Chapter Text
THREE
As the snowstorm swelled into a full-blown blizzard, Jadis found herself crouching in the shadow of thick, dark fir trees. She slowly stood up and looked about for the rest of the team, but she didn’t see any of them.
She learned from experience to remain calm whenever she was alone and lost anywhere, so she stood still, took a deep breath and begin to think about what to do first.
Jadis thought it was best to start with some exploration, so she cautiously stepped out from the trees into an open place in the middle of a wood.
There was crisp, dry snow under her boots, and more snow lying on the branches of the trees. There was a pale sky overhead. The sort of sky that one would see on a fine Winter day in the morning ... that is, if one with seasonal preferences such as hers liked Winter!
Jadis saw the sun, just rising very red and clear between the tree trunks straight ahead of her. Everything was perfectly still, as if she was the only living soul in the entire area.
There wasn't even a robin or a squirrel among the trees, and the wood stretched out in every direction as far as her eyes could see. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
During her exploration, Jadis began to mull over the events that had recently taken place. She and the guys were in the process of carrying out their latest assignment. Now, some of their missions usually took them across some quite rugged terrain, but the hike on foot through the extremely wintry Canadian Rockies had been a true test of their endurance.
A gentle snowfall began about thirty minutes into the team's trek. It grew stronger with every passing minute, restricting their vision and disabling their tech devices. They would've gotten separated or worse had it not been for the stand of pine trees another fifteen minutes away.
It was there that Jadis was in the near-fetal position, surrounded by the fir trees, but ... where were her teammates?
She hoped at least one of them might be somewhere close by, for his safety as well as her own. She needed to test her vest com-link anyway, so she gave it a quick tap to see if she could make contact.
"Kelbo, where is your location?"
There was no response from the team lead, so she tried to contact the others in turn.
"Servesh?"
"Manuel?"
"Hiro, where is your location?"
There was no response from any of them.
"That's just great.", Jadis muttered to herself with an uneasy feeling. "They're most likely in the same boat as me ... or in the water!"
She took another look at her surroundings and decided that she didn't particularly care for this place. In fact, she began to have a feeling she wasn't in the Rockies anymore, which defied logic a little too much for her liking!
Jadis had just made up her mind to go back to the stand of fir trees to rethink her strategy, when she heard the faint sound of bells very far off in the distance.
She listened as the sound came nearer and nearer. At last, she glimpsed a sledge, drawn by six reindeer. Their fur was so white that the snow hardly looked so in comparison. Their branching antlers were gilded and shone like something on fire when the sunrise caught them. Their harness was of scarlet leather and covered with bells.
At the front of the sledge, driving the reindeer with a whip, sat a thin dwarf who would have been about three feet tall if he had been standing. He was dressed in a dark brown coat with silver embroidered cuffs and a collar of polar bear fur. He wore a long, red sock cap on his head with flaps on the sides and a bell hanging down from its point. His full black-and-gray beard covered his knees and served him instead of a blanket.
Behind him, on a much higher seat at the back of the sledge, sat a vastly different person. A great lady, taller than any woman that Jadis had ever seen. She was wearing a sky-blue gown with gold-colored embroidery on the sash and around the neck beneath a hooded white fur mantle, fastened with a golden brooch of intertwined serpents. She also wore a golden, pointed crown atop her lustrous, pearl-strewn cascade of raven-black hair. Her face, apart from her blood-red lips, was white. Not a mere pale white, but white like the reindeers' fur, her mantle and the snow, with a haughty, stern expression.
But the lady’s finery was nothing compared to the long, ornate staff with the pointed icicle on the end in her right hand.
Jadis had never seen such a thing before, but she assumed it was a symbol of authority like the lady’s crown, judging by the regal manner in which she held it.
The sledge was a fine sight as it came sweeping toward Jadis with the bells jingling, the dwarf cracking his whip and the snow flying up from each side of it. Even so, she stepped back and looked on cautiously.
"Stop, Ginarrbrik!", said the lady, and the dwarf sharply pulled on the reins. The reindeer immediately stopped, then stood, chomping their bits and blowing. The breath coming out of their nostrils looked like smoke in the frosty air.
"And what, pray, are you?", asked the lady, looking hard at Jadis.
"Uhhh ... I think I should ask you the same question.", answered Jadis with a raised eyebrow. She didn't like the nature of the lady’s inquiry, let alone the way she looked at her. After all, she is a person, not a thing.
The lady frowned. "Is that how you address a queen?", she asked, looking more stern than ever.
That question confirmed the feeling Jadis had earlier. She wasn't in the Rockies anymore!
But wherever she was, her teammates weren't with her, so she decided that maybe she should try and go with the flow. At least for now.
Jadis cupped her hand to her mouth and cleared her throat. "I beg your pardon ... 'Your Majesty'. I didn't know. ", she answered, with the same respect that she was taught to show others.
"Not know the Queen of Narnia?", the lady asked with a surprised expression. "Well, you shall know us better hereafter!"
"Nar-nee-uh? You shall know us better hereafter? Ohhh, boy. I can't wait.", Jadis though wearily. "Hopefully then I'll wake up from this dream!"
TO BE CONTINUED