Keslova Snow PT 2 – Day's Snuck
Twirls of tickling cold, belittling all those in its presence against nature's reign of empowerment. The reach of its ghastly paws would go against the walls within, trying to pry open sealed gaps and escape to its sibling outside, a sibling of patience's eternity.
There was a stir to the long-extinguished fire, then a groan of stiffness and exhaustion. It belonged to Flo whose only resemblance of her body was that of her pink nose, which wiggled to the master of time and life. The headache within her head was of lesser evil, while the warmth against her back could even be stamped as annoying, but the end of her nose spoke the unspoken gratitude of this blanket-alive.
Before her, the fire of yesterday's night, were the remnants of heat's admiration, heat's affection. Nevertheless, the affection was present to the exchanges of energies to her back, and the wolf who had snuggled her close with his bigger body. Maybe there was something she could find about the situation, something to maybe cherish?
There wasn't time to try and find things her mind had issues coping with, so she struggled out of the tight grasp and met the full force of her old home's lonely confines, degrading to time, withering to memory's gulp. In a shiver, she tugged on her coat, put on her hood and turned on her feet to go and wake Jim.
His form had changed to one of a fetus, as the lack of a pillow now worked against his previous comfort. Flow knew she had to wake him to tasks' demands, but looking at his silly form gave her a twinkle of strange enjoyment, especially as his lips twitched in his muzzle's attempts of finding refuge underneath his coat.
The heat from her back was dissipating, and now her body was whispering to her to get it back, as no longer did annoyance scrape her skull in wishes-unnecessary. His visible need for sleep made her sigh in fogginess, and she got to their knapsacks, where the leftovers of their supplies hid like cockroaches to extermination. The seriousness of reality, it brought her consistent mind to scour the possibilities of their surroundings and decisions-remaining.
With a quick touch to one of her inner pockets, she got out a silver, topaz ring into which she reflected her eyes deeply in calculating thought. If this was their highest chance, then it was worth the shot.
The way out was sought as she pushed the essentials into her knapsack. The destination was set in her head, and she just had to get there. But just as she put the weight on her shoulders in deafness, the groan of her wolf partner stopped her limbs.
"Really, Rose?"
…
Frosty white in shapes distorted, coating hidden places carefully sorted, its tops coughing ashy smoke, the air instilled with its transparent cloak. Life was stopped under all this frost, but the path was ready and bore people's narrow tracks.
This didn't discourage the two Zootopian refugees to stop their aimed direction towards the inner sanctum of the village-cozy. At least Flo wasn't going through the thoughts of distraction. She knew the place well, and the trust in consistency just kept her steady with the confidence of knowing that everything had to be alright. Alas, she finally looked back at Jim, who was constantly swooshing around his unrestrained head, as to see if they weren't being followed by their hunters-mysterious.
The village would have different fur in the seasons of warmth, and its appearance, as of now, would bear no resemblance of spring's or autumn's shades of life. Nonetheless, it brought newness to the heart, newness derived from the peacefulness-white. It was radiating from the protection of limited accessibility.
"I don't agree with this, Flo," Wolfard whispered, just as they passed by the fenced garden of an elderly mountain goat. Her mind asked of her to brush aside the words as noise, due to them being unworthy of her leaking energies, yet she found it in herself to sigh in a steamy venture, and glance at the paranoid wolf. The words of eyes translated for several steps, and she then just tugged on her coat and looked at a distant chimney, which was spewing toxic-black ash: signs of someone burning plastic.
The village hadn't changed one bit, and it gave her more reassurance for their obligation to survival.
"Let's go back. Now or never," Wolfard insisted as he leaned forwards into their fast motion. She tried again to give him peace without words, but he wasn't accepting it anymore, and it was causing a public issue, because they would have to stop in the middle of the narrow path of snow. The incoming person from the opposite direction got her to agree to give some bread to his hungry worries.
"We don't have a choice. We need information, supplies. We must do this." Her pace slowed as she looked into his eyes. "There is no other way, Jim. We already discussed this." Jim's muzzle trembled in dissonance, but Flo couldn't falter to stop and get him to see what she could, as the brown bear trudged along the path, making it wider and more accessible to those smaller.
"Mornin'," the bear said in a polite smile, and Flo returned the curtsey as such was socially acceptable. But she did note the suspicion in the villager's short scrutiny, especially when Jim had just peeked behind them yet again.
