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@wingiby-iggiby

XD XD XD yes, Bobby would love that! I might be able to upload a photo of him, but I’m bad with computers, so I might not XD

ALL THE PUPPY PICTURES!!! If you get it figured out 🙂

Oh, oops! Lol, forget I ever mentioned them! XD Thanks!

LOL, don’t worry about it XD I wasn’t being clear.

he still would’ve bent down and felt the snow, clenched it in his fist — and licked it.

Yaknow, natural reaction.

@denali-christianson

And I’m sitting there looking at the keyboard thinking “the words go ever on and on…”

I understand not a word of this conversation, it’s impressive XD

Aydin

My exhaustion and the knowledge that resting was dangerous were warring and I didn’t know whose side I was on.

I shivered again and compromised by leaning against a wall. It was colder than walking but I was so tired.

I glared at the snow drifting in, coating my cloak and flying into my face.

“At least it’s a few degrees warmer than my ex-girlfriend’s soul.”

Someone snickered.

Heavens, I’d said that out loud. I hadn’t meant to. If I hadn’t been so freezing I might have blushed.

Why had I thought of her? Her laugh like breaking glass, eyes that were neither blue nor green but somehow both. I pictured her as clearly as if I’d seen her yesterday and I shuddered.

I was dying and I thought of her. Just like last time. I wrapped my cloak closer around me, as though I could block out the memory. Whenever death was near, so was she.

How could she have done that? Had she ever loved me? More upsettingly, had I loved her? Or had we been sixteen and alone, with blood on our hands and poison in our wounds, and nobody to hold on to except each other? Love and pain were so close together. They could coexist for years, each hiding the other.

I had been so sure things could go back to the way they were, but we had scars the other knew nothing of and wounds we couldn’t hide.

(Author’s note: OOhh, I’m stealing those lines for the actual book! *Shoves them into my pockets*)

It wasn’t the time to think of it. I wouldn’t get her back, any more than I would ever get back the use of my hand. It was a truth I had never admitted to myself before, I’d always held on to the desperate hope that my hand would heal, but now, with death practically at the door, it didn’t seem so important.

I went back to pacing, forcing my exhausted legs to work. I was slowly slipping into that other state, the state where time didn’t exist and there was no future and no past, just surviving every second and doing what you needed to get to the next.

I glanced back for the hundredth time, waiting for the dark figures to disappear as they always eventually did.

“Hiya, I’m Chet Gabe.”

I spun around as if I’d been shot. There shouldn’t be anyone behind me. An extremely tall man and a camel stood in the opening to a tunnel.

I rolled my eyes. It had been a while since my visions had taken me by surprise, but this was a particularly odd one. The camel reminded me of my own, Zahava. I missed her and I’d never see her again. They’d taken her, like everything else.

This camel, however, had six legs. I smiled sourly, that was a new one.

“You have a ridiculous imagination.”

The unwelcome memory made me frown. When would his voice fade? Never, probably. I’d hear it until my dying day, which would probably be sooner than expected.

I kept staring at the hallucination, I was too tired to care whether the others saw me staring into the middle distance. They’d find out sooner or later, Niarok had probably guessed half or more.

Niarok was staring too, probably trying to notice something unusual about that specific stretch of rock.

“Hello,” he said warily. “Where do you come from?”

Oh. He saw him too. I frowned, my mind working slower than usual. That must mean he was real. But what about the six legs? I instantly dismissed that at least as an hallucination.

Now I had a fairly decent grasp on reality, I set about trying to figure out what to do about it.

The man could probably snap me in half if he wanted but that went for most people here, especially now. Even before I had been half-frozen, after my recent illness I was in the worst condition I had ever been in, besides not being able to use my weapons well. I didn’t even have them with me, just a knife.

But he had a camel and sudden homesickness overwhelmed me. Perhaps it was the cold and the unfamiliarity, perhaps it was just how badly I wanted to turn back time, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn away.

“I’m Aydin. We’re stuck here,” I said, noticing again that my voice was hoarser than usual.

I couldn’t help staring at the camel, a fine bull with a shaggy head and soft eyes.

I gathered together my courage, aided by the fact that if he didn’t kill me I’d die in the cold anyway.

I took a step forward and extended my left hand to the camel, letting him smell me. I noticed with distant interest that my fingers had gone an alarming shade of violet. I had known that could happen theoretically but I’d never seen it actually happen.

The camel lowered his head within my reach, looking at me with gentle curiosity.

I glanced at the new man, not quite looking him in the eyes.

“May I– please?” I said, too tired to formulate a full sentence.

The man, Chet, nodded, doubtfully. He looked extremely suspicious and I knew if I upset his camel in any way, he’d probably kill me. It was a risk I was willing to take.

I stroked the camel’s nose, then up to his neck. He was warm, with a shaggier fur than Zahava had, and a shade darker. The camel lowered his head even further, so I could rub him behind the ears, just what Zahava had always liked. This camel liked it too. I smiled, really smiled for the first time since I’d ended up in this horrible place.

“What’s his name?” I asked. My voice was still a little too quiet, but it was the best I could do.