Flying Pinecones

Vivian took a deep breath, reviewing her options. One, push Liam back to camp through the snow. Two, sit and wait for the sun to come up (An option that only seemed to end in freezing to death). It wasn't a hard choice.
"Okay." Vivian said, "I think the only way for us to get back to camp in a timely manner, is for me to push you. You okay with that?"

OOC: Oh my gosh, I am soo sorry.

"No," He huffed defiantly. He put his hands on the wheels and gave a hard push, forcing the Goddamn chair along farther. "I can do it myself,"

Vivian opened her mouth to object, but decided against it. Instead, she stomped through the snow moodily behind Liam. Why did he have to be so stubborn? Vivian thought. Vivian kept quiet the whole time they walked, keeping her arms crossed. The snow was now matting in her brown hair, turning it white.

Liam grit his teeth a little when he heard her loud footsteps. Aaaaaannnddd, as usual, he'd probably done something to agitate her. Way to go, Liam! He thought bitterly. As his fingers froze up, it became increasingly hard to push himself around. But, for the sake of his pride (and to spare him some moments of sheer self-loathing) he said nothing. And so, he carried on in complete silence.

They were walking for what felt like hours, although in actuality was fifteen minutes. Vivian was shivering, her arms still crossed. She tried to ignore it, focusing on her steps and the wheelchair in front of her. It was then she realized, that everything started to get blurry. She shook her head, assuming it was just the flurry of snow in front of her. Her legs ached a bit, but she dismissed it once again.

Liam struggled against the snow. His arms felt as if they were made of jello. He was more tired than he was willing to admit so still he trudged on.

Vivian felt her legs getting numb, for once they weren't cold. When she took another step, she stumbled again. She put her palm against the nearest tree trunk, digging her nails into the bark. She had to keep moving. She caught a glimpse of her hand in the light of the moon, it looked ghostly pale. Then again, it was probably just a trick of the light. Vivian stood upright again, and continued on. Each step was uncoordinated, she felt like she was walking on ice. That must've been it, she was walking on ice.

She continued to walk for the next five minutes, when it occurred to her that she was no longer shivering. Glancing behind her, Vivian felt a wave a paranoia wash over her. The feeling that she was being watched, hunted. Vivian picked up her speed, making it no more than three paces before she lost her balance and crashed into the snow.

OOC: There's no-one following her BTW, just the paranoia brought on by the hypothermia.

Liam shivered in the bitter air of winter. For some reason he felt... Tired, for lack of a better word. Not exhausted, really, but actually tired: like he wanted to go curl up and take a nap. Liam shook his head to rid himself from the thought; he could sleep later, back when he was in his bunk. The night waxed on and the snow fell even harder. It was almost a complete white-out. Noticing that Vivian was getting awfully quiet, Liam cast a quick lance behind himself- just to make sure that she hadn't abandoned him. He saw her grasping the bark of a tree and assumed she was getting tired.

But then, Vivan did something that surprised him: she ran out ahead of him, full-pelt, a good three steps ahead of him. Liam frowned, pushing his wheelchair as hard as he could to keep up with her. He was growing exhausted, his arms wanting to give out. He narrowed his eyes and wondered if she had -somehow- forgotten the fact that he was in a wheelchair and would move much slower. Perhaps she had grown impatient with him; that wouldn't be surprising.

But then Liam watch as Vivian slipped and fell, face-planting into the snow. The bitter-cold of the air and his own sheer exhaustion had sapped all the sympathy out of him: he was just too tired. He rolled passed Vivian, thinking that she would immediately get up. "You alright?" He asked half-heartedly as he rolled past.

Vivian groaned and flipped over onto her back. She had completely forgotten why she rush forward in the first place. Vivian propped herself up on her elbows, her joints feeling stiff and sore. She shook the loose snow out of her hair, oddly feeling less cold than before."I...I think so," she responded as Liam rolled past her. Vivan's speech seemed altered, she found it hard to enunciate. Though, Vivian didn't seem to realize the problem. Maybe it was her stubbornness, or the cold addling her brain.

Vivian stood up, finding it considerably harder to do so. She ended up using a boulder as support. When she was back on her feet, she leaned against it for a moment, feeling disoriented. She brushed the snow off of her sweatshirt. The snow had melted on her jeans, soaking them strait through.

She walked behind Liam, her mood dampened.

Liam's pace was getting slower and slower. The snow shown no sign of letting up. His pants and shirt were soaked and he was beginning to shake uncontrollably. And yet, despite his slow pace, Vivan seemed to walk even slower, moving at a snail's pace. His gut was practically screaming at him to turn and help her, but he was far too cold. He wanted to keep going; he was worried that if he'd stop, he wouldn't be able to start again.

Vivian felt like she was going to collapse, but she didn't stop moving. She didn't like feeling weak. Liam was only ten feet ahead, but she felt like she was alone. She couldn't remember how long they had been walking. An hour? Ten minutes? She couldn't even remember how long they had been in the forest.

Vivian closed her eyes, trying to think happy thoughts. The time she won a sailing competition. When she moved out of her parent's house. St. Croix. Sun. Warmth. These thoughts filled her with the drive to keep moving, and not to let the cold take over.

Liam struggled onwards. His mind began to wander. The cold began to make his mind ache and for a moment -just a moment- he had completely forgotten about Vivan. He pressed on. How far ahead of her was he now? Twenty? Thirty feet?

