“Get up. Come on, woman, you are supposed to help and instead you sit there whimpering. Get up.” The man nudged her with the toe of his rough leather boot. She looked up at the giant of a man who had just shoved her through the ice cream freezer case into a snowy landscape she’d never seen before. His clothing was a single monotonous color, olive drab, and he seemed to have layer upon layer of cloth covering his body. His boots had laces going from ankle up to over his knees and his arms were similarly laced with leather thongs. She couldn’t figure out how he could move with all the layers and lacings. He had a wide leather belt around his waist and her eyes widened when she saw the long blade sheath hanging from it. How did he get anywhere in that grocery store in get up like that?
“Woman,” he growled. He reached down and grabbed her elbow, pulling her up to stand. “We must not sit here. We are needed.” He began striding down the snowy hill, dragging her along behind. She began to understand what it meant for the weather to be bitingly cold. Her toes were going painfully numb in their flip flops and her fingers weren’t much better. She began shivering and whimpered. The man growled again and stopped walking. She stumbled against him.
He surveyed her from head to toe and shook his head. He reached to his back and drew a bag forward. From it, he pulled two shirts, a pair of creaky leather pants and leather moccasins. He thrust the clothes at her and said, “Put them on. You are not dressed properly.”
Gratefully, she pulled on each shirt, pulled the pants on and tried to balance on one foot to put one of the moccasins on. She swayed and stumbled, her bare foot dropping to the snow to keep her balance. She yelped at the cold of it. The man’s eyes narrowed on her. He reached into his bag and pulled one more item out. Then he knelt in front of her and softly said, “Hold on to my shoulder.”
She did as he told her, and was rewarded when he lifted her bare foot to his knee and slid a soft, warm sock on to it. Then he placed the moccasin on. He repeated the maneuver with her other foot after removing the cheap plastic flip flop. The he stood and turned and began striding down the hill again, expecting her to follow.
“Wait, please,” she called, stumbling after him. He turned to look at her. She was still shivering, alhtough she was warmer now.
“You are still feeling the cold too much,” he grumbled. Reaching into his bag yet again, he pulled out a fur covered skin. It almost looked like sheep skin but it was too matted to tell for sure. He wrapped it around her shoulders, fur side towards her body, and abruptly lifted her up into his arms. He began striding between the evergreen trees which were weighted down with snow and ice. She thought about protesting this treatment, but could not find the energy. His body heat began to seep through to her skin, helping to warm her. She nestled closer. Her eyes drifted shut as she contemplated the sudden change in her circumstances, from innocently hormonal woman searching for chocolate to freezing cold abductee in a strange science fiction story.
Click here to read All For The Sake of Some Chocolate, the first part of the story.
My Muse Speaks Softly 