Concavenator:

Perception of the world returned to Kukri gradually, accompanied by a sense of peace. To her own surprise, the world she perceived, limited to dark slivers of sky where the edge of the canvas fluttered up, did not fill her with horror. She checked all extremities; her relative serenity was not the euphoria of frostbite. She had, after all, survived a fearsome day, and was no worse off for it; and Giya had revealed herself a well-chosen guide.

pinkgothic:

There was still a heaviness to the world, the trace remnant of an instinct to stay tucked in under one's father's downs, but the horror of it all had lifted. It was a mild physical affliction now, remnants of aching to warn her from pulling the same stunt unnecessarily again.

Slowly, she twisted herself up from her position of slumber, shifting into a sit. There was no vivid spark of energy to drive her into enthused travel, just a visceral understanding that the journey was indeed possible.

For long moments, she sat simply in silence, taking in the geometry of their shelter, letting their situation diffuse through her mind, making sense of the last day's events with a fresh perspective.

They were lucky to be alive, on at least two counts, but there was little use in dwelling on it. But she was starkly aware of the way her intellect had shut down during the worst of it - fortunately to no detriment, with a solid intuition to take its place.

Mildly disappointed with her own ability to think straight, she scratched at a few of her feathers near jaw, collarbone, then her left shoulder, before finally moving quietly to fish something to eat out of their supplies, going by touch in the darkness.

Concavenator:

A tablet of dried meat, brittle as glass, shattered under her teeth. It tasted of little more than salt and smoke, but it restored a bit more lucidity in her. Yes, how easy to be lucid, when you're sitting safe and sound, huddling behind walls and filling your belly. She could not chide herself too much: better people than her had been driven to madness, or to death, or to both in succession, out on the Polar Fields. She had volunteered for this voyage with the arrogance of one who expected to do better; but without such arrogance, who would be here in the first place?

The dried meat was gone too quickly, and the temptation to reach for more was strong. The battle between Kukri's highest and basest qualities was decided by Giya beginning to stir, probably awakened by the rummaging, as the blanket she rested on wrapped around the box of food.

pinkgothic:

Even as Giya stirred, Kukri found herself longing for the return trip. She knew it wasn't the right thing to do at this point and it was easy to override the desire, but it was unmistakably there - to leave, return, let it be someone else's problem. Her body was convinced the readings she wanted to take couldn't possibly be that important.

Thankfully she disagreed.

“Were you able to rest well?” Kukri asked Giya, skipping any platitudes involving the time of day. She had little grasp of how much time had passed since they'd begun their journey, other than 'not nearly enough to get where we need to get' and 'too much for comfort'.

Concavenator:

“I rested,” was the answer. It was not obvious whether this was dry humor or Giya did not consider good rest to be a realistic occurrence. As far as Kukri could determine in the dim light, there was no obvious pain in Giya's posture and movement as she staggered to her own feet. And then: “And rest, did you? We can go, we can go on if you want”.

Even with the wind weaker, and the short-lived dawn approaching, to return to the march was not an inviting idea, especially as the ground was likely to become harsher. Yet the days of spring were not far.

pinkgothic:

Kukri considered the question. A part of her, the one raised in polite company, wanted to prompt Giya to feed herself before they continued on their journey, but given that they couldn't afford to squander their rations, it seemed wiser to rely on Giya's ability to schedule for her own needs and let her eat when she herself thought it wise.

“'Want' is a strong word,” Kukri offered in dry humour. “But I can continue the journey and it strikes me as wiser to continue it now. The quicker we return to Yakak'ratu from this excursion, the better for both of us.”

Even with those words thus spoken, she did not immediately move to make her statement a reality, deliberately granting Giya whatever time she needed to fully rise and tend to herself. Only slowly did Kukri begin to gather belongings, taking care not to infuse the situation with any undue haste.

Concavenator:

Giya rose with a precise movement, quiet except for the crackle of frost that had built up on her coat. She took her own share of dried meat, just enough to reawaken her body heat. She was quite different a creature, here in the empty wilderness, compared to the one Kukri had found in the temple's yard.

