//------------------------------// // 2: The End of the Day // Story: Love in the Frozen Wastes // by MrAlbum321 //------------------------------// Aqaun ran across the snow as he reached the shoreline. No one who saw what he saw would have seen the point at which ice replaced the ground, but he saw it, and he immediately slowed his pace. He clambered up one particularly big ice floe and cast his gaze around him. The ice was still, but Aqaun could feel the grinding of the floe beneath his hooves. The early months were always chaotic; the ice wanted to move, but there wasn’t enough melted water to make room for each floe to move where they wanted to move. It made for a deceptive landscape; calm on top, but hell on bottom, and crossovers between the two occurring more often than not. Aqaun plotted as safe a route as he could from his point and jumped down, hopping from floe to floe with the care and speed of a mountain goat. His mukluks kept his hooves warm, but allowed him to feel the slightest shift of the frozen ice underneath him. He spotted a small, almost unnoticeable round hole about a centimeter or so in diameter, affixed strangely atop a small dome-like structure. Aqaun recognized the hole and what it meant. He quickly felt for wind, settled down-wind of the hole and waited. The wait was very long. The sun vanished from the horizon, the glare dimming to a pale, deep blue. Still Aqaun waited. As the light began to fade entirely, he heard a sound from the hole; a rasp, a breath, and the slosh of water. Aqaun leaped forward and plunged his harpoon into the hole. He held onto the shaft as a small creature bucked and thrashed inside the small tunnel underneath the dome of ice. Aqaun felt its struggles fade almost as soon as they started; it was a solid and well-aimed hit. He put his back into lifting the creature up through the dome, kicking and breaking the ice so he could hoist the thing onto the ice. It came up slowly from its breathing hole. It was an aligrauraq; a young bearded seal. Why it was without its mother, Aqaun didn’t know. He knelt by the seal, and put his front hooves together in prayer: “Quyana, Aligrauraq; uvagutisisuqllautaq,” he whispered, before he dislodged the harpoon from the seal’s skull and proceeded to slit the animal open and gut it. He took great care with the stomach; he remembered when he was a young colt and he plunged his hoof into the stinging gastric acid by accident. He left the guts on the ice except for the liver, picked the carcass up and quickly trotted for home. The ice plus the weight of the dead seal made travel difficult, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He breathed a sigh of relief when the shoreline appeared. He quickly dashed for home, his thoughts on the interested look his son Kitaauraq’s face would have as he showed him how to cut the choice meat from the bones… and also on the strong and firm hooves of Uummaq throughout the long winter’s night. The last vestiges of daylight had disappeared by this time. Aqaun kept his eyes scanning for any faint glow from the seal oil lamp and his nostrils open for the particularly acrid smell of the burning seal oil. He worried when he knew he should be getting close, and he still detected neither. He stopped and checked the wind; the snow-house would be down-wind of him, so by the time he smelled it, it would already be behind him. He stumbled upon the snow-house purely by accident when his front hooves tripped over an outcrop of snow. He tumbled down to the entrance, which to his surprise was open… and dark. He did smell a faint scent of the seal-oil lamp, but it was old by at least several hours. He set his catch aside and fumbled inside. He felt for the seal-oil lamp, which was overturned. Aqaun felt around some more and found the flint. He started the lamp wick again, which sputtered and finally flickered to life. He protected the flame from the draft, and from its faint light saw a grisly scene he was afraid he would see. Everything was thrown around in chaos; the blankets were shredded, the fabrics torn, the smaller harpoon shaft broken. And the blood; it seemed to coat everything in the small space. Big chunks of the snow-house were torn from the walls, the ground a mish-mash of hide, thread, ice and the crimson color of blood. He lifted the lantern with his mouth, one hoof over the lantern to keep the breeze from blowing it out. He wondered at something: where were the bodies? He walked outside and did a quick scan around the house: no tracks except for his. So the bodies were not dragged away… he thought. He went back inside and took a closer look at the debris. That’s when he noticed the hair. Not the green hair color of his wife, Uummaq, nor the pale blonde hair of his son Kitaauraq or Aqpikauraq, his newborn daughter. This hair was brown, short, and speckled, and it coated the place quite thoroughly. He wondered how an assailant could approach the snow-house unseen, be able to come in and do this kind of damage, take the bodies and just… vanish, leaving only this clue. That’s when Aqaun realized: It had to be them! He shifted through the debris and found one more thing: a brown feather. This confirmed his suspicion. For whatever reason, a Pegasus forced its way into his home and kidnapped his family. It had to be one Pegusas, or a family of them, due to the presence of the prolific-but-singular-in-nature hair that was left behind. But Aqaun couldn’t do anything about that right now. Night had set in full swing, so there was no hope of him reaching the culprits… not right away, at least. Aqaun knew that the skies were frigid, and that no Pegasi could withstand the cold for long. He managed to locate one undamaged sleeping bag and clear enough space among the junk to lay down. He remembered the opening; he took some snow and blocked up the entrance. He didn’t worry about the dead seal; the cold would keep it fresh. He fell asleep to the lull of the breeze that blows in the midst of silent, open spaces. The light from the seal-oil lamp eventually burned low, and then out in a slow and steady decline of lumens. Aqaun dreamed of another kind of hunting; the one that involved atuqtaksraq.