Kitsune of the Blue Sun

Chapter 38- Reaching the City

[Keeno POV]

After cooking and eating a very good lunch, Pram and I packed up once more and made it as far as we could before the day came to an end.  We decided to camp out on the top of a hill where we could see the city Hildr spoke about in the far distance.

“Keeno.” (Pram)

“What’s up?” (Keeno)

“I think we need to skip setting up and get to the city.  I’m getting a bad feeling about tonight.” (Pram)

“Oh?  What kind of bad feeling?” (Keeno)

“Not sure, it’s nothing related to monsters since we’d both be able to tell something about that.” (Pram)

“Alright.” (Keeno)

We quickly packed up the few things we had set up and started making our way toward the city again at a faster pace.

“Think Hildr will be fine?” (Keeno)

“Who knows.  It’s too late to go back and find them.  We just have to hope they are.” (Pram)

About an hour after we started to head to the city again, the clouds above us started to get darker and the wind picked up even more.

“A blizzard.” (Keeno)

“A big one too.” (Pram)

“If we get stuck out here when it starts, stick close to me Pram.  Ama, if it gets too bad, you need to lead us toward the city.” (Keeno)

{Heard loud and clear.}

We started to pick up the pace even more when snow started to fall.  That was when we started running.  The city was still far, but we were making good ground when I heard a crash near us.  I looked around and saw a big chunk of ice that wasn’t there before.

“Damn it, it’s there’s hail this time!” (Keeno)

{That’s fine, you just need to melt any before it hits you.}

“Might as well, but before that.  HUGINN, MUNINN, GET DOWN HERE!” (Keeno)

The two ravens that were trying to keep flying while dodging hail and fighting the wind flew to me and nestled into my tail.  I glanced over to Pram and saw she was struggling to keep up.

“Pram-” (Keeno)

“I’m…fine.” (Pram)

I slid to a stop and grabbed Pram closer to me just as a piece of hail the same size as me slammed into the ground.

“No, you almost weren’t.” (Keeno)

I looked toward the city and saw that it was pretty much downhill from us and then at the chunk of sky ice next to us.  I summoned my Soul Weapons and started carving the ice as fast as I could until a relatively thick, flat piece fell off.

“Pram, climb on my back.” (Keeno)

She looked reluctant but still did so after I insisted.  Once she was good, I stepped on the piece of ice and melted some footholds for myself.  I then leaned forward and we started to slide downhill.  It was a bit hard to keep my balance since I was carrying Pram, but I managed to not fall over.  It seemed like the storm was picking up speed at the same rate we were since more and more hail started to fall and the snow started to blow around more, decreasing my vision.  I tried my best to dodge the hail, which, so far, was going great.

“Keeno-” (Pram)

“No talking.  I don’t want you to bite your tongue if we hit something.” (Keeno)

I leaned forward as much as I could without risking our balance and sped up more.  This allowed me to get just barely ahead of the soon to be raging storm.  Small pieces of hail still buffeted us, but none so big it would crush us.  After several minutes of this impromptu snowboarding, we hit flat ground and the ice at my feet cracked.  Thankfully we were close enough to the city that we would be able to make it if we ran full force.

“Pram, this ice isn’t going to last much longer, when it breaks, hop off my back and start running as fast as you can.” (Keeno)

I felt her nod and shortly after that, the ice beneath my feet broke.  Keeping up with the momentum, I started running.  Pram let go of my back and hopped off of me.  I heard her stumble a little, but she managed to avoid falling and soon enough she was running right next to me.  After about a minute of full on sprinting from the both of us, I started to hear someone calling out.  It was hard to make out what exactly they were saying due to the wind, but I managed to put together that they wanted us to hurry.  The snow that had caught up to us started to swirl around and my vision narrowed to the point where all I could really see was Pram and the gate.

Two more minutes passed and we finally made it through the gate before sliding to a stop.  Just as soon as Pram’s tail was fully inside, the gate slammed shut with a loud clanging noise that pierced through the howling of the wind.

“*Whistle*Cutting it real close, travelers.”

The person who spoke walked out of the gatehouse next to the gate.  He was wearing light armor that looked like it was made more for warmth than protection.  He looked to be about middle-aged and had a cleanly trimmed beard.  Though it was hard to really tell with the current lighting, his eyes were a dull grey color.

“Well, we didn’t expect a blizzard.  We were going to camp out one more night.” (Keeno)

“Fair enough.  If you aren’t from around this part of Solheim, then you wouldn’t really know how rapid the weather changes here.  Anyway, if I was the two of you, I’d hurry and get to an inn before it actually gets bad.”

“Before that, what’s you name?” (Pram)

“Hmm.  Name’s Tyr.  Now get going.” (Tyr)

We both nodded and left the gate area.  As we went further into the city we saw people scrambling around to close up shops, pick up signs, close window shutters.  We managed to ask some people about an inn and quickly made our way to the one we were hastily recommended.  At this point the snow and small hail was coming down heavily.  Once we found the inn, we basically kicked the door in before slamming it shut behind us.  This elicited brief glares from a few people, but other than that no one really said anything.  We walked up to the reception desk and rented a room to wait out the storm.

Chaos Realm:

Luna: That looked so fun.  Tamamo, is there any place back home where we can try to outrun storms like that?

Tamamo: I can think of a few places.  Let’s go try one of them next time we go on a date.

Luna: Yay!

It really does sound like fun.  What do you think, Order?

Order: I wouldn’t really care for running, but I think it’d be nice to be carried by you while you did so.

I can arrange that.

Luna: Look at those two flirting away, Tamamo.

Tamamo: Indeed.  Though I wonder, where is Astraea?

She’s been over at Evelyn’s.  Apparently the two of them are having fun poking around Crisis’s domain and all the random things that pop up there.  Honestly, it makes it seem that place is more chaotic than here.

Order: Well, it probably is.  I mean, I am here after all.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Order: Hehehe.  Oh you.