Kukri clambered onto a box to loose the canvas from its place. The wind was just as cruelly sharp as the night before, if not quite so heavy, and she felt an instant of sickness as the canvas threatened to fly away with it. It did not, and the two managed to fold it back into its sack. The crests of rock had been so convenient; one could believe the landscape had been fashioned for the sake of travellers, except for everything else about it.

A hint of deep blue, mixed with nine parts of black, and somewhat fainter stars behind them: they were still looking south, where the ground became higher and steeper, black unmixed against the sky. According to Giya, as long as they stayed on the uneven rocks, the yachakri would not dare hunt them. But the yachakri had good reason, as the rocks were sharp and slippery, here polished like mirrors by abrasive wind, there cracked open by swelling ice.

The guide finished latching her baggage onto her back and, breathing steam, took the first steps south.

pinkgothic:

Their route from here was slated to be a trade-off between low energy expenditure and safety, but with the help of Kukri's equipment and Giya's judgement of the landscape they could navigate the precarious rocks without completely crawling to a stop.

While it was practically impossible to make the slippery ice perfectly safe for climbing along - if certainly far more horizontally than vertically - Kukri's gear included grips that offered sufficiently poor thermal conductivity but plenty of roughness to maximise friction.

Their boots already followed that philosophy by obvious, practical design; now they each had one glove to help their hands in the same way. (The benefactors of Kukri's expedition had not thought to supply her with a second pair.)

And so, at the cost of a slightly more awkward posture, they could avoid having to rely purely on two legs for stability.

Concavenator:

Step by arduous step, they climbed up in search of a vantage point from which they could study their surroundings. They stayed on the frozen islands of rock as far as they could, rushing through the gulf of snow when necessary. It took roughly a couple hours for the dawn to through enough light onto the landscape.

Turning north, they could see the archipelagos of dark stone scattered below, even the narrow crack that had sheltered them during sleep, and beyond that an infinite rust-colored haze, the snowy plain where formidable predators still prowled. The clouds above were thin wisps, dark against the red glow of ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere.

Still some sixty leagues left to the edge of the glacier. Not impossible to cover in a few days. Kukri was suddenly seized by an ache to complete her mission as quickly as nature allowed; it could be done, she realized, looking back at the ground they had already covered. The wind blew and blew ever northward, and yet, somehow, had utterly failed to push them back.

pinkgothic:

With the surge of hope came an equal surge of heartfelt duty. As much as many of her colleagues back home still doubted it, this was important work and, in looking back over the desolate wastes, it was clear that only Kukri and Giya could do it.

There was, after all, no one else here that could do it in their stead.

Kukri took a deep breath, taking the realisation as a new source of vigour, and continued on. She reckoned that if they paced themselves perfectly - if they neither overdid it nor shied away from a steady pace - they could make it to the edge of the glacier in a little more than another day and a half.

She also didn't think it made sense to hope for that outcome in any way. No plan ever made contact with reality and survived fully unscathed - but it was inspiring that it seemed possible.

At least it seemed possible to her. Her guide might yet disagree.

“We need to reach the edge of the glacier,” Kukri gestured toward it at next opportunity, as they were neither balancing amongst the rocks, nor sprinting across snowdust. They'd discussed her destination before, of course, but this was the first time mid-journey that she pointed it out to her companion. “How long do you think it'll take us from here?”

Concavenator:

Though that dawn would soon die in her nest, the upper crests of the glaciers were faintly gleaming just above the southern horizon; or were those cloud-banks hanging low? Giya carefully studied the landscape laying in front of the travellers, gestating an answer for long minutes.

“If no obstacle is there”, she said finally, “In three days we make it, if we walk well. Two maybe, if 'Au'a is with us.”

Three days, maybe two. What hardships couldn't be endured for so brief a time? After all her ancestors had accomplished – her toiling foremothers who had raised narrow-roofed Grikaa out of the permafrost, her scientific predecessors who had waded through mires of fear and superstition, and braved hideous winters to prepare her way – what was it that she feared, after all?

Then Giya added: “But is better if we stay on rocks, so yachakri cannot follow us. But then we go slower than on snow; there are gaps in rocks.”

pinkgothic:

And so Giya confirmed that the best possible speed was in the whereabouts of two days, as well as that it was unlikely they would be that fast. Kukri gestured acknowledgement.

