Wind-chill is, I think, probably the only annoying part about winter; it's so hard to stop it once it starts. I'm fairly convinced that getting out of the wind has been a preoccupation of mankind ever since it left Africa.... I hope you've got plenty of wood stockpiled for your fire and good insulation around your windows and doors!
Bone chilling Labdaris walked back into the cave structure of the Enclave, ignoring the people who glanced up at him, their expressions of surprise mingling with fear. He could see odd shadows on the walls and floor as he walked, and knew that he must be shedding a golden light that was undoubtedly puzzling them. He walked through to his chambers and drew the curtain across the door. First things first: this light would be a beacon to all the wrong kinds of people if he did nothing about it. He sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, ignoring the way the cold tended to seep up through flesh and chill bone. He settled his breathing with the ease of practice, and took just a moment to revel in the feeling that his body was his again, whole and unbroken, free from aches, pains, and the effort of just staying alive. Then he reached for the Power. He started, his eyes flickering open and his fingers tensing into claws. There were two distinct sources of Power available to him, one twining around the other like ivy climbing an ancient oak tree. He forced himself to relax again, and closed his eyes once more so that he could focus on exactly what was there in the intangible but effective realm of the Power. The two sources sprang to life immediately, and he studied them like an entomologist confronted with a possibly-new species of beetle. Two hours later the cold of the floor had sucked all the heat from his body and pain was starting in his ankles and wrists, distracting him. He had gently teased apart the two Powers, pulling the one from the other and separating them as he studied them, and he saw how the King in Yellow had, in an astonishingly short space of time, infiltrated everything that Labdaris thought he knew about the Power. He set up careful blocks and wards, trying to ignore the trembling in his muscles and the way the pain spread up his arms to his elbows and his legs to his knees, and then dropped his access to the power. Frost had formed over his clothes and the skin of his hands and wrists. He rubbed them together -- they barely felt like they belonged to him, but were heavy clay lumps at the ends of his arms -- until the ice flaked away, and then reached to check his face. The skin there was so cold he wondered if he was actually dead for a moment, but the frost hadn't spread that far. He stood, and stumbled towards the fireplace where someone had been in and lit the fire already. "What a dangerous liege you must be," he murmured to himself, staring into the flames. For a moment he fancied he saw a hooded figure, its face concealed in darkness, looking back out at him, and the chill that the fire was fighting away surged, then died back.
Greg - wind chill is the worst thing ever invented.
We've got a good supply of wood and the house is pretty well insulated. The floors tend to get pretty cold by the time morning comes though. Thankfully the wind has mostly knocked it off recently, and the temperatures have been closer to zero.
Hmm. Thank you for coming back to this one again. You're adding depths and new intrigue with this... relationship? Between Labdaris and the king. I like it :)
2 comments:
Wind-chill is, I think, probably the only annoying part about winter; it's so hard to stop it once it starts. I'm fairly convinced that getting out of the wind has been a preoccupation of mankind ever since it left Africa.... I hope you've got plenty of wood stockpiled for your fire and good insulation around your windows and doors!
As a reminder, we left Labdaris here last time.
Bone chilling
Labdaris walked back into the cave structure of the Enclave, ignoring the people who glanced up at him, their expressions of surprise mingling with fear. He could see odd shadows on the walls and floor as he walked, and knew that he must be shedding a golden light that was undoubtedly puzzling them. He walked through to his chambers and drew the curtain across the door. First things first: this light would be a beacon to all the wrong kinds of people if he did nothing about it.
He sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, ignoring the way the cold tended to seep up through flesh and chill bone. He settled his breathing with the ease of practice, and took just a moment to revel in the feeling that his body was his again, whole and unbroken, free from aches, pains, and the effort of just staying alive. Then he reached for the Power.
He started, his eyes flickering open and his fingers tensing into claws. There were two distinct sources of Power available to him, one twining around the other like ivy climbing an ancient oak tree. He forced himself to relax again, and closed his eyes once more so that he could focus on exactly what was there in the intangible but effective realm of the Power. The two sources sprang to life immediately, and he studied them like an entomologist confronted with a possibly-new species of beetle.
Two hours later the cold of the floor had sucked all the heat from his body and pain was starting in his ankles and wrists, distracting him. He had gently teased apart the two Powers, pulling the one from the other and separating them as he studied them, and he saw how the King in Yellow had, in an astonishingly short space of time, infiltrated everything that Labdaris thought he knew about the Power. He set up careful blocks and wards, trying to ignore the trembling in his muscles and the way the pain spread up his arms to his elbows and his legs to his knees, and then dropped his access to the power.
Frost had formed over his clothes and the skin of his hands and wrists. He rubbed them together -- they barely felt like they belonged to him, but were heavy clay lumps at the ends of his arms -- until the ice flaked away, and then reached to check his face. The skin there was so cold he wondered if he was actually dead for a moment, but the frost hadn't spread that far. He stood, and stumbled towards the fireplace where someone had been in and lit the fire already.
"What a dangerous liege you must be," he murmured to himself, staring into the flames. For a moment he fancied he saw a hooded figure, its face concealed in darkness, looking back out at him, and the chill that the fire was fighting away surged, then died back.
Greg - wind chill is the worst thing ever invented.
We've got a good supply of wood and the house is pretty well insulated. The floors tend to get pretty cold by the time morning comes though. Thankfully the wind has mostly knocked it off recently, and the temperatures have been closer to zero.
Hmm. Thank you for coming back to this one again. You're adding depths and new intrigue with this... relationship? Between Labdaris and the king. I like it :)
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