Winter Forest - Blog Posts
february; sequoia national forest, california
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Last rays in a snowy forest
niiloi
I don't remember what I was talking about, but I kept talking for him. There was a content air that surrounded him as he listened to whatever I was babbling.
But I also made sure to keep an eye on where we were going. At this point we had to be close to where the road wasn't as familiar. I could see some snow up ahead. But I didn't stop and kept talking.
In a breath of silence, I looked over at him. Since I was never really around people, I couldn't pin the exact expression.
Once we were a little bit into the cursed forest, I happened to take another look at him when a snowflake landed on his nose and startled him to a stop.
He looked up, eyes full of awe and wonder, as he whispered, "It's snowing?"
I was tempted to remark that it always snows here but his expression stopped me. How could I take this small pleasure from him?
So I settled for, "When was the last time you saw snow?"
"I don't remember," he muttered, not taking his eyes off of the snow.
I found a steady place to sit, cleaned the snow off, and got comfortable. He was having a good moment. I didn't want to take that from him.
I was going to wait until he was ready to go.
"How did you find me?" I slurred, the cold freezing me from the inside out.
"I followed the trail you left," he answered before he gestured somewhere behind him. "Come here," he groaned as he picked me up.
I clung to him like burs on bark animals and other people wear. He wasn't much warmer than the elements we were stranded in but he was an improvement.
"Did you know that you are bleeding?" my stranger asked me, taking me somewhere.
My mind was too fuzzy to completely understand what he was talking about.
"But you're not bleeding," I blended my words together, after I have him a quick once over as best as I could. Why would he ask if I knew he was bleeding?
"Well, hypothetically if I was a mage like you, I thought you would know how to slow the blood loss down?"
My upper canopy hurt. Why was he asking such difficult questions?
"You would need something to slow it down," I mumbled as I tried to clear my thoughts. "Before that, clean the wound."
He settled me down on a fallen log and then started rummaging through his bag. When he faced me again, he had some white strips and a dirt colored bottle.
"Try not to scream, okay?" He looked back up at me with his cyan colored eyes. His scar on the lower part of his face were sharply contrasting from the fire's light.
Wait. Why was there a fire? Where was the fire?
The sharp jolt that assaulted my left limb was enough to make me cry out in surprise. He didn't let up, if anything, he pressed harder. The cloth he was using was starting to turn green, the color of my sap, at the edges.
I stayed quiet like he asked but when he was done, he pulled a mat made out of pine branches, covered it with some furs, placed me on the mat, and then covered me with the remaining furs.
"Don't worry, I'll keep watch. You rest," he answered when he saw me looking at him.
The last thing I felt was my stranger running his branches through my hair before I fell asleep.
Author's Note- I have never experienced either but I am trying to write a character who is suffering from at least enough hypothermia for the mental fog but not bad enough for a doctor and blood loss. But then again it might be mild hypothermia and the added blood loss might create the mental fog.
Snowy pine branches, needles
Like a dog!
Snowy landscape
Snowy pine branches ❄️
snow heracleum
Plants like trees 🌳
Like a human!
What a beautiful sky!
Like a dragon! 🐉
