The Winds of Change

The mountain path, covered in freezing cold snow, insisted on swirling around the woman’s scarfed face and drafting up her duster with each breeze. The stuff seemed to change direction every couple minutes. Which didn’t make keeping her legs warm or wide brim hat on easy, but the hat was warm and was doing a decent job keeping the snow out of her eyes.  Rhia scuffed her boots through the snow, leaving a very obvious trail behind her. She was doing the opposite of trying to be stealthy here, the point was to be found by one of those wolf guides the woman mentioned, might as well make it easy for them.  

”Hold on, I thought the woman was joking when she said the guild hall was just down the street, outside of town, and at the top of the mountain, but the ghost wolf guides? That’s the part I decided was real?”  She stooped down and picked up some snow in her mittened hands and tossed it at a nearby shrub. She stopped muttering to herself and decided yelling into the emptiness was a better plan. ”Who puts a guild hall so far out in the middle of nowhere anyway?! She took a deep breath and adjusted her scarf. The woman at the alterations shop had given her a pamphlet, the thing really did draw a straight line from town up the mountain and to the guild hall, should have known it was too good to be true.

In the distance, hardly visible through the falling snow, was a fluffy tail moving away, the thing must be lost, her trail was behind her not over there. She decided to walk off the path and follow the spectral tail, it effortlessly scaled the terrain, over rocks and through patches of small trees. The wolf tail was escaping, every time she picked up her pace, so did the tail.  Wherever they were going, it apparently wasn’t fast enough; even at a dead run cross country, she wasn’t making any headway. Headway, not a word Rhia would normally use here, she repeated the thought in her head a couple times, not her words, not her voice. Headway, headway, way head?  A sharp pain in her forehead was followed by the world flipping backwards, ending that train of thought.  Rhia, now laying face down in the snow had a run in with a low tree branch, not that she would let that fact get in the way. she craned her neck upwards and as she thought, the tail knocked her over, and had now abandoned her. Jerk.

Now covered head to toe in snow, she dragged herself to her feet.  She turned in place to get her bearings, but it didn’t seem all that necessary, the palace was right there.  She trudged through the snow grumbling to herself.  A large warm looking black fur, roughly her size and barely touched by the snow, stood on the path in front of her. It spoke as she approached.

”Unexpected? Did your guide knock you into a snowbank too?” She tried to say with a sarcastic smile, which just happened to still be covered by a scarf that was coated in snow. Realizing this, she tilted her hat brim up and pulled her mask down with one motion allowing her smile through. In an exaggerated motion, she flung her arms straight out to each side, knocking the excess snow from her duster before snapping both hands to her hips. ”Nice! You’re here for the same reason I am Aku. I’m Rhia Le’Stae, I’ve bumped into a few of the wolves out and about, but it’s my first time here. Mind continuing inside?”  She did her best to speak in an upbeat, almost playful tone, snow and cold not withstanding and motioned to the door.  She was too cold to wait for a response, and held the door open for the other new hopeful guild member, from the warmer interior.

I really should have worn pants.

669 Words
1184 Total