User:Jergas/rough draft

Starting this page. This is the start of a November flash novel exercise. I will create a new page for each day.

Monday 17th.User:Jergas/The skin.

Putting the work so far in here to see if administrators will let this page live. No sense creating two pages until I know its ok.

She was traipsing around the arctic landscape. For now she had no care in the world. She new the land and yet she didn't. She was very familiar with the place. To her this was literal. She felt she belonged to it, her very flesh and blood coming from it. Still the vagaries and regularities of a snow filled landscape are not a place to concern oneself with landmarks and remembering. Her distant ancestors, very much a part of once-upon-a-time time for her, would have had to concern themselves with many practicalities. She had no such concerns. This felicitous lack allowed her to loose herself in this magical landscape. The very state of no mind that filled her reverie, as was mentioned, does not lend itself well to flights of fancy into memory. When the stories were with her though, a special gratitude infused her. She was extremely happy with her skin. She was delighted with this freedom from memory and care it afforded her.

She was walking easily on top of the snow. Her feet fad huge soles right now. No shoes adorned them. Leaving her taste as well as her feelings and culture surrounding adornment aside, she would not trade the world for a pair of shoes. We must remember this is a white and fluffy world her feet are feeling. Their increased surface area comes with increased sensitivity. This is both a necessity and a pleasure, but we will deal with pleasure first. In such a fluffy world, this great big feet of hers are being caressed by this great white carpet. As if this fluffy world is needy in its empty vastness and trying very hard to make it pleasant to tire her legs to her heart's content. It is a necessity, because fluffy and cute as it is, this needy side of her mother world can be treacherous, and her big sensitive pattes (er, paws) instinctively feel the shape and structure of the land beneath the carpet. Her bare paws make it obvious, the same way she would feel a ball underneath solid ground if a fabric carpet were draped over it. Avoiding ice caverns becomes fun and childlike, like avoiding lines on weird, geometrically patterned surfaces.

Her skin is covered in fur. The fur is hers, but she is not inherently hairy. Like the width of her paws, it is a momentary thing. Passing, like the flakes that saunter by, every now and then, when the sky regales her with them. She likes to think of her feet as paws sometimes, when she regards them in this state. Not that she looks at them much. Sensitive as the are, the temptation is to get lost in them and in her inner world if she brings her gaze down. Thankfully, the horizon is equally inviting. Plus, she needs her wits about. As she gazes at the horizon, she feels one with her icy mother world (not that it is all icy, but horizon to horizon, it is for her). Another aspect of her experience she need not concern herself with is glare. In the time of the ancestors, the sun glancing off the snow was an aspect of roaming the land that they could not ignore, but more about this later. She can decide the colours and patterns of her fur, and that is as amusing to her as her pattes. It is interesting to express herself through the colours and tribal patterns while also weaving in practical considerations. Avoiding changing her colours while walking has several advantages. Saving energy is obvious, and not a great concern to her, but it could become one under certain circumstances. Most important to her is the thought and reflection mood such creative work induces. Appropriate when preparing for the trip, certainly, but hardly desirable once out with the land.

The palette would seem subtle here to one less prepared, but to her it is a riot of colour. Just as she can shape and coulour her fur, she can change many aspects of the filmy lens her skin forms over her eyes. Though she can influence it consciously, mostly it reacts to external conditions like her eyes do. It protects her from the glare. This frees her to let her gaze dwell where it may, though other drives and practice help her keep wits about. It also makes the colour range more expressive. This is fun, no doubt, but also advantageous in the same way the increased sensitivity in the soles of her feet is. It makes the terrain interesting, aiding and abetting the kind of trance she walks in. Highlighting any patterns that might be useful for her to notice.