Snowstorm Thread - Round up the Pack

Orin Takekuro · 02-11-2011, 02:53 PM

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WC 628

Her ears and nose were already freezing just from leaning out the window for such a short time. She ducked back inside her bedroom once to rub her face, trying to warm herself up enough to lean outside again. She should not even have come back inside for that long, she could have easily missed someone's return call. A gale assaulted the the bookstore's structure as she bent forward to lean out the window again, and one of the large shutters swung closed, smacking her in the forehead. She let out a little cry of surprise and pain and her hand flew up to her had, pressing on the sore spot. When she brought her fingers back, a small trail of red oozed on her fingers. It wasn't a big wound, but the blow had split open a small cut of skin, and head wounds can bleed like the devil.

Angrily, she shoved the shutter open again and held her hands out to prevent a repeat performance, and she was just in time, too, for she could have sworn she heard a faint voice call to her through the static. Window... downstairs... through them... Was all she could pick up, but she patched together the nature of the request. “No, they're decorative panes, they don't open. I can't get out that way, one of them broke inwards and there's glass everywhere!”

She squinted against the onslaught of white, and after a moment she swore she saw a shadowed figure moving down below, at the back wall of her bookstore. “Shawchert? Is that you?” She was certain her voice was lost to the wind. But hopefully here, protected by the alley way, the storm could not batter him too much while he tried to find a way out. She strained to watch, to see what he was doing, but she could not make it out. Whatever he was doing, he was finding her a way out. Then, finally, the sound... The downstairs stockroom door was opened, wedged open by the valiant Capitano, and the wind and snow fought to undo his efforts.

Orin yanked the shutters closed and latched them, hoping that the old latch would hold and that the storm would not come in and destroy her bedroom. There would already be enough damage to the most important floor of her bookstore. Luckily, they had hit sub-zero temperatures, so the snow would keep for a while and she would have time to shovel it back out before it melted and destroyed everything.

On her way to the door she grabbed her satchel, filled to the brim with her most important journals and materials. She slung it over her arm and her cloak trailed behind her as she hurried down the stairs. When she turned at the end of the stairway, she could see Shawchert standing in the back of the store, holding their escape route. There was no time to waste! No time to spend on thank you's, or you're my hero's, or damn, look, I'm bleeding's. He would notice the blood that seeped through the fur of her forehead.

She ran over to him, suddenly as graceful and energetic as she was before her pregnancy. This was not only a matter of her own well being, but now a matter of keeping her and Shawchert's unborn puppies safe. She scuttled up to Shawchert then wedged herself through the door. Once outside, she scanned the area around them but could see nothing but white two feet in front of her.

“Shawchert,” she said, a bit hysterically. “I can't see a thing. Where do we go?” She shivered and pulled the cloak tight around her body, trying to hold the split closed with delicate fingers.

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