Frosty Findings(Open)

[skadi]

So far, this place was much more like home than the massive city she had just left. Everything always seemed to get better when the weather was colder. This place was practically an abyss. Nearly baron and freezing as could be. She most certainly felt more at home. In addition, she could live freely and do as she pleased. She wore her old clothes again, the soft leather and fur enveloping her in what could only be comfort. This was the closest thing to home she had now. After setting up a shelter, she wandered into the snow, feeling its frozen surface beneath her feet. She glanced up at the sky and wished that more would fall to make the surface fluffier, but the night was clear. Such a thing would not happen. However, it did. The large fluffy flakes astounded her.

In a matter of moments, a new coat of snow blanketed the ice, causing a cushion the form. Dispite how confused this made her, she still fell back into the new snow and felt its icy softness beneath her touch. She became even more confused when she realized that the snow wasn’t melting under her touch. She sat up and scooped up at handful of snow, wondering why it was remaining solid. Her body heat should have at made it melt at least a little bit. ’Come on, melt. she thought to herself and just like that, the handful of snow became a handful of icy water. She was utterly confused at this, but suddenly she began to get an idea.

With her mind, she told the ice to expand upward, and it did, nearly probing her in the back in the process. She stopped it and glanced up at the sky, told the snow to stop, and it abruptly did. Then she told it to begin again. It did. Now, she was smiling. She glanced at the water still in her palm and ordered it to freeze in a sphere. It did. Saying that she was enjoying herself would be an understatement.

Suddenly, her excitment was cut short by the sound of footsteps. She was not as alone as she had hoped. Her insticts set in and her fingers embraced the iron axe that lay at her side and her other arm was prepared to draw her sword if she needed to.

[decemberfirst]

Anya was walking in the snow. She'd needed some time to think, so she decided to head somewhere cold. The colder the air was around her, the quicker she thought. She was barefooted, which would seem insane to anyone who didn't know her. All she wore was dark bootcut jeans, a t-shirt and her jean jacket on top. She had a little circular handle sticking out of her back pocket. Anyone who didn't know her wouldn't know what it really was.

She walked through the snow. It stopped abruptly and then restarted again. She saw a girl in the distance, and tilted her head to the side. She was obviously enjoying herself. Did she have somethind to do with the snow's sudden changes? Probably.

She walked closer and then froze in place when she saw the girl reach for her weapons.

"You don't have to get defensive," Anya said, a smile on her face. "I'm just taking a walk." She stepped closer, ignoring the numbness in her toes.

[skadi]

Alvör was suspicious as always, but she finally decided that Anya was no threat. Then again, she knew very little about this world. How was she to decide if she was threatened or not. For once, Alvör decided to run on a bit of faith. She picked up her axe and threw it away from her, its blade driving deep into the untouched bark of a nearby tree.

“I won’t hurt you if you won’t hurt me.”

She may have been a Viking, but she was still true to her word. She examined Anya subtly, a bit confused by a few things about the new aquantiance. The odd circle in her back pocket was one of them, but she decided to discard it.

“Do your normally wander about the forest in the middle of the night?”

She asked, hoping not to sound too blunt. Old habits die hard after all.

[decemberfirst]

Anya watched this girl curiously. By making eye contact, she managed to pull out a little bit about her. She could usually only read David's mind, but now it was also working on this mysterious girl. She was viking, which wasn't all that surprising considering her clothing and weapons. She could also tell the viking thought she might be a threat. Do I look threatening? Anya thought not, but to a viking she might.

"Fair enough," Anya pull the circle out of her back pocket and tossed it to the snow, beside the tree where her axe was stuck.

To answer her question, which was only slightly blunt, she said, "I do when I need to think. Quiet and cold seem to clear my mind."

She was silent a moment before continuing. "Do you normally wander about the forest in the middle of the night?" she asked with a smirk.

[skadi]

Alvör watched the circle fly towards the tree and relaxed slightly once it was there. Being overly cautious was part of her job. She never underestimated anything, which was actually a good thing lately because everything seemed to be getting stranger and stranger. To her at least. After all, she had only been a part of this new world for a short time. It took some getting used to.

When Anya turned the question to her, Alvör only smirked. “As a matter of fact I do. One of those occupational hazards that I enjoy so much.”

“I’m Alvör . It seems being friendly is a good idea around here so I’ll give it a shot. Are you hungry? I have some fish on the fire.” She nodded to where she small shelter and fire were hidden by the trees. She didn’t know that the rules of fishing and hunting had changed so much since she last participated in the sports, but she would learn after being put on display enough.

[decemberfirst]

She smiled when she said occupational hazard. Anya wasn't used to such big words, but understood what it meant just fine. She'd seen how Alvör instantly relaxed when she'd thrown the circle in the her pocket over beside the tree. But she was still curious to see if she was the one who'd tampered with the snow.

"I'm Anya," she said and nodded when Alvör offered her fish. Her toes where about to freeze so she would enjoy the shelter and fire.

[skadi]

Alvör stood aside and offered for Anya to go first. The shelter really wasn’t much. Just a collection of stakes constructed to make a makeshift tent with discarded leather she had found while leaving the hectic city.

The fish weren’t exactly orthodox either. Granted, they were all fish, that was for certain, but their entrails and bones were completely gone, including the tail, which wasn’t exactly inedible. Alvör simply disliked the texture. However, where the fish were missing their pieces, there was no clean cut with a knife. Instead, the flesh was ripped apart.