"Stop raising suspicion on us," Flo advised as they dug their feet onto the crunchy cold.
"We have to know. Someone has to cover our backs."
"Stop it."
"They saw us. We just wrapped ourselves in a ribbon." Wolfard breathed behind Flo's hood, but she just chose not to react and gave fortitude to the village center, where she hoped to find hearth.
But then her knapsack was yanked motionless, and she was met head-first with the bloodshot eyes of the ex-officer and her partner. "See reason! We need to fucking go, they'll b—"
Flo wrenched herself from his hold and tried to quickly get them out of the area, since Wolfard was sleep deprived, just like her, but was now undergoing the awful aftereffects, similar to hers of last night. He didn't have much of a choice, and she knew that as clear as the most valuable of diamonds. It was using the mechanics of manipulation, but if they were to save their endangered lives, such wouldn't be a catastrophic aftermath in the end.
The village center was clean, the pavement below visible to the lackluster snow, while stands of fish on the other side bustled with the trading of life and money. There was a stationary plough jeep with its driver talking to someone in a tanktop-bare. Some people here were just immune to the cold, though the muskox's fur alone would've kept that mammle heated anyways.
The sign of the center's inn, 'Bob&Bait', conveyed rest to the hunger and embrace to comfort, which Flo didn't think about, yet it was their destination all long. She knew the effects of people and warmth would reduce Jim's anxiety and get him to relax internally.
Her other hope laid in the reality that they'd not be noted by anyone at the center, the least, but the plough jeep driver just glanced and stared at them with such wariness that she just couldn't bite away the frustration of how the plan was slowly getting more and more dangerous.
It didn't help when Jim just continued trying to spot everything around them. He appeared out of place, and more people were noticing. Their watchful eyes of apprehension: a feedback loop to Jim's anxiety.
They got to the wooden steps, where the sign's big Fish stared one-eyed into the village's rooftops. Her amusement in seeing all these preserved parts of her past life crept to a subtle smile, but she didn't allow it to linger too much, as they passed by another person and stopped just before the wooden doors of this welcoming inn.
Doubts were obvious, she wasn't sure if they'd be accepted. They were strangers in this place. She didn't expect anyone to remember her, and maybe it was for the best, otherwise an insider could rat them out, no offense to rats. Still, she had to do her part, so she sought for Jim's paw and gave him a squeeze of comfort, which the wolf took with a lowering of his ears.
Condensation filtered between her flat teeth, and she pushed inside the heat of this old place.
Immediately warmth, music and smells of taste tried to escape the hearth of solace. The pillars of wood marked the invisible barriers of guidance. People without their coats cheered and chattered, while some kind of recognizable country music noised from atop the ceiling's planks. Flo turned to see if Jim was following her proper, which he didn't fail to do for once since getting in the village. Her mind carried a tiny assumption about them not being seen, but the patrons immediately checked them out when the door shut in sound. Yea, a mistake on her part for not closing it silently.
In an increased pace, Flo passed underneath the hanging nets of things-unknown and got to the multi-species-sized inn counter, where there was a lone ram drinking his big beer jug. Flo removed her coat's hood and pulled out her long-white ears from the trap of warmth, her paw beckoning Jim's bugged eyes to do the same. His brownish fur was now exposed in its ruffles, and his wolfish muzzle glinted to the low light of the fire. Hopefully the shadows were obscuring them good from the rest of the surroundings.
They sat next to each other on the wooden chairs, with Jim flicking his long tail from the melted snow he had forgotten to brush off at the entrance. He was not fully within reason, and Flo couldn't judge him for that, tho judging was always a waste of time.
"How's getting seen… by all these people, smart, Flo!" Jim hissed at her, while the ram a few chairs away took ear in interest.
"Did you know: the highest percentages of robberies occur during the day. Can you tell me why?" Flo asked as she got her glasses out of her inner pocket and put them above her nose. She didn't even look for an answer. "It is least expected to happen."
"Getting seen isn't reducing any risk, Rose… and it's already more than what I'm comfortable with."
"Comfort is inconsequential." The door to the outside opened in light with a bulky form of a person, which Flo didn't focus on since she was giving more importance to the moment.
