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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 106: Slade 286
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 107
“Can you cast the comfort bubble more than once?” Slade turned his head to his wife as he prepared to step out of the current bubble. She reflected, with her face going distant, and then nodded. Getting up, she followed him out of the bubble into the arctic air, and standing on the edge of the shore cast the spell around herself and over a portion of the brook. Slade thanked her, and she hustled back through the cold, even as he braved the icy waters.
His feet were freezing, quite literally, as he fished with his bayonet. It was a scoop and toss up on the bank method he had learned over the last couple of days. However, with the second comfort bubble shielding him, at least his knees and the rest of his body were not as cold as his feet and ankles. Getting done, after he was in the ‘home’ he put the fish on some black rocks they had scooped from the brook. Home, here, was just a warming and melting circle of snow in a frigid landscape with the cold held back by the magic his lovely wife commanded.
Flakes of snow were falling out of the sky, deflected by the comfort bubble to begin forming a ridge around the edge as he took off his boots again. Shella wrinkled her nose at the scent of his feet, but began using the blowtorch to heat up the fresh caught fish.
He was not sure what to call them. Trout, bass, catfish, it was all the same to him. They were eight- to ten- inches long, and more tubular than flat with gray and black scales, and he could testify from experience that while they were willing to try to bite his boots or fingers, they were not very effective at it. He mentioned these notions to Shella, and she threw back her long hair, and thought before smiling at him mischievously.
“Glacier trout. That is a word you taught me for big chunks of ice, right?”
He beamed at her; happy to just be around her. Sure, he was doing his best to prepare for Ragnarok, but Shella made the trip so much better. He gave her what he had taught her was a ‘golf clap’, and she smiled brilliantly back. The fish were soon done, and the scent of half baked, half seared, and half fried glacial trout overcame the scent of wet boots. Flaky fish filled his mouth and then his stomach, and soon enough he was asleep with his head on Shella’s lap.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #532: Versers Chilled. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