Alvör probed at one of the fish, checking to see if it was done all the way. This one thing made her even more unorthodox by Viking standards. She knew many men who wouldn’t have thought twice about eating a fish raw. The mere thought of it made her nauseous.

[decemberfirst]

She went first and made it to the little tent. It wasn't the nicest tent ever, but Anya thought it was cute. She could tell that she'd made it herself, which was very impressive. More than Anya could do. She was the opposite of handy. Unless you need detective work, Anya is pretty much useless.

She watched Alvor probe the fish and waited patiently. She wasn't much of a fish person, but she'd eat it anyway. She'd never met many interesting people on her journeys into the forest. But this viking was definitely on the top of the list of cool people to meet when you're lonely and freezing.

[skadi]

“Do you know what this is?” she questioned suddenly, holding up a tiny white tube that she had discovered while setting up her make shift home. She had opened the cap and inside was a waxy substance that was worn down by being rubbed against something. She had tried rubbing it on her fish for lunch, wondering if it was a spice, but all it did was make the food waxy.

Suddenly, she blushed and looked down. “I’m sorry. I’m sort of new to all of this. The only thing I know is sailing and slaying. Well, not the only thing, but one of them.”

She poked the fish again and this time it was done. Nice and crispy on the outside and far from raw in the middle.

She pulled one of the fish off and handed it to Anya. “They’re normally better when I have my spices, but they were ruined.”

[decemberfirst]

"No, I don't know what it is," Anya admitted.

After Alvor blushed and spoke of sailing and slaying, Anya was more interested. "Sailing and slaying? Slaying what?" she asked curiously. "And where did you sail too?" Then she stopped before she could ask another question. This curious girl obviously didn't know if she should trust Anya, so asking her millions of questions would only make her more suspicious.

"Sorry," she said after a moment. "I'm just curious. I always like adventure."

Then she was handed the fish. "Why? What happened to your spices?" No more quesitons! Shut up, mouth. Anya told herself grimly, and began eating and smiled again. "This is really good," she admitted. Anya didn't even like fish, but she liked this one.

[skadi]

“Oh…usually other people. Monks. If given the chance I would have slayed Leif Ericsson.” she shook her head and mumbled to herself. Dispite the fact that he was dead, she regretted that she hadn’t been the one to deliver the fatal blow. She and Leif didn’t get along so well. “And we’d go all over. Sometimes we’d go far north into the ice caps or further south where it was more hot than I was comfortable with.”

When Anya apologized, she smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s fine. I enjoy telling stories. It’s like escaping to the past.”

Alvör bit her bottom lip at the question before proceeding. “They were lost when I got frozen. I couldn’t exactly save them.”

[decemberfirst]

Anya listened intently to everything she said, "Wow. I bet it was awesome to travel all the time like that. And kicking some bad guy butt is always fun to do along the way," she laughed a little.

By now, she was already almost done with her fish. Then she heard her say something about being frozen. "Frozen?" Anya immediately thought of the snow. Even though she had a feeling she already knew, she asked anyway. "How?"

[skadi]

Alvör smiled and nodded. “It was very enjoyable. I would give anything to do it again.” her smile faltered once again at the reminder that everyone she had known and loved were dead. Some of them may have even been in a museum. That thought didn’t comfort her.

She scooped up a handful of snow and gently shook her hand, allowing the loose flakes to fall off. “I think I’ve just found that out actually. I’m sure if I tell you, you’ll think I’m mad if you don’t already.”

[decemberfirst]

She shook her head, smiling slightly at remembering being called mad herself a few times.

"Everyone says I'm insane, too. I came out in the snow with nothing but a jean jacket. I'm not even wearing shoes. Whatever happened to you, I think I'll be able to handle it," Anya smiled at her. Even though her winter clothing wasn't the only reason she'd been called insane before, it was one of them. The other reason was her powers, which no one believed were real until she went to the mansion.

Anya hoped Alvor trusted her enough to tell her. She was good at helping people figure things out, but only if they'd let her.

[skadi]

Alvör sighed. She might as well just come out and say it before she spent her entire life denying it. The snow in her hand burst away from her at her command, creating what could be considered a snow firework. Just as the snow was about to drift back down to the ground again, she beckoned it back into her hand, where it formed into a crystal like ice sphere.

“A very long time ago, I was a Viking. Not just a crazy person who dresses like a Viking, but an actual Viking. The only female one, in fact. My mother died when I was very young and my father didn’t have the heart to send me away. Then, he was in command of some of the fiercest Vikings you’ve ever seen. He raised me to fight and hunt with my older brothers. However, as I said, my job has occupational hazards. Living is often one of them. We were being perused by some that wanted to strip us of all we had. Naturally, my father wouldn’t allow this to happen so we went north. Further north than we had ever gone before. I was put on the first watch, as always. However, our enemies were smart, for once. They attacked us from the land. I fought them as I warned the others, but I took a hammer to the head.” She raised a lock of hair exposing a scab from a bludgeoning wound that couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. “After that, all I remember is falling into the icy water and blacking out. I think that me being able to do this with the ice and snow may have bound me to the ice, keeping me preserved until it melted, which it did a few weeks ago. I can’t remember anything else that happened between then. It’s just…empty space."