"Oh for… what you're doing isn't fair at all…" Jim sighed with his paw over his tired muzzle. What did he mean by that, why would he even say such a thing? Curiosity drew her out from the task at paw, and she was racing inside of her head for an answer. Maybe if she probed a bit, it would get out on itself.
"Nothing's fair. It's how it is. You have to adjust now to the reality." Her eyes spoke into Jim, but his emotional frustrations were in the rubs of his palms, which she judged to be pain from the cold of their tribulations, hopefully not frostbite.
"Thanks… for actively participating in that reality," he scorned as he looked away and upon the patrons of the dimly-lit inn. She took his words as acceptance, even if something was telling her that she was missing something. Knowing from experience, she decided to do as he had once told her, as to try and unravel the little nudge of different conclusions.
"Jim… what do you mea—"
"Where'ch'ya two lumber out from?" interrupted a bulky form with a red-brown striped coat, while it had a lumberjack cap of the same style's ends. She recognized the mammle, he was the guy from the plough truck outside, who she hoped to have not had given suspicion to. Yet he was here, in front them and asking who they were.
Jim stood from the chair and put his opened paws in front of him, a move she remembered Nick, the ZPD officer, doing frequently when he'd try to hide something. "Just getting some hot coffee, and we'll be on our way," Jim explained with a overzealous smile. Even as he was visibly trying his best, he was nowhere close to the sly fox officer Flo knew.
"They don't deal coffee here," the bigger wolf grumbled and lowered his paws closer to his holstered axe, which was a clue to the escalated situation. Before Jim would say anything worse, Flo intervened.
"They do deal coffee here. It's in powder and is in cans. Mother Anya always sold them in cans. So you're wrong. Now leave us alone if you please." The red-clothed wolf's paws slumped down as he stared into Flo's rational expression, while the air festered with an uncomfortable aura, one which Flo deducted to be of reason. But reason never existed within those who lacked it.
"The hell are ya?" the bulky wolf snapped, and Wolfard quickly moved in front of Flo as the other wolf pointed his gloved finger at them. "Ya'll tell me now, or—"
"Leave them be, Boris! Can't you recognize her? It's Agatha's niece, you fishhead," said a feminine, but-deep, voice from behind the counter. She was causing a shadow with her tall frame, which made Jim to take a step away, while the other wolf faltered in a gawk. Flo knew who it was, and smiled in instinct to the moose innkeeper, a person who she hoped to see with all her reason.
"Hello, Ann. You look… older," Flo stated after a quick summary over the tall moose.
"Hah, always the blunt child you are, Rosie. Can't say the same, can I?"
"You can, because I am." A normal person would go for a small talk, but Flo didn't care one bit. "We're here for supplies."
"In a hurry?" All briskness failed at those words, and Ann glared at the big wolf. "Boris, stop staring and go clear the roads!"
"Ugh… yes, Mother, just… okay—" he mumbled and ran off, while Ann lowered herself closer to the sitting hare and tapped her fingers on the dancing reflections of the wood.
"Why the hurry? I know you've never been a talkative one but, I want to know how you've been. There's so much that happens in this tiny village of ours… how's the city, what brings you back here? Did you become a doctor? What about this youngster next to you, hmmm?" Wolfard shuffled audibly in discomfort to the suggestive smile of the moose, but Flo needed to just get them what they were here for, yet Ann was reluctant to give it without some juicy information, as she would usually call it in the past.
"Okay, but we ha—" A buzzing made Flo's ear spring up in tallness, a buzzing that was increasing with each second, a buzzing too familiar to not be instantly recognized.
"I told you!" Wolfard exclaimed miserably with paws over his head, eyes scouring everywhere. What could they do, the rumble of helicopter blades was going to be soon over them, and they were stuck in the middle of the village.
"This is odd…" Ann said and looked as if about to get outside, but then she caught Flo's gaze and scowled at her. "You?" Flo knew not to try and hide information, so she just gave a single nod, while the loudness had made most the patrons to go outside the inn, where it sounded like the helicopter was about to give hasty landing.
"You'll tell me later, Rosie. Go to the back, behind the oven. Remember the place?" Flo didn't even confirm it, as she grabbed Jim's twitchy paw and rushed into the insides of the warm and empty inn. The sounds of the blades were reducing momentum, while the door that closed behind them spoke only uncertainties without end.
Author's notes:
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Grooms decision thus chosen blind.
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