OOC sorry, short post

Vivian tried to keep up, but it seemed impossible. Snow was clumped to her eyelashes, making blinking painful. Her breathing was shallow, and her hands and feet were numb. Vivian wanted to give up, just sit and hope that someone might bring her a warm jacket. Vivian pushed a chunk of her hair out of her eyes, still trying to figure out how long they had been walking. It was then that she figured that they should've been back right now.

Vivian stopped in her tracks, "Liam!" She called, her speech was slurred, "Are you sure we're going in the right direction?" She hoped that they were, she hoped that he would say that they were almost there. That he could see the lights of camp in the distance.

Liam heard a voice but kept going. After a second or two, the reality of her words sank in and he stopped. He blinked and looked around, suddenly remembering that Vivian was there. He hadn't even realized that he'd forgotten that he was supposed to be looking for camp. He'd just sort of been wandering...

Liam tensed, suddenly, and looked around in a panic. All he saw was white and darkness and trees. He couldn't even see Vivian. Liam suddenly felt very, very alone and very scared. He swallowed thickly and tried to force words from his throat but nothing came. He had no idea where they were. It took all of his courage to speak up: "I-I... I'm not- I'm not sure where we are!" He called, his voice wavering.

Liam flipped his head around, rather frantically. Vivian's voice had sounded so distant. "Vivian? V-Vivian! Where are you!"

Vivian could hear the fear in his voice. She walked as quickly as she could without wiping out. When she saw him, all she said was "I'm here." Vivian didn't know what else to say, part of her was angry with him for leading her into the middle of nowhere. The other part realized that he was in the same position as her. There was no way that they were going to make it through the night. No one knew she was here, there was no one looking for her.

Vivian sat in the snow, and put her head in her hands. She always thought that a monster would take her life, she never considered freezing to death.

Liam heard anger in her voice. She had every right to be angry with him: his stupidity was going to get them both killed. He hated himself for that. Liam was scared and cold and angry- at himself. So he retaliated to Vivian's hopelessness and anger with anger of his own. "No! Shut up! Shut up! Don't you dare!" He said loudly, he was too cold to yell. "Don't you dare give up on me!"

Vivian looked into Liam's eyes, somewhat surprised at his outburst. "What am I supposed to do?" She said quietly, "We're in the middle of nowhere, during a blizzard. Unless you can make us magically appear at camp, there's no way in hell we're gonna get back."

OOC: Eep! Short post!

"So, what? You're not even going to try? You're just going to sit there and die? Is that what you're going to do?! Is that you're plan?! Just give up? Go down without a fight?!" Liam yelled, growing frustrated.

Vivian took a deep breath. Normally, she wouldn't be this way. Normally, she would have chided herself for giving up. But she was so tired... maybe if she was in a different situation, she'd act differently. That's no excuse She thought, They wouldn't want you to just give up. You're going to get up, and keep fighting. Think about the people you love. And that's what she did. Vivian stood up, looked Liam straight in the eye and asked, "What's the plan?"

"We go a different direction," Liam said shortly. "Or, if I'm so bad at navigation, maybe you should leave,' Liam wasn't normally like this. He wasn't normally so cold. So rude. Was that the sort of man he was now? Cold and rude? He shoom his head, not wanting to think about it.

Vivian found herself becoming irritated with Liam. "No." She said sternly, "I'm not leaving you." Vivian looked upwards, immediately feeling disoriented. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again. She tried to push the problems from her mind, the more she thought about them, the worse they would be. "Maybe we could wait for the clouds to pass, and try to find the north star." Vivian offered, "Or, I could climb to the top of a tree and try to find the lights from camp."

Liam rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, let's wait until the storm passes to try and figure out how to get home. It's not like the whole reason we were trying to get home was so that we wouldn't freeze to death!" Liam snapped, irritably. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose; frost was clinging to his eyelashes. She mentioned something about climbing a tree and that seemed to strike a rather painful cord with the newly-made paraplegic, who used to love climbing trees. "Go and climb your stupid trees," he said, deflated. "Go and climb your stupid trees and leave me down here, I don't care!" He raised his voice. "I don't care anymore! So go on and just leave me here! I don't want you here anyways!" The cold was toying with his mind. He was cracking under the weight of the ice: his own cold brittle walls. "So go back to camp and just forget about me! Let me freeze to death, for all I care!"

Vivian felt a pang in her chest, when Liam said he didn't want to see her. Part of her just wanted to run away, after all, she wasn't wanted. Then a little voice spoke up inside of her, urging her to make the right choice, the selfless choice.
"No," She said sternly. She didn't yell, as much as she wanted to."I'm not going to leave. You didn't let me give up. Now, it's my turn."
Vivian took a deep breath, trying to think of new options. None seemed to come, though she didn't say so.

Liam but down on his tongue, regretting the words almost as soon as they left his mouth. He clamped his mouth shut, strain his jaw muscles so much that the tendons were bulging out from his neck a bit. He was berating himself for loosing control of his emotions like that; for letting his mouth run rampant. He didn't dare say another word. He didn't even apologize -that would have to come later- for fear of what other horrible words might escape his lips were he to open his mouth again.

Vivian rubbed her temples and shook her head, "I don't- lets just keep moving." She didn't look at Liam as she turned around and started to walk in a different direction.
It was so dark, that Vivian didn't realise that there was a steep hill right where she decided to go. Vivian swore as her foot slipped, and she tumbled down the hill, right into a stream.
Vivian stood up slowly, her jeans now caked in mud