CHAPTER 1: Penguin Girl
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Antarctic base AU. Written for the Kristanna Christmas in July 2018 Secret Santa event on Tumblr, my gift for epbaker
Anna in an animal onesie is an adorable image and I will not be convinced otherwise.
Apologies in advance to anyone with actual knowledge of Antarctic operations.
. . .
. . .
Lousy Antarctica.
Anna Arendal threw her covers off and dragged herself to her feet, strangling a howl of frustration as she looked at the clock, her only reliable measure of time on this stupid continent. She opened the shutters, ignoring the recommended closure hours sensibly displayed across them in Norwegian, and let the bright daylight into her room. Her brain kind of knew the light was there anyway, even if she couldn't see it. It felt like daytime, twenty-four seven. And she had got used to it. Mostly. Normally. You couldn't be an intrepid polar researcher if you couldn't manage the weird hours- everyone knew that. But…
Lousy Kristoff.
Lousy storm.
Lousy dated, unreliable equipment, that falls apart if a teensy little gale force wind hits it.
Lousy… actually, this wasn't Elsa's fault at all, not this time.
Lousy Anna. Lousy Anna's lousy big mouth.
Lousy comms blackout, at the worst possible time.
She fell back on top of the mangled bed covers, the ambient chill than pervaded every inch of Troll Station even in summer creeping under her onesie and the pyjamas underneath that, at throat and wrist and ankle, setting her skin tingling. The chill cut through the fog of her insomniac funk, just a little.
It was all her fault. And Kristoff's. And the storm, obviously. And the midnight sun. But mainly hers.
She shouldn't have yelled at him. Kristoff was a big, oblivious… Kristoff, and she was expecting him to be a mind-reader. Of course he didn't get why she'd been pulling out her hair about a few days without Internet. She'd never explained about her family, after all. Not that he'd been very polite about it.
But then neither had Anna. Maybe it was guilt, the reason she was replaying their argument in her head over and over. Or maybe… maybe it was a sign of how few people she actually had, out here, on the underside of the world. How few friends to lose.
Lousy language barrier…
. . .
. . .
Antarctica is a post-state scientific utopia. In theory.
On December 1st, 1959, the twelve nations with active science bases on the frozen continent signed the Antarctic treaty, dedicating one of the great land masses of Earth to peace and scientific discovery. As of 2006, forty countries are signed up to the treaty and operate research bases and stations. More than forty are permanent, 12 months-per-year settlements, antennae and living pods linked together like moon bases, dozens more are small, summer outposts.
The biggest, McMurdo Station, is American. It is more like a town than an outpost, its population never dropping below two hundred even in the depths of the polar winter, and swelling to over a thousand in the summer research season. That was where Anna had spent her first season in the continent. So many fellow research biologists. So many penguins! She could literally walk to one of the Adélie colonies, except that she had promised never to do that again. Those darn pencil pushers…
This year was different. Particular research had to be collected from other parts of the continent, very specific, penguin-ey data which couldn't be gleaned from what other nations had shared. I can do that one, Anna had said, pointing to where Troll Station had been circled on the map. My parents spoke Norwegian. I'll fit right in…
"It'll be great!" Anna had insisted to Elsa. "No more of the big-base politics and bureaucracy and meetings… Ugh, so many meetings! All the nonsense there was around that congressional visit. None of which was my fault, by the way. Just real researchers, braving the frozen wilds for science!"
Elsa had looked uncertain; she hadn't said anything about how Anna was travelling to the other end of the planet again, and that it was different this time, they were different. But they'd promised to stay in contact- the base had a dish for Internet- and Anna had sworn she wouldn't let them drift apart a second time.
. . .
The journey back to the frozen continent had gone smoothly, considering how complicated it all was. Connecting flights down the length of the Americas, an overnight stay at an airfield in Argentina, and then a chartered plane had brought her back to McMurdo. She'd had enough time to say 'See ya later' to a couple of old friends before the equipment she'd need was collected and loaded onto yet another plane, which had carried her to the South Pole.
A pilot had greeted her on arrival, a sharp-featured older woman who had informed her in laboured English that she was to to fly her the rest of the way, and had seemed surprised but delighted when Anna answered her in Norwegian, even complementing her accent. She hadn't known she had an accent. Was that… actually a complement, though?
