The Uninvited Guest [Unknown | Antarctica]

[Tristan]

When next he woke, it was difficult to discern if it was morning or not. The sun was thin and barely above the horizon, yet his body ached like he had endured twisted night of restless sleep. Yet the first thought in his mind was of Sierra, and he hurried to tell Thalia of all they had spoken.

[Thalia]

Powerful was not something anyone had ever used to describe Thalia, and it sparked some amusement when it was the word he plucked from the ether, quite out of nowhere. She didn’t say anything though, since she supposed it was kindly meant. And she didn’t mind it really, especially if it offered him some comfort to think of her that way. The last thing he had called her was clumsy, which was the source of her small, slightly bemused smile.

Tristan finally sat in his own time, but he was quiet, and Thalia felt no urge to break the silence. After she ate she curled up in the tatty blankets and drifted inside her own thoughts, close enough for comfort but not to intrude. The light had been suspended in twilight for an age, but when it finally failed the difference was immediate and consuming, leaving just the orange embers of the fire. In the darkness she wondered about the masked creature that had lingered in the dormitory, though with no real sense of fear. If it was going to eat them it probably would have done so already, and if they were going to die they were much more likely to freeze. Or starve. Mostly she wondered what it actually was, and if it was still watching.

She was hesitant to let herself sleep. Not because she was afraid of it, but because she was wary about the time after waking. But she was also exhausted, and despite her stubbornness, her breathing evened and she succumbed to sleep long before Tristan did.

---

There were times Thalia didn’t really remember the process of waking. As consciousness pierced the haze she found herself crouched, head bowed under ropes of hair, sketching on loose sheafs of paper. It wasn’t urgent or distressing, just focused in a soft way easier to flow with than against. The pencil had blunted down by now and graphite was smeared all over her cramping fingers. Somehow she’d moved away from the fireside, though a blanket folded over her shoulders. She didn’t know if she’d had the wherewithal to bring it with her or if Tristan had at some point dropped it over her. The light seemed thin and grey, assuming it was even morning at all, and she wasn’t sure how long she had been unresponsively occupied.

She blinked. Her head was swimming in the way it sometimes did, like she had been poured back into too small of a vessel. If someone had asked her name then, she’d have to pause to find the answer.

Her hand slowed across the paper, though the urge was still there. It was quiet and easy enough to contain though. For a moment she didn’t actually want to look up, but her hesitation marked awareness, and she didn’t like to lie about it either. So she sat back, taking a breath, pushing the tangled curls from her face. She closed the nub of pencil in her palm, where it was now small enough to fit comfortably. Rested her hands on her lap.

She needed a minute, but she didn’t ask for one.

“Sorry,” she murmured, though she wasn’t actually sure what she was apologising for. Betraying something personal, maybe. Thalia wasn’t ashamed of her oddness, but it was not the same thing as accepting another’s witness of it. She was accustomed to being an island of one, and the only person who’d ever seen her like this was her sister. “It’s just what happens,” she added. Though this was just the soft tides of ordinary, not the overwhelming necessity of true compulsion, like it had been on the bathroom walls of the cabin. She receded from the papers without looking at what she’d drawn. They were spread all around her.

Tristan seemed animated in the morning’s half light, but shadows gripped the contours of his face, so she did not think it was because he was well-rested.