◜ looking for problems — open, joining ◞

[zayden]

[div style="width: 550px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 8.3pt; letter-spacing: .3px; line-height: 1.35;"][align=center]4 FEB 2019. / WORD COUNT 435 LISTENING TO THE GROUND WALKS by MODEST MOUSE / TAGS

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The stranger was comparably a child, all large eyes, porcelain features and hair kissed by fire. Angelic, one would hazard to say, haloed in fur that his freezing body envied. He had been foolish to think he could make the journey easily; though his presence was proof it was possible, it was no comfortable feat. Such callous disregard of mother nature's harshness made an example of many and he was loathe to hazard becoming another unfortunate statistic. Still, it spoke volumes that the spare clothes he had selected for the expedition were scarcely weather-appropriate either.

'I need your weapons, or I'm going to have to shove you back out there,' the girl told him, matter-of-fact, and the bluntness prompted a genuine smile, haphazard and uncertain as it was.

"That's fair," he replied, "but I'm unarmed." Regardless, it was smart to be wary, particularly in an environment as harsh as this. Scraps of hospitality alone were more than most would afford him — he had no right to be anything other than grateful. He hadn't anticipated such a lilting elocution — cold and Australian rarely married in his mind — but he reduced his response to a lifted eyebrow, preoccupied by the coat she wrapped around his shoulders. "Oh, thank you." Ill-fitting as it was, he knew better than to look a gift horse in its mouth.

'What's your name?'

"Zayden. What's yours?" His was a practiced introduction; he was no stranger to strangers, so to speak. Shoulders relaxed, a hand extended, and his smile strengthened to something lopsided and full of life. Many a time had his encounters began with an embrace — close contact with unknown individuals had been a part of his life since he was sixteen. This girl was already far more accommodating than many, circumspect as she understandably was. Something about her unyielding candour appealed to him immensely — she reminded him, uncannily so, of his cousins. Raving spitfires, the lot of them, refusing to let him catch his breath and keeping him on his toes. He attributed his affinity for heels to them.

'How the hell did you get so far up here like that?' she then asked. If he were to hazard a guess concerning her own arrival, judging by the knowing look she gave him, he'd say she'd stumbled here in the same state. It was a small comfort to know he wasn't the only dullard about, unique as he liked to be.

"I have my ways," he quipped, only half-joking. He'd say the gods smiled upon him, but he wasn't particularly their type. "But I think I'm halfway to hypothermia. It's freezing."