A note from the author (boring stuff):
I'm not entirely sure how well this will encode online, but only time will tell. Angelica speaks English, however it has been transcribed differently to normal; using different characters formerly used in old English, and some others which I have taken to replace other common sounds in our language. (Note: these sounds are from a Northern-English dialect, thus sounds may sound different to R.P or Standard American). The reason for the addition of these characters is to subtly alter the sound of Angelica's speech and to create a sense of difference to Jessica's. A brief (and rough) translation follows:
Ð ð The <th> sound from "that", "this" and "the"
Þ þ The <th> sound from "thought", "bath" and "death"
Ʃ ʃ The <sh> sound from "shut", "shark" and "should"
Ƿ ƿ The <wh> sound from "what", "where" and "when" (note: aspirate the <w>)
Ç ç The <ch> sound from "chocolate", "chance" and "chop"
Ŋ ŋ The <ng> sound from "cunning", "running" and "jumping"
Æ æ The <a> sound in "cat", "fat" and "sat"
Å å The <a> sound found in "all", "fall" and "altogether"
I have also used <ff> where a <f> is normally used; this is due to the fact that in a language such as Welsh <f> makes a <v> sound, whereas <ff> makes a <f> sound; such as in the English word <of> compared to <off>.
Another note from the author:
This is the beginning of a romance, not wild sex. The wild sex will come later. The only reason that this doesn't get so far sexually is because it would be too long; I want to write something substantial. Treat it like a chapter; then move straight onto part two. Please indulge me in my desire for the poetic, rather than the raunchy. I don't particularly care that this one won't receive a massive score ratings-wise.
But for those of you who enjoy the finer things in life; enjoy!
The strange polar twilight lit the land of eternal cold; the great ice-shelf that lay beneath the mountains of iron stone and under the dull leaden sky.
They said that on a clear day one could see uncanny lights flickering in the heavens; that at those times it was the land of creatures supernatural: the silkie; the sea-girl with the flesh of a seal, who would lurk at the precipitous edges, where ice met water, basking in the unnatural glow. The Vila; daughter of storms and swans, who sped with the geese on feathered wing on whatever unknown journey they made. Scheznyk; the killer, destroyer, disappearer of wanderers; of ghostly form she took, stalking the wastes to take the unwary.
Yet presently it snowed. It had snowed for two hundred hours. It would likely snow for two hundred more.
I felt no danger from eerie existence, nor feared for my life that it should be taken by the inexplicable. Greater the threat from wolves, thin ice and the cold.
The rest of my people lay one hundred miles behind; I had chosen to travel ahead of the main party, seeking out the herds of wild reindeer, snow elephants and other such creatures destined to be tamed or eaten, so that they may be better caught later.
One girl, a "tracer", who travelled alone, companied only by her sleigh dog team and the yawning vastness of the wilderness. Food, furs, knife and a rifle.
It was a statement; eighteen, desperate to prove my worth, my autonomy, my humanity. Just old enough to trace alone. A stupid decision. Not a naïve decision; for I knew myself and, as far as one could, I knew the land. Yet somehow fated.
It had been a difficult trail; not impossible, but barely manageable; coercing the dogs and sleigh across a boulder field thirty miles wide. I had woven a slow path between the larger rocks, dragged my entire baggage through the smaller. I was getting tired and the dogs were slowing; perhaps in the lands of day and night, light and dark, the sun was setting; out here such human constructs could not survive. I pressed ahead a little longer, promising to stop shortly and set my yurt.
When I was but a little girl I could have believed the stories the old wise women told; the fantastical tales of vila and silkie. But on that day I met the impossible; the truly unimaginable. A girl, naked in the snow.
The dogs came across her first, drawn to her foil in the freezing air. In truth, even I could smelt it, despite a nose feeling as of ice and the subtleness of the scent. The smell of alien flowers of some far off land. She lay face down in a great drift, the snow having been billowed out as if she had fallen heavily. A parachute of bright orange silk blossomed out behind her like a flame, perhaps desperately trying to escape; some peculiar foreign bird in my polar wind.
An impossible girl; unconscious but alive. Perhaps only having lain there for minutes. Any longer and she would have been dead. Tanned skin pale with cold, dark hair laced with ice crystals. I wrapped her in furs, lit a fire, and built the yurt about where she had fallen.
She lay there seemingly for an age. Skin slowly becoming ruddier. At first I tried to rub life back into her limbs but eventually I sat across the fire to her, drinking hot tea and watching her.
Not older than me. Perhaps very much the same age. A face of perfect prettiness, long locks, my skin snow white, hers a warmer shade. I wondered, from the other side of the fire, what colour her eyes might be. Not steely grey as mine; for her hair was auburn, not creamy white like I. I prayed that she might speak the same tongue as I, so that I may ask how she came to be lain upon the snow, fallen from the sky, nude. Slim, cultivated from a life of careful living, rather than physical exertion; perhaps not a girl, perhaps rather an icon of femininity. In her unconscious stupor her countenance was lit by a beautiful expression. A recent scar ran across her breasts.
'Åm…?'
The impossible girl's first utterance. A soft gentle noise of incomprehension. Her eyes opened: a gorgeous chestnut brown.
'How are you feeling?' I said, voice cracking with recent under use.
'Åm… ƿere æm I?'
She spoke strangely; understandable, but with an accent I had not heard before.
'Safe now…'
I stood to go closer to her. She flinched back and tried in a flurry of activity to sit. I moved back. Her confusion was unusually comely.
'But ƿere æm I? Saffe isn't a place…'
'You're out of danger, anyway. You're on the ice shelf below the Eastern Mountains'
'Ƿere's ðæt?'
'You don't know?'
'No…'
'What can you remember of how you came to be here?'
A wolf howled somewhere in the distance. She shivered.