With an hour or two free once she'd made sure her luggage was safely transferred to the smaller cargo plane, and although she had already felt tired from the long hours in the air, Anna had still got out and walked around the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. Partly to stretch her legs, and partly because she was at the South Pole.
The South Pole… Wasn't that just crazy? Mother Earth's frosty little butt.
It hadn't even been all that cold, being the start of the Antarctic summer. Okay, pretty cold, maybe minus twenty, but she'd come straight from the first frosts of a New York winter and was wrapped up in the finest thermal gear government funding could buy, so she'd felt the sting on the exposed parts of her cheeks and that was about all.
There was… literally a pole there.
Right in front of the base. It was a goofy little thing- red and white striped with a shiny ball on top, sticking up absurdly from the packed white permafrost. To think so many men died to reach the site of some novelty lawn ornament…
She had taken a selfie with it, to send to Elsa as soon as she had Internet.
By the time the final leg had brought her to the little airfield alongside Troll Station, she had been awake for more than twenty hours, which had made it, according to the pilot, only mid morning by Central European Time. A massive man whose ginger muttonchops were sprinkled with white had been standing, waiting for her, by a red minibus fitted with massive winter tyres. Every vehicle in Antarctica looked like a scaled-up kids' toy. As it turned out that was the station director, Dr Kjøpmann, who insisted on Anna calling him Oaken with the same polite informality which proved to be the norm for… most of the station staff.
On the way from the airfield Oaken had launched into what could well have been the introductory spiel he gave every newcomer. Troll Station was established first by the Norwegians as a summer outpost, and only expanded into a permanent, year-round station in 2003. This was good news in a lot of ways- there were all the modern conveniences. A TV room. Even basic Wi-Fi- although he admitted it wasn't very reliable. A sauna- Anna had tried not to giggle at that. But of course there was a sauna…
And the base now had a wind turbine to generate part of its power. He sounded particularly proud of that. Then Anna remembered being told that a good portion of the Norwegian scientists at the base were environmental researchers. Sustainability was probably close to their hearts.
The base was not much to look at in itself- Antarctic stations never are. A handful of blocky prefabricated buildings, mostly bright red to stand out at a distance to anyone lost nearby, connected by tracks and walkways. What really stood out was that it was all built not on snow, but on bare rock. A huge rock formation rose out of the ice sheet, running up towards a collection of oddly shaped mountains in the near distance, and the Norwegians had planted their flag right on top of it. Oaken explained all this, adding that the mountains were the 'trolls' after which the station had been named.
By the time they had made it to the station, Anna had been half-awake, and they had installed her equipment in one of the lab buildings and installed Anna herself in an empty dormitory room as quickly as possible so she could sleep off some of her extreme jet lag, having gone from EST to New Zealand time then back to European time over the course of one trip.
Left alone to unpack and rest, she'd zipped open her case, changed into her pyjamas, pulled her favourite penguin onesie on over the top because she'd still felt the chill, then remembered just in time to text Elsa.
…
Did you arrive yet? x
Anna, please text me when you're safely there. You know I get jittery when you travel x
Arrived safely! ;)
Thank God. How is your Norwegian holding up?
Xxx
Okey dokey so far.
I'm so out of practice.
Elsa I need my sleep. So do you. It's 4am in NY.
Wait!
?
Forgot this. Lo, ye literal South Pole XD
This… is ridiculous x
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Don't let the bed bugs bite x
Have an adventure, Anna. Skype me. Love you x
Luv u xxx
…
Sisterly duty discharged, Anna had flipped the light switch and collapsed straight onto the bed, instantly asleep…
She'd been woken up again after only a couple of hours, but that was life, wasn't it?
. . .
Broken sleep was kind of part of working through the midnight sun, Anna considered, still staring at the ceiling of her room. Maybe they were all feeling a little edgy, shorter tempered…
After another twenty minutes replaying her good and bad choices with increasing frustration, Anna thought: To heck with it. Brooding was Elsa's thing- she was a problem solver.
Well, how to solve her problems, then?
Problem 1: Elsa. Couldn't do anything about her until the storm damage to the comms dish was fixed.
