Chapter three
Sirin
IN WHICH OUR HEROINE FALLS HEAD OVER HEELS UPON SEEING THE OBJECT OF HER DESIRE
Itturnedout,tintedgoggles could only do so much. Sirin rubbed her hand over her tired eyes, willing even a single cloud to give her respite. She’d thought, growing up in a tropical location, she’d experienced a sunny day. But now, standing in a field of snow reflecting every ray, she discovered she was wrong. Apparently, a sunny day was biting cold and stinging wind and squinting for so long your cheeks hurt. The sun hung annoyingly low in the sky, so that it seemed to always be in her eyes, and it only set for a few hours each night.1Months of groundwork and years of living in a northern climate had not prepared her for the true reality of her expedition.
She’d done her research and bought or made every supply she could imagine would be needed, but truly nothing could have drilled the sheer nature of the extreme north into her. She’d been walking uphill for hours. The mountain seemed endless, and Sirin despaired of ever reaching the top. Large evergreens obscured her view, so she hadn’t the faintest idea how close she might be to the summit. The trees were bowed over with heavy swaths of snow, which she knew from unpleasant experience would tumble down onto her head if she veered too close or walked too heavily.
Sirin tugged her hood lower to block the sun and did a quick check of her body. She’d learned early on having complete control over one’s bodily processes was significantly more nuanced than one might assume. First, she checked her bladder levels; increasing her blood pressure to conserve heat always made her feel like she needed to urinate, so she’d turned off those nerves hours ago. The last thing she wanted was to piss herself because she wasn’t monitoring it carefully.2
While she’d packed for the weather, even these late summer temperatures were colder than she’d ever expected. The balance between the amount of heat her muscles produced, the calories she needed to consume to make heat, how much she allowed herself to sweat, and the amount of lunula she needed to consume to manage all of it wasexhausting. She nodded to herself; her bladder could make it a while longer. Her internal stores of lunula seemed sufficient, but shecoulduse a snack. Her body was getting close to tapping the fat stores she’d carefully cultivated for heat retention and she’d worked too hard to lose them now.
Looking up at the sky, Sirin could see she had a few hours left of the day. With zero reference points, she doubted her map would be of much use, but she felt she needed to see it anyhow. For motivational purposes.
Sirin paused for a moment, took off her large pack, and slipped her water skin from its spot next to her chest. The water inside was tepid at best, but it felt startlingly warmer than the frigid air she’d been breathing. She drank deeply and then searched for her notebook, flipping to a page depicting an intricate map. Consulting her compass, she made what few notations she could.
Sirin traced her progress beyond the end of the existing map, drawing a few more trees and labeling this “the land of progressively shorter trees.” She’d hoped she would find anactuallandmark soon so she could add a realmarker. She folded it up and prepared to push ahead. The trees were thinning, and she worried soon the never-ending landscape of green, brown and blinding white would be reduced to a squint-inducing monochrome. She would likely go mad if that happened. The thought of being surrounded bynothingbut the snow made her shiver; surely she would find the source of the River Spine and the lunula before then.
Sirin pulled out her notebook and inhaled deeply, filling her lungs and scenting the air, verifying she was still being followed. Among the crisp forest scents, she could still detecthim.
She’d become so habituated to the deep musk of the bear that she had to actively search for it, her amplified sense of smell allowing her to filter the bear’s specific pheromones from the myriad of other animals in the area. At this point, his scent was like air or trees—expected. A week ago, though, Sirin had spent the entire first night after scenting him without sleeping, clutching her knife, and cursing herself for not bringing one of those explosive flintlock things.
Over the week the bear had dogged her, her fear had slowly faded to curiosity. Now, she idly imagined them to be traveling companions, two lonely souls in the unforgiving taiga, happy to have found companionship. He likely lived in the area, she reasoned. Hewasa bear. Judging by his footprints she figured he was a grizzly, though she’d been fairly certain they didn’t range this far north; she hadn’t expected or planned for any bears at all, since there was so little documentation about arctic fauna. Sirin had heard myths and whispers of fantastical creatures living this far north, likely bears were not exciting enough in comparison. She’d seen only hints at such fabled creatures; rabbit tracks with multiple tails, or a cat screech which seemed to come from the sky, but even those tidbits were wildly exciting, so she did a happy wiggle just thinking about it.
Her bear, however, seemed decidedly mundane, apart from his fascination with her, of course. The past two days, she’d begun leaving him bits of jerky, in hopes he would not see her as a threat.
Alternatively, he could decide I am tasty, just like jerky,she reminded herself. Sirin made a few notations in her notebook and drew a small doodle of a bear wearing a suit bowing in the margin. She giggled at the thought of the bear using the stiff formal introductions required when there was no one else to do the introduction.
“Hello, madam, I would make myself known to you,” she said aloud, cutting a bow and giggling to herself. He would swipe off his smart little cap and she would offer him a cup of tea. They could discuss their mutual quest and laugh over some jerky.
