole trip just kept getting worse, and frankly Farlest was about sick of it. Wrapping an arm around his ribs, attempting to ignore the stitch in his side, he shivered, cold again despite their danger. Farlest had known something about wolves, but bears were another thing entirely.
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Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 3:17 am
From his spot on the floor, Nathaniel was still rifling through his bag and ignored the others for the most part. The questions were silly. The answer was easy enough. Straight forward to him. Although he himself was far from sure if it could work, and was far from sure if he had anything for a beast of that size. He didn't care if it wasn't attacking. It would attack sooner or later. This wasn't some silly movie where if you befriended the stupid thing it would let you ride on it's back or something. No. This was serious, and so the Brit was serious too.
"We poison it," he replied simply to everyone, as if that had been the obvious task all along. "I just have to find which one..." The last sentence was more to himself, a quiet commentary as he continued flitting through poison after poison. He had a needle if they needed it too, though he wasn't quite sure it wouldn't break against a bear, or even make it past the fat. Really it'd have to go in it's mouth or something.
Worry about the execution of the method later. He wanted to test it now, and figured since it was dangerous anyway, no one would blame him for it. After all... the bear wasn't his friend.
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Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:13 am
"Poison it?" Edward asked in shock. That option certainly had never occurred to him. But he never expected any of them to actually be carrying around any type of poison to use against threats. He briefly wondered why that hadn't come up during their ordeal with the wolf. But maybe that was because they had latched onto the idea of using the beef jerky to distract the wolf.
He glanced at the lake again. Could they escape the bear by crossing over it? Both ways had their risks. Stay to poison the bear, and the bear could attack them before they ever got the chance to use the poison. Cross the lake, and the ice could break under them. The lake might not be too deep, but they would still get wet and risk hypothermia. And what was there to stop the bear from following them? Bears had no reason to be afraid of water. They waded into the water to catch fish anyway.
Poison was looking to be the best choice of stopping the threat of the bear. Edward looked toward the other boys in his uncertainty.
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Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 2:29 pm
"Poison? How are we going to get it to affect the bear?" he asked, watching Nathaniel work with a odd sense of awe. First off, what sort of poison was this? Did it need to be ingested? He doubted anyone wanted to get near enough to the animal to risk the potion not even working, but how else were they to do it? Maybe they could soak Nathaniel's concoction in a bit of clothing and throw it in the direction of the animal. Would that distract the bear as it had the wolf?
Well, they weren't going to find out doing nothing. "If you need anything, Nathaniel, I'll do whatever I can to help," he spoke, still carefully watching the creature. His heart beat roughly against his previously tired chest. Why it wasn't aching now he didn't know, but wasn't also taking the time to answer this anomaly.
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