Problem 2: Kristoff.
Kristoff. Anna had the beginnings of a plan to repair that particular burned bridge. Hopping up, she pulled her boots, gloves and coat on over her night clothes. If she remembered the rota right, Olaf was on nights at the moment…
. . .
. . .
Olaf Snømann was in his element. Three quarters of the staff were asleep and the canteen block was empty, so he could use the kitchen without interruption. Strictly speaking, Troll Station having no official chef, meals were meant to be cooked by the researchers based on a rota, but Olaf often volunteered his down time to bake, mix, prepare. Partly because putting together a lovely stew relaxed him when he wasn't grappling with satellite data, and partly because if he didn't cook, someone else had to- and most of his colleagues struggled to empty a tin of herring onto a slice of bread. It certainly made him popular. Everyone wanted to be friends with the cook.
Of course, with the satellite down he had all the time in the world anyway.
The door swung open which a swish of frozen air which tickled Olaf's scalp through his thin, silver hair, and a lone figure waddled in, wrapped in a thick high vis coat. It wasn't time for the night shift to eat, but there was no mistaking his visitor anyway. Olaf stopped stirring the stew pot and hurried to shut the door as fast as his stumpy legs would allow as American Anna undid her jacket, yawning. Underneath she was dressed in the same bizarre one-piece hooded costume that she'd worn the first time they'd met, her wind-burnt face framed by ginger pigtails sticking out under a goofy plush penguin face…
. . .
She had only been at the base a couple of hours at that point, months ago, but according to her she had forgotten to turn off her phone alarm. Now, an early alarm in Latin America is past midday in Europe and, finding herself awake at lunch, she'd decided to brazen out her jet lag and try the canteen.
Everyone had introduced themselves, of course. And it had turned out the base rumour mill was, for once, true and she actually spoke Norwegian, although her accent was so strong Olaf couldn't believe she had ever left the United States before. Although Olaf's own spoken English was atrocious, so it was a relief to know they wouldn't have to rely on it.
In any case, she had sat down, bleary-eyed, clad in her novelty onesie, said thank you very politely for the smørbrød Olaf had placed before her, before devouring a good half of it with her hands- like a toddler. Eventually she'd gone pink in the cheeks, registering that people were staring, and picked up her knife and fork to finish. Someone had jokingly called her 'Pingu' and she'd looked at them blankly. Olaf had shooed them away and sat down to eat with her, feeling a little protective of this young, half-penguin researcher, with her feral American table manners, half asleep and wholly out of her element.
And she was fun, it turned out. A breath of fresh, crazy air. He'd not had a snowball fight in years before Anna had arrived…
. . .
Anna coughed, bringing Olaf's mind back to the present before he could .
"Hi Olaf. I'm sorry about the dish."
He looked back at the pot. "What? Oh, the satellite dish." He shrugged, smiling serenely. "These things happen. He glanced out one of the little porthole-like windows, sighed, and returned to stirring the pot. "This land is beautiful, powerful, dangerous… that is part of the wonder of it. A little damage, a little delay- it's nothing we can't fix."
Anna inhaled sharply, wringing her hands. "Yeah… fixing things. About that. Could I ask you a really, really big favour?"
. . .
. . .
Kristoff shovelled snow.
The base had a snow plough, obviously, but the storm had done more than spread a few feet of powder over the roads. In the driving wind, tonnes had built up in dense drifts against the buildings, burying cables and equipment that had to be dug out by hand. And so, since Lars had called dibs on the plough and he wouldn't be driving Anna anywhere until comms were restored, Kristoff had picked up a shovel and offered a hand.
That was if Anna ever actually wanted to share a cab with him again. The thought that she might insist Oaken assign her one of the other techs bothered him in a way part of him found surprising. He wasn't sure exactly when he'd stopped being annoyed by the ginger menace and started…
He carried on shovelling. He'd been working at it steadily for a while now; Sápmi winters had trained him well and he kept up a clean, rhythmic technique, the exertion warming him against the burning cold of the Antarctic air, efficiently clearing the loose-packed snow into piles that could be swept off by vehicle. Initially the exercise had kept his head clear, stopped him from dwelling on the fight, but now specific impressions kept forcing their way back into his head.
