Into the Storm (Summer Challenge, Rocky Road)
‘Verse: ???
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #1 (Just a song before I go) & Akutaq #6 (mukluk), Rocky Road #29 (out in the cold)
Rating: Mature (death) - highlight for spoiler
Title: Into the Storm
Summary: A cabin in the woods on a cold winter’s night...
Notes: There are a couple Alaskan terms in this. A "mukluk" is a fur boot, and the Toyostove is a common feature in rural communities that is much more efficient (and cheaper) to heat small spaces than a boiler.
This is supposed to have a certain feel. I’m not sure I’ve achieved that feel. Please let me know in the comments.
She watched with a twisting in her gut as fur boots went on over sealhide pants, as the massive parka went over her beloved's head and drowned him in layers of warmth, even as he pecked her on the cheek. He was a different person when he went to check the lines, and she felt the dread grab at her belly and pull as surely as the blast of Arctic winter when her love yanked open the door. Then he was gone, gone, the blizzard engulfing him like the sea swallowed a stone.
With a hysterical chuckle, she flopped back onto the worn loveseat. For a while she sat there, not bothering to adjust the Toyostove's output even as the temperature dropped for the night. She knew, she knew that something had gone wrong; had known it would happen before Caleb so much as thought about moving here to the lonely wilderness. Just us, he'd said. Just her now. How she knew it was this night and not tomorrow's, she did not stop to ponder. She just knew. He had to check the lines for game every day in the weeks leading up to the great darkness of December, but today he had tried to outwait the storm sweeping down from the mountains and realized too late it would not stop before night truly fell. He was out there, alone, in the white-washed forest.
Hours passed, and the storm raged around her and inside her as she realized that her Caleb was undoubtedly dead, frozen solid into a snowdrift somewhere. Or stuck in one of his own traps, face contorted in agony before the ice crusted up around his eyes and his skin turned sallow blue. Or fallen into one of the little creeks that ran nearby-
The temperature dropped, the night wore on.
In the pre-dawn, he came, gutted rabbits strung out on a line behind him. He opened the door, stomped the snow from his mukluks.
And found the cabin cold, the Toyostove cold, his wife colder still, a stiff body in a threadbare blanket on the worn loveseat.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #1 (Just a song before I go) & Akutaq #6 (mukluk), Rocky Road #29 (out in the cold)
Rating: Mature (death) - highlight for spoiler
Title: Into the Storm
Summary: A cabin in the woods on a cold winter’s night...
Notes: There are a couple Alaskan terms in this. A "mukluk" is a fur boot, and the Toyostove is a common feature in rural communities that is much more efficient (and cheaper) to heat small spaces than a boiler.
This is supposed to have a certain feel. I’m not sure I’ve achieved that feel. Please let me know in the comments.
She watched with a twisting in her gut as fur boots went on over sealhide pants, as the massive parka went over her beloved's head and drowned him in layers of warmth, even as he pecked her on the cheek. He was a different person when he went to check the lines, and she felt the dread grab at her belly and pull as surely as the blast of Arctic winter when her love yanked open the door. Then he was gone, gone, the blizzard engulfing him like the sea swallowed a stone.
With a hysterical chuckle, she flopped back onto the worn loveseat. For a while she sat there, not bothering to adjust the Toyostove's output even as the temperature dropped for the night. She knew, she knew that something had gone wrong; had known it would happen before Caleb so much as thought about moving here to the lonely wilderness. Just us, he'd said. Just her now. How she knew it was this night and not tomorrow's, she did not stop to ponder. She just knew. He had to check the lines for game every day in the weeks leading up to the great darkness of December, but today he had tried to outwait the storm sweeping down from the mountains and realized too late it would not stop before night truly fell. He was out there, alone, in the white-washed forest.
Hours passed, and the storm raged around her and inside her as she realized that her Caleb was undoubtedly dead, frozen solid into a snowdrift somewhere. Or stuck in one of his own traps, face contorted in agony before the ice crusted up around his eyes and his skin turned sallow blue. Or fallen into one of the little creeks that ran nearby-
The temperature dropped, the night wore on.
In the pre-dawn, he came, gutted rabbits strung out on a line behind him. He opened the door, stomped the snow from his mukluks.
And found the cabin cold, the Toyostove cold, his wife colder still, a stiff body in a threadbare blanket on the worn loveseat.