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When January Calls
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When January Calls
When January Calls (working title)
I have wanted to do this for a while, and being bored I shall begin.
This is not an RRR, mind, but a story that I will write and post in segments on here, a bit like the Books in Progress thread. Critique is welcome and encouraged, blatant praise will be reluctantly excepted, flaming will probably be deleted by the Admin anyway.
*******
On cold, blustery winter days when the snow falls thickly down in wet, wide flakes and the wind stirs across the ground like a snake in the dessert, and the streets are lit by a dim blue-gray light that emanates from the shadows, a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere is visited by a young man with frosty breath and icy fingers.
He is a good-tempered young man, mild-mannered and prone to stretches of contemplative silence. He speaks with his hands as often as he speaks with his voice, and is known to spend long hours in pastures with horses and sheep.
This man is tall, and very thin, and the tips of his fingers hang almost to his knees. He has a long, pointed face and a mess of blue-white hair that grows like a thistle on the top of his head. His eyes are large and blue like the sea; his skin is pale and blue like glacial ice. He has long pointed ears and a long pointed nose and an even longer pointed chin. His lips are turned up in pleasant smile and his teeth are straight and white.
He's a clever fellow, this man. He speaks softly and infrequently. His voice is rough but pleasant, like the sound of wind blowing gently through autum leaves.
To strangers he is courteous but distant and vague; to the few he counts as friends he is only slightly less distant and just as corteous.
He has no job, choosing instead to wander from town to town, beginning his lonely patrol when the leaves begin to brown and ending it when the first flowers bloom.
It is in the harshest month of winter that he visits Montaview.
*******
Like? No like?
submitted by TNÖ, age 15, Deep Space
(March 7, 2009 - 12:19 am)
(March 7, 2009 - 12:19 am)
Gah! Continue! :)
(March 20, 2009 - 7:49 am)
*zombie*
*******
The old man sighs. "If you insist, Jack."
"You will help?" asks Jack.
"I can't. You know that."
Wordlessly, Jack turns on his heel and marches out of the room, dragging Jenny behind him. She skids and slips on the icy floor, but Jack does not slow down or look back.
Behind them, as the doors close on the frigid throne room, Father Winter slumps over on his throne, and covers his face with a gnarled hand.
(March 20, 2009 - 9:06 pm)
Gah! Write more. Puh-lease
(March 21, 2009 - 7:07 am)
*applauds* You are way better than Smeyer!
Keeping my posts short today because I am sitting on the floor with the keyboard balanced on my knees and the mouse hardly mobile... long story.
(March 21, 2009 - 12:03 pm)
Gah! Gah! Me is HOOKED! :)
(March 21, 2009 - 11:22 pm)
So hooked that it's almost midnight and she's still awake, not even speaking proper English... :)
Still on the floor, by the way... bit inconvenient, though one gets used to it.
(March 22, 2009 - 4:24 pm)
Me is hooked, too!!!!!!
*stares intently at TNO*
MORE!!!!!!MORE!!!!!!PLEASE!!!!!!
*does puppydog face*
(March 22, 2009 - 7:07 pm)
They stand outside the magnificent frozen palace, the tall blue man and the small, delicate girl. Jack does not look down at the slender form clutching his hand; rather he gazes out to the horizon, watching as the last rays of the sun sink below it, leaving streaks of darkening purple and the evening star glowing brightly between two mountain peaks.
At last, Jack speaks. "So."
He does not continue for several minutes, still staring at the brilliant, illuminated planet in the sky.
"So?" asks Jenny, as the silence begins to drag.
Jack shakes himself as if awakening from a deep trance. "We're going back to your village," he says softly. "We're picking up a friend of mind - possibly my only friend - and then we're going on a little adventure." His lips twitch upward in a smile that does not touch his round blue eyes. He looks down at the girl, whose eyes are wide with fright.
He tugs her forward, with force enough to make her stumble, but she says nothing, and follows him as he strides out across the frozen terrain.
OoOoO
A few hours later, the girl asks, faintly, if he will carry her. Jack looks down in surprise, to see her eyes drooping and her feet dragging trails in the snow. He heaves a sigh and scoops her into his arms.
The rhythm of his steps lulls the girl into sleep, her forehead resting against Jack's chilly neck.
The frost prince strides on throughout the night.
(March 24, 2009 - 9:13 pm)
One word: AMAZING!!!!
(March 25, 2009 - 4:05 pm)
Poe is waiting for them as they approach Montaview. He stands calmly, his hands on his cane, outside his door. The moonlight lights the snow at his feet and sends up a steady radiance to light his face.
He bows his head as Jack strides up to him with Jenny in tow. "You were right, Jack," he murmurs. "As always. I suppose you want me to come with you?"
"It would certainly speed things along," says Jack cooly.
"I'm old, Jack. I turn ninety in a week. I can't go traipsing about in the middle of the night with a supernatural being and a changeling girl."
"So you'd rather hide in your study with your books and your fire?" asks Jack sharply, a small crease appearing between his eyebrows.
Poe sighs. "An old man needs his comforts."
"And frost elves do not," replies Jack.
"Especially not their prince?"
"Especially not him."
Poe sags, defeated. "Let me get my coat, and the book."
"Hurry."
(March 25, 2009 - 11:03 pm)
Poe hobbles out of his house a few moments later, one gnarled hand clutching an enormous leather-bound book. The book has no title and the cover is thick with dust.
Jack blinks at it slowly.
"Let's go," he says. "There's a sleigh waiting for us just out of sight of town."
"Ah, good," mutters Poe.
The trio sets off across the snow, their backs to the small town in the valley.
(March 29, 2009 - 11:15 pm)
To get this up to the first page...
(March 29, 2009 - 11:16 pm)
And another.
(March 29, 2009 - 11:17 pm)
One more...
(March 29, 2009 - 11:19 pm)
and another... again...
(March 29, 2009 - 11:41 pm)