Anna had been so unreasonably angry, Kristoff had thought, about losing Skype when the blackout left the base cut off from other stations if there were an actual emergency, and when the whole TrollSat team's actual jobs rested on the comms mast being fixed, and when actual international treaties existed around Norway sharing that satellite data. And he'd told her so, and he'd not really listened to her…
But now, now he remembered her hands, fidgeting, tying her braids in knots as she'd complained; the tension in her wide blue-green eyes, almost tearful, and that wasn't just Anna being her usual impatient, volatile self. Something had been very wrong, and Kristoff hadn't listened.
Now he was worried, and wondering if it was too late to fix… whatever they had. It wasn't like he could fix comms.
Kristoff remembered when he had first set eyes on her…
. . .
He'd been hearing the others gossip about Anna for a couple of days, the strange American penguin girl, but they'd kept missing each other, which suited him fine. 'Kind of hot', apparently, 'in a Pippi Långstrump sort of way'- he hadn't wanted to dwell on that particular disturbing mental image. All Kristoff had known was that some American government agency had cut a deal with some Norwegian government agency, which meant he now had to spend four days a week ferrying some stranger far overland to look at birds.
He had been checking over the snowcat when Anna and Oaken had come strolling up together. The Red Sven was a tracked polar specialist about the size of a tow truck, and the only vehicle they had with the necessary speed and range for Ms Arendal's outings. The director had simply handed Kristoff his revised work schedule and marched back to his office with a wave, leaving his more taciturn countryman to try and make conversation with the newcomer.
It had turned out that making conversation with Anna Arendal was mostly nodding and saying 'Huh'. Her Norwegian was better than he'd heard, although her accent was strong, going high and low in all the wrong places with heavy American 'R's. Still, words, mostly the correct ones, poured bubbling up out of this girl- sweet and effervescent and unrelentingly upbeat, like a human can of Sprite. Questions, follow-up questions, answers to questions he hadn't asked… maybe it was a nervous trait?. She had just arrived after all.
Their first trip had dispelled the theory that Anna only talked too much when she was nervous, as she'd quickly settled into a calm, collected routine of always thinking in her mouth.
Anna was in Troll Station because it was 'close' to penguin colonies she needed to observe and collect data from. However, Antarctica was a continent, and 'close' meant travelling hundreds of miles by snowcat as opposed to thousands by plane. Troll Station being the 'closest' to the colonies she needed to study meant that it was 'only' a three hour drive each way in fine weather, plus an hour or two of driving between the penguin nesting spots themselves. Plus waiting around for Anna to make observations and collect samples.
And through it all, Anna would talk…
...
Are we there yet?
No.
You don't say much, huh?
No.
…
…
…
If the rock rises through the ice around the station, is the ice thinner? Like, do we have to worry less about falling in cracks?
Actually, you'd think so, but no. The ice gets thick pretty quick as you move away from the Jutulsessen nunatak.
…
…
…
I've never observed an Emperor colony before. Most of the data I collected last year is from Adélies, but we need to track the pollution effects on the other Antarctic species and form hypotheses about dietary factors, so… are you listening?
Um, sure.
…
…
…
Are you ever around in winter?
No, it's only really the satellite station team that are needed during the long night.
Twenty-four hours of night. That must suck.
Yes.
…
…
…
Are the nights very long where you come from?
Oh yes.
So, far in the North?
Sápmi.
Sorry?
Sápmi. You know, ugh, 'Lapland'?
Like Santa Claus?
…No, not like Santa Claus.
…
…
…
What's a Pingu?
…
…
…
It had been exhausting at first, chauffeuring their foreign guest from breeding site to breeding site. That first week, the idea of being grounded at Troll Station for a few days would have sounded like a holiday. So why, whatever he did, however much he tinkered with the vehicles in the garage, or cleared snow until his back and shoulders burned and his clothes and beard were dusted white… Why did the day feel so empty now?
He missed the easy smile, the fizzy energy that escaped in bursts of joy, or curiosity, or irritation. He somehow missed the constant barrage of words.
He missed Anna. At some point in all those long, long drives over the ice, she'd grown on him.
Like a terrorist and her hostage…
. . .
. . .