And yet… “How far to the glaciers do the yachakri hunt? Is there any point at which they lose interest in the environment?”

Concavenator:

Giya gave it some thought, and then: “Yachakri hunt where is flat, flat snow or frozen water. They do never get close to the glaciers; they are afraid when the wind is most strong, you see”. Presumably the unidirectional wind made it hard to track preys, frustrating their hearing with its howl, and their sight with the haze of powdered snow it raised; or simply there was not enough life to support such a predator. “We can trick it, with smoke and meat, but we carry little already of it. It's better we walk still; we walk on edge of rocks, where less cracks are. If one comes, we hide in cracks.”

pinkgothic:

A strong wind was hardly in their favour, either, as they had already amply determined, so Kukri felt a strange sympathy with the dangerous beasts for avoiding it. Kukri certainly yearned to return to warmer climes. The urge was kept in check by an equally strong, stubborn yearning to find answers to pressing questions.

She snorted a little, a private gesture dismissing the displeasure and frustration, vowing to indeed keep it private. Giya was not to blame for the weather or the landscape and Kukri would do her best not to let her deal with any outgrowths of that tiny seed of disgruntlement in her chest.

“Then we will walk across the rocks,” Kukri acknowledged. It would stretch their provisions, but they had both known it would likely come to this. It would be unpleasant, but quite survivable.

Concavenator:

The watchtowers of the Pole rose out of the snow; here boulders scattered as if tossed around by careless giants, cracked open as if by the blow of a colossal trip-hammer; there piles of black gravel swelling like funeral mounds; sails of stone, filed by the wind to razor-sharpness, and painted with cobwebs of mineral veins. Terrace after terrace the rocky ground became higher and higher, rising into the measureless bulk of the Mountains of Thunder.

They were a strange sight, all these stones out of their place. Great authorities of glaciology and orography had proposed that in ages past exceptional glaciers must have torn them out of bedrock and carried them, like flotsam down a river, into their current resting place. Kukri was skeptical that glaciers could so much expand their range without apparent cause, but she had no better explanation. So she, along with Giya, waded through the fields of gravel and clambered over the erratic boulders, content with looking at them in silence.

Then, as they crossed a cold grey plateau, she heard the ground creak and whine under her boots.

pinkgothic:

The sounds inspired her to caution her step. It seemed unlikely that there were waters under this expanse, this far from the shore and with the slant of the landscape as it was, and rivers not typically freezing smoothly or easily, but the noises still gave Kukri vivid images of the ice giving way under her limbs and plunging her into an even icier environment.

Concavenator:

There could possibly be nothing but stone and ice in this place; nothing that could fail to bear her weight, could it? Giya moved still, with a strange irregular pace, leaping over some places and throwing her weight on others.

Still awful visions slowed her pace until she came to a stop on a slab that seemed broader and stouter than most. Giya turned, and pointed at the white seams of ice that seemed to weld the stone blocks together. “Ice between the stones”, she said, “sometime goes down all to ground, sometimes only top, nothing below”. Certainly one could step on that ice believing that it was as solid as the mountains, only to break through a thin crust, and fall into the crevice below, 'Au'a alone knew how deep, or how dark.

pinkgothic:

As dreadful as it sounded, Kukri found her mind immediately trying to understand how such a thing would form, coming up blank. “How do the hollows form?” she asked, fully aware that Giya likely didn't know the answer any more than she did, and simply observed that they existed and needed care navigating around.

Concavenator:

“The stones are cold, too”, she replied with a shrug, “In winter you hear them shiver, you hear them hiss and growl. You leave a stone in the cold, and by springtime it's broken. Dead of cold”.

pinkgothic:

So the contraction was creating fissures large enough for a person to fall into? She could see it explaining a crack as wide as a leg, perhaps – which, to be fair, was still dangerous – but if so, would still expect the ice to snap along with the rock.

Maybe once she was safely back home, she could experiment with the thermal elasticity of rock, get a better feeling for–

She pulled herself out of the thought and resumed her journey, shaking her head a little to clear it of the distraction. Survival now, theorising later.