Title: The Snowboy: Reconcilliation: Part 1: Better Than This?
Author: Eärillë
Number: B15
Challenge: Landscape: Glacier
Summary:
Envoys came to retake the ring Arvedui had given the Lossoth folk for shelter and food. They did not come simply for the ring, though. But would the Ice-People accept their form of gratitude? Still, Dúnedain were many things, tenacious included.
Rating: G
Warnings: first draft
Characters: OC's
Genres: Character Study
Place: Bay of Forochel: encampment of the Lossoth
Timeline: middle Third Age: envoys came to the Lossoth to retake Barahir's ring
Word Count (in MS Word): 760
Notes: The story is going to be a two-part fic, the sequel of the author's B2MeM 2011 project, which has been retitled to "The Snowboy: Thoughts of the Intruders." The language is still a total randomness of the author's making, and the lifestyle of the Ice-People adheres to how the Eskimos live in our own earth. It is also still on the first-person (present-tense) point of view of the son's of the tribe's chieftain.
The Snowboy: Reconcilliation
Part 1: Better Than This?
Winter is nigh. Waters are freezing up, and it gets harder to hunt for bears and fishes to stock up for the bitter weathers. It is, though, a perfect time to just enjoy the remaining good climate and the declining sunlight. I have no obligation to help Mother stock up because of the lack of game to hunt, and Father has presently agreed to mind my little sisters.
Freedom!
I do not know where Kéil and Kinai are, though.
Well, I just have to go adventuring myself, then. And I know just the perfect place…
Fitted with bear-fur hooded coat and boots, and also with the deer-skin gloves Father traded with a few outsiders during the heights of this summer, I skip merrily northward, while taking care that I leave no footprints upon the frozen earth so that no noisy person – or people – will think to track me down. Everybody is busy with their own tasks and forms of entertainment, anyway, and I am free to go on my own speed – that is, if I do not accidentally tread upon an ice-sheet and slide along under its slippery power.
Unluckily – or not, I cannot decide – I am unfortunate this time. Too busy with seeing if I have left footprints, I fail to see ahead and the tip of my right boot treads upon the beginning of a sleek, glossy-dark ice-sheet. Yelping in surprise and wooping from sheer adrenaline, I laugh and flail my hands to hopefully keep my balance. The ice-sheet carries me along its length inexorably, and my only hope is to navigate it with different turns of my boots. Wind whips my face and I am beginning to notice my cheeks and the tip of my nose burning with the cold, but I do not care.
The ice-sheet stretches long and wide, apparently, for when I finally throw myself upon a boulder to stop my skidding, I find that I have arrived to my destination.
And the ice-river still looks as beautiful as ever…
Hauling myself onto the boulder, I settle down and bring my knees to my chest, hugging them as I am enjoying this rare treat.
Mother and Father were so angry when they first heard that I had ventured to the ice-river, so I did not visit here again for a long time. But why did they fear so? I never got the answer, even until now. The green and blue and white hues look quite handsome on the slowly-moving ice, especially when lit by the sun like this. The low rumbling is a little frightening, indeed, but it somehow just makes the ice-river more handsome – more powerful, more…. Manly. I do not know why people are afraid of it, as long as they do not stand on its path – which is quite foolish, and I will not blame the ice-river for such act of stupidity. Besides, it is far older than we are, or so said my elders. Why should our ancestors have settled here if they were that afraid of it? For myself, I hope it will still be here when I get old, to accompany and entertain me with its slow dance and deep rumbling and pretty colours.
Unluckily – now really, unluckily – I am so caught up watching the ice-river that I am not aware of somebody coming up at me and standing by the boulder.
The somebody grips my shoulders hard and turns me around, and I behold Father's angry look.
Very, very angry…
I gulp. "Father," I greet him in a tiny voice, quickly looking away from his fiery eyes. In such a manner I find that he has not come alone, as I see that two rather familiar people are flanking him with bemused and wary looks on their faces.
Perhaps seeing where my eyes have turned to, Father introduces me to the strangers instead of immediately berating me. "They are the friends of those we sheltered briefly last spring, Aláik. They are offering us to leave our homeland for a warmer place."
I look back at Father and gape, stricken with horror. Leave here? Leave the chancy ice-holes and fun ice-sheets and handsome ice-river and all the white snow? Why? Can I just stay, even if everyone else go away?
Fire is gone from Father's eyes, when I manage to blink back my tears. He nods as if something in me has helped him make a decision. To my utter relief, he then says, "I am rejecting the offer, little one. We do not need to move anywhere."
I fling myself at him and cling to him like someone years younger than I am. I do not care, for now. I am just happy that I do not have to say farewell to everything I have known since babyhood, including Old Ice-river.