Here's the next part. I wrote way more for this than for the last chapter, so I hope it's not too rambly. As always, I hope you enjoy reading my work ^^"
"Hey, are the princess and the chief a mama and papa yet?"
"Oh." The boy shrugs. "I don't have a baby doll to be the kiddie."
Reaching for a plump-looking figure of a small seal, the girl places it next to the princess and the chief toys.
"They can be this topi's parents. That way, maybe it can come along with them when they go climbing!"
So far, we've conquered about 300-ish metres.
We have 700 left to trek.
Ropes tightly wound around both our waists, we clutch tightly onto the stubbornly frozen packs of ice that have trapped the kinder surface of the original mountain in its wake. It's incredibly difficult to move upwards at all, what with the faint beginnings of a screaming blizzard starting to encompass us in its nightmare. Carefully, I remove my left axe from the ice and firmly strike it in a level higher, pulling myself up with what little strength I have left and embedding the spikes of my crampons in the wall.
My line of sight falls back upon Nana, just below me, who I can see starting to struggle with the fogginess of the weather. She squints back at me, and manages to muster up enough vigour to speak. It's a little embarrassing, how we've only done a few hundred metres in- I haven't even kept track of the time at this point, so I don't know how long we've been stuck up here for. Yet it feels as if we've been trapped with the ice too, for something like many hours long – at least, longer than we've actually been on the mountain.
"You tired?"
"I'm fine," I reply, trying to shrug off her worry. But when it comes to Nana, she's always got more to say.
"I think we're nearly at the top of this wall," she calls back, glancing upwards. "If it's flatter up there, and there's a cave, we could wait there for a bit."
"Fair enough."
When we finally grasp the ledge of the wall, I find that just as Nana predicted, a small cave is lodged into the rocky wall of the part of the mountain we're at. Apart from a few icicles suspended across the top of the entrance, it seems safe enough to linger in for the time being. The first break we've had throughout this journey is within reach. I turn to Nana, helping her up the ledge onto her feet and awaiting her thankful grin.
"I'm psychic. My witchcraft skills are amazing."
I smirk back. "Hey, no need to get so full of yourself."
"I'm just speaking the truth." she replies, rolling her eyes with her smile still plastered to her face. "Now let's hurry up and take a look in that cave. I need to get out of all of this white stuff."
"Snow?"
"That."
Hurrying into the cave, we both nearly collapse down onto the cave floor, setting down our packs of equipment nearby the wall. It sends chills through my spine as I lean back against it, though it's ever so slightly numbed by the comforting warmth of my parka enveloping my body. Nana shuffles over next to me, resting her head on my shoulder; I rest my own next to hers. For a moment, there's silence. Although that's something I wouldn't mind for a while.
That kind of affection we share and have with each other is also something we're both used to being teased about. The perfect couple, they say. From my point of view, if we're any kind of couple, then we're a regular pair of best friends, nothing more or less. I know that's how Nana sees it too – it's how we've always been together, the blend of camellia pink and night sky blue that doesn't ever seem to be apart, yet it's the kind of mix that others still seem to associate with that kind of love.
Nana groans, a faint cloud forming from her breath. "How long do you think we should stay in here for?"
"Until we feel like going." I shrug.
"Mm. That might be a while. I'm really puffed out at the moment."
"I mean, there isn't much point in us trying to climb up again whilst we're still tired. So let's just stay here."
Silence fills the space around us, the only other sound being the furious gusts of wind howling outside. We both wait, taking in the roaring songs of agony the outside is singing. But my fatigue starts to invade my consciousness, and my eyes slowly start to fall, drooping down as-
Crack!
My eyes shoot open again, my sudden panic enabling me to look over to the entrance once again. And then, my eyes meet something I had not ever thought I would ever meet.
"Nana?"
Her eyes also start to flutter open, and it's only then I realise she'd miraculously fallen asleep already. I don't like seeing her tired and as weak as I am too, but we've chosen to embark on this mission together: our pains are to be shared together. She pauses for a moment, until her eyes suddenly widen in surprise at the thing that greets us at its step.
"Is that…?"
For the moment, we both don't seem to be able to do anything other than stare in awe at the glass-eyed seal at our doorstep. Minuscule grains of snow speckle its goggled eyes that do nothing but simply blink back at us.
"It's a Topi!"
The 'Topi's' head suddenly perks up at the mention of the name we humans dub it as. Neither of us expect it to attack, because we know well enough it's not in their nature. The tales we hear as children are proof enough. True, Topis could be hindering towards climbing - I remember Mom complaining about them when she'd return from her journeys, how the "dirty little rascals" had the cheek to barricade blocks of ice along the pathways the climbers took.
It's then that we remember the plot twists.
My attention is turned to Nana, now stood up, mallet raised in her hands as I realise what her next intentions are.
"Hey, don't try and kill it! What the heck are you doing, Nana?!"
"It won't be easy for us to just- just smash our way out of an ice wall! What else am I supposed to do?"
"You don't have to be so reckless. We could just, you know, shoo it away with some ice or something."
She frowns, clearly not understanding my point. "Ice? Wha-" she stops mid-sentence as she realises what exactly I'm referring to.
Our gazes meet the (now almost-white-faced) seal, its own focused instead on the large head of Nana's mallet. She sighs again, placing her weapon back on the floor as she carefully approaches the creature, her usual gentle smile now vested on her expression.
"Hey. Sorry for, like, threatening to whack you earlier."
Her comforting words only make the Topi retract further away from her hands.
"I wasn't thinking. It's...kinda my thing, being impulsive and all that." At least she's admitting it.
She grins a little more at the seal. "Can you forgive me? Pretty please?" she adds, batting her eyelids.
And here I am, on the sidelines watching my best friend look as if she's trying to flirt with a seal she had been about to murder two minutes ago.
Eventually, the seal seems to give in and cautiously makes its way towards us, looking all bright and cheerful once again. How it had even been surviving up this high is beyond either of our knowledge, but it's nice to have some more companionship (not that Nana's isn't enough).
Nana laughs as the Topi playfully hops into her arms, giving her a small lick on the cheek as some form of affection.
"They actually are kind of cute, aren't they, Popo?"
"It was never harmful in the first place." I look the little creature up and down again before giving it a soft pat on the head. "Quite friendly though, isn't it?"
"Can we keep it?"
"How are we going to take it up with us when we have to scale another ice sheet?"
Her expression falls back to a sullen look, though she still embraces her new pet-for-the-time-being tightly. Even the seal seems to be in despair at my apparent cruelty.
"Don't take that personally." I sigh.
"Hmm..." she pauses again. "I guess...you do have a point." Gently setting the seal back down onto the cave floor, she turns her head back to me, her human accompaniment.
"You'll have to do for now, then!" Nana smirks mischievously. "You're a good enough pet as it is."
I blink. "Sorry, but that sounds terribly wrong out of context." Though even I can't help but snicker a bit at her remark.
"Context is a subjective thing." she matter-of-factly replies.
"Hey, what are you trying to say? I thought I was lead climber. I'm not gonna be the pet here."
"Well, somebody's gotta do it."
We both face each other, leering with burning intensity. But one thing we both have in common is being terrible at staring contests, because we always end up bursting into fits of laughter, loud enough to drown out the wind outside.