Silliness, I am a goose,she thought. She’d always had a penchant for talking to herself and fostered a lively imagination, but perhaps the weeks of solitude were scrambling her mind. Before the bear, she’d had only her musings and mounting kinship with the lost adventurers to keep her company. A shared purpose that had kept her company or helped her stay focused when she was plagued by thoughts of the man from the tavern.
Sirin blushed, thinking about the other ways her mind seemed to be scrambled. Only hours after scenting the bear for the first time, she’d begun having strange dreams. Dreams during which the bear chased her relentlessly through the forest. Dreams where she felt absolutely terrified of being caught. But also, dreams where, when shewascaught, she’d been ravished by that man from the tavern.3She’d then wake in the night, breathless and panting, mid-orgasm and disoriented.
No, the last thing she needed was to think too hard onhimnow. If she let herself dwell on her dreams, she’d only have to waste even more energy and lunula on tamping down her arousal, and so far today, she’d been managing quite well, she’d only needed to do it twice. Somehow, her fear from the bear had triggered some sort of pathetic instinct that, she assumed, wanted her to seek protection. Well, her subconscious would just have to accept therewasno handsome stranger around to save her from the bear, and she didn’t seem to need saving anyhow.
Her brief respite over, Sirin continued her plod through the snow for the next hour, at which point the trees began to peter out. She could see the land transitioning to some sort of ridge or cliff ahead. The sun was getting low in the sky, so she might as well trek up and take a look over top before camping for the night. If she was going to need to do some repelling in the morning, she wanted time to prep tonight.
She breathed deeply, at peace as she left the trees behind her, feeling like she was on the cusp of something extraordinary. She realized, as she let out her breath, she could no longer scent her bear.
She diverted a measure of her internal lunula reserves toward increasing her sense of smell further and she could barely detect him, but instead of behind her, he was ahead. She enhanced her vision for distance, squinting to block out the additional light, and didn’t even have time to properly register that change when a massive white bear crested the hill. Sirin froze, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Her lunula allowed her to feel her body’s natural responses to fear, the release of adrenaline overpowering her annoyingly ever-present arousal. It poured out of her adrenal glands into her bloodstream and rushed through her in a tide, making her heart beat faster, her breathing quicken, her muscles twitch, and even her digestion slow as resources were shunted away. This awareness allowed her to remain calm, despite the terror that pulsed through her.
She nodded toward the great bear and began to walk slowly back toward the trees. She figured she had twenty yards until the tree line and then she would probably turn and run. Sirin might like to think she was friends with the bear in her head, but this was a wild animal. With barely a thought, she enhanced her eyesight so that she could catalogue this strange, potentially new species of bear’s behavior.
What were you supposed to do if you saw a bear again?There were different rules for brown and black bears, she knew, or was at least able to pull from one of the trail guides she’d memorized, but this bear was neither. He chuffed at her, herding her toward the tree line with great plodding steps.
He stood in her path, blocking the most direct route to the rise, and glared down at her. She’d never before seen a bear in real life, but she was sure it seemed entirely tooawarefor her tastes. He sniffed the air and then shook his head as if trying to clear out a scent and then trained his eyes back on her. Sirin stood, frozen, she’d never even heard of what to do with a white bear, perhaps it was an albino grizzly?4Surely she could remember what to do when encountering a grizzly. Oh, she’d read it but the adrenaline was interfering with her ability tofindit. She shunted a fair bit of her lunula reserves toward processing speed and reaction time, keeping a bit back for last-second modifications. Around her, the world seemed to slow, giving her the time she needed to find the source.
She didn’t like what her faster brain told her. He was not acting similarly to any of the three prior bear encounter accounts she’d read. She did find a passage from a survival text which said if the bear was stationary to walk slowly sideways and back away from the bear. She angled her body away and gently stepped farther down the mountain. Each time Sirin retreated, the bear seemed to nod its head and amble closer to her. It let out another chuffing noise before rearing onto its hind legs and waving its large paws at her.
This could not be normal behavior. Bears don’t herd people down mountainsides, but that was exactly what he is doing. Perhaps he was rabid, didn’t animals do strange things when rabid? The farther she went, the more she realized it to be true. This massive bearwasshepherding her down the mountain, directly away from where she needed to go.
They locked eyes as she retreated. With her enhanced eyesight, it was like he was only feet away from her. His eyes were entirely too deep, too intelligent. Not that she’d ever seen another bear to have any frame of reference at all, but she’d never seen this amount of clear thought on an animal before. Sirin was terrified to look away from those soulful eyes; some part of her knew, if she broke his gaze, she was done for.
Sirin sped up her pace, hoping she was close to the tree line.Lady, please let me be close!Once she was through them, she planned to break and run, augmenting her speed so he couldn’t follow. She readied what lunula she had left, far less than she’d like, to pour into her muscles. Suddenly, she heard a cracking sound, just as the ground beneath her gave way and her stomach lurched as her vision flooded with blue and she felt herself falling.
1.The pole is characterized by seasons-long day or night cycles due to the axial tilt of the planet. Night in the arctic begins after the autumnal equinox and the sun is not seen again until after the spring equinox. During the time of year of my travels, the sun only sets briefly each day, and stays low on the horizon, and the majority of the day seems like dawn or dusk.
