For @Dahob’s prompt; this happens concurrent with The Planet Called “Oh, Fuck, We’re Screwed,” (LJ)

“Holy Fuck. It’s snowing.”

Of all of them, Tarval had been the most resistant to the “it’s getting cold” idea. Although meteorology was not his primary or even his secondary skill, he had been an amateur weather-watcher on his home planet of Teyska, and had been certain the signs pointed towards a chilly but dry, mild “so-called winter.”

Besides, the trees didn’t like him, and he didn’t like them.

He had continued to do his own thing – preparing for the mild, brief cold snap he was expecting – and continued to tell everyone they were crazy for listening to trees, trees that tried to eat people, and not to the signs of the weather.

When the wind had changed direction suddenly, he’d taken it as a personal affront.

When the temperature had dropped degree after degree after degree in a few short hours, he’d joined everyone else in pulling every piece of fruit off the vines, herding the animals into the town square, and hunting and fishing a few last meat animals. “Brief cold,” he’d repeated, over and over again. But, less certainly, “no need to take unnecessary risks.”

He’d been the last one out as the temperature dropped past into the negative degrees. The animals were his purview, and he needed to be sure they were all safe.

He was fixing the halter on a gen-mod horse when the skies went from light grey to dark, and he’d just finished rigging a roof over their paddock when the stuff hit him in the face.

Everyone in the village heard his exclamation.

“Holy Fuck! It’s snowing!”

They needed the laugh, and they all took it. Even Tarval.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/451034.html. You can comment here or there.

For Rix_Scaedu‘s Prompt in Mini-Giraffe-Call January 1

This story takes place after Harvest (LJ) and after Xenonegotiations.

“Looking at the trees – talking to the trees – there’s going to be some cold weather coming.”

Aoife had the strange position, although, all things considered, it could have been stranger, of being Ambassador to the Trees on what they were calling Happy Accident (Because “Oh Fuck We’re Screwed” had been declared far too depressing a thing to name a planet, and nobody wanted to teach that name to the children they hoped would come).

The trees would communicate with other people, roughly, stay out or go here. But with Aoife, they would actually explain things.

“How cold is cold?” Rostislav and Caliber were the most concerned, Rostislav for the village and Caliber for the plants.

“They just said… ‘very, but no more than usual.'” Aoife shrugged. There was only so much you could do with plant speech.

“Very, but no more than usual” didn’t leave them a lot of room for planning. So they did the best they could; they stored food and made thicker clothing and fortified their buildings. They found firewood and moved their cookfires inside, tanned furs and covered their walls and beds and selves with everything they could.

In the end, it was nearly not enough; the snow started falling out of a clear sky and just… kept falling. And kept falling. Faster, longer, thicker snow than any of them, even Armanie-from-Minnesota, had seen.

The trees, it turned out, curled up on themselves, becoming short lumps the snow just slid off of. Even the tigerators were hibernating. Before long, the humans, beginning to think “Oh Fuck We’re Screwed” was a better name for the planet after all, were going to have to learn do the same.

Next/Concurrent: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/451034.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/450744.html. You